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Hi everybody. We are here today to do a little bit of, work with the Thera band. So the Thera band is one of my favorite pieces of apparatus or prop because it's so accessible you can experiment with different tensions and different supports and it's fun. So we've set the band up on the center of the mat longways and we're actually going to sit on one end of it so that there's a little bit left at the top for you to be able to hold onto. So we might just go ahead and have a lie down and just make sure that the band is right in the center of your body.
Abdominal Curl
And before we get started, just do a little quick test and make sure that you're happy with the amounts that you have to work with over your head. And we're just going to find our connection down to the ground. So feel the way your feet are settled into the mat and notice that we're already creating a bit of a loop with our body. So we have our trunk feeding up into our arms and then continuing into the band and creates this beautiful loop of energy gonna breathe into the back of the body. And then as you exhale, just create a little gentle pull, but leave your body on the floor and just feel that work into the upper arms feeding into the band just lightly one more time inhaling here and as we exhale we're gonna peel our body up off the ground using the band as a guide and then we'll stay here for breath in pull on the band a little and then see if you can let your head and upper body rest into the band a little bit more so that you can actually go in a little deeper. And then as you lay your body down, really have an awareness of the way the band is laying down onto the ground, So that's going to sort of give you some inspiration of how we want our spine to move and we'll continue in our own time for about six, breeding in at the top, finding the support of the arms, giving the neck, permission to release a little if it was overworking deepening and rolling down.I'm just allowing this first exercise to have a bit of an exploratory feel about it. Inhaling. Imagine that as you inhale the band widens too, and then rolling down. And I think one more might do it, breathing out as we curl forward, breeding into the back, finding that openness, feel the support for your head as well on the band, and then roll it down. And so we'll allow the band to rest on the mat interlace your hands, place them behind the head.
We'll go for some regular chest lifting here. So just breathing out as you curl forward, but we'll arc the arms through and hold on to the backs of the thighs and then just go a little deeper into that chest lift and arc the arms back behind the head. Imagine that the band is still there and we'll roll our spine back down onto the floor inhaling at the bottom so that we can exhale and curl forward. And as the arms arc to hold onto the thighs, I'm gonna go back to that awareness of the loop that we'd created when we did have the band there and see if you can conjure up this image of connection from the back of the body all the way around And then feel the way the front of the body unfurls just as the band did, and we'll just do one more here, breathing out as we curl forward, looping the hands forward onto the thighs curling a little further holding here, I'm just taking the legs up and let's see if we can find a sitting position from here. So pushing the legs forward, rolling like a wheel and finding our seated position. Great.
Roll Down - Partial
So this is where we get to move the band. So just taking it out from underneath your bottom, and we're going to loop the band across the shins, and then we'll make a little cross. So you're actually holding on to the opposite end, and Great. And you want a little to work with here, so not too close. So you'll notice that as you pull a band out to the side, it's gonna make your knees wanna drop in. So you're gonna work against that. Okay? So we'll roll down just for a little partial roll down.So once you feel the back of your pelvis or your sacrum rest down, we'll hold and then we're gonna pull the band work against it with your hips and roll back up again. And the range that you move here is completely up to you, make it comfortable. We're still warming up. So finding that work and feeling the way the band deepens this work rather than just makes it harder It's there to support and to draw your attention to how your body works, inhale through the nose, into the back of your body, and then exhale rolling back, you and the band working together as a team, inhaling into the back of the body and into the armpits as well and then rolling through. And the next one will be our last one, breathing in through the nose, growing tall, exhale rolling down.
And then allow the legs to float up, and let's just take hold of the band, place your feet back down onto the ground and find attention with the band that feels comfortable for you. You don't want to feel like you're working really hard. Just want to feed into the shoulder muscles so that we can arc the arms overhead and still feel that you have an energy into your body. Your ribs aren't floating up. So we'll roll the pelvis up into the bridge and as you go higher with your hip your arms come down over the thighs and press down quite firmly towards the floor.
