Class #374

Foam Roller Balance

55 min - Class
54 likes

Description

Challenge your balance and awareness while using the Foam Roller in this level 2 class taught by Meredith. Some of the exercises performed in class include Roll Ups, Arm Circles, Scissors, and Bicycle. This class is appropriate for all levels. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Mat, Foam Roller

About This Video

Feb 14, 2011
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Transcript

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So, um, let's get started. We're going to use the foam rollers today for class and we also have, um, I've got a band as well, which we will probably use to incorporate a little bit of arm work later in the class. So what I'm going to have us do is just start sitting on the edge of your foam roll. We'll do some roll ups a little later in class wins. We're warmed up, but just make sure that you're sitting kind of right near the end. I'm really fussy about getting mine totally straight and I think it is now. And then just carefully make your way down onto your [inaudible] back. Alright, so line down on the foam roll.

Adjust your position so that you feel that the spine all the way on meaning tailbone on, head back of the head on, and then just reach the arms down alongside of the foam roll. The upper arms will be off the ground somewhat, and then shoulders just relaxed backwards. Notice as your shoulder blades fall backwards that there don't elevate. So it's just a gentle hugging but not squeezing of the roller. And I'm just going to ask for us to stay here and have a couple of breaths.

So as we inhale we're going to feel the ribs move away from the center of the foam roll. So we're expanding to the sides of our body and as we exhale we draw abdominals inwards and let their rib cage close down or knit together. All of this has happening without us changing the position of our pelvis in healing. Again, I didn't mention that I wanted the pelvis in a neutral spine position, so if you have pressed your back flat, lets let the tail button just gently release down. Let's do just a couple more breasts without moving anything. So breathing in, I guess the ribs move and the abdominal straw down, but everything else in the body is relatively relaxed. One more inhale, one more full exhale, releasing tension from the body.

Inhale again and with your Xcel this time start to hollow out through the abdominals as though you're scooping your abdominals. Now the back will flatten into the roller. You may feel that you're giving yourself a little bit of traction. As that happens, as you inhale, release all the way back into a neutral spine position, and as you exhale, do that again. So the belly button draws down, it's, it touches the roller that causes the pelvis to curl forward towards the tip of the chin. Inhale, release the tailbone down and back. Exhale, draw the abdominals in word. So we're just working from a neutral spine into a flatten spine or a posterior tilt and inhale to release down.

We're gonna do that just a few more times than what I want you to think about is trying to do that with pure abdominal control. I'm trying not to let them musculature in the legs, be involved. Try not to push on the feet. A great deal in Hilton release to tailbone down and back. Exhale. Once again, pressing the spine into the roller. And then as we release back to neutral spine, we're going to prepare for a pelvic curl.

Be aware that you probably won't lift very high off the roller at all. So any healing. Now exhale, starting the flattening of the spine into the roller and then start to peel the pelvis up. Now we definitely have to allow the latest to become involved. A little bit roll up so you still feel the roller between your shoulder blades, but your pelvis is very much off. Inhale to hold and exhale as you just undulate back down through the spine, pressing the spine bone by bone into the roller underneath you. Release all the way back to until you're in a neutral spine position.

And we'll do that again excelling as you left. So the most tempting thing perhaps is to arch through the rib cage and we want their ribs dragging back towards the roller underneath that lovely ladies in here and exhale to rolled. Let's do that just a few more times. Warming up the legs a little bit. Definitely warming up the abdominals, letting the arms be reaching, but also heavy holding. As we inhale and exhale as we roll down and with the Raleigh, you can actually feel something tangible to press the bones of your spine into.

So imagine that you're imprinting the bones into the roller, releasing the tailbone down, imprinting there, and then imprinting the spine into the roller as you elevate the spine. Once again, holding as we inhale, exhale and to calm down. We're going to do that just one more time. So here it is. Breathing in at the bottom. Breathing out as you lift the pelvis, creating a sense of stretching the spine forward or space between the bones of the spine, old as you breathe in and slowly breathe out. As you come all the way back to positioning your spine back into a neutral position.

Let's let the arms come just over the shoulders so the fingertips are reaching towards the ceiling. Allow the shoulder blades to drop, reaching around the roller and feel how that makes your ribs one a left. Let's lift the shoulder blades away slightly so that we're back in just long collar bones and as we pressed the shoulder blades back again, feel the ribs heavy down. Inhale, just allow the arms to come up slightly. It's a real small movement. Most of them will be excellent. Feel the shoulder blades reach back hugging, but also don't feel them lifting in Hilton.

Let the arms come away and I feel to just reach back and hug the roller a little bit. Lovely. How an inhale to reach away and exhale to reach back and how this is going to be our last one, so come away from that hugging position. Back to a neutral position and just feel the shoulders gently reaching towards the pelvis. This time as you inhale without squeezing the roller in your shoulder blade, the reach your arms out into a t shape. Feel them spreading away from the roller. Exhale, bring the arms back.

