Class #146

Quick Wunda Chair

25 min - Class
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Description

A Wunda Chair class for the person who wants to work purposefully but doesn't have a lot of time. In this class, you will address the foot and leg work, abdominals, arms, and additional leg and back extension blocks.
What You'll Need: Wunda Chair

About This Video

Apr 11, 2010
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Transcript

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All right, so come to your chairs. You want to start class with a light spring and with, so we only have one on. It's meant to be light, so know that going into it. So Lisa and Erin are going to be behind their chairs pretty close. We're going into the standing pipes. So for now, standing with your feet apart.

Look straight ahead out on that imaginary horizon. Finding ease in your body. Take an inhale on your exhale. Jess, roll down. We're not really going to go all the way. Yeah, just finding a sense of drawing up on the abdominals, letting your arms hang. If you touch the bar, that's cool, but we're not going to push on it just yet. Inhale. And as you exhale, roll up.

Feel the hips peeling or pressing slightly underneath you to restack your spine. Let's do one more of those length into the crown of the head. As you inhale and as you exhale, you roll down and let the chest fall a little. Let that air come out. Yes. Just hanging your heads, loosening up any tension. Inhale and exhale. Back up, making a connection to the back of your legs even now. All right ladies, we're going to actually apply pressure to the bar this time. Inhale on your exhale, rolling down, finding your abs.

Draw up your reaching for the foot bar, hands or as wide as, um, maybe just wider than your shoulders. If your football will allow it. From here, you're going to inhale. Press the bar down as far as you can go without leaning back on the exhale. Scoop the belly up and imagine pressing the hips toward your face almost to the top of the spring tension. That's good. Inhale, press down. It is an inhale on the way down. Hang your head a little more. Aaron. Exhale, scoop to come up. Yes, we're challenging that AB contraction, Ian, nailing down. Feel the Sitz bones come together as you exhale to scoop and come up. Good.

Let's go. Three more. Inhale down. Easy across the shoulders. You guys look good. You're keeping those shoulders in place and inhale, press. Exhale. It's as if the upper arm comes closer to the hips. The hips come closer to the upper arm. One more time on this exhale. You'll roll all the way up easily. Taking your arms off the bar coming.

Fantastic. Now we're going to step back. I'm going to say what one giant step back still light springs. Yeah, we're about to do the leg press standing and I think you're going to be okay, Aaron. That was a really big step, but we're going to, all right. Both of you can come forward a little tiny bit. Alright, hips are level, right? So kinda check for that in your own body. Taking your right leg up, you're going to find the ball of the foot onto the foot bar. Okay. And I know it's meant to be kind of far away. These looks good. Aaron.

Looks good. That's gonna be tough, Erin. But we're going to leave it. Okay. So you're a little more stretched out. Ah, yeah, you're good. Now without doing anything and what you're demonstrating really well, he says right over your ankle, your body. So are you, um, connect with your hamstrings. So it's, you're just going to barely put pressure on the bar as if your thyroid is there. Okay. From that point. Exhale and draw the bar about halfway down. We're not aiming to the floor. Inhale, let it come up and exhale if it would feel better, you can take your arms out, exhale, or you could leave them on your hips and up. Good work in here.

This is our way of grounding. Exhale in the length in the spine. Only two more and yes to come up one more time and good, lovely. Quietly taking your feet off the bar to change legs. And what was nice about what you both did. Go ahead. Right into the next one is you'd weren't putting a lot of attention on extending the knee. Find it. Yo Karen. Here we go. Exhale and press down.

It's almost as if you're dragging the bar towards you. Inhale, lifting up and exhale, press. Yeah. Lovely. And you nailing it. Good. So see if you can shift your shoulders and hips back. A tiny bit. Edge to hips too. Oh, barely. I know.

And now we're going to do one more after this looking good and all right, well done. From there, come off. Let me see. You're gonna go around the back end over there. You're going to come around on this end. Let's do a little bit of that intermediate warmups who sit right on the edge of your chair and you are going to be wrong to be right on the edge. That's it. You're going to help yourself back. So put your hands on the edge.

