Class #4243

Sculpting Mat

55 min - Class
111 likes

Description

Grab some wrist and ankle weights and get ready to tone your body with Amy's sculpting Mat class. Adding the extra weight and some varied tempos will not only sculpt your muscles, it will also help support healthy bones. You will get a full body workout with traditional exercises as well as a standing series that will challenge your balance and work your legs. You will still get in a great workout with some bone building benefits even if you don't add the extra weight.
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights

About This Video

Nov 03, 2020
(Log In to track)

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Hey everyone. Hi, thank you for being here today again with me to move and hope you're having a good week. Hope you've had a good week since I saw you last. And again, I'll start every class with the biggest amount of gratitude because I have so much in here for everyone who takes class here now live, who watches back later, who shares it out to other people and who also write in the forums to tell me how much you like it or what things resonated for you, changes you're making in your form and technique and connection. All of those things matter so much to me.

I really need to let you know that, teacher to teacher that matters. So thank you. Okay, we're ready to move. Hope you have some extra weight on your body. I've got one pound wrist weights and two pounds on my ankles.

Not necessary to have any extra weight. You can take them off at any point if they don't feel good anymore. But as some of us know, adding a little extra resistance to our movement, of course, for me bone health is really important. Resistance helps our bones, right? So, and we'll be moving at different tempos, some roll slow things, get ready and some faster things because our bones really like to have that kind of shock to keep them up, alive and awake, of course, alive and awake.

And then also just the strength, right? To move with different resistance way out at our distal points. So the weights are down there and here, but where we wanna remember is to initiate as close to that body. So for arm stuff, think about all of that work really deep into the scapular girdle, lats, chest, shoulders deep, right? We don't wanna move so quickly, especially with the weights are way out there.

So smart, intelligent movement, same with the ankles track that line all the way up, of course, into the hips. So we're gonna really be focusing hip and outer thigh stuff. Okay, well, I'm gonna just be quiet and get us moving. So let's actually start. Yeah, I might have sit facing you guys.

Put your hands on your shinbones, close your eyes for a minute, pull your body up tall, but not forcefully. Just think of that nice elevation of your bones from your pelvis up through your spine, out the crown of your head. Let's take about five breath cycles together, inhaling wide through the ribs and exhaling. (exhales) Just let the air out without gripping down in the rib cage abs, right. I don't want you to do knit the ribs. Don't do that.

Just let the air go. (inhales) If anything, you can kind of tone up the lower tummy area the lower abs start thinking how that kinda translates. Keep breathing back into the lumbar kinda three, four, five will all the lumbar. (inhales and exhales deeply) Yeah, here we go, one more time. Nice deep breath in (inhales) and exhale. (exhales) Okay, I will turn to the side just so you can see we're gonna move, you stay where you're at. We're just gonna start moving, I have my feet together still and hands on my shins.

And I'm gonna start just taking us into a little bit of flection of the spine. Okay, and then inhale, go ahead and come with just a vertical, I'm pulling on my shins just a little bit and getting my shoulder blades back. Maybe adding a little high release just to start with and then use your exhale to soften your spine. Yeah, just let the back of your back curve, right? The back of your waistline curve.

Use your hands if you want to pull a little bit and elevate without arching or pushing the ribs forward, we wanna just almost like you're rolling your collarbone back and looking up to your ceiling. Good and then again, exhale curve. I'm gonna let go of my legs and take myself farther back now. Just wanna move more and then inhale, coming up. They've got air in there and then exhale round. (exhales) I'm gonna reach my hands forward, this feels right to start reaching them and rolling forward and lift.

Okay, one more time here around take yourself back as far as you'd like to go I'm gonna get right onto that sacrum, stay there with me. Can you guys take, let's all extend our legs straight now in front of us and just hold. So a lot of arm reaching, lot of energy. Remember the weights you're out there but plugged back into those shoulders, okay. And then roll back up to sitting right up onto your sit bones and then staying here get right up on your sit bones, externally rotate your arms, so your palms face up and your upper arm is rotated.

And then rotate back down to just a little bit here, you can sit differently if you need to. So I wanna concentrate right now where's the external rotation mainly happening up in the upper arm and then come down palms face down two more times. Let that come from the upper arm shoulder externally rotate and palms down. Okay, one more externally rotate. You'll be in this position a few different times.

Okay, but for now you can relax your arms scoot your hips forward. Grab ahold of your elbows, or hold on here, I'm gonna flex my feet and I'd like us all to start rolling back. Roll back, rolling back. Okay, pause when you have your elbows reaching to the ceiling and I wanna start rolling up from here. Okay, so I'm gonna take the head neck and chest and round forward.

