Strengthen Back Extensors

Hi everyone. I'm here to do chair work and I'm using the taller chair. I usually prefer the shorter chair, some challenging myself and my [inaudible] practice to change things up and step outside my comfort zone a little bit. Uh, I'll leave it at that. So w s today's class is really specifically a little more um, about this sternum, the upper back mobilizing, trying to get some mobility through the upper segments of the spine, relationship of shoulder blades to that section of our spine, but also just some good, good work at the beginning, um, to warm up and get into the body. So here we go. Let's do a standing roll down and you can face your chair.

Just take a nice inventory. [inaudible] let's take it all in. Uh, right. You can see what's happening outside right now it's really calm, but we've been having some rather large waves going on here in Santa Barbara, so we ready for the view. Also try to stay focused. So let's take a deep breath in through our nose and lift the bones of your spine up and then exhale and just feel how you, you can stay in the levity with inside your body, but at the same time, grounding your feet down. You're kind of working with down energy at the same time. Have some up energy.

Let's do that again. [inaudible] just one more deep breath and let's start our roll down from the head and the neck peeling over. You can go halfway. The first time, droopy arms. Suspend those abdominals inward upward to open up and feel like you're getting stretch even right now in your low back. So this, this nice c curve there, and pull yourself back up to standing. Lift your bones again. Should I feel like you're trying to just really stack and lift your bones up away from each other in your spine, out of your pelvis, and up out of your spine. And again, let's go a little further now.

Well, just checking in. You can keep the knees a little bit soft if you'd like to and round back up. Restacking use the muscles in your abdominals. Just enough. Use the side abdominal muscles a little bit to lift. Use your back to lift one more.

Just kinda checking in. So I kind of warmed the class up by saying it's, it's going to be, you know, upper back, it's really extensors more so of the body back extensors, hip extensors. Okay. If I can be really clear, which I'd like to be. So here we go. We're going down to the mat. [inaudible] I have the cheers set with just one side sprung. I'm on a black spring in here on the third arm up and we'll be there for most of the class so you don't really have to worry too much about changing the springs. Get fairly close.

Okay. Let's bring our pedal all the way down and we'll stand with our feet in our prehensile or uh, put our feet on the pedal. Prehensile peek up and make sure you're really dividing that pedal, uh, correctly and that your heels are in languish. Sit bones. I don't want you to all the way together too wide. All right. And then just come down to neutral pelvis.

I right now I'm going to do my thumb on my rib cage and my fingertips on my pelvis so that I can create more length in this part of my body. And also remind her that I'm not tilting too much. And yet we're going to do that in pelvic curl. Um, but also not too arched. Okay, so just feeling that established line. Now take a deep breath in through the nose and your feet are active on the pedal. Exhale and now tip the pelvis, just a pelvic tilt, not a bridge yet. Pelvic tilt.

So the middle fingers on the hipbones feel that and that you're moving the hipbones closer to the thumbs. So tilt is much as you can. Your glutes will probably activate. I'm okay with that. As long as your abdominals are still doing quite a bit. We've taken the pelvis into that back tilt and then inhale and reached the the middle fingers away from the thumbs. This is just a different way of queuing it. One more like that guys. Exhale and tilt actively using the prehensile foot.

Feet tilt, tilt, tilt. So your whole low back should be really contacting the mat and then release to neutral. Now I feel like I need to move a little closer to the pedal. I just know what I'm feeling here. That's better for me. Okay, so you'll notice I'm fairly close. Um, like that pelvic curl. Two bridge. Breathe in. Exhale, pelvic tilt, curl hip extensor. So right up. Okay.

Okay. Why don't you to tap into the back of your arms for a moment. Press them against the mat. I want you to do this with your arms. Also hate to have you look my way, but lift your arms and just place them on your thighs. You should have your thighs, um, and you're up to your wrists there. So no dropped down.

Angle you to really nice connected forearm to thigh. Okay. And then just arms by your side. That's a way to check. And then let's unroll, keep those hamstrings. I'm really active. It's kind of hard not to. That's what this is about. And XL pelvic tilt, the still with the pedal down pedal is down. I'm using my strong feet, like suction cups on that pedal, my hamstrings, glutes, everything is pulling this like energetically up my back body to my upper back. Okay. And then unroll.