Imagine pushing against, I don't know, what could we be pushing against? I thought I'd have something creative to say, but I apparently I don't. Exhale as you press back in, we could squeeze foam, so there was a little bit of give, but a little bit of pressure as well. Opening, stretching, pulling the shoulder blades away from the roller and then we press back together. Let's do two more. Inhale feeling that the ribs create the same movement as the arms as you inhale. The end and the arms reach, they expand and as we've reached the arms back, they compress and the abdominals draw down. Last time here, pressing up with the arms from your please turn the palms to face away from your eyes, any as your arms come over your head, keeping the shoulder blades down.

Open your arms out into a t shape and bring the arms back across center. Rotate the palms away from the eyes. Inhale the arms. Come on, just feeling the shoulders rule still. You might even be able to feel the scapula move through it's rotational rotation. As you move your arms around and the arms come up, the body stays stable. Open the arms and let's exhale to bring the arms back. But two more like that. If you weren't feeling much in your arms, this can very easily be done with a pair of light arm weights.

But I'm a big fan and proponent of creating work. It's always possible to squeeze or use the muscles. Imagining that you had a little tension to work with last time here, opening the arms to the sides and pressing the arms back home. We're going to take that in reverse now. So we're going to open. We're going to take the arms overhead.

Here's a little bit more challenging to feel the shoulders in the right place, but we get more of a stretch. Pressley arms back of the shoulders, rotate the palms to face and open out. Reach the arms overhead. Shoulders drawing down towards the waist and press like you're moving. Springs are moving. Resistance the arms over the shoulders. In here we move out and overhead. Exhale, we press forward, palms turn in, shoulders rotate. Inhale out and overhead and exhale to press back through.

Turn the palms and reach out and overhead and press back through. I'm going to take us through a different movement here. We're going to turn the palms back in and take them overhead just like we've been doing. So open out to a tee, take your arms overhead and then from here we're going to bend the elbows into a goalpost shape so they bend. You're trying to keep the forearms parallel to the ground. Once they get to about level with the shoulders, stretch the arms out to a straight line.

So back to the t shape and then back across the chest. Go ahead. So I'm taking my arms up over my head. I'm going as far as I can, keeping my ribs down and then bending to a goal post shape. Once I get to the goalpost hold there. Try to access that your elbows a slightly over your hands in space.

Stretch your arms out to a t shape and bring your arms back across your chest. Working on shoulder mobility here. Inhale, arms up, bend the knee, knees, no elbows. Yes. Open them out to a tee shape opening through the chest and bring the arms back across center. Yep. One more time. The arms go overhead. They start to bet creating that goalpost shape. There's where our stretches, although slightly in front of hands in space, stretch out to a t, shape the arms, go straight across, and then bring the arms back up over the shoulders. From there, just allow the arms to rest back down onto the floor. We're going to move here into a little bit of abdominal work.

I'm starting with some leg changes. So just you can either, you can do one of two things. You can either put your hands on your pelvis and feel how stable that you can make it or you can rest your hands on the floor depending on how much you want your arms for balance. So let's um, lift up onto the left toes, create a 90 degree angle at the left knee and as you exhale without changing anything else in your body, just float that leg up off the ground. Feels like it should be really easy. But in fact in my opinion it's not, it's not as easy as you might think that toe touches and then we pull it back up. We're working to pull the leg out from the middle of our body. Inhale, we reached down tat drawing the abdominals and like there's a string attached to your belly button and your thigh and that's what moves a leg or a rubber band would be maybe a better visual XL to pull the like just one more on that side. Feel here that you're creating as much stability as possible through your trunk. Place the toes down onto the ground, roll through the foot, placing the foot down, preparing for the right side. Breathe, and let's come up onto the right toes. Exhale to pull that right leg up.

Now you might feel that one side slightly different than the other, which is normal in heel. The toes, tap and exhale to lift. If you want it to challenge your balance, you could potentially just lift it up onto your fingertips. I accent minimizing any wobbling in the body, like comes to about a 90 degree angle at the top. The hinge action here is occurring around the hip joint, so the knee stays pretty consistently. Every maintains a consistent shape. Here's our last one. We're going to keep the leg up when we get there, so there it is. If your hands are off the floor, I might put them down while you pick up your other leg and then read side what you'd like to do with them. So both legs are now off the floor.

We're going to do an a leg change here, so let's go left toes down towards the floor and then XL to change legs. Now if you can't touch the floor without creating tension in your back, just don't go quite so low. This reaching down, challenging the stability of the spine here and reaching down and reaching and reaching down and reaching down. It's alternate for two more times to each side. Nice strong center. Using your breath to help you focus and change and both legs up. Let's [inaudible] glue the needs together. We're going to take both legs away from us. Now it's important. Yeah.

Let's press the spine into the roller. Feel the bones of the lower back. Stay in contact with the roller as you take both legs away from you. I personally am not going to be able to lower my legs all the way down and then we pull the legs back up through space. Inhale, as we lower the legs down, Helen, I might bend your knees just a little bit more than there. That's perfect. And XL app, so it's really the five buttons that hinge away from the chest. On the inhale, we draw deeply down through the abdominals and we drag those legs back like we're pushing up against a wall.