Bring up one knee at a time. Roll yourself back until you feel, and you may have to pull yourself like Aaron, pull yourself towards my voice so that you feel like most of your mid back. You're gonna, you can scoot forward too. So you really right there in the center. Okay. Hands on your knees. When you feel stable, I feel okay. Okay. Double leg stretch. We go. Inhale, take dude, slow in case you're not sure of where you're at.

Exhale and grab on. Boom. Excellent. Inhale, reach and exhale. Beautiful. Let's go and he'll reach and bring it are getting that long stretch but keeping the center absolutely still and you both are doing well and reach one more time. Go ahead. Holding on. Extend one leg, single leg stretch and let's go on and change two and two, two and three. I trust you're going to tell me if you need a little break, right? No.

Since sacrificing integrity. Good. Look at good fully extent. She's got a little bit longer leg yarn, so stay with her. There you go. And La and La. Doesn't this make us even if we finish this one right here, Ben, both knees. You doing okay? Take your hands behind your head. Would it feel okay to arch back a little bit? You're a little top heavy just to release it. Just to take a little release. Oh, Aaron. Scared. Okay. Come back out and Chris Cross. I will keep you here.

Not for very long. Let's count out six one and here's number two too, to make sure you're not just turning your neck. Turn your ribs. There we go. Four, four, n five, five. If it's in your back, you should come up or you could take your legs higher. That's it. Bend your knees, rock yourself up.

Know that you're near the edge and a few calm who go around the back of your chairs. And I stood up and we're putting on medium to heavy springs. So on this Combo chair at least. So what do you think? One one hi one at the high. Sorry. Legwork one middle. Good, good. If you need me to change it, tell me. This one is a little funky. We're going to go both high for you and if you need me to change it I will and I'll know right? Cause we're gonna we'll deviate on form.

So have a seat on your chairs. We're going to start with the heels parallel position. So it's about sits bones distance and you want to feel like you're right up on your sit bones. So usually a little bit toward the front. All right, let's just see how it goes here for as far as the hands are concerned, for the first one that's hold the side of the chair to connect with the lat. So there's a subtle pressure inward length through the body. All right, inhale, prepare on the exhale. Go slow. Just so we can see if the weight was good. Press down. It doesn't matter if you get to the ground. Inhale, bring it up and exhale down. Good.

Imagine your spine growing along in. Inhale up. You look good and ex, Hey, fill up my hand. A Little Lisa. So it's going to be almost like slow, subtle, round. It's a little bit more. And now lift your chest back where it was. Oh, I want both. I know and it feels okay. Good. Good. Let's get five it a little bit quicker now and exhale and pull up. Exhale to try and get all the way up there and 30 good for one more time. Probably hold it down. Here we go. The feet back to your on the balls of your feet.

Heels are going to be high though. Not so high that you roll out on the ankle. Even distribution. Here we go. Lift the knees. Inhale, exhale. Press down. A one. How about arms out to the side and to right. Never sacrificing this stability. Three. Good. Four. Notice that if that breath comes first, you get a little bit more stability and a tiny bit quicker.

We're already going pretty good. One and up and two and up. Three up, four up. Here we go. And next foot position is a small v which we'll show. I'm just going to go like, so La heals pretty high. Yeah, there we go. And then just narrow your knees a little. Here we go. Exhale, press down on. This one's going to be the hardest one in terms of challenging the ribs.

Maybe not the hardest but pretty close. Good. Yes. Nice, Nice. Self-Correcting. Great. I want three more. Here they come. One and two and three and we will go heels wide now. So just move your heels out to the edge of your foot bar.

