Class #5424

Pre-Pilates Mat Conditioning

45 min - Class
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Description

Wake up your muscles and stretch your fascia with this conditioning Mat workout by Niedra Gabriel. She designed this class for the advanced practitioner to prepare your body for more challenging exercises. She gives you tools that will provide you with a new insight into how your body moves and help you problem-solve common problem areas. After completing the conditioning, she goes into exercises that involve rolling like Jack Knife, Boomerang, and much more.
What You'll Need: Mat, Wall, Hand Weights (2), Overball, Reformer Box

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Hello, everybody. Today's class is a math class with a preconditioning, what I call pre Pilates for advanced people, exercises to open up the body and get it ready so we can do the Pilates exercises with a whole new insight and understanding as well as problem solve all the funny little areas that we all deal with. We're gonna start with rolling down because a lot of us have either tight hamstrings or we can open them up even more. And our spine can be further lubricated. So we are going to do this with weights, and I would like Shawna and Jillian here to to pick up your weights and step up on the box.

And they're they're going to be doing a roll down so your feet are together. And with the weights in front of you, I want you to internally rotate your arms so you're almost like making the weights touch. And then from there, start rounding now. Drop your head first. Spread your shoulder blades forward to open up this upper back.

Visiting the really stiff for people. Keep the chest dropping in and start rolling down like you're draping and stretching your spine all at the same time and you take your time on the way down. Stay down here. Don't come up yet. Open up those hamstrings and stretch into the backs of the knees.

We all get really, really tight here. These girls are super flexible. Look how low they're going. They're getting a massive stretch. Now you will tighten your glutes and your hamstrings to start rolling back.

So you need to make sure your back body is working. We often hinge and we just hyper we basically counterbalance, but we don't work through our muscles all the way up and then open the shoulders. And just at that last point that this arms come to the sides, just to finish. Now you start again, you internally rotate you lift the rib cage to start coming forward, really open up this upper back And right here, keep going down there, Jillian, but right here, it's she's tight. So she needs to work even more And a lot of advanced students can be very tight in the lumbar spine, and this is an opportunity for you to really correct and improve that area.

Now to come up, you tighten your sit bones, and you start curling your tail under, and you milk the fact that you have weights to open up the fascia and open up and stretch the muscles coming all the way up. And at the end, opening the shoulders out and feeling how the weights can drag those arms lower, which is awesome. You're going to start again. Drop your head, shoulders down, but forward. So we're having this internal rotation to stretch between the shoulder blades, letting the chest compress, letting the lower open out, open out, open out into the sacrum, go a little deeper girls, shift the weight more forwards, and I'll start coming up, pulling the stomach in and using that low back, low back. Get those buttocks to work.

Head is down, stretch the back of the neck, come all the way up, and open the shoulders. This is why for advanced people. This is conditioning pre Pilates conditioning for advanced students, but you know what? You can be beginner and do this too, and you'll love it. And down, you go down, you go down, you go down, you go down, you go down, you go length and then stretch. And then slowly come up.

And by the way, you can do up to half your body weight with weights. It will decompress every tendon and ligament in your spine, and it makes you really, really open and energized. Lovely ladies, please step down. With care, put the weights down, and the two of you are going to the wall while I move these things apart. So you want your backs?

Against the wall. Very good. Different from normal Pilates, heels against the wall. Now you're gonna roll down and not fall. So you have to work your stomach super hard. Don't fall.

Don't fall if you feel like you're falling because they're falling. Then you can move your feet further forward. But the goal is now why are they falling? You're gonna grow up and down. Why are you falling when you're coming forward? You either don't have enough rounding and openness in your spine or your stomach is not strong enough and you're used to throwing your hips back.

You're not using your glutes and your hamstrings enough. So you have to really make those back legs support you as you roll down Nice, and then roll up. Now when you get up, I want you both to take your arms forward and then up. And see if you can touch the wall. They don't have a wall, but I want those elbows straight.

Straight. I don't care how high these shoulders get. I want to get as much stretch and traction as you can possibly have and then you'll take your arms out to the side and down. So if you're flat against the wall, you can do this big circle. You're going to roll down again. Roll down.