I'm going to do that three more times and healing down and exhaling back and and healing down and exhaling back. Here's our last one. Inhaling down, maybe challenge your range of motion if you think it's appropriate for you and exhale back. We're going to put the legs down one at a time, please. Okay. Going back to a single leg lift, but this none. We're going to alternate with that with the opposite arm. Be careful. Again, it's a, it's a bit of a balance challenge. We're going to go left leg, right arm. Here we go. Breathe in. Exhale, pick up the left leg and the right arm. Let the right arm go all the way back to the ear and then press both down.

Changing sides. Pick up the left arm in the right way, reaching the arm back and then lower the arm back to the ground and lower the leg. Continue to alternate sides as you shift from foot to foot. Pay attention to is there a great deal of shifting in the pelvis and if there is, it's the lower abdominal specifically that need to be focused in order to help to create more stability. We were reaching down and we're going to change one more time. Yeah, and pressed down and lift up and press down. Okay, so from here, just let your back settle for a second. I'm going to have us use our arms and maybe use our legs a little to slide backwards on the roller. I'm going to position myself with my head just off so that the tip of my neck, the end of my neck is just at the end of the roller. Perfect. Then we're going to all reach back and hold onto our heads. Okay.

Move your feet to where they're comfortable. That's a little bit of extension work to happen here, so we're going to go over the top, let the head be supported by the hands and arch the back over the roller. As you exhale, allow the to come slightly forward in. Curl the spine up into a chess left. Pause there as you breathe in. And as you exhale, we're taking the spine back down.

So we go all the way over the top, extending maybe dropping the Elvis a little wide, but checked for um, shoulder elevation. That's, that's a no, no head is heavy in the hands as we exhale to curl up into the chest lift. Now just note how many bones of your spine are off the roller and then release back down. And as we continue to move, we may be able to challenge that left. Here it is again. Exhale to lift. See if you can't just curl forward more so that one more bone comes off and then release down. Let's do two more excelling to come up.

Challenging that lift. So maybe one more bone comes up. Your hamstrings cramping. Candace [inaudible]. No, just that. Just to guess last time. All right guys, here we're going to hang out. Take the hands behind the size, guide yourself up, maybe just one more bone and look down at the abdominal. See that they're drawn in. You may hold on to your legs if you wished you.

If not, we're going to take one hand over the other hand, reaching past the knees. As we inhale, we're going to take the hands over towards the left side and as we exhale we're going to bring it back to center. Inhale, reach across towards the opposite side and exhale back to center. So what we're rotating as the upper body, the pelvis is trying to stay still. You might feel a little wobbling. That's pretty normal. Crossing over towards the right knee, crossing back towards center. Lot of abdominal work to be had here. Really focus on your center. Challenge that for yourself. One more time across reach or I guess we'll have to do one more on each side, won't we? And Center over to the other side.

Then centered. Now can we let go? Raise our arms up without falling down, rebrand our elbows, putting our hands back behind our head and it take our body all the way back into that extension and just rest there for a moment. All right. When you're ready to let your head come up. So it's level with your spine. Bring your hands back. I'm going to hold onto my roller and I'm going to slide myself back on.

Okay. They do a little hip work. Um, the hip work here is gonna also be considered quite strong abdominal work. So with the elbows down though, I'd have my forms down on the ground, my shoulders down and pick up one leg. I'm going to use my abdomen to pick up the other leg. And we're going to bring our heels together here. Knees slightly apart. I pressing up on a high diagonal until you know how stable you feel here.

So here we go into a frog, we press the legs out in and then we pull them back in and then we press them out. And now you can go as low as you can. Stay stable for me. No, no, no, no. That high position feels pretty good in, you know, squeeze your heels together. So we're really accessing the musculature of the inner legs in here. Flex your feet, squeeze from your glutes, from your inside size, from your abdominals to support the spine. Inhale, bend and do that three more times pressing forward. You guys will tell me if we're feeling low back stuff. Well, yeah.

[inaudible] okay, so it should be abdominals and maybe a little bit of legs. Let's go out. Points your feet and draw the legs towards you. They might not move much. We're going to make a very small circle here, so it's an XL to go away. Separate. Make a small circle, bringing the legs up. Exhale to go away and yell around. And how about six?

Exhale to go away. Inhale around under. Exhale to go. Email around and not last one. Pressing down, reaching around and here we're going to go the opposite direction. So open schoolies down, analyst's the lanes open. Press down and lift though. Here's three out of six. Pressing down and lift.

Open, pressed down. Challenge the abdominals and the hip flexes to Britain. The legs right up towards vertical. Last two and one more. And then just allow the knees to bend for a moment. I'm going to do one more abdominal exercise here and it's the hundred. We won't be lifting our arms off the ground, but we will be using the breath.

So, um, I would suggest a bent knee position if you want to work, if you don't want it to be, if you want it to be a little easier, a straight leg position is hard, so harder. I'm going to start with my knees bent. Lift, curl the head and chest. No, I'm using my arms quite a bit to help me stabilize on the roller. Bring your elbows. Feel free to bring them underneath you a little bit. Now decide here if you're gonna stay straight or go bent or stay bent or go straight. And inhale as you exhale for the count of five, pull the abdominals into the roller ribs together. Inhale, feel NC, the ribs expanding, Xcel press in. So it's really just the breath that we're challenging here.

