Pilates Mat and Gait

Hi, everybody. I'm Tom Cook. I'm here at Pilates anytime for a mat class experience. I'm here with JD and Aaron, and our class is going to be a nice flow where we're going to combine some work on the clavicle Tom improve your quality movement in the shoulder girdle, some work with the hips, and the feet, and the spine, and put it all together for a great movement experience. So we're gonna start with basic concentrations. What I like you to do is look down at your feet for a moment and have your feet right under your sit bones.

And as you look down at your feet for a moment, lift all 10 toes off the floor And notice that it allows you to sense your key weight bearing points, the ball behind your little toe, the ball behind your big toe in the center of your heel, and just picture that like a triangle on each foot. And as you do that, soften the knee joints, then let the toes come back down. Let's do that a few times. Go ahead and lift. Feel those points, and then lay it back down.

Now notice you can do that, and you can relax your neck and shoulders, head right up over your spine, lift and lower, and one more, lift and lower. Now, leaving the toes down, leaning a little forward on the feet. Come back to the center, lean back slightly, back to the center lean to one side, back to the center lean to your second side, back to the center now as you feel the middle sense the three foot points equal weight front to back left to right. It's a good starting point and something to do often in your day, soften the knees, and with your head right up over your spine, just close your eyes for a moment, and just take a few deeper than normal breaths through the nose. On the exhale phase, settle down into your foot points, but also lengthen and straighten at the same time. Notice you can settle and lengthen.

Let the breath drop lower in the body. Do that for one more big breath. Now as you're noticing, just set your own intention for your practice, that this particular the areas of your body you're working on you want to become more skillful with, move better, let go of tension, heal an injury, or just have a good movement experience, set that intention before we begin, then go to the end of your next exhale and just softly open the eyes. As you bend the knees, feeling your three foot points, lift the shoulders straight up. As the legs lengthen and release the shoulders, see the spine getting a little longer.

And again, hips down shoulders up, legs lengthen shoulders release. We'll just do that one more Tom. And lower. Now, with your left hand touch your right clavicle, and feel how it's s shaped, and feel how it moves, and there's two main joints, the SC joint is the sternoclavicular, right where it attaches to your sternum, and your AC is out there where it attaches to your clavicle or to your, scapula. Now, just notice when you lift the shoulder up, we're just gonna go through the basic movements. Notice when you lift the shoulder up, it slides down on the sternum, And then when the outer edge drops, it slides up on the sternum, and there's a slide where it attaches at the sternal notch.

That's the beginning of your shoulder girdle. That's where your shoulder girdle attaches your arm, scapula, and clavicle. Which make up your shoulder girdle. This is the only place it attaches to your skeleton. Now notice you can lift the shoulder without engaging your arm muscles because the arm muscles don't have anything to do with lifting the shoulder.

Just saying. Here we go. Now take the collarbone from the outer border forward to protract and then take it back to retract and feel how that can be a nice, easeful glide around the ribcage. So in moving well, we're also looking to become more efficient. When we focus on how the body is designed, we keep our attention there, we can improve function. Now take the arm forward, we're going to build it, arm first, Now, clavicle and scapula, going back it's scapula clavicle, looking back reach it's the arm.

And again, it's arm, clavicle scapula, going back it's scapula clavicle, arm. Just feel that nice glide around the ribcage one more time. ARM, clavicle scapula, scapula, clavicle arm. Now we're going to add the spine. ARM, clavicle scapula, the spine flex. Coming back at spine, scapula clavicle, arm, and just two more Tom, arm, clavicle scapula, spine, scapula clavicle, arm, and one more fluid motion, arm, clavicle scapula spine, spine scapula clavicle arm, very nice. Then just brush down the arm, all the way to the end of your fingers. Take a moment Tom a little consumer report.

I'm noticing, oh, my shoulder feels much lower. Even notice that arm probably is longer, and notice the range and ease from that short effective process to improve the quality of movement in your shoulder girdle, also improves your posture. So let's take side two. Let's just touch the clavicle, feel it's shape, feel it's s shaped. It's kinda shaped like a key also.

And now just practice lifting the shoulder up and notice at the sternal notch, there's a sliding down as the lateral border goes up. And notice can I do that without tensing my arm muscles? So we're practicing learning how to be more center loaded instead of side loaded with tension, which actually makes our body move less well and not as effectively with burning more energy. Now, from there, let's take the clavicle forward into protraction. Retraction.

