Stretch Out Strap® Mat

Let's head down to the mat. Okay, so we're gonna come on back down and we're going to continue using this strap. So if you get down on the mat, put it underneath you here probably in one one or maybe two. One. Okay. With that feels like you can pull out and you're not, um, too crowded in your shoulders. If you've got longer arms, you may want to too. Yeah. Okay. We're going to go into the hundred. So bringing those knees up. We've done this before using the green strap.

It's helpful to find the quality of reaching long. So take a breath here at the bottom. Xcel head, neck and chest up. Yeah. Before you extend your legs, are you reaching that strap away from your pelvis? You want to, we don't want to shave the back of the thighs. I don't hope. Don't mean that we don't need to extend the legs and we pump five times. Inhale, three, four, five, exhale.

Sure. Keep that quality of reaching that strap away from your legs. Looking forward at the thighs. Sure. Are you pulling out with the arms? We want to be t look more at your legs.

There you go. Nope. Nine two, three, four, five, 10 [inaudible] and rest. Good. Unloop that can we get, did we get it? We did loop. Unloop loop. I know. UNLOOP and loop. Loop, loop. Unloop. Woops. And loop and loop.

Does anyone know what that might be helpful for? Oh my God. Two more times. Rolling. Like a ball might be nice there. And last one. Yeah. Okay. Unloop and stretch your legs down and it was fun. All right, so the roll up here, we are long stretched out bodies or shoulder blades are on our back. We've got quality in the pull of the strap, not too aggressive to turn on our neck muscles. Here we go. Guys. Arms, head, chest row. No where I want us to stop this morning again.

Shoulder girdle above pelvic girdle. Your head is above your arms. You're looking at your thighs. Take a good breath and we're rolling back. Rolling back. Continue that idea of rounding each vertebra, connecting articulation back with no arch of the spine. And we go again. Inhale, peel yourself off the mat. Oh, over curling over that sternum. Curling over the ribs. Breathe in. Exhale. Rolling back.

Good. Yes. Sequential articulation. Trying not to feel too much of the stopping and over [inaudible]. Sure. Ah, and back. Good. Yes. Two more times this morning. And inhale, keep pressing out in this drought. Feel your back wide.

Your shoulder blades wide. Inhale. Exhale, rolling back. [inaudible] nice breathing this morning. And arms. Chest. Ah. [inaudible]. All right, fantastic. You'll all right.

Who's up for rollover rollover? Give it a go. I love the spirit. Go give it a go. Uh, okay. With rollover, we need for all of you guys to move a little more this way on your map just so you have some head room. Okay. Now we're going to use the green strap in the rollover today and I'm pretty sure I'll think one the foot in the one one is going to be just fine. Yeah. Okay. Now in the traditional mat, um, the exercise rollover was called rollover with legs apart or legs open or legs spread. Usually when we do it, I have a start out with legs together, but this'll put it a little more traditional where you've got the feet open. Okay, now you look up at your legs first of all, and we're what we're really want to find parallel.

So this is a perfect opportunity to look up. There they are and pull press out on the ankles a little or the foot to the strap. That should trigger some connection into your lateral hip and stabilize here right now it's okay with me if you do this with your knees bent cause you might want to have the assistance of your bent knees to rollover. Ideally we're straight legged. Okay, now your arms are by your sides. Palms can be faced down, you can connect to the back of your upper arm and triceps. All right, now the rollover, your head doesn't come up.

Keep your head back into flat and it's the pelvis that lifts up the spine rolls over and there you are. Now I'm going to come out of it just so I can take a quick look at you guys, but can you just stay there and continue to breathe? Perfect. What I'm seeing. Okay, we want to taught strap. We want tot abdominal muscles. Now take a breath where you are. Begin to roll down your spine. We are looking for even timing.

When you feel your pelvis get flat, just pause and he'll prepare a good job or going over, up and over trying to maximize this effort of c curving your spine. Okay, keep pressing out on those ankle straps. Inhale, exhale coming down. Ah, level pelvis. Inhale, lift the pelvis up. Flex the spine, roll over. Inhale at the top. Feel free to breathe more if you need to.