Inhale out and exhale, school easing. And this can be done with your head down if it creates too much neck tension and excess schoolies and inhale and exhale for the last five we're going to inhale and we're going to exhale and the knees in and inhale to stretch the legs out. Two, three, four, five and exhale in two, three, four, five here's three, two, three, four, five and in three, four or five, counting down to and back. Two, three, four, five oh one and back. Two three, four, five. Let the head rest down. Take one foot down to the ground. Take the other foot down to the ground. Let's do two more pelvic curls. Just allowing the front of the hips to open up.

Inhale, prepare. Exhale, flat in the spine, into the roller. Peel up, off, pausing at the top. As you breathe in, stretching the front of the hips and exhale, just replacing the spine back down into the roller, releasing the pelvis down and inhale. Exhale. We roll that up. That's Apollo, the sat, but draw the rib cage towards the roller underneath you and we roll back. All right. This next one. I guarantee we'll provide you with a great deal of challenge. So if you, um, I might start with my fingertips close to the floor. We're going to do a roll up.

So I like to scoop my feet away from me a little bit. The closer your feet are, the harder it's going to be to roll. Uh, get a little bit of purchase by pulling the heels back towards the hits, engaging the backsides of the legs a little. Pick the head up. I don't know how I'm going to go. We're going to find out and rule. Expect to a fair amount of wobbling sitting tall at the top and enroll back down. I'm going to come and help you, Helen. Oh, no one. You're going to help yourself. You're doing a great job. So lifted out. You're good. Huh? Are you happy on the ground? Lifting up, rolling up to a seated position? It's sitting tall at the top.

So if this didn't work for you, you could do exactly what Helen's doing. She's not in the camera, but I'll tell you what she's doing. She's crawled off for roller and she's on the ground just doing a regular roll up like you would off the floor. I promise this feels easier after it gets done a couple of times. Let's do just a few more.

Curl the head and then think about going forward. As you bring yourself up, it's a great place to kind of notice where our imbalances are. This roller and XL to come down, down and down and uh, so you're all the way down. Nice work, Candace. Look at that seamless rolling up again and again. Yeah, sorry. Compliments don't always work, do they? Yeah. And rolling down.

It's creating mobility in the spine. Once again, feeling the separateness of the bones as you lay them into the roller. Let's do one more. So one more full one and then we're going to roll or not. Yeah. One more. Full one all the way up. Lifting tall at the top. Why don't we stay lifted here? Taking the hands behind the head. Just going to do a little gentle twisting.

So breathe in as you exhale. Turn in my direction, lifting tall, inhale back to center and exhale. Turn the other way and inhale, coming back to center and exhale, rotate. It's a big stretch around through the spine. Inhale back to center and Xcel to change, so reach, feeling the roller between the sitting bones but rising up out of it with the spine and reach and center. I don't reach feeling the fluidity that we've created in our bodies in heel. Back to center. Let's do one more time across exhaling as you turn from the obliques.

Inhale as you come back to center, excelling as you engage in turn, the knees should stay nice and lined up or at least still and back to center. Where we're going to do here is just, I don't know, I put my hands down to balance. I'm going to move back on my role or just a little bit and I'm going to drop my knees open to the sides again. We just got pressure right underneath the sit bones. A bit harder to balance here. [inaudible] no, no, no. Do we want to do that?

Let's not. Let's go wide with bent knees. I'm going to change it just a little bit. You, you. I, I just changed it. I decided that that was a fairly unstable, so I've now I've separated my feet and we're going to do a modified saw, so my feet are as wide as my mat. My arms are to my sides. Candy's still trying the diamond position. We're going to turn in this way and I'm going to take my top back on.

I'm impressed it back and reach across towards the outside of my front foot. Then I'm going to lift up out of it, coming up to center and I'm my own wind. So inhale to turn. Exhale, reach down and also reach back with that backyard and he'll lift back up and return back to center. Just a couple more times. Stretching the spine forward, lifting back up and returning back to center a cross. Stretching this line forward, lifting Baca and back to center. How about one more time through turn? Reach back with that back arm, especially when you're coming up, like someone's pulling you longer and then center last time and we reach and we come back up and we come back to center.

Place your hands just over your shins. You're fine where you are heading. You don't need to get back up. You don't want to, okay. Another modified exercises to spine stretch, so as you inhale, you'll prepare and as you exhale, you let your head go down. You're going to roll yourself down. Just reach the hands towards the outer ankle bones, hollowing out three of the abdominals breathing in there, filling up the backside of the body and exhale as you stack up the spine, bone by bone, their arms just slide back up the legs. Real simple, sitting tall. Inhale. It's like a preparatory spine stretch. Yes, but as we, I think, all know that we can really make these preparatory exercises count. Oftentimes, even if we're advanced movers, inhale to exhale and Rola.

This sort of thing is exactly what we need to reconnect. It's feeling great to me personally excelling to round down. I'm going to take us through extension now, so once you get to your low position, just press with your arms a little bit. Send your chest towards your knees, arching your back, reaching your chest forward, guide the spine back down and roll back up. We're just going to do that two more times. Exhale as we roll back or roll down.

