Class #372

Reconnect to your Center

55 min - Class
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Description

Slow down and reconnect to your center in this Mat class taught by Meredith. The focus of the class is on spinal articulation, mobility, and length featuring variations on Saw and Spine Twist.
What You'll Need: Mat, Overball

About This Video

Feb 02, 2011
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Transcript

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Okay. I think that we'll just start sitting and you can take your balls and if you didn't have a ball with the squishy balls, you could, um, use towel or pillow or something of that nature. So let's just place the ball in between the thighs, not right in the knees, but just a little bit lower. So they're actually in between the thigh bones. Take the hands and just rest them on the front of the Shins. Press into the hands just a little bit and guide the spine up slightly straighter or as straight as you can. And then think taller.

And then just staying here for a couple of moments. Inhaling, feeling the entire trunk, expanding the ribs expand. Exhale, allow energy to fill your body, but allow tension to release from your body. An inhale, expanding the ribs, just not moving yet. Feeling lightness through the spine and the shoulders, perhaps sink a little heavier. Let's take one more breath without moving. Find this little bit of can inner thigh contraction and notice that as you do so your abs may turn on a bit and then we'll get moving now. So as we exhale, we're going to move the pelvis out from underneath us. We're curling down.

Just let your hands slide down your legs or pick them up. It's up to you. Just rounding down to about the bottom of the ribcage. Try to keep your feet down on the ground. Inhale, pause, start excelling. Take the chest towards the pelvis so you're rounding forward and then restack the spine pressing into the shins. Lifting tall. Inhale, exhale. Either side the hands down the sides of the thighs or just let go.

Pulling the weight of your body downwards. Inhale, lots of work in the trunk. Start exhaling, bringing the chest forward, finding that sense of ease in the body as we lift and lengthen the spine up tall. Couple more times, just like so. Exhale as we were rolled out, looking for deep flection of the lower spine in pause and exhale to come back up. Maybe a gentle squeeze, not only with the inner thighs, but also with the backsides of the legs. Last too pressing into the boss. Excuse me. In healing. Inhaling deposit, exome. We just restack really well. Lengthened tall. I'm going to be leaving my hands off my knees this time.

Last one here. We're just rolling down. I did get a little lower than you were before. Breathing into pause and then breathing out. We're coming up. Once we arrive at the top, we're going to all rotate in this direction. XL Roll down that side just off side of the spine.

The knee should still point straight up anyhow across the body. Sorry. Qantas to the other side and XL to a role that, sorry, a little oblique stand. I know you don't want to do them in the other way. Exhale, tucking the tailbone under. Sealing the movement, the contraction of the abdominals, the movement of the spine rolling up and returning to center. Let's just do that one more time. Opening up through the lower back. Definitely looking for a little bit of a warming up through the ABS.

Come across center oral [inaudible] and come back last time for now. We're rolling down. Heading across center school, using the ball. Feel the leg stay totally still rolling yourself up and find center. Take the ball out from between your legs. Just drop your knees out to your side for a brief moment and take a stretch forward.

I've put my forearms on my shins and I'm just gently pushing into my shins with my arms and pulling myself a little bit more forward and then start to just gently bring yourself up. We're gonna take that ball and put it behind us. Um, when you find it, you may find that you need to adjust it, but I don't want it to be right in next year. I want it to be if a few inches behind you. I'm going to take my legs all the way together now and then we're just going to be rolling back into that ball. So feel again the talk of the pelvis rolling down and then if you need to adjust your ball once you find it you will. Okay. Just for a moment, relax onto the ball. Okay, that's the last relaxing on the ball that we're going to do now.

Feel the abdominals, press into the ball, the chest move slightly forward and the tailbone Tuck. All we're doing here is we're going to release that talk in hand and XL retox so the abdominals drop back into the ball. The pelvis generally moves up. Inhale, release, exhale to press. I'm not lifting all the way off with my pelvis. I'm just working on using the ball to help me really intensify the curvature of my spine should be a lot ab work. I try to minimize legwork here, so feeling that just gentle movement of the pelvis, but pure abdominals working.

So as we tilt the tailbone, we feel the stomach hollow and press. Let gonna do that one more time. Pressing into the ball in to pause there and then exhale. Push even harder into the ball and just rise up off of it. Where'd you go? Oh, rollback again. We should do that again. We should do that again for candy.

All right, so just settling down on the ball and we just tuck deep in the curvature of the spine. Maybe you'll find a stretch here if you work the front enough and release the back enough and again for three more reaching and really seeing anyone not feeling their abdominals. Oh Gig, Huh? Debits back. All right, I'm gonna Change this just a little bit. It starts the same. We rolled down finding the ball, slide the feet a little closer to you. Re tuck the pelvis, and then as you exhale, you're going to pull one leg towards your body. Inhale, touch that foot down. Exhale. That same way comes again.

