Class #2649

Quick Standing Workout

20 min - Class
285 likes

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Congratulations to Amy Havens for teaching her 200th class on Pilates Anytime! For this milestone, she brings a quick, standing workout that you can do anywhere. She uses Hand Weights to increase the intensity and to challenge your endurance, and she also adds some balance challenges to work on stabilization. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Hand Weights

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Hi everyone. It's Amy. I'm here for a standing sculpting mat class. Today you'll need a two, a set of two pound hand weights or maybe one pound great class to do a on vacation. All of you at home, all you need is the weights or even bottles of water. Um, it would be fine, no mat needed. So let's get going. I want you to stand with your legs in parallel and w connect up into the high inner thigh muscles and contract your legs together. So you might even feel that your low seat muscles contract as well. That's okay. I just don't want you to overgrip your, your quads or your or your glutes.

Think more that you're pressing them together and then zip yourself tall, so from your low abdomen and your legs get really, really tall. Okay? So as we're working with our hand weights and the extra weight here, you may start to feel some tension up in your neck and shoulders. If you're feeling that, just drop them down or more importantly, try to connect more of course down into the side, back muscles here in your labs. All right, let's take a nice deep breath. And the first thing we'll be doing is some standing foot work. So I want you to reach your arms forward. Knees are bending, you're opening your arms out to the side and then press your arms down.

And I'm gonna change that slightly already. So open your arms while your knees are bent, and then now press your arms. When your legs stand. We'll do eight total. Here's our third one, open and press. And so things you'll also note during this class when we work with weights, um, you get a little more fatigued. That's a good thing, but your balance will be challenged in certain exercises as well. So great exercise for tapping into that and open empress your arms and reach.

Now I'm going to reverse the arm direction. What we'll do. Eight more knee bends. So arms go out first, they come forward, press them toward you as you straighten your legs, arms raise up, reach forward, come towards you as your straighten your legs. Important to keep your shoulders over, your hips, your abdominals, back to your spine. Sense of length up through the top of your head. Let's do four more and feel your feet really pushed down into the ground three and down too. So this arm pattern happens in the next two leg positions for our knee Benz and standing foot work also. So we're going to go into our Polonius v. Same thing.

Liai the legs or bend the knees. Knees are tracking straight out over the midfoot. Open the arms in once again as you lower your arms, squeeze your legs together. And we've been, we open and press concentrate on that nice elongated spine front ribs towards your back ribs so you're not over arching your back for more press and 3:00 AM press. So a lot of leg work in this down and up motion, but that is all right. We're going to reverse the arms. Same with the leg.

So open forward and press reach out, reach forward and press heels are squeezing together down there against the floor. Okay. And for more reach out forward, press your arms towards your legs and three [inaudible] and too. So every time those arms go open. Think of a wide chest and a good posture for your upper back. Same thing with your feet apart. I'm going to go fairly wide.

Heels are wider than hips. Same thing. You don't have to bend too deeply to get the benefit of this position, but if you want more work, certainly bend your knees deeper and lower your hips deeper. Something like that. And press do what feels right for your hips and your knees. So something else we can think about with those inner thighs.

They're not together any longer, but I'm imagining that I'm almost trying to pull the floor boards more toward my midline, pulling them toward that midline so you feel those inner thighs connecting. Here's our eight reversing the direction and open glows. Press and open, closed and press and haul spine bend. Feel both feet. Press down evenly into the floor. Three last two. Chest is open.

Shoulders staying above the hips. Last one and lower. Okay, moving on. You can toe heel your feet back in together. And let's once again go into that a little small Palazzos. V Do your heels together, toes apart, and just lift your arms up. Or even up to this height. This is going to be more work to hold.

So if you're feeling a little challenge already, come down here. Let's roll to the feet. So bend those knees again. Roll through. I want your heels to come apart. Press up till Relevate or straight knees. Now Watch my heels. Pull them together and then lower down.

So we play, we lift up, watch the heels, they come together and all the way down to more here. Bend, roll through. Press up, heels together. One more bend. Roll through heals up together and down. Okay, I'm going to lower my arms for a minute and then raise them up. I needed a little brick.

We're gonna reverse the position so you'll rise first you'll bend heels, come together and down. Rise. Bend the knees, bring your heels together to the floor and rise to more up then heels together. Push and rise. Last one. Then heels together and rise. Okay. Pivot your feet to parallel. So now the legs are right underneath the pelvis. Arms.

I'm going to stand to the side for just a second. So arms will just be doing a movement forward and back. You'll bend your knees and around your spine and then press to stand. I'm going to stay there for a couple more reps so you can see I'm trying to thread my belly button toward my back but not around the mid back there or the upper back. So try to stay low. Okay, so I'm going to face you again to keep going. Let's do four more together. So we have been, it's a contraction for your stomach, your abs and press rye. So you're trying to widen your back, stretch it long and wide. And last one, I want you to stay in that position and now shift your weight to one foot.