I'm gonna keep rounding forward elbows right above the knees. Come back up to sitting tall and again, and exhale, I'm pressing my heels into the mat trying to really take my time to round and flex mobilize and rolling up. So for those of us that have the sometimes have the challenge of rolling and the leg kicking thing that happens well with those weights down there, as you've heard me talk about it can really help keep the weight of the legs down. Here we go (exhales heavily). Going deep into the abdominals inhale let's take two more here guys.

Strong feet, strong heels, pressing into the mat around that spine, feel that mobility, elbows to the ceiling, head lift, round your spine. Keep the feeling of that lower back staying back all the way up. We'll do this one more time. We'll stay down at the mat this time. Oh, all the way.

Okay, so, hey Gary, how'd that go? (laughs) Hopefully better with the ankles, right? Ankle weights. Okay guys so we're down on the mat. Feet are pretty close to our sit bones, I've got a couple inches of space between the knees. Let's go ahead and just raise the arms straight up to the ceiling.

Okay, again so you've got the weight on your wrist if you have these with you or holding weights make sure that your shoulder blades now let's all do it. We're gonna plug them back. Just set them really the shoulder blades flat on the mat. There they go. Okay, from here, open your arms to a T position and really feel the shoulder blades on your back not pinching one another.

Keep them wide for now. We're gonna play with that and then raise the arms up. We'll do a total of five of these. Okay, so open out. So concentrate on the width of the shoulder blades on your back and raise your arms three more, you can inhale or exhale.

Use what you like and raise the arms. Okay, two more and lift. And then one more time open and lift. Okay, now keeping the scapula heavy, reach up to the ceiling, now they're not heavy. Scapula are light like two little helium balloons that just lifted off the floor and then we're gonna glide them back down on the mat.

Four more times. So prepping the scapula, the shoulder girdle and back down and three more inhale (inhales heavily) and exhale and last two using the back muscles to help move those arms. Last one here and back. And then guys just place your arms down on the mat, palms face down, press your shoulders back. Here we go, bridging the spine, so curl, round and lift.

Nice breath in. (inhales heavily) And as we roll down articulating, I want us to visualize our shin bones moving forward at the ankle. They do move a little bit, but not a lot and come to neutral, we'll do it four more times. Just nice, easy bridges. However, feel your feet. What are those feet doing?

Make sure you're evenly weighted on the tripods. Big toe joint sometimes loses it's grounding so press that big toe joint down, unroll your spine. Inhale neutral pelvis three more, just move and articulate. Use those hip muscles, get those hips up, rolling down. And then we'll take one more.

We're gonna stay up there on this one. This is our fifth one press, press, press. Okay, now I do want us to take our feet, step back a little bit more, rise up to tippy toes. Okay, and sometimes with that lift of the heels rib poppers have popped the ribs. So just kind of go up and check that the ribs haven't gone and popped out or lifted.

Okay, and then squeeze your bottom a little bit more, squeeze those glutes. We're gonna do heels down and up 10 times let's go heels down, heels up, without the pelvis dropping and heels down, heels up and down and up and down five more and down, press up. Keep the hips up, you should be feeling some work around your derriere. Yeah, two more down and up and down and up. Keep them lifted, please roll your spine down.

I'm still on my tippy toes. Take a breath in at neutral pelvis, roll back up on your tippy toes. Roll up, up, up and up. Okay, now instead of heels down and up although I'm keeping my heels lifted, I'm gonna do butt down and up or pelvis down and up, not rolling. I'm just gonna set it down and press it up, 10 of these down and up.

And as you're up on your tippy toes, do you feel that do you feel a little bit more work around your derriere? Kind of nice, down and up, five more down (exhales) up. Can you go a little higher with your hips? Can you go a little higher? You've got three more tries.

Press your toes down, lift your hips, last two, up and down and then up and down and then lower your heels. You're all the way down at the mat. Just take a moment. Not quite done. Bring the ankles to touch, lift your hips back up, heels back up and we're gonna press our thighs open.

Pull them together, press your thighs open and pull them together. 10 of these so here's our third. Okay, your feet might have to adjust a little bit. I am noticing, of course, as I opened the knees the weight's going more to the pinky toes that's okay, five more. Here we go.

And open and close, open and close. Three more to go. I like to sing a little song and one more open and close. Then everything comes down. Pick up a leg, take a hold of the back of that thigh.

Just stretch those muscles out a little bit or you release them and then the other side. Okay, good you guys. So take your feet back down. Let's warm a little, we'll do a little bit of ab work here. So I am taking my hands behind my head interlacing elbows are lifted up off the ceiling, breathing in and curl basic, lower down five of these total.