Take a few more breath cycles. If I'm not giving you enough [inaudible] one more time. I'm going to watch this one. Good, Michelle, that's changing lot. Dave, lift your legs a little higher. You got an inhale. Exhale. Now keep your legs up. Keep your legs up. Try not to let them just drop down to your chest as you roll down. I'll show you what I mean. That's it. Dave [inaudible] bend your knees. Rest for a sec. Does that, do you want me to show you what I meant? That's so much better. Yeah. For those of us that have some flexibility and or just something else, it's very easy to, and I talk about this a lot.

See what I'm dropping my legs too. Me closing this space, it feels good, but by the time I'm over I kind of look like a baby. Getting his diapers changed, you know, mentally, you know, we don't want this this much. We want more space. So I don't really look like a baby getting exchanged, but you know what I mean? So I'm going to think of this angle not changing. Kind of looked like a letter l [inaudible] how would I do better? That's improved for me. Same idea going down. For me this is harder.

I think for a lot of people going it's going to be a harder cause. This is more instinctual. Okay. But pulling out in the ankle strap is really going to help. Ah, I'm holding on a little with my neck. The versus try one more for me. For Yourself. Okay. I'm going to say it's a little more advanced in thinking. Um, and physicality. Quite a bit. Quite a bit more physicality.

Okay. Yeah. You're all in your own timing. That's okay. Exhale en pull. That's it dude. So you really not flexing your hips at all. The angle of where your femur and your pelvis are together is constant. You don't want to increase that. Yeah, yeah, that's it. You got it. Yeah. And rolling down.

So try not to bend in your hip joints as you've come down. Press your legs out. That's it Celia. Yeah, that's it. Yes, we're done with that exercise. It's, I agree. Who thinks that's more challenging? It's more ab work. It should be more abdominal strengthening rather than just hip folding. The hip foldings fine too. You know, it's, it's Kinda, it's Kinda nice to do this version cause we've done this before where your legs are really low to your chest and you know, this is a different thing on my feet are all wacky right now, but it's a different thing and it has value to, I just think it was really meant to be more of what we just changed. Yeah. Okay.

So let's unstrap the feet. Let's get off of our back. Come up to sitting [inaudible] uh, but we will reconnect the strap to our feet. I think we're going to do two, two or one. Two. Yeah, I've got one too. Now let's say you're trying to do this and you don't have this at home. You just do it without the strap and you know it's, we're going to do a spine stretch forward with the hinge, the flat back. So upward. We are sitting tall. Yes. And again, as you're seated, some of you are going to need to bend your knees to be right on top of those, those buttons. We don't want to start out back behind them.

That's just holding on like crazy. And the hips. Okay. Yeah. So arms are forward, lets palms face each other. Now pull out on the ankle straps your parallel. We breathe in tall, the exhale. We're curbing forward. Round, round, round, round, round. Now stay right there. We're going to start thinking of your tailbone.

It's going to go back. Your sternum starts to come up. Your arms can come with you, right up alongside the, a frame of your ears and you're in a good flat back. Hinged forward position. All right. Press out on the ankles. Inhale Taller. Exhale no curve farther forward. Scoop those abdominals in and back and roll back up to sitting tall.

And we're going to do that again. Nice and tall. Inhale good. And exhale. Curve over. Full breath to read of finding articulation. Sure. So is your arms are there you really just heavy shoulder blades.

Light arms, ribs back. Hang with me for a minute. Yeah, get a hinge. Inhale. Inhale, lengthen. Thank you. And then exhale curve. That's it.

And what brings you back are those abdominal muscles in and then you restack up those verticals. Fine. Two more times. Inhale tall. So you're changing your spine shape flection to extension. Sure. With your, your waist. Inhale tall or that's it. Go farther into the c curve now with your waist back, easy in the neck, rolling back up to vertical spine. Pull out with the angles [inaudible].

Sure. One more. Exhale n curve. So extension, it's an undulation. Now I want us to stay in the hinge. Put your hands behind your head everybody and just connect the head. Feel your head into the hands. Ribs, back, elbow.

Slightly forward for most of us so that our shoulder blades aren't so pinched on our back. Both arms are going to come back up. Now what I want you to do round forward, can you go ahead and hold onto the feet? Lot of you are going, yeah, that's it. And what I want us to see if you can get as your forehead or crown of head to the mat, the goal, you don't have to force it, but at the same time you're still pulling out on the ankle strap and you're pulling back with your abdominals. So if you change a couple of those variables, you know, you may not be as close to the mat, abs back, pull out, you're really trying to open up the lumbar curve. Does, do you feel that? Yeah. Okay. I get one head nod so I'll take it.

