Class #522

Take it to the Mat!

55 min - Class
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Take it to the Mat! Explore the possibilities of modifying exercises usually done on an Apparatus to use on the Mat. Loosely following the BASI block system, Meri takes the class through every block and explores exercises such as Pike, Push Through Sitting Forward & Side Reach, Frog Circles, Short Spine, Rowing, Mermaid, and many more. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Sep 29, 2011
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Alright. So here's what we're going to do tonight. There's been a ton of requests, um, for equipment classes. We're not gonna do an equipment class, but we are gonna bring the equipment onto the mat. So with that, I feel like standing on the ground, um, let's, I'm gonna stand this way, but you can probably look out the window if you wish. And we're just reaching our arms down. Let's shift forward and start to collect your body and your mind shift back and shift forward and kind of challenge the limits of that and shift back and again, challenge the limits of that. And as you make your way back to center, find what feels like center, um, from the feet.

Find the base of the feet, the toes spread out, the heels connected the knees just over the ankles, the hips just over the knees. I'm finding myself shifting as I'm talking shoulders just over hips, arms down the sides. We start in ideal alignment and with that forests standing rolled in, we exhale to bring the chin into the chest. Okay. Pulling up on the abdominals, we wheel our spine down towards the ground. The legacy. Nice and still just upright over the heels.

There's an inhale at the bottom and Xcel sink the belly upwards. Feel the pelvis again, wheeling. I liked that word. The today forward and stack the spine. Once again, finding an ideal alignment in your body. Eyes forward. Inhale and exhale to go down. Again. The head draws heavily down where to carries the spine with you.

Our primary concern here is the lift and support from the front of the body. Let the spine lengthen more if you've got it in you. And inhale, exhale. We stack the spine back up. The pelvis moves forward. Keep waiting not just in your heels but also in the toes. And as we go one more time. Exhaling. Decide if you're [inaudible] standing on the inside of the outside of your feet or if you're truly balanced throughout your entire foot. Pausing at the bottom, letting the spine, linkedin, [inaudible] fat cat. If you can, put your fingertips on the ground. Do um, and linked in the spine out. Inhale like spine. Stretch forward from standing. And exhale.

We're going to fold back forward and we're going to inhale stretching the spine out, lengthening out, and we're going to exhale and draw deeper into the abs and send the spine back into a flection. How about two more reaching out, tail reaching through the tip of the head and exhale, folding the body forward. Maybe we'll pull it a little deeper each time. Here's our last one. Inhale up and exhale to take it forward. One more. Full breath to hold. Exhale coming up. Shoulders dropping. Eyes going straight ahead. We're going to move straight into full work when I had a chest expansion action to it. So as you inhale, we're going to sit way back, like you're going to sit down in a chair, the arms reach at shoulder distance and we exhale to squeeze the glutes and stand up. Inhale to go down. I'm going to keep us going kind of quick right away, but what you're wanting to think about here is a shift back, a bend at the hip, so there's a crease in the hips, maintaining neutral position in the pelvis.

Inhaling down, exhale, pressing up, finding energy. In the arm work in the upper back. We're doing three more pressing into the heels, feeling the backsides of the leg saying engaged. Here's two and here's one. From here we just rise very gently up off the heels, not a ton, and we bet and we stretch.

It's pretty important to keep the abdominals working even here. So hollowing the abdominals. The spine is moving flat so it never arounds. It's always straight. Super active through the upper back. The higher the heels, the harder, the more challenging the balances.

How about three more? Finding even distribution of weight throughout the foot. Here's two and here's one. Draw the heel. I'll let the heels come down, swivel them together. Once again, rise up gently onto the toes or just little bit up off the floor. Inhale, we bend the knees points straight out to the sides and we suppress up. When I say straight out to the sides, I don't mean wide, I mean about shoulder distance apart. Feel the press of the heels together, allowing you to connect with the insides of your thighs. That active arm work taking us into our upper back. Each time we stand up, but also challenging it as we go down. I don't know to where, I'm not counting it all today. So if you feel like you need more or less, well let me know. That's it. Let the heels come down. Take a big step out.

We're on our flat foot now, not super wide with my feet, a little bit wider than my heels and here we go. Lean back and press up and lean back and hold at the top for just one moment and try to drag your feet together without actually moving them. Keep that engagement in the inner thighs and and and left. There's a big lunge like action as we go back. Last four, press three.

Feeling the stretch across the chest to um, left. Here's one coming up. Once again, we slightly lift the yes and we continue down. Up to dawn are really strong here. Feeling energy through that straight arm. How about for more chest goes forward and then three and two and one and up.

Let's drop the heels to the ground. It was walk the feedback together. I'm going to turn again this direction for a calf raise. So bringing the feet pretty close together. Maybe sit bones distance apart. Shift for just at the ankle joint. Press back with the oens and the list of the hills and as the heels go down and try to reach the top of the head up towards the sky and lift again.

