Class #2729

Sequencing to Leg Pull

30 min - Class
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Description

Work toward a successful Leg Pull in this resourceful Mat workout with Benjamin Degenhardt. He helps you understand this exercise by putting together familiar exercises in a way that will prepare you for the full movement. He includes creative sequences including a One Leg Kick variation, Swimming Prep to a Plank, and much more!
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Oct 03, 2016
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Transcript

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Hi everybody. I'm, my name is Benjamin. I'm here with Benny and Amy for a leg pull inspired math class. It's a short workout that is really geared towards understanding the lake somewhat better. There's a tutorial that comes with this class that focuses on the exercise in isolation, but this class just puts a lot of the exercise that we already know together in a way that makes you succeed in your like pull just a little stronger. Are you guys ready? Want to come to the front of our mat for a warmup here.

It's a lunge and twist warmup. There's really no name for this exercise, but essentially it starts by waking up our hands, our feet as well as our brain and coordination. We begin with the right hand side. You take your right hand down to the ground. We placing your right foot to come into a lunge step and I want you to stay here for a second. Become fascinated with your hand and how it relates to the ground. Place your shoulder on your back. Feel your left foot evenly part pressing into the floor and your back heel, reaching back, the crown of your head, reaching forward, and then you add the other side.

You take your left hand down to replace your left foot, stepping your left foot back. Take a moment here. You now on four points of contact, begin to pull your shoulders down your back so that your chest can pull forward at the same time your heels kicking back coming forward again. You take your right foot forward to replace your right hand. Now take that same lender step again, one knee reaching forward, the opposite heel, reaching back and then come all the way up to standing. And then we begin with the other side. Left hand comes down, left foot steps back. Take a moment here. We'll take one more set, nice and slow to find all those different positions we work through.

Take your right foot back, right hand comes down. Find your plan. Pull the chest through the arms, stretch your head away from your heels. Replace your left hand with your left foot. Stepping forward, finding a long, strong back, and then coming all the way up to standing will now pick up the pace a little bit, right? 10 goes down, plank it back both hands, both feet, right foot steps forward. You come up to standing, you start on the left side. Try and revisit all those stations we find tune earlier on. We check one more round like that right hand down, right footsteps back.

This is a skill that we need later on for leg poultry. Bear weight into our arms and our legs. Maintaining a long spine. All throughout we're going to add on and this next set as you take your right hand down and your right foot back, lift your left arm up towards the ceiling. Let's fine tune this a little bit and make sure that your left knee pulls straight forward in space. Your right heel straight back and then you stack your left arm on top of your right, pushing the ground away with your right hand. Come down into your plan.

From here. Find your head reaching forward, your heels reaching back. Now step into the opposite. Twist. The foot comes forward. Your right arm lifts up wide across your chest, maximum wingspan and come all the way up to standing. Other side. Left hand comes down, replacing the left foot. The right arm lifts up. Make sure that your neck has space to lengthen out of your upper back.

Take it into your plan, even out your hips, even out your shoulders. Find your opposite twist and find the opposition in your lunge. Step open through the spine, corkscrew your head out of your hips, and then come all the way up to standing. We'll take two more sets a little quicker. Right hand down, left arm lift. Find your plan. Find the opposite twist. Come all the way up to standing.

Reverse it. Take it down, and take your plank open to the left. Come back to a standing. This will be your last. Set. The left side down. Yes, and twist it back. Come forward. Open through the chest. Come all the way back up to standing and finishing up. Left side down. Open into your plank. Open to the left, and come all the way back up to standing. It seems like I have a little left and right problem.

You'll see that this is a really much about coordination as much as finding strength in your body. Take your arms up by your ears. Let's take a moment here to just center ourselves. Heels together, toes slightly apart, finding our [inaudible] stands if you want to call it that, but remind yourself that this is a movement to right as your heels lift up off the ground, you press your heels into one another to create nice traction through your inner thighs, through your hips, length through your spine, and then from here, lower the heels back down and keep your fingertips reaching up towards the ceiling. Lifting back up. We'll use this as a way to establish how long we can be in our whole body here, something that we want to maintain when we go into our leg. Pull later, heels reach back down while the fingertips keep reaching up. One more time, just that lift your heels up off the ground without leaning the body forward. All too much. Lengthen your tail down. Draw the ribs in to get even taller in your body. And then lower the heels down.