So it's the same idea. Rounding the spine more, but this time that leg is just floating through space. One more time. Okay. We replaced that leg and pick up the other leg. It's an XL to pull the thigh to the chest and release and pull the side to the chest and release just two more times here. Deepening the contraction through the center. One more to go. Place the foot down.

I want to slide your feet out a little bit. And again, just contracting. The ABS are rising up off the ball, sitting in. Tell him and use my arms one more time. Here. We're going to do something really fun next. So letting go. Rolling back, finding the ball. We're gonna take our hands behind our head.

Now a second option would be to cross the arms over the chest, which won't be nearly as challenging. Take the upper body over the ball and lift just back to where you started and take the upper body back over the ball. Keep the abdominals working and exhale just back to where you started and do maybe three more. I think feeling the middle back, expand extent and and to one more time for the day and lift. I'm letting my arms come forward to get me up. Take the ball out from behind you. Place it between your knees, between your thighs again really, and then just rolling yourself all the way down. Once you arrive down on your back, I'm going to glide your feet a little closer to you until you know it's safe to lift them up without any change in the low back. Let the feet stay together, but the knees will obviously be a part with the ball there.

Let's do the spine twist. Inhale towards me and exhale using the opposite side of the waist to drag the body back through center. Inhale over to the other side and exhale we come back. Your arms can be done in a low v shape or if you wish, you can take them out into a t shape. What is important, however, is that as you shift to one side, the opposite shoulder stays down. Exhaling back, letting the breath create the rhythm.

Remember that the completeness or the fully of the full excalation of the breath is something that will help you tie in more to your abdominal. So challenge yourself to press out all the old air refill with new air and each time let all that air out of your body. We're going to go three more times. Here's one, and exhale back and two, how old is just rocks from side to side? Here's our last one. Well then we're just going to bring the feet down to the ground. Separate them so that they're parallel arms that our sides palms down for the pelvic curl XL, pressing the abdominals and down. So here's that tuck position.

Again, flattening the spine into the ground and then the lifting the spine, you feel that it just floats off the mat. Inhale as we pause, press the upper arms into the ground. Exhale coming down, starting from the chest, feeling the bones of the middle back, all five bones of the lower spine individually. And finally that pelvis just drops back into a neutral position. XL Rolling up again, little pressure into the ball, a little feeling of stretching the knees forward. Inhale and excise. We roll down. Just reach energetically the arms down towards the heels.

Feel a little bit of energy or effort in the upper back muscles. Last three exhale, lifting in the heel and exhale to roll back down. I'm going to go two more times. I'm going to make just a little change at the top. So here it is. We roll up, look in your body for that gentle Tuck of the pelvis, trying to open up through the front sides of the legs and we're just going to squeeze the ball for five pretty hard for theory. Shoulders are pressed down into the mat to another one and then we just peel down bone by bone, lengthening away from the head with the pelvis last time. Exactly the same.

Rolling ourselves that making sure that the pubic bone is higher in space in the ribs, in the front of the hip bones, and it's just a squeeze one and abdominals in squeeze two and three and four last time here. Maintain the squeeze as you peel your body back down into the ground. All right, reach your hands back behind your head. Interlock your fingers fully and allow your elbows to be just lifted off the ground so that they're in your peripheral vision. As we exhale, pressing the ribs into the ground, we curl the head and chest up. Remember to leave your head heavy and your hands. Inhale, pause. Exhale.

Work your way back down. Creating length in the waist, work and the waist. Exhale to lift again. The ribs pressing the head is heavy. Chest curls forward. Inhale, pause, and exhale. Lengthen out. Exhale as you lift again, little bit of energy into the inner thighs. Inhale to pause and Xcel to lower back down.

Going to hold this next one up at the top. Here it is. Exhale, lift, reach behind your thighs. As you inhale, exhale, guide yourself maybe a little bit more forward. Then take the hands, reach them just over the ball. One Hand on top of the other. Inhale as you take both hands over your little one knee and exhale as we come back, shoulders stay down, so lifting a shoulder won't help you with the rotation at all. To think about guiding the opposite rib towards the opposite, up and across, and pinnacle. Then and reach and reach. Think about reaching, be on the knee in space and coming home.

One more time in each direction please. When you bring it back, take it to the other side. Bring it back, separates a hands. Keep the body lifted. As you raise your arms up, interlock your fingers. Place them behind your head. Inhale to hold and lengthen all the way down. On the exhale, breathing in again. We're going to pick up the head and chest one. Once again, once again reached behind the five. Guide your chest a little bit further. Slide your feet a little bit closer to you or quite close in fact, and let your arms reach back down towards your sides.

