Mat Sculpt

Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining me for this mat class today. We will be using two pound weights. So grab a set of weights, and let's get started. Bring yourself down to your mat, and just reach your arms in front of you, guiding your spine slowly down with control.

Once you're down, reach for your weights, let your palms rotate up and just rest opening up through the chest and the shoulders and just letting that little sensation of the weights rest resting in your hands give you a little openness through your chest. Leave arms where they are and go for a few pelvic tilts with an inhale, create an exaggerated arch in your back with an exhale, release the effort to get into that exaggerated arch scoop the belly to the back and go into your posterior pelvic tilt. Take that into an exaggerated arch. Again, let the breath in, fill the body up, flare the ribs. Exhale draw the abdominals in to send the low back down and take you into a little tuck. Do that again. Let the breath in, let the low back arch ribs flare, exhale draw the abdominals in, send the low back down, tuck the tail.

Last time, let the inhale arch the back. And engage in the belly to let the tailbone lift just a little. Now maintain that connection. You feel in that pelvic tilt. Take a deep breath in.

And as you exhale lower your tailbone down to find neutral, and as you navigate to neutral, deepen through the belly with the same effort that took you into your duck. So even though you're in neutral, you still feel still feel a connection of your belly to your back, strong through your whole center. From here, take your weights and raise up off the floor, bringing your hands above your shoulders. Now this is gonna be kind of in the spirit of hug a tree. So I want you to open your arms with an inhale. And then as you exhale, maintain neutral, but draw the belly to the back heavy, the sternum, heavy the ribs, and bring the weights over you again.

Open your arms, inhale. Exhale draw the belly in, heavy, the sternum, heavy the ribs, and close those hands together. Once again, open the arms. And as you exhale and engage in your belly, surprise yourself by how much abdominal work That is. Now hold at the top breathing in.

This time, open the arms with an exhale and heavy, the sternum, heavy, the ribs draw the low belly tight as if you're holding up those heavy weights simply from your abs. Close your arms, breathe and open your arms, breathing out again, drawing the belly in strong, getting your focus centered for your workout. Once again, inhale close the arms. Exhale open the arms, deepening through your middle strong connection to your core, raise your arms right back up, turn your palms to face forward. We're gonna lower the arms slowly down, nod the chin into the chest and curl up at the top of this curl, let those weights help you to curl.

Take a moment, rest your head back down, raise the arms back up. Let's practice that twice more nod the chin into the chest and just letting those four pounds simply assist that nice strong curl, maintaining neutral with the pelvis as you do this one more time, Watch that tendency to overly flatten the back right here. Try to maintain neutral. Now raise your arms back up. Let's turn the palms back in to face each other and raise one leg up to table.

Raise the other leg up to table. Now in this table shot shape, let's open the arms again for that hug a tree, close the arms, inhale. Open the arms, exhale. Close the arms, inhale. Open the arms as you deepen through the middle, then close those arms.

Now using that as inspiration for a hundred, lower your arms, nod your chin into your chest curl up, feel that connection deep into the belly as you send your legs out. Pump the arms, inhale to three four five, exhale to three four five. Breathe it in and out. So the weights are doing two things for us here. They're adding a little extra weight as we do the arm pumps. But they're also actually helping assist that curl, which is kind of lovely. Take a breath in, and out, two, three, four, five, breathe it, and and out.

Keep that solid curl, exhale, two, three, four, five. We've got two more breaths inhale, exhale, curl, two, three, four, five. Breathe it in. Breathe it out, two, three, four, hold those arms steady. Try to lower your heels all the way to the mat, reach the weights just a little further forward to roll up and stretch over.

Now we're gonna roll up. We're gonna guide those weights up above the head, and then roll down trying to keep the weights kind of elevated as we roll all the way down arms reach back. Arms lower all the way, curl up, let the weights assist you on the way up, stretch over, then come up, raise the arms up. Now they act as a little challenge as we roll down. To that mat.

Again, note my pace here. Take your time, work through that little challenging moment, stretch it over, inhale guides you up. And then take your time here. Don't rush this. Think push the weights a little bit back even as you're rolling all the way down.