Relax your arms by your sides and then come into a four legged position. We'll take one more warm up exercise here before we go into our traditional sequencing. Come to a four legged position. Hands under shoulders, knees under hips. Your hands are shoulder distance apart. Your knees and hip distance apart and everything is parallel. Begin again by drawing your chest forward through the arms, somewhat your low back, lengthening out your knees, pulling the mat together without actually moving from here we go into our bird dog looking for stability and verticality through the spine. You reach your right arm forward and your left arm back at the same time.

Take a moment here to make sure that your shoulders are still square, your hips are squared off and your lower back maintains its full length here. No wrinkles on your lower back. Chicken with your left elbow. Make sure it's not sinking into itself. It's still lifting up and then change to the other side. Right hand down, left knee down. Go the other way. Stretch your arm and your leg away from each other. More often than not.

The writer wants to lift on this size and see if he can bring them side by side and then the left shoulder lowers down. It might feel counterintuitive until you're in alignment and then come back in one more time. Each side thinking about that leg pull action here of the crown of the head, reaching forward in opposition to your tail reaching back. Come all the way back in. Take the other side. It's a great nonthreatening core strength and are here to also find your balance again in this uni lateral movement. Come all the way back in.

We'll take one more each way, right? I'm forward, left leg back. Now stay right here. Keeping your shoulders and hips square. Can you now extend your left leg up out of your hip so much that it's becoming a little higher than your shoulders, a higher than your leg without turning the hip in or out, and then bring your knee back underneath you. Relax the hand down. Other side. Last time. Left arm forward, right leg back against square of the shoulders. Perhaps the left shoulder has to come down more than you think it does.

Then begin to dial your right leg up in space. The right hip bone goes towards the ground. Your right toes lift up towards the ceiling, lifting the back of your thigh, firing up your seat and the back of your leg. Come all the way back in. Sit yourself back on your heels for just a moment of relaxing you back. Really folding into your hips, knees, and ankles there so that your spine can be fully relaxed.

Let's take a full breath in and out here. One more warm up exercise. We come into a forearm plank. Again, firing up all the postural muscles in our body. Challenging the position of our spine against gravity here. So come on down. Press the links of your forms down. This is a skill we are going to need. A lot of the exercises that are to come, press your heels back, stretched the crown of your head forward. Want to stay here for a few breaths, right? Um, it's worth mentioning that the current world record and holding a plank is at about eight hours. So you can hold it for like 30 seconds, right?

That's a yes, right? Pull the chest through the arms. Kick your heels back. Where's eight hours to hold a plank? It's crazy. Press your legs into one another if they're close together. And then see if you can use your breath to make it feel like you're actually moving. C with your inhale, you can expand through the ribs. Find more space in your spine with your XCL. You can NRG your lower back, send you a table and back behind you. We'll just take one more deep breath here.

Inhaling, full-bodied effort XL all the air out. And once you did, bend your knees, sit yourself back again into that little counter stretch, releasing your back. So that full-bodied effort we just felt in that form planning. We want to try and put that into our hundred exercise. So now we go back to more traditional sequencing of Polonius math work.

Ready to go? Bring your legs out in front of you. Roll yourself down onto your back and begin by stretching your arms over your head. Just feel the length of your body for a second. Your toes reaching one way, your fingertips, the other actually for the moment, allow your ribs to arch off the mat. Really allow your ribs to pop off the ground. Feel the opening in the front of your body and then aim to undo that.

As you swing the arms up and forward and you lift your head, neck and shoulders. Try to meet. Move your ribs the opposite direction. Stretch the legs out of your body, hovered them off the ground. Stay here for one deep breath in. Get longer through arms and legs deeper through your stomach, on your breaths out, and then release back down. Release the legs, stretch your arms over your head and let your ribs pop off the mat just to fully stretch, almost disengaging through your center to then find it again.

Take the arms up and forward. Lift head, neck and shoulders, and find your hundred position. It might be with the legs parallel to the ground. It might have to be way up. You might have to bend your knees into your chest, stay for another breath. Inhale, try to even out the curve in your spine. Get longer through the limb, stronger through your full body. Exhale, release down. Stretch your arms over your head. We'll take one more.

