Wunda Chair Progressions

Hi, everybody. And welcome to a wonder chair workout with me. I love the wonder chair. I think most of you know that. This is gonna be short and sweet. Get it all done.

We're gonna get started with leg pumps. I'm going pretty heavy. I've got on the grass one to chair, my favorite, one on high, one on low. Choose what you want. I want you to feel your body working with control, stamina, endurance, concentration, breath, fluid motion, all of our yummies.

So let's start Pilates v. And I want you to start with the pedal down, balls of feet on heels lifted. You know the position and put your fist right here by your hips first. And push down with your arms so that they get straight and lengthen yourself up. This is I'm doing this a lot more from my own body to decompress my lower body, my lumbar, and my sacrum.

And just feel that length that we're creating. And then our objective is to keep that space. Right? So a lot of times, this work can get we can get powerful and we can get shortened here. Well, we know we're not supposed to. So we're working on countering that.

Take that about two or three breaths. Okay? And then for your arm position during your leg pumps, choose what works best for you. I'll probably sneak my hands here from time to time, but I love a good folded arm, exhale pull up, inhale press. So the lift of the pedal, we're resisting those heavy springs, pushing with nice strength in our thighs. The resist of the springs, of course, comes from the posterior leg, and up. Check your shoulders, the back on your back, you're open through your chest, stomach is in. The naval is coming to the lowest part of your lower back, lift. Now we're gonna transition.

Place your hands behind you. Roll back onto your sacrum. Lift your legs off the pedal and just straighten your legs to a teaser. Place the arches of your feet on your pedal. Do the lift. Let's go. Inhale.

Exhale. I also think every time I push the springs, I'm lengthening the space through my body, up out of my hip joints, up out of my lower back joints, thoracic and neck. Five more. Resist those spring. Three. To steady as she goes through the torso, last one, and then contract hands behind you, wrap your shoulders, and just lift the legs of teaser, flex your ankles, we'll do heels on your pedal.

Do the lift if you need to. Here we go. Strong, flexed ankles. Level your gaze forward. Concentrate on what you're feeling.

Five more. Three. And two, last one, all the way up with the pedal contract again, hands back, wrap your shoulders, a little teaser, flex just your toes, balls of feet high. Here we go. Heels high. Press resist. So it's a short range of movement. Deep work in your muscles.

Are you are you sinking into your back? Hopefully not, lift. We've got four more presses. Three, two, one, and they'll push the pedal back down place your hands again just like we started with your fist right here by your hips, everybody, and push. Now can you get so much that your bum kind of floats up off your seat? I want you to do that a few times, shoulders down your back. Really push your arms. We're gonna use that cue, that connection in a few exercises today.

We've really gotta push the arms down. Right? Lift your pedal. Let's keep going with some abs. I'm gonna spin toward you single leg double leg and scissor. Okay? Now take one shin in variation on this theme. What I want us to do, hand on the outside, Instead of the leg being so close to the chest, press your shin into your hands and almost vertical this femur and notice what hopefully it will do too is pick you up off your back and change. Flex, press Flex, press flex.

And now we won't flex anymore. We're just gonna hold that femur vertical, but I am pressing my shin into my hands and four. Notice is helping keeping me up so I don't fall out of that flexed position. Okay? Double leg stretch. Hands low on your shins. Ideally, vertical legs reach toward your shins. Arms up.

Towards your shins and pull. Just three times, up, back, and pull. One more. I just did the other one. That's okay. Yeah. Scissors pull pull.

Now same thing, guys. Try not to fall back, lift your chest towards your thigh. So I'm really pressing my calves and my leg into my hands. I'm gonna do eight more. Go for a little more flexibility.

Up. Open your hip, open. And four, three, two, one, tuck your knees in nice and zesty. Okay. Wash a woman. In front of your chair.

Reach forward. Take a breath. Long lumbar spine. Rounding forward as I could were trying to take that upper body toward the thighs. Use your fingers today. Wrap around that pedal.

Press down. I need to step back a little bit. Press down. Now when you come up, resist those springs with the idea of rotating your pelvis around your leg bones, pulling the back ribs up on your shoulders, down your back. And, yes, this is heavy tension. I don't want us to stretch the legs all the way. I want you to feel your abdomen Now hold the pedal up, rise onto the balls of the feet, bend your knees, and just round your lumbar spine.

Okay. Do another push of the springs. Lift the springs with control, rise up and round. Round round. Round. Press the springs. There's that push of the arms again that we did in sitting. I'm gonna do one more.