We do it again, raise the arms up. Peel it up, stretch over, start to come up, and roll it all the way down with control. Now we're gonna lower the arms again, come up one more time, peel yourself up, and now we're gonna go into a little series of rowings. So extend your legs out long in front of you and bring your weights together in front of you, palms facing one another. Breathe in to prepare and breathe out to roll back about a third of the way.

I want you to be a little off balance, but not so far back that you feel like you're battling this exercise. So nice supported, almost teaser like quality to this position, we're gonna take the hands, flip the palms forward, and put the knuckles together. Now from here, open the arms, inhale, exhale bend them. Inhale two, exhale bend, inhale three, exhale bend. Let's do five, four. End in.

Five, ending. Now reach your arms back in front of you again. Arms straight, do five here. Open, exhale bend. Two, bring them in. Really feel that closing of the weights coming from your middle. Four, close the weights.

Five, bring them together. Now it's a high v. Inhale up, exhale lower. Two, bring them down. Three, down. Four, down, and five, bring them down. We're gonna sit all the way up, scoot our seat to the feet, put the weights down around your ankles, and find you're rolling like a ball start position. This is gonna be rolling like a ball, find a teaser at the top and do three bicep curls, follow along here.

We rock. Inhale, exhale up, find a teaser. Palms rotate. Three bicep curls. Two, three, back to a ball. Roll it back. Bring it up. Revind your bicep curls. One, two, three, we do it again. Roll like a ball.

Bring it up. Extend, find that teaser shape. Three, two, one, roll it back again. Inhale, exhale up. Extend. Teaser, one, two, Three, we do last time roll it back, exhale up, reach for that teaser, bicep curl one, two, three, and bend the knees. Put the feet down. We'll scoot back a little bit. Roll down to the mat to get ready for the stomach series. We're gonna put the hands behind the head.

I'm still interlacing my fingers behind my head, and I'm just don't hurt your head on your weights, but rest your head kinda down on those weights. Now bring one leg up to table followed by the other. This is gonna be single leg stretch with the weights behind the head, which acts as an extra challenge for your curl, inhale, prepare, exhale curl up in those four pounds or more pounds. You've gotta work to curl up and work that center, reach your left leg out, switch legs, breathe it in one, and two, breathe it out. Inhale, curl into it, exhale.

Don't lose that high curl, inhale. Exhale both knees in. Put your head down. Now you know what to expect, work for that nice, high curl, exhale. Come on up. Find the curl, now take the weights and reach them to your ankles.

We're gonna breathe in right here. We're gonna breathe out on double leg stretch. Hold one. Two. Three, circle around.

That's our inhale. Exhale arms up and overhead, but we're curling one, two, three inhale, bring it around again. Two more. Curle up into it. Don't lose it. Inhale brings it around last one, exhale curl two, three, bring it around.

We put the hands behind the head again. Rest the head down. Getting ready for scissors. Inhale to prepare. Leave the hands behind the head today, curl up, really drop into that belly.

One leg reaches up, other leg comes down low. We simply switch that. Exit, we curl. So really try to get off those shoulders. Exhale three, and three, exhale four, and four, little more curl, five, and five, both legs up and the knees take a moment.

We do double leg lower lift inhale prepare, exhale curls you up, extends your legs up, inhale, lower your legs, exhale lift them, inhale curl off the shoulders, exhale, lift those legs high, lower three. Exhale up, lower four. One more is five. XL up and the knees rest of the head. Last exercise here is crisscross.

Big inhale prepares you. Exhale, bring it up. Rotate to the right and switch it. Breathe in. And now don't lean back in that center curl. Get up through the middle.

Twist, inhale. Exhale both knees, and we'll rest down. You can put the weights on the side of your mat. Roll over to your stomach. Swan is next. No weights for the swan.

Just start on your tummy, float your head and heart. Let that inhale bring you up. Big stretch for that core work we've been doing. Exale brings you down. Do it again. Inhale.

Oh, you can feel that stretch. XL guides you down. One more time. Enhale. Exhale brings you down reach for your weights, reaching out long beside you.

You're gonna bring your body into, the, like, the t in on the reformer work. So my arms are reaching out in alignment with my shoulders. I'm gonna breathe in right here, and all I'm gonna try to do is pick up my arms and hold for one, two, three, put the arms back down. Now take an extra second to organize your shoulders down your back. When you raise your arms, don't elevate your shoulders into your ears. Hold one.

