Class #391

Romana's Pilates Basic Mat

35 min - Class
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Description

Does your back need a good stretch? Do you want to challenge your powerhouse? Need to work on your posture? Here is a solid Romana's Pilates Basic Mat Class emphasizing good stretches in every movement while taking your Powerhouse to its limit. The class finishes with posture work on the Wall using 2-pound Hand Weights.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Feb 24, 2011
Men
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All right. So today we are going to concentrate on having a, if you're working out in your back is a little bit stiff, we're going to do a good workout to concentrate on stretches and just really stretch out your back. So when you're first laying out, before you do the a hundred let's go ahead and just bend a knee into your chest. Good. And just give it a hug. The stretching, we're just doing a little waking up our body right now and then go ahead and put it down on the mat. And you kinda want to think about your mat like a big wet slab of cement. And that you can make an impression of every vertebra on the mat and put the foot down. So when you bring this next knee, again, think about your stomach pressing your back down into that mat. So let's use those. That was wonderful. Use those abdominals to help you.

So we're going to really strengthen the abdominals today, but stretch the back. Okay. So sometimes it's going to be a hard stomach workout and put that foot down. And so, whoops, let's make a bigger imprint. That's great. And then we're going to pull it in. Nice.

So you always want to initiate with that powerhouse. Good. Are you stretching the hip or the knee or what are you feeling? Distraction. Lower. Perfect. And we're going to put that foot down and again, we're going to imprint your back on the mat and then bring that knee into your chest. And let's go ahead and straighten the leg. You might not be able to straighten it to the ceiling.

We're going to have it a little turned out and I'm going to lower it a little bit so that you can make sure that your hips are straight across. Good. And I'm gonna stretch that leg towards you. Just relax. Just take a big breath and just exhale. Perfect and good. Now on your own, you can put your hands behind your, um, thigh. Never the knee though. And he's the weakest joint in the body. So you want to always protect that.

Good. Do you feel how your hips coming up? A little bit. So we want to keep it square with the other one. There you go. It gives you a better stretch. And just a relaxed foot. Nice. And Bend that knee. And Go ahead and put that foot back down and other leg and print your back.

Good. And then bend that knee in. We got a good lower back and hip stretch like you said. And then we're going to straighten the leg, but a little bit forward so that our hips have a chance. Usually your hamstrings are really tight when your back's tight, so you want to lower that leg before you pull it in. And that allows your hips to stay square, getting a good hamstring stretch. Good, good. And then bend that knee.

And we're going to do it one more time. Adding a little point in flex when we are up there and put your foot down and you're going to imprint your back and you're gonna great and you're gonna bring your knee into your chest and straighten the leg up. Good. Get on a little bit down and turning it out. And we're gonna pull good. And now go ahead and try to point towards the ceiling and then pull your toes away from the ceiling. Great. Just adding a little extra stretch there. One more time, pulling the toes back, relax the foot, and bend the knee in. Good and relaxing, almost warmed up.

We're gonna go onto the next leg and straighten it up. Good. And stretching it towards you. And then just a little point. And again, just making sure you're relaxing with your breath. No big work here. You're actually have a nice passive stretch unlike the rest of your workout today.

Okay. And then relax the foot and bend the knee in. Good and stretch. Great. Okay, so now we're going to start off with the hundred and I want you to imprint your back into the mat. Good. And then bend this knee into your chest as well. Good. And imprinting your back. Go ahead and straighten your arms by your side, lifting up your head and just start like that pumping for the a hundred. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, very nice. Big Breath. And exhale. Nice.

Really pulling in the stomach. Good in with the air. Exhale. On the next exhale, we're going to straighten the legs towards me, not directly up to the ceiling. Good. And I'm going to pull on them so that you can feel your stomach pull in the opposite direction of me because you want to have a equal and opposite resistance here. So you're stretching the legs one way while your stomach's pulling down the other way. Give me two more big breath. Actually you're doing really good. Let's finish up the a hundred that's 60 and inhale two, three, four, five and exhale. Good.