Shoulders on your back as you push, lift with control, rise, and then round. Hold that position. Can you get more c curve back here? Always a thought. Always the questions. Always something to seek.

Okay. Now standing tall. Try not to fidget. Place one ball of foot up on your pedal. Place your index finger together and your thumb together. Notice that diamond shape.

You'll place that diamond shape right on the pad edge of the chair, move the pedal down and place your knee bottom of your kneecap in there. Now what I want you to feel, push your arms toward the chair, pull your body back and make the c curve shape of your spine. Check into how that feels. I wanna feel a little more stretch on my standing leg, so I'm gonna hop it back just a tiny bit. That feels better. I want you to feel like you are stretching that calf back there, square your hips, Now push that chair.

And in opposition, pull your c curves spine back and press control the ankle flexion for and control. Three, and control. That lift of the petals also the lift of our stomach muscles up and in. Now lean away, hands away, step down. Other side, try not to fidget, place your foot. Diamond, place.

Spring has to come down a little as we shift. Push the arms. How's your standing leg, hip extension, and calf? Yep. Ready? C curve and press control. Press. Now, again, when the springs come up, contract into your stomach to the abdominals. Right?

Are your shoulders nice and steady on your back? Yes. For more, press even weight distribution through the metatarsal arch of your foot. Three, two always controlling those heavy springs. Two and all the way up. Okay? Take your hands off. Take your foot down. Now go to the first leg.

Step on your pedal, ball of foot. High heel. Ideally, pelvis right over standing leg should be there. If you feel like it's not, you're gonna make a decision to hop forward or back, you should be there. I think arms to t.

Start to move the springs, push down. Okay. Now they're heavy springs. What do you think the body might wanna do to help itself? It might wanna lean forward. Okay.

Try not to. Can we stay vertical in our body against this heavy tension. On the next four, turn your torso toward the leg as it comes up, inhale, open. Twist and open. How steady is that standing leg? Very.

Right? You can keep your arms there or you can do hands behind your head. I like this because I have to grow taller in my cervical spine. Use your eyes. Look around the horizon. Last one, twist, untwist, hands down control. Take that foot off.

Second leg. Control and concentrate ready. Pull the springs open. Control them up. Press the springs down.

Control them up. Standing leg shouldn't be locked in the knee. It's quad and hamstring co contraction. Now next time you lift, twist toward that leg, and twist toward that leg. Rotate the trunk.

Like a running drill right here. And ready four more hands behind your head. Twist. The twist of the torso. Yeah. Spying rotation.

Rib rotation. Last one, press down, arms open, and lift. Okay. Everybody hold right there. Great. We're gonna go into some front support. Have your hands on the corner of your chair.

Step yourself into what we know is a plank position. Get it together, heels high, tail to the heels, abdominals up the front. You can hold, or three to four or five little push ups. We're about to do pike I really want you to push. I'm gonna take five of these.

Last one. Now walk in, put one foot, second foot, hands on the sides, round your spine, high heels, shift over your arms and push your arms down. Ready. Take a breath. Pull up. Lift. Get those springs to close.

Control the down. We're doing five. Here's three. Control that down. Your body doesn't shift more forward or back.

Last time, pedal down and pause there, turn toward me. Move your hands to the corners. We are not doing pull up in, oblique, but I do want you to face side inside leg parallel. Straight, old hip abduction on the outside leg. Go five. Get your leg up.

Four. We're trying not to fall, hip toward chair, lean your hip away from the chair. Five. That's all we get. Other side. You can always do the pike there.

I'm leaving it out today. I want you to lean your hip away from the chair, not falling in. Ready and lift and lift. And lift, and four, and five. Turn toward the chair.

Get your hands on the corner, step a foot, and control the lift back up. Okay. Wonderful. Step down. We're gonna sit back up. Tend and stretch. Place the balls of the feet.

Push your arms. Go upside down. Check your shoulders. Now, hands can be facing. Fingers facing. Kent hands can be fingers facing away. Do what your body right now is saying to do. My need to go out.

Wrap my shoulders three times. Let's go pull lower. Drop that head, pull and lower. Push the arms, lift the hips. Now take one foot forward and just pulse three, two, one.

Other leg, three, two, one. Have a seat. Lift the pedal. Put your hands behind you. The tabletop, now before we lift our hips, wrap your shoulders, tuck your chin down, tuck your hips under.

Can you get the pedal up? Now from here, everybody, lift your body lift your pelvis up, press your hips high. Ideally, the pedal's not moving or by much. We're gonna come back down, reset that, give yourself another chance. My hands are sweaty.