Roll up. Make sure the pelvis is under. Bring the arms up. Keep the knees straight. Stretch up, try to touch the ceiling, side ribs, armpits, triceps, all of that should stretch way more.

And then take the arms out to the side and all the way down. So big circles rolling down, rolling up. Now they were having trouble going down and up with their leg straight, which means the backs of their legs, even though they look really flexible, they still tight in there. It's very common that this area, the fibers and the fascia between the caps and the hamstrings are still they'd never fully open to the maximum potential, but we all want to be at maximum. So ladies turn sideways facing me And first of all, just go down to the floor. So once they're down, I would like them to walk forward, walk forward with your hands just some, like, kind of like elephant on the reformer and stop here.

Really press your heels down. And lift your toes up, jillian, bring your hands a little closer to your feet. And and, Shauna, press your weight more towards your hands. Yes. Now this is the area that I want to see. So there's the hamstring, the connection from the hamstring to the sit bow, hamm strict into the knee, into the heel that can open more.

There's these four points at the backs of the knees that could expand extensively. Now ladies, you might want to stay bending down. Please now turn to face the wall with your backs and I will often walk your feet away and lean into the wall. So I often have people go down and then lean into the wall so that they can get their backs of the legs right in here, massively stretching out And, Jillian, you can walk your feet further away from the wall because and now slide your back further down. Yes. So you go down and come back up.

And you can both come up now. That will massively open the whole back of the body up. I think they're about 3 inches tall taller now, and please come down to the mats. So we open up the back of the body. Now we want to wake up the core and start to get the powerhouse in the whole front area.

Really, really challenged. So please come, no, no, no, not lying down on your heels. And put your hands on the mat and round your back So what am I looking for you when I tell people to round? I'm looking for the ribs moving backwards. I'm looking at the lumbar spine.

This is the area that is very, very tight. Now let's see if you ladies can lift your weight up. So your knees are coming up, and can you get your knees to your chest? And no higher than that shift you weight forward towards your hands and come back down. This is a fabulous place to test out the core, And this is where you can see where people's bodies are ready for the next level. So we're gonna ask these 2 ladies to do it again.

And up, you go girls, wait forward onto the hands. Don't go any higher than that, Jillian. Stay down and just hold that position. You can see that this back is much flatter. So I know Shawna's got a lot more tightness in this area. She's super advanced, but and round your ribs way more.

Round them, round them, and come back down. So I look for the human body can go completely round. This is the goal for all of us, and it doesn't happen with a queue. It happens with repetition over and over. So it's gonna take her 2 months to get there, she will as she keeps on working. So, again, hands on the mat rounding, pulling back, and then lifting up.

Wake forward under the hands. You will eventually lift your feet off the floor. She's doing it. Good. Come back down. It's all core. To get those feet up, all core. Nothing can help you.

You just have to have a strong core. And we're gonna do it again. Now before you lift up off the floor, please just come into your round shape. So notice that lots of things to look for. Shauna, don't lean for it. Get to keep your bottom down.

Pull back with your ribs as much as you can to the for different people have different spots. It can be the diaphragm. Look. She's getting more round already. She's starting to pull from a new place. And that's cool. Now hold that shape and shift a little bit forward, Shauna, so much better.

Big improvement there. And now can you lift up using your stomach? And don't go high, try to hold the shape. Keep those ribs working and come back down. Nice, nice, nice work. Very, this is a great exercise.

All I can say, it's a great exercise. It wakes up the core We have 5 layers of muscle in the whole, area of the stomach. And different people have different sections of it that are strong and other sections are dormant. But if we're really training ourselves, we wanna find all the weak areas and we wanna take them to the next level. So from here, here you are, you're going to be in your nice round shape.

Now you're going to come forward And you're going to keep this nice round shape and step back into your balance control front with a round shape. So really pull that ribs up and fill up. So your, low rib Julie, not so much your upper back, not so much your upper back. Yes. We're looking for C Curve. So now we're finding new areas. That's it. Come back bend your knees back down.