And really present that back down cause you're trying to really stretch it like you're pushing it through the mat. And I want one more time. Big Breath and exhale. Great job and rest your head as you bend your knees and hug them in. And whenever you hug them in, in this class, you want to make sure that you're grabbing on the ankles and you're pushing down into the mat and then use your arms to pull a little bit towards you. And that gives you a really nice lower back stretch. If you had bad knees and you'd want to hold under neath your thighs instead, but so you're just going to press it down and towards you and that gives you that good stretch every time. Okay. All right. So next exercise is the rollback. So we're going to sit up and put your feet on the mat.

Nice and a hands underneath your knees. Good. And you're gonna Round your back. Head to your chest. Good. And feel my toe behind you. And I want you to keep your legs on the mat and your hands where they are as long as you can. And just pull your belly into my toe and roll back into my toe. Good. And relax. It's not just pulling your stomach into your back.

Good. And Try to get my next toe and this one good. Keep your hands where they are. Perfect. Take a breath. Exhale, pull into me and come forward. Go back using your belly. Nice. Very strong. We're going to go back a little further. Take a breath. Exhale. Go ahead and start pulling back. Good. Your lower back first. Really try and articulate.

So you get to stretch each vertebra away from the next and take a breath and exhale, come forward. Good. Now I want you to go all the way down. So taking a breath and start rolling back. Good. And exhale, rolling through each bone. Good until you get your head and take a breath. As you lift your head up and exhale, trying to pull your belly into your back. Nice. Good.

And we're going to do that one more time. Inhaling and exhale. Rolling away. Good. See, inhale to start the exercise. Exhale to complete it all the way down. Inhale to lift your head up and exhale to pull in. And it. Great.

Now I want you to go ahead and straighten your legs off the Mat. Good. And reach for your ankles. Yeah, stretch. Good. All right, so head down. So now this is the complete roll back. It's a big stretch. Okay, so when we're doing this one, we're gonna, this is gonna be an interesting little transition.

So you're going to stretch forward as you come up. But as you start rolling back, I want you to slowly bend the knees and that you're gonna use that to help round down your back. Okay, good. Rolling all the way down and then head up and scoop in. Very good. And here, start straightening your legs and reach all the way to straight legs. Good. And we're going to do two more. As you start going back, you're gonna bend your knees is if you are pulled back with your stomach as if they're connected and you're going to walk all the way down. Good.

And Inhale, lift up your head and you pull into your back. And then you can slowly straighten your legs and you're gonna stretch. Good. So you really reach just a gentle stretch and slowly bend the knees as you start rolling back, keeping your head to your chest and you're going to roll back. This time I want you to, once your head goes down, I want you to lift up your arms to the ceiling and then take a big breath, imprint your back into the mat again and exhale as I pull on your arms back this way. So you want to end with a nice reach here, but no vertebral off the mat. Press them all down. Inhale, arms up, head through, comes up, exhale, you can grab behind your knees to help and then straighten your legs for final stretch forward. We're going to just do one more.

Rolling all the way back and slowly bending the knees, feet on the Mat. Good. And rolling down one vertebra at a time. Once your head is down, lift up as you arm your back, really presses down and then reach back only if you can. Keep your ribs and your back on the mat. Nice. Great. And rest your arms by your side for the next exercise. All right, great. So we just finished that roll up. Now roll back.

Now we're going to do the single leg circles. So you have your box. And the most important part about massaging your back, because you want to think always that you're stretching your back with your own muscles, is you're going to use your stomach to imprint your back on the mat while your leg circles. So if you're like moving all around with your leg, then you're only tightening up your back and making it hurt more. So we want to use our stomach to keep our back nice and straight and flat, and you're gonna use your stomach to bring your knees into your chest, your knee, and then we're going to straighten it up. Good. And again, you're going to have it a little turned out so that the toe and knee point towards your right shoulder, but your hands behind your thigh to give it a stretch. Good. As you get more flexible, you can put your hands all the way behind your calf, but we're going to stick to here right now because you want your shoulders to be able to stay on the mat while you do that.

If you go into a big hunchback of Notre Dame to reach up, then you're not, you're reaching too high. So this is perfect. Now the arms actually play a really big role. You want to press your triceps and arms into the mat as you do these. So you're going to reach down and really press into the mat and that helps a square off your shoulders, both arms. Good. And we're going to pretend that your leg is a sharp pencil reaching all the way through the toes and you're going to draw a circle on the ceiling. Okay, so you're going to always be reaching for the ceiling while your stomach is trying to dive deep into the mat.