So we're just reaching jazz, barely tapping the feet and up as the heels go up. Reach the arms downwards. Doing our best to mobilize the feet to work through a full range of motion. That's too early for you to do this. I'm gonna just keep it a little small last for keeping that downward and backward reach. Last two and last one. Stay lifted. Take your hands and put 'em on your pelvis.

We're gonna keep the pelvis still. Sorry Deb. Then one you dropped the opposite heel and left so your hands are there just to assess that as one foot drops in, one foot's lifted. There's no dropping or shifting of the hips up and down. Strong, pulling up through the middle of our body as we roll through the fee, rolling through the feet, not falling over hopefully and last to trying to press up into that bent leg foot. So we get a stretch in that foot. I'm saying one more on each side and then both feet up and both feet slowly down. Take a step back, a big one. So there were tech coming away from footwork and more into a forward lens.

This is an exercise from the one the chair. So what I want us to do is bare weight into that front leg almost as much so that you could actually lift the back leg up. Keep the hands on the pelvis again, we're going to look for that same stillness. Start to straighten that leg, go forward on the diagonal and then reach way back and we go again. Forward on the diagonal, supporting through the abdominals, barely tipping the top of the toes. Oh, how's that for alliteration?

Keep that back leg strong and we're going to do two more. Lifting and reaching. Here's one. Lifting and reaching. Now hold that back leg back. Reach your arms around in front one arm over the other and as you exhale, bring the back leg and it's pretty quick. He goes out or in and out. Excellent. And back backwards.

Step down and x and x and last four. Here's three, here's two and I'm here as one. Just put that foot right down on the ground. Stand all the way up and let your arms come back to your pelvis. Ooh, stemmed the other leg back, bending the front and hand bearing weight into that front leg. We find stability and squareness in the hips and then we travel on the diagonal and then we were each weighed and the spinal law. It's helpful to keep that back. Hamstring glute connection.

It's helpful to squeeze the glute of the leg that you're rising up off of. Arising with. I've got two more to go here. Here it has one and two. Let the foot come down for just a moment. Reached the arms around one. I'm over the other. Here we go. Let's exhale in and and too.

So pulling the tie in towards the body with the abdominals last for rate three, two, and one step. The foot just down onto the ground. We'll rise up with both legs. Arms down at our sides. One more hour. No, we're going to wait on that one. Have a seat. Well, legs out straight. It's gonna do a couple of rollouts. We'll intersperse a couple of mat exercises in with it. Mobile mobilizing, mobilizing. This way, letting the arms come up.

I don't like how Lyft curl the spine. Stay around at the top and breathing. Excellent. As we curl the spine backwards, guiding the pelvis underneath us and lift and curl up and back. Eh. Let the arms just move with the shoulder girdle. And what I mean by that is as we come down has we start to get to the ribs. The arms start to lift. As the head reaches into the ground, the arms reach for the head comes with it. And we were all two more times rolling back and lifting and curling, not enrolling back in reaching. I'm lifting and rolling.

Let's take a moment and just take a stretch forward. Over both legs. And then we're going to come bend the knees, reach for the tops of the knees. We'll just finish warming up the abs with a double leg, single leg, criss cross. So in fact, maybe I'll change it a little bit, but we'll start with the double leg stretch. Rock back, lifting the shins up off the ground. So find your way onto a good solid off the shoulders position and the double leg stretch. Inhale, circle hole in, yeah, circle hole.

And sorry, I keep the abdominals pulled back and in and all around. Let's say four more. Three, two and one. Bring the knees into the chest. So we'll take it now through the double leg. Stretch our legs in straps series, so you're pushing your knees into your hands. If you don't know it, you will in a minute. Hands behind the head. Stretch the legs out on the high diagonal and pull them back in.

Stretch them out on the high diagonal and dig deep to pull them in. We're going to do five. Here's three and n and four and n and five stretch legs out again as they'd been turned in my direction. Rotating from the reps, the leg stays straight in center. They bend at the same time as you're turning towards them. Let's see, three more to each side. What?

And I'm glad and and two last time here. Rotating around, rubber, rotating around. Reach around with your arms for your knees, bringing your knees into your chest. Let your arms come up over your shoulders. Bring the legs to table Top, arms overhead, the a hundred prep for three lifting just the head and chest. Pressing the arms past the hips and inhale to come back. Perhaps as we lift we could envision reaching oh past the feet and back. The arms. Work as though they're pulling against resistance. Hold here, stretch the legs out and here's the 106 oh two three four five and [inaudible] and oh two three four, five and [inaudible] oh three two curling from under this ribs, I'm going to four two, three, four, five pressing against resistance.