Take a moment. And come back again into your balance control front, really round before you step back round, get your feet together, and now tighten your buttocks so that we keep this lumbar spine super long. Now can you lift one foot up without losing So using the glute, most of the time, people sink into their back, put it back down, very nice, other foot up, and back and first foot up and back and other foot up and back and first foot up and back another foot up and back bend your knees back down and sit back into your heels. So what I'm looking for is that the low back doesn't sync every time. If the low back is sinking and this happens all the time, It means your back muscles are taking over and your glutes are not firing. So let's do some work to really double check the glutes because this such a common area of weakness, even if you're advanced.

And if you're a beginner, even better, you catch up fast So ladies, please lie down on your stomachs with your forehead on your fingertips. And we're going to be using either little balls, bigger balls, or a yoga block is just fine. Even pillow if you're at home, ladies, would you bend both knees? I'm gonna put this little ball between your feet, open your knees a little wider. So we have a ball. We have something right between their legs.

Now do not drop your ball, but just extend your toes back to the mat. Just extend it down. It's kind of like double like kicks. It's kind of, but not quite. Now really activate your glutes and think of your pubic bone and hip bone pressing down.

Yes. Now both of you bend your knees so the balls are just above your knees. Just above the knees. Ah, but don't bend and take the feet back down again. This is what I'm looking for. Is the back syncing when the knees are bending up, the back shouldn't sink at all. The glutes should contract.

The hamstrings should contract. Now pause here can you lift your knees off the floor using your glutes, not your back? So, actually, Shauna is doing this better than Jillian right now. Look how much she's sinking down. She's using her back muscles, not her glute muscles.

This takes some thinking through to get it to work. So both of you bend up, use this muscle, tighten this muscle. This muscle has to shrink to make the leg lift. At the beginning, it's so humiliating because you can't lift your knees off the floor, but I don't care. I just want the muscle to contract, and you just start to train that part of your body to bear to do more than it's been doing. So really see if you can get the butt to lift up?

And it and down pretty good. And just one or twice more, Jillian, you're starting to turn on your butt. Yes. Really press it down. Press down to lift.

It's a pretty it will start to get that sacrum and tailbone where it belongs in the body. And one last time, lovely. So still a lot of sinking, Julian, but you're starting to get the idea. You can see the whole shape of the glutes working out. Now sit back into your heels.

Stretch your back out. We're coming back to our planks. So come onto your hands and knees. Before you step back, bring your knees forward, Julian, before you come back, I want that low spine. So I'm looking for c curve.

So the c curve, you're doing a c curve up here. I'm not I want it here. I want that really make the the, abdominal support the low spine. Now we're kind of too much here. More here.

More it so you no. I will need to lift up your rib cage. More work in the abs, the abs You want to think of the hip bones to the ribs in the front. How much how can I contract this area? Now without anything changing, can you step back with your feet into plank? And then you have to work your glutes to get the legs straight. Now You work the glute and float one foot up. I don't give it a half inch and down a little bit better.

The other leg, half inch. And down half inch and down half inch and down one more set just for fun, lift, and lower, and other one, lift, and lower. Bend your knees back and sit back into your heels. Good work. So a lot, a lot, a lot is going on. We're looking to get the glutes to work, the stomach to work, the lumbar spine to be stabilize. The lumbar spine is really where our it's our Achilles heel. Ladies, please come up to a seated position. So now let's have you stretch your legs out.

Hands are between your hips and the more forward your hands, the harder it gets. Same thing. You want to activate your stomach to lift yourself up. Really press yourself up in this position, and I look at how much is that stomach holding your body weight. Come back down. Now, Sean, can you bring your hands more forward spatially so you're gonna So the more you're bent over, the more the stomach to get the legs up, you I want you to think of lifting your legs towards your stomach lifting the legs up.

This is the equivalent of a teaser. Now can you lift one leg up in the air? And down, and the other leg up, and down and come back down. This is so hard. This is tendon stretch in the reformer.