We'll hold it for three breaths of this time. We're not adding even lift arms up and forward. Curve your spine fully. Allow your low back to move a little your middle back, a little your upper back a little so that your neck doesn't have to do a lot. One more deep breath. Inhale, maybe lift up a little bit high or excess. Stretch through arms and legs. Press your legs into one another. You are done.

Release the legs down. We trumps over your head. Let your ribs distend again and then bend your knees into your chest. Give yourself a squeeze in a hug, maybe a little rock side to side, and rock yourself up to a seated position for our roll love. If you have this available for this particular class, we're going to use the strap for a fee to go ahead and hook your feet under. Place the strap over your ankle crease so that you can really flex your feet against it, back yourself off so much.

It almost feels like a tourniquet around your ankles. That's right. And then roll all the way down into your back. Stretch your arms straight up to the ceiling. Our focus for our rollout will be about shoulder differentiation in that initial portion of it so we can link it to our leg pull later. Begin to reach arms over your head.

But this time do not let your ribs to stand like we did earlier on. So see if he can find an opposition through your center that keeps the rib cage down your spine, long, your feet still pulling the strap and then lift your arms back up. Bring them all the way down by your sides. Leave your head heavy and push your arms into the mat like you're trying to leave two imprints of your arms on your match, opening the chest, take the arms all the way up and back again. So very simple movement. But if you really look for stability through the center, you'll find a lot of sensation. With this very simple move.

Take the ons up forward and down into the mat. Press your arms back into your mattress, open your chest, see if you can find more breath, more space to breathe into. We'll take one more. Begin to link that into your roll up. Arms go up and over your head. Now pick your head up along with your arms, Chin over chest. Roll yourself up and continue to pull the strap. Let the strap do some of the work of your roll up here.

Lift yourself all the way up and over your legs. Round your head down towards your knees. Keep your stomach lifted off your thighs and then come right back down using the strap for control. And then again focusing on that shoulder movement against the ribs. Staying stable, going in, arms up and forward. Chin over your chest.

Use The exhale to find the deepest expression forward. Pull the strap and roll yourself back down. Arms over your head against the ribs dropping. We'll take one more round. Arms up and forward. Chin over chest. It's like you try to touch your head towards your knees, but you never get to really lean into your thighs with control. Come back down.

Keep pulling the strap strongly till the very end arms over your head, and then take your arms forward and down by your sides. Press them into the mat, just like chest expansion for a second. Lose your strap and your knees into your chest. Give yourself another squeeze here. Maybe a little rock side to side, maybe circle something that feels good on your low back after we moved it forward and back so much going into a roll over next, take your legs out in front of you and bring your arms over your head. If you can reach for the corners of your mat here so that you can hook your fingers around them. Just works best on an elevated mat. Of course, right? If you have dowels available, you can use those as well.

And if this is not available for your shoulders, you're just putting your arms down by your sides and you press them back the same way we did in those rollovers. Roll-Ups. Now from here, extend the legs out of your body the same way you did and your a hundred unweight your legs and bring them up to 90 degrees. Just pause right there. See how your shoulders feel he has. See if he can actively pull on your mat to deepen your ribs down and then lift your hips up and over your head. Keep stretching your legs back behind you. Open them just as wide as your mat, and then roll yourself back down. So it's the choreography of a rollover, but I want you to really focus on your arms pulling the mat scar to finish, especially as you come down. Open the legs.

Now Paul like you sliding back on your mat. Take one more. Circle this way. Up and over. Open the legs. Pull harder with the arms as you roll yourself down, and then reverse the pattern open to lift. Squeeze the legs together, roll back down. It's that pulling action really brings your back into the exercise. This is all stuff that's going to help us later. Hold that leg pole plank a little bit longer and a little better.

Let's do one more down around it up. Squeeze the legs together. Resist coming down by pulling with the arms and then lower your legs all the way down because this is still available for your shoulders. We'll keep the arms right there. Lift your right leg straight up to the ceiling. Again, your other option would be to get your arms down by your side. We'll do a one legged tick talk from here.

Let me just square you off a little bit. Good. Bring your hips a little bit to the left. Perfect. Right there. You pull with your arm still the leg goes across the middle, but it's really your hip lifting up off the ground. That begins to add a nice little rotation of your spine. Make sure your right hand is still pulling on the corner of Your Mat and what brings you back in as you're right a dropping down.

