Class #5397

Girl Time EXO Chair

30 min - Class
93 likes

Description

Join Meredith Rogers and Kristi Cooper for the first Girl Time workout on the EXO Chair. They invite you to take up space and create energy in your body so that you can enjoy movement in this quick class. They include a blend of feel-good and challenging exercises using clear cues and transitions to keep you moving the entire time.
What You'll Need: EXO Chair

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Transcript

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Guess what time it is? It's girl time. And for the first time, ever, we're gonna do the chair. Take it out. Take it out there. So you ready? I am really ready.

Nice to see you. Nice to see you too. Walk around this way. So we have on the chair set up with 1 spring on 3, and we're gonna start standing up all the way tall. And we're going to feel the arms reaching down, feel the spine lifting up, take just a moment, maybe close your eyes.

I'm closing mine. You can do what you want. But just feel yourself on the earth. I'm still trying to get in the room. Yeah. Well, it's you you run out of time for that.

So okay. Feel your feet on the earth and take your arms out to the sides. Bring your arms overhead in as you do, lift your chest, your heart, feel that you're taking up space, creating some energy in your body, and then we're right away gonna dive down into the chair. Place the hands down onto the pedal, reach the spine out. So you're flattening the back, You can get nice and low. Maybe you'll even touch the chair with your chest.

And then as you round feel your legs, your the back of your legs pressing forward, your arms pushing down, deep and into your round shape, lift the body away from the pedal as you come up to standing, bring your arms up as a continuation of your spine up near your ears. Take them around to the side lifting the chest. This time, they'll come from the sides of the body towards the chair as we round down, finding the petal. You're in that rounded shape, and then we take the body down. It's amazing how good it can feel so fast. Right? Yep.

Round of the spine active through the arms pushing the pedal as you lift it with your abdominals. Feel your feet on the ground. Roll up keeping your pelvis over your feet. Take the arms up. Open your chest as you take the arms around to the side, they come down. They come a little forward.

The head goes down. We look into the pedal as we're going down, and then we allow the eyes to look back towards the thighs and then down into the center of the chair. Really get as long as you can through your spine. Do your very most best there. Round back in.

Pick the body up off the chair, bring the arms up, take the arms around. We'll just do one more I could do this all day. I was just gonna say that. Are you gripping your toes, or do you have to un grip or you think about that? I'm not thinking about my toes you much. I'm definitely not gripping them.

As I push down with the pedal, let's try lifting them. So feel the weight in the heels. Not quite what it is. Feel the weight in the heels. Feel that you're really anchored into those heels. Light on the toes is what I'm thinking now that you ask. That's Great.

Roll up. Lift the body. Take the arms up overhead. Interlock your hands. Turn the palms of the hands inside out lean towards those. And then stand up and then lean away.

Pressing into that opposite foot, the one you're leaning away from, and use that connection to that foot to stand up. Take the arms around and down. Okay. So we're gonna set up and do some footwork. Let's bend down. Put another spring on. 2, 3 on this particular chair is a great spring or 3, 3 on your chair or whatever you decide.

You can choose. We have a pad nearby. We're gonna put it on the chair, come around, have a seat on the pad. Place the feet onto the petal. Let's hold just in the front of the chair. So I'm kind of reaching underneath of the chair.

And then what I want us to do here is just align the shoulders over the pelvis. Pull up with the pull the spine up is what I wanna say by using your arms. And then see if you can keep the positioning of the body as you reach back. Bring your hands behind your head. Press your head into your hands, pull up on your skull with your arms.

And as you press down with your legs, pull up on your head. And lift. So in my imagination here, Christy, there's 2 energies. There's the down energy that the legs are doing, and then up energy that we're doing in our upper body, the shoulder blades go in the down energy. The spine goes in the up energy. Like, track Exactly. I love it.

You're lifting, feeling the work through the center of the body to hold that spine. Nice and stable and controlled too and hold the pedal down and move to the toes. Let's do the hands again. Awesome. So we give ourselves a chance to reset. Yep. Reset. Find your feet on the chair lifting the heels.

Feel the orientation of the spine, the positioning, and then bring the hands behind the head. And then the spine stays where it is as we lift the knees and lower the pedal. And lift the knees and lower the pedal. I like to think about, like, of the double leg stretch pulling the knees in from my abdominals. Okay. Pulling the knees in from the abdominals, lifting the spine as we take the legs down, keeping the pelvis all the time nice and stable. And 4 pressing from the back of the legs to initiate that press, even though you're gonna feel more work in the fronts of your legs too.