We'll do two more pelvic curls with uh, the pedal slightly suspended. Okay. Now the challenge will be not to push it in lower or let it float too much higher than it is right here. Okay, let's see what I've got in here and roll. Oh man, this is so much harder. Trust the extensors. Hamstrings, right up into the Tush, the tissue into the back and the extension of the back of the arms and we roll down [inaudible]. Hopefully my pedals not moving too much. One more basic. One leg or a pelvic curl with a float. Exhale. Oh, it's so easy to push too hard or lifted. Spiral.

Spiral your legs in slightly just to use a little bit of that inner thigh. Oh, I lost it, didn't I? Oh, well, I want you to do this. Extend your legs. Give him a little rest. Okay. It's a practice. Remember? Okay. Ham or I let it feed all the way down. Let's do some chest lifts. So sneak your hands behind your head, make sure you can see your elbows in the periphery of your eyes, and we'll do some chest lifts. So let's just take about four. Exhale, basic curl up and yeah, I'll let you kind of a guide here that your sternum is moving downward down your chest wall towards your ribs, ribs, getting a little funneling, a little narrowing towards your pubic bone and your pubic bone pointing straight out to that wall. And then as you come back, keep the tone in those muscles so you don't let go.

You don't grip any tighter, you just keep it. And then as you come up, the sternum drops in toward your ribs, your ribs towards your pubic bone, your pupil going toward the chair and down. Let's do one more basic chest lift. [inaudible] so I'm going to have you keep your chest up and add some movement of pedal four of these. Just find those hamstrings, hamstrings up energetically toward the abdominals. I think you're gonna feel that sensation energies up into the abdominals. Meanwhile, the upper body, I'm thinking of like the waves outside cresting forward toward my thighs.

So we're accessing hamstrings, abdominals, [inaudible] and one more time. Yeah. And let your legs relax for just a second. Inhale, curl up again, add the pedal down. And now let's do putting your hands on the sign of your knees and tried to curl a little higher. It's not the full double leg stretch, but it's kind of like double leg stretch arms are going to go back, release the pedal until you feel the spring stop. You've established that nice chest lift position open and then pull it down.

[inaudible] not all the way. Inhale open and exhale. Pull it in. [inaudible] two more times. Inhale, hopefully keeping your body in this same height up off the floor. Exhale, pull it in. So hamstrings, two abdominals. We know that's a really important connection in our [inaudible] work and in and release. Okay, so I want you to extend your legs. That'll should feel nice to elongate the legs in the hamstrings.

Keep your chest down on the floor for a moment and do a slight Palladio's v with the heels, legs slightly externally rotated. And I want you just to engage the abductors are your inner thighs. Squeeze your heels and get a little bit of wrapping the legs. Okay, bring into a chest lift here. Arms are gonna float up, chest lift. You can see what position we're really ready for, which is called the 100 you know that. So let's do our hundred but before we do, let the back of the knees be lifted up off of the away from the floor just a little bit so you're not resting, they're engaged in a minute. We'll float our legs off the chair or you could start with your legs off the chair now, but enjoy being there. Here we go. Two, three, four, five.

Exhale into three, four, five. Exhale. Not that I'm going to have US press the pedal down, but I'm kinda thinking in my mind a little bit of the action in my hamstrings. So my knees are locked. They may appear slightly bent, but I'm feeling that continued relationship of the hamstrings. And My abdominals. [inaudible] generating some good heat.

[inaudible] nine [inaudible] 10 [inaudible] relaxed. Okay. Stretch a little and the other leg and then we're bringing the pedal back down. But with her legs in external rotation, soles a feet together and then bring the pedal all the way down. Okay, we are close to the chair on purpose. Um, I've done these, this angle before where I've been had as further back away.

It's just slightly different. [inaudible] I think what we may feel with this being closer to the chair air are your deep external rotators, maybe less than your inner thighs. Depending on your body, though, you may want to peek up and make sure your feet are right in the center so that you're in your central axis. Super important. Of course. Now hands on the outside of your thighs and I want you to open up your chest and shoulders and try to press your thighs down against your poems. Your pedal is down by the way. You know that.