Now, I'm focusing on the clavicle, but obviously the shoulder blade is moving with it because they're married to each other. They can't move independently of each other, actually. That's it. Now let's take that into adding the arm. So it's going to be arm first, clavicle scapula, coming back at scapula clavicle, looking back its arm. And again, arm, clavicle scapula, feel the slide around the ribcage, scapula clavicle, arm, feel how that fluidity allows the spine to move easier arm, clavicle scapula, scapula clavicle arm. Now, we're going to add the spine into flexion, so it'll be arm, clavicle scapula spine, coming back its spine, scapula clavicle arm.

Arm, clavicle scapula spine, spine, scapular clavicle arm, and one more Tom, arm, clavicle scapula, spine, spine scapula, clavicle arm, Very nice, not just from there, brush down the arm to your fingers, letting go of any stress that no longer is being useful. Let that go. Good, good, very good point. Probably never that useful. Has its moments. Now just take a moment to compare.

Now we're gonna pick up our Franklin balls. I didn't mention in the beginning, but you're gonna wanna have two sets of four inch balls, a triad ball, which is like a nine inch ball, and a theraband. So we're going to take the two balls, and we're going to tap so let me just mirror it for you. So when I lift my elbows up like this, I want to think of the weight of the upper arm falling into the breastbone because the clavicle went like this, and it's falling, it's sliding down on the sternal notch. So with your knees a little bent, you're gonna tap up the center of your chest. Now right here, let the weight of the arms fall into your breastbone, lift the heart and reach up, circle the arms, and flex the spine as you bend the knees. Tap up the midline, open the top of the chest, reach, open curl.

Tom to the arms of falling into the center, open and curl. Just two more times. That's that nice effect that has on the neck, the shoulder girdle, and the spine. One more. Very nice. Put the balls aside.

Bring your hands on your shoulders. And imagine you're gonna stir circles, your clavicles are gonna go like this, but you're gonna stir circles on the opposing walls with your elbows. And go for like an equal sized circle. Leave your knees bent. Now as you're doing that, start to breathe, where you breathe in for a count of three, exhale for count of three.

Imagine your goal is to hit all the surface area of your lungs. Inhale for three, exhale for three. Now let the thoracic and lumbar move. Inhale for three. Exhale for three, and feel like your clavicle and scapular are leading the circles, inhale for three, exhale for three.

Now the next movement's gonna be a bellows where we're gonna fill and empty the lungs. So as you inhale, take the clavicles back, lift and open the chest and look up, exhale bend your knees and then empty your lungs. Inhale fill, exhale empty. Three more Tom, lengthen and open. Two more.

And one. As you come up, shake out your limbs. Now we're gonna go into some circles for the hips with your feet about six inches or a foot apart, a little narrow than a foot. Hip joint width apart. I want you to bend your knees and picture that your hip muscles go all the way around the hips, not just in the back and the sides.

So with your legs bent, shift your pelvis at your hip joint level to the right. Load that lateral hip and feel the whole foot. Now I'm lengthening the muscles on the outside of the right hip. Now shift the back to sit into a chair, load the back of the hips, feel how you're stretching the back, shift to your left, load the left, now open them to the front, not actually in the back, just open the front of the hip joints. Now I'm opening my hip flexors, shift to the right, to the back, to the left, to the front. One more that way.

Right, back, left. You didn't know you were doing Tom summit today. Now we're gonna reverse, go left, to the back, to the right, to the front. Left, back, right front last Tom, left, back, right front. As you come up, do a little alternate knee touch. Reach into the floor on the standing leg. Now from there, we're gonna go right into hip hinging.

So with your feet about a foot apart, turn the outside edges of your feet parallel so your feet are slightly turned in and bend your knees slightly. So because we sit a lot all day, the back of our hips can get inhibited and weak. So at your pubic bone level, picture, that's the level of your hip joints. So just practice taking your arms into goal post position, When you look out, you want your elbow directly under your hand, and then draw the chin slightly back and lengthen up through the back of your neck. Now, at your hip joints, pull the hip joints straight back to hinge without rounding your back. Now press into your feet evenly to come back up.

Now let's add the breathing. Inhale, exhale up. Inhale the hinge, exhale up four more times. Hold that nice line through the spine. Sit bones widen. Sit bones narrow.

Widen narrow. Two more. And one. And release, shake that out. To open up your hips a little bit more, I want you to step your left foot forward, right foot back, about six inches left to right, about a foot front to back, and this is going to be to open up your hip flexors mainly your iliacus on the back leg. So take your pelvis, moving from right below your belly button, move on a diagonal towards your left foot till you feel the weight on your front foot, the three foot points.

Now with your hands on your hips, press into your back foot, feel the front two foot points, ball the big toe and a little toe, and let the pelvis turn slightly back to the right. Sholders will turn to the left. That's more like gait. Now, with your hands on your hips, you're gonna posteriorly tip your pelvis on the exhale take the tailbone forward, pubic bone up the front, inhale to release it. That's enough feel.