We'll just do that movement twice more. Think about creating more lengths in your back. This is your first saw. It's your first corkscrew of the day. Slowly take that hip back down to take the leg straight up. Do One more. The hip lifts to take the leg across.

The right arm pulls incredibly hard because that shoulder can't lift. Take the leg back to center. Let's do one more. In fact, focus on your left leg a little bit stronger. Pull your toes towards your shins. Flex the foot, and try not to change that at all. Take your toe straight up to the ceiling internally. Rotate your bottom leg. It makes it feel ever so slightly. A little different, right to come all the way back up. Lower the right leg down.

Let's do the second side. Maybe shake out your legs a little bit in between. Reengage your pole, activate your arms. Take your left leg straight up right from the start. Flex your right foot here. Price it out. Take the left hip up to bring the leg across, right? The other way to do that would be to let the leg fall across the middle and the hip passively lifts. We're going to do it the other way.

Come back through center. It's the hip lifting up that takes the leg across as the right leg counter rotates. Should feel ever so slightly. Gut wrenching a little bit right. Your left are instilled. Pulling the hip comes down. That leg comes up. I'm selling this exercise very well. Am might not. One more time. Lift the hips up and across. Counter. Rotate your right leg. Yes.

All right, and come all the way back up. Let's take a final one so that we have even numbers of reps here. Take the leg across. We allow you to stretch your back. Feel how your shirt and your skin stretches your muscles. Stretch the same direction. Come back through center. Lower the leg down.

Reach your arms over your head. Allow your ribs to distend like you did in that very first time you were on your back and then in one motion, sit yourself up. Bend your knees, Grab Ahold of your shins by the ankles and let's rock it out a few times. Roll to your shoulders. Rolling like a ball. I swear you have enough space. You come back up. Do it a few more times. Really just in an effort to release your back a little bit.

There should almost feel the same way like that [inaudible] stretch we took on our knees, right? The back is rounded the same exact way. There's two more times rolling back, lifting up. Here's your last one. Roll back, lift back up and stay. And now let's put it all together. With that hundred position we worked on earlier, stretch your legs and arms forward. Roll your spine down. Pause when your shoulder blade tips are hovering above the mat and see if you can keep reaching your legs further forward.

Maybe a little further down so they just hover above the ground for one full breath. Pull one full x sail and then you release all the way back down. So it's your arms over your head. Let your ribs distend and then you can choose again. Either you hold onto the corners of your mat for your corks.

Who all you bring your arms down by your sides. We're not going to take the hips overhead today. We're just going to keep the legs at a 90 degree angle. So go ahead and press your legs into one another. Lift your leg straight up to the ceiling, use your arms actively.

It'll serve as later in our leg. Pull. Take both legs over to the right. It's the left hip lifting that takes the legs there, circle them down around to the left, back through center and then reverse it the other way. Left down, around and up. So we take that tic talk idea from earlier. Now hang both legs off of the spine so you get a deeper stretch. We're looking for the same control of the arms, same control of the shoulders.

And then a nice free breath. You guys are breathing right, right. It's down over to the left and up. Left sides down. Swing it around one last time. Come through center. Bend your knees into your chest. This is enough cause it's really just a warmup for our saw.

Come on up to a seated position, whichever way you'd like. Open your legs as wide as your mat and bring your arms out to the left and right. Good. Now here's one of my favorite instructions from the original book, and that is to touch your shoulder blades together as far as you can. Lock your shoulder blades in place. Now that should not feel like your movement can no longer occur.

It should feel like you're opening your chest to the Max, right? Your middle finger tip. Stretch away from one another as far as possible. Try to maintain that as you take your twist, twist to the right and then round over your leg. Take your left hand to the outside of your right foot if that's available to you. Have both shoulders square with one another. So almost roll your right shoulder in towards the left.

Reach your right and back, and then come all the way back up through center. Take it to the left, twist and rounding down the arm. Stretch one forward one back the shoulders against square to the ground for this variation today and lifting back up. Take her to the right. Find your own rhythm of breathing here. Exhale to round down. You don't want any air to be left inside your lungs at the end of that stretch.

Nice add, come all the way back through. Centro. Take a to the left and Xcel around down. Leg pull is really a very strong back exercise, right? So we want to alternate stretching and strengthening it throughout our warmup. Leading to the leg. Pull one more time each way. Take it to the right now.