Two, three, lower that back down. Do that one more time. Pick them up. Now add a reach to the hips, a little extension of the spine, inhale, exhale, organize the shoulders off the ears, hover the weights off the floor. Inhale. Two.

Exhale. Control the reach back to the start position. Three. Return and hold. Circle the weights five.

Four three two. Reverse that five four three two. One, place the weights on the floor. Take a moment to take a rest. We're gonna bring the elbows into a goal post shape. Then from here, a little lift of the arms and goalpost, pull the elbows in, reach them back for the extension, pull the elbows in, you're back to goalpost, elbows in, a little extension, elbows stay in, then back to goalpost. Three, reach that back.

Four, five of these reach. Open the chest. Back to goalpost, last one, reach it back, bend, and rest. Let the weights rest down, push up to your hands and knees, sit back on your heels for a counter stretch. We're gonna come up now and grab the weights, and we're gonna use them for corkscrew.

So guide yourself down to the mat and then place your hands on the mat and get the weights in a position so that you can hold your arms relatively straight and press down into them. And that may or may not lift your upper arm off the mat, but I want you to really work work your elbow as straight as you can possibly work it here. So that's gonna give you a little tricep strengthening. So I'm pushing into the weights, raise my legs up lower them down. Now I go over and lift up. Now right here is where I want those weights pressing down.

The arms as straight as you can manage to get them and I want you to feel those triceps working. Now roll with control coming down, lower your legs, and do it again. Take it over, and up and reach into those weights and lower the legs down again over and up. This is an example where I might even say to you, lock your elbows. I know that's not a popular thing to say, but right there, we wanna bend them so bad to imagine locking them can be a great strategy. Take it over.

Think reach those elbows long straight, maybe a little locked. Roll down. And lower those legs last and best. We take it over. We lift it up, reach the weights long, heavy, and down your elbows are straight, and roll down.

Through your back. Let's rock up to seated and get organized for a fun variation on tendon stretch. So place your weights on the mat so that you can push down into them and make a fist around them. In this position, I have also got my feet pretty far away from me, but my knees are slightly bent. I'm gonna push the weights down into the floor, find a dynamic exhale, and like tendon stretch on the reformer, I'm gonna pop my hips in hold three, two, one.

Now I'm gonna send my hips a little forward to place them down. That's my inhale. Again, exhale press the weights into your mat, pull your belly up to your back, sit back down. Do a third one. Exhale. Hold. Two.

Three. Sit it down. Now we're gonna reach one leg out. Take a deep breath in. You're gonna cross the leg over. Hold. Two, three, bring yourself up.

Again, one, two, three, let the leg lift up. Third one, one, two, three, let the leg lift up, switch those legs, cross it. One, two, three, lift it up, exhale cross, hold it three, two, one, reach it up, put the foot down, sit down, and now we're doing spine twist. So extend your legs out long. Let's really flex through the feet today on this. We're going palms down for our first set, grow tall inhale, twist it right, a little pulse, inhale center, left.

Pulse now turn the palms up. Take it right. Inhale center, take it left. Inhale center palms down, right. Center left. Center palms up.

Take it right. Center, left, center arms come down, and now we're rolling to our side for pure abduction from the side kick series. Now we're gonna be using this as inspiration for the next exercise. What I wanna do to make it just a little more exciting today, we're gonna put the weights and just place them balance them on your legs. Your, left leg is parallel.

The right leg is extended out. And it's just acting as your balance point. Lift your leg up and lower down. So I'm just kinda tippy towing my fingers on the weights to kinda make sure they stay still and don't fall off. It's only four pounds. It's not that big of a deal. I want you to actually pretend that it's more like, you know, two ten pound weights.

So what would you have to recruit to be able to press 20 more pounds up and resist 20 more pounds coming down. So really trying to build that strength in those side, hip muscles, press the leg up, bring the leg down. Do this again up, And down, we'll do two more, seven, bring it down. Now on eight, we're gonna lift and hold. Take an extra second, see if you can lengthen your leg out of your body a little more, pulse your thigh. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, don't fall apart on me. Thoughtfully lower the leg, don't fall apart, take the weights, put them right here. We're gonna keep this feeling in our hip as inspiration as we come up, bring the right leg forward, grab the weights, and we're gonna start to get into a lunge position.