Pull the ball towards the center of the chest. Inhale, let the toes tap. If you can keep your back flat. Exhale, pull the ball up towards the center of the chest and press suggest towards the ball in Hilda and excellent. And inhale down and excellent. Yeah, let's do four x. That's a lift. Keeping the tailbone down as those thigh bones pull up into the chest. Arms are reaching beyond the toes. The last two, here's the last one. Gently placing the feet back on the floor.

Reach for the ball with your hands. Pick it up. Lower your body down. Take the ball just over the chest, stretching the legs out in front of you, gluing the legs together. We're going to pick up the head and chest. Just a little bit of pressure into the ball. Um, before we left. Think about this. When you press into the ball, it's tempting to want to curl the shoulders forward. So see all that as you press into the ball, the shoulders, maybe move down the back a little and then we picked the head and chest up and we roll up for the roll up.

Staying long in the spine with a round back. Inhale, exhale to travel back downwards. We're not going to take the arms overhead today. They're just going to end directly over the chest where they started. Little pressure on the ball in heel lift and XL to curl. So as you arrived down on your back, check for that broad flat position with the shoulder blades that you found when you initially squeezed that ball, picking up the head and chest, curling the spine forward.

Inhale and exhale to the roll to dragging the ball towards the chest by pulling the shoulders back. Let's do two more exactly the same. Lifting head, chest, pressing into the healing of through the spine. Inhale, pull the abdominals back. Exhale, rolling back and head goes down. Last one, lifting head and chest, curling through the spine, staying around in the trunk. Turn the body towards me. Roll down all the way onto that side. As the body comes down and you're going to rotate into center, turn the ball over to the opposite side. Lift the head and chest. Roll up that side of the [inaudible] body. Oh, sorry. Candy. And will you turn the other way?

Just rolling down this off side the spine. The ball comes across the center of the chest. As the head comes down, we lift up to the other side, roll up that side and return to center. Let's do that one more time on either side in here, not so, not real far. I've, I've turned to a my ball just past my bottom shin and then had, and then we lift. Let me peel and then drawing the abdominals even deeper into the spine. We return the last time. Yeah.

Rolling back talking. The tailbone in her head comes down as we transfer through center, lifting up the other side, rolling all the way back up and then just take your body back through center, put the ball down on your legs and then as you stretch forward, if you can push the ball out over your feet and push down on your feet. Getting a little bit of a stretch to them. All right. And then as you roll up of all, we'll just come back up the legs with you. I'm losing my pants and just take a minute to put those back on.

I don't want the paintless teacher. All right, so we're still gonna use the ball. We're going to do a little bit of twisting, and here's how we're going to start starting ball out in front. When you do, once again, feel in fact, push the ball forward, feel the collarbones round in towards one another, and then pull back to the shoulder blade. So the collarbones make a long line. And from there give the ball a little squeeze. With that squeeze, we're going to bend the elbows, pulling the ball into the chest. So feel free to bend your knees here. We're going to stay. Just sit in straight for a second. Squeeze the ball as you press forward, feel the shoulders, reach back as the arms, lightly present to the ball and stretch. Inhale, bend the elbows length in the spine tall and exhale. Press into the ball as you stretch.

So that's a pattern that we're going to revisit. So from here we bend the elbows and we're going to inhale and as we exhale we're going to turn in my direction. Keeping the feet and knees lined up, stretch the ball forward. Inhale, exhale, raise the arms up in yellow are the arms. Exhale, bend the elbows, drawing the shoulder blades back and return to center. Oops. Messed up the breath. Here we go. That was our exhale. Inhale. Now exhale, slink in the spine. As you stretch the arms overhead. Link up, up, up. Inhale down. Exhale, bend the arms and I'm going to change the breath to make us Inyo as we come back to center. So we're ready to exhale. In turn, the ball goes forward. Pressing in. We keep pressing in gently as we rise up through the spine ball.

See you can, you can take your ball behind you. Lower the arms, Ben yards and returned back to center. Let's do that three more times. Turn first ball goes ash, shoulder blades back. Collarbones long stretch the back up. Lower the ball down, but the bat continues to grow. Reaven the elbows and take it around through. Center over to me. Last time here, ons and then see how far you can go behind you and then arms down and bend and come back to center last time for the day we churn and we stretch and we length and feel the spine girl, the shoulders drop. Drop the arms back flower and come back to center.

Lower the ball down, bend your knees and put the ball back in between your knees. And to take the hands behind us and we're just going to do a little bridging here. So fingers facing and if possible, um, if anything hell announced the side is going to be better than facing that way. Alright, so find a straight back, find feet flat, find a little bit of inner thigh contraction. From here it's going to squeeze the back of the legs, pick up the pelvis, lift the chest up to the shoulders, get a nice big stretch. You're looking for a long table top like position and then sitting down, keep the shoulders down as the hips come down XL to left, feel equal energy in both legs and he'll just sit down and exhale to the left.