Go a little bit deeper. Adam. Miner pulsing sensation here. Reaching forward. Coming out a little, going deeper, going deeper. One more time. Lift back through center. Final one, twist to the left, x around deeper. And then gently try to go a little farther. Go past your edge, but always with breath and control. Come back through center. Pause here for a second. Turn your palms forward and hug your shoulder.

Bates together even more. Begin to press your arms back behind you. A movement that we haven't done to our shoulders. Just yet. It for one full breath and then release the arms back down by your sides. Next up is our swan dive. Now you really get to strengthen your back and we make our way to the leg pull.

Um, swing your legs over to my end here. And flip onto your stomach. Perfect little break dance transition a lot. Let's run your arms out to the left and right palms towards the floor and you can actually rest them there for a second. So your hairline, your forehead is down on the mat, you hit bones gently press into the mat, your legs reach back behind you. We come from this place here on. The first thing you want to find is a very small little hover your arms lift a tiny little bit off the ground, your chest, lift the tail a little bit off the ground, your thighs, the backs of your thighs, lift towards the ceiling ever so slightly. And then once you feel at the whole back of your body is on, you start to find your breath. Little sips of air will do.

And then you explore how high you can come with that. Can you stretch your heart forward and up your legs behind you and up your arms out to either side. And yes, if you get into each other's way, lift each other up, take another full breath and then slowly take it all the way down. Let's do that two more times, right? This is just a way for us to find strength in our back. Lift yourself back up. Your body stretches in four directions here.

The whole back of your body works as a team effort. Keep your low back nice and long, all throughout. Deep breath in and take it all the way back down. So Nice you guys. One more time. Always move with your breath here, right? Your breath being held tells you that your body might not be comfortable or you have gone too far too fast, right? Especially in this one.

As we are working specifically to one exercise, you just want to make sure that your hold back knows how to work as a team. Slowly take it all the way down. From here, we'll add a little bit of a rocking sensation. This was not going to be your biggest swan dive yet. It just going to be a very small rock forward and back. Lift your arms to lift your chest, lift your legs, commit to the shape you're in.

Begin to lift your chest a little hard to create the slightest amount of momentum and then rock forward and back forward and back, forward and back. Almost wait for your momentum to seize without increasing it over time. You probably have like two more reps here before you start coming back through center and then release all the way back down. Take a deep breath in. Nice you guys. Lift yourself up. One more time from that lift and a continue into our one leg kick where your chest is. Keep it. Take your hands underneath your forehead, one on top of the other with your arms still lifted so we're not holding the ground just yet.

Keep your size lifted off the ground and do your one leg here today. Kick your right heel to your seed. One, two and left side one to try to keep both eyes lifted off the ground one, two and straight shoot one to keep on going like that and see from the strength of your upper back. You can pick yourself up a little bit high with each repetition. Sadly, you don't have your arms to help you here right now. They will come back in a second for right now. Once you find the strength in your back, take one more rights or one more left and then stay.

Take your hands underneath your shoulders, Tuck your toes under and see if you can push yourself into a plan using all the muscles you just fell and you've swanned over in your one leg and hold this plan for one full breath in. For one full breath. At bend the elbows come back down. Land your hips down first. Try to keep both eyes lifted. Point your toes so your legs are up. Now. Place your elbows underneath your shoulders. Try to dig your forms into the match or pull your chest forward and out.

Maybe adjust your gaze a little further forward. Thighs still lifted. We do another round of one leg kick right here, one, two and switch one to right, one two and left one to keep pulling your chest through the arms. And if the abdominal wall away from the ground, we take one more right and one more left. Same transition as before. Tuck your toes under, place your hands flat underneath your shoulders. Stretch the crown of your head, forward you heels back, lift into your plan and hold it for a count of three.

Marie as you hold two chest poles, Rudy, arms one slowly lower back down. Land your hips down first this time stretch your arms out to the left and ride. Point your toes back, your thighs still lifted and just keep your swan dive position for another breath. Inhale, exhale, release all the way back down. I think you deserve a counter stretch analysis your hips back towards you. He of great work you guys. So we just fired up the bag, getting some good work into the hips as well as working the spinal muscles that hold your an extension almost there. Almost there.