Like it's a tree trunk with its roots growing through the floor. So we're going to bring that leg up towards your nose and we're going to cross our frame towards our left shoulder. Go as low as you can. Keep your back flat and then pull it back up. Nice. Now you got it, but there's rhythm. Otherwise you really stiffen up the quad. It's not a quad exercise, so we're just going to make a nice quick flow. Five pretty quick ones. So we're going to cross around, up, cross around, up, cross around reach, Sharp, pencil, net foot, reaching up one more and reverse.

Try to keep those hips a little bit more still and down. Cross run up, down and really stretches you. Pull it up right as you pull it up. It really stretches the back of the leg and cross turning that knee and toe a little bit out to really emphasize that stretch. And that's five. Bend your knee. Good.

Always give it an extra little again down into the mat and towards you. Feels really great. Put the foot down next to the other one and good and then we're going to straighten. Perfect. Really took out that muscle and stretch it towards you. All right. Maybe you could put your hands this time, one on this hip bone. Yup.

And one on the other hip bone and see if you can keep them still this time and we're going to come up to your nose. Crossed your left shoulder. So use your obliques and around enough. Good Cross around it. There you go. Now you're using the obliques. Perfect too. Definitely one more and reverse.

So if you, you're very slim, but if you had love handles, this is a great exercise to work that area. One more. Hug that knee into your chest. Perfect. All right, the next one's rolling like a ball. But we're going to do a modified version of it. So you're just going to sit up anyway you can. Good. And you're going to hold underneath the knees like you are and keep your shoulders where they are, but make your back into a really nice letter c.

So bring your head to your chest, staying like this. Can you pull away from my fist into a really round back? Nice. Now try to route over my yep, exactly. And using your stomach balance with your feet up off the mat. Good. Relax the feet. Try to relax the shoulders.

And if this was a rocking chair and you had a big rocking red rocker right here, you're just gonna rock back and rock up. So roll back all the way down to your shoulders. Rock back, and exhale to rock up. Good. And imagine that you're rolling through every bone. Use your stomach. There you go. Perfect. So pull away from me to go to your lower back first and use your upper stomach to come up. Yes. Lower set of abdominals to roll back.

Imagine you have a s your picture, your six pack I should say, and use your lower set to go back and use your upper set to come up. Good. Pull in more so you're not stiffening your back, but you're massaging it and use your breath. Inhale. Exhale. Two more. Inhale, roll back. Exhale. Last one. Using your breath. Inhale, exhale. Those looked good. Rest your feet down and now roll down through your back.

Good, good, good, good. Next series is a series of five. All hard on your stomach, but we're going to try to feel how do you stretch your back while you're doing them. Okay, so you're going to imprint your back onto the mat and bring your right knee into your chest. Good. Perfect. Hanse. If you can do the outside on your hand, ankle inside on your knee, that'd be awesome. If they change up, it's okay today. All right, so don't worry too much about your hands. What I want you to make sure is that you're always imprinting your back into the mat. You do that as you lift your head up and now this leg is going to be up at a 45 degree angle.

Keep that one right here and notice how I pull it away from you. So reach away as you really pull that one down and into you. Remember how I stretched you? Pressing that leg down. Excellent and switch legs. Good switch, no flex tweak, relax, switch, reach for me with this leg. Yeah, there we go. Nice feet. Only focusing on your stomach.

Can I feel my stomach as I stretch one leg in as I stretch one leg in cause it's called single leg stretch. Last set. And now grab both ankles and rest your head for a second. The double version. Okay, we're going to lift up your head and bring your arms straight up to the ceiling. And now press your back down, down, down, and bend in. Grab your ankles, pressing down in, in. Inhale, arms up above your shoulders to the ceiling. Exhale, pull in. That's it. Good. Watch where your legs are going. They're perfect. Exhale, going to do one more with you. See where your legs are, and pull in.

Now I'm moving over this one. Inhale, reach those legs forward and I'm going to take your arms this way. Stretch Pullman. Two more. Inhale, reach, stretch, pulling the billion an exit one more and you get to rest. Inhale, reach, challenge that stomach and use your stomach to pull it in and rest your head back down again. Always pulling down in it and straighten the back of your neck. Nope, the back of it. Perfect. So next one is single straight leg and I want you to imagine that there are springs pulling you to that wall. So the exercise is more towards your head, then down towards the floor for you. Okay? So I want you to try to straighten both legs up to the ceiling [inaudible] and use your hands to crawl up just your right leg.

