Motion is Lotion

Hi. I'm Misty Lynn Cotton, and today's workout is all about the glide and the strength in combining those things to have a really nice balanced, stretchy, but strong feeling experience. Let's get started. So I have some props here. First is a towel. It's just a hand towel that I've rolled with ways.

We're gonna use that for beneath our heads. I also have two sliding discs and two yoga blocks. You can work without the blocks or the towel if you'd like. Just use the hands behind your head. And if you're using going without the blocks, you'll put your hands down on the floor. But we're gonna begin at the edges of our mats with the discs.

And I'd like for you when you lay down to set up so that your heels are on the discs. Your tush is toward the edge of the mat, and then your towel is gonna come behind the base of the skull ish. Whoever's most comfortable, just give it a little lift, make sure it's in the right spot, and then we'll leave it here. Arms come down beside you, Rotate your armpits forward and find your neutral spine. Now starting with a knee sway, I'm just opening without disrupting this leg.

I like to warm up with these sways because it prepares me for what's to come. I'm opening, and I'm closing really thinking about outer thigh, inner thigh. And I'm also paying attention to how neutral I am or am not able to keep my pelvis. One more each leg, And now this time, I'll let my knee roll open. I'll slide my leg away.

I'll roll parallel and draw my slider back in. Other side, open, slide, roll parallel, and in. And you may need to readjust your feet several times as you're sliding away. A lot of it's gonna depend on the surface your feet are on. And your discs are on, so be okay with that. One more each leg.

Open, slide without disrupting the lower ribs, last one. Open, slide the leg away. Roll to parallel, draw the legs in, and we're not done with those, but we're gonna pause. Grabbing your towel, allow your head to be relaxed into the towel. Big breath, And as you exhale, the towel is going to lift the head.

So the neck is out of the picture, rolling back down, let the back of the head be the last thing to hit the mat, and curling up, continuing to think about your armpits being rotated forward towards your thighs and your elbows being as parallel as possible on these ab curls. Last one, we'll curl up. Hold at the top and roll back down. Let's bring our sliders back to the party. So we'll curl up and hold it right here.

Slide both legs away, and then draw them back in. And, again, now you're in a great position to watch your pelvis and make sure that it's not tipping and rocking. Three more here. I'm pulling in. And one thing I'd like to note as I'm pulling in, my goal is to get the balls of my feet down as quickly as possible and allow those to drag along the floor or the mat.

Hold it right here, big breath in. And now we're gonna exhale lift to a hover and lower back down. Three more like this still staying in this abdominal curl. So your arms might be getting tired, but you know, we're working out here. That's what we do. And let's just do one more here.

Hold the position. Now can you slide a single leg without letting the hip drop? And exhale to pull back in. Check-in with your head and neck. Your neck should be free.

Your gaze is on your pubic bone or your knees, and your arms are working, like, really hard. And pull it back in, curl up just a little higher in the head, and then exhale roll back down. Let's give the arms a break here. Bring the arms down by the sides, we'll do some oblique slides here. So we're going to rotate slide the legs away, rotate the other way to draw them back in And again, think about your pelvis.

You can even put your hands here as I'm sliding away. I'm just making sure that my hips aren't coming to the party. One more each side, this is really just a way to give the arms a break. Come back to the center, and here's your last one. Let the hip stretch, inward rotation, external rotation as well.

We're back to the center. Big breath in. Find the rotation widen your shoulder blades across your back, exhale curling up to your shoulder points, and we'll slide the legs away, and then we'll hover them, two, one, lower them and draw your sliders back in. We have two more to go. Free the front of your neck. Hold.

Float the legs down, find the floor to drag in, and last one slide. And hold. Stay right here. Let's add some beads because they're fun. We'll do eight eight and seven and six five four three two. One curl up a little bit higher. Find your discs and come back down.

Free your head, but keep your towel here continuing to warm up. So you are pulling on your towel wide. Feel this across your shoulder blades, hold this now. First step, puppet arms, reach the arms up to the ceiling, and pull the blades back down. Four more like this, feel your back getting wider, Try not to squish or squeeze your chest muscles together.

Two more. Reach. Keep pulling on the towel. By now, your triceps may be saying terrible things to you, But that's okay because reasons, hold it up here, keep your shoulder blades wide, float the arms back, really stretching, stop when you feel like you either wanna lift your ribs or your shoulders pop. The idea is that we're gliding the humerus in the shoulder joint, we're not causing any disruptions in the way the joint moves itself and back up. Two more.

And up and last one. And up and last one in this series, Mary and Ed Arms. So I'm gonna lift one shoulder blade wide and off of the floor continuing to pull on the towel with both arms. Their side. And really think about your armpits being rotated forward here. So I'll give you a gross image.

Think about making a sweat print on the wall in front of you with your armpits. One more each arm, slide the blade. Place it back down. Last one down. And then just pull the arms in Give yourself a quick hug across the chest, hug the other way, and break times over.

So we're going to get rid of the towel, just place it off to the side, And now we'll do some roll ups. I'd like to take the discs away, but you can keep them if you'd like. It's just a preference. The arms are going to come up as the legs go straight. Take a big breath in here.