Okay. And roll back up. Yeah. Again, for some of us that have the flexibility that just the default of, Eh, I'm hanging there, it feels good. Again, it feels good, but I'm not working my abdominals, I hate to say, but there's nothing going on in there and see how flat this is and I'm trying to create a keep changing and creating change right there. So what I have to do, if I pull out, if I pull back with my lower back, then I have to say I'm not nearly as close this way as I was a moment ago, but I'm, it's more honest and then now I'm feeling some change in the back relationship there. Well, that's even better. Okay. Yeah. Oftentimes they're Celia. Right. Okay. And let's rest. And that's a perfect segue for openly grok or don't you think because it really is open like Crocker? Yes, it is. Whew. Gotta have some support, you know? Um, why don't we keep the strap on the feet, make it even more playful.

Wow. All right. Again, this is always just tosses me off balance, but part of the idea, okay. So if I'm going to move in and just see what happens, I'm going one, you don't have to do it with the strap. It's your choice. You don't have to, but you know if you'd like to play. So we're holding onto this ship a calves. We once again are parallel. Once again, feeling the connection of the strap.

Okay. Now we could easily just start rolling and just roll because we know it's a rolling exercise, but I want you to really think about, we roll because we pull in, right? We pull the spine and deflection you started the lumbar. The sternum also comes in. Yep. And that allows the curving to take place.

Roll back up. Now we do need to change the curve back up into that extension in the upper spine. We curve. Inhale curves us back. Exhale, coming up. Inhale for election. Exhale from flection to extension. Keep going.

Inhale, roll. Exhale. That's it. And coming up. So once again, the prop is providing something else for us to connect. Maybe a little confusion systemically. That's okay. One or two more just to the tips of the shoulder blades, making sure you're not knocking onto your head strong back.

Come up and show me your strong back. Your strong are strong back. That's it. Okay. One more. Whoops. Someone nodded their head. That's okay. I won't call them out right now. Strong back. Okay, let's rest. Good. Nice. Very, very good. Okay, let's take the strap away from the feet and we're going to come back onto some prone positioning.

Go back into the first loop. Okay. And come down to uh, all fours to begin. Alright. And I want us to again, pool out and place. Wait. Okay. Knees underneath. Hips, hands underneath. Shoulders. We've got a good neutral or flat back is really what I'm thinking. Okay. Lastly, Tuck the toes. All right. On an exhale.

All we're going to do is hover the knees up off of the Mat. Men An inch or two. Ideally, we haven't changed our spinal position. We're still nice and flat. Okay. Inhale, lower your knees. Exhale. Hover your knees. You've got it. Inhale, lower the knees. Exhale, hover the knees. Inhale, lower.

Exhale. Hover in the Huh? Keep going. It's challenging to know where we're, I'm going to just get your hips back a tiny bit and bring your hands back like half an inch. Yeah. So what's a lot of what's happening in this? What we're looking for is strength in our back, right. Lats, back extensors to certain extent our, but in our hips, arms, shoulders. We are not going into a curved back. Two more.

The infamous. Two more. Okay. Okay. And then last one, stay now from there, go ahead and take one foot back into a front. Supportful support position. Second foot also. And then just stay in the support. Huh? ABS are tired. Oh, arms. You're tired. Yeah.

Two more breaths. Sure. Okay, so I want you to bring your knees down. Yes. And then just reach back. Fantastic. There's an exercise on the reformer I my the name.

I know what it is in the knee strip series. We're one of the single single knee strips exercises we can do in the map. Um, it is, come on up. We'll just move through it. You're going to be moving one leg in and one leg back, one leg in, one leg back. And a lot of detail. We're trying not to pike the butt up to move the leg. Okay, so you just establish that front support position.

Keep pulling out what those arms ready on the exhale. Bring your right thigh, bring your knee, bring your thigh towards your chest. Inhale. No, stretch it back without losing your plank line. Exhale, left thigh comes in. Inhale, stretch it back. Exhale coming in and stretch it back. Sure. One more each thigh and pull in and back.