This is really where teaser becomes, and most of the time people work with their flexure. Now this will turn on your quads so they can actually really burn, but it's good for you. So it's okay. Don't worry about it. So here we go again. You're gonna lift, really pull the stomach in.

Can you get yourself more forward? More forward with your shoulders more forward, more forward, more forward. Now just bend one leg in slightly. Yes. Bring it out. Other legged. Bend it in.

And out. 1st legged. And out other leg in. And out, can you pull your hips up higher? Higher, higher, higher, and come back down.

Make a break. Hard work. This is hard work. This is conditioning for advanced people. K. Let's have you both lie down on your back. Have a break from all of this.

So we open the chest and the shoulders out. Bend both knees up on the floor. Please come to the get closer. So when your knees are bent, you're just a little more close in. Yes. Now let's let's have you both lift your hands to the ceiling.

And now take your elbows sideways onto the mat and drop your hands back on the floor. So some people don't even get to this position And while you're here, can you get your back flat down? So you're anchoring the ribs in towards the mat, And then from here, can you slide your hands up over your head? Straighten your elbows, Shauna? No no grasping your hands together. Just straight. Straight, straight, straight, straight, so we start to get this upper arm working.

Bend your arms back. Stretch your arms up. So this is a fabulous stretch and then come back because it's gonna start to open all of the connective tissue, open up the chest, So just keep going back and forth in your own time. Jillian, make sure you come right to the straight arm position so we get the muscles and the sides of the ribs to be stretched out and back down, and up again, and down. And up again, long arms, and back.

And up and back. And up and back And one more time like this. Up and back. Now your hands are touching the floor. Your elbows are in line with your shoulders so you're in this, I give up position.

And now bring the hands so they face the ceiling and then bring the hands to the towards the floor. And again, up to the ceiling, and back. So keep doing this movement back and forth. And there's a few things to watch out for as you do it. A lot of times you will get in into this angle instead of this pure 90 degrees. The 90 degrees is the hardest.

And then the wrist do all sorts of funny work. So Chana pause there coming down. Jalene keep working, but your right arm, you need to bend it more. It's a little bit open. Yes. So if you notice with Jillian, her where her wrists are.

She's up and she's now lost this ninety degree angle. This is showing where she's tight. So if I was depressed, she may not even be ready for that much, but that's starting to open up a tricep and a certain aspects of her shoulders. That's So that's just and just keep going back and forth. So she's not going to be perfect today.

The reason I'm pointing these things out for for all of you, including my lovely students here, is that you get to be a detective in your own body. And you see, oh, look, I can't do this. That means there's room for me to develop. There's room for me to grow here. There's room for me to increase my talent because you know what? If you don't push, you're gonna stay the same for the rest of your life.

And if you're working out, you might as well raise the bar, and become better. It becomes much more interesting, and you don't have this experience of being there, done that. It's more like wow, I had no idea. And the next thing you know, you have much stronger arms, stronger forearms, you can lift better you can do things that maybe you felt your risks were vulnerable and then no longer vulnerable. And we always want to push the bar if we act really have an idea of how to do that. And then bring your arms back to your sides, ladies.

Ladies, I think best that you sit up and just have a watch at this next part because we're now activating this low abdominal area, which can be an area of lots of cheating So you'll be with your legs out, and then you'll be bending in and using now I'm using my arms some but making my abs lift up. Now it's real easy. Do you see how I'm using my legs? Use your abs So and we can have different angles that we'll be playing with. This one, the knees are closer in, really making the low abdominals kick in and make them do the lifting of your pelvis.

So let's have you lying on your backs. Your arms help. Don't be afraid to use them to help. Let's have you lift your legs up. That's it out.

And then bend the knees in and see if you can lift your sacrum up. Up. You go. And extend the legs out. And again, pull the abs in and up and out again. So this is all the rolling over position these are the muscles you want to be using and lift. So Sean's Sean's weak, but she also had a stiff back.