If you've got a narrow foot bar, you're going to match the knees with the feet no matter which bar you're on. Next one, before you go, I want you to think of drawing. It's almost like you're going to go into a tuck or you recruit the muscles that you are going to and let's take the hands behind your head. Elbows. Yeah, no problem. Take care of that neck and then for you I pretty, yes, there you go. It's actually, it was just more of a lean than it was a rib thing. All right, we're ready. Exhale and press good. So at least you bring up a good point that if, and I think it has more to do with your neck than it does anything, but for a lot of us, we are always think elbows really side and it's not always a good idea.

Let the shoulder blades be heavy, wherever that makes it. Okay. Feeling evenly weighted. I'm wanting to say a little more left leg Aaron, but I'm not sure. It could be right. Could be just my eyes. I get to have an eye appointment tomorrow, one more time and to your toes and you do what you want with your hands this time. Okay. All right.

Feel your legs yet. Fill your powerhouse here or will you go and press down on, remember there's always opposition. So if you're pushing down something's gotta be lengthening up. Yup. You're getting pushed around on your chair. Adjust. It just goes to show how heavy we are working. Yeah. Good.

Last for one and pull up and two and pull up. You could do this really light and get fantastic work too, couldn't you? I think that's it, right? Good. Step off the chair please. Yes. Very good. All right, we're going to go into the A, it's slightly different pike. Uh, actually it's very similar to what you did, but instead like, so actually not keeping the same. We're going to do here. Really Fun.

I'm going to have you first lighten up your spring. Take it to the one down. So we're looking for basically pretty light here for now. Take that down. Yep. So you'll be going right back into that pike, right? Take it off completely. One spring, one spring. Sorry. You're going to do the same pike. I'm going to have you hold the pedal on the floor and then I'll surprise you with what's after that. Okay. So here we go.

Talk to me about hamstrings a little. I'm trying to remember. I haven't had your hamstrings are just fine, aren't they? Great. Okay, here we go. Inhale. Exhale. Rounding down to find the foot bar. Just get your hands on there and hold. And now inhale, exhale to continue rounding down all the way. Great. Can you hold it down like so Lisa, I'm going to suggest that you walk your feet back a little bit. I'm going gonna come check out Aaron. Tiny bit for you to Aaron.

Just so you're not pitchfork because now once you pin that bar to the ground, we're going to have you inhale. You're not doing anything other than exhale and pull the ribs up so much into the body that you talk a little more, but the bar stays down. Uh, it's going to appear to feel like you're tucking. You probably won't change cause you guys are already there. Here's how it goes. Inhale again, start that deep. Exhale the abdominal contraction in towards the end of it.

Let your heels rise off the floor because of the ABS watching your balance. Inhale, peel back down until the heels touch. It's quite small. Exhale. It's like you dig in deep into the ribs. The heels will come up. Up, up. Yes, Erin, go. Aaron. Inhale, peel down, leaving the ribs high. It's so subtle. You probably can't see it, but I'll bet you guys can feel it. What do you think on the exhale? You arising up onto the toes, all bound to help you balance. Good. Go with, go for it. Go for it. Inhale, peel down. Squeeze the glutes, lowering the heels.

It's almost like you're lowering from the waist. Oh, I know. It's like almost dreadful, isn't it? Just two more and exhaling up. This is such an important part of the pike, and inhale, peel down as your hips go down. Imagine pulling the ribs higher into your body. Another way to do this is an, I could've built a little padding underneath your bar so you didn't have to go so far. After that last exhale or after you've put the heels down on the inhale. Exhale. Enroll yourself up. Yeah.

Did you find it good? It's pretty intense. Yeah. And I did that because now you're going to do the actual pike. So I'm going back to medium. Spring Edge. Yeah.

Cool. So medium to heavy step on the bar because at this point I could go really light, but I don't want to sacrifice anything. I want you to feel what you just did or maybe even more so now. Hands near the front edge of the chair, but turned sideways. Great. Shift your hips and legs toward the chair. Shift your upper body and shoulder or upper arms and shoulders towards your hips. On the exhale, your heads will go down your abs.