See how high you can get up your no straight like good. Sorry. Lifting up your head. Perfect. Now lower the left leg only as low as you can. Keep your back flat. That's enough. Perfect. So the exercise is towards, nope. Do it. Keep it there. And now switch legs. Use your stomach. Straight legs switch. Sharp.

Straight legs drawing on the ceiling. See how that's bent. Keep it straight and switch. Doesn't need to be too high up to you and switch and switch a little bit quicker. Think of a hamstring stretch. Hamstring stretch. Good. Back the leg stretch. Now how's that stomach? Is it working or are you using your quads more? Challenge your stomach.

Press your back through the mat. One more set right and left and bend the knees and rest your head down again. Giving yourself a good backstretch. The next one is double straight leg. Okay. Want you to put keeping your legs like this? I want one hand over the other.

No lacing one hand over the other, behind your head. Good. And you're going to press your head into your hands using your upper stomach. We're going to lift up your head with your elbows nice and wide. Good. And now your legs are going to go up to the ceiling, preferably in a Pilati stance. Yeah, and we're going to use our stomach to pull your legs towards you.

Lower them down only as low as you can. Keep your back flat and then use this to pull them towards you. Stretch. Inhale, and exhale. Scoop in. Good time. Inhale, lower down a little bit and exhale, scoop it. Good. Can you get your shoulders up off the mat? Yes. Inhale. Exhale man. Pulling it and two more. Inhale down. Exhale, scoop it in last time. Inhale down. Exhale and bend the knees and rest your head down and rest down your feet. Do it rest down. Completely. Good job.

We're going to do single, I mean we're going to do Chris Cross now. Okay. Same arms. Put one hand over the other and put them behind your head. Good. And you always want to try to press your upper stomach into the mat and use that strength to push your head into the mat. Really feeling good neck stretch. And definitely imagine that there's like a seesaw as your upper stomach or ribs go down, your head's going to come up and that's what you use to support your head. Okay, so we're going to first of all, pull in your stomach, your which you're doing and bring both knees into your chest. This is a hard exercise, the last one of this series of five, but it's a great stretch for your back and we're going to pull up your head and shoulders. Come on, pull up more. There you go.

Imagine that there is a bar down in the middle of your body. We're going to straighten your left leg and I want you to twist your body around the sparse. You're going to bring up this shoulder to touch. Good and stay there. I know it's hard, but we're going to, I'm going to help stretch you, pulling back this shoulder as you twist and now look at your stomach as you switch legs. Good and hold it there. And I'm going to pose twists. Do good and switch using your stomach. What you're doing a great job on is you're not twisting your hips and switch.

You're really keeping your back flat. Pull your stomach in more. Nice. Last set. Scoop it and use that to pull in this leg. And one more to my side. So you use this to scoop in that leg and your knees into your chest. Rest your head down there. You good? Okay. Sit on up for spine. Stretch forward.

So I want you to sit up and have your legs straight in front of you. Open them up wider than the mat. More. Good. Alright, so now sit up as tall as you can, which is usually really hard. You're not able to sit up tall. So what we do is we bend our knees so that we can sit up tall, but still pull your toes back. Good. All right, very nice. Take a big breath.

Imagine you're up against a wall and exhale to roll off one vertebra at a time. Good. And I want you to pull your belly away from me. Yeah, into your back. Pool your belly away, and I want you to pull me up one vertebrae at a time. Use your stomach to roll back onto the wall. I love it because you're not pulling me with your arms. I could definitely feel that. And relax your shoulders. Big Breath.

Grow as tall as you can. Head to your chest, and exhale, pulling into your back. Rolling one vertebra at a time. Forward. Good. Really pull your stomach away from me so that you feel that stretch in your lower back. Good. Inhale, roll it up. I'm going to switch over to here. Take a big breath. Exhale, bring your head to your chest and we'll often imaginary a wall. Good. And I'm really holding your stomach into your back as you try to stretch the upper ones forward, aiming the crown of your head to the floor.