Just basic basic lift. But see you've got two extra pounds that you're lifting. You may be able to feel that don't let it go up in your neck. Put the weight of the weights down in your lats if that makes sense to you. Okay, we have one more, we're gonna stay up on five, stay up.

Take one hand down by your hip, okay? Use that hand to reach toward your feet and curl. We're gonna pump eight. No, we'll do 10 here's three, four, five neutral pelvis, four, three, two, one place at hand back behind your head. Let's give it a rest.

Come on down. We'll do that on the other side. (inhales) Exhale, curl your head, neck and shoulders up, chest lift, try to keep a neutral pelvis maybe a little posterior if you need it, that's fine. Other arm by your hip, that arm is reaching or thinking chest toward thighs go 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. You know how to count last two hand behind your head, everything comes down. Breathe in exhale, curl it back up. (exhales) Okay, now hands are gonna come right behind the thighs.

I do want everyone, I'm going to post your tilt. Oh good that should feel really good. Walk your hands up higher. Get into a really nice posterior tilt everybody. Okay, now from here, extend one knee, lower that down, alternate sides, lift, I want your knees together.

You're doing some quad engagement and some hamstring curling, move those muscles if this is bothering your neck put your head down, extend, flex, extend and flex. Two more rounds, extend, use your hamstrings to bend the knee, user quad to extend. We'll do this a little bit, no other other exercises. (exhales) Good, one more, extend and curl. Everyone gets to come down.

Good, now keep your head down, arms by your sides but palms face up 'cause I really want us to start getting a little more shoulder opening now. Take one leg up to tabletop, hold it there. So you can feel the weight that your ankle probably, right. See if you can allow more of the weight of your thigh to just sink into your tummy and your hips back on your mat. Lower that leg down.

And just check that out on the other side. So yes, the ankle weight is there but think about it starting right up deep into the abs. That's where the weight is. Yes, it's at your ankle, but you can really sink where the connection is of your leg to your trunk. Okay, and leg down.

We're just gonna alternate, that's it. Eight times (laughs) 10 so each side gets five, pretty simple but let it start from your trunk. All right, here's the third one. Exhale. (inhales and exhales) Keep it nice and simple, but go deep in the connection. And in, one more each side and last time I'm gonna have you keep this one up.

Whatever leg is up, it happens to be my left side. Okay, stay with me, don't go anywhere. This is gonna be quad engagement. So I want you to use your quadriceps to straighten your knee. And once you've used your hamstrings to bend the knee four more, quad from it up, it's good for you.

And then bend, use your hamstrings like you're pulling the spring down from the ceiling if you had one and lift and bend, okay, two more. Extend that knee, bend the knee, extend the knee and bend the knee and then set the leg all the way down. We have the other side, inhale, prepare, exhale, lift the thighs, your tabletop leg. You can put your hands on your femur so it stays stationary at your hip and extend quad and hamstrings, flex your foot it may feel easier to get those hamstrings to wake up or work and three and bend two and bend and last one. Now keep it tabletop, I want you to soften the foot.

Breathe in, exhale from the abdominals, lift the weight of that leg, arms long by sides as you palm face down now, breathe and exhale, head, neck and chest up, arms long let's go legs up for the hundred and pump. (exhales) You can do whichever you like with your legs parallel or turned out. But I would like us all to kind of think about using the butt muscles a little bit more here. If you're interested to take your ladies lower, you can. I'm gonna stay right here today, I'm enjoying that. The feeling of the weight being deep in here pulling my hips and my low back deep against the floor.

Roll your shoulders back, remember the weight of the wrist weights is not in your wrist, it's in your lats, draw closer to your abs. One more breath cycle. (exhales) Bend your knees, let's roll up everybody, just roll up. Okay, flex the feet again, reach your arms long this time. We're gonna do a little more fluid roll up and you take my arms overhead. Make a circle with your arms now.

Reach your hands toward your feet (exhales) flex, roll back. Just move yourself, don't overthink it make a circle with the arms, roll up, (exhales) reach past your toes, three more. I have my knees, a little bent today. Digging my heels into the mat enjoying the weight at the ankles, last two, roll, length then circle. (exhales) One more, all the way up and down. Oh, and then we'll go back and we'll stay back.

And then once you're down, you're down, hold for a moment. Okay, good, single leg, circle time. Choose whichever leg you'd like to start with. You know the drill. It doesn't matter to me 'cause you always do the other one.

