Find Strength

Hi, everybody. I'm Christie. Very happy to have you here in class with me today. We're gonna be working on a little bit of strength, but moving through some basic positions to do it. Let's just get going, shall we? Here's the start. Stand with your feet parallel. Right? Just straight out of your hips.

You wanna kinda level them out. Right? So we're just checking in with ourselves. So you have a sense of all that you're giving yourself by the end of class, hopefully. Your arms are heavy. Caller bones are wide. The muscles are just hanging off your body, but the spine and the rest of you is upright.

We inhale for a roll down. Take an exhale. Just let your head leave. Tilt forward, round forward. Arms are hanging, but not falling forward. They're still wide at the collar bones, top of the head to the floor. Take a minute. What are your feet doing? Are you rolling in or out? These are just things to notice.

Try to level them out and see what happens to the rest of your body, inhale from the middle of your body, start to exhale tilt the pelvis, start to restack your spine so that the hips are over the ankles, the ribs are over the hips, the shoulders are over. Your ribs and standing tall inhale. XL round forward. It's almost like there's a weight on your head and you're resisting ever so slightly so you can start to stretch out your back. It's absolutely fine if you wanna bend your knees.

It's often necessary depending on the day or your flexibility. Take an exhale and roll back up, keeping those collar bones wide. Just means the arms are hanging off your bones almost like a hanger just one more time. Take inventory of yourself. Exhale round forward.

Just a subtle sense of holding in the middle. Again, feel free to bend the knees. Inhale, shake out whatever you don't want right now as best you can. And exhale roll yourself. Back up. Whatever it feels like it feels like we'll do it again at the end. Come to seated position on your mat facing front. So you're on the la lengthwise position.

Your feet are flat, again, in that sit, parallel or sits bones distance position. I'm holding on underneath my knees. And and by holding on, it's not for dear life. It's more almost like a push up so that I can hold on now. And pull myself into an upright position. Elbows are wide. We inhale.

The exhale is just gonna curl the spine back. Not very far. Okay? And then inhale come back up. In fact, this time try it without letting your shoulders go back. The front of those hip bones will move back. We try to keep the shoulders forward.

It's smaller, but hopefully it's a slight bit more effective or an intense. Inhale, one more of those. Just getting a sense of where so many of our positions initiate from, hold yourself tall, shoulders are down. You're just freely could move your head. Now we'll go a little further.

We tilt the pelvis back. The arms will start to straighten out maybe all the way, and you or slide them down if you need to so they're you still have some real support. Inhale hold. Start the exhale so you feel the natural compression of the abdominals. You curl yourself forward.

Once the shoulders are over the hips, you can put your hands wherever you want on your legs. Just hold yourself up. Find your own supporting inhale. Start from the front of those hips roll down. I'm doing my best to keep my toes on the ground.

That doesn't work for everybody initially. Something to think about later. We're down near the shoulder blades. Inhale. Start that exhale come forward. Keep the curve of your spine keep the curve of your spine. Keep the curve of your spine when your shoulders are over hips, and you should be able to see that sit up tall.

Again, exhale roll down, warm enough. Inhaled. Start the exhale. Keep the curve. Sometimes I think about how long can I keep my waistline on the mat, not very, but it's an idea?

And now let's make it a little more interesting for strength purposes. We roll back. Same start. Roll back. Roll back when you're about at the sacrum, not quite the shoulder blades. Inhale let go of one arm, reach it up by your ear or even further back. Exhale.

Grab onto the leg again. Other arm. Inhale reach up. Your body is not moving other than your arm. Exhale. Hold on. Take an inhale. You know what to do.

Start the exhale. Then help yourself forward. Don't hesitate to use those arms. They really do help because you gotta keep your feet on the ground. Sit tall.

Let's do it again. XL roll back. Pick an arm, it doesn't matter if you alternate or not, inhale one arm up, see where you can go without falling back, exhale, bringing it back. Other arm up, exhale bring it back. Hold, inhale. Start your exhale help yourself up at pull the waistline back and then stack your spine.

Inhale. Fun yet. Go again. We get two more. You can do two more of anything. If you really wanna challenge it, let go of both arms, but only raise one.

I'm fine holding on. Exhail. Other arm. Exhail. Grab on. Try to pin the waist to the mat for a little bit longer.

Exhail come forward. Arms are bowing out to the side. It's okay to use those biceps. They're they wanna be used sometimes. Last one, exhale down.

Take an arm, take it up. Exhale sink as if the arm is almost moving through some thick solid. Hold on. Inhale. Excel, keep your curve. Keep your curve.

Keep your curve. Keep your curve. Keep blowing out. Keep your hands on top of your knees and sit up tall. Okay. So get yourself forward just a little bit so you end up in your mat.

We're gonna slowly roll down, take your arms up first, right above your shoulders, and then out to a t position, reach them really long and then set them on the ground. Both knees come up to tabletop, pin them together as if your lower body was one unit, we rotate towards the front, inhale, line those knees up, both shoulders on the ground, exhale bring it back to center. To the back. Inhale. Look at your knees. Look at your knees.

Don't let them slide. One off the other. They're bolted together, exhale center. And to do that doesn't take a lot of energy. It takes awareness.