And this time roll back up. You're going to feel my knee. And then don't lift your head up. Press every murderer one at a time against my thigh and you get take another breath as you give me your arms up here. Okay. Take a breath. Exhale as you pull your belly in. And I'm going to stretch you up here. You're actually pretty flexible today. Not too stiff. One more with me though.

Big Breath and exhale, head to your chest and scooping in. Nice and stretch. Is that a big stretch behind your legs at all or not really? Okay. And then you're going to roll back up. You're going to feel my knee again and then try to articulate each one above my knee. Good.

And then bringing your arms and I want you to take another breath and exhale is your belly pulls in. Good. And we're going to add one more stretch this way we're going to just keep your arms there and take a breath and exhale forward. Head to chest first you roll off that wall and reach for the inside of your arches. Good. And this time I want you to hold onto your arches. Take a breath. Exhale. Pull your belly deep into your back. As you try to strain your legs, straighten them as much as you can, sliding them off. Inhale, bend the knees back with you. You can lift up your head. And one last time.

Exhale, bring your head to your chest and pull your belly in and straighten your legs as much as you can. Get in a really lower back stretch, maybe even upper back, but in the back of the legs. Leave the legs. Roll up one vertebra at a time. Good and lie onto your back. We're going to bend your knees into your chest. Good. Lying all the way down. Good. All right, next exercise is corkscrew. Press your arms into the mat. Remember how you felt those obliques. Press your shoulders deep into the mat too when you did. Um, the single leg circles and we kept our hips quiet.

You're going to feel the obliques now with both legs moving. I'm gonna Straighten your neck just a bit. There we go. Good. All right, so both legs are going to go up and a little bit of a plotty stance. Okay? And you're going to use those, this whole powerhouse, but especially the sides of it, the obliques to hold your hips square. And I want you to try to lower the legs just a little bit. We're going to work our way into it and exhale, pull the legs up so that you feel your stomach. One more time. Inhale, exhale.

As you pull them back up, you engage your stomach. Now, Kay. Now away from me. Go to your right. Drop him to his far to the right and pull back center. Good. How is the left? And Use your stomach to palm center. One more time, trying to really feel the obliques. Pull them back in. Good. And this way now it looks like you connect it. Now let's see if we can do a full circle. So we'll drop them to the right.

Go down a little bit all the way to me and use your stomach. Double them in reverse. It left down a little bit easier. Stomach deployment, right? So it's like you're stretching your own backpack, pressing your stomach into the mat around one more. Set right around, scoop it in and last time left around using those obliques to pull them in. Great job, a Vinnies and cheer chest. Nice. Good. All right. Next is the saw, which is kind of a a take off of the spine stretch forward so it just sit on up, back into the same position for straighten your legs, open them wider than the mat. Great, and you're actually sitting up pretty tall.

Now let's keep your feet just like that. Flexing your toes back this time. Arms out to the side. Good. We're still going to keep both hips square and on the mat and we're going to pull your stomach in and twist to the right. I'm going to drop this arm as you twist. Stay tall as we twist. Good. Aim this pinky for your baby toe. Head to your chest, and exhale, reach your pinky for your baby toe. Good. Okay, relax.

Take another breath right here. Exhale, reach for it so I can stretch you. That is really nice. Good. So when arms reaching back one arms reaching forward. Inhale, roll up through your spine, tall as you twist to the other side. Exhale as you reach for the small toe, there you go. Always pulling your stomach into your back so you can stretch in Hela with.

To the other side, dropping that arm for you XL. Really pull away with the left side of your stomach here as your left arm reaches forward. Inhaling up, twist to the left and exhale. This time the right side of your stomach really pulls in, especially your upper stomach. And inhaling up, twist to the right cause. This is a breathing exercise and head down and you really want to pull the left rib or upper stomach into that long. The really squeezing out all that area. Look at that and inhale up and twist and exhale, pulling back in your stomach gut. Good, good, good, good.

And inhaling up and rest your arms down. Very good. Good job. All right, so that's the salt. We're going to finish up with some teasers here. Why don't you to lie on your back and then we're going to do a little bit of wall. Good. All right, so if you wanted to do these another time at home, you could put your feet up at an angle against the wall, but with me, you're going to put them up on my in a Pilati stance. Good. And give me your hands. Good.