However, as you lift one up, hello, ankle weight, right. So again, allow yourself, give yourself a minute, put the weight of the ankle weight deep into your abdominals, steady those hips. However big you wanna make your circles. I'm going small, but I wanna pull that leg closer to my head. (exhales) I wanna let my pelvis and my lumbar spine have a lot of relationship of movement there. Like keep my back down one more in this direction and then reverse it. (exhales and inhales heavily) Three more (exhales) and two and last time bend your knee thread that leg all the way down.

Here coming to the other leg up and up before you circle, check in. Allow that weight sink into your hip socket area. Deep abdominals, cross your leg, five circles. (inhales and exhales heavily) And up two and up and three around and up last circle and reverse and open out and lift. Keep sinking that weight, let it drop in, right?

The imaginary ankle weight is in your hip socket. That's where the weight is deep. Last time circle around, lower your leg. Bring your legs all the way back up. Both legs to the ceiling just stay with me.

Flex your ankles, extend your ankles. Flex your ankles, extend your ankles, flex and extend, two more flex and extend and flex and extend. So there you are. You're in feet up legs up extended legs. Now take your legs into external rotation, little turnout and then parallel inhaled turnout wrap user bottom come back to parallel.

Three more rap and parallel and wrap, parallel one more. You're going to hate me wrap and hold flex here. Okay, ankles flexed legs are turned out. We're gonna do some frog and press and lower. I'm thinking of really pushing the weight of my ankles up and the ceiling up off the walls.

It's a lot of work, (laughs) breaths and the stomach deeply down, two more down, press. Last time guys, down and up. Now, roll to point, parallel, bend your knees and just rest for a moment. You can have your hands on your knees and circle. Okay, and I have a state down here for a moment more and then have our legs go up external rotation.

And we're gonna do some of the Charlotte Jamal legs, right? Cross, cross, cross, cross, cross and then we'll open out to a pretty wide straddle. So there'll be eight crosses, five, six, seven, eight, and then one long open position. Okay, here we go. A lot of inner thigh.

Here we are. So legs come up, externally rotate, you can point your feet on these or flex it's your choice, I'll do some of each. Cross, two, three, I'm thinking inner thighs, inner thighs are crossing seven and eight. Open to a straddle as wide as you'd like to go. Come up again and we cross two, three and four, five, six, seven and eight and open, open, open again and cross two , three, four and five, six, seven, and eight open.

I'm gonna do one more with my feet pointed, cross four, five, six, seven, eight, and open. Next four sets are flex angles. Cross two, you may feel a deeper here. Five, six, seven, and eight and open. Ready, three more sets, one, two cross, reach the legs long.

Pull your stomach down, seven and eight and open, (exhales) two more sets up, two. Really feeling those extra four pounds up in the air. Seven and eight and open. Here we go. One, two, three, stomach down five, six, seven, eight, everybody open.

Come up rest, rest, rest. Let your knees drop together, move your legs a little bit side to side. Yeah, some really nice legwork we're not quite done down here. Okay, bring your heels close into the sit bones. Bridge your hips up.

Oh yeah, lift one leg up to the ceiling flex that foot. Hold it, just hold it. Pushing the heel, heel up, heel down. What we're gonna do, five times lower lift the pelvis again. This leg stays lifted, so it's just a down and an up, a down and an up, three up, four and up.

Keep it up there and lay down and up. Lay down, be careful. Meaning don't throw the leg, this is control time, right? Flex down, flex up or point point, it's your choice. Last one, keep it up, lower your pelvis.

Bend that knee change sides bridge first, (exhales) second leg up, I like to flex the heel here. Pushing both heels up, one is up, one is down. We go pelvis, pelvis, pelvis and pelvis, three and up, two and up, last one stay lifted. Now the leg in the air comes down and up. You might like the point down, flex up, point down, flex up last two, (inhales and exhales heavily) last time.

Good and bend your knee. Bring your arms up overhead everybody. Ah, keep them there, chin away from chest. Just stay here, suspend, (exhales) as we roll down, I want everyone slowly to shift their weight left and right as you articulate so slow down your spine. Just a little bit of lateral movement translation of the spine side to side.

Come on down, yeah bend your elbows. Bring your knees to your chest, let's roll ourselves up. We've been down there all along long time. Great, I'm gonna face you now like the siting diamond, adjust my hair. Okay, we're gonna focus on arms now 'cause we've done a lot down here, (laughs) okay.

And I just liked this sitting position because it feels balanced to me. Meaning even on my sit bones and my turnout is the same if this doesn't work, you can find another sitting position. You might even roll up your mat to make it easier. Okay, but before we go notice the feet and I want us all to press them together. So they're not just touching limp down there, press them.