Five two, three, four n six two, three crow, a little higher in seven, two, three, four, five straight arms, energy through the fingers. Last two breath cycles and in and out. Two, three, four, five. Then into three, four, five. Let's bring it all the way back. I don't once again reach the knees and you guys go on. Okay. There was a couple. There's a few more. Should we have a break? Yeah.

Sorry. Go for a dead says when do you agree? Yep. Here we go. Here is our coordination. It starts with the arms over the shoulders and the knees and tabletop. We Xcel to pick up the head and chest. Press the arms down, open, closed the legs, bend the knees. Inhale and continue. Inhaling down. So it's one full breath cycle. Open, close Paul and reach.

Exhale, open, close, pull and reach. And exhale, open, close. Get the hands just over the shoulders as we come down. How about two more? Oh and back. Open, close pla and stretch the legs out on them. I'm going to give us a break. Lift the head and chest.

Cause if we do our hips series now that's a lot of have work all at once. Reaching the spine, sitting up tall, separating the legs, spine stretch, no push through sitting forward. So you've got an imaginary bar in your hands and maybe we can just do poems. Okay, so the exercise goes, draw the shoulders down and back and breathe in. As you exhale, curve the spine backwards. Just go to where you can control it.

Now push that imaginary bar down like you're moving against spring tension and reach the spine forward. From here, imaginary bar stays in the hands. We lengthen the body upwards into back extension. Curve the body backwards, controlling the movement of the spine and inhale to sit up XL. Flex the spine. Press the imaginary bar. Forward lengths in the spinal curve back.

Here's our exhale. Inhale, we sit and it moves fluidly like a wave. We curl back and press forward on the exhale. Inhale, the spine grows. Exhale the spine rounds and we left I think one more as appropriate around back. Press forward length in the body. Curve backwards and lift up.

Bring the arms around to the side. Bend the knees. I'm gonna do this side reach with bent knees cause it's a bit more controllable. So we exhale. You've got a couple of choices with your arms. We're going to be coming towards me for us. We curve the spine back. It can be done with one hand on the leg. I'll do that or no hands. Okay, we take the arm back, there's our inhale.

We're going to exhale and rise back up. Exhale to flex the lumbar spine in. He'll just stretch the opposite arm back. Exhale, reengage the obliques and lift at and by re-engage we didn't really let him go, did we? We just deepened. Curl and stretch. Opening the side of the body and exhale and left and exhale and inhale, stretch and exhale, curl and inhale, left last to curb. Maybe try it without arms. Reaching the opposite arm forward. Exhale and inhale.

Totally does. Oppositional reach was the common there and back and up. One more time. Rolling back, reaching him, coming back and lifting up last time an open and recommit and left. All right, we're going to stretch the legs back out, flexing the feet, reaching upwards for that same imaginary bar for the saw. It's a little different from the mat. Sorrow feel different, so we exhale and around. We're going to inhale, lift, twist towards me, and bring the opposite arm up.

Exhale, reach forward. Inhale, set up on the diagonal. Bring the opposite arm back up and XL turnout. Inhale, sit up, twist, reach across. Exhale, dive downwards, looking for a flat spine in. He'll sit up, the arm rises back up and comes back to the bar x, so we curve in. He'll sit up, reach up and also down, and then lengthen up on the diagonal. Return to center. Exhale, come back in, lift up and twist. Exhale, reach up and down. Lengthen even further upwards. Return to center for one more. Exhale. Inhale, sit up. Turn. Exhale, reach up and down, and heel lengthen up. Return.

Exhale. One more time back. Lift up. Oh, I forgot the rotation, but here we are all together anyway and bring it home. Let's bring the arms down. Now we can do our hip work series. So we're just going to roll back onto our back. You can do it with straight legs are bent knees.

Bring the knees into the chest and just give them first a little bit of a hug. Okay. Hands on the knees. Curl your head and Chester. Okay, so you have to a couple choices. One, as far as the arms go, they can go forward, they can go behind your head. This is a little harder, but it's got support. Heels together, toes apart. Here's our frog. We press out and pull in and squeeze out and in and very tightening the inner thigh muscles. All right, and then do, I don't know, eight last two, last one. Hold it. Points your feet and lift your legs. Circles we go down. Keep the back flat. Separate enough down.

Keep the back foot separate around in it and press. Think about this as your legs go down. Can you bring your chest up? Keep it up as the legs come around. So there's your challenge. Last one. We're going to go the other way so we open. Reach down together and pull up and center separate.

Squeeze and pull up in center. Just two more and last one. All right, bend the knees and lower the body to the mat. Take your hands and slide them under the base of your spine right underneath your sacrum. Just to give it a little bit of a lift off the mat. I'm going to go into openings here and bring your knees into your chest.