Bridge w/Overhead Arm Extension
So you're working into the band with your pelvis or thighs and then rolling back down, taking the arms overhead and just maintaining a consistent pressure into the band with your hands, and we'll do five more like this. So rolling on up, pressing down with the feet and pressing down with the arms while your pelvis and legs are pressing up to meet the band. And then rolling back through. And you could almost imagine that you're still working against the band initially as you're rolling down. So we've got our next four here. So happy for you to move in your own pace and just notice the way you naturally want to organize your shoulders as you're finding that work into the legs, and then see if you can find a better way that allows more openness through the chest and more activation into the backs of the shoulders.Just to give you that support, rolling on down, and we're gonna do two more here, breathing out, rolling up, pressing through the legs, pressing through the arms. Melting down, down, down, into the mat, arms arching through, and one more time up we Jo, feeling that sun shining on your chest, breathing in, and rolling back down onto the ground. Now we're going to see if we can still find that hamstring work when our legs are in the air. So to give us a little bit of help, we'll put the band over the shins We don't need too much tension here with the band, so make it work for you. You wanna have your hands pretty close to the floor, and we're just going to actually press the knees all the way together as well.
Side to Side
So if we allow our shins to fall a little, as you gently press your shins back up into the mat, you just want to feel a little bit of work through the backs of the thighs and where the leg connect into the hip and then allow your legs just to drift back down again. If you want a little bit more tension, go for it. And then again, just pressing up, and you can feel that work connect you deeper into your lower abdominals too, and then back one more time. If you press too far, you'll actually feel that the work will start to come into your quads. So we don't quite wanna get there. Now maintaining this connection into the band, let's do a little side to side. So we're gonna roll onto our left hip, pressing the right shin up into the band a little bit more than we might normally coming back through center and then going over to the right or onto our right hip pressing the left chin into the band will continue for three more to each side and feel the way the upper body and the legs work together to create this rotation, inhaling onto the right hip, exhaling, feel yourself settle back, inhaling onto the left hip, right shin pressing up.And then settling back one more to each side here going over onto the right and back notice the challenge to the shoulders on either side. We've got quite a long band here too. So we can really play with how much we're working into the tension. Great. Now coming back into the center, we're gonna take the hands just up, come up into a little chest lift, keep those legs active as though the band is still there.
Single Leg Stretch
Draw the left knee in as the right leg reaches away away away and let's switch. And we're gonna do six to each side. So only four to each side left here. And as you're switching with your legs, really finding that imaginary connection between the band and the shins, last one to each side now, and we're going back to that feeling of the legs against the shins both knees together, band on the thighs, find attention that works for you as the hands come to the floor and deepen your legs in further and further for the double leg stretch. So the arms go overhead and then everything comes back to center.
Double Leg Stretch
Inhale shoot it out and then exhale draw it in. Breated in. And out, feel the way the band helps you curl a little deeper and draw it in. Last two. And in you're doing beautifully last one and in from here. Let's lay it down.
Criss Cross
Take a moment. As we curl back up again, we're gonna have the hands the band, sorry, behind the head, reaching out into it, feel the way you can nestle your head into the band as you rotate towards your left knee and then switch it up and switch it up. Good. Feel the way the arms and the band work together to help move the whole upper body in a beautiful sort of loop or ring. Last one to each side here and center, lay it down. We're gonna stretch the left leg long and hook the band under the right foot and we'll cross the band so that we've got lots of support allow your elbows just to rest on the mat and let's just point and flex a little just to get some movement through the ankle, reach the bottom leg nice and long, have a connection to the ground with that leg. And this is our last one. We'll do three leg circles.
Single Leg Circles
Let's make it five leg circles to each direction. We'll go across the body first down out to the side and back up again. And as we do these circles, actively steer your leg with your hands, feel the way you can create that support and give access really to the hip through the support of that band. Holding here at the top. Let's go the other way reaching out. Notice how one side of the band stretches, and it's kind of in symmetry with the part of the leg that's stretching as well.So inner thigh and outer thigh. Final one here, and give your leg one more stretch before we change sides. Changing the leg so that the left leg is being supported by the band. It is worthwhile taking the time to stretch the band out all the way because then it's less likely to flick on you. So we're just going to point and flex the ankle. Just getting a little bit of blood flow here.
Really thinking about the ankle itself rather than just the toes. Two more, this also gives you time to adjust your band as necessary. And let's go across the body. Notice how I'm creating that pull with one arm and with the other. And it's actually giving access to this beautiful smooth movement through the hip, two more circles in this direction.
