Superwoman Wunda Chair

Hi, I'm Lesa Logan, and welcome to a one to chair class. It's a little bit spicy. It's gonna challenge your balance, and also give you a lot of different ways to work your way up to a mountain climber. So let's get into it. Of course, if any exercise is not right for your body, please replace it with something else we already did.

And work your way up. It's a lot of fun that way, plus everything layers on itself. So let's get into it. We gotta warm up with our 100 in our ab series. I like to go on top, and there's two ways to do to the top. You can go short way if you're a glutton for punishment, or you can do the long way.

I know we have started in front of us, so we're gonna go the long way. Bring your knees into your chest, make sure you're nice and long on your mat, send your legs out to the high diagonal, maybe even a little higher than normal, and pump your arms for your 100. Breathing. And out, and I don't know if you're like me, but on the one to chair, for some reason, the 100 feels harder. So I usually start my legs a little higher and then work my way down on my exhales.

Five more cycles of breathing. Notice if your lower ribs are coming off of your chair. If you're on the long way, they should still be on there. If you're on the short way, well, good luck. Good luck.

Couple more. Last one. Alright. Bring those knees in. You can sit up just for a second. Take it out of your neck because we're still getting warmed up, and then bring your knees into your chest. Let's do three of each ab series exercise, ideally without a break, but you can take it if you need it. Bring the right knee in, stretch the left leg out, pull on it two times and switch.

So if in between, you'd like to sit up and skip an exercise, it's totally fine. Especially as you're building up your stamina, both knees in double leg stretch, pull two times, reach, and circle around pull pull reach, and circle around one more time, reach, and circle straight legs up single straight leg stretch, pull pull switch, and pull pull switch. Really stretch the back of the leg, but push that leg into your hand. We're gonna need the strength of it where we're going. And then double straight leg stretch hands behind the head, or you can always grab the front of the chair, lower and lift those legs three times.

Alright. Crisscross, and you get to set up one knee and one leg up, twist up and over to the other side. And one more time each way, that's a lie. You're gonna do one more, one more. I promised you three. Here we go. Come all the way up. Alright. Put two bottom springs on your chair. We're gonna do some pushdown. I like push down with two bottom springs when I'm warming up because it really forces you to get into your body.

So he'll see other toes apart. Feet about a foot distance or a little closer to the chair, arms up, round forward, place the hands on the pedal, and then without leaning back, push the pedal down as far as you can with straight legs. Alright. Make sure your neck is nice and long. You're looking towards your inner thighs. Bend your elbows three times.

It is a heavier spring setting with two bottom, so you can you only have to bend it as much as you can control the pedal. And then straighten the arms, lift your center to roll the pedal up. Push the pedal back down, I like to do my elbows narrow. Like, I'm doing a push up on the mat because I struggle with those. But if you struggle with shave on the reformer, you can do elbows wide and do three pumps. And then with straight arms, lift your stomach to lift the pedal. It's tempting to lift your chest to lift the pedal, but your stomach is better.

Here we go. Three more. So you choose elbows narrow or elbows wide, and then straight arms, lift your center, lift close the spring once spring is closed, both hands come off simultaneously as you lift up. Alright. You're gonna not like this, but it's good for you. It's like medicine. Right? Take your hands at the back of the chair. Yes. Still on two bottom springs.

Place your feet on the pedal, like you're gonna do the pull up. Get your shoulders over your wrists. I'm not expecting this pedal to come up, but I want us to all try, like, what what we need to lift this pedal on these two lower springs. You might surprise yourself. You might even lift up. So squeeze your heels together, shoulders over the wrist, not past them.

Lift your ribs, reach your tailbone numb, push so much into your legs and your arms. You lift your center. You lift your center. Maybe the pedal rises. You might surprise yourself.

If it doesn't, it actually doesn't matter. You're still successful because not about lifting the pedal. It's about getting all the muscles to turn on. So push into your arms, push into your legs. Think about lifting or lift the pedal. And one more time, lift or think about it.