Stretch the legs up first. External rotation in the legs. Open the legs wide, flex and squeeze them back together. Open them wide as you point, flex and squeeze back together. So with your hands under your pelvis, can you feel perfect or at least a very strong effort at perfection and score? Think not of just squeezing with the innercise, but pulling the legs together from the abdominals. Here's another thought. What if someone were pushing on your legs and you had to resist or you had springs that you had to Paul? And let's do five.

Four. Shoulders are down, elbows are wide. Three, two and one. Bend the knees. Stretch the right leg forward. Hold onto the outside of the left leg, keeping it bent and twists your right. Looking over your left shoulder. I think we deserve that. And then we come around through center, over to the other side. Okay. Back to center for spinal articulation. We're going to do the short spine.

If you don't know it, maybe watch or listen. You can probably listen to your way through it. Um, if you really wanna Watch, you should. Okay, so we're gonna start with the arms at our sides. The legs are in frog position. We're going to exhale to press forward. Keep the spine flat, the abdominals in. Point your feet. Lift up with the legs, then roll up on the diagonal.

As you inhale, allow your knees to bend. Keep the heels together. Exhale as you articulate down through your spine, dropping your thighs little closer to the body as you roll. Then flex the feet. Bring the pelvis down in thriller. Exhale to press forward, pointing the feet in Hilton. Bring them to vertical Xcel to roll up on a slight diagonal line. Inhale the knees back. Exhale, stabilizing the spine.

You peel the spine downwards, rolling the pelvis away from the feet. When you come down, you have to at the end, the feet flex in the pelvis comes across the top. Nice work. Here we go again. Pressing forward. First pointing the feet. Inhale, exhale on the diagonal. Feel free to use your arms. A little hearing heal. We bend. Exhale, we roll down separating the pelvis from the feet when the pelvis is almost down. Flex the feet and bring the legs. [inaudible] like a hinge across the top.

Point for two more and left and bat and down across the top. And press forward. Lift up one more time. Reach up on the diag. Then the knee stay long at the top and then rolling ourselves down and cross at the bottom. We're going to just cross our ankles, hold the knees, rock up, roll over your ankles, and then just shift back a bit. So you're going to just move yourself into the center of the Mat. Okay, so here's our hamstring hip flexor stretch. If you have blocks, it might be a good idea to have them or you can roll up your mat if you need assistance for that, for the hamstring portion. So without further ado, bring one leg forward. And here we are. Okay, so we press forward into the hip and then just put the hands on the knees for a moment and we lift up tall, pressing the back hip into the front hip.

Breathing in and out, shoulders down, away from the ears. Let's have one more breath here and then we're going to bring the hands to the ground. Start to lengthen the spine back as you stretch that front leg. Breathing in and breathing out. So the ideal here is to be as flat as you can in your back.

And that's possible for some of us and the rest of us. We'll work on it. And Ben, the rest of us, meaning me, reach over the front of the kneecap, find the knee lift up, maybe get present to the leg with your hands and push your body upwards. Oh, that just gave me a much nicer stretch. And then carefully reach down towards the ground starts or stretch the front leg energetically. Take the leg that straightening that sip bone towards the inner most heel on the mat. That makes sense. I think. So grading, lengthening. All right. Rebound the knee and then just slide.

Help yourself with your hands to slide that leg out and change sides. So we're over the top of the knee. We're to help ourselves up, pushing into the leg, lifting the body upwards. Feel a sense of lightness in your spine. Can you rise up asa that supporting me? All right, here comes the hamstring or reached down towards the ground. Start to lie the body backwards, looking for a flap, lifting the chest and then refold the front knee shift back over the front bar, back leg and once again, rising up. Wow.

And again, the hands come to the ground one, we're hamstring stretch sliding the pelvis backwards. Okay. [inaudible] bending the front knee and to take the hands down, bring that leg back and coming into our full body integration segments. Who are going to do a number of things in this segment starting with the thigh stretch. So, um, if you have knee problems, uh, my best advice is not go back or not do the exercise or not go back really far. And all of us are gonna squeeze us eyes towards one another. So lift the arms, press the pelvis forward, hinge back on the diagonal, keeping the body in a very straight line and inhale, exhale, just simply engaging the abdominals is what gets us to come up.

And then let's lower the arms and return to neutral spine. Lift the arms, Tuck the pelvis, look at it. And by ad, I mean pelvis, hinge back, breathe in, hold, breathe out. As you, let's press the arms down to come up. I like that better. And then return to your neutral hand. Tuck a, raising the arms up. We hinge back. That all happens on the exhale. Inhale to pause and exhale. We press the arms down. Returning the spine to neutral. Let's do two more. Tuck rich hinge.