When you do that, press into your back foot and do your best to keep the back knee straight. Do two more. Strong back leg, you're opening the front of the back hip. On the next one, hold it, reach into that back foot. And then gently release and we'll take side too. Doesn't look like much, but there's a lot of sensation.

Six inches front left to right about a foot front to back. First thing, take your center of mass and shift it towards your right foot on a diagonal so you feel all three foot points, almost like you're lining up your belly button over your big toe. Easier to keep the whole foot down. Now with your back leg, reach into the two front foot points, little toe big toe, but reaching into those points and straightening the leg, turn the pelvis slightly back to the left. The pelvis, the spine will turn slightly to the front leg. With the hands on the hips, just practice curling the tail forward, to round the lumbar and open the front of that back left hip. And again, practice doing it and pressing into your foot points and get the feeling you're trying to keep that back leg straight.

Just two more times. On the next one, go into it and hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Press into that back foot. Feel that nice opening.

And then slowly release. Now we're gonna take take it into what's called a clock step, but we're gonna step around the clock with a sliding leg, but your focus is always on the standing foot, keeping your three foot points on the ground. The sliding leg is just a gesture. So the first start, we'll start by shifting the weight onto the left leg, and we're gonna go around the clock to 09:00 from one to nine. So as you bend your left, slide your right forward to 01:00. Now, right there, feel your three foot points on your standing foot. Feel all the foot is moving towards pronation, straighten all the way up. Now go to two, and back to center.

Now to three, feel how your hips are changing a little bit. When you go to four, let the pelvis turn open slightly, but keep looking straight ahead. Now to five, focus on the weight on the front foot, all the way up to six. Go nice and slow. Seven money point.

Eight. And now nine reach forward with the same side arm as the reaching leg for a counter. Oh, there you go. Come all the way up. That's part of the process. We'll go right into side Tom. So shift the weight onto your right. Left leg will go to 11:00. Again, just the gesture.

Come all the way up. 10. Fill your three foot points on the standing foot. Nine, eight, all the way up each time to feel the foot's supinate, seven, six, focus on the weight. Five.

Now we can add the counter even here at four with the left hand forward. Same as the moving leg. And then two, three. Very nice, back to center. Now from there, we're going to come down onto the floor on the back and take the two Franklin balls and put them under your pelvis.

Come on down when you're ready, you guys. Now we'll put the balls right under your hips on each side of your sacrum, basically behind the pubic bone just above your sit bones. Now while you're here, have your feet in line with your sit bones, back of the neck long, and just take a few breaths there and see if you can get the feeling of the euchre, you're in a different position with gravity now. So let the front of the body fall into the back of the body on the exhale. Now in the exhale phase, as you start your next exhale, curl the tail towards the back of the knees, feel the bottom of the pelvis narrow as the tailbone goes towards the back of your knees.

You're going into a pelvic curl. Now inhale tip the pelvis forward. Feel the abdominal wall lengthen, sit bones widen, and then curl, and take it nice and slow where you're working from the pelvis, abdominal muscles, pelvic floor muscles, lower back muscles, but useful in the neck and shoulders. Do that two more times. And one more, just a nice warm up for the center of your body.

Now as you come back to center, we're going to do a little bigger focus on your iliacus with your deeper hip flexor muscles. We're going to slide your right leg long on the floor. Now that leg is going to stay long so that opens up the front of your right hip more. On the exhale, curl your tail towards the back of your knees to flex the lumbar spine, inhale to release it. Now if you feel like you can't get much flexion, that feels like it's too big for you or too far extended with your leg, you can bend the down knee a little bit you needed to.

That's to now do three more, and to focus as you curl both sit bones narrow, the lower back lengthens, and you're opening up the front of that hip. One more. And as you as you finish slowly bend, we'll switch sides. Slide out your left leg. And again, just take a moment, exhale curl the tail towards the back of the knee, inhale to release.

And again, nice and fluid. There you go. Flu in motion, feel you're opening up the hip, those muscles that travel over the pubic bone to the inner thigh, two more. And one more. Great thing to do if you've been sitting a lot of Tom sitting. Now, from there, we'll come back to bent legs. Now take hold of your left knee with both hands.

