Class #2113

Short and Precise Mat

15 min - Class
106 likes

Description

If you have a busy schedule and are looking for something quick, then you can add this Mat workout by Monica Wilson to your routine. It is short, precise, and to the point so you can get ready to start your day. She uses the Magic Circle and Hand Weights to make sure you give it your all so your body feels great.
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights, Magic Circle

About This Video

Mar 24, 2015
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Transcript

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All right. So today I'm going to show you a mat exercise, very short, precise, and to the point, this is for when you are overly scheduled and your brain might be on overdrive trying to think of other things that you need to get done in the day. But you know that you should get at least a little bit of work in so that you can feel good again tomorrow and keep it going. So this is the, I don't want to work out that you know better. And if you could just get in maybe 10 minutes of a solid workout, then that would make it better for the next day. So I'm gonna do almost the same thing without any extra pieces so you can look for that. But this one has a magic circle and to pound arm weights. That will finish with just a little bit of arm weights.

So I'm going to lie down on my mat and I'm going to put the circle between my ankles and then I'm going to lie down. Yeah. All right. So let's start with my hands one over the other, behind my head, my pelvis. Nice and flat. And I'm going to warm up my upper body by taking a breath into the mat and exhaling deeper into the mat. Okay.

On my next inhale, I'm going to come up and I'm looking at my belly. I'm going to exhale and come up higher using my stomach and then take a breath. And I'm going to push my head into my hands while maintaining my stomach in and up to really lengthen my neck. So I gave myself one little stretch there and now I'm going to come up, but then inhale, and I'm going to look at my belly and exhale, pulling it in, reach my arms long and start my hundred kneeling. Two, three, four, five. Exhaling. Now my next exhale, I'm going to draw that circle in using my stomach. Inhale.

On my next exhale, I gotta straighten my legs using my belly to pull in and up away from my outreach legs and excellent. And then if I can, I'm going to reach my pelvis long, my belly in and up, and take my legs to where I feel I can control them. So I'm really working on my outer thighs, my inner thighs, my belly scooping it up. I'm paying attention to my arms. We're about 80 that they're strong and long and collar bones open, but most importantly, I'm warming up my powerhouse and as the a hundred I'm going to hug my knees in, sit up while I take it away and have my feet hip width apart and circle between my inner thigh. Then going to sit up tall to start with my shoulders right over my sit bones. Draw my belly in and use it to round my lower back and my upper belly around my upper back. Pain my feet a little close to myself in a roll down my waistband.

First, take a breath and exhale. Use it to pull in and up to round forward. I'm going to take a breath. Exhale, do that. Roll through my waistband. Go down to bottom of my shoulder blades, take a breath and exhale. Drawing in and up to round forward. Next I'll go all the way down to my head and hailing to start. Exhaling all the way. Inhale, lift ahead. Exhale. Squeeze the circle with your inner and outer thighs.

Let's do that one more time. Inner and outer thighs so that you know on the next exercise that progression in with the air, squeezing the legs together, that your legs are still working even though they're not moving. Straighten the legs. Make sure you're centered in your mat. And now let's get some arms. No hanging elbows. Lift them, pull your belly in, squeeze the circle and roll back. Starting from your tailbone, the next bone, the next bone, all the way through. Reach your arms, up and back, keeping your back flat. Inhale head. Exhale, squeezing the circle. Work in the arms in stretch. Relaxing the circle. Draw it in.

Roll back one bone at a time and stretch three more, a little faster. Forward and reach and rolling back and back. And two more. Exhale. Inhale always to start. Exhale all the way down. Gorgeous Day right now. One more and rolling back. Great.

So now I'm going to take my magic circle and use it for single leg circles. I'm going to put the right ball of my foot onto the pad and stretch it towards me trying to keep my hips square, my shoulders square. Now if you can't straighten this leg, go ahead and bend this one and do it like that. But I'm gonna keep my leg long and down the middle of my body. After I pull it up towards my nose with keeping this hip down and square, not letting it hike, I'm going to reach it towards my left shoulder at lifting it up towards my nose and towards my shoulder.

That gives me a little different stretch and a goal during this hip circle, single leg circles. Now I'm gonna put that circle between the heel of my hand so I can add some arm work and rib stabilization. Pull the leg up to your nose, cross around, up, all from the powerhouse, reaching long through the leg. Three more. You crossed the body around, up to around up. This is not really beginner and reverse. It's more of a quick and efficient workout so that we don't just scrap our workout because we didn't have time.