Inhale, lift your arms. Oh Wow. Xcel. Press the arms. Oh, the good idea. Den around in a circle. Next time talk and hinge and inhale the arms comma and around and as they reach back starts to progress them back and that was good. Reach around for the ground. We're going to do the long stretch next. So we're going to slide the legs up straight out on the mat.

Okay, so you come up into a plank position. Take a moment to really support yourself in this shape. Good and a little, a bit of a Tuck, maybe done. And we're just going to point the feet, taking a shoulders in front of the hands and then we're going to flex the feet to keep the legs really strong. Inhale as we glide forward over the risks and excels, we flex the feet and press back through the heels and any hills we glide forward and exhale as we press back and lets do four and sly and three on slide and to slide back and and now up stretch two.

So we just rise up into a pike or an up stretch yet and then we shift back forward. It's a hinge. Exhale as you come up into up stretch and inhale as you come back into front support and Xcel. As you slide the spine flat and inhale as we come back down. Then exhale as we lengthen and lift and inhale. As we come back to that, let's do two more.

Here they are reaching the pelvis back and lowering the pelvis down and reaching the pelvis back and lowering the pelvis down. And that was to bend your knees. Either keep your toes tucked under or untuck your feet. I personally prefer feet down. Bring your hands close to your knees, round your spine, or we go into, we're going to end up lifting the knees up off the map.

But before we do that, I want for you in your mind and in your body to create the deepest selection in your trunk that's available to you. You don't even have to have your hands. You don't need your hands much yet, so just be light on him. Okay? So what you're going to do is just try it around the spine more it's abs and then let that go a little bit donut on round. And then lift the abdominals up, try to oppress the pubic bone forward. You're not going to see much. Hopefully you'll feel a lot Xcel to deepen the contraction and release and accelerated deep in the contraction and release. Now the next few, when we start lifting the shins will involve some hand work.

It works on FIS. If you're happier there and the fist can turn into one another if that's better for your shoulders. Okay. So we go into that selection. Now with the same focus on simply rounding the spine where we just hover the knees, just hover and inhale, the legs go back down. And exhale. We keep this vinyl around beautiful and release and keeping the spine round. And really, how about three more curves and hover.

Okay. Dropping the shoulders down, flexing, bringing the shoulders into the hip bones. And here's our last one. Lifting. [inaudible] yeah. And, and then just, yeah, back on your feet and do some circles with your [inaudible] in my break. Alright. And then nice for the side mailing series so you can face me.

We have talked about the wonder twins unite feeling, right. Um, take a a make, grasp your fingers with your fingers. Pull on them. Feel that energy in your back. Let go of that. Bring the fist together. So the energy there. Yeah, trying to pull the shoulders and the elbows apart, but reaching the fist inwards. Now take your hands, put them just outside your ears. Try to find that same energy, the elbows going out outwards in downwards with the hands reaching in. And with that we inhale. Exhale. Feel the shoulder blades glide down in the back. As a result of that, the arms simply straight, not a lot of force through the arms.

And then we bend the elbows, pressing the arms in, but dragging the shoulder blades wide and we press inwards and outwards. There's a serious oppositional force here. And then we pull back in, reaching up, let the arms feel light. Put the attention into your back and back and pressing. Feel the spine grow. And [inaudible] last two times we were reaching, stirring.

Sorry. Mary's making you. All right. Perry wants form of what? One to twins unite form of what? I don't know. What form is this? Here we go. We're going to be an eagle and this is going to be our flying sequence. We're going to open the arms out. Here's our eagle.

And then we flat back in [inaudible]. That was really bad. It was really bad. What's this look like? It's gotta be some sort of form and attached to this movement borough. That's what I was thinking. So we stretch the shoulder blades away. I'm looking at that. No parent. I'm going what, what? And then I find like, all right, so the levity aside, we've all got sued, really strong work in our opera house and then we bring it home and we're going to skip the, um, the tricep for now and just flip the palms over and let the arms go lie and just rise up. Oh, grow three inches. Then I tell you about my client who, um, had a bone density tests.

I think I did. Did I? Okay. So one of my clients who, a regular lady went to get a bone density test a couple of years ago, grow taller and then, um, went back this year and she's grown three inches, three whole inches. Can you find that in your body? Oh, it feels like you can. All right, here comes the triceps. So let's do that one more time. Now I'm probably fingertips is going to be good for most of us. We're going to be going over to our side or roll up your mat. So reaching across, allowing the fingertips to touch.

If you have the flexibility, go on your hand. Go for it. Look down at that hand. Pull the shoulder that you're looking at down very actively and reach the top arm over your head. Then that elbow, you've now got resistance. We press up with the arm [inaudible] and bent and Presser and Ben. So let's take it overhead more than its, you guys are great. I'm just talking overhead more than we're taking it vertically as we would do on the reformer just to yet an additional stretch. Here comes our last one.