So there's a shifting back and forth from leg to leg and yeah, it's about five more. Look quicker and keep the spine long as you set. Tighten the glutes and inhale to set. Here's three and Dan and, and uh, one more time. [inaudible] sitting all the way back down. Stretch the legs back out even separate now and you can just leave the ball where it is. Arms out in front for the spine. Stretch forward, flexing through the feet. Bent knees are appropriate if necessary.

Let the head come down first. Draw the abdominals backwards as you take your chest down towards the ball. Inhale, lengthen the spine even further. See about a marker. Try to see where your chest is right at this moment and then exhale, drawing the abdominals back to the spine. We grow tall through the back as we lift back heavy shoulder blades.

Eyes forward. Inhale XL to head forward ribs back as you go this time. See if you can make it a quarter of an inch past your first marker. Inhale and exhale to come back. Remember that even has, we're going into flection.

There's a real strong abdominal contraction. It pulls back as the spine stretches forward for support for control, and we roll back. I'm gonna do that just one more time. Inhale and exhale. Seeing if each time you can create a new mark for yourself to challenge and Xcel to come back up. Heading into spine stretch with extension. Exhale forward first.

Inhale, let the arms lead. Press the chest forward, and then above the ball, lengthening the spine out. Elvis. Totally straight. Exhale to dive back down over the ball and roll. Inhale. Exhale. The head goes down. First feet are flexed. Let the arms lead. Let the ears come just between the arms as you stretch your spine forward on the diagonal dive back down and rural.

Let's do two. More like that. Rolling forward. Oh, the lengthening. Yeah. Diving back forward. Moving the body like a wave, letting energy flow through you. Last time here, reaching forward, strong tilt of the pelvis forward. Once you get into your flat back, let your arms drop and just hold where they land. Guide yourself into a little bit flat or back or think about sending the front hipbones forward and the tailbone back. With that, let the arms float back on. We're going to turn here, so we're, let's go towards me.

For us reaching on this diagonal in Hilti. Come back, exhale to turn the opposite direction. Keeping the head from turning. It just stays still between the arms. It's the spine that rotates. Then back and change and back. Then change and back. One More to change. Yeah, you don't bring it all the way back home. Dive the spine forward. Hold on wherever you want and just guide yourself a little bit further forward for stretch and then articulating the spine up, bending the knees.

While I was going to just stay right between the legs where you're heading into rolling like a ball. What my intention is here is to see if we can use the inner thighs. In fact, just sit back behind the pelvis, go into that very strong posterior tilt pupil and reaching up towards the chest and just kind of rest on your toes there so it shouldn't be too hard to balance. Just squeeze the ball and I think, I mean I feel, and I hope that you do, and as you squeeze the ball in that shape, if you think about squeezing from your waist, you'll get a really strong abdominal contraction as well. So with that in mind, let's bring the size even closer. Hover the feet up and hold onto him. Find the squeeze of the inner thighs, that contraction to the abdominals.

And here we go. Inhale. Exhale, school easing and lifting back up. Solid lines. So once you hit that round taper once you can find it, it doesn't change at all. The work if I can't do it, is in the contraction of the abdominal pressure back into the spine with the center of the body. Yes, let's go a couple more times. They're eating. Are you [inaudible] nice using the unit size to help you solidify the mood.

Amen. Good. Last time you can put your feet down and open up your knees again. Once again, just stretch forward over the length. I'm going to do a variation on the SAR today. So when you were ready, come on, pick up your ball with your hands. Take the arms out front. I'm going to start by turning towards me as you exhale. Stretch the spine forward. So very much like spine stretch forward. Roll over that like keep the shoulders down, squeeze into the ball just a little bit. Drawing the shoulder blades back.

We'll roll up on in rotation and unwind and center in Hilter. Exhale, abdominals, reach back. As we dive over that office, it's side. Inhale and exhale. Roll back up and come center. Return hollowing through the waist. Feel that opposite hip, the one you're reaching away from. Pull back, rolling back up, and exhale back center. Change the breath again. I'm going to get it straight this time. Let's exhale now. Inhale, keep working the abs as you articulate up in rotation. And exhale, come back to center. Last two, reaching across.

Don't just hold the ball. Remember he can put a little pressure on it and we return. Let me go across and we reach forward and the list. Then we come home. All right. So what we're gonna do here is just keep the boss, get your feet pretty close to you, roll yourself back down onto your back all the way. And then we're going to do a variation on the double leg stretch.