We'll just help you float up. Legs are soft. Straighten your elbows and Lisa to the top, to the top bar to the top. And inhale, peel down. Leave the ribs up there for a little while. Lengthening out the front of your hip. Yes, and exhale to go up again. You can always adjust your feet. We have two on the one to chairs. Alright, it's around bar. Go Lisa, go Lisa.

Oh, you're there. Proof. Good heel down and she's good. Inhale, go. You can go on slightly different pieces. Keep talking here. Aha. That's fair enough. And legs real close to the chair. You can shift Aaron, if you'd rather be on your arches. That's fine. Accident on the chair one. Oh boy. Oh boy. So why don't you go to your arches? Well then don't go all the way. Oh Elisa, you got one more in Ya. Stabilize.

Good. Good, good. That's plenty high. And Peel down. Good. Good job. Okay. Job. Oh yeah. Carefully. You look great. Actually it didn't, the only thing I would know when you were coming down, I didn't want you to back away from your arms. So now I wanna know the story, but not right now. Okay. Steph off carefully. Yeah, let it up slow. Remember, it's heavy when you're coming up. Okay. So we've been all here. We're going to open up for torso press set. So we're going to go back to medium to light.

So we're down to one spring again since usually pretty good. Alright. Coming around this side, sitting on the chair and um, I'm going to suggest bent knees initially, if not the whole time. Okay. Carefully finding your body. Both know this one? Yeah. Fingers out. Let's go fingers out. Fingers out. Now before we get too far into it, make sure that you can push on the chair and so you're just looking for your proportions. Good. How's that feel? Can you push it? Is it too heavy? You can be wider. Absolutely. Do you need any grippers? Are you okay?

What I'd love to have them do actually is bend them to keep them bent, but lower the thighs and you. Okay? Yeah, I think it's too heavy. You know what you need to do? You said probably is wiggled backwards a little bit. Yeah. And now lower the leg so the legs are parallel to the chair. Yeah, more Aaron. I've got, yeah. Okay, here we go. That's good. Oh, bent like that. Bent like that. Yeah. No, I'm not too mean. You can straighten if you want.

Inhale, press back. That's chin down slightly on the side. Exhale. Hinge up streets. Fine the whole time. Good. Come, come. Are you top the spring tension? She proved it again. Inhale down. Chin slightly down. You're looking back a little too much and exhale up. Good. I'm going to walk away. You got it, Huh? Inhale. Good. Gently.

It's actually easier guys, if you somewhat press the hamstrings downward a little bit. Just a little. Here we go. Isn't that weird? I'm not weird. It makes perfect sense actually. Yeah. And then up you come. One more, Lisa. Flat, flat flat. Come to the top of your spring tension. Aron, you'll feel it. Good. And you can come up in here. Inhale back.

You got a lovely position, I think. Let me check the side up. Up, up, up, up, and inhale back. So usually shooting around six to eight of these things. So if you're done, you're done. Just hang out. We'll be right there. Yeah. And then ultimately just see what it would look like if you went down and now extend your legs. This is where we're heading, right? Inhale and exhale. Great teaser preparation. One more for fun. Inhale and exhale all the way and Benji's at the top. Well done. Okay.

Get in there. Come around the side. We're still light. You're right here for a side stretch, but you're [inaudible]. You knew that. So in this one we want to be on the side of the hip, just like this perfect hand on the bar, foot on the floor, looking for this long line. Let's take the arm to the ear initially. Great. Great. So in between two plates of glass, pull the ribs in there. It is inhaled to press down and the spring should be relatively light.

If you're getting help, that's cool. Exhale to lift up. Coming to the straight line. Inhale, getting along or reaching out that way first and exhale to come up and inhale down. Keeping the bottom shoulder down. It looks good. It's almost like you're drawing the armpit toward the waist there and good and inhale to breasts feeling. If both sides could lengthen what you both might like better. Your positions are quite good, but I'm going to suggest coming over the chair a little more.