Inhaling as you stretch the spine forward, pressing with the arms and pulling the chest through towards the knees. Exhale as you reach back forward around the spine and then roll up. Well, we're going to go one more time there. So just reaching forward, hollowing out the abdominals, letting all the air out of the body, and then refueling weight. Refilling shoulders back, chest forward. Eyes slightly up, and then take it back down and then roll yourself up. Okay.

All right. Candy and I are going to roll back down our roller. Helen, why don't you just, uh, roll onto the ground. So here we go. Ready? Candy, can we for control? Takes a while. So be patient with yourself once you get down, then just, um, roll the roller out from underneath you and lie on your back for a moment. Yeah. After being on the roller for any significant amount of time, it should feel like heaven to just be here on the mat. Okay.

The next thing that we're going to do is take the roller and we're gonna put it crosswise underneath us. So you have two choices. You can either just lift your hips and slide the roller underneath you. If that doesn't feel like a good option, you can sit up and roll back over the top. All right, so right at the base of the spine, right where you feel that the sacrum, so that big bony base at the bottom of the spine. All right, pick up one leg on. Now from now on, I'm just going to kind of hold onto the roller and let it help me balance and then I'm going to bring my other leg up. This is the spine twist. We should know it from, from all our mat exercises.

You're going to inhale and drop both knees over to one side. Now forget a little self-massage from the roller XL. Draw the obliques back and return back to center. Inhale as you take your knees off to the other side, shifting back and forth on the pelvis and exhale as we come back. Lots of muscles in and around the pelvis that get a little tight, so it's optimal if we can just breathe into them, even if they feel a little painful. Exhale to come back.

Inhale, as you cross the body to the other direction, an XL to come back. I'm going to take us through two more to each side. Knees stay lined up. Feet are just in front of the knees. Exhale to come back across to the other side and Xcel to come back. Here's our very last one. It's an inhale to move the spine across.

Now as you continue moving, right, it might feel a little less painful to be moving around on those bones and Xcel to come back. All right, little bit more leg work here, so this is a really nice place for those of us who have a challenge with the bicycle and the scissors to practice those movements. So I'm just wanting us to lightly stretch the legs, not arms into the air. From there, let's take the left leg and pull it back way back and then stretch the right leg. Creating relatively even central though the bottom leg will be down. We're going to give it a pulse, pulse and change, pulse, pulse and change. So hopefully what you'll experience is you take that bottom like towards the ground is that you feeling an opening through the front side of the hip, draw the top like close to the body in order to facilitate a stretch through that top leg.

So I've got a stretch happening in both legs but in two different places. Pulse, pulse and the pulse is less of a balance and more of you're just trying to increase your range of motion and increase the range of motion. Let's do two more to eat, sign, reaching and reaching. And last time here and last one to the other side please. Okay, come all the way to the top. Go into external rotation of the hips. We're just going to do some openings here. So imagine that you have something to push against. Squeeze the legs together, feel those inner thighs contract. Then any hole, draw a straight line out to the sides. That was why did you feel comfortable? Now squeeze as though someone's pushing against your legs.

Come all the way together evenly. And inhale to open. Exhale, draw the abdominals back as you squeeze those like together. Any inhale to open, go through the stretch and then you activate the muscles and pull in healing open and exhaling to pull back about three more to go. Inhaling out an XL to squeeze it, a little crown. Anyhow out an expletive squeeze last time and Xcel to squeeze. Okay, returned back to parallel alignment in your hip joint. Here comes a bicycle, so let's take that left leg and pull it back towards us again. Take the right leg and reach it. Long. Bend the right knee, tipping the toes over the ground and pull the right knee bent towards the chest. As the left leg goes towards the floor, extend the right leg, bend the left knee and change. So we find that Susan's position, we stretch and then the bottom leg Benz stretching.

We're just guiding the toes along the ground. I don't reach really reaching the leg. Here's a place where we can feel that sense of reaching out of the hip joint and out of the hip joint, opening through the front of the hips. This is going to be our last one on both sides. And then go back to the start position with the left leg towards the chest and the right leg towards the ground. Here's our rivers, we bend the top me the bottom lake comes straight up and pulls into the body as a bottom, like stretches that. Bend the top knee, press it down, bring the bottom leg up straight and again to feel how you get that hip extensor work on that bottom leg and the hip flexor. Work on the top leg.

Lots of lots of good work to be had here, but it does take a little concentration and a little bit of focus on where you're wanting to work from. Let's do two more cycles or each. The rollers shouldn't be putting a lot of pressure on you. Now you should just feel like it's supporting you in this position and while bring the legs back up, we're going to go back to external rotation. So this is a combination of the scissors that we started with and the end, the openings, it's called the helicopter. So let's go left leg up, right leg down again. Now we're gonna make a circle with the legs. The legs are going to go out to the side, back to that opening shape, and we're going to bring the other leg back on top. And then the leg slice back through center. Here's some breathing. Inhale, the left leg comes up, the bar right leg goes down. Exhale, we draw circles.