So we're going to start with the ball in our hands. Our legs up in tabletop. Curl the Haddon chest up, the ball's gonna reach over the knees. You're gonna rate just a, let's go through it. Arms overhead first and then arms back as your arms come back. Open up the knees, but the ball between your legs and move the legs forward and back.

So those are the two movements. Pick up the ball. We're going to combine them. So legs out, arms overhead as the knees bend and put the ball there and then arms overhead again. But the ball stays between the lanes and bat and ball and reach and in school. Use It as you stretch. And let's do two more of each outs and schoolies and return last one and back and schoolies and return. Hug your knees into your chest.

Let your come down for a brief moment. The ball's gonna stay between the Shins. Now we're going to curl the head and chest back up. Think what we'll do with our arms is just reach and pass the hips and then take one leg, maybe go all the way to straight. But it's the single leg stretch. Rolling the ball between the shins and are h, n or h. You got to press into that ball. I'm about to lose mine and rich. I know, right and right.

So that's inner thigh squeeze helps us again. Connect more. Let's move on. Hands behind the head. We're gonna turn to the leg that's pulling towards us and sure. And try and check. Yeah, sure. Okay. And then how about for three? Eh?

Everyone have their both still and one that's it. Bring your knees into your body. Pick up your ball. We're gonna roll the hips up and place the ball just underneath the sacral area. Should feel really good to just rest on. Alright, fine. All right.

And then pick up the legs carefully. Am I going to do a variation on this scissors? So the legs are going to start reaching straight up towards the ceiling. Arms are down at our sides. Take one leg, let's go right leg down towards the ground and left leg back towards us. Looking for stable stability in the pelvis. Switch sides. Yes.

Stretch away. [inaudible] away. Yeah. Good. Well maybe if you reach long enough through that bottom, like you'll feel stretched to the front of that hip and just cracked for me. Yeah. Change. Shane's nice strong dominoes here. Holding us on the bar.

All right. Both legs on. And we're going to do a small circle. So let's go into external rotation of the hips. Separate the legs, circle them. Just go as low as you can. Only feeling the work in your abs and open in a small circle to close and lift on a small sir. And last one, reverse it. Go down for us. Separate.

Pull up with the abdominals together and, and around and up and around dinner. And let's do three more. Oh two and last time. Okay. Go ahead and bend your knees. Place your feet down on the ground. So imagine that the ball wasn't there and that you or your bat back was flat on ground and to go into another pelvic curl. So as you exhale, first tuck the pelvis and as you tuck, press the hips up away from the ball, really hollow out the abdominals, and then peel up off of the ball. My bolts coming with me, it stuck to me in your at the top so you don't really get a ton of movement.

Then start from the chest. Let the sacrum start to find the ball and then pull down with your Donald's as low as you can. Try and maintain that Tuck of the hips looking for a lot of ABS. Definitely. Oh, I'm hoping that we're getting a stretch. We're going to roll up off the ball again. That's our exhale. We inhale to hold and exhale to bring it down.

Okay. Progressing into that hall of Swat of the back. One more time, rolling up and then rolling down. Eh, imagine if that ball wasn't there. You could just keep moving the pelvis all the way down to neutral. All right. Lift the hips enough so that you can take the ball out from underneath you.

Let's take the left leg straight out on the ground. Just, I don't know. Hold the ball in your right hand. Put it on the ground and twist to your left. We're going to bring it back to center, exchange hands, exchanged sides, and then coming back to center. When you're ready, I'll roll to your side. When I do the side kick care, this is a trick I learned from Tracy. Take the ball and you guys know where the the one where we balance on our helpers. We're going to do it today, but we're gonna do it with the ball for a little bit of assistance.

So it's going to go, it'll be different for everyone, but I'm putting mine just right up around underneath my ribs where I'm trying to stay flat. Let's go onto the tips of the elbow. Hands behind the head. And just for a moment here, you want your eyes before it. Let your ribs rest into the ball. So that's a place where we're not going to, again come back to pull the ribs up away from the ball. You'll still feel it, but you're lifting up. If you feel that that squishing of the ball you, you know that you've lost that lift the top way, it's gonna kick phone, two kicks and one reach to the back and kick kick to re keep the legs straight, see how still you can keep the ball back and forward and back. And I think we all know that this can also be done on the form. If it doesn't feel good to be up on the Elvis.

Nice work back about four more. Yeah, really start feeling your ball, wiggling around it a little bit more effort into the [inaudible] center of the body. Last one. And then bring the legs back together. Picking up the ball. Just going to slide that bottom around that lowering all the way down, but the hand on the ball with the ball right in front of the ribs. So what I'm doing or what I want us all to do here is press down on the ball, but not just with the hand.

Think about the shoulder blade moving down as the hand presses. So we all get a really good lock contraction there. We're going to keep that contraction. Pull the ribs, the abdominals away from the ball. You might feel it move a little closer to you. And then just however the legs lower both legs, I don't know how her both sites legs, um, continue to stay lined up.