Abdominal connection helps a lot too. Yeah. Only. Stay there. Stay there. Bring the heels together. Yeah. And bring the knees up. And press down and lift the pedal.

Oat only forward Meredith and press down and lift up. Feel the hands guiding the head in the direction that we want the spine to go. The shoulder blade falling down, reminding ourselves each time we push the pedal down to feel the shoulder blades pulling in that direction as well. We'll do 3. Okay. My big toes have a mind of their own today too.

And one, take the hands from behind the head, hold the chair. Separate the heels. Take that little tiny moment to feel that you use your arms to orient your spinal position. Hands come back behind the head and feel the inner thighs squeezing together, and we lift and and India and finding the full range, but just remembering that the range is not so important as the stability in the spine. So essentially dictated the range by our ability to hold our spine in position.

Last three. Left and press 2. My chair's talking too. Lift and press 1. Hands come back.

Change so that we're on our toes. Risa. Get ready. I'm so ready. You are? Yes. Okay. Here we go.

Wait. Bring the pedal up. And, and up, I have to really think about pressing into my big toes. Yeah. And keeping the pelvis right over the sitting bones is another something I think about. So I'm leaning forward. Press. Where do you look? Straight ahead? K.

Or sometimes at you, but Well, thanks. I should be looking straight ahead. Last four. I get the deer and the headlights look sometimes. I'm looking at the floor. I don't know where. Yeah. Take your eyes where you want your spine to go.

That's a rule good rule of thumb for me. Yeah. Listenies. Step off? Gladly.

So we're gonna turn around. I think we're done with, pads. So let's set it to the side. Okay. From here, what we're gonna do is we're gonna step the step down onto the pedal. You want your toes to be on the back edge of that pad, and then the hands are gonna be to the front of the chair.

From here, as we did when we started, we're gonna make a rounded shape with the spine utilizing the legs to help us there. Lower the heels down. Keep thinking about pressing the pelvis towards the chair. And then as you lift your heels, like for a cat, or you think of rounding and lifting the spine to do that and inhale. Keep the pelvis pressing forwards and exhale. Pull up Okay. Keep the pedal down. We're not letting people know we're headed.

We're just mobilizing the feet in this moment, my friend down. And up and 2 all the time working in the center of the body and down. And uphold there, then the right knee take the left foot down. We're in a really both legs up and change. We're in a really opportune positioned to watch what's happening in the pelvis. Can we move the legs individually to one another, but also not let the pelvis rock back and forth we're just moving the feet, lifting through the middle, lifting through the middle as we come through 22 pushing down all the time with the arms, both feet up, transfer your weight a little bit forward.

So your shoulders are right over your hands. Dig a little deeper into the center of your body. Now, Chrissy, we are picking the pedal up. Coming up into a bike and round down, but work the down. So what I mean by that is we can feel the abdominals pulling the pedal up, but then think of pushing down with your legs and pushing down with arms and lifting up in opposition on the down to make the down equally as difficult. That's helpful. Plenty.

But up. Oh, the way to the top of the springs is what I'm telling myself that I haven't gotten there yet. 3 more. Shoulders are staying right over the hands. We're not leaning forward her back too.

And, and one and all the way down. Carefully step down. Carefully let the pedal come up and then step all the way off. While we have the spring tension, how about some extension. Okay. So have a seat onto your push the pedal down.

Tabletop, what I'm not entirely sure. I'm not that concerned about the exact name of it. So but I do wanna work the back of my legs a bit. So I am in that first position, And, yeah, go ahead. Bring it up. Bring it up.

Hands. Let's go back. Not you can take them behind, but I'm gonna go split the difference in your side. Pedals high as you can get it. This one's pretty high for me, but I'm gonna peel up. I think you know where I'm headed.

Peel up. Keep those arms straight. Looking up and ever so slightly forward, let's just press the leg down for 10. And up to keeping the hips high 2. And, oh, come on. You're like, we're here. Or kinda far. 5 hips stay high.

Here's 6. Try not to move your ankles too much. 7. 8 gosh. It's been a while for this one. Me too. 9. Don't grip. My toes, Christy, 10 come up. And roll yourself back to seated while we move hands forward on the edge.

Fingers forward. If you can, you can go sideways, I suppose. I'm gonna keep it in this foot position. You could do parallel. Let's just do some frog or tricep, whatever you call that. So getting up out of those shoulders long necks.

Lift your bum off. And your elbows will go down. To go up, try to keep the shape of the legs where it starts, it stays. Think about lifting as you get to the top lifting even more like off your hands with your mid back and levitate up there. Exactly. Good. You're a better counter.