I'm gonna do that. Let's do it again. Wrap the shoulders without moving the pedal, curl, and lift. You can stay here or three to five movements of the springs. You're moving at the knee. And the knee.

And one more. How'd you do? Wonderful. Come back in, round, and lift. Do that same lift that we've been doing. Push and lift. Okay? Wonderful. Everyone, we're going swan dive.

Come from the back of the chair. If you need to make a spring change, you can. I'm gonna keep it heavy like it is. I like to. It gives me help. And we can amount lift into swan. Now as you go down, don't drop your head.

There's no need. You know the floor is there. Reach your chest forward legs up. Lift your chest. Down. Lifter back. Don't look down.

Lift your legs. Two more legs and legs, and then come up hamstring stretch two. Breathe in. Round forward. Hands on pedal. Nice round spine.

Take your time. Open up that back that you just rounded and extended. Keep your hips above your feet. And press. Last two, lift your tummy a little more, more c curve. Last one, and then come all the way up to standing.

Now we absolutely do need to make a spring change here. I'm gonna tape one side on high and take the other side down. Reverse. Chest expansion or reverse swan, reverse shoulder, lots of different names, about a fist width behind, hands come back, fingertips face in, or out. What do your shoulders need right now?

Right? Lakes ideally up? I want you to focus on rounding the lower back, rotating the pelvis tailbone toward the heels and open the spring. Now if you need to keep your elbows a little bent, that's fine. Ideally, they are straight. Keep your legs up. Lift yourself into a teaser.

And then open that again. I'm changing my hands and open. That's better. It's okay. Make the choices. I have better connection to my back with my hands a little wider today.

And as I come up, controlling the tension. One more time. Rotating the pelvis, try to get on the top of that sacrum, lengthen that lumbar, lengthen the triceps, Open the chest. There we go. We gotta wait for Pilates to happen sometimes.

Right? Doesn't always happen on the first rep. Meaning the form that you want. Okay. Reverse with a twist. So we start turning your torso, hands back, fingers this time out, arm up, legs up, twist, and try to do the same movement you did, rotating your pelvis, look off in the horizon back there. Stretch, twist. Staying your twist as you bring the pedal up.

And again, twist, lengthen stretch and bring it up. One more only, everybody. Rotate. Get your body long. Get your legs long.

There we go. And all the way up and change sides. Little regretful. I kept a high spray on this one because as you can see, gotta work to get that pedal down, but that's okay. Rotate the pelvis. You gotta push. Where's the push come from?

The lat, the back of the shoulder, Make room by lengthening your lower back, though, and pick it up. One more. Good. Lift and relax down. Okay. I have one more.

Let's try it. We're gonna do teaser with the twist. Okay? So I'm here ready. I'm gonna turn on the diagonal facing the back corner. Now this is a heavy spring. We'll see what I get with it.

Your hand's gonna come on your pedal. As you pick up your legs into your teeser, it's the outside leg, the bottom leg helps to lift the legs up, okay, arm up. Length them out. Roll onto your hip. Don't be in a hurry.

Don't be in a hurry. Get on your hip. Side lying mat work. Don't cross your ankles. This is inner thighs.

Slowly. There, sip Pilates. Extend your upper back. Extend your legs. It's quite satisfying.

Now we get to come back, change the pelvis, lift. Don't take your hand off the pedal. Let's do it again. Reach out. Roll, control, pedal down, or just hovered is a little more challenging. We wanna get our legs back a little farther, upper back a little farther, and return one more.

I can feel everybody smiling out there. Yeah. Have fun. Have fun with it. It's the toughie Pilates. Okay. Ready for the second side.

And the final thing. Okay. So sitting on the diagonal, hand, bottom leg is the outside leg, lift up into your teaser, arm up. Take your time. Reach out, reaching my feet to you, getting on my side. If you're a rib popper, be careful.

You know how to manage that. Extend your hips, everybody. That's from hamstrings. Get long, head to toe. Take a big breath.

Exile contract into your pelvis muscles, rotate into your teaser. Again, reach out. Get on that hip. There we go. Arch. Can you look behind you a little bit with your eyes?

Can you bring your legs behind you a little more? You should feel free to stretch. Contract. We have one more. And let's go.

Open. Hey. Yes. Thank you Pilates. We're gonna finish with a standing roll down.

Everybody come up. No springs, nothing. Just Dan. Say, thank you to yourself. Take a breath and roll down.

And I thank you for joining me always. Sometimes classes are a little quicker and more challenging. Sometimes slow, methodical, always mindful, and always part of this message. Thank you so much. See you next time.