You should really get this activated again. Okay, now take your arms out strong, really strong from your sternum across those pecs out through those shoulders, circle. So I'm circling my arms. Hold your stomach in. (exhales) Good, that was 10, do 10 more. One, two, I'm trying to circle thinking up at the shoulder, five, six, seven, eight, a lot of counting today.

I realize let's go the other way, two sets of 10. Count on your own. (laughs) Keep breathing (exhales) good. Good and 10, seven, eight and nine and that was 10 for me. Bend your elbows bring your hands down. Okay, hope you feel some good upper awareness now, flex your wrists here or extend them and push the walls away and just push.

So this is kind of interesting you're bending and pushing (exhales) 10 times but you really have to work the push. You know what I mean? Push, push, and push and muck muscles in your upper body and push away. Yeah, and push. Michael King, you guys know that guy, he's such a great teacher, he used push a lot.

Every time I say it, I'm like I think of Michael, push. Do more push away. Last time you're gonna push. Stay with me, if you can extend and tap the mat, tap, lift. Okay, if you got some rotator cuff stuff going on, don't do this when it might not feel good.

Okay, I'm touching and I'm lifting. (exhales) I'm trying to stay lifted in my spine, my feet are still pressed together. Five more, energy out, get strong in your arms. Take up a lot of space in your room. Three, how are the shoulders feeling, two and lift. I'm really feeling mine up and we're gonna down and hold.

Okay, good. Turn your arms now palms face up. So we've got beautiful external rotation of the shoulder up and down arms same thing just to shoulder level down and up. And up, so I'm exhaling up, (exhales) inhaling down. So it went stomach in, (inhales) good you guys shoulders low.

Remember even though the weight is on your wrist put it down in your lats. Drop the weight down, that should help keep the endurance going, yeah. You're gonna hate me up and down, stay up this one, stay up. If you've got, you can do this, you can do this, stay there, feel the work, bend, extend, 10 of these, bend, biceps, triceps. Pull the weight towards you.

Press the weights away. Pull the weights toward you. Press the weights away. Five more, (exhales) stomach in, feet pressed together. Feel how your whole body is integrated, let your brain work with all of those pieces so you can make it through the last time out in, and then you can lower, all right.

Just rest for a minute round forward, let your spine wiggle. Let your spine wiggle. Okay, really nice you guys. Now I'd like to come up onto our knees, so find your way up. Okay, I'm gonna stay facing you.

So somebody asked me about this, "Amy should I have my knees all the way together when you're up on your knees?" I like that, if you can, it doesn't feel great on everyone's knee caps depending on a little bit of maybe structure of yourself or just tightness in your quads and IT band it should never hurt being up here, okay? You can always pad your knees but if we say knees together and you'd go, oh then don't do it, step apart. Okay, that's your deal. For those of us that can bring it together because it really helps us work that inner line of the leg and around the bottom, your butt, okay. Now you also might need to change your feet and do toes tucked.

That's fine too. You could do that. It actually helps me get my butt a little more activated in certain exercises while sometimes toes down does. So you just get to play, okay? Keep it going Amy, arms up.

Guys make some biceps again. Okay, stay here, I'm gonna make fist. It just feels better to close my hand. Now I want us to bring our shoulder blades really close together on our back. Do it, pull back, hold them there that's important.

That's important to be able to do that. Have you pushed your ribs forward? Chances are bring them back in keep your shoulder blades together and now move your shoulder blades apart. Do it again. Shoulder blades together, shoulder blades apart, together, it's hard, isn't it?

And apart it's good to be able to move your body in lots of different ways. Shoulder blades together is not bad. It's actually really good to be able to do that. We all lot of times don't want... we can keep going, got four more, I'm counting.

We ask us not to do that in some exercises but we really need the skill to be able to do that for the next one in particular, bring it together. Whole arms out. I want you to do spine twist kneeling. Keep your scapula together behind your back. Go turn a little bit to one side.

Keep your scapula together. Keep your scapula together. Okay, and then center, try the other side. Focus on the scapula together bit and center, (exhales) twist, center, twist. So it's the work of scapula together that's actually for me, motivating my rotation.

Not so much my abs right now use your back to turn your body. Okay, two more rounds and center and twist, center. How we doing, hopefully feeling your back. It's good for you last time. Okay, but now here, relax your arms, pull them in, bring them down and just feel what you feel will your arms a lot of work in your back, right?

And upper back and shoulders. Okay, tricep time. This can be made, long arms can be made. Lift up, you know what is happening? Chest expansion, I do it every day.

I need it. Press those arms back, hold them there. Rotate your neck one side, one side, center. Now take your arms all the way up here. Take them down, pull them behind you.