Lift the other foot up and just hold a balance. Hold a balance, hold a balance and step down. Rise and straighten your arms down. Bend your knees and do the round back shape again. So hold your tummy in. Shift your weight to that second leg and lift the other leg off the floor.

It's your turn to hold your balance. Hold your abdominals in. Step the foot down and lower. So we're going to do a little more pace with it. So Ben and contract shift down and stand. Bend and contract. Shift stand. And again, so we bend and contract. This is gonna. Think of this as standing abdominal work and [inaudible] or act and lift down.

I'm going to do four more. So the abdominal muscles are acting to help stabilize the c shape of the spine. I'm going to inform you, my right knee is doing a little funky dance today. So I'm concentrating deeply right now, holding my leg steady. There we go. Okay, good. Now let's just say an employee's v.

Focus on the arms for quite a bit. Okay, so feel yourself tall, raise your arms up. You're in a 45 degree bend. Your shoulders are on the back. We're going to open the elbows, pull the shoulder blades together on purpose, widen them, and then bring me arms in front. So again, we open. I want you to contract your upper back to bring your shoulder blades together. Then widen your shoulder blades and in I'm going to turn around. You might be able to see it this way to open. So here's what I'm doing.

I want to bring them together on purpose. And then the difference then is to widen and stretch those back muscles and close the elbows. One more time. We open and we can tract my ribs have been thrusted forward. We open close now go back out into the away from you side. And we're going to do four bicep curls here. Slowly bring them in in, in an open, open, open pool in, in, in an open. Your legs are still actively held together. Two, three and Y. Bend your elbows and think of stretching your triceps underneath your arm. See the same thing with your arms in front. Here we go.

Bend two, three and straighten and control two, three. Control a reach away. Shoulders are down your back and reach. Last one in two, three and open. We're going to do a pattern. So open your arms, bicep curl, arms in front, and extend three more out. Then arms come in front.

The whole objective is to keep your upper arm level to your shoulder close and out. We're going to reverse it once your arms are straightened front, so just back it up. Go the other way. Ben In here first. Open, wide out and front bend. Open wide. Stretch your chest. Last you here. Hope you're still with me. This is a long series and in and last one and we bend and we open. Now you're going to hate this. Hold here. Keep your poems up.

Do little circles for eight, seven, six, five, four. Great for Tony. No shoulders other way for eight. Seven. Think of reach into the sides of the room. Five, six. I'm going to do each direction again and we have one and two energy up down the feet and six and seven last one in one and two and four and five and six you'll get a little break by lowering your arms, palms down, feeling that. Now lift the arms back up again. Externally rotate. So we're going to go back into the flip and focus on your thumb. You hear me and say it all the time. Thumb faces back.

This is a little karate chop arm. You're going back and back and back. I'm going to turn from the side so it's not rib movement. You can see that the ribs are staying right above the pelvis, its arms eight more and one contract your upper back three and four, just four. So good to strengthen that upper back. Better posture on the way. Okay, closed arms go down. Let's go to parallel.

Chest expansion is the next one. And I want you first just here with your arms, right by your sides. Breathe in and move your arms back. Exhale, arms come right by your side. So the expansion of your ribs, the filling up of the lungs, that internal volume creation of chest expansion moves your arms out of the way. That's my thinking. Add a little heel lift. Inhale, rise and exhale lower with control. So, so if you have to kind of resist coming down to the floor, press with control. Lowered down with control.

Three more. Trying to feel both feet evenly in the floor and lower looking good. And two more. Your arms are long, your neck is long, reaching up out of your shoulders and pause. Okay, good. Moving on with some more arms tricep arm behind you. But let's move into one leg forward lunch. So pick a leg step forward.

And I don't want you really turned out with the hip and knee and ankle. It's not about that. It's really about shifting some weight onto your front leg. So you've got a crease into your hip, joint, arms by your sides. And I'm going to deepen that hinge and so much so excuse me, that I could just lightly touch the back toe to the floor. Okay, so the other thing I want you to concentrate on this standing leg is making sure that the the thigh, this is my funky knee today, the thigh does not do this shift each shift. Okay?

What's going to help you with that is to really contract into your hip, the glute medius muscle to help whole your femur really steady. Okay, so let's see what I've got. So we're going to shift your weight, look out into the room on the floor in front of you. It's known as spotting and just hold. That could be enough for you. Let's do four arm lifts. So both arms are going to list up. This is triceps and down. They can come forward, press and forward stomach to spine. Okay. If you want to say with that version, go ahead. I'm going to challenge it and live my back foot just slightly off the floor.