So I'm just gonna send my right leg back behind me. I have my left foot in a little pilates v rotation. So that I feel this left hip really turned on. I'm gonna now find a little harder balance position with just my toe tapping down and do eight little flies. My standing leg is working so hard. Because I just found that strength from the previous exercise.

This is six. This is seven. This is eight. Bring it down. Now lift your leg up, tap the toe. Lift it too.

Tap the toe. Three. Tap the toe. Four. Now on five, we lift and hold it. My left knee is still bent.

I still have a slight Pilates v. Back leg is straight. Pull the elbows up, extend eight of these. Two, three, four, maintain that balance. Five, six, seven, eight, hold it here.

Tap the right leg in the air. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one. Bring yourself up and we get ready for the whole thing on the other side. So we're gonna lay on our left side. You can reach the bottom leg forward That acts as your little balance point, or I like to even think of it as my little kickstand there. And then balancing the weight on the thigh, flex the top foot, lower, and lift too. So here we go, we're gonna start to think Those weights are 10 pounds each instead of two.

Press those heavy weights up. Control the weights down. Don't fall apart on the lower. Stay strong. Focus and connected.

Take it up. Bring it down. Six, bring it down. Seven and eight. Now don't fall apart on me. Bring that leg down.

Keep the hip alive. Put your weights down for just a second and swing your right leg forward. Grab your weights as you come up to standing, and my right leg is in a slight rotation. My left leg, I'm finding a little extra surface area for balance here. As I hold this shape, I'm gonna hold my weights in front of me, and then point my toes so that I just have a little bit of a balance point in the back leg.

The right hip is alive as I go open and close, two, and down. Three. Four, doing eight, five, six, seven, eight, bring that down. Now lift the back leg up, lower it down. Two, Three, four on the fifth one, we lift and hold, pull the elbows back, extend the arms, eight. Seven, the right knee is still slightly bent so I can really access that side, honey.

Five, six, seven, hold the arms on. Eight, pulse the leg. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight, bring the foot down, and we're gonna come down to kneeling now. Go ahead and just leave your left hand, on your hip. And I'm just gonna leave the weight in that hand and make a little fist around it to build just a little strength in that arm. This is gonna be basically draw the sword from the reformer work. So we're gonna pull the weight up and across and then the arm to come back. Inhale, pull it across. Exhale brings it back.

Inhale, this is three. Exhale, bring it across. Four, bring it across. Now on the fifth one, inhale, pull Then reach down, placing the weight on your mat scooping your belly to your back, inhale lift, exhale dynamic through the belly, inhale three. Exhale dynamic through the belly, inhale four. Exhale, bring it down.

Now we'll put the hand on the weight, do the other side. Inhale, reach, exhale, bring it across. Two, bring it across. Inhale, three. Bring it across. Four, Now on this fifth one, we reach it out.

Tap the weights, scoop the belly, reach it too. Find that strength from your center, reach it three. Reach it across. Four. Reach it across.

Come up go to tulip both arms at the same time, meet the fingertips above the head, bring them down. To open those arms. Now grow tall through the spine. Find your neutral with your pelvis and attract the insides of your thighs. The whole body's alive, six and open, seven, open, eight is enough.

Put one weight down, swing your feet to the side, and let's do a mermaid. Start with the warm reaching up, weight in hand, bend your body over to the side, eventually let your elbow bend, and let that weight give you a little extra stretch. We're just gonna bring ourselves back up do a little extra reach of that arm up and then the body, let the arm bend, and let the weight give you an extra assist on that mermaid. Reach the arm up, take it over one more time. Letting that body reach now add a little twist to that, arm reaches in front of you, weight towards the mat, and scoop through the belly.

Now we're gonna come back turn that up to the ceiling above, you find a little extension in that seated swan shape, and come back, and then turn around or swing the feet around. We'll do the other side. So finding your start position here, weight comes up, inhale, exhale, bend the body to the side, then bend the arm, and let that weight assist that stretch. Guide yourself back up, breathe it in. Bend the elbow, take yourself over again. Bring yourself up.

That's your inhale. Exhale takes you over. Now take the weight, reach it down in front of your legs. Not the chin into the chest, find that rounded shape, then come back, and then open up into a little extension while in that seated position. Come back and rest.

Thank you so much for joining me for that math class. I'll see you next time.