And as you press your thighs towards your hands, you should be feeling some deep, but muscles working. Hopefully you feel that. But again, if your body is restricted in flexibility in your ad doctors' inner thigh, you may just be sensing this. You may need to sense that before you sense the glutes. So be patient. Remember, it's all a practice. It takes time. So we're going to inhale pedal. Come up a little bit. Now press the pedal down by pressing the thighs against the hands.

Don't worry about your feet there. There. Inhale up, up very high thighs. Press to hands. You're increasing your external rotation. That's the goal. Do eight of these, everybody. Here's four. Press the thighs. You feel that breathing heavy so you can hear the where to exhale the effort in using the abdominals. Last one.

Yeah. Now keep the pedal down. Hands behind the head. Again, elbows in the peripheral vision. Chest lift four times. Keep your chest up. The same work in the add. Doctors are in the external rotators press so your hands aren't there for that feedback. So you have to kind of pretend and press the thighs lower towards the floor.

Remember, it's not the feet pushing work from the back of your hips. Now rotate toward one side, right or left for up and down pedals here. One look out into the room. See something too. We use those rotators. Three one certain equipment down and four, stay down. Rotate to the other side. We'll challenging the, strengthen those rotators and four times look out one, stay up off those shoulder blades too.

Three and for, come back to the front with her. Pedal down. Oh, I'm cramping in my hamstring. Whew. Close carefully. I got to get out of there for a second. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that means I was working so, but I knew Nina, stretch it out. Okay. All right. So here you are right. You're really feeling that work in that motion. So hopefully that felt good. Uh, take your right leg up or one of your legs up.

Put the other leg through the chair and just on the wood platform and let's do single leg circle. So we've just warmed up the hip. It's plenty. Ready to do circles. Flex your top foot today. Square your pelvis. Six circles in, six circles out. Inhale for one full circle. Exhale for another. Inhale for one XL for another.

I'm thinking about my hip being very heavy on my mat and around other way. Minimize the size. If you're popping, make sure your abdominals are lengthened up inside. If you're popping, inhale and exhale and then pull it towards your chest. If you're popping in the hips, there's a great tutorial on the site. Uh, I think Shelly power about hip hop and it's great. You may want to get in there if you, if you're a popper, I'm a popper and it really helped me. Uh, also I do know about my own change with it. I have to pull my abdominals up, I have to make my circle smaller. But more importantly, if this leg darts too high up here, I'm already in kind of compression land.

So you may want to just lower it down a little bit. There's might be a little more room for the Femur to move in there. Some choices. Okay, here we go. Six inhale and exhale. Inhale. It's okay that they're small. It's a really deep conditioning of that hip socket. Feels really good and around reverse direction.

[inaudible] one more each way. I mean each of breath. Exhale round and Ben. Okay, bring that knee in. Bring the other knee in. Chest lift up. Okay, so the panel is down there. I want you to do a little scissor, and this is weird because there's not a lot of room to gesture that foot. That's okay. Let's just work on this being a squaring pelvis, scissor, exercise today. Okay? Hands can go pretty high. There's a little bit of a hamstring pressing on that pedal, but I'm also trying to press these hamstrings toward it.

So I'm doing my little double pool. One, two, and one two. Just enjoy squaring your pelvis and square the pelvis and square and square. But I know you're probably wanting a little more work. So here you go. You can put your hands behind your head and eight and seven and elbows are wide and your chest is in the same place. Let's add a little rotation and twist it.

Feel so good. Let's take it four more and one, two, three, and for. Okay. Lower that leg. Put your hands behind your thighs. Use your arms and start to pull yourself up and up. Oh and up into your teaser. I did it today. Hands on your ankles. I heard you laughing.

And then take yourself into a nice forward stretch. Okay. So I'm okay with my elbows being out in up. I'm okay. I want to get over my legs. I want to stretch my legs, my hamstrings. It's so much work in that early section. But now I wanna extend my arms so that they're straight and still hold on and pull the abdominals back away from the legs and emphasize the pelvic tilt.