Around last one, around and hold, and we'll go the other way out to the side, across and up. And for someone like me who gets quite tight through my hips, I find this to be a real relief. Good. One more and holding at the top, giving your leg a little bit more of a stretch here. Bezzina both knees so that you can come up into your chest lift This time we're gonna take the arms in line with the head straightening both legs ready for the scissors. So switch and switch and if you actually pull on the band just enough It's gonna feed into your shoulders and actually support your curl.
Scissors
So we're still gonna really work the curl. We don't want the arms so far overhead that it gets in our way. Last one to each leg. And in bring the knees in take the hands onto the shins and let's roll all the way up. So we can place the band under both legs and stretch the legs out.
Roll Up Variation
So the roll up often a challenging exercise in a mat class. We've got the band here. We're gonna play with some variations with the band, but If the variation without the band on the legs doesn't work for you, you can skip that and just use this one instead. So we're gonna keep the arms straight as we roll down. And this should allow you to feel if the band is the right tension for you. So hopefully you'll be able to sneak your hands on the band without the band running away from you. So we'll take an inhale here and as you exhale, we'll roll forward all the way up to sit tall, and let's do some bicep curls here. Three, one and two and three, lengthen the arms out and rolling on down.Good. Now as you do your bicep curls, hopefully you can feel some access into your deep belly. Of course, you can still bend the knees as necessary through the roll up when we hit the top rolling up. Now if it's available to you, you're gonna take the band off the legs here. If not, you can keep the band where it is, create that tension out into the band and roll down. So this allows us to take our arms overhead, which feels really good, breathing in exhale curling forward because our arms are where they are, we can hook the band around our legs, sit tall, bending the knees as necessary for our three bicep. Curls, whoops, not a row, a bicep curl.
Three, arms are straight, and we'll roll it down. Taking that inhale. As we exhale and curl forward, you'll notice the band will shorten just like our abdominals on the front of our body is shortening. We're gonna come all the way through unhook, create that tension forward, just in front's better because it's a little less intense than having the arms overhead. We'll save that for when we're over here.
Arms coming over the head, taking that inhale. As we exhale, we'll roll forward. All the way. Looking good. Take the hands or the band around the legs. Sitting tall. We'll do our biceps one more time.
One and two and three and rolling down. Very nice. Good. Taking that breath in. As we curl up, feel the shortening of the band. We're gonna unhook that band, separate the legs a little.
Saw
And this is where you might wanna roll up a mat or bend the knees or going into the sore. We're gonna rotate towards our left leg. And as we reach our pinky finger to our pinky toe, let's really stretch that band out and notice the stretch in the back of the body, breathing in, bring it back, rotate to the right leg and stretch, use the stretch of the band to inspire the stretch in your body, growing tall, and rotate, and sitting tall and rotate. And sitting tall, very nice. Let's go for another two to each side.And this is where I like to really start to think about my legs. So it's very easy to be distracted just by the upper part of the body but how can I use the reach of my legs to create that rebound effect back into my lower abdominals? Coming through the center, bring the legs close, and let's roll down. Take the band just to one hand for a moment as we fold our legs up to tabletop. Hold on to the band with each side just with the band under the legs and we'll try the roll over. So it's a small connection into the band here to remind our shoulders that they're here to help straightening the legs and rolling up and over into our rollover position. Let's separate the legs, flex the feet and roll it down using the arms and feeling the stretch in the band coinciding with the stretch in our abs, circling our legs, legs together, and up and over we go again.
Rollover
Separating the legs, flexing the feet, and rolling on down, reaching through the legs, finding that circle. You guys are gonna continue for two more, so I can have a look at how beautifully you're doing. Great, finding that openness, feel the opposition as you roll down, keep the work in the arms, feel that lovely scoop, and this is your last time up and over. Rule it through. Great job taking it down, finding that circle.Very nice. Take the band, hook it onto your feet, find a Pilates v. I would recommend crossing the straps here, but then let the legs belong on the floor. Perfect. We want the band to be not too too strong because we are gonna be using the arms in this. So adjust, we're gonna curl up and as you scoop your legs up, we're actually gonna pull the band out to the sides and up towards our ears, see if you can straighten your arms. That actually helps us even more.