So I'm going the same time and in the same direction and we'll do five reach. And then as you circle, make sure you hit that side points evenly. Hit that scissor point evenly and up last to open and then spiral around in the hip joint, wringing the legs around. And here's our last one in this direction. Reach around and back and in.

We're going to reverse now. So we just take the right leg towards us. The left leg towards the ground, we reach out to the side, guiding ourselves through that nice fluid circle. Back to center. Inhale, right leg up, left leg down, exhale through the stretch or through the rotational work and back. So it's kind of a long exhale. We've just got that. Inhale to this as as and then the XO carries us through the rest of the movement.

And last two times reaching around to the sides, coming all the way back and Ana last time for the day, which all the way out coming around and AH, okay. Bend your right knee, put your left ankle on top of the right knee and then just guide that left. Shouldn't go and back towards the chest. And then just a couple of gentle rocks across the sacral joint. It just stretching through the hip, rocking back and forth on the roller. I'm still using my arms to hold it still. It's just rock back and forth. One more time.

Applying the principles of using our obliques for rotation even here. Okay. And then head back to center. Take the left knee to taught me and just bring it up into your chest. Um, if you feel a lot a p it real pinchy in the front of the hip. Let the knee reach out to the side, take the right leg, reach it straight up on the diagonal, and then start to lower it down away from me reaching it out of the hip joint.

It's just when we're looking for a stretch here, Kinda hang leg down into the ground. Yeah, and then relax the leg until the hip flexes starts to feel like it's getting a stretch. [inaudible] gently bend the bottom knee and bring it up. And then we just bring the left knee to tabletop, a left leg to tabletop, right ankle on top. And here we are on the other side, so we just start gently rotating back and forth running across that joint cross to one side and across to the other side. Let's just do one more to each side. Okay.

Once we get back to center and we're just going to take that right knee and hug it towards the body, maybe out towards that right shoulder a little bit. Stretch the left leg long in a way for me reaching it down towards the ground. Just enjoy the stretch there. Might have to relax the lower leg. In order for the stretch to occur, you might have to relax in. Just let, let tension out of the legs there. All right, gently Ben, that bottomed me.

So this stretches and so intense it goes a little bit. Bring the leg up and then to get down off of the roller, what we're going to go kind of slow and just push it, feel it, push against the bones in your lower back and just really gently slide it out from underneath you, kind of massaging that part of your body and then finally releasing the tailbone all the way down into the mat. Oh, and again, I think it's worth it to just feel that sense of heaviness a of potentially like to me it feels like I'm lying in a hole and I don't want that to go away quite yet. So we're going to hang out here for just a minute. All right, let's take the roller and just move it out out of the way and then just turn to your side and help yourself up carefully. Alright, good. Excellent job you guys. We're going to do a little bit more, um, myofascial release, if you will. Can I actually call it that? I don't know. How's my hair? Um, what we're gonna do is just get up onto the rollers. So, um, in your pelvis, you've got, you've got the top of your hip bone, and then you've got the hip bone that, that's just on the side of your, like the greater trow canter. So what I want you to do is get on the roller so that you positioned yourself in between those two bony landmarks. Okay.

And then for everyone, this is going to feel a little different. Feel free to do whatever makes you comfortable with your legs. You could bend the bottom knee, you can bend the to, I like to bend my taught me and use it for balance and maybe go towards your pelvis a little bit, Helen. Yeah. And all we're gonna do here is just kind of rock back and forth. You can move forwards and back over that muscle.

So you want to be on the muscle, not on your bone, just in between those two bones. And if you, um, encounter, you could also be on your elbow like canvas, which I am, I actually feel better Kellen. It feels better to me. Yeah. Thanks Candace. What a great idea. Just rocking back and forth. And if you find a space in your body that feels spit particularly intense, hang out there just for a moment. Okay.

So we're going to roll down on our I t band and I'll warn you, if you've never done this before, it is not the least painful thing in the world. I like to keep my top leg bent. That's it. I like it in front of me. It could also go behind. So whatever you feel that works for you, I'm also going to use my hands to help me. So I'm going to get over the hump. That's that greater trow cantor bone. And then I'm just gonna slide myself out, rolling the roller down the side of my leg, just about to my knee. Oh, I use my leg to push a little bit and I use my hands to help me and then I'm just going to roll back down.

I'm speechless. Okay. It's important that we breathe into this as well. Kind of painful, but also really good work. If you're not feeling much, this doesn't hurt you. I'll tell you how to make it hard. And that is to reach towards the quadricep side of the leg. So rural forward a little bit.

So if we're just kinda hanging back towards our hamstrings, it's not going to be as intense. So if you want it to be more intense, try the front [inaudible] I just that side of your quad. All right, have we had enough? Ladies? Are we ready for the other side? Okay, gently guide yourself onto the ground. It really hurts while it's happening, but in my opinion it kind of feels better. Like Luther. I mean if you feel this side and you touch this side, you'll, you can actually feel a difference in the tightness of the muscle. All right, so just position yourself, right? We're back on that just on, on honor. Glutes, right in between the uppermost bones of the pelvis and the greater trow canter. And we just hung out there. And again, I know what works for me, but I'm not super picky about what you do with your legs or your arm. I we did notice, I think that it's feels better to be done on the elbow.