So I'm going to put my hands here so you might be able to see it a little bit more or you could certainly put your hands on your pedal. I'm going to do it here and just four times. Try to get a deeper pelvic tilt, mobilizing the pelvis in a backward angle and into the lumbar vertebra to move those joints. [inaudible] okay. Isolating those tilts. One more time. So then we can reach our hands forward. Let's lift our feet from a legs from that and then come up into more of our teaser that we know is really wonderful. Start to use your back now more up, reach up, reach, reach, reach, retreat. And we reach to the toes. Let's try.

Oh teaser one let's see what happens and go. [inaudible] the pedals there. If you want to use it. It's okay. Maybe it's just a little psychological assistant. Yeah, it's there. If you need a lower, but you don't need to. Oh, one more. One more time. Ah, oh, I can do that. I got it. Oh, I'm up.

Okay. Oh those are so hard for, I'm making progress. All right everybody. So the next one, let's work on some sitting arm presses. Okay, so sitting still on the the third spring up. Sit with the little straddle flexed feet and for a moment just feel the back muscles and you just started tapping into them. With the teaser position, I want you to take your fingertips and angle them in. Elbows are lifted, but your upper arms are in external rotation. So you're going to start to feel a lot of energy around your arm, under arm and in around your upper back. Exhale, press the pedal. Inhale, control the left this to eight of them with two hands on this pedal on this spring. Not too hard. I mean it's hard, but hmm. Lift up.

Monitor those rib thrusts for some of us who love to pop those ribs forward. One more with both hands. Now take one hand behind your head, press your head lightly back in your hands and four times on the single arm. You may not move it much and that's okay. I want you to make sure that you feel as though you keep your torso like a nice column rather than letting your ribs slide or translate sideways, you're just a nice tall column.

One more on this arm. Okay, well that's not easy. Well, whatever you can go four times isolating those arms, right? One side versus the other. Sometimes the unilateral work allows you to feel your oblique muscles differently. And one more. Okay? All right, let's move into a plank. All right, so just bring your knees around. I want you to bring your pedal all the way down.

I just happen to like my hand right there, my middle finger pointing right up the line of the frame. But feel free to use the wide position if you'd like. And then step back and step back. And let's just hold a plank so we know that chair seats right there, you can see it and once you to extend the top of your head toward it, but not by rocking on your feet, but just energetically and just hold. Let's do a little up stretch. So on our next exhale, hips come up, heels can stay lifted. I like to look at my toes, not at my belly button, toes and then come back to, and let's undulate when you get a little bit of articulation going back in that spine, chest toward the chair. Breathe in pike back, hinge at your hips to come back.

Undulate to come forward. This little thing is gonna happen in a little while on a swan. Okay. And again, Pike back. Looking right at your toes. Hi, sit bones. Undulate one more. And then when we come back to our plank, we're going to do a little knee to chest beds. Breathe in, go into flection and pool one knee toward your nose round. Use your abs and then use your hips and your spine extensors and use your abdominals. Knee to nose. Once again, each side.

Oh, and one more. All right, let's take just a slight break. Setting your knees down, release your pedal. My hands are a little sweaty, so I'm going to just do a quick wipe off and then guys, we're going back up for some slight, very small push ups from that playing position. Okay, so come on down. Same set up. Now again, I want you to just use the use this relationship here, reference of reaching toward it, not bumping your head there but reaching toward it because as we do these little pushups, I don't want our scapula to really slept around. I want our elbows to bend, so I want to reach my, my head toward the chair to allow my Elvis to move ever. So slight. Certainly you can go larger if you want to, but I am going to keep them small.

Eight times three, four trying to really hinge the elbows back. Six, seven and eight. Let's do one more up stretch. Restretch those triceps. And then one more undulation to come down. Ooh. All the way rippling through. And then you can set your knees down.

Okay, we're going to do some swan from the floor or same springs. Oh my day down. Alright, so I'm a bit of a stickler here. I don't really just want you, I don't want your risk to kind of that way. So if you can get the heel of your hand up on top of it, the best you can. Start with your head down between the arms. And really we want to start the pedal all the way up.