So you're in balance. Work with these swinging arms. It's a little precarious. I'm going to do four more. I'm gonna see if I can get to lift my leg a little higher and lunge a little deeper and trust then I'm not going to lose my balance and to stay up in this last one you probably can't see it, but what I'm going to do with my leg is lift my leg. Eight little extra lifts, one, two, three reached the arms, reaching back with the leg, reach back as the chest is forward. Six, seven [inaudible] and Eh, okay, I'm coming out of that and I chose that today cause I need it wasn't as good on my balance, but that's all right. So here we go. Second leg goes forward. That soft turnout lunge.

Same thing with the arm. So start them in front, get yourself set and then shift just enough so you can be on the tip of that toe just for our movements. One, let's do a different angle. See what I did. I went here, I'm gonna change it this way just to work a little different edge of your arm muscles so that we'll count that as one and to shoulders are down the back. Four, keep going with the foot. Four, three, two, one. I'm gonna go a little higher with the leg. A little deeper. Crease for four, the room trying to lift those triceps up to the ceiling. Three. Now here we go. Challenge the balance, reach the arms back with the leg.

The leg goes up for eight, three, four, belly to spine, five, six, seven, [inaudible] and eight. Okay, bring your foot down. Round your back for just a second. And then just come up to stand up. Okay, open the legs. We need to open up the stance for awhile and I want you to bend your knees pretty deeply. Lowering your pelvis rate down between hands behind your head.

Now you can drop the weights at this point if you want to. If they're getting heavy, I don't want your shoulders up here. That'll defeat the purpose. So just drop them down side of dominal contraction. So bend in one side and bring yourself to center. Kind of keep us low, alternating sides.

So, and as I go to this site, I want to anchor the opposite heel into the floor to help me come up. It's just a little counterbalance mechanism that you can tap into for more. So is the opposite heel. You want to get it a little heavier to bring you up every now and again. Check those shoulders. Can you drop them down?

Sing of widen the Elmos and center elbows to the back window. So I'm going to do a little pattern. Three to the side, meaning three little contractions, two, three and stand. You'll get a really good waistline this way. You've got really long, lean abs this way and probably sore, but it's good for you. And two and three rye and oh, we'll do the pattern again four times. So we have o one. Think about elbows back, feel more challenge and back.

And two, three, once again, each side and bend two and three. Up and bend and two and three and center. Okay. Hands on your legs. Center yourself and lift one heel. No big deal. Alternate sides. So if this feels too easy, by all means go lower.

Bend, lift the heel and lift. Say Arms to the side and he'll, and he'll remember you're trying to cover the room with your energy, with your space. Let's go for more. So we have a lift and lift and lift and we'll take eight with both heels at the same time. Here we go. Stay low, don't pop up. Three, four, four, three. I was popping up a little bit into last one and also my feet are sweating so I'm not going to be dangerous. I'm going to stand tall. Heel toe together.

We're almost done. I want you to loosen up your legs now. Arms by your sides. Stand on one leg and just try to brush your leg front and back. It doesn't have to look like anything, no shape involved. I do just want you to swing from your hip joint. [inaudible] okay? Keeps swinging. If you lose your balance a little, it's okay.

I told you some of these things in standing. Work your balance. [inaudible] four and three. Two just loosen your leg, other side. Ready? Stand on that lay. Come on knee, stay with me and to just let it relax and for and for and through him and a half to count to eight again. Ready? Cause we did 16 of them. Here we go. Here's one second set of eight.

Um, does a nice quicky little standing mat workout, arms, back, belly, legs. Let's fit. She was as standing rolled down, so feet apart. Nice deep breath. Bend your knees guys and is, take yourself down. Let your arms hang. Let go, was shaking your head and then roll yourself all the way up to finish. Thank you very much.

Comments

I love it...
1 person likes this.
Wow! Great workout. A lot packed into a short amount of time. Placing in favorites to do again.
2 people like this.
This workout really helped put some gas in my energy tank. Amy, I am sure you hear this a million times a day, but I will say it again. You are such an amazing teacher. Sending you appreciation.
2 people like this.
Thanks Amy great 20 mins boost!
1 person likes this.
Wow! That was a fantastic whole-body workout in only 20 mins. Love it.
1 person likes this.
....and to think I thought I might be "slacking" with such a short class. My arms were begging for relief at the end of some of those repetitions This class is going to go on my travels with me. There is ALWAYS enough space do to these movements. As always thanks for showing the exercises from different perspectives ...it really demonstrates your committment to helping us understand exactly what you are looking for. Kudos to camera man/woman too.
1 person likes this.
Right up my alley, loving your quick standing Pilates workout, Amy. Thank you for showing these movements.
1 person likes this.
Thank you for this workout! Would love to see more of these short standing workouts that focus on arms. Thanks again Amy!
1 person likes this.
Congrats on #200!!!!!! (great workout, too!)
1 person likes this.
Great workout! Thanks Amy!!
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