Let's just rock back and forth over the roller a little bit. You can roll up towards the hip. Lots of different things to do here. And again, depending on different bodies and different levels of tightness, different places will feel like they need more attention. So feel free to kind of play around with it and do what feels helpful for your body. All right, I think we made three passes over the it band. You guys ready for it? Here we go. I'm going to help myself over the hump or actually because of my, Matt's not that long. I'm going to move my roller, but you could just roll over the top. I'm no, I'm gonna roll on my mic.

So go ahead and go without me. I'll catch up. It's rolling down the side of the leg. Whew. And I found my tight side. So one of the sides of your body is probably a great deal tighter than the other one. And that's pretty normal. Mm. Just three passes. So all the way down towards the knee reading and, and just letting the weight of the body sit into the roller and coming back.

Alright, I've got one more to go. If you're done, let me get down onto the ground or find a spot that feels really, really hurting and sit on it. Hrdy I don't think that's a word. Yeah, it should be kind of like smaller, smaller, smaller, large. Oh yeah, you do large and things. So you could smell things. You make the movement small and will make it less hardy. Okay, let's, let's move on. Okay. So we're off the roller now and doesn't that feel good?

Here's a full body integration exercise. It's going to encourage you to use your shoulders, your arms, and your abs. That's exciting too to me. Okay. So what you're going to do, I think you'll be pretty good with this one, Helen, if you can do plank, you can do this one. Um, I'm gonna put the roller just underneath my knees. No, not on the bones, but right below where the knee ends. And then I'm going to take my hands on a kneel on it. I'm gonna take my hands forward and then don't go too far forward if that's gonna make you feel unstable. So just know that your legs are, will be coming underneath your body.

This may be slightly forward of the shoulders. And then shift the shoulders forward a little bit. So you're in like a quadrat head position. Perfect. Now round your back and then Paul with the abdominals and ruling the ruler towards your elbow. [inaudible] Yup. And then rolling your knees towards your elbows and then back.

So the bonus here, apart from the ABS in the homework that we get is that we get a little massage for our shins in and back and we want to feel, I like the sense of, or the idea of defying gravity pulling. It's almost like you're pulling your body all the way off the roller. And Beth, let's just do one more. Bringing the knees into the body that's at Helen and back that say one more. Well I must have, I'm going to come off the back. We'll just add to get safe.

Walk towards the roller. Come down on to your knees. Okay. This is one of my very favorite back extension exercises. It's gonna feel really good to everyone. Um, so lying down on your stomach, I'm positioned my hands about underneath my elbow and depending on the tightness of my shoulders, I, I can go pretty wide. Wide it for a tight shoulders. Helen, I would go wide for your body and maybe maybe a little more fold with the roller so you can be more relaxed towards the ground. That's it. Okay. So I'm going to start with the palms of my hands face down and then my head is just down looking at the floor. I'm going to roll my thumbs up and feel that that role happens not from the hands but from the shoulder joint. So in essence, I'm turning in my shoulder joint and then I'm just going to start to pick up the chest ever so slightly as I roll the roller towards my hands yet we got it.

And then rather than, and then release and Helen would, I might do in your case, instead of coming up and bending your elbows and trying to go so high, just focus the energy in your upper back and just, I'm not lifting very much. That's it. That's what I would say for you and I, and I like it if you're, if you were happier going higher than for all purposes, go it and then just release palms of the hands turned down. And once again we rotate the shoulders, guide the shoulders down the back. That movement of the Scapula is going to send our chest forward like it's on a conveyor belt and then we just release down. We'll do that just about four more times. So let's exhale and lift, sending the chest towards the roller and inhaling to release.

Nice Work and Excelling Tula. Yeah. Neil to release as your back gets warmed up, maybe you'll decide that you want to challenge the extension of your spinal little, that's perfectly fine, but make sure that you're not bypassing the upper back muscles. You're not going around them into the lower back and release. Is that for, okay. Roll the roller out from underneath your arms. Take a minute for your back to settle if you need to.

And then when you're ready, we're going to just put our hands under our shoulders. We're coming up into it. Just a, just lift no into a rest position. Just sit in the back. Okay. Just taking a couple of breaths. You're letting tension out of the body.

Your arms can be back at your sides. You could open up your knees a little bit if that would feel better to you. Okay. And then let's just make our way all the way at, um, probably just to kneeling or sitting. Would you prefer kneeling or sitting? Do you care? You're happy on your knees? Let's do it. Let's just be on our knees then. Um, grab your band. Since I got the bands out, I feel like I can't not use them. So we'll do just a little bit of arm work.

So we're gonna start with the tricep. Um, depending on the thickness and the strength of your band, you may want to double it up. What I'm going to do is take the band in one hand, just about at the base of my spine, sensing that my shoulders are down and still my apply elbow of the top arm is just over the shoulder or slightly wide of the shoulder if that feels better. And then from there we just stretch up, work in the tricep and yeah, and uh, and and um, and [inaudible] my spine is just being held still and up and down. If you needed to increase engine, you could pull down with your bottom arm. Let's do four more and three do, just keep checking in with that shoulder. We don't want it to elevate. And last time my counting skills serve me correctly. All right.