We're gonna go into a developed pain movement with the down legs. With the down leg, draw it into your chest on its own, reach it straight up to the ceiling, long exhale let it lower towards the mat, and again inhale bend it in, and up in our exhale picture as it's lowering, that your your deeper hip flexor muscles are eccentrically lengthening from the weight of your leg, the muscles that attach your leg to your spine that go over your pubic bone, connect to the spine on on that side of the belly button. And as you do that really great idea to relax the neck more, because we inhibit our hip flexors with shoulder and neck tension. No need to tense your foot or do you want any of the things that we tend to do? Just let the weight of your leg be enough. Let's do two more. I recommend anywhere from six to 10 reps. And one more, you guys. That's it.

As that knee comes in, we'll switch sides, take hold of the right, reach up with the left, long exhale let it lower towards the floor. Now I didn't mention this on the other side, but as you're lowering the leg, think of letting the hip get heavier on that side imaging that the pelvis is subtly turning horizontally towards the floor on the lowering leg slide. That's just like what you were doing when you were standing. Like, if you were walking, your pelvis would subtly turn towards the back leg side. And that's very helpful if you get clicking and popping in your hip. That helps to actually remedy that.

Do two more like that and one more everybody. Very nice. Now we're prepared and ready for some bridging. So now we'll place the feet down, lift the hips, take the balls away, and have the feet just in line with your sit bones. We're just gonna do two bridges before we do a few different variations. So the feet see if throughout what we're about to do, that you stay aware of your three foot points on both of your feet.

So take a breath, exhale start to curl the tail through towards the back of the knees and peel into a bridge until you feel like you have a straight line from your knees to your shoulders. Now, the top of the bridge, just touch the bottom of your sit bones with your fingers for a moment. Now take the bottom back of your pelvis more towards the back of your knees, not touch your front ribs, now let the front ribs melt in without dropping the pelvis. And feel how you just got more action in the back of your legs, more length out of your lower back. Now bring the arms long, take a breath as you press the back of the shoulders into the floor, soften your breastbone and use your abs to lengthen down. At the very bottom, let the sit bones widen to come to neutral.

We're gonna do that just two more times. This time as you curl arrive in that nice, tone, straight line from the knees to the shoulders. Take a breath at the top, soft breastbone traction down towards your feet, sit bones opening is the very last thing that happens at the bottom. One more, nice and smooth. Fluid motion, nice breath at the top, and then articulate down nice and smooth.

Now in the next bridge, you're just gonna come up, you're gonna come up the same way, but a little less. So come up about two thirds of the way. Now when you're up there, imagine your pants pockets are filled with sand. As you inhale, rotate the right pocket towards the floor, exhale squeeze back to center. Now see if as you're doing that rotation, if you can keep the weight even on both feet, try to avoid left or right swaying of the knees.

It'll have just a pelvic rotation, fill your inner thigh muscles, back of your legs, hips, and abdomen working together. One more to your second side. Now hold the middle. Now imagine you're you're gonna shift without unleveling your pelvis shift your trochanter at the top of your thigh towards one side like a typewriter. And then squeeze back to center.

Shift and come back to center, make it as small as you need to to keep the pelvis level so you're feeling the inner outer, hips, the waistline, and still connected to your feet. Yes. I am demanding. There we go. One more each side. As you come back Tom center, hold position, now inhale reach the arms back into a high v overhead thumbs towards the floor wider than your shoulders.

On the exhale traction your spine down away from your fingertips one vertebra at a Tom. As you arrive at the bottom, interlace the fingers behind your head for an ab curl. Now, begin by just getting a sense of from your tailbone to your belly button that you could lengthen your lower back a little close to the floor, and press into your feet. Now take a breath and on the exhale, start to roll your head off the floor like a wheel and slide your breastbone towards your pelvis to curl as far as you can without pulling on your head with your arms inhale to lengthen down. And again, roll the head off, That's it. Now feel an image that your back ribs are sliding up your back when you curl forward away from your pelvis.

Nice and smooth. There you go. There's two two more. And one. As you come down, touch your front ribs for a moment with your hands, now slide your hand from your front rib to your opposite hip.

And imagine, these are the muscles that are gonna turn you. It's gonna happen from this low opposed to overdoing it from the shoulders. It's really low. Now interlace the fingers behind your head again. Take a breath, do your initial head lift, now slide the breastbone and turn rib to opposite hip, inhale to center, exhale to turn, and get heavier in the hip you're turning away from. Feel like the hip is heavy on the floor, so you start to feel your waistline a little bit more. And the shoulder girdle is wrapping around from the back to the front on the side you're turning away from.

One more each side. Back to center, draw your knees into your chest and rock up to a seated position, and we're gonna grab the thera band and do some roll downs. So for this version, wrap the thera band around your feet, and bend your knees just enough that it's relatively easy to sit up on your sit bones and your arms can be straight. So when you look at your elbows, if you're like this, that means they're not straight. I I have to do that in my classes a lot, so no worries. So I sit up tall. Now, just get a feeling that A roll down is exactly the same as the bridge that you just did.