We just have one more exercise leading up into our leg pole and that is about mobilizing the hip somewhat so that we are able to pick the legs up off the ground. We'll do the sidekick to make that happen. Let's all bring ourselves to the right side of our bodies with facing this way here and lay all the way down on your right side. Bring your leg slightly forward. So you feed out the front corner of Your Mat, your hips and your shoulders are at the back corner of Your Mat, right? We're on an elevated mass. You don't want to play that game too hard. What else are you going to fall off?

We try both hands behind the head right from the start, so take your right hand behind the head as well if that's available. Think of your neck. Pull a little bit here where you press your head back into your hands and you try to pull your head away from your hip. So there's a little lift from the bottom side of the ways there's no side bending is definitely needs no side bending in the neck. Now lift your top leg up and bring it back behind you as far as you can.

Allow your chest to puff forward and up against that. Keep digging your elbow down into the mat and keep stretching your head away from the hip. See from here, you can drive a nice long kick forward against your own nose for a double kick and then stretch it back. Hold it there. Keep your hip stack and go again. Kick one, kick two areas. Reach should back. Keep on going. Kick one, two, and reach should back. Nice as you go and explore your range of motion. Here are mostly interested in your hips staying stacked, but your torso is freedom. Move along with it, right? We're still trying to figure out how to move our hips in isolation from our upper body, but that doesn't mean that we want to keep the torso still or rigid, right? Allow it to move, kick and reach it back. Take two more kick, kick, reach it back. Last one, kick, kick. Reach it back and stay here for a second.

Now keep stretching your leg back behind you without lifting it up. Reach your left arm forward on a diagonal, right in line with that leg and see if he can take a deeper stretch. Think of your corkscrew you one leg circle you and how you stretched your back diagonally. See if it can make the same thing happening here. Think of your bird dog as well, how you stabilized on a diagonal. Nice and then slowly roll over your stomach to the other side.

One more side to go. Both hands behind the head. Press you, head back into your hands again, make your spine as long as you possibly can, right? Won't be completely straight, but we're looking for something like that. Your top leg lifts up and moves back behind you. Your chest lifts forward and up against the leg, reaching back. And then again, make up your mind that your hips stay on top of one another and your body while we'll see how much it moves. Take the leg forward, kick one kick too and reach it back. Nice and kick forward thought. Reach it back. Start to notice how much your bottom leg is part of this as well, right? If it just limp on the ground, it's not going to give you the space or the foundation that you need to kick from. So keep pressing your bottom for down debt and reach it back to more taps. Kick, kick, rigid back. Last one, kick and kick. Reach and hold.

Now again, stretch that leg behind you. Reach your arm in opposition. Find your whole body being part of this balance here and then we play a little tug of war. Somebody pulls your arm, somebody else pulls your leg. I will do that if I had four sets of arms. Promise. Now find that same rotation through your back again from your one leg circle or your tic top rather, and your corkscrew and then recover. Come back into your stomach. Take your hands underneath your shoulders, Tuck your toes under.

We have one more little drill before we do the actual leg hole. Lift yourself into a plank. Just hold it for three full breaths. Stretch the crown of your head forward the heels back. Now [inaudible] to notice what's different from half hour ago in your body. How much more comfortable you feel here or maybe not.

Maybe you're tired at this point. Totally possible to, let's see if your body already has a better understanding of how to hold itself. The float, how your breath can still flow even you're in a very dreadful position right now. Now slowly bend the elbows. Land your hips down first. Point your toes back and reach your arms out in front of you like you're about to do swimming. Except we won't. You just hold the shape. You try to have your chest up higher with your arms reaching up nice and high. Remember how you took your arms over your head without extending your ribs.

See if he can find that link here. Then take your hands under your shoulders. Tuck your toes under, lift back up into plank. Push yourself back up. Shoulders pulled back. Chest pulls forward. Not In an effort to lock the shoulders down, but you make sure that you have space to breathe into. One full breath here. Fully exhale. Bend the elbows. Land your hips down first.

One more time into that swimming hole. Your arms reach forward. Your legs reach backwards like Superman. You're super woman. Lift the backs of your thighs towards the ceiling. Lift your heart forward and up. We're getting ready for a leg pull now. Take your hands under your shoulders. Tech your toes. Lift yourself up.