And by the way, I could I'm enjoying this. So I might just hang out for a little bit. Let's see. I say 3 more. One? Okay. Do and very right on. You take it from here.

Okay, Chrissy. You wanna do something hard? Always. Push down turn. Oh. Take the front foot to the front. Good call. Hands on the two sides of the chair.

Yes. We're gonna get right over that back arm. We're gonna do what we did in the pike and press the pelvis forward and pull up and in through the abdominals. Try to keep the shoulders squared and lift that and push down with the legs as you lift up with your center and lift to the pedal. And pushing down. And when I mean pushing when I say pushing down, I mean, do the work on the down. Use your legs.

Squeeze them together. Press them forwards 2 more times. And down. To transition, we'll take the pedal down, we'll sit, Turn. Sounds great. Actually.

You know, it feels better when, for me, if I remember, is to once my arms are straight and not overly stress them. Whatever. You know, sometimes I pooped, like, that's gonna help me. Mhmm. And I didn't just now. I'm really happy. Carry on. Thanks for your queuing. Okay. Her, transfer into the back arm, get round, round, round, and pick that pedal up, and work that down.

Left dropping the head down between the arms as the pedal is rising and working the down. Saying close to the chair with the legs as we go up and working the down. 2, keeping weight into the back arm, and down, and 1, and down. And sit. I can like a little whole body work.

Take your feet off the pedal. Let's come around and change the spring. Let's let's turn it into a little bit on more nice, nice. Okay. Sounds good to me. We're gonna remove one of the springs.

So I'm going back to what? 3 and 0. So one spring on 3. I'm gonna sit sideways on the chair. Just going into a side stretch here, sitting on the out side of the hip with the straight leg on the ground pointed and reaching away. The arm reaches up towards the ear. We reach down into the pedal with the hand, finding a straight line, and then leaning into the spring.

Stretching their ribs away from the pelvis and then lifting the pedal up with the side of the body. Just to that long line. Yeah. Just to the long line and reaching down and over. Really active through that leg on the floor. Lifting up, keeping the head all the time just in line with the spine and reaching over up. Let's come from here to take the arm out to the side.

So we'll go into the side stretch again. Mhmm. And then as we exhale, we'll start taking rotation. So bringing outer arm around. Let the pedal rise, Christy. Let it come up so it'll help the rotation happen. Yep.

And then come back out into the side stretch. Keeping the arm out to the side, lift up. Find your line, your straight line, and then go down. Oh, you're you really are my best friend. Oh, so good. And then take the rotation allows a pedal to come towards the, top of the chair. Come back around. The pedal goes back down.

And then we lift up, reaching long. We'll do one more I like this as an inhale. I like the rotation as an exhale. You can do it as you wish, but that's just some an idea, a suggestion, come back, and come all the way up, let that straight arm come down, sit up more right on the top of your sitting bone and take the arm that was on the pedal towards your ear and then lean the other way allowing that arm that was just floating in the air to slide down that straight leg and then come up. Let's do that again.

We'll do three. Reaching up, lifting the ribs up away from the pelvis. So we're side bending in both directions here. And then coming back, And one more time reaching over. Stay here.

Take that upper arm forward. So we're taking a rotation here as well. I'm getting tricky on me. Yes. And reach back into that side, sir. See if you can go a little lower.

And come all the way back up, bring the arm down, turn sides. Oh, it was nice. Thank you. So we begin in the straight line with arm reaching up towards the ear, the other leg straight on the ground, to the side of us, and we go in here, leaning in, make sure that, underneath shoulder blades stays organized. And lifting up, creating length in that side body and inhale as we reach over.

Going, going, going. I will often stop myself. Like, I often, like, think the end of my range is a lot sooner than the end of my range actually is. So I'm encouraging us both to to find the full range. You know, you have longer leg than me. That's alright. It's not a definite call.

It's just an idea to take the arm out to the side. And here we go. We go inhale down. And as we exhale, we allow the arm to come around with the spine as that pedal arm lifts up, squaring the shoulders. Not really exactly or specifically squared, but just the idea of coming into that very nice. Placement in how we go down. X out. Take the body around.

Come back around and come up again. And when we're reaching the leg away is a nice way to maximize the stretch, if you're curious about that. Everyone. And then back, and up. We come from there all the way up, sitting in a more upright position lifting this arm up. And then that that free arm slides down the outside of the straight leg.

We side bend in this direction. And then up. I frequently will mark with my fingertips where I go. You put your heel down here? I have done. Yeah. My foot is good. Yeah. Yeah.