So it's kind of to be a expected that that that whole area of her body is underdeveloped for an advanced person because she's a lovely practitioner and she's working a bit better. Now let's get the feet closer to you, closer to your bottom, bend in, and now can you lift from that position? Just to find different ways. So just keep working on it, ladies. If you can see she's using her feet quite a bit to get gain momentum to make it happen, And let students do that because you have to start where you can.

If your mind knows what it's trying to find, you will find the if you don't, and you're just looking for visual, you can spend a lifetime doing the exercise of missing the point. But we really want those low abs to work. Hold it there. Up, you come, Shauna. Bring Bender knees now rips down into the mat into the mat. Can you hold your bottom up? Can you lift up off my hand? Ah, lift up off my hand. Lift.

Lift. Lift. Lift. Oh my god. Lift. She's dying. One more time.

Lift and rest. It's hard. So if you notice what I was doing in her case, I was blocking her feet so she couldn't get momentum there. And then I was trying to make her lift off, and she was, oh my god. Alright. So these are just some of the conditioning. Guess what? We're gonna do some math work now.

Just some fun. So the idea with all of the conditioning is We wake up the muscles. We feel our body. We stretch the fascia. We really challenge the body. So now we have an instrument to work with, and now we just have fun. And if you do it wrong, nobody cares.

But let's start with roll ups. You're gonna stretch your legs out and reach your arms over your head. So you have this nice, long, stretch, wrong spine, arms are close to your ears, roll up, and reaches far forward. Imagine you have those weight how far forward can you go? Roll back one more time simple form, reaching forward, roll back.

Now when you come up and reach forward, scoop your stomach and put your hands on the mat. Lift your bottom up. One foot up. Down. Other foot up. Down. Can you bring both knees? In. No, I'm cramping. It's okay. Out.

Bend for the forward. Down, roll back down. Reach your arms out and just roll up to sitting. Now pop your bottom up and bring it towards your feet and roll down from here, lift your legs straight up to the ceiling. We're doing roll over.

Use those low abs up and over. Opened, roll down through the spine. And again, up and over, press your heels. Open the backs of the knees like we did at the beginning of class. Roll down one more time, up and over. Press Open, roll down, reverse it, up and over, press Clothes roll down.

Again, up and over press, clothes roll down. One more time up and over. Press now pause. Take your hands over your head and pull your stomach back. Just rock back a few times to stretch out your back.

And can you roll down and pull your legs close? Close, close until your back hits the mat. Now legs it to the ceiling. Your hands are on the mat. Very good, and we're going up Jack knife.

You're gonna roll all the way up, all the way down. Take your legs to a forty five degree angle. So we're from here, you're gonna bring your legs over forward 45 degrees. Then you snap up like a jackknife to a straight line. Up, you come nice and fast. Down, you go nice and fast.

Take your legs out. Again, over. Snap up. Snap down. Out.

Again, over. Snap up. Snap down. Oh, last one. Over. Snap up.

Snap down. Ow. Now, can you roll up to your teaser? Roll down. Roll up. Wow. Roll down.

That's okay. We all fall over. Roll up, roll down, bend your knees into your chest, just for a minute, rock side to side. Through doing lots of rolling motion, lots of flexion. The back body has to be very long to allow this to happen. Place your feet on the mat, roll yourself up to a seated position, and We'll do variations of rolling like a ball. So, again, all the time, this round shape.

First of all, let's go back. Remember this shape where we're pulling everything into our stomachs. Now can you keep that feeling when you bend your knees? Keep that feeling. So we're not aspiring to get our feet as close to our bottom as we can.

Trying to find this feeling, hole behind the knees. Can you find the same abdominal feeling? Can you bring your knees close? Can you let go? Yes. Back.

Light touch. Keep the shape. Row back. Row up. Yes. Rollback.

Roll off. Everybody's winning here. Rollback. Roll up. Roll back.

Roll up. 2 more times. Roll back. Roll up, roll back, roll up, grab your ankles. Now we change every change in angle of your joints is a completely different shaping in your body. So how close to your bottom can you get your feet?

How close to your shoulders? Can you get your knees? How much can you still be in your stomach? Can you let go? Good. Back. I'm gonna be evil now. Let go.