And I am going to pull you up to touch your toes. And what you're thinking is I have such a strong stomach that I'm going to keep my back on the mat. Okay. And again, I want you to picture your six pack. And on the way up you're going to first resist with your upper set, then your middle, then your lower. So bring your head up. Good. And I'm going to pull you up as you resist me with your upper set. And then you resist me with your lower set. Middlesex. Yeah.

And then your lower. And here, relax your shoulders, lift your head up and take a breath. Exhale, pull me down. Now can you pull me down? I'm going to pull into my powerhouse and he used my powerhouse. And do you feel that stretch in your lower back and your middle back? Yep. As we go all the way down. You went off to this side, to the left a little bit.

So scoot your head and shoulders over [inaudible] and as you go down next time, make sure you work your right side a little bit more to stay. Even. Inhale, lift up your head. Exhale resisting with the upper set your middle. Good and your lower. Don't help me so much. Relax your shoulders. Take a breath. Exhale, pull me down now. This is when you can work hard. Really pull on scooping your belly. Make it haul out. Nice.

Stretching out your back. Yeah, one more with me helping you. Inhale, lift up your head and exhale. I'm going to pull you up. You're trying to stay down. There we go. Good aunt. Inhale. Exhale. Pull me down with your shoulders away from yours. Pull me down. Good. Now you know how your stomach pulls into your back.

Now you come up and touch my shoulders. Inhale, lift up your head. XL, touch my shoulders. [inaudible] I'm up here. Shoulders up here. That's it. In how an exhale all way down. Pull down, scooping. Use your stomach right back up. Take a breath and exhale up. You don't want to take too long of a break, otherwise forget it. And inhale and exhale. Roll it down. Hug the knees into your chest.

Good. Nice. We're going to stand up and go over to the wall now. So we've got two pound weights. You don't really want more than two pound weights. You could use soup cans or something, even that if you have it at home.

So go ahead and put your back against the wall. Make sure we're not touching that bar. Good. And you want to start off with your heels completely against the wall and two to three inches between your toes so that your heels touching. Good senior Pilati stance. You always want a natural curve behind your neck and a natural curve behind your lower back. But if they're stuck like that, especially the one in your lower back, that is not a healthy and young spine.

So we want to make sure our back can curve any which way we want. So we're going to stretch it doing the wall. Okay. So if we were pretending we were back on the Mat, do you think you could use your stomach to imprint into your back and make it with your head against the wall? Make it nice and straight. Can you press into the wall? Probably not. 80% of people can't. So let's go ahead and keep your whole body against the wall, but walk your feet out a few inches to like my foot.

Regaining that Pilati stance for me. Thank you. And we'll try again. Take a big breath and as you exhale, helps to pull in the abdominals. And can you get it any flatter? Probably. But not quite there though, right? I want you to almost feel like you're pushing your back through the wall. So let's come forward just a bit more, little more, and I'm going to feel almost give the just another inch.

It's better to really feel it now. Take a big breath and exhale. Press into the wall. Wonderful. That's what I want. Okay, so keeping the back like that, what you're trying to do is can you circle your arms without moving your back? So this is the way I'm going to show you first what it would look like if you moved your bat. Um, you can rest your arms. Um, if you moved your back when you circled your arms. So right now is my back arched or straight, right? So I'm going to pull my belly in and I'm going to really press it through the wall and as I press it through the wall, I'm going to lift up my arms and I'm going to make sure my back stays like that.

No matter how high I lift my arms, I'm not going to go ahead and just come up. You see my backhoe moves. So scoop and resist. Okay, so we're going to do three circles. Go ahead and pull into the walls. Your arms lift only as high as you can. Keep every vertebra there and then open keeping them in your peripheral vision and down, not so wide out.

Two more pulling in and it's not a stiff motion. This is free flowing circular. One more pulling into the wall and circle, reverse it, pulling into the wall. It should almost massage your back again to more pressing it into the wall. And one more. If it needs a little bit more stretch, you can go up a little higher and rest your arms.