And then come all the way down. Take one foot to the floor. Lift the pedal all the way up, take your foot off. And then we're gonna go to one middle spring. Some of you might like one top spring.

And if you're working on a chair that's got numbers, then you'll wanna think about springs two, three, and four, and only use that top spring if you need more support. Alright. So a little swan here. Come on to your stomach, hands on the pedal, shoulders over the wrists. Inner thighs kinda spinning up, pubic bone reaching down. I tend to start in extension already, and that's what my body likes to do.

So I have to really work my center up to not already be an extension for our swan. Ben the elbows, like, we just did on our push down three times. And then with straight arms, pull the heart forward, lift the chest, lower it down, bend elbows three times. If your spring doesn't feel like it's supporting you, you can always go a little heavier like one top, lower down. If it feels like it's pushing you around, you can always go a little lower, one bottom. Three more pumps, one long lift.

Alright. Take one hand at the top of the chair slide your feet to the floor. Close the spring. And switch to a top bottom spring. I promise this will be the last switch for a little bit. You're gonna wish we switched more.

So now that we've got a nice length in our spine, we've worked our round shape, we're gonna go into a little series. And I want us to start with our heels together, toes apart, take your hands like a diamond, place it on the front of the chair for your Achilles stretch. And, normally, we go to the center. I'm gonna say go a little bit to the right so your right foot can go on the pedal, and then your right knee can go on the chair. Alright. This leg, it's really easy to do the standing leg to make it like it's not doing much, but it actually is reaching into the floor a lot. So reach your heel, reach your toe, not your knee back, and then point and flex the foot It's the pedal lifts. You're in a nice long round shape.

We are building to a mountain climber, so you should feel the mountain climber happening right here. The leg that's on the floor, that would be the leg that's on the pedal. And the leg that's on the pedal is working to connect your foot to your seat. So point and flex two more. Last one. Now point the pedal. Use your hands for balance as you lift the knee off the chair. Once you feel strong on your standing leg, stand up.

So we have our right foot on the pedal. Left foot on the floor, hands away on your hips, push down front, push the pedal down, and pick it back up. Now the goal is to close the spring, but I don't want the spring to close you. So if that pedal feels a little heavy, you can always go to a middle bottom, right, but you wanna lift this pedal up, while getting taller, push the pedal down to get taller. So it's always going our body's always going up as our standing leg pushes down. Okay. Now we're gonna do a little practice. Okay? If your balance is off, just keep doing press down front.

There's nothing wrong with doing that. What I want us to do is practice pushing under this pedal so much. We can lift our left leg onto the chair, think single leg stretch. Right? So that knee pulled in. So then we're gonna place that foot down. Hold it. So if you need to lift the pedal in between, you can. I like to keep it down. So I'm standing firmly in my right leg, lifting so much of my center, my left leg lands on the chair, and then place it down.

Joe would have my teacher, Jay, and other clients do this. You'd have to do it till your foot landed super quiet. So a couple more. As your foot quiet, if it's not, don't worry. The first time I did this, it sounds like a thud. It's not like I was falling down the stairs.

So don't fall. Please just lift it up. Now if you weren't doing the balance, if you're just doing press down front, put your hands on the chair and meet me with your left foot on top of the chair, right foot on the pedal. Handsing on your hips up to the ceiling behind your head, going up front. So pull your left leg back on this chair and your right leg forward, that pedal pulls up, and then push it down.

If you're like, well, so I can't do my right and left right here in balance, then I like to think about pushing down into the pedal as I go up and pushing down into the chair as I go down. That way I'm resisting both directions. Alright. One more time. Come down with the pedal hold. Place your hands on the back of the chair like we did for our pull up. Put your left foot back on the pedal.

So this pull up should feel more possible with this heavier spring setting, round your back and lift the pedal. Now it'd be it's tempting to lean past the wrist. So we gotta try to drop the head more more more more more between our arms and lift the pedals. Our shoulders stay over the wrist. Just three of these.