Open your chest, turn your neck, turn your neck. Look center, raise your arms, go a little higher now. Three more rounds, pull, turn, turn, lift, and up. Pull, how are your hamstrings, are they working? Keep them contracted.

You're gonna really need them on the next one. Pull, turn, turn, release and hands by your thighs. Five stretch, going back, use your hamstrings, use them. This is an exercise, I am pressing the tops of my feet down into the floor. Four more go as far as you feel comfortable, you can also change your feet and tuck up onto your toes like this.

You can do that, the ankle weights might be in your way if you're using them. Last two, I've got my hands pressing my thighs, it feels good to me for now. One more, you're gonna hate this and love it that's why you're here. Hold this, hold up and down arms five, four, three, two, and keep them there and all the way up. Relax and come down.

Okay, good. I am gonna turn that way. I just, no, I'll stay here. Turn this way, guys. Get onto hands and knees, want you to extend one leg behind you in a nice straight hip extension line.

Okay, we've worked a lot of inner thigh. Let's work hamstrings and glutes a little more specifically. If you don't like being up on your wrists come on down to your elbows, it's completely fine. I just wanna make sure that you don't drop in sink your head and ruin that alignment right there. That's not great.

Okay, I'd rather you be able to come up here. Okay, lift your thigh, hold it there. And then let's do some bending of the knee, straightening of the knee. Now really need to pull the abdominals in long, no over-arching in the lumbar. If this weight is too heavy you can take your leg a little lower to the mat.

Okay, two more, curl use those hamstrings and then one more bend and straighten with the leg straight. Put the foot down on the floor, hold on for just a second. Address the abdominals and ribs. Take a breath. We're gonna lift the leg back up again.

I do this a lot in these weighted workouts 'cause it's good for the butt. (chuckles) Take your leg out to the side of tapping it out toward you lift it and try to lift it and tap it behind the other leg. So it's kind of doing like a little arc. It's not kind of, it is doing an arc out to the side up and behind three more of these arcs, (exhales) stomach up. Make sure your throat and head are not dropping down you guys. Okay, two more up and back. (exhales) And last one up and then just lift it and then set it back down just quadrupedal.

Other leg, ready? Stretch the leg out straight hip extension first, try to square those hips, they get a little honoree, right? Sometimes, lift your thigh. Bend and straightened five times, work to keep the thigh the same height up off the floor. Unless your back is really feeling icky.

Come down to your elbows if so, or lower the height of that leg. Okay, and bend and straighten and bend and straightened, take the leg down for a minute. And we have the arcs, readdress your abdominals, lift your leg and put it out to the side. Okay, while it's out there, lift it, arc, reach it toward the other side of the mat and up and tap and lift. Okay, the arms are still pushing the mat away.

Stomach is still up and in supporting the lumbar, that lice elongated spine. (exhales) That extra two pounds really hopefully adding to the work in a happy, positive way, I'm liking the way it feels. Feels nice to lift a little more. And then that was your last one. Everyone come in, rest for a minute. Okay, we're gonna do a little cat cow.

Breathe in neutral, cat position should feel delicious on your lower back. Spend a little more time right here in your cat tail under but it's more than just your tail. It's your whole pelvis that's rotated back, right? Especially those top two hip bones. We're really pull those back and then just come into neutral.

Not cow actually, just come into neutral. Let's do it again, curve. Okay, and then come into neutral. We'll go one more time. (inhales) Are your arms still externally rotated. Good check if they are.

Neutral, okay, pick up a knee without really disturbing much of your alignment. Pick-up a knee, bring that knee to the nose, your cat backing, your cat backing. And you're gonna really hold that knee toward your nose. Hold it. Now we are gonna go back into extension.

I'm moving my thigh back, it's going slow with this one. Arching your back a little bit. I'm thinking the back of my head toward my foot. I'm just thinking it, I know it's not anywhere close to that. Okay, slow it down.

Knee toward nose, cat. (exhales heavily) Hip extension, you knees still stays bend, lift that thigh. One more slow one. (exhales) We are gonna try to pick up the tempo five times. Go in, out, in, out, use your back muscles but use your butt lift last two up one more in and up and rest, okay. Good old Cathy Grant stuff from way back that I learned from Kara. Okay, here we go.

So knee to nose, round stomach in, push those arms down. Right, knee to nose. Now slowly thigh back, raise your thigh, your spine still is long, I'm thinking back of my head toward my foot. Two more slow (exhales) and away. Last one, I'm really trying to stay parallel in the thigh.

This is hard for me to stay parallel, doing my best. Okay guys, five more, in faster and up, in don't throw it, move it with muscles, (inhales) control. Last two, (exhales) up, last one and up. Okay, we're done with that. Come off your wrist, shake your hand out.