You just happen to be sitting in a different position. It's initiated from the same place. So when you start to curl, feel the bottom of the pelvis start to narrow, the tail pulls forward and roll back until you touch the part of your spine just behind the belly button. Take a short breath, now fold at the belly button level without elevating your shoulders. And at the top, let the sit bones widen to get right up on the sit bones.

And again, narrow the bottom of the pelvis, tail forward, lower back back. Short breath when you touch. Keeping the shoulders low and wide, curl. That's it. And then at the top, get right up on the sit bones. We'll do two more like that.

Nice and fluid. That's it. Nice and smooth. Short breath right there. Curl back up. Now the next one, we're going to go all the way back, but it's a $50 fine if you let go at the bottom.

So on the exhale, curl back. Now when you're letting your head go back, keep the tone and the muscles that are lengthening, which is your abdominal wall. Nodge your head, fold right below the breastbone, and slide your back ribs up your back as you curl, curl, curl. And we're gonna do one more Tom. Grow tall. Oh, some good looking roll downs going on there.

Curle back nice and smooth. That's to keep the length as you eccentrically lengthen your abdomen at the Tom. On the exhale roll the head off the floor, curl. Nice and fluid. Now, we're gonna take that into some extension to strengthen the upper back and the upper back muscles along with the arms. And think of what we're gonna do is include the head on what was a counter movement to the typical posture of like driving or being on the computer.

So when you get up on your sit bones, just practice retracting your clavicles and your scapula as far as you can without bending the arms. Notice they have a lot of glide. Now in the next one, pulling back as far as they can, then as you pull the elbows back, rotate your palms up. And feel how it's back long before arms and for most of the exercise. Arms come in last. Now, let's add to that.

Retract, pull the elbows back, now slide the heart up the front of the breastbone, then go up the back of your neck, so it's thoracic extension, neck flexion. Slow so the neck will flex then slowly release in again. Retract, elbows back, now lift the heart up, go up the back of your neck. Tom that three more times. Retract, pull, lift up through the heart, up the bet through the back of the neck.

Very nice, slowly. And this actually is relevant to the gait cycle, and again, retract pull, lift one more time, you guys. Also feels really good. And again, retract, pull up with the heart, up through the back of your neck. And straight, now we're gonna take it into rotation.

So in rotation, staying just as tall, just pull your right shoulder blade straight back, start to bend the arm as you turn, but stay as long in the front as you are in the back. Slowly come straight, retract the left, pull and turn equal weight on both sit bones. The bone that moves first is the clavicle, pull it back. Turn. Start the image on the one you're not pulling on, that that clavicle is going forward like a bow and arrow, nice and smooth, two more each way.

Press down through your heels. Get right up on the sit bones. One more each side. And last one. Back to center, take your band away.

Now help yourself onto all fours. And on all fours, you're gonna have your knees about shoulder width apart. And take your hips about six inches behind your knees. Now you'll leave for you guys, you're gonna leave your left hand on the floor, a little forward of your body, and bring your right hand eventually will go behind your head. For now, just put it on the other shoulder.

If you watch the movements gonna be, I'm gonna take my left collarbone back to turn open and actually and why don't you do the other arm so you guys can, JD, so you guys are kinda facing the same way at the same time. Now when you turn, keep the weight even on both knees, and think of your your your your or a corkscrew, you're not laterally flexing or shifting, you're turning around the midline. Now, let's try it with the hand behind the head. If anybody, when you're practicing, if you have shoulder problems, leave your hand where we just started, otherwise put the hand behind your head. Now when you flex, rotate down, let the elbows come to touch one another and feel like your outer clavicles are coming towards one another and then open.

And spiraled down, and then open. This is thoracic mobility, upper back strength, nice line head to tail, all the way through. Do two more. Challenge yourself to when you open that you're just turning around the midline, you're not arching, you're just rotating. One more. As you come back to center, we'll switch sides.

Start just do one repetition with your other side hand on the other opposite shoulder. As you push into the floor, just open and feel like the collarbones are moving away from each other, and then back down. Now try it with the hand behind the head, and you can lightly press the head back so you can lengthen through the back of your neck. Then open. That's it. And on the weight bearing arm, see even get the feeling of keeping that shoulder away from your ears throughout the exercise?

That's it. Exhale to close, inhale to open. And let's do two more on that side, nice and smooth, and one more. Very nice. That leads us right into some upper back extensions Tom come on to your belly. Now on your belly, have your nose about two inches off the floor, arms long by your sides with your palms up.