The knees don't slide back and forth on one another. You start to feel that pressure in the upper back and the left side of the for back relaxing. Find it again. Hold the legs on, pick up the ball and stretch up. And you do that with just as much stability without having that help down and [inaudible] and two and one [inaudible] we're going to lower both legs to the ground. The bottom link's going to stay on the ground. Top Lake's going to start to reach long away from you. Take the ball over ahead.

Reach and stretch. Toes and hands are reaching away from one another and then coming all the way back. Just help yourself up sitting, slide yourself around to the other side. We'll go so ball just again, right under the ribs if you want to rest and then refine. You can do that on that side and here we are. The hands are behind the head. Letting my head hand support my head a little. I'm definitely not pushing my headphone with them. Top Lega and it kicks for and and of fair amount of anchoring with my bottom leg as well. I'm pushing it into the ground and again focusing on how still we can keep the ball, how's if the ball still, it's going to indicate that the trunk is still, which is something that we always want to look for.

Now breath is exhale as we kick forward. It's a double pulse and inhale back last four and back three, two and one and let me just drop the lengths. Take the ball out from underneath you light all the way down onto your arm. Again, I just put my bow right up against my body, but the palm of my hand on it and I pulled my elbow down towards my top knee and shoulder down. And with that, as you lift your legs, press down into ball. So the lats work as well as the obliques here.

Nick has just relaxed on the arms, dominoes, drawing back into the spine each and every time before you left reaching out in a and reaching out. Yeah, last one. Pick up the ball and bring it up into the air. It's the choice. You could also keep it down and we just do five more and yeah, even with the ball in the air, we want to feel that sense of shoulder sliding downwards last two times and one more bottom leg goes down top, like starts to stretch back. Top arm reaches forward and get that nice big open through the waist. Maybe a little stretch to the hip joint.

Okay. And then bring yourself back and just help yourself out. You guys look in. I'm keen to try something with me. I'm not sure if it's going to work. I think it will though. So we're going to do like a knee stretch. Um, so if you've done, in fact, just leave the ball in front of you for a second. Just placing the hands down on the ground.

Pull up away from the ground with the, with the spine. So you're rounding, you're pulling your abdominals up. We're going to drop the shoulders down away from the ears and then take one leg and slide it back behind you. So the trick here is to get the hip extended, but also keep the spine flexed. From there we just draw the knee into the chest and stretch back and draw the knee into the chest and stretch back. So the muscle focuses the abdominals, getting a little shoulder stability work as well. One more time and back.

And then just replace that knee. Okay. Reset up. Rounding the spine, shoulder blades, pulling down towards the hips, take the opposite leg back behind you and then just hover it in as it pulls up into the chest and reach back. Pull. And we just did five and there it is. Okay. So that would be something that you could do. If you're aren't interested in balancing on your ball, which is coming up. We're going to take the bottom, put it underneath the knees.

So this is where I'm not sure it's brand brand new to me. We'll find out. I think it's gonna be great. Um, press the pelvis forward so you're in that really hollowed out shape. Again, shoulders down away from the ears and then guide both knees towards you. The ball will just roll towards your ankles. What do you think? Is it a little sticky and then back and pull it in and back? Yeah, exactly. I feel like it's almost as challenging for shoulders stability as it is for the habs. We should be feeling abs by the way.

And let's do tumor CV in a rural a little closer to your feet. Oh, was hard last year. And then once you're ready to come down, just probably sit down on your feet. Yes ma'am. Okay. Are we going to just cat stretch? Sounds good. While we're here on our hands and knees, shoulders reaching down away from the ears. We start with spinal flection.

So separating the spine into two segments. Inhale, prepare. As you exhale, draw the abdominals up and in and press the pelvis forward. Trying to round the lumbar spine. Kind of a theme for today. Inhale as we reach back just to a neutral spine position. Hold the pelvis still with the abdominal muscles as you press your chest out and forward. So it's a very small movement, but it shouldn't feel like no work. Come back to neutral spine. Next. So just curve the lower spine, pulling up on the ads and then we release to neutral pelvis.

Exhale, holding the pelvis still the chest reaches forward slightly and up. And inhale, return to neutral. Exhale. Let the pelvis move for us. Let your head be affected. So as your pelvis arounds you just eyes go down and then as you hit head back to straight, your eyes are looking straight down on your mat as you extend your spine, your physical forward. And then inhale, let's do two more passes through Xcel pelvis. The eyes look down between the legs. Inhale, neutral spine.