Meaning scoot the whole hips onto the chair a little bit more. Not much. Yeah, just because the reason I say that is you're both flexible and you could probably go over a tiny bit more. Let's see. Yeah. Cause now you're not getting stopped by the chair. In fact, stay there. Extend the top arm. Ah, if it feels good to you, exhale coming up. Let's just do another one like that. Leaving the arms straight and over again and help yourself up. Right. Just swill to, to face the other way. Good job. Good job. So yeah, your positions were fine, but if you ever feel like it's just shortening on that one side a lot, that's the one way I adjust it.

So you've hooked your feet hand to ear in between two plates of glass. Here we go. Inhale to reach down and over. Start the exhale. Feel the abdominals. K this spring could bring you up, but we won't rely on that and inhale over your, you're good. I'm being picky and what I'm thinking I might want to do is slightly shift you that so the hip is more [inaudible]. Yeah, yeah. Go for it and say, put my toe. Yeah. Big Toe on the ground.

Leave it there so it doesn't come off there is your anchor point and now exhale. Does that feel right? Yeah. Great. Good. Very good. Okay. Yeah, she'd feel good. She barked a little this time you go down, stay there and extend that arm, letting the lack come into play and then yo lifted and down again in here. Did I do two more? One more? I think I did think I only did one, but should we do one more just in case? Yeah. Here we go, and terrific. Terrific. All right.

Then just we're going right into face down for back extension, so same spring and you're on the back end of your chair lying over the top. Hip bones are on the chair. Everyone's going to look a little different depending on body length, leg length and so on. But you do want your hips supported. That's the thing. From that place, you're reaching your legs, your shoulders are reaching towards your hips and so come up to where you're level with the chair. You're going to float off the ground at tiniest bit level level.

Parallel to the chair right there. Yep. Okay. Right here we go. From there. Inhale to lift to lengthen to come up with the spring, keeping your legs where they started. Yup, Yup, Yup. Exhale to go back to parallel to the chair, which is right. You're almost gonna be able to go all the way down. Aaron, just pull up a tiny bit there and inhale coming up, opening up the collarbones as you come, and you're right on the line. Lisa, if you feel like you want to move back, you should inhale, rise up and pretend you don't have the spring. How would you do it? Exhale down.

You would recruit the entire back extensor muscle group. Think in terms of the EPR is mostly good. Yeah. Good. Okay. Good. Things that help is the energy through the inner thigh. We're almost there rising up, lifting, lengthening and down, and one more. All the way. Come, come, come. Whatever you feel like you can do comfortably, but work and down you go. Okay.

From here, probably if you can inch back a little, do then put one hand on top of the chair, let your legs lower. You're just coming out and your coming out is terrific. And then just hold the top front of your chair and take a little stretch. Careful. You don't pull your chair with you. Yeah. Good. Two more things.

We're going to do a little leg and a little arm and then you'll be free. So we want medium to heavy. I'm starting with hip opener. Um, just check your weight. He's a little more, I think so. I think, well we may not be sisters when you see how heavy that is. Okay. So the heavier on this first one, the harder theoretically I suppose.

Yes. Yes. Rob Front. So come to step on your bars. Yup. Bring them all the way to the ground. And then your hands. I'm gonna Start you where I'm kind of hoping they'll end up, but they may need to change. Yep. Right toward the back. Exactly. You can come forward a little. Yeah. Okay. And then Aaron, I'm thinking you're going to be really open here. So I would say back your hands up. We'll see.

All right then here's what I'm going to say. Get way up on the tip toes and your heels have to still be together. So if you moved your feet too wide, bring them in so that you can still keep your heels together from that place. Bend the knees and try to come into a vertical spine. Your arms stay straight. So put but put body weight over your arms. Yup. Then do one of these, Lisa, lift up out of your shoulders a bit. That's it. Okay.