Now practice anchoring the front of your hips and your pubic bone towards the floor, lift your nose slightly in your chin straight up off the floor. Now just practice taking your collar bones straight back off the floor towards the ceiling. Float your hands off the floor and pull your hands towards your back pockets. Now, holding that, just practice letting the collarbones come a little forward, draw them back again. Now as you've reached for your feet, pull the upper chest forward, keeping the back of the neck long like you just did earlier with the thera band exercise, lengthen back down. Again, feel like the first bone to move is the clavicle. Draw back, slide the heart forward, and lengthen back down nice and smooth like that.

Feel like as you come up, the the shoulder blades come in, the back of the neck is long, and there's a sense of length through the front. There you go. Let's do two more. Notice as you get that shoulder grille to move first, the spine extension is easier. Beautiful. One more. Very nice you guys.

From there, we're gonna go into single leg kicks, so come up onto your forearms, and have your elbows wider than your shoulders, hands close. Now, we're just gonna start with our lizard pushup. So, lizard push up is you ever seen them on the rock? They're actually performing for someone to come their way. Now as you push into your elbows, lift out of your shoulders, now broaden across the collar bones and lengthen through the back of your neck. Now just energetically draw the pubic bone towards the belly button. Tone your inseams.

On a snip, we're gonna do a sniffing breath, we'll go kick on the exhale. Feel like you're toning the back of the hips and the belly and the muscles under your shoulder blades. Nice and smooth. There we go. Two more each side.

One more. Very nice. Then lengthen down for the swan. Now, for the swan, you'll have your fingertips just a little forward of your shoulders with your elbows on the floor, and let your feet be about six inches apart. Now just practice taking your collar bones a little bit back and then slide your shoulder blades down your back. Now anchor the pelvis, the pubic bone and hip bones into the floor and draw your nose and your chin straight up off the mat.

Just a little bit. So you feel like you haven't even extended yet or used your arms. Now as you inhale, start to slide the upper chest forward Tom lift your head. Now reach into the arms to come higher, but keep your shoulders low. Lengthen all the way back down, and let you let you determine the range based on your ability to keep it out of your lower back, keep a sense of evenness through the extension.

Slide the upper chest forward. Shoulders slide down, you can come up a little higher if you like, and then lengthen back down. And again, keep the collar bones back as you start to extend. Opera chest slides forward, legs are nice and actively toned. Beautiful. There you go.

Through two more, nice and smooth. Really get that feeling. There's a down through the shoulder blades and a retraction of the clavicle, nice opening across the top of the chest. And one more. Nice and smooth. That's it. Nice and fluid. Now, we'll finish this prone position with an eight point plank.

And you're thinking, what are the eight points? I'm about to tell you, so come up onto your elbows, have your elbows right under your shoulders, toes tucked under. So think of the eight points are your wrists, your elbows, your knees, and your feet, and they all stay on the floor. Push your elbows into the floor, lift out of your shoulders. Now imagine you're gonna wave your spine off the floor, and your spine starts just below your chin.

So start to pull your throat away from the floor, your breastbone away from the floor, your knees will bend as your hips come off the floor, Now feel a straight line as best you can from your head to your tail and start to resist your elbows and knees towards one another like you're pulling the mat together. Now squeeze your limbs towards the midline and breathe width and lengthened to your torso. Hold for five more breaths. Long in the torso, let the back of the neck be nice and long, two more big breaths. One more big breath.

Slowly lower gently press yourself back to a child's post. So if you got that high speed wobble to happen in the middle of your body, that's actually a good thing. That's it. I just take a few breaths back there, soften, Let your belly soften, let yourself become foldable, hips, knees, spine, neck is easeful. One more breath. Now, from that kneeling position for a counter movement, shift your hips a little bit off your heels, put your elbows in front of your knees about six inches on the floor.

Now, round your back, taking your tailbone towards your head just to release your lower back a little bit Tom, tone your belly, press into your forearms and your shins. Take one more breath. And now slowly release and help yourself onto your back. We're gonna have a little more of a flow happening. So we're gonna come on to our back.

Now while you're on your back, just take a moment to line up your tail with your head, with your nose, and from your tail to your belly button lengthen that part of the spine a little closer to the floor. Now take your left knee and hold it with your right hand. With your left hand, reach a little lower on the shin and take a breath and do an abdominal curl. Now pull the elbows wide, reach the other leg long, like we were talking earlier, I feel like your pelvis is gently trying to turn towards the long leg side, curl up a little bit more with an exhale switch and switch. Nice and smooth, fluid. There you go.

Back ribs up your back, legs tracking right over your hips. Two more each side. One more each side. As you come to the center, hold your knees, let your head come down for a moment. Just roll your head from side to side.