Stretch out. Start to bring the Arma left with the waste. Oh, that's the tough part. Let's go to the other side. Letting the fingertips just touch. Pull the shoulder down. Look down at that bottom hand. Bring the arm, uh, elbow up towards the ceiling. And with that we stretch the arm overhead.

It's worth it to look down at your pelvis. Check that it's facing forward on both sides and bend and reach. Increasing the stretch each time. Last three and last two and one more. And here we come up. Then arms, Dad, second arm series. Sit down. We're gonna row legs straight and together. Arms out front.

Straight ahead. Then I'm laughing again cause I often call this one wonder twins unites. So anyway, your arms are straight. I don't know why I love that so much. Bring Bend your elbows, bring the knuckles together, keep that roll back to be able to be in a place where you have control internally. Rotate the arms, reach out. Now press the arms behind you and send the body forward.

Reach down with the arms and then start to reach up. Spiraling around in the shoulder joint. The arms come all the way forward towards the feet and we exhale to sit back up. Inhale the elbows bent. Exhale the spine rolls back. Inhale the arms reach out and the palms turn back. Exhale. We take our body forward over our legs, the arms reach down and then up about.

Now we start to rotate the shoulders within the shoulder joint until the arms are straight ahead and parallel, and then we roll back up. Sit and tell a nice work. Here we go again. Then Dan curl and in heel-toe intensify. As you bring your arms out, exhale, press the arms back, fold the body forward. Inhale, arms down, and then up. Spiraling around to keep the shoulders down, guiding the spine forward over the legs. Exhaling to come up. Last one. Bend and roll the shoulders down. Strong arms. Inhale, reach forward, reaching out and are out and rolling up.

Second in the series holding there. I'm straight palms up in Hilton. Bend the arms. Pull the shoulders down, XL to curve the body, dropping the elbows down towards the sides. Inhale to pause. Exhale to extend the spine up, reaching the arms on a high diagonal and drop the arms down to sit up tall in heels. Draw up the shoulders in, bend the arms. Exhale, allow the upper arms to drop down towards the sides, but don't change the angle of the elbow. And inhale, exhale. Start just the littlest bit inflection and then start extending the spine, reaching the arms up and sending them forward. Last three. Inhale to bend. Exhale to God the spine down.

Inhaling tapas excellently to stretch the spine, the long and tall light arms overhead. Sit up tall, arms drop down. I don't remember the number, I just gave you three so this would be two. Oh we inhale and we exhale. Letting the upper back work harder than the lower back for sure. And last one, bent shoulder bill hits down. Exhale to curl. Inhale, we pass. Excellent. We lengthen and left and dropped the EITs. I think we're going to leave that as far as the rowing series now and go into the long backstretch.

Your risk going to be okay. It's your butt. Well, we're not going to be on our budget much and in fact what we're going to do is the fingers will face back or to the sides, whichever is better and sit behind your tailbone so you're not really weighted on your butt at all. Now, however, the pelvis starts to articulate the spine, so round the spine as much as you can and then start energetically rolling up, reaching the knees past the feet so you kind of roll up into that table. Top Position. Breathe in. As you exhale, let the chest go back, but keep the pelvis as high as you can for as long as you can. It has to drop eventually rolling back, curving the release, the tailbone down. You can either sit down for a moment or you can just stay. Here we go again. We exhale, flex the spine, start guiding it upwards.

Send the knees over the feet, lift the chest in. Inhale, exhale, send the chest back through. But keep lifting away from the floor with the power of your arms and your back muscles curling back, letting the spine come back to neutral, curling up. Exhale, stretching the knees over the feet, get that shoulder stretch, breathe in. Exhale, we curl back, curl back. One more, no more. Okay. Here it is. Feel your hamstrings. They're going to make a huge difference both in this exercise and on the exercise in the reformer.

So as your pelvis starts to drop or your spine starts around, keep pushing your legs up. That's it. And then come all the way down and sit and stretch. Oh, okay. And then turn onto your side. Uh, we're going to do for our additional legwork, the sideline series from the Cadillac. And it goes like this. You lie all the way down. I want my hand for balance. If you don't feel like you need it, whatever you might want it for the first bit. Okay.

So we start with leg changes. The top comes up and forward and [inaudible] and the hind, by the way, we're externally rotated with both hips. Yes. And, and tap and tap and back. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little hard without cause if you are this one fit with the, yeah.

Okay. Here it is. Ah, the next one is circle. So we take the leg for, we maintain as much as we can. That rotation through the hip. As the light comes down and around, swing the leg forward and lift. I'm trying not to lean. Okay. True Story. I'm trying to keep my pelvis squared so as the leg goes back, you're pushing the pelvis forward my back. Cause you're like right behind you. Your leg goes behind you is the best that you can without your pelvis going with you. Excuse me for so for some of us, that's Mike. You might get a little behind you. I can't get very far behind me.