Just exchange hands. That other hand is going to come behind us. Setting the elbow above the shoulder, pulling in the abdominal. So they were not arching our back to get the arm behind us. And then we just press straight up into the air mean you know what you're doing.

And Yeah, just showing it at a different angle. So what's tempting us, some of us with tight shoulders is to arch the back to get there. And that's not really something that we want to do. So let's just really focus on correct spinal alignment, pressing up with the TRICEP, pulling down with the shoulders and just about five more. Yeah. And to feeling their band quite close to the back of the head. So another common error is to make the face or duck the head down, but in fact press it back up against the, um, the band as you feel the band come up the back of your head last time here.

Okay. And then just release carefully. I'm going to do a couple of shoulder stretches. So again, if you need to double up your band, you can, this is a similar stretch to the one we did lying down on the roller and Oh, good idea. So if you wanted more attention, you could also double up the hands as I've given me all sorts of good ideas tonight. Here we go. So I'm going to go about here, um, and just make sure that the band tension feels okay to you. What's going to happen is we're going to raise the arms up. Here's another place where lots of us will lean back to make this happen, but let's not do that. Bend your elbows, drag the band either just to the top of your head or slightly behind your head, and then stretch the arms back up and feel the shoulders move in opposition. And then let's lower the arms down.

So we get a lot of different ranges of motions in the shoulder. Lift the arms up. That's all going to be our inhale. From now on, we're going to exhale and drag the shoulder blades down, looking for a stretch. Inhale, the arms come up and the arms are going to come back down as we exhale that three more times. Inhale, if you've made your band too tight, make it work for you. Make it lighter. If it needs to be in Haleigh and exhale, drawing the abdominals in as well. Right?

So we're always keeping in mind that those should be working as well as two times. Maybe you'll feel that you're getting a little further each time, which is definitely possible. And then inhale that and the head aligned with the spine and exhale to take the band down, pressing down with the shoulder blades. Last time for here. Um, and then Dan and then I and then down. Okay. So the next and last thing that we're going to do with the band is to create a full rotation with the shoulder.

I'm going to give myself a lot of space here so that my, I don't have a ton of um, tension on my band. Now, if it feels easy to once you've done it once, then give yourself more attention. But let's try it here for us. We're going to inhale to the top again, x, I'll make a circular motion through the arms, bringing the band back behind you. Raise the down, back up behind you. Feel the shoulders stay down as the arm circle within the joint. And bring the band back in front. Inhale as we reach up towards the sky. Exhale as we work our way through this stretch.

Inhale back and exhale back through the stretches we come again. Let's do that two more times. Here we go. Inhale. Huh? It felt like nothing. Make the band a little tighter XL through the stretch, but remember that what's more important than range of motion or or tightness in the band is the stability and the correct alignment of the shoulders. So if you're lifting your shoulders up, you're in essence going around this stretch and that's to be avoided at all costs. [inaudible] I feel like I've got one more of those in. Do you guys last time adding the chest. Oh good. Reaching back.

[inaudible] and bringing the band back down and then just drop the band on the ground, shake out the arms a little bit, reach the arms down. Then just the sides of the legs. We're going to take the right ear towards the right shoulder and then just reach that left arm down and just kinda inch it out. It's not going to go very far away from you, but just let it go out to the side a little bit to increase the stretch in the neck. I'm impressed that arm back. Relax the pressing down of the arm before lifting the head.

Take the head over to the other side. You can do this sitting on the floor. Reach down, reach slightly outwards. Yeah, always be careful when you're stretching your neck. You never want to force or go too big. I'm bringing you in back in. Let that pressure go. And with that, lift the head and let's just take a couple of deep breaths. Inhale, arms up should feel nice and light and free. Open the arms to the sides. Exhale, and two more times of reaching up, gathering energy, and exhale, letting any tension that might still be in our bodies, out through the fingertips last time. Inhale and exhale, and that's it. Guys. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

Good job. You're welcome.

Comments

Loved your class, Meredith! Thanks for showing me more ways to use the foam roller. It is so much more fun to do these mat exercises with props.I will repeat this class often.
Awesome use of the foam roller---really makes you pay attention to what your spine is doing.
Thanks ladies. I agree that the roller does provide challenge but also helps one focus on alignment. Thank you for your comments.
1 person likes this.
loving this class! Done it twice now. Finding its great for my horribly tight shoulders! Thank you!
1 person likes this.
Nice class - I liked spending so much time on the roller at the beginning, and the opening/strengthening of the shoulders. Maybe make a note that you use a theraband in addition to the roller? I didn't have one with me, but would have found one if I had known!
1 person likes this.
Awesome! Brilliant! Fantastic class! I loved it. I just bought a roller over the weekend and thought I must give it a try... Thank you Meredith for such clear instructions that made me feel so confident. This is my favourite class. Jolene from South Africa ;)
Thanks again everyone!
1 person likes this.
What a great reward for my purchase of the foam roller. Thank you!
Yay Joni! Yay, yay, yay!!
1 person likes this.
Much needed strength & stretch training before my massage clients today!
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