Now find the middle again and do that same lengthening of the lower part of the spine. This is gonna be single straight leg stretch. So exhale curl up with the upper body. Now reach your left leg straight up and hold just below the knee, reach the right leg long. Now look at your belly and get heavier on your right hip.

With an exhale switch, and switch nice and smooth, fluid motion, breathing wide and low. Two more each side. One more each side. As you come back to the center, hold the knees again just for a moment. Now we're going to take it into the rollover.

We're going to start with the legs wide, little variations. So arms long. Take the shoulders back, and I take the legs straight up and open them about shoulder width. With the feet pointed, take an inhale, exhale roll back, inhale, close the legs flex the feet, and exhale roll down through the spine. Inhale open point, exhale to the back.

Inhale, close the legs, flex the feet, now press down, soften the breastbone traction down through the spine. One more time, inhale open point, exhale to the back, sit bones narrow, draw the legs together, flex the feet, traction down. Now keep the legs together as you get to the bottom and point the feet on the inhale, exhale to the back. Inhale open flex, traction down through the spine nice and smooth. Just two more inhale together in point, exhale to the back, inhale open flex, traction down, One more, you guys, nice and fluid draw it together, exhale to the back, open flex, traction down through the spine as you get to the bottom, bend into tabletop, interlace the fingers behind your head, and one more time lengthen that lower part of the spine into the floor.

Remember when we turned earlier, we're gonna turn from the low ribs to the opposite hip for crisscross, exhale curl up and slowly turn to your left and straighten your right leg. Now get heavier in that right hip with an exhale switch. Nice and smooth. Feel the opposition that torso was turning opposite the pelvis. Two more each side, nice and fluid.

One more each side. Back to center, take hold of your knees, rock around on your lower back just for a moment. Very nice you guys. Now we're gonna grab your triad ball, and you're gonna come on to your side facing me and put it right above your hip and then bend your bottom leg like you're sitting in a chair. So you have it right above the ilea and the top leg is long.

And when you look at your hips, you want your hips to be stacked, and a nice line from your ankle, to your hip, to your shoulder, to your ear, then just stretch out the bottom arm and let your head rest on it. As in now, just put your top hand on your lower belly for a moment, right below the belly button. Now take a breath and on the exhale, draw the tissue away from your hand so you feel the space in between your ribcage and your pelvis become more toned and active. Practice doing that right before you move, so then we're training those deeper set of muscles that tend to get left out. Take this arm up, on the exhale, feel the activation, and then side bend over the ball, and then inhale back down.

I feel like it's your body moving you, not your arm. Nice and fluid. XL side. Now that's the nice gentle version which we all like, which is great. If you wanna take it a step further, turn the bottom palm up. On the exhale, start to reach through it, let it float and then add the side then.

Make sure you don't jilt yourself off the floor. Take it slow and just feel it. There you go. There's three more. There you go.

Nice and smooth. Beautiful, you guys. One more. Now as you lower, come up onto your bottom forearm and let it be far enough away that you can push the floor away to come out of the shoulder, and feel like you've got some tone on your bottom waist, but the ball is there for support, and put your top in on your hip, and you can add a little attitude. As now from there, as you push the floor away, we're gonna do a little side kick.

So as you reach out of the leg, float the foot a few inches, inhale kick to the front. So point and reach the back. Now hold it back there for a moment, activate the down knee towards your chest so the legs are working together. Inhale kick to the front, point and reach. Keep pressing into that bottom elbow, have energy out the top of your head.

Three more. And two. And one. Now from there as a release, stretch out the bottom arm again, let the top arm come over the top, let the torso turn down slightly. Now with your top leg traction it away from you, and then a little to the back. Let it come to the floor.

Now, breathe into the length, like the the top two limbs are tractioning away from each other, and breathe into where you feel the stretch in that top hip and waistline, relax the back of your neck and your upper back. Two more big breaths. One more big breath. Now slowly help yourself up. You're gonna take the ball away And we're gonna finish this side with a side bend.

So your top leg will be folded flat. The bottom leg of the foot will be a little behind, and I'm gonna go from the first thing you wanna do is push floorway to lift out of that bottom shoulder, and imagine really the two outside limbs of the bridge, this leg will straighten though. So imagine you're going to go on a diagonal towards this shoulder. So first push the floorway to lift out of the shoulder. Now as you inhale, lift into a straight line and create a straight line through the arms.

Now with your legs, pull yourself back to the start. And again, lift. Now with your here, start to lower the pelvis and lower the arm and look towards your feet. Lift the hips, take it over the top and look towards the ground, back Tom side, lower the pelvis, back to side over the top. One more, lift and reach, back to side, lower, swing around to side too, and grab your ball again.