Last one. I messed it up the order. I'm sorry I go the other way. Did you know? No. Yeah, it's not super. And then we'll do this as this last and then we're just going to do six. Here's three. Feeling the hip joint working, mobilizing last to stabilizing with that supporting shoulder of the shoulder of the supporting arm. Here's one. Okay.

Bringing the legs back together, finding the abdominal work. We're gonna left. Now you might be able to bring your home into the air. Take the bottom leg back first. The top leg front. Your body should not be the center of your scissor. We're going to pulse, pulse, change, pulse, pulse, change the abdominals working. Last one, bringing the legs together. Oh, Allina likes to drop to the ground and come up and just slide the bottom leg out from underneath the top like for the mermaid, one of my personal favorites, straight arms out to the side.

We're all going to go the same direction we lean into that pointed me. Let the hand come down lightly. Rotate the bar, get a lot of flection through the spine. Really challenged. Stretch in heel-toe. Open. Exhale, take guide yourself on that. That hand come down and go up and then stretch over to the side and then lift arms out and and and hand down and XL big rotation and annual exhale. I'm coming down to reach up and off and use that oblique, that stretching. Now to bring your body up. Drop the arms to the side, kind of light arms, right. Have you shoulders. Even here as a weight goes down, keep the work higher than the hand into the back.

Come up. I don't know. We're going to finish across the top. Cool stretch. The legs are swinging the legs or move the legs or whatever around to the outside. We're going to go all the way down first. So down on her bicep with her head. What did I make us do? Sideline Lake series. Strong external rotation. It's an up, down, up, back, [inaudible] down.

If you're having a really challenging time stabilizing this position, it's helpful to bring the bottom like forward or to bend it slightly. Good challenge. A little add on that supporting our this our last one. And then here with the lakes together we start the circle forward. Keeps this spiraling action happening in the hip joint as a lead comes as much behind you as you can without pelvic movement. Sometimes it's worth it to look at your pelvis and see if it is actually moving you, even if you believe it to be still [inaudible].

Good. And then we just go the other way. So we go back spiraling leg around and forward. Slicing back, reaching out of that, trying not to really get real, try not to get real grippy in that hip joint. Definitely anger with the bottom line. That's helpful. I last too and last one. Okay, here comes our scissors, so we've got the legs, we hover the legs up, take the back leg back her bottom leg back for, so find where your body is in the center of your scissor. I'm aiming at both corners of my mat and then it's just oh dead pulse, pulse. It's going to keep my hand down too. Then I would feel ashamed and reach and then I would be an even re re re last too one.

Oh I lost it on that one and together and down and up, sliding the bottom leg out from underneath the top being the legs out, the arms up and here we go. Diving into the ocean and comes down contracting the abdominals. We slide that hand and heal as we open back, excelling as we have her back and up. Cozy arm and feel the spine grow too. And then stretch to the side and then take it out both arms that and lengthen out to the side and comes.

Feel the rib cages where the rotation is concentrated, not the hands or the shoulders. If you focus on the abdominal CT, we do three or four. Great. Well bummer. Um, if you focus on the rotation of the ribs rather than the arm or anything else, I think it will give us a better stretch. So I think this strong abdominal work, turn the ribs, the arm just comes along for the ride and then once it gets to parallel, it can come down and then open back out and then the lift up, rising up and taking the arm across. All right, next block back extension. So let's come down onto our abdominals. Oh, we could do this slight one. Okay. Do this. Um, I'm gonna look a little different from you guys cause I'm up here and you're down there, but that's okay. You're going to be better off than me. You want to be able to slide your hands.

And if you don't want to glide them along the floor, you can just hover them. Okay? So what we're going to do is present to the hands and have the chest. This is a breaststroke prep. Okay? Once you've got your chest lifted as much as you want to, and I would stay on my ribs, just stretch the arms forward. Imagine your school hiding the carriage away and then drag the shoulders down the back and then press forward.

So that same idea that we talked about in the kneeling series, arm series of keeping the shoulders broad and especially now as the elbows bend, try to stretch the, it's like if you had a band or a bar in your hands, you'd be trying to stretch it, pulling it to the side. So we inhale out and exhale and inhale and exhale, glide. Allow the hands to just come underneath your forehead. Let your head rest for a moment. Got Another leg exercise for you. It's the hamstring pull.

So you have a couple of choices here. Just staying down all the way might be the best bet. If you're up for a challenge and you want to lift up a little bit into upper back extension, that would be more challenging. This is the hamstring. What is it? What is it called? Hamstring Pool. Okay, so we've got parallel legs and we're just going to bend the knees, bring the heels to the hips and stretch them out and bend them. Keeping the spine stable and stretching and bending and stretching. Strong hamstrings.