And again, you do not have to lift the pedal. If it's going well, we we gotta do this together. We're gonna take our right foot off. So that foot that's been on the pedal this whole time, it's gonna come off. And then we're gonna lift the pedal up maybe and come back down three times.

Then hold the pedal down, put the right foot to the floor. You're like, I don't know what I'm doing. It's the foot we didn't use on the last series, and then place your hands in that diamond shape onto the chair, and our left knee goes in that diamond. So that diamond shape is holding the knee still, so it doesn't slide around, and we get to go point and flex. Do you like a series?

I I do yoga a couple days a week, and I'm just like, I love a series. But I'm not so good at my right and left, so we're in this together. Two more. Last one, and then hold the hands on the chair to lift your knee off, and then come hands onto the hips, and now we do our press down front. So, ideally, you're on a different leg. If you're not, reset.

It's okay. We'll get there. We'll get there together. Okay. So now you know you're either pressing down more with your press down front or you're pressing the pedal down and lifting your right leg up. And I really mean it. Think single leg stretch.

We did that as a warm up on purpose. Can I use my center to pull that leg up? Because, I mean, why do Pilates if it doesn't help us climb a mountain one more time? Up Alright. Hands on your hips, reach into the ceiling or behind your head, and lift. And you you're not going to feel your body weight go forward and back. You kinda want the body weight to stay between the pedal and the chair.

So it's not sit shifting. One more. And then you guessed it. We used to go back to our pull up both feet on third times a charm, maybe you have to pull your chair apart. Right? Get your shoulders over the wrist, heels up and together, and lift. Something I tend to do is lift my head up like a turtle as my pedal goes down. So I have to really think about putting my head between my arms as a pedal goes down.

Alright. If you did so on the other side, now we take the other foot off and we do three single leg. And it doesn't have to go back. It just is off. It's hard enough. You don't have to try to find an arabesque and then place one foot to the floor, hands down the chair, lift the pedal up. Whoo.

You're doing great. So he'll see other toes apart with your side of the chair. I'm gonna do my left side of the chair. So if you wanna stick with me, you can. It might be better with all the left, right, we're gonna do. Press down side.

So the setup into the exercise is part of the exercise. So as we do press down side, I want you to stand really tall on your right leg. Lift your left leg from your center and place it on the pedal. So ideally, we're not, like, coming around, stepping in, putting on there and resetting, bring your heels together, lift really tall, put that foot on the pedal. Yeah? Okay. Then press the pedal down. And pick it up. And yes, the goal is to close the spring, you might not be there yet, right, especially if your chair pedal starts higher than mine, and your fun size, like closing the spring might be in the next lifetime.

When you have longer femurs. But you wanna see how much can I pull the pedal up, but being controlled with my inner thigh and outer hip? Okay. Now we're gonna take the pedal up, place the foot down, Try to do that as an exercise, take the outer foot, pick it up, use your center, and land it parallel onto the pedal. If you have tight hips, the standing leg, the left leg needs to move back just a little bit. Okay? Then we'll push the pedal down.

Square your hips off, and we pump, so press on crossover. Okay. I'm gonna let you know why you do these 10 pumps. We're about to do that leg lift onto the chair. If you think your balance sucks, please do this against the wall or wait till your balance is better. Because we're gonna push the pedal down and lift our foot onto the chair. Okay? If you're like, are you kidding, you can put your hands down and try, but we're trying to get that leg up, and then it comes down on the crossover. You can lift the pedal up in between if you want.

I try not to because I need to make this leg to be super strong. Lift the foot up. Place it down. Most of you should be lifting up. As you stand firmly in that right leg, it creates space for the left leg. Ready? One more time.

We're gonna go up. Okay. So going upside. Don't hate me. You don't have to actually lift the pedal. You can think about it. Right. But both legs are gonna squeeze in.

My foot some people go all of this back corner. You actually don't have to go that far. But you do wanna be able to squeeze your legs together and levitate straight up. Hagonda Leppole might help, but you might cheat. So it's okay to think about lifting the pedal.

Let's think about it together. Think one. Think two. Think three. Oh, little air. Ready? Let's go think four.