Put it right above your hip. Now, bend your bottom knee like you're sitting in a chair, stretch out that bottom arm, let your head rest on it. Now feel that line from your top ankle to your hip, to your ear, put your top hand on your lower belly. Now just take a moment on the exhale, draw the tissue away from your hand. Feel how it's not just front and back, it's the whole cylinder of your waistline.

Feel that. One more breath. Now take the top arm straight up. Feel that core activation, then add it with the side bend towards your long leg. Inhale to lower. And again, continue with that version if that's enough.

Otherwise, turn the bottom palm up right away after you feel the core activation reach through it, let it float off the floor. Take it nice and slow. Feel how you're activating the middle to generate the motion. Let's do three more. Feel how both shoulders slide away from the ears throughout the side bend.

One more nice and smooth. Place that bottom forearm on the floor, come up into like a supported forearm lift. That's enough. You'll have a nice line out your head. You're pushing away.

Your waistline is activated. Top in on your hips. You're very official. Now lift your top leg up just a few inches. Now inhale kick to the front.

Point and reach the back hold there for a moment. Now activate the down knee towards your chest so you don't sway the upper body forward and back. Inhale the kick. Pelt out its full body. Inhale the kick.

Exhale to reach three more times, nice and smooth. And two, there we go. That's it. And one, very nice. As you complete, take the top arm, let the bottom arm stretch out again, take the top arm over the top, now just turn your torso down towards the floor so you can relax your neck. Reach long through your top leg and pull it back behind you. Feel how you're opening up the front of the hip, you're also opening up that top waistline.

Now relax the back of your neck and your upper back. Try to get the breath a little lower a little deeper. Creates space in the muscles that you just worked. Two more big breaths. One more you guys.

Now very gently, help yourself out of that setup, take the ball away, and come up onto your bottom hand instead of the forearm for the side lift side bend. Now the top leg will be flat Tom arm, push the floor away to lift up out of the shoulder, and you're gonna lift on a diagonal on the inhale into the side plank. Now feel the line through the arms, through the spine. Make sure the head's not forward. It tends to wanna drop forward, pull it back. Now bend the legs and pull yourself back down.

And again, lift. Now from here, as you slowly lower the pelvis, look towards your feet, lower the arm. Lift to side, reach over the top. Back to side, slowly lower the hips. Back to side over the top.

One more time. Lower and lift. Back to side slowly lower. Help yourself onto all fours. And we're gonna do leg pull back. So with leg pull back, first, let's just do a couple scapula glides, so create a nice straight line head to tail, and just practice letting your shoulder blades come closer together in the back as the body slowly drops between the arms.

Now, float the body up as you widen, but also lower the shoulder blades a little bit more. One more. Now as you widen lower, also draw your chin in your nose straight up. Step one leg into a plank, Second leg. Now energetically reach back through your legs.

And as you reach your heels back, point and lift one leg, inhale to lower and come forward, exhale back, lift and reach. Keep the hips low. So it's hip extension opposed to badasana. And you're wondering what is that? I think we know. One more each side.

Back to center now as you tuck your chin, shift back to downward dog, and just slowly as you hold, let the knees soften a little bit and let your hips traction away from your hand so you can get more length out of your spine and fully relax the back of your neck. Let your head just go. Look towards your feet so the back of the neck can fully let go. Now as you shift your hips to one side, let the other knee bend and reach the heel towards the floor. Feel how your lateral your your your stressing the lateral hip on that side. Come back to center, and shift to your second side.

Still keep your front two foot points on the floor on the side that you're stretching. Big Tom, middle toe side. One more each side. Last one. As you come back to center, gently walk your hands to your feet, soft knees roll up through the spine.

Now take your left arm forward with the palm up, reach it up, now push down into your left foot, look up towards your arm, turn and reach back. And then on the right, reach it up, push down into the right, turn and reach back. One more each side. Reach lengthen turn. One more.

Reach lengthen turn. Bring your heels together in a small v. Now as you bend your legs feel how the front of the foot swipes out, feet widens, swipe it in, zip up your inseams to float your heels. Now float the arms that will stay long through the body, open, and lower one more Tom, bend feet swipe out, swipe in, zip up the midline, float, reach, open as you lower turn back to parallel, come back to centering the weight on your feet, close your eyes, soften the knee joints, let the breathing drop lower in the body, relax the jaw, relax behind the eyes, acknowledge yourself for your hard work today. Thank you, Pilates, anytime.

Hope to see you again. Thanks you guys. Thank you. My pleasure.