Good, hope you're feeling great. Not just good, but great. I'm feeling great. Standing, we're going up to standing. Okay, 'cause I said we would do more arms and legs.

Didn't I? (laughs) Earlier, so with this because we have these ankle weights they're kind of bumping together. Some of us, I'd like us to stay on apart, bend the knees. You can think of squat, I'm just gonna do like a little, not my deepest bend but bend so that I do feel the load in my legs. Okay, and then just be there for a moment. Arms up, circle the arms again.

10, two, three, four, go lower, if you want six, seven, eight, nine reverse, only 10 each way. (exhales) Five, seven, eight, nine, and 10. Arms down, legs up, okay. Arms out, rotate externally more bicep curls. Five times, no locking of those knees.

I want us to pull the quadriceps up. Right, use your quadriceps and your hamstrings and your curves in a way to support your knees. We have two more bicep curls, in and open. Now my palms are up. We've got external rotation.

I'm gonna move my arms behind me but I'm also thinking shoulder blades together again, just like we did in spine twist. I'm gonna take us about 10 more scapula, (laughs) scapula together, lift that sternum up in front. Good, five more now, five, four, three and one, is big counting day. Okay, lift this heel pivot, turn to the side, lower that leg. Okay, we did this last week I believe, we've been doing a little bit of this.

So I want you to have both legs straight, torso square, squeeze your bottom here, pull your stomach up long, bend the front knee and then bend the back knee. So that's our setup. Okay, so we've got our knees in this bent position. Arms are gonna come up and do five bicep curls here. One, two, go lower in your legs please, three, four and five arms go straight, palms face back, pitch forward, straighten your back leg triceps here.

One and two, three, (laughs) arms stay straight. Let's repeat it, one of each. So here we go. Complex movement, so we've bend, extend, straighten the front, the back leg as you pitched forward triceps. I'll just go kind of slowish here so you can watch, really using my legs in the floor, triceps.

Okay, we can start to speed it up. Five more, four, go lower if you can, three, two and one, bring your legs together. Turn and face the other direction. Start with two straight legs. Long abdominals, you're square to this side.

Bend the front knee, bend the back knee. So you've got yourself in this kind of marriage proposal position, bicep curls again. I know it's a lot of repetition. You're externally rotated in your upper arms are only one extra pound on your hands so you should be fine. Go lower if you can.

Okay, that was our five. Now pitch forward, straighten the back knee five presses, triceps and lats, three, four and five. And then we'll come in and do one of each. I'll go kind of slow for a little while using your feet shifting your body weight. Go low in the legs if you can.

Okay, let's start to speed it up. We've got this five more, four, stay low, three, two, last one. Bring your legs together. Excellent, right? Feeling good.

Okay, now stand with your feet just hip width the part with a little bend in your knees, okay. (sighs) Lean forward in a hip hinge. Take your arms forward, I've gotten a little fist. I'm gonna roll and back. So again, I'm allowing my shoulder blades not allowing, I'm moving them bring them together and then bend your elbows, right?

So shoulder blades go and then elbows bend. Sit down into this, get really low. Five more, five and four. Gosh, really counting today. It's one of those classes.

I think when I do sculpture classes I just like to count more. Okay, hold dead bug, stay low and open. Same thing, shoulder blades go first then the arms, scapula and then arms. I'm gonna do 10 of these because they're good for us. And five more, four, three, good work today guys.

Two and one. And then what we're going to do next is just stand up go right back down into that little squat. Shift your weight to one leg enough that you could lift the other one. And you're just gonna tap it out to the side for a second. If you can't lift it off the floor and then bend it in and push it out, bend it in.

So if we were on the reformer it's kind of half skater, more on my standing leg. How about you? This guy's getting a lot of work. Five more, I'm Amy thinking heel three and two. Yeah, last one bring it in an up and down.

Get in that hinge kinda that home hinge position, your back is flat, your abs aren't relaxing yet. Your ribs and hips are in that same line here. Shift your weight enough, you can lift the other one off and we push, push the outer edge of the heel, three, good balance, yeah. Five and five more focus on something that'll help you balance three, two and last one feet down and up, okay. Stand nice and tall, shift over to the leg that you started with first, bring your knee pretty high.

Put your hands underneath that thigh. Just standing here, okay. And again, it's okay if the leg you're holding if the hip is elevated a little bit the hiking just just know that it probably is, that's okay. Try just lower it, squeeze your standing leg butt. Try that one out, squeeze it, contract it.

Stand on it and contract it. Yeah, Raleigh, good. Now we're going to take our hands out, hold your balance. Open this leg. Use this hip, five times we go open, close, three more, open, close, two good stuff last time.