Teaser Variation
And then as you roll down, allow the arms to drift down. Well done. That looked fantastic. So we're going to do six because I know a lot of people thought they couldn't do this. So let's roll it up, push out with the legs, push out with the arms, resist the temptation to bend your elbows, find that lift. And then as you roll down, reach your feet into the band.So good inhale through the nose. Exhale curl it up. Pull out and up with those arms. It's like magic. Inhale.
Exhale rolling down, finding that reach. Nice job. Three left, curl it up. Good. Find the lift, all smiles rolling down. And here we Jo, curling through and up.
Breathing in and roll it down and now if we can, the crescendo rolling up. Can we maintain this work in the shoulders that the legs can lower a little and rebound up? Two, and final one. And rolling all the way down to the floor. Perfect.
Bend the knees because that way the band won't snap out of your hands. You can let your hands have a little rest, give them a rub. We're gonna flip over onto our stomach. So your head in the center of the room would be perfect. Alright.
Prone Spine Extension
So let's find some opposition to all of that flexion we just did. I'm gonna take the band and just have it in our hands, one in each one end in each hand, but over our back. Perfect. So sort of in the small of your back is fine or even with the arms long is fine too. So we'll take a breath in and as you exhale just dropping your body further and further and further into the mat. Because we don't really spend much time finding neutral in a prone position.Now that we're ready, we're just going to start to peel our upper body only up and it's just a small amount of pull with the band with arms straight. Not very much finding that lift. And then as we exhale coming on down, good. I'm gonna watch a couple of these ones taking a breath in. And then as you exhale peel and just finding the way The band helps us identify that connection in our shoulders to support the openness through our chest and then we'll roll it back through. Good.
And when you come down to the bottom, don't be afraid to allow the shoulders to release a little. And again, roll it up. We're still prioritizing the upper back, but we're just feeling the way we can make this a whole body movement with the shoulders connected. And then roll it down. And how about we just do the one more and roll it up. Beautiful allow the legs to be nice and heavy, and let's just create a little pull with the band to touch more, and we're gonna pump the arms up and down for 10.
Prone Shoulder Press w/ Extension
Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, and rolling down. So from here we'll bend the knees, let the feet come up, see if you can hook the band to the shin or to the ankles around. If you've got short arms, it can be tricky. I've got long arms. So this stuff comes fairly easy to me. We'll cross the band And that's gonna make the likelihood of the band slipping much less. Great.
Double Leg Kick
So from here, we're not gonna mess with choreography anymore. We're just going to go ahead and bend the knees, pulling the heels to the bottom for three Three, two, one, kicking the legs out behind you coming into your double leg kick position, and you'll find really pushing into the band, but also pulling out with your arms will actually lift your legs a little higher than you might think you can take them. Turn your right cheek onto the mat as you come down, bend the knees for three. One, two, three, extend the legs, extend and reach with the arms long neck, Yeah. And then come on down left cheek onto the mat. One, two, three, extending out. Beautiful. One, two, three, and really working the arms them out away from your body more than we might normally hear. Yes. Two more. One, two, three, kind of wish I was doing this with them. One more time. One, two, three, hold it out there.We're gonna go for some heel beats here. Breathing in, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and out, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And up two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, last one, and up two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and rest. I would bend the knees so that the band can come away Nice and easy. Let go with one hand.
Prone Heel Beats
It doesn't matter which, and then you might be able to just move the band out of your way. I've got some long bands to work with here. Just pop the band beside you so that it's, not in your way. But imagine that the band is laying long on your mat like it was at the beginning of the session when we did the chest lift. So as we come up into the swan now, we're just gonna find that sense of stretch through our upper body. From our pubic bone all the way through the naval, through the sternum, up into the chin, through the roof of the mouth and the crown of the head, and then let's bend the elbows and lay your body back down onto that imaginary band breathing in through the nose and exhaling as we roll up.
Swan
Finding the stretch that naturally occurs through the front of our body, see if you can push down a little bit more almost like you're working into the band. Yeah. And then bend the elbows to come on through. Nice job. Let's do two more here and rolling up, finding that stretch. We always think about strength in this which is important, but sometimes you have to let those abdominals lengthen. Oh, nice. Ben the elbows.Roll it down. That was beautiful, and we'll do one more. Inhale. Roll it up, lengthen the abdominals. So they're still on. They're like a drum skin. Nice and tight. And we're gonna rolling, roll it down.