Can you lift your legs? How close to your body can you get those I don't give the knees a straight, but then you probably felt your stomach. I hope so. And here we go. We're gonna roll back and forth five times.

So go for it. Back. Back. Up, back, up two more times, back. Up one more time back. Up now.

No hands. Five more. No hands. Back. Up. I hope you're surviving, Jillian.

I can't see you right now. And up. And back end up, and you out there, are you surviving, end up one more time back and hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Put your feet down.

Good work. Okay. Very nice. Now open leg dropper. Before we get into open leg dropper, scoot yourselves back so your legs are open. Remember when we were lifting one leg up at a time in this position and how much quad work it is. Now this is a trick part.

This is really, really important. It's real easy. And very common to do all the lifting in the in these positions, including teaser from your hip flexors. But I'm really looking to see how can we find the core? Really, we're looking at the sewers and the the iliacus is this deep end of muscle that connect sin. And so those are the muscles that are lifting. The shape of the trunk is quite different for that.

Now it also gets into quads. So we're now sitting with our legs apart. Both hands around 1. Can you lift Now we can lift like this. Can you pull back and see if you can get a sense of lifting up and down from here If you really work it well, you can start to feel this deep muscle in your low abs starting to kick in.

It doesn't look good. It's so good for you. Let's do the other side. Can you really get that scoop and then lift? Yes.

Yes. Yes. Very, very nice. Now I probably can't demonstrate this, but can you lift both legs? Both legs. Yes.

Both legs. Cool. Cool. So in Contrology, the, Joseph Pilates book, he goes into open a grokka from there. He leans back, Get those legs up, and he grabs, which I hardly ever see done, but we are going to go for it the best way we can, so you want to lean back. Can you bring your legs up?

I love it. And rolling back, rolling up, rolling back, rolling up, rolling back, rolling up, rolling back, rolling up, one more time, rolling back, rolling up. Hold the position so you can see on my spine. I'm when I do this, I'm in my back. Now I'm in my stomach, so I'm weak here. So I'm wobbling back and forth.

This is exactly what you want to start strengthening. So Don't be like me. Be like them. Let go. And here we go again.

Back and up. And back really feel those low abs and up and back and up back and up one more time back. And up, and your feet can come down. Yay. Oh, makes me cramp. This is so good. Okay.

We have one more set of rolling motions. The feet up and find those abs. See if you can get your legs long. Can you keep your legs together and roll back and forth? Roll back.

Roll up. Roll back. Roll up. Roll back. Roll up.

Roll back, roll up, roll back, roll up, and bring the legs down. Alright. So now that we've done all of this rolling and all of this preparation, There is Boomerang. You're both familiar with Boomerang, sitting with one they crossed over the other. Your legs are in front of you. Really find those low abs.

So when you lift the legs up, can you use the abs to lift you as best you can? You're gonna roll back. Open and close, roll up to your teaser, hands behind your back as your legs float down, and open. And again, float the legs back, Open and close, roll yourselves up, hands behind your back, over and extend one more time each side up. Open and close, roll up, float your legs down, Class your hands all the way out and come back up and last one rolling back.

Open and close, roll yourselves up, float yourselves down, stretch, and over. Now bring yourselves up, and as we're starting to wind down the class, come into cross legged position, So we don't often do this, but I love it, which is crab, and we're just gonna do the prep work for it. With the understanding that we're taking this to stretch the necks out. So from here, let's just come up on our knees, put our hands on the floor and drop your head to the floor, and rock forward, say your chin comes right into your chest, and you get to stretch the back of your neck. Sit back.

So such an important area, open and close. And again, you with the help of your hand, you can start to get used to this shifting forward head down and stretch the back of your neck, then come back Open and close and see if you can hold your big toes and shift forward that way, head on the mat, open and stretch the back. And again, come back. Open and close. Up on your knees and open and stretch. So notice right here.

Let's stay here for a minute. Now we have this chance to stretch between the shoulder blades, stretch the shoulders forward and stretch that part of the neck that is gets tight. Now come back, and we'll come forward and just come into cat cow. So if you come into cat cow. Remember the same feeling you just had.