And then stand, feel. Wow, feels good. Stand on that leg hand behind the other thigh. So just take your time, get your balance from up your thigh and your buttocks on the standing leg make sure your big toe joint is pressed into the floor. Recognize your balance, if it might be a little different and it's okay, let go.

Ready, five times open, close. You're thinking the clam muscles, the side of the hip. We're nearly done, you guys, we made it. You never know what you're gonna get with me, right? I think that's why some of you like it a lot.

I never really have to do the same thing twice. My brain doesn't like that. I like the basics, I like my roots, you all know that. Bring your feet down. But I like to just keep changing and just open those arms, just swing.

And as they say a lot, we're all experiencing it, life does not come at us in the same way. Got to keep changing it up all the time. (exhales) Just swing five, (inhales) four. (exhales) And after we take these weights off which I think I'm gonna have us all do if you have your weights on or if you have them in your hands just put them down, for the rest of us that have them on just take them off. And just then we're gonna do a couple... Oh man, feel so different. I love that.

Oh my gosh, I feel like I can fly away. Let's do a little standing roll-down, walk out to plank, walk up. Okay, inhale, feel light. Oh, doesn't that feel delicious. Should feel pretty light everybody and strong lockout.

Hey, throw in some pushups, if you want, whole (exhales) feel strong. Lift those hips, pass through what we might even think is a little down dog. Ooh, it feels good. Stretch out those ankles and curves, walk your hands back slowly. Bend those knees, (exhales) roll yourself up.

Hey guys, let's do it one more time before we're done. Okay, arms up, breathe in and roll it down. The joy of being alive and moving, God what a gift. Hold yourself steady. (exhales) Hold yourself steady. (exhales) One more, pitch those hips up, you can step your feet apart. Sink deeper in the stretch, let's hold this for about three to five breath cycles, just stretch, just go deep. (inhales and exhales heavily) Feel your groundedness with your hands and your feet.

The strength that you just gave your body. My gosh. Good stuff. Walk your hands back, bend your knees deeply, slowly roll up. All right, hey guys.

Thank you. We made it. (laughs) We made it. Thanks for another class live with me. I'll be back again next week as you know, such a really good one lineup that we have going for our lives right now. So check our Instagram if you haven't already 'cause we've got a whole schedule of who's up in the fall lineup.

So I'm so grateful that it's me (laughs) that I'm here with you all the time. Have a great week everyone. And I'll see you next time. Bye bye.

Pilates with Amy Havens: Move with Amy

This Video
Sculpt, Tone, Bone Health, Weighted

Nov 03, 2020
Thumbnail image
Sculpting Mat
Amy Havens
Intermediate
55 min
Pilates Conservatory®
Mat
Watch Next
Standing, Wall, Alignment, Connection

Nov 10, 2020
Thumbnail image
Wall Work Part 2
Amy Havens
Intermediate
50 min
Pilates Conservatory®
Mat
Simplicity, Stability, Deepen, Enhance

Nov 17, 2020
Thumbnail image
Corps Basics
Amy Havens
Beginner
55 min
Pilates Conservatory®
Mat

Comments

Pilar S
1 person likes this.
I think tris class was level2/3 with the extra weights
Maureen
1 person likes this.
Awesome! I loved this class! Thank you!
1 person likes this.
What a wonderful class, thank you so much Amy!! Your passion & enthusiasm for what you do shines through. 
iOS
iOS
1 person likes this.
Fantastic workout, thanks Amy
2 people like this.
Hi Amy,  I was wondering where you got your wrist and ankle weights?  dhmcycle@gmail.com. Thanks as always.
Tess S
2 people like this.
thanks amy, that was a good workout. would love to see more of your classes with ankle and hand weights.
Olivia T
2 people like this.
I really liked this sculpting class (and your other sculpting class) where you used hand weights (arm focus) and ankle weights. 
1 person likes this.
thank you that was perfect for a Sunday morning session. the former dancer in me appreciates you.  Maybe a small ball class in on the horizon?
1 person likes this.
Amy suggested using leg weights to aid with roll-downs in a class i took with her about 6 months ago. I immediately bought a 5 lbs set and have worked them into many classes since. I don't have wrist weights but i do have 2, 3, & 5 lb hand weights which i used for this class... mostly the 2 lbs because this was not an easy class:) I am a big fan of Amy and this was a super class. I feel wonderful & I had a great time. Thanks again Amy! 
1 person likes this.
Wow the criss cross with the legs! That was impactful:)
1-10 of 37

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Move With Us

Experience Pilates. Experience life.

Let's Begin