Here we go. Hands me on the side of behind your head, down and up just three times. It's enough. Going up side is really hard. You should feel both inner thighs working. On the third one, stay down, take your hands to the front of the chair, and then take that left foot onto the pedal.

So the right foot is now gonna cross in front like you're doing snake. So the hands are facing each other, shoulders come over the wrists, and then you're gonna think about doing a side pull up or push down so much in your left leg and your hands, the pedal lifts three times. One, push the pedal down two, three, if you want more, take the right leg out. One, two, and three. And then we come all the way down, turn to face the chair, step one foot to the floor, lift the pedal up, Congratulations. You get to do it on the other side. That's what you win when you do the first side.

So heels together toes apart. We know what's coming. So stand firmly in your left leg. Lift the right onto the pedal. Did you do that like an exercise, or did you like lean over? See if you can lift the leg. Place it down.

Try that again. Lift the leg. There we go. Then push the pedal down. And lift the pedal up. You are in control of how high that pedal goes. On each leg, it might be different, right, depending on the flexibility of the inner thigh, the standing leg, the strength and the hips of the pumping leg.

Couple more. And then we're gonna lift the pedal up. Like it's an exercise, put the right foot down. Now my right foot is gonna turn parallel. I can go to the back edge of the chair.

You might have to go a little further back for the tightness of your hips. Try not to go behind the chair though. Stay in front of it so you're getting that crossover because that's the stretch of the hips that we need. Place your left foot or your outer hip foot on the pedal, push it down. I like to use that first push down to help me set up because sometimes we twist our hips, right? And then we pump the pedal. So it's not necessarily up and down.

You wanna feel like a side to side, like a typewriter. If you if you know what those look like, they go side to side, as opposed to up and down. That's gonna help you stretch and strengthen this outer hip. Okay. Here we go. If you did it on the first side, we're gonna push down with this left leg So much the right foot can come up, and then place the foot down. If you're like, are you crazy? I don't wanna fall. Don't do this. Do the press down crossover a few more times. Press down and lift up.

And again, push and lift. Let's just do one more. And if you wanna join us here in the thinking about our going upside or doing going upside, here we go. Ready? Let's all push down into the right leg. Squeeze that left leg in and think about one. I like to put my hands behind my head.

You can do it too. Two. Three, push down as much as you can and oh, alley oop. Here we go. Three of these. That's all we need. It's enough. And then hold the pedal down with control, put your hands on the side of that chair.

So now it's what the front is. Right foot goes on the pedal, parallel, left foot crosses over, knee has turned out shoulders over the wrists. Think about your pull ups or three side pull ups. And then if you did so, you take the leg out to the side for three side leg. Oh my goodness.

Turn to face the chair. You're doing great. Take this all the way up and lift the pedal up. Alright. So now we're going to do some table. Don't hate me. We're gonna do a little table 10 and stretch combo.

But I promise you, you'll see the magic in the combo of like, let's work the hamstrings. Let's stretch the hamstrings. Let's work the hamstrings. Let's stretch them because we are going to mountain climber. Even doing the prep, you're gonna need all of this.

So we're still in that top bottom spring. You're gonna place your balls, your feet on the pedal, heels together, toes apart, hands to the back of the chair. Alright. So we're gonna come up to five table pumps, come back down. But first, we're just all gonna come up and to see if we're in the right spot. So lift your hips shoulders over your wrists, and then pedal up, and then you get to come back down. So I felt like I leaned back a little bit, and I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm gonna do this pumping with my hamstring cramping because you can.

Sometimes it does that. So shoulders are back. Elbows are not pinching together. Keep them wide. Lift the hips up. Pull the pedal up.

There we go. Pump five times. So you're picking the pedal up and up and up and up. One more time. I think that's five sit down. Arches of your feet on the pedal, hands on the front of the chair, stretch the hamstrings. Here we go. Sholders wide, ribs up, push into your feet to lift your ribs, and push into your feet to lift the ribs.