One more and bend the knee and stretch and let's put it long. Grab the left ball the foot and stretch it up again. Shoulders Square, hips square, turned out a little bit and towards my nose. And then keeping this hip in place, crossing it up towards my right shoulder and I'm going to put it between the heels of my hand again using nice arm muscles and rib stabilization and cross or shoulder girdle muscles and scooping in trying to get up to my shoulder tumor or from my belly, reaching that leg. Long rivers squeeze a circle the entire time if you can remember, and two and one and enough. So I'm going to hug that knee back in. Good.

And now I'm going to put the circle. I'm just going to put it here. Hopefully it doesn't fall and I'm going to lift up my head and bring the other knee in and holding onto my right leg. I'm going to extend the left wrapping and squeezing and switch scooping. Then we're going to do seven of these. We've done two sets. Okay, so drawing in, everything's from your stomach.

The leg that's reaching is using the back of the leg and the seat, and two more last set. And now bring both knees in. Grab your circle, place it between your ankles. You can rest your head while you do this, but use your powerhouse to lift your head. Hands on your ankles, squeezing the circle already. Then reach while your belly drops down and pull it in. Still squeezing. Squeeze it out, squeeze it in, reach your arms long, pull it in. Three more. Reach it long. It also lets you see whether you're being even or not and to squeeze it on the way. Last one and rest your head and rest that circle. Stay there, right leg up, left leg forward. One, two, switch.

And so we're switching off quickly. So Jen, switch off from the stomach. It's a quick workout trying to warm up that belly. Get a burning two more. You can work your bottom. Also that set and bend those knees. Grab your circle. Just three more exercises here and before we do arms, so I'm going to put my hands back, hand over, hand behind the head. Take a breath into the mat. Exhale, use your belly to come up.

Stretch my legs up. Squeeze at circle inner and outer thigh and reach down and reach long enough. The back never leaves the Mat. Really work the back of your legs and bottom inner thighs. Never questioning the powerhouse. Last one.

And then the most brutal one is the knees are bent at a tabletop and you twist up to the right knee. Hold Centers. Squeeze out, draw back in. Left knee. Hold Center. Squeeze out drawing. One more set. Huh? Hold Center. Pull back in. Last One, Huh? To that left knee and come center and Ooh, your stomach should be burning. Okay. Sit on up. Taking the circle and the last mat exercise.

Let's start with putting it right here so that your shoulders directly over your hips, not falling back, not our chain, but straight up and heel the hand comfortably. One on top of the other feeder flexed. Take a big breath and then use your belly to pull in and up as you exhale, pushing down, but curling into yourself and inhaling up. So I'm lifting in my waist as I curl into myself. Am I pushing down only as much as I can. Lift my belly button up.

So however high I think I can live my belly button. That's how low the circle's going. It shouldn't be all the way down to the mat cause it's about how much you're lifting in your waist, lifting in your weights, lifting in your waist. And now let's do two with your circle in front of you. Elbows up, not hanging. Pull your belly in. Squeeze and lift in your waist as you stretch down, down, down, and inhale up. And one more time.

Lift off that seat. Lift in the waist, squeeze and exhale. And in with dear Angela hacks. All right, now we're going to go and do some arms real fast. So now we've grabbed our two pound weights and we're going to stand in our Pilati stance and the stand on the size so you can see my posture and we're gonna have heels together, toes, two to three inches apart. Just some good arm work cause we always love getting arm working. Lean your weight forward, lift your weight up through the crown of your head using your powerhouse.

Let's lift those arms up to shoulder height and the elbows stay at shoulder height. As you imagine pulling 50 pounds into you and then resisting someone pulling your arms straight and using your power house. This is, we're going to do five, so that's choose a given. All you got, contract that by sub-contract those muscles and resist them. Releasing two more. Pulling in. Try to see if you can have all your lower body working too. One more. The thighs are rapping and squeezing.

Bottom is squeezing and now take your arms directly out to the side. No breaks here. We're going to pull them in there a little in the peripheral vision so I don't have to turn my head to see them out of the corners of my eyes. My shoulders are staying plugged in away from my ears. I'm always lifting tall weight on the ball of my foot and I really am working to pull a huge heavyweight like two trucks.