Exhale like stent and inhale, head back. Last time through Xcel running through the spine. Lovely. Inhale, reaching back and exhale extending spine and amniotic to back, keeping the hands where they are. I'm going to take us into a plank position. The sliding one leg back, squeezing through the backside of that leg, holding up through the abdominal. If you take the other leg back, it's going to hold here for five full breaths. Breathing in and breathing with every breath.

See again about releasing all the air out of the body. This by the way, is an abdominal exercise as well, so that's where our focus lies. Last two breaths and one more breath. Inhale again. As you exhale, pick up the hips, press the heels down in, Slaton out the back towards the legs. Then rise up onto the toes. Articulate the spine forward, curving through the waist, finding a straight back again. Flex through the feet and pick up the hips. Had reaches down between the rising up onto the toes, curling the spine forward, progressing through the heat, feet, heat, heated feet.

Two more rolling through so great articulation of the back. Flex feet. Lift the chest, lift the hips, the chest goes to the legs. One more time. Curling forward, pressing through the feet and picking up the hips. And with that we're just going to head back through our plank position. Drop the knees down and sit back on your feet.

Yeah. Okay. I want to do a little bit of back extension next. So I'm going to come down on tour front. What you're going to do with the balls, put it just under your chest or just the interest sternum or I don't think way under like under the ribs is going to make us go too high. So let's try just send it a chest kind of around the it to be clear.

Okay, so now I've just rested my hands on the, on the mat to my sides. I'm not going to use my hands much here, but I'm going to try to do is create the idea of rolling the spine up away from the ball, but still letting the ball support me. So here's how we're going to think about it. Abdominals in little bit of energy through the legs. Let the elbows gently guide back towards the hips and then use that contraction through the upper back to just go wider on the bottom, picking up the chest a little and then release, letting the ball support you as you lower your body down. And then again, elbows back towards hips guiding the chest forward.

It's almost feels like you're trying to roll the ball out from underneath him and then release. Then again, rolling the chest forward. Do you like about it was straight Armstead [inaudible] let's try it. Everyone tries straight on. So instead of pressing into the arms, they would just reach down the sides of the legs. It's different isn't it? I don't know which I, I feel them both really differently. Like both.

I don't really sing down on the ball. We're going to do one more like that. Okay. And then I'm going to have us bring our arms out and around front and just rest for a second. Ah, this is going to be a variation on swimming. So with the ball, they're essentially were lifted up about as high as we would in our swim position. So what want us to challenge here while we're not having to use our back muscles so much to hold our backup is the height of the arm, the straightness of the arms. And let's do this with a thumbs facing up today. So once again, abdominals and don't let that ball push you up too high and we're going to go less arm. Right leg, arm goes [inaudible] past the ear.

The leg reaches beyond and back and again reaching out. Here's another place where you'll find if you can keep your ball real still, it will indicate the stillness of the trunk and [inaudible] all over India. No, it just slowly stretching the limbs away from one another. Life. Got someone pulling on your hands and pulling on your feet. Let's do one more to each side again, and then the arms come down.

Allow them to just slide back next to push into your hands. Raise up off the ball and once again, just sit back on your feet for a moment. Okay, well in rolling up through the spine all the way up onto the knees, turning to face this way and a little bit more upper backward. So once again, I've got the ball. I'm holding it between my hands. I mean what my best ideal posture is from you.

That means a little bit of a Tuck. Let the shoulders curl forward. Don't ever do that again. Getting so you just pull them back. Just feel the difference. And then press and press and press. So you feel your chest muscles working. You feel your back muscles working, shoulder blades reaching down, not a lot of tension in the neck or trying to eliminate tension. Jen, that looks really good. Yes. Press and press and press.

And one more. Now keeping that press, we did what we did sitting off. We're just gonna reach the arms forward the press. We'll probably get a little lighter as the arms straight. Now we'll raise the arms up. Try to let them be really light as they go up. Point them to the ceiling and just lift the chest slightly beyond.

Allow the ball to start to move down. The chest arrives back in center and the elbows bend back ends. I feel the shoulders here. Try to, here's an idea. Um, so I am pushing on the ball, but as I'm pushing on the ball, I'm trying to pull my shoulder blades away from one another, especially on the way in. Here we go again. Ahh, Shoulda stay broad. Ball comes up, feel the spine lengthen up as the ball goes up and then shoulder. Okay, and then back down.

And then here's where we push in. But we're, it's almost like a counterintuitive thing pushing in, but trying to pull the hands away from the ball. I don't know if that's makes sense. Tell me if it doesn't stretch that slightly beyond reach back and then, well, let's just let the ball come down onto the ground. We'll do a little bit more. We'll just do that side. Hopefully quirk. I just put my ball and to be to my legs, I'm going to squeeze it might as well. Anyhow, as we tilt over to one side, the arms just go with this spine. Exhale. As we pulled up through that opposite sideways, and inhale, reach over.