Looking forward for as long as you can. Great. Jo. Go ahead and find a little child's pose. And now if we did have a band to stretch, it would be the back of our body. So feeling the way your bottom nestles into your feet the way your head nestles into the mat and all the space in between just has a gentle stretch just like the band we've been working with.
Child's Pose Stretch
I'm finding that sense of ease and openness through the back of our body. Alright. So let's find a seated position. Now this can be a little bit tricky because obviously hamstrings can be tight, but we can still do this with a bent leg if we need too. So we're gonna take the band and wrap it under the soles of the feet again. And again, make take the time to make sure it's nice and open.
Rows
Crossing the band usually gives it a better tension for me. Let's create a little bit of energy out with our feet. Doesn't have to be a big push, but just an awareness. And we're gonna start with a little row. So just pulling back and lengthen. And for me, what I like to think about is, yeah, I'm getting a bit of work through the backs of my arms, but how does this support the position of my lower spine which finds it tricky? To be upright.If I needed to bend my knees, you can see it doesn't change the exercise very much. It just allows me a little bit more range and comfort, really. And one more time Bezzina in and lengthen. So now that we've found that support, we'll see if we can keep it without the band behind the legs Jo that when we are here, we can still have that lift. Now if we needed to bend the knees, we can do that too.
Arms Reaching Forward
So let's stretch the band a little Jo we're finding those external rotators of the shoulders, but then reach out on a diagonal. Keep the external rotation bring the elbows in and then allow it to back off. So as we rotate, our ribs aren't going to fling forward. We're just gonna work the back of the shoulder, stretch it through. That's where I like to find my lift in my waist, bend and then release.Good. Four more stretch it out and reach it forward and then draw it in and release and rotation. Energy out. Bring it in and in last time. Take it out and lengthen. That looks great. Bring it in.
Good. So keeping that energy through the backs of the shoulders. We're gonna flip our hands, palms down and see how we go lifting up. Now this is the tricky bit. So can we take the arms behind us? The great thing about the band is you can slide your hands along the length of it without anybody even noticing.
Arms Reaching Forward and Behind
We're gonna lift back up again until you find the position that works best for you. So we'll do another three. Lift it up But we're not just holding a bit of plastic here. We're really trying to find the way we can work and create support with our for our body. So as we go up and we get into the tough bit, if we actually pull out into it a little sometimes we can get those deep stabilizers to give us a hand up and over and I added an extra one.So from here we'll go up and over and we're just gonna rest our hands onto the floor. It's good if you can hold the mat, but the band, but you don't have to work it too hard. See if you can use your imagination here again Jo that as you press up, We're gonna work with the shoulders nice and deep as we reach our toes to the floor, and our bottom comes down. And again, spear the toes down, open through the chest by working to support that deepen the shoulders and then bring it down. No leg kicks today.
Leg Pull Back
Just the plank part. Two more, lift and find that reach. Bring it down. Find the lift here. One more time. Press it up.Beautiful job and then bring it down. Excellent. Cool. So let's spin around so that you're facing me. We're gonna do a mermaid in a zed sit position. Let's have your shin to this side of the room.
Mermaid Variation
Mhmm. And then the band is going to be in front. But before we do that, let's take the hands. You might not be quite as bendy through your hands as me, but it's kinda weird. But, let's just give the hands a little bit of a stretch and move and we'll reach out in a way and really opening up that palm side. I want to just do one more.We got a little bit more holding of the band coming up one more time. Okay. Now hips. Hopefully, we can be pretty even on the mat. If that's tricky for you, you might just find a little bit of a up and down is enough, but if that's not quite right, feel free to cross your leg in front or stretch it out to the side. So let's get started.
Take the band out in front. Not too much tension. It's gonna come up overhead as well. Okay. Let's side bend For as long as you can without changing the band, then stretch it out into the side bend. Allow that bottom elbow to bend a little bit and we're going to bend and straighten two and up three and up. Now, peeling your hand up off the mat, come to upright side bending this way.