So you want the shoulder blades spread and your chin in and now round your back as much as you possibly can keep pushing away from the floor so you're stretching the sides of your arms, and in this position rock back and forth to open up your back body. And then come forward and arch your back. So you lift your head, you curve, and stick your bottom out as much as you can. How much can you pull your chin up? So reverse stretching. And in this position, squeeze your shoulder blades together so your chest drops, press away from the floor, squeeze your shoulder blades, press away from the floor, Squeeze your shoulder blades.

Press away from the floor one more time. Squeeze your shoulder blades. Press away from the floor. Sit back towards your heels just for a minute with the arms out in front of you. Squeeze your shoulder blades back.

Pinch them. Press pinch, press can be very stagnant for people, press. So even though we're cooling down, we're just double checking that we're doing it right. Back on your hands and knees, squeeze, press, squeeze, press lift your chin, press. Now arch your back, arch, arch, arch, arch, round, run, run, run, run, and arch, and curve, and arch and curve.

And to finish a little spinal twist, come on to your stomach, and we have the hands out just like you had before when you were on your back. So your elbows are more or less in line with your shoulders. Your forehead is down. Now lift your right leg up. Let's have you lift your right leg up. You girls will have to lift your head up and see what I'm doing.

Because you're going to bend and take that foot as far over as you can and try and have your foot think of your foot touching your elbow. You may not get there, but now you really stretch the leg back and open up the quad, come back and stretch your legs down. Lift your other leg up, twist across your body as best you can so you may find lots of tight areas. And come back. I'm gonna have a look at the ladies.

First leg comes up and twist over Bend. You need more, Jillian. You can really let yourself go here and back. Ideally, the shoulders stays on the floor, bend and twist, and back. So a lot is going on. And first side, again, lift the knee up And, Charlotte, don't be afraid to let the shoulder come off the floor.

So right now, just go for the twist. That's later when there's more range of movement and back. And last one, lift, and stretch, and back. And now both of you just sit back into child's post. Take your bottoms back.

Stretch your head down towards the floor. Nice long stretch, such beautiful work today. I want you to take a big breath in and when you breathe and breathe all the way into your sacrum. Big breath into this lower body. As you breathe out, feel all the bones sink and settle.

And one more time, big breath in all the way into the sacrum, feel the pelvis swell, Breathing out, let everything go. And then come back up. Alright, everybody. I hope you had a great time doing all this interesting work. This was a great lesson.

Thank you both. Have a wonderful day.

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This workout is very helpfull, thank you so much Niedra, I can feel how much effort in yourself to give the right positioning. 
Great class Niedra, thank you!
Niedra Gabriel
Elisabeth Pantelidou and Ayse D Thank you for your posts. So pleased that you enjoy this angle into the powerhouse. 
2 people like this.
What a wonderful class! You’re such an inspiring, amazing teacher. Thank you!! 
Julie Lloyd
1 person likes this.
This is incredibly educational and insightful Niedra, thank you! I wish I was in your part of the world and could have some in-person classes with you. I always find your teaching so very helpful.
Amy P
1 person likes this.
Thank you Niedra, great (and challenging!) conditioning to get us moving from the proper areas/muscles of the body!
Erika S
1 person likes this.
Thank you for this excellent addition. The explanations, cueing, and demonstrations were so helpful to encourage the thoughtful connection. 
Niedra Gabriel
Deborah B,Julie LAmy PErika S thank you all for your comments. so pleased you enjoyed this approach to the work.
Taghrid K
Oh Wow!! Thank you so much Niedra Great  conditioning class  that I feel so many clients will benefit from to get the right connections and get the right muscles recruited. I always loved your classes, I learn a lot from your cueing and excellent explanation.  A Big Thank you

Taghrid K
Would i be able to use the weights and straight legs  roll down with someone who has issues in the back (very tight and gets spasms) very stiff lumbar and tight hamstrings? Ok to start with 4-6 lbs first? Is it ok to bend the knees a bit till she gets strength and flexibility?
Thank you 
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