I like it as an anchor. Yep. And up. And this is our last one and the one in which we're gonna take a little rotation. So we're going down first and watching where we're going as we take the body around. Bring the body back, come all the way up, bring this arm down, So let's do a fun little back extension.

We're gonna turn around, come on to the chair, So this exercise has a little bit of timing into it, and I'll try and cue it the way I think about it. But when you position your body, you wanna position. So your, 2 front hip bones, your ASIS are right at the very front edge of the chair, not in front of, but on the on the actual platform. Just to just to check, let's bend the elbows, lowering the body, start lifting the leg see if you can get to a place where you feel like you can balance there. I think you're good. I'm good for now.

And then we'll start the extra So bringing the legs down, straightening the arms, letting the eyes start looking forward, lifting, looking where you're going, or where you want your spine to go keeping those legs active and lifted. And then think about the eyes coming down last, but as they start to look down, we start bending the those and raising the legs. Nice and high. And then take the legs straighten the arms. Look where you're going as you lift the spine up and forward.

And then as the body goes down, We're already active in the legs so that as the elbows start to bend, we lift balancing right on the front edge of that chair. And then the legs go down. The arms straighten, we'll have to scoop back a little. So didn't really reach out. Go down, put the pedal down on the ground, bend the elbows in close to the body as we lift the legs up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, so you can get them vertical. Oh, come on. Yeah. I'm just thinking.

I thought you were my kid. I'm bringing them back. Two more times. Really? Okay. Yes. Naturally. And down, letting the elbows bend, leaning into your arms, lifting the legs up into the edge of the chair, And one more time, legs go down, arms straighten. Spine comes up and forwards.

Spine comes down. Lakes begin to lift elbows are bent. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Come down. Take the body.

Take the body down. Scooch back. Once you have connection to the earth again, bend the arms and lift the pedal up. Okay. Oh, I didn't follow directions there, but I'm safe. Okay. So let's stand up. We'll keep the same spring.

We'll do a opposite range of motion, so come around to the front. Coming a little bit full circle here, looking straight ahead, finding a soft gaze, And then taking the head down. And reaching for the pedal with the hands. Once your hands find the petal, check to make sure your pelvis is right over your feet. And then as you inhale, lift up in your abdominals, but push down through the pedal.

Oh, I hear something too. This was good though. Hold on. Let's get back a little. And then as we come up, we're gonna push down with the arms, push down with the legs, pull the pelvis forward, get that maximum spinal stretch, and then inhale take the pedal down. Feel that there's equality of weight over the feet and push down with the legs, push down with the arms.

They were just using those, all four limbs really to create oppositional work in the center of the body and push down in here. It's a really good key for me. This part, whatever you said a minute ago. I said use your leg down push with your legs and your down push with your arms to work in opposition with the center of your body. I think about it. Really, anytime I'm rounding my body, roll ups, rolling like a ball.

Even when they're not anchors. Yeah. Exactly. Nice. So if we can generate some attention to parts of our body that we don't really think might be relevant They can become relevant and help. Mhmm. And 2 more in here. For sure. An Excel. Maybe there's a life lesson in there.

Things that we think aren't relevant just might be relevant after all and go down. And lift up, letting the hands leave the pedal. Take care not to lean back. Some attention to detail there. Coming all the way up.

Taking the arms out to the side, taking the arms overhead, once again, interlock your fingers, palms face up, Take yourself towards the ocean. Maybe this time, let your pelvis go the other way. Oh, just full side bend. And then stand up. So we'll start first moving the spine up and over And then we'll allow the pelvis to come into play and we'll lean into that stretch. And then we'll stand up.

And then we'll open the arms out to the sides. Keep your arms out in a t position. Turn around, walk forward. And the end the end. Thanks for joining us.

Comments

Maryna Z
2 people like this.
amazing!
Gisela G
2 people like this.
Meredith, Krist and the Exo Chair - what a great combination! I loved it - short and spicy and fun.  Thank you so much!!
Thanks, gals!!
Tanya P
2 people like this.
  short and on point!    :) thank you Kristi Cooper and Meredith Rogers !  love girl time!  
2 people like this.
Hi , I don´t have an exo chair and lately PA is only using this chair.. Can I use my wunderchair from Balanced Body for this class?
2 people like this.
Loved this, such a great workout for my Saturday morning, and the hug at the end, well I think I got something in my eye! 🥲
Silke L yes of course!! All chairs will work no matter which kind. 
That was cute - kinda easy but also not - good basic movement like vitamins! 
2 people like this.
Thanks, love the girl time classes, I did this class on the combo chair and it was awesome! :)
Thanks everyone! 
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