Nod curl scoop. And once you get to the bottom of the ribs, start to rotate. So we're going into a z sit position, really making sure to sit the back hip down, and then we'll come back to the center, find the legs reaching straight away, get shoulder points down, and then we curl right back up. And we twist. You might need to move your blocks again. Come back to the center and scoop and roll.

Shoulder points, curling up. Twist coming back to the center and scooping down. Now we're gonna hold at this hover up and twist. Rotate. And back down. Yeah.

I was just kidding. We're really gonna hover on this one. So we'll come up. And as you rotate, find that spiral, let's go a little bit farther, come back to the center, roll down, And as you're going down the legs find your hover, hold this position, and we come up, twist deep in your spiral, come back through center, extending both legs, come back, find your hover, lower everything down and draw the legs back in. Our next work will be seated.

So let's transition there gracefully, of course. Grab hold behind your thighs, legs are hip width, take a big breath in, exhale nod the chin to the chest, hold this hollowed out scoop position, take a big breath in, and now exhale rock. We'll take three rocks up and back. Try to roll symmetrically and try not to hold your neck like you're under arrest. Keep the front of your throat nice and soft. We'll come down here and we'll grab our discs again. Now let's bring the blocks.

Beside behind you, and depending upon where your mat is, it's okay if you're a little bit off of your mat, and it's also okay if your hands are a little bit off of your blocks. Give yourself permission to do what feels right here. The blocks are going to be here, and we're just leaving them here for now. So we're in our genie position, you're going to adjust your feet so the outer blades of the feet from heels to say arches or so are on the discs. Sitting up nice and tall on the sits bones, we'll do seated frog to begin.

So I'm pressing away, and I'm pulling in. And I'm really thinking about my legs extending from my hamstrings, not from my wherever's. And I'm not over activating the glutes because I don't need to. Instead, I'm really thinking about my opposition. I'm getting taller as my legs come in each and every time. Two more. And one more.

Now I'm going to grab my blocks, find the right place, make sure that I can lift here. So let's just do a few checks. Now lift up and do the exact same thing. So I'm pressing forward, and I'm pulling in. The idea is that my hips are at 90 degrees the whole time.

This is like a reformer workout without a reformer. Three more. And two, last one. Then I'm going to lower down, find my genie again, and bow. Round spine.

We'll do swimming frog here four times. So I'm going to go forward open and pull in. Thinking of my knees rotating inward and up, not just flopping about. I really want them to flop, but that's cheating. And four reverse.

So in swimming frog, we're really looking to find symmetry. And if you're sticking to your mat, that's okay too. One more. Now we'll come in. Same thing with the blocks. For each way, start sitting tall, coming up, legs go forward, out and in, As I'm coming in on the blocks, because I have more room, I can rotate toward my mid foot more rather than staying on the outer blade of my foot. Reverse.

Three, two, and one. Lower back down. We're almost done here. One more thing. So we'll take the legs long. The hands will stay here.

The legs are hip width ish. No narrower, but we don't wanna go too wide either. We're going to scoop and lift our hips up into a reverse plank. Hold. Now we're gonna scoop our hips back, think, tendons stretch, up and back, keeping the armpits rotated forward, trying to keep the shoulders in line with the wrists.

Last one. And we lower with grace and dignity. So from here, we're going to take our blocks away first. Displace them beside you and out of your way, we'll bring our discs back. We'll need them later, and we'll lay down on our backs for the series of five.

We're only doing the legs. And as we go through this here, I really want you to think about the alignment of your legs and your torso. So big breath in, exhale curl up, wrapping those shoulder blades like we did in puppet arms, and then we'll bring one knee into the chest as the other leg reaches away. The height of the leg is up to you, but the pelvis is neutral. Single legs stretch, legs only. And exhale.

So think of the hamstring straightening the leg, not the knee, just snapping straight. Exhale. Two more. And check-in how free is the front of your throat. Are you furrowing your brows?

Exhale. Come in for double leg stretch. We're gonna curl up a little bit higher, and then the legs will open with the elbows and exhale pull in. Three more And two, watch the tracking of the legs make sure you're not falling out of that here. One leg goes straight up.

Find your curl. Other leg goes away. Top leg kicks. Kick, kick, switch, and switch really focus since we've taken the arms out on the leg action. One more. Exhale, exhale, and come in.

For double straight leg lower lift, you're going to bring sure the legs are just slightly turned out. So keep the inner seams of the heels together, we lower, lower, lower, we exhale lift, lift, lift. We can go a little farther if we want, but we cannot compromise the upper body. Two more. And one more.

For crisscross, we've gotta add the twist. So we'll rotate and hold, see if you can curl up a little higher, and then the other way. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. Stay on your axis.

No leaning. One more each way. Come back in, and then we lower down here. Now for our next trick, we're going to lay on our stomachs, so you will roll up here. Met knees, let's take a five count roll up. So inhale, and exhale for five, four three, two, one.

Make sure your blocks, your towel, all of your tricks are out of the way. We'll start head down And your discs will be beside you. So right now I'm letting my shoulders rotate in a little. I'm going to rotate out thinking of rotating my armpits forward, and I'm lifting my chest, keeping contact with the discs, and then I'm coming back down. Again, rotate, reach and lift, And back down.