I feel a good stretch for a second. So it's one from the floor, like a reverse chest. It's a chest lift. I'm going to start with my head, my cervical spine. My legs are together, my upper back. And as I start to come higher, I'm, it's like that movement of my back is what's moving the pedal down. I don't have to go too high with my body, but I do want to press the pedal and lift [inaudible]. Now coming down is really lovely. Stretch forward. If someone were standing behind me and gently put their foot or hand probably in my back and kind of just gave me a little bit of encouragement to move forward, to get more mobility in the thoracics, I have to use my imagination cause no one's here. Okay.

But coming up that hand would be behind me and I'm pressing back toward that person's hand or that person's foot. So I'm going back and let's get those lats and triceps draw now float the pedal. So if there's someone behind your, you can imagine like I am there gently, they're not pushing, helping you stretch long and mobile through those upper thoracic joints. Okay? Three more [inaudible] and long stretch to be a really nice upper abdominal stretch. Last two, peel yourself up.

Well. So trying to drag my arm bones away from the chair, pulling them back toward my back. Hello? Do One more time. Open your feet this time just a little bit. You'll need that. Peel up. Lift the pedal, float it. Bring your toes together. Tried to do more of an upper back bend. Stretch. Lift your thighs, straighten your legs and do it again. Lift your chest, lift your thighs.

Mitch and Lauer. All right, I really feel those back muscles. So let's give our arms a little rest just here. And then next exercise we'll be coming up off the floor and doing cat kneeling. All right, so we're gonna move our mat and kind of restage things here just a little bit. All right, so we have taken the mat away. I've taken the mat away, the magic of the stage, and I need another spring.

So I'm going to do another the other side on three that puts me at three on each side. Three, three, a lot of support. It's okay. So I'm climbing up on my knees and I like to have myself further back here. I actually really liked doing this against the Cadillac where I have all that room for these shins to press down. You could certainly crawl up in here. You could also go way out there so that that is not my favorite place. So I'm going to go back here. So if you take your arms up, it's actually a little trickier in a way back here guys. Some kids, there's, you have to balance differently. So as we go over, there may be a little bit of hip flection that occurs in your hip joints, but try to alleviate just, you know, dropping down into hip flection.

I'm still trying to activate and use my hamstrings to keep my pelvis forward. But being this far back, there's that temptation to flex at the hip. You certainly could do that and get your hands down there. But really we want active hamstrings and glutes and we're going over. You have to just right now make a choice. Go well.

All right now so you can see how my hips are a little bit behind my heel or my calves there. I'm okay with that because I'm making the choice right now to shift over my knees and I can, I can tell where I am now. I want to let my head go and reach the springs down and pull them back up. What'd you, five of those stretch the springs. Um, recoil. So you're maybe wondering is she inflection or she and extension? Well, a little bit of both. If I go into more extension, you're going to see me lift the tail. That's okay. Hi, sit bones high tail.

Enjoy being right out over those arms and reach your chest toward the pedal. So the booty is pretty high. Let's breathe in. As we exhale, we're going to recoil head to tail and curl and let's do that again. So start flection, but it becomes a long flexed spine that then unfurls into an extended spine. Tail lifts, sit bones, open, sternum reaches forward. Now I like a lot of spring on this because I do have a little bit of apprehension being upside down. So I need support. I'm okay with that.

Certainly could do this with less spring and it provides different challenges. No. Like I said at the beginning of the hour, I'm t I'm, I'm stepping out somebody's comfort zone because this year and I are not as, um, our partnership is not as great as I have with the low chair. Alright. I'm coming out of that now. As soon as I let my hands go, I want to try to get my pelvis. All right. Oh.

And I've conquered another milestone of being upside down for a little bit. Alright, everyone. So good. So let's take our, uh, one of the springs off against. We're just back on one side three when just lift out and take that away. Reverse one. When I wanted you to prepare for legs being up in the air here and being over and the upper back piece is first, just utilizing the handles a little bit.

So I'm just gonna wrap my form and around the Poles. Okay. And [inaudible] extend the legs, engage the glutes and hamstrings a little bit, and then start thinking of in doing swan in your spine. Okay. Just start, start it. And I'm using the pollster kind of press in to, and I want to lift my chest up the wall here, climbing up the ceiling with the chest, opening up, sliding the shoulders down, and then return. One more time. Really using the hands on the Poles for some support. Pressing into it lightly as we upper back bend.