If you wanna stretch the hamstrings, you really have to reach the heels through to get that open because, yes. I told you a table combo with a tendon stretch. We have to come back to it. Five pumps. So elbows wide. We know what we're doing.

Lift the hips, pull the pedal, and up, and up, and up. I promise you faster is better. This is gonna help us pump the pedal fast for the mountain climber sit down, stretch the hamstrings, arches on the pedal. Lift the hips, drop the head. Pull the chair apart with your hands to get width across your back and go one, and two, and three, four, hips down, hands back, turn out last set, lift the hips and up and up and up.

Maybe you're just thinking about up and up and up. Whoo. Arch is on. Hips up. Oh my gosh. I welcome that hamstring stretch. Drop that head down, down, down, down, down, and lift.

Squeeze the legs together, and lift, and lift. One more. Just so you know, we could've done single leg. So you're welcome. We didn't.

We did not do single leg. Okay. Let's do our mountain climbers. Here's the deal. Mountain climber is a cardiovascular activity. It's got rhythm. There's not a lot of stopping.

I'm gonna start us all in a prep. You can all you can stay there as long as you want, or we're gonna go all the way up into that going up front position, and then we're gonna come all the way down. So think pull up and going up front, and you've got this. Okay? So hands on the chair, place one foot to the pedal, lift the other foot up. You can do a little slight turnout if you want, but make sure you're not on a tight rope from your left foot to your right foot. Right? Then your hands can be, like, little, like, little spider legs on the chair, giving you some space, and you're in a rolling like a ball shape with your back. So we're not resting on that leg, lift your center up. It could still be touching.

You know, the difference between touching and resting, though. Now you're gonna stay here, or you can put your hands forward towards the floor. It's a little harder. We're gonna do eight pumps. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, eight to come up. +1, 234-5678. You can leave your hands here, put them by on your head for eight. And then recharms forward and eight to come down.

Oh, that was one side. You're halfway done. So place your left foot, pick your right foot up, either fingers touching the chair or reaching for the floor, You're ready? Eight pumps. So work the up and the up and the up. Four more.

And then one, two. Call me up. 345-6788 pumps at the top. Alright. 8 to come down. You got this. 321. Holy moly. Are your legs shaking?

Mind two. Come around to the back of your chair. Switch to a middle spring or a top spring. It depends on if you want. More support or a little less. And then heels together, toes apart, toes touching the back of your chair, push down from the back. Arms up, round forward without leaning back or leaning to the chair, push the pedal down.

Big stretch to the back. Back of the legs, and pick it back up, and reach it down, and pick it back up. And it's tempting to stick the booty out in the chest forward, like it's a cat cow. It's not. It's around and around.

Let that heart rate come down, stretch the back of your legs, stretch your back. One more. Okay. My little present, something I love for myself, is to take my right leg on the chair like it's a pigeon. Alright. So it's like crossed, and whatever version of that you can do, flex this foot, put this back leg back and push into it, and then you're welcome.

Round over and stretch your hips. If the crossover felt really tight, this is for you. Okay? Just feel your center lift up. It's something fun about the one to chair is it's really hard. It's always really hard. I don't think there's a beginner window chair.

Breathe into it. We're still on that right side. If you notice how small the surface area of the window chair is, just that alone makes it a more advanced apparatus. Roll all the way up, switch site. If you look at it compared to a reformer or a tower or the mat, it's smaller. Right?

The petapole is the same way. Smaller surface area, more advanced. So flex the foot. Round four, push the pedal down. So when you approach your window chair practice, it's really important that one, you're kind to yourself. Two, you understand that it's teaching you something, how about your imbalances, about your balance, how about what you have to work on.

It also helps repair you for things on the reformer that you might wanna do. Maybe you wanna do Russian splits or Russian squats or knee stretches, knees off. Side splits. Alright. The chair is a great place to practice those before you get on that moving platform, and then the two can teach each other. So use your chair to tell you what's going well in your mat and reformer.

And also what you're ready for. If you have any questions, let me know. Hopefully, you're nice and sweaty like I am. Thank you so much for moving with me. Have an amazing day.