Now just let them hang as if I'm pulling them down to the floor. Okay? Yeah, and pull your back into the wall and you're going to bring just your head to your chest. Good. And try to keep the bottom of your shoulder blades there as you start rolling off this bone, that top one, the next vertebra. The next one. Let your arms just hang again as if they're being pulled down. Good. Just like that teaser as if you're trying to stay on the wall and pulling you down.

We're going to go down just to the point where we can get a nice lower back stretch a little bit further. Good. Your waistband can come off, but you want your tailbone pointing more south down. K you're supporting yourself with your stomach. Give yourself three loose little circles. So your stomach's really scooping in that you're just enjoying these circles and reverse it should be. Do you feel lower back? Stretch good. And you try not to lock your thighs too much.

Let your arms just hang on. I'll give you that feeling. Go ahead and roll up pulling me up. C, start always with the lower back. Good. Not pulling too hard. Later on your own imagination can finish that rolly. Always your shoulders before the back of the neck, before the head. And again, take a breath as your head comes down, pull in the ribs, the middle stomach. Uh, try not to lock those thighs and let those arms just haying supporting with your stomach and give yourself three little circles. One, two, circling the arms and the shoulder joint.

Reverse it to three. And then if someone's pulling you down, you're going to pull them up with your powerhouse. Good. Lower back, rolling through each one. Always shoulders before the knack and then the head good. The last one, straight in the back of the neck. We're going to lift your heels up and separate them so they're parallel like you're on skeets. Okay. And then I want you to bring your feet forward to my foot. All depending on your height and a little bit more forward, but you want some wider. So they're in line with your hips. Perfecto.

I'm stay by your side. Head against the wall. Pull your stomach into the wall using your powerhouse. Slowly slide down the wall. And I'll tell you when to stop. Good. Go down, down a little lower, little lower and hold it there. I want you to hold it their head against the wall. If you can feel your stomach, press your back and use more of the back of your legs and your glutes to come up. Sliding up. You can do it with your quads or the front of your thighs all day long.

But let's switch it to more. Going down, scooping in says, great per skin. Hold it and you're gonna feel your stomach not just pull in, but as you come up, it's gonna lift you. Do you feel kind of like an elevator? That's so important. Implies not just in the in and out. The last time, if you want, we can add a little extra Lanny up stretch. Hold on a second. So as your arms, your body's going down and see if you can coordinate your arms going up as high as you can without arching your back off the wall. Okay, so stomach in, in your arms can start coming up as you slide down the back cast to stay flat though. Good. And come on up. Pressing them into the wall as you come up all the way up.

So now your stomach in and up supporting you, resisting gravity. You're going to walk your feet into the wall. Good. Using your stomach to go all the way against the wall. Good. Try to put your heels back into a plotty stance. And I want you to use the weights to push into the wall. Good.

And that's going to give you that opposition to use your stomach to lean your whole body forward onto the balls of your feet. Head Up. Good. Your bottom present to the wall. So your bottom pushes away from the wall. Yes. Up here, bottom forward. There you go. Now relax your arms. Your weight should always be more on the balls of your feet. Then on your heels for proper posture.

And that [inaudible] and now just try to walk away freely walking away. And you are all set your back. Feel better. Yes. Thank you. Very good. All right.

Comments

Love this class. I will use these cues with some of my older clients. Thank you
I absolutely LOVED this class, this was my first experience ever doing Pilates, I came in with a very stiff back that I always tried to stretch out by standing and bending side to side getting massages, none of that worked, today I feel none of the discomforts after doing this ONE time last night!!!! WOW
very competant, compassionate, lovely teaching skills
1 person likes this.
Monica, all your classes I have watched so far are absolutely amazing. You are a very gifted teacher, delivering clear instructions in a very caring way. I look forward to doing all your classes. I would like to see you showing us exercises for different posture types.
Monica Wilson
Thank you for all the wonderful comments!
Wonderful. Especially appreciated last few exercises. Most helpful class for me yet! Great visuals and at a slow enough pace to ensure proper form. Thank you Monica!
thank you so much! this helped me with my back spasms perfectly! will do it again and again..
Great class! It's done wonders for my back. Thanks!
Monica Wilson
So glad to hear how much it helps!
i could use more workouts like this. some that place emphasis on the SI joint- and chronic problems with that, would be fabulous. my PT thinks that Pilates makes back problems worse. i would love to prove her wrong!
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