Let your hand eventually come down so we're creating tension, bend and straighten. This one feels really good on my ribs. It opens everything up. And last one, now use the tension in the band to help create the lift. We'll do one more. So over without dropping that bottom hand, and then actively draw it down, bend and straighten good.
Find that long line from the crown of the head all the way through through to the hips, lifting up and one more time going over. Let that hand come down. Bend and stretch. Two. And last one, calming on up. Take the band behind you, bring the legs around.
Side Arm Support w/Rotation
I like to put the band Jo it's under my shoulder blade, so it's not too far up here onto the top of the shoulders and the neck. Straight in the top arm as well. Alright. Let's see if we can push out into a side plank now. So taking it on up. And when we do our twist, we're just gonna reach straight back Jo it's not to the feet. Just reaching back, rotating the upper body and then bringing it back through. Noticing the way the band stretches the back of our body.And then as we come to face more front, we feel that openness through the front. One more. Crossing around, stretching the back of the body, bringing it up, bending the knees, taking the band around, and we'll go to the other side. Excellent. Give you some support, right? And that's what that's what a tier for.
Mermaid Variation
So adjust your hip position so that it's right for you. Take the band in front. Start to feel if that band's the right tension. Take the arms up. And let's start side bend and then take the arm overhead.Let's bend and straighten just three of these and up and then peel the hand off. Going up and over, Bezzina the elbow as you straight and think of when you do the breaststroke and the straight arm kind of propels you through the water. So here it almost makes you lengthen more as you straighten your arm. You bring yourself up. Again, going over, we bend and our ribs open up. We straighten and we lengthen.
And two and three. Peel a hand off last time going over. Stretch and straighten. And I like to feel how when the band lengthens, I can get more lift through my underside waist. And then keeping that, find that lift take the band behind you, adjust your hand position, adjust your leg position. Let's see. You can take your top foot in front, and we're going to sweep ourselves up and over into that twist, band Bezzina. That's it. And then we're gonna feed it through.
Side Arm Support w/Rotation
We're not reaching for the feet, just going straight back and then up. And again, two more rotation. I've lost my hair tie and up. Last one. Stretch it through and bring it up. Hold.Try this. Put your hand down. Pivot your feet. Good. Work up into the band. Can we do it?
Leg Pull Front
And let's lift our right leg and lower it down. And our left leg. Good. We'll do another two to each side. Lift and lower, work into the band, let it inspire that space between your shoulder blades. Very nice work.Last one. Great Jo, and then rest. Perfect. I'm glad I gave you a little rest for those hands. So you get to sit on your bottom.
Kneeling Leg Lift and Lower
No more holding the band with your hands. We're gonna take the band and tie it around the legs. So above the knees, not too tight, press the knees all the way together, and I feel that if you tie a bow, it's easier to undo later. Let's see if my theory is right. Then we'll find a position on all fours. Okay.So Let's again give our hands a little bit of a massage as we're all finding that position. The one downside to the band. So here we are in our little quadruped, We're gonna find that length through our body and reach the leg that's furthest away from me out to the side. Yep. Exactly and back in. Now as we do this movement, we wanna move from the hip rather than from the foot.
So feeling as though the whole leg sweeps out, excellent, and then back in. So the shin and the knee are actually aligned with one another. Good. We have three more like this. Press it out and in And see if you can, on these last two, think about how that supporting leg is also having to work. Great. And now circles for six around you choose your direction, but thinking about that supporting leg, three, Good. And four. Nice.
Kneeling Leg Circles
Five. And six, of course, we go the other way. Six, five. Four. Three, two, last one, take the leg straight back.
Kneeling Single Leg Press
Yeah, and then back in. Mhmm. And two. Anin, stretch it out three, Anin, four, five, and six. Place the leg back, give your wrist a little stretch if you need to, and we're gonna do the other side. So supporting leg is what we wanna give a little more attention to taking the leg out. And in that moving leg is gonna get all the work that it needs.
Kneeling Leg Lift and Lower
Three, four, find that length through the spine. Five, And six. Ready for circles now. Can I move with a theraband around my legs? Really working from the top of the thigh.
Kneeling Leg Circles
You have it. That's it. Good. And reverse. Six. Nice. Five.Going back is better. Three. Yeah. That's it. Three. Two. And one. And then the last bit just reaching straight out and in.