Resist the urge to overuse the glutes here. They're not really helping. Instead, think of reaching away with the crown of the head. We'll do snow angels here, rotating, and reaching four more. Now the tricky part is allowing the upper arm to rotate in the joint without shrugging. So keep that in mind.

Last one, bend the elbows in as you lower down. Next is one, So from here, you'll rotate your elbows in just a regular swan just as a warm up. As you come back down, bring the bottom of your breastbone forward. Now the arms will go ahead of you. Same swan, slightly different entry.

Rotating the armpits forward, the gaze comes up the wall. We're rolling up into our swan, and then we're going back down. Remember, it doesn't matter how high your swan goes. That's not the point. The point of swan is to get more extension through your thoracic spine, the spine that your rib cage is attached to, coming up, up, up, holding it right here. Now we're just gonna add a twist.

Inhale back up. Other way. And remember, again, as we're twisting, we're staying on our axis. So think of that barbershop pole imagery that we use so often in Pilates. Last one.

And as I'm bending, I'm not shrugging. I come back up, and I lower down. Swan rocking is next. So I'm gonna open my arms a little bit wider, keep my armpits rotated forward, And then I'll inhale and lift up into my swan. I'm not using my bum.

I'm gonna sweep forward and up. Maybe crooked, maybe straight. Who knows? Two. Just one more.

I'm gonna melt down and away. Pull the arms in and take a quick child's pose. Now let's come up. It's time to grab a block. You just need one.

And What we'll do with this block is place it next to ourselves. And even if you're flexible, I'd like for you to grab a box anyway, block anyway, set up on this so we can really work on this rotation of the armpit forward, the hand, the knee, and the toe will be in line with each other, and the hips are forward. Now from here, all we do is lift and lower. The block helps you stay centered over your standing leg so the work stays where it needs to be. Two more. And one more. Now hold the leg.

We'll kick it forward without falling back and sweep it back without falling forward. So I'm really activating my hand on my standing block. Two and one. Whoo. Now I'm gonna bend the knee.

Bring the knee down. And back up. And as I'm doing this, sometimes I have to look, make sure your knee and your ankle are staying at the same height. Two. Last one. And to come out of this, bring the knee down. Come up into a tee.

You can sit back gracefully, of course, grab your block, and set it up on the other side. Make sure your hand, knee, and toe tracking It's in a straight line, and the hand comes behind the head. I'm gonna move my block out just a little bit. Here. Here we go. Keep the pelvis pressed forward and lift five. Four.

And I'm really thinking of lifting from my outer hip, not my foot. Holding it up here, kick forward, and back. Four. I keep my kicks small because I don't wanna fall down. That's really the answer.

One, leg goes back, then I'll bend, and he comes down and up. Four. And three, keep checking in on that standing leg, make sure it's perpendicular to the floor, and bring it down, come up into your tee, and sit back. Now we're gonna round out this workout with standing lunges, which is a very, very nice way to bring us back into the place where we spend most of our time standing. Make sure all of your props are out of the way.

You'll grab one disc, and I'd like for you to bring the disc beside you. Ball of the foot, Your favorite foot will go on the disc, and your hands will either come to your hips or they'll reach diagonally in front of you. I'm coming to the hips. Now as I'm sliding the disc back, I'm bending my front knee. And then I'm pulling back up and coming in four more.

The idea is that the chest is staying lofty. I'm not collapsing. Three more. I'm also working to keep my back heel from sickling, two more. Pushing through the hamstring on the standing leg to come up. Hold it back here on one.

Bring the arms to the genie, and back leg will chew chew in and out. Chug it. Three, two, one, and pull up from the inner thighs To balance, second side, like I said, hip width may be a hair wider, standing leg can be slightly turned out or parallel. Choose your arm position, and here we go. Sliding out, lunging, and pulling back in.

Four more. And three, I'm really stretching from my under butt through my heel on my standing leg and my working leg. And pulling up. Hold it out here, find your arms, and pull in it out five. Four pushing through the ball of the foot and the heel, two and one.

Come all the way up. We're almost there. For our last trick in this series, we'll step off and switch feet again. For this one, we'll bring our arms either to a tee or to prayer position you choose, but it's an active prayer. It's not like a wilted prayer.

Energy through the palms and through the armpits, side lunges. We're bending and pressing out, letting the tail go back, pulling in from both inner thighs. Four more. So my back is staying neutral. I'm hinging at the hips not rounding.

Two more like this. And pull back in. Now you go out and hold and stay. Turn the knee in to pull it in. Turn it out to take it back out.

So we're just stirring the femur and the hip joint. And you're breathing because not breathing is a bad choice. One. And then when you come up and in, and you get to switch here, find that place where your hips are level, choose your hand position. Here we go. Sliding out and pulling in. Four.

And three. Check in with the tracking of your working leg that the knee is going somewhere between the first three toes. One, hold it here, pull it in, turn it out. Four, Three. This side feels better for me.

I can't explain it. One more. And I'll pull it up and in. That was a fun one. Thanks for joining me.