Pull them into me and then resist them pulling out. I'm going to let them hang and put them just in front of me and I'm gonna use my biceps now, the front of my arms to pull up and then lift up my elbows as high as I can and put them down and use the back of my arms to straight former. Pull up biceps up. And there's, imagine you're standing on like one of those bands and you're pulling the band up to your shoulders and then up pie and resisting that band down and resisting with the triceps, the back of the arm. One more. Pull it up and extend and bringing it down. And here, now we're going to separate your feet so they're parallel and hip width apart and bend your knees so the knees are over the big toe and roll down and off an imaginary wall, but then level out and flatten your spine. No arching, no rounding. Try to have a nice long spine.

This is for your upper back and chest. Let's call the bug. So you're imagining that there's two heavy magnet stuck together and you're trying dramatically to lift your elbows to pull them apart. Cracking a walnut and then they pull you back together for more. Use the back of your arms, your upper back, and then you contract your chest. Really use all those muscles. Three more pulling up work. Those are muscles, right? They're only two pounds weights.

You have to use your imagination quite a bit and then resisting. Give me one more work in those muscles. Work in your powerhouse to support your back and then let your arms hang and head down. Round up heels together. And we're going to, I'm going to turn towards you for this one and I'm going to extend my right arm up and let myself go over. I'm really working my waist here and then lifting up to the ceiling, switching arms and up through the body as if my right arms pulling me down and in lifting, uh, I'm being very careful not to let my weight go over this way, just up and over and pulling center.

I'm also being very careful not to dislocate my shoulder while reaching long through my arm muscles and lifting up. I can make my arm longer if I do that, but I want my muscles to work, not my joint. Yeah, just over and scooping. Lifting through the ways, lifting through my arm muscles. I'm working really hard here. I'm gonna do one more set and drawing a nice stretch over. Allow this arm to hang over my head. Reach along, lift up to the ceiling and switch one more and then we're going to transition to triceps. Let that arm hang around your head up and scoop it up and down. Now I'm going to turn back this way and I'm going to do separate. My feets are, they're parallel knees over my toes and roll off that imaginary wall.

This time I'm going to take my elbows and gloom by my flat back and I'm going to tighten the back of my arms and do a kickback. So I get the triceps nice and long. Really work in those three more powerhouse. Supporting my back. Shoulders away from my ears. One more and then I'm going to let my arms, hey, round up. So now I'm going to do the zipper.

So we're going to put our weights together in front of us and keep your shoulders down, not up by your ears. And let's see how high you can get your elbows up. So we're going to pull up like you're pulling up literally a truck. You're pulling up out of the ground, lifting your elbows, and then it's pulling you down. You're resisting. And four more pulling up, elbows, lifting, not shoulders and yawns called the zipper because it's like you're zipping up your sweatshirt and pushing down. And two more. I'm really working to keep my shoulders down, lifting my elbows, and pushing down. And on his last one, I'm going to transition to some to shaving.

So the arms are going to continue, wait, stay together. And now I'm going to bend the elbows behind my head and straighten elbows, bending behind my ears and pulling in and up. Well, that feels good. As I straighten my arms, I lift all the way from my toes up through the crown of my head. One more all the way up. And I'm going to bring my arms. Last exercise. I'm going to hold the weights here and I'm going to do eight circles.

I'm going to turn once again towards you. Probably a better view on this one. So I'm gonna put my weights and little roundness oval in my arms. Okay? And I'm going to circle one to watch. My shoulders aren't moving. It's my upper arms pretending I'm circling bangles and a n down. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, three more one. So you circle one way to go up an eight and the other way to go down, I'm holding the ends of the weights and nothing else. My body is moving. One, two. We have two more sets. If I had the side view, you'd see that I'm still leaning forward. And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Last one. One, two, three.

Bengals on the upper arms, circling them, shaping them up. And last time, reversing those circles. Five, six, seven, and eight. And when you're done, keep that uplifting feeling and you're ready for the rest of your day. Thank you.

Comments

1 person likes this.
That was a great short workout, I feel strong, stretched, and uplifted Also, I loved the combination of Monicas positive attitude and the beautiful day at the beach. Thank you Monica!
1 person likes this.
LOVE THIS!!! perfect way to get fired up, leaves you wanting a LOT more!!
1 person likes this.
Great workout with lots of positive incentives. thank you.
Monica Wilson
Glad to hear it! I'm going to put together a fun "get ready for summer" workout soon:)
1 person likes this.
Love those short exercise on the days where I don't do exercise. Just to keep fit and going . Thankyou
1 person likes this.
Could not be more perfect for me today.
Yeong Cheol C
Thank you.
1 person likes this.
More mat classes please. Wonderful teacher!
1 person likes this.
Best short class
1 person likes this.
Awesome routine! Thanks so much.
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