Traditional leg pole. You point your right toes back behind. You kick the leg twice up to the ceiling. You flex the foot and you pull it towards the ground out side point the left foot up. Kick in once, kicking twice. Flex and pull it down. Now what we try to do here is to kick the leg up without putting a dent into a low back kick. Kick off the exit down the left side. Kick it up, up like sit down. If I saw you from the hips up, I would think that you are still just holding a plank. Kick up, up. Take it down. You have your final set, right, right. Like sit down, left, left for the Lexa down. Stay step your right foot forward.

Lift your left arm up towards the ceiling. We'll finish up with that same lunge twist from the start your left arm. Oh your right arm, your right and see I told you I have a left right problem today. It happens. Press your left hand down. Reach your right arm up, get wide across the chest, stretch your knee forward in opposition to your back heel, and then return into your plank. We'll do, let's just say the other side or the other foot forward. Lift your left arm up towards the ceiling, keeping it very real today.

Open through the chest, corkscrew your head out of your hip. Nice opening wide back heel, reaching back. Try to lift your back thigh up towards the ceiling. A little more nice. Return into your plan. It's your last one, I promise. Take a full breath in. Take a full breath out. Lift your hips up towards the ceiling.

Walk your hands back towards your feet. Soften your needs as much as you must to get your hands flat down in front of your big toes. Take a full breath here. Maybe a little flutter. Exhale to release your neck to release your spine and then slowly roll yourself all the way up. Nice you guys. Well, that was your leg pull inspired mad class. Again, there's a tutorial that comes with this class where we focus on the exercise in isolation. Great work you guys. Thank you. So you're the next class.

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Comments

Very fast and diffucult to follow from beginning. Gave up!
I really felt the work here Benjamin and I'll say that the Leg Pull Front felt triumphant for the first time. I felt like doing a star jump at the end!

Off to do my usual yoga practice now which I am sure will feel entirely different now.

Also sweaty and happy THANK YOU!

More Bejamin please PA xxx
3 people like this.
Nice really enjoyed this thanks Benjamin 😊🙏🏻
Lovely as always Benjamin! Thank you my Leg Pull Front felt so strong at the end!! Sad I missed you in Canmore in April:( Looking forward to more... please:)
Benjamin Degenhardt
Yay thanks everyone — Claire, I'm so sorry this class didn't work out for you. Megan, this is just the first of a new series of Mat workouts, stay tuned! Sarah, bummed to have missed you, too, but I'll be back :)
3 people like this.
Reading Claire's comment inspired me to write. Since the class is classified "deliberate" the right-out-of-the-gate beginning might be surprising. Rather than miss this powerfully instructive class why not watch the opening sequence first and then try again? What follows in the class is much easier to understand in terms of right and left! Now for my own dilemna. Inspite of years of pilate practice (or perhaps thanks to it) I can now lift myself about 6 inches from prone position towards plank but still don't have the strength to complete the movement. What intermediate step do you recommend Benjamin since I can't yet do it in one fell swoop and I don't want to develop any bad habits trying. Knees bent until my arms are straightened and then lifting knees...ie what is often called the "girl's pushup".
Benjamin Degenhardt
Thank you Joni for your thoughtful comment! As for building blocks towards 'planking up', especially since this class works around the idea of unilateral control... instead of using both knees for assistance, try using only one knee while extending the other leg back into plank to press up from. It'll add variety and added challenge. Let me know how that works for you. PS: I think they call it "girl's pushup" because it's often the smarter variation to choose.
3 people like this.
Really fantastic workout! - clear precise cues-- great pace and flow easily - feel great afterwards. Loved this video..thanks Benjamin.
2 people like this.
I LOVE YOUR CLASSES. It's great to see my growth. I was able to roll up with no straps. Loved the pace, instruction, focus. I called it my slow sweat and panting 5/5 mat routine. THANK YOU. I'm excited it was short and powerful for days like this! P.S. I shared on social media but the counter doesn't show it.
1 person likes this.
Loved it. My back body feels so alive and strong! Yes, the opening sequence is challenging and was an "eye opener" for my clients (and me). But, hey, balance, coordination, spine length and strength. That's what it's all about, so why not get right to it! My clients got their minds focused right way. Benjamin, I appreciate your knowledge and insights. Im very interested in signing up for 360 training next year. Thanks!
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