Long Hamstrings. Yeah. Let's do three more. Pull and stretch. Well it's hard in my opinion is as the knees Ben, trying not to bring them together. The feet together until and back. Wanda and back. Next exercise pulling straps. Number two, the arms come into a t shape. The body is hovering but not really lifted. And then as we bring our arms back towards our hips, the pinky fingers are going to try to touch the sides of the legs.

You might rise up a little higher and then you go down a little as your arms reach out and lets exhale and bring the pinky fingers in. Finding that strong external rotation. Inhale to come down and exhale, reach back. Yeah. And I need y'all to calm down and exhale to reach back. Healing the eyes down on the map. It's slightly out of you. Oh, and last time, did I just say that? I did.

Oh Wow. And let you back settle for a minute. We're gonna. Um, grand finale is going to be the full breaststroke, so it goes like this. The arms are going to be at your sides. From there we inhale as the arms and spinal left. We exhale as the arms come all the way around to the side, similar to what we just did and continue excelling as you bend in lower to the ground. Inhale, slide the arms out in. Hover the chest. Exhale, bring the arms all the way around to the side. Squeeze the shoulders, Ben the elbows, and go down to three more. Inhale, lengthen.

Exhale are ringed. Fold the elbows and lower the bar and let the breath be the re reach. Exhale. And last time, inhale for back extension. Exhale to bring the arms around and finish. And with that, allow your back to settle for a few minutes. Deb, I think I'll be sore in my upper back tomorrow. Just have that funny feeling. Put your hands underneath you. Push up, squeeze your feet a little closer and so you'll be standing on your mat when we're ready to sit up and then just sit back into rest position for a minute. Breathing into the stretch here, allowing the low back to relax. Might even, I don't know, I like to sometimes grab onto my feet, reach back for my feet and use my own arms to pull my pelvis downwards.

So if that doesn't feel good to you, certainly don't have to do it, but it can create sometimes a nice stretch. Okay, hands come around just around the knees. Lift the body at. Tuck the toes under, rolling over the toes. Let's just press the heels down for a minute and then roll up onto the toes, stretching the toes and then put energy back through your heels and stretch your calves and then we're all up onto the toes and then press the heels down and start to lift the hips. Wouldn't do the pike here, Pike on the one to chair.

So with the hands pretty close to the feet, if you could, you could use blocks or roll up your mat here as well. All right, so the goal is to find that flection through the spine. Again, pelvis going towards chest, chest, going towards pelvis. Now without putting a great deal of weight on your arms, rise up onto your toes. Not because you're working your calves to lift, but because you're pulling so far up into your abdominals. Inhale the flex the spine even more so as you lower the heels down, that's it. Exhale left from the waist.

So I'm just so piking action. My feet are moving, but then I'm not concentrating there at all. In heal the heels. Draw light on the arms. Exhale, we pull right up into the waist and inhale to come down. Let's do that twice more. Lifting, fielding the shoulders, drop down, stabilizing there. One more. Lifting up and coming down. And with that, let's bend the knees and the knees kind of a lot in rural Iowa. Rocking through the spine, finished by bringing the arms again, not a dry open to the sides, expanding the chest, fold your body forward. Exhale [inaudible] seeing the way we started, check for differences and the way you feel now and the way that you perhaps felt in the beginning. In here, hopefully we feel a little lighter. Exhale, a little more energized and let the arms kind of and around [inaudible] and then let's just bend the knees and let the arms float forward and straight in the eyes. I let them come down, bend the knees and let the arms travel to the sides and stretch up. Press down. One more time. Collecting energy, releasing [inaudible].

Sure. Good work.

Comments

Fantastic class - a little bit of everything - legs, arms, back, abs, this class has it all. Will definitely make it a regular. Thank you.
Pele
I like the creativity in this class for sure. I do however prefer a reformer workout for footwork and not the standing stuff (just me) b/c I usually don't feel anything. I used light handweights for the arm work and it was better.
Thanks for the input ladies. Pele - I agree that footwork on the reformer is easier to feel but also think that you can create a similar muscular activation pattern from standing. Weights for the arms are great if they are available. I always appreciate you input! Again...thanks :)
Thank you...loved the footwork @ the beginning. Would definitely incorporate light weights with this one. Also loved ending as you started to checkin on difference. Awesome...rock on!
Great class! Loved the pace.
been missing you mer... a much needed class- thanks :)
HI COLLLLLLL! Miss you too!!!
Great class Meredith! loved the balance between work and stretch.. I really enjoyed the footwork standing becuase the balance work is great..nice flow :)
I loved the class and it gave me so many new ideas for my lessons. I teach the mat exercises but it is great to add reformer and cadilac varaieties. Regards from holland
Love the variety in this class. And excellent cueing, as always. Thank you for keeping it interesting!
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