What you really wanna think is like, Can I exhale and just let my ribs go down first? My waist and then the legs follow. Inhale to the back. This can be done with your feet on the floor too. Just one kinda close to you.

The range of motion really is dictated by how by whether or not you can keep your opposite shoulder on the ground and keep some energy up there too. Let's do one more each way. Last one. Back to the center, you can set your feet down once down. Just separate them again to hip distance and glide your arms overhead floating them off the ground. From here, exhale, just push your arms through the air, let them come down by your side, open those shoulders again, and we're going into a pelvic curl. You may need to bring your heels closer.

That may make you cramped too, but ideally, you could almost touch those heels with your fingertips. Here we go. We're doing a pelvic curl. Start the exhale roll the waist into the mat just like before. Now you get to stand in your feet and continue lifting the spine up and a rolling light fashion. And I'm gonna give you a few just to notice your body. What's happening?

Inhale here at the top, exhale. We're gonna start from the top to go down. It's like the upper back. Find the middle back. Keep tucking or rounding, find the waist, find the sacrum, find the bottom. Inhale.

Start the exhale as you roll up. Do your best to keep those shoulders down. If you need to, you can go wider with your hands. Sometimes that's easier for all of you with stronger chest or tighter chest. Stay up at the top when you're up there.

Take a second and make sure your knees aren't bowing out to the side rather they're still parallel. Not easy to do, but work on it. Then you might come down ever so slightly in the upper body. Retuck your pelvis. And and stay with me after this because this couldn't be intense. Push into your heels, keeping that tuck of the pelvis till you really feel elongation through the front of the hip and the quads.

And if you did that, there's no doubt you're gonna feel your glutes and hamstrings. I hope, inhale, exhale melt it back down. The back of the body is equally important as the front, if not more, inhale at the bottom, start the exhale roll it up. Keep that tuck. If you have to if you start to drop the butt down, you're losing the point. Keep it up. Even if you don't get to fully straight, give it a shot. Both feet are down and flat. Inhale, exhale roll it down.

We'll just do one more trying to loosen up the body so that we can get a little stronger with it, with efficiency. Inhale. Exhale come down. This time, go ahead and reach your arms up as you're coming down. Take them all the way overhead, not quite touching. They're straight.

Bring up one knee, the other, bolt them together. We're gonna exhale curl the head neck and shoulders up. Just reach forward. Look, maybe mid thigh. Inhale, control yourself right back to that start position. XL curl up. You can keep doing it like that, or we'll make it a tiny bit more dynamic.

XL as you come up, extend those legs push. Like, you're really trying to reach something. Imagine you're trying to get up, inhale, drag everything back in, and reach the arms back, exhale curl up again. Inhale. Exhale up. Inhale.

You can start to sense that resistance goes both ways. Basically, you're in charge. So you could push out, reach like you're getting up, and then you can resist coming back in or reluctantly come back in some say, exhale up. Stay up. Stay up. Stay up. You can keep the knees bent as fine.

Inhale reach the arms up. Exhale press them down. Try to get air in your body. It's a very difficult position to do it in. You could, like, take your leg straight up too, but you're just imagining you can fill up those lungs.

The arms going up allows for a little bit more space. And one more Draw the knees in. Rest your neck. You can look to one side and then the other. From there, we're gonna hold on behind the knees. Push your thighs into your hands, curl your head neck and shoulders up so you're in this shape.

We're just gonna rock a few times to come up. Keep the shape. Nothing. No space changes. You'll know what I mean. If you draw those thighs close to you, then you're gonna flatten out and you will have to yank yourself back up.

No need to yank on yourself. Here we go. Come up, stay up. And for fun, we're gonna roll a little tighter ball. Try to have fun with it, but realize it's a a real integral exercise to a lot of the practice that's coming. I've got my heels together and toes together.

My knees are a little bit apart. Elbows are wide. I'm just buying the tail, but we're gonna roll back, and we're gonna come up, and we're gonna stop. Maybe. Let's go. Inhale back, exhale up, stop. Or try again. Inhale roll back.

So remember at the beginning where he said we're initiating from the front of the hip bones, gravity doesn't throw us. It's we go, oh, I wanna go back there. The front of the hip bones deepen, and it sends us back. Hold. Your eyes kinda matter too. If you look all around or you look up, then down, you're gonna get lost.

So keep your eyes maybe at your feet, exhale hold. Inhale back. Exhale hold. One more for fun? Why not? And hold. Okay. And again, it's getting back just a little bit into the mat, and we are going into the precursor to what we call the series of five later.

Hold on to one knee. I'm gonna call it my right knee. Because it is. And I'm gonna push that knee into my hands so that I can draw that hip on back. I'm gonna slowly extend the other leg and slowly roll down to the middle of my back. We're gonna roll right back up that way.

Keep everything the same. You gotta push into it. XL it may not work out, but it's something to work on. Switch legs. So I'm holding on to the left leg.

Doesn't exactly matter at this point. Just hand by hand. And I push the knee away so I can draw the hip bones away slowly down and come back up. Alright. Let's switch again. We're gonna roll down