Last one thigh in, side back and bend your knees down and rest. Feel free to bring your [inaudible] up closer to your head. Let the arms go a little bit. Yeah. All right.

I'm going to go down even lower on tour Belize or the some back extension from prone. Now this is a little tricky. You want, I wonder, have you put your feet in the whoops in and we get in there in the strap, the first loop. It might be better to do it this way. Loop loop, then flip. I know. Good. I know I'm Pete. I'm pulling out as your turnover. Alright, so if we take the legs apart, now this is different.

Some days I have his focus on pulling the legs, narrow, pulled adducted all the way. If you pull out, you're going to feel again, different response laterally on your hips there. Let's go ahead and dig some swan. So hands by your shoulders right underneath them. Ready? Feel your spine long growing through the top of the head. Take the inhale and exhale is you're stretching up. No, it's okay if you don't fully straighten your arms. It'd be better not to.

If you're gonna feel like your shoulders go up, but if you'll feel fine, go ahead and lengthen through those arms. Keep pulling out on those ankle straps has come down. Inhale and exhale all the way down. Inhale, chest lift. He owe an exhale. I want you to think about the upper back strong. It's not just up, but it's pulling back. Pull your upper back, back. Level the head.

Inhale, bend the elbows and exhale coming down two more times guys, making sure you're also street in your knees. Inhale. Exhale coming up. So if group. Yeah, connected with the stretching of those knees. Can you lift higher level that head Mister Yoga head lift. He's in a moment. Did you see that? Oh, I know it's different. This is definitely yoga from what? New Final say. Sorry. Just a correction, but we want to go straight ahead. Okay. And then come down. It's muscle memory.

That's all, Huh? Yeah. Yeah, it feels good. That's all I know. It probably feels really good. Okay. Now Ben, Johnny's guys keep pulling out on the ankle strap. Yeah. You know the double leg stretch exercise. We do a, it's this a little odd with the ankle strap here, but I want you to take your hands back behind your back. Okay? Straighten your lengths back. We're going to keep your legs hovered.

Okay? Okay. However those legs, stretch your arms long now and bring your chest up. Another shoulder opener. Now for the regular double leg kit, go ahead and choose the right she comes to the mat. Bring your heels in. No double kicking kick kit cause you're going to lose strap.

Just try to keep pulling out on the strap. Straighten the legs, stretch your arms, lift your back, rotate your head to the other side. Come down goal today. Keep tension on the strap. What do you think? Weird and stretch. Lengthen. Stretch those knees. Turn to the other direction and down. Pull out. Let's inhale as we come up.

The other side. Exhale is we're down. One more each direction. Inhale up. Exhale is, we're down. Last one. Sh. Okay. Release that down. Use Your hands to help you. You're going to just come back to a little rest foes.

Are we doing you? Deep breath. Lots of oxygen right down in those lower back tissues. Bones, muscles. [inaudible] great. Okay. [inaudible] let's not use the strap anymore.

Let go it cause we're going to do a little hip opening. We definitely don't want, I'm going to have you mirror me. Yeah. I don't like our mermaid on the reformer. If this doesn't feel great for your knees, your alternate position, you can just come back into the diamond. But I think this group today, we're fine. All right. Do you remember what we're thinking?

I love it. That deer in headlights, Huh? What are we thinking about? Yes. Could the pelvic bones, the sitz bones, our pelvis be weighted evenly? Yeah, I think it can, but you know, it takes a minute to really let the mind go there. This side, for me today, today, it feels really, so what can I do to change it? Only a little can go down. That's that. My weight of my pelvis a lot more can lengthen up here and there. Yeah. Okay.

Doing good? Okay. Arms out to the side. I'm, we're just gonna move the arms up. Inhale, open. Exhale. So let the lift of the arms be a lift of the spine. That was a nice shoulder correction. A couple of USAA, your blades just could drop on down your back. [inaudible] one more. Sure.

Now place the right hand down. We're going to go side bending to the right. I really want you to curve and lay or put your elbow down on the mat. Yeah, let that elbow come down. Okay, good. Let's stay right there. Take a breath. We're going to curve over. Rotate over the front thigh. Let your spine rotate. Inhale, face the side, bend toward me and exhale as we rotate.