Lumbar is going to be insane in its extension. Open up your chest but not hyperextended in the lumbar is a difference. Oh Wow. Well offer further and up. Cool. Okay. Now as we take our legs up, here you go. Hands behind, fingertips facing in for me.

There is that sweet ever so sweet spot on your sacrum and you, those of you who know what I'm talking about, you're either can either be too far forward to your feet or too far back that way. And that's not the best place to go. Start this way, be conservative and then start moving back. Okay? But as we are just balanced here, do the wrong thing for a minute and roll your shoulders. I never asked you to do that. So let's open up. But not a rib. Thrust his shoulders there. Now instead of going back and round a flection, let's just do the same action you did in your spine in that preparation here like that.

Now lean into your arms. Use Your triceps. And I'm thinking right now my triceps pressing back to the wall that's behind me. You don't have to go very far initially. And as you come up, just keep your chest to the ceiling. Keep that flat back. Let's breathe in and breathe out. I want my low abs working to keep my legs up a little bit. Yeah, I feel like it gets scooped back a little bit now. Well, where am I? Inhale. Excellent.

I'm sweating. My hands are slipping. Now what I want us to do is round your spine. Let's focus on the breastbone in the upper thoracics and just start a little wave movement through your spine and specifically upper back, sternum, neck. Um, okay. Because what I want to do is use that in the swan. So what's going to happen? Stay round now to reach back.

Start the wave to come up round to go back. You know, I'm not moving much. I'm moving a lot inside. I want to use and mobilize my t spine, upper thoracic, right behind my sternum and back. And I'm going to reverse it. I'm resisting this a little bit. I can feel, go for it. Just reach into your body up.

My hands are also slipping. No, I'm gonna do one more, but hopefully you can see what I'm trying to get you to do, which is really articulate in some different ways right there. Okay. And then we go, I almost didn't make it in my hands. Okay. One or two more exercises back. We go with the third spring on both sides. We have warmed up our triceps, we've warmed up our back, our shoulder girdle, and we are going to do some dips now and some arm presses.

All right. Strong women and men. Step on your pedal. Okay. Step on your seat and come on up. Alright, so I'm about five, three or four and I've got my, this works for me also. My arms are a little short proportionally, so I have my pole down all the way up. Play with how high or low, but I want you to first just stand on your pedal with your feet parallel or Palati. Zvi is fine. And then just press your shoulder blades down. But more importantly, lift your spine up. Here's our swan again, legs are straight. I'm okay here, but I want to ask more of my thoracic spine, thoracic spine, thoracic spine, the rassic spine.

Now if I come forward, I'm going to do a little dip. Press, Thoracic Spine, forward and dip, and thoracic spine. Oh go Amy, go and one more and dip. Press and up, thoracic, up and back. Up and back up. [inaudible]. Okay. Now this way there's all kinds of transitions.

I'm just doing this today. So facing out, how am I no hiding sternum. It's like a big like breasted bird. They've got to get that big, you know, chest that they have their breasts go way out in the front. So I want you to do the same thing. Thoracic spine. Now if you look center now, look forward and start to bend your elbows.

Bring your front body rested bird forward, forward. You don't have to go very low. Guys think chest rather than arms. Chest. Now use your arms to push and you can do a little upper back bend if you want. My legs are active. Look, center, chest breasted, bird elbows or bending. Use your arms and push yourself up and we're only doing one more and we're going to finish with this tanning roll down. Look forward, travel forward. Move your body in, forward in space.

Well up up. Oh, oh yeah. Okay, and come on down and let's just bring the pedal up carefully. Yeah, I feel worked out here we are finishing it up. This just too nice, easy. I'm going to pay homage to the chair. I appreciate you too, but I'm also going to just face my chair and give it some things. Give my thoracic spine some thank you because it's making some changes. Remind yourself everyday that this is a practice.

Let's practice. Bend your knees everybody and slowly on roll and feel the stretch. Along that back, you worked your back extensors a lot in this class. You worked the back of your shoulders, your tricep. So there may be a little residual awareness in the back of you, but that's a really good thing. Let me know how it goes.

I'll see you next time.