And as your waist starts to lengthen, maybe you'll get a little further. Jennifer, don't let that top arm go up to keep your arms totally straight and just move your body. That's it. And then [inaudible] over and let's do this one and then one more to eat side. And I had over that. Let your arms come down each and pick up your ball. I'm just going to turn this way so you can see what I'm doing. Um, we're going to go the ball behind us. All right, so the first step here is to just try number one to straighten the elbows.

Number two, to reach the arms a little bit further down. And number three, that just lift the arm a little bit. N So I'm really lightly holding my ball. My palms are barely touching. If you prefer fingertips for people with tighter shoulders, fingertips are going to be better or feel better. What you should feel here is a sense of pulling down and back with the arms. Not really a squeeze anything except for the upper back. Maybe the ABS.

Well, let's just do that two more times, so on and on and down, and just to let go and bring the ball around and set it down on the ground. Hip flexor stretch. Take one like forward. Put the hands down on the ground, slide the knee that you're on. You're just position yourself so that you're in front of slightly that knee. Once you're ready to find your balance a little bit inner thighs never hurt. Roll up, placing the hands on the knee and just lift up through the waist.

Use the backside of the leg to intensify the stretch in the front of the leg by just squeezing it by maybe even gently pressing the Shin into the ground. Let's take the arm opposite leg that's in front, so the opposite side arm, and then we're just going to lean over that knee, stretching a little bit more through the hat. Be careful and then we're going to come back up. That arm's going to come across. I'm going to let go of my knee with my other hand. I'm just going to twist, reaching my arm. That just left my leg behind me. And then from here I'm gonna come all the way back to center. Reach down per chance on the ground, flex the front foot, and then just start to stretch through the front leg.

Looking for the longest flattest spine available to you. Here's a place where with your hands on the ground, you can draw the shoulder blades down, stretch the chest forward. And then let's, we're even the front knee. Use the hands, slide the leg back and change. I think we'd done with it anyway. Alright, so once you're ready to balance, just carefully roll yourself up. Start with both hands on both knees, your both hands on the front knee anyway, back of the leg. Strong spine growing ever taller.

[inaudible] nice full breath. When going to take the opposite hand and just gently lean over towards the leg that's bent. Both knees are bent towards the front leg. And then we're going to come back on that. I'm just going to reach back and front and a turn. And as we do so, take that hand off the sigh. Reach it around behind you and I'm just gently using my hand to guide me a little further into my stretch.

No, I'm going to come all the way back and use the hands to help you off that front flip. Oh stretch. I almost forgot. Can't start one the hamstring and not the other and is lengthening out through the spine. Trying to tilt the tailbone up towards the ceiling. All right. And then we can just help ourselves out of that stretch. Slide the leg back. Bring the knees together. Hands are still just by the knees.

We're going to roll over our feet. Sit Back Kinda as long as it's okay on your knees. Sit kind of heavy on your feet. Just as long as you can. Helen is, it was. Whatever makes sense to you is fine. I'm just going to reach up onto the toes. You can do this from standing. Just do what's right. Standing up.

All I'm doing is pointing my feet and flexing my feet so it wouldn't be as stretchy. Yeah, there you go. And Helen, I think I, when your heels go down, just let your hips come up so that you're comfortable working through. As you point your feet, push into your toes so you get a little bit of a stretch in the foot and the toes. And then as the heels go down and get a little bit of a stretch in the calves, we're going one more time. I'll put it to the toes and down through the heels. And then as the heels go down, this final time we're going to start to raise the hips up, let head hang forward, let the knee straighten as much as is comfortable for you and just think about the spine cascading forward. Tension releasing from the back. The lower back in particular in my case anyway, had a reaching down into the ground.

And with that we inhale starting the lift up from the ABS. Be light on the legs, well light in the body, just healing, gathering energy has come up. And then as you reach up in here and exhale, reach the arms down to the size, maybe slightly behind you opening up through the chest. Inhale arms that grow the spine and exhale the arms around, and maybe just one more time for the day, and that's it. Ladies.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Great class, Merideth. Loved doing spine stretches using a ball.
Great to hear Elaine! Enjoy the brisk weather!
1 person likes this.
Thanks! Loved it. Got a great sweet without pain!
1 person likes this.
Great class - really liked the side leg series with ball
1 person likes this.
Thanks Meredith for a wonderful class.
Thanks for the kind works ladies. As always, it is wonderful to hear from you!
1 person likes this.
Really enjoyed this! Thanks for some new ideas!
Good to hear Wendy! Thank YOU.
1 person likes this.
Loved it! Great Class.
2 people like this.
I`m new to Pilates Anytime and this was my first class! I liked it a lot and got new inspiration from it! Greetings from Austria
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