Inhale as we side bend. Exhale. As you rotate, if your upper arm is bothering you, you don't want it there, you could put it somewhere else. You could put your fingertips. Some days I'll do it this way. If I want to modify something and I'll just think about what's my spine doing? Not really necessarily my arm. You know, sometimes the arm up there gets a little confusing. So as the spine rotating the spine rotating, one more time, spine or rotating man rotating, but I'm going to bring it back to this to help me get up and all the way to center. Okay. Now just put your hands here for a second.

Squeeze this buttock. Your left. When my right, I'm going to push the hip forward, that side of the pelvis. Just hold a press. Okay. And then move that hip back. Try to sit down onto that hip. Just four of those press. If your shoulders turn a little, I'm okay with that for right now.

I just want you to think about moving your pelvis to open up that hip joint a little and then returning down to more contract press. Last one. There's a lift interiorly to come back to it. Okay. Other side. Now the best way out. I'd say lean a little care fully under your leg and acknowledge the differences if there are any. If you feel some, it's just remarkable isn't it, to to take a check in on yourself and go, wow, that's interesting. Feel things okay for our movements. Inhale, arms up and exhale spine stays lifted in long as we move the arms up, we go.

Sure. The space in Lyft. Sure. For us down in one more time. Lift and lower. Good. That left hand is going to continue to the mat. Right arm comes up. We take the side bend and want to see it [inaudible] curve curve her.

Then the elbow goes to the mat. Okay, please remind me the next time we do this, I have something to talk about with where this bottom elbow is. Okay. I'll assign someone to say, Hey Amy, you remember about the elbow thing? So take your breath now rotate. Sure. [inaudible] he'll rotate back to the front. I'm going to move my arm.

Exhale and twist. So I'm going to think about my spinal mechanics more than my arm placement. Back. Animal rotating. And again, so part of my responsibility as a teacher, keep inviting you to think about stuff you know, not just doing and copying what you see. We get permission to move our arms and different places move your feet different ways. It's about the quality of the spinal mechanic right now, the rotation.

So if you've got to put your arms somewhere else to feel more quality of rotation, then that's the idea. Okay? Two more times, bringing you to your body. Last one. Exhale, rotate forward. And then the return. Ah, hands on knees. Okay. Squeezing that raw. You're right. Glute and we're pressing the pelvis, that side of the pelvis. Forward. Lift a little on the interior to come back to sit on that hip. Yes, pelvis and pill. All this good lift to come back to more and pelvis and lift to return.

We've got one more and pelvis. Nice work you guys. And lift to return and we'll carefully undue that folded position. Let's all face this way for a the seal. We're going to do seal another rolling exercise. Okay, so again, just double checking. Got Enough Room behind you, Huh? Okay, that's fine. So hands on, thanks. Underneath your ankles or heels. So our last one, we're gonna hold on to right at the, at the top of the ankle there. Okay.

And once again, if you can't, let's start steady. Find some steadiness here. I'm just checking. Good. All right, so we're in the c curve. Think about it really at the lower back. You want to curve that sternum in, curve your tail under. I'm just going to have a simply go back and forth this morning. We don't need to do these today, I don't think.

Unless you really have a craving to do them rolling back smoothly through your back, just to shoulder blades, come back up. Try to balance without popping the ribs out without show shrugging the shoulders forward. Okay, roll back. Inhale to roll. It's the, it's the school. Is that coming in with the abdominals ready again? Pull stomach to back.

[inaudible] three more time. Ah. [inaudible] last time. Yeah, there's a little play at the top. Okay. Now I want to everybody. Last little thing for today. I said that was going to be the last thing. We did not do a teaser position.

Did we? We did open like rocker, but we didn't do teaser. So as you hold your teaser leg position, okay, feel your upper back strong. Can you get your tail? The curl on under a little bit. Good. Okay. Who's there? Who's with me? Who wants to let go?

I'm in a lower my legs a few inches so that I can get my arms a little higher. Look straight at your legs. Let's take three breaths together. [inaudible] very nice you guys. Just let your head round finish with lifting your chest up. Just hold onto the front and the knees. Thank you so much for class. Really good work. I'm good way to, um, play with some stuff with this wrap to, yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Good work.