Kneeling Single Leg Press
Two. Find that length through the body be inspired by the reach back with the legs. And last one. Nice job. Find that plank position just for a moment.
Swan Dive
Because we're going to bend the elbows if we can and lower ourselves down. That worked quite well for a change for me. So we're gonna try the swan two or the swan three. Now the swan two is where we can return to our hands back on the floor. Let's try a couple of those.So we're gonna come on up into our swan and this is the rocking swan. So as we rock out, I want you to feel that your legs are pushing out into the band. So we're going to bend the elbows real fast and press ourselves back up again. Two more like this. And up.
And roll it down. Now if you'd like, you can do the next three variations where the arms shoot directly out or you can stick with the swan two. So let's go ahead and roll up. It might be more than three because we can get carried away with this one. Let's do it rocking forward.
And and last one, pressing up and rolling all the way down. Great job. Let's bring ourselves up. Keep the band around the legs. Make sure you've got some room behind you holding onto your ankles. Okay.
Open Leg Rocker Prep
Let's see if we can extend the leg furthest away from me. So I've got some support into the band. Good. And in. Now with this version of the open leg rocker, we can still do it with bent knees as we need to. Up and in but you might find that that push out into the band can help relieve some of the stress on the hamstring to lengthen all by itself. We get some support here.Last one of this single leg prep. And let's see if we can do the double now. So reaching out into the band as we lengthen. It looks pretty good. Yeah, and then bend. Nice. One more stretch it out and in. Now the challenge is can we do the open leg rocker without holding onto the legs? So taking it out reaching the arms parallel.
Open Leg Rocker
You don't have to do this version, but let's give it a go. Rock it back and up. Two more. Back and up and back. And hold three more. Yeah. Back.Those facial expressions are what I live for. Back and last one. Back. And uphold, grab hold of the legs, draw the legs together a little and press out. Six five four three two, one, and bend the knees. Lay the body down.
Jackknife
Take the legs up to straight. Roll up and over, see if you can jackknife reaching your legs up to the ceiling but still reaching out into the band. Lower your legs, roll it down. Lower your legs to a like a 45 degree angle. Fold them at the hips again, go up and over, find that reach. Use the band to support your hips.How much lift can you get? Reach down through the arms, folding at the hips. Roll it back down. Lower the legs to 45. One more, fold, roll, lift. Imagine there was a band between your hands.
Could you pull that apart as well as using the band around your legs, fold, roll it down, lay the body back through, bend the knees and sit yourself up. We're so close to the end. Let's come up to standing. Find a position where you're happy facing me, I think, With the amount of distance between your legs so that the band can support you. Okay. So from here, we're gonna shift our weight over to this side of the room.
Standing Lateral Hip Press
So our toes can still be touching the floor and we want to find that elongation out on that diagonal and see if you can lift that foot up off the ground, but the band will be there to support you. Tap your leg down and back up again too. Tap and lift. You can use your arms in connection or you can just keep them still. Now this time, touch the toes down, send your body weight into that foot. Nice and even and then transfer your weight over so that your foot peels off just before it lifts elongate.Find the lift and tap. Two. And tap three, touch, lay the foot down, other side, over find that connection into the band instead of the connection to the floor. And up. Two, three, hold.
Take the foot down. Last one. Over, find the long line. Lift that leg up and two and three, hold and touch down, bring the feet in a little. Take a breath in.
Roll Down
And roll it down. Find that ease in the spine now. Truly we could have let the band Jo, but this is kind of a nice reminder breathing in as we exhale and roll back up Imagine that you're holding some thera band and it's stretching just as the front of the body is stretching, taking a breath in and as we exhale and roll down that band would be relenting just like our back side of our body is relenting allowing this movement to occur. Breathing in at the bottom and then exhale find the reach down through the feet. Let your imaginary band let go.Let your fingers twinkle. Take a breath in one more time. You can think about whatever you want this time rolling down. Enjoying this gift of movement that we have, breathing in. And as we roll up feeling where you are right now, opening the palms to face forward, reaching up.
Feeling that length we have through our body and letting your arms go. That's the end of the class. Thank you so much everybody, and thank you for joining us. Thanks guys.
Intermediate Mat Workouts: +50-Minute Classes
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