And we're watching your hyper extended arms, Aaron. Yes. It's like you're gonna pick the chair up. Use those biceps. All right. How do you feel? I want to say slightly tuck here. Yep. That's how you've got to be and slightly pull away from me. Just lift away. Okay. Is that going to be okay? Okay.

You can also move your hands forward if you need to. You my pretty can also move forward just a little. Now we know. All right, here we go. Lift up. We say you're sinking. Okay, now the bar comes up on an inhale. Exhale, push down. One, get that bar up as high as you can and press down to keep the heels together and lift up. Three, open, open, open. I know for Tuck a little bit, Lisa, and fuck. How many are we doing? Aaron, can you get your butt a lot lower? Like yeah, like just lower like that. Like I want you to look at me vertically like that. There you go. Get six more out of that. How are you doing? Two. Two, one more. One more. Makes 10 okay.

We should stop then do a couple more errands just cause I liked that position and you can carefully come off. Come on, come on. Look at me. Open those hips just to know if not, if it doesn't feel good. Okay. So you're trying to open, so if you're hitting the wood, what I'm going to say. You let you can, you can back away a little and yes you can move your arms forward too. It just need, that would be fine. Back here. Okay. Yeah, I usually, it would be with someone as open as you are. What do you think there? Okay, so as, as far back as possible for you. For you? I don't think so. I think you have to go forward. Okay, good. Stepping off and what did I promise you after that? I didn't tell you.

It's the frog back. So have a seat on the chair. Let's leave that weight. Yup. And I'd like you to come down. Your fingers are all together facing forward. Push the bar down to the ground and then come down. Exactly. Exactly. Another thing here is you don't wanna rest on your knees, right? So bend your elbows. We'll be right with you, Lisa. Bend and way down. Way down.

Way down. Okay. From there the diamond shape stays the same. Here we go. Exhale, lift up all one God and band. You've got it. So, so come down arms. It's all arms. So your legs are going to stay the same day you go. There you go. Great. Exactly. And good position. This one's gonna have a shorter range. Sorry, but your teller. So it's almost works itself out.

Lift your chest just slightly. You want to feel the shoulder blades down. Good. Good, easy on the hands. Believe it or not. Yeah. How many of these have you don't know. It's 10 already. Then you better sit down unless you've got a few more new use day. Okay, that's enough of that. Come off the backing. Come off the back and just loosen up your arms if you need it.

And we're just gonna do a couple of standing roll downs without the chair, but you can be facing it. Yeah, take a deep breath, exhale and round down short bits. Sweet. And inhale and exhale to roll. Good. And then just take your arms up and let yourself at first, keep a little subtle Tuck, not tuck neutral, but our upper back. And let it go and do that again. Inhale up, bring in some energy. And one more time just to circle the arms. Inhale and like, thanks for coming. Thanks for saying, okay. Appreciate it guys.

Comments

I really likes this class! Real effective for 30 minutes.
stunning! Thanx posting Kristi!
1 person likes this.
great thorough instruction. i will look for more of her classes!
Thanks Kristen! I intend to keep em coming!
great class Kristi.. as always.. great for my beginners / intermediates :)
This was my first class on the site. Loved it. Wasn't sure how to know which settings I should use for the springs though. Any tips on how I should figure that out?
Welcome to Pilates Anytime Johanna! I'm sorry I didn't give more clues as to how to select the springs in this class. I think the best thing to do is to adjust the springs according to how well you can accomplish the exercise. Each of the chairs in the video are very different in terms of spring tension. A general rule is if your feet are on the pedal, you'll need medium to heavy weight for you (usually two springs). When you are lying over the chair and using your arms the weight is typically meant to be light to medium for you (usually one spring). I hope that helps.
Thank you! That does help. :)
Kristi when we are doing the "frog leg" what are the areas that are the most targeted with this move. I am trying to figure out if i have the posture correct when I am doing it. Thanks.
Hi ADA, Can you tell me what time in the video you are referring to? I can't remember which one I did. Or if I did more than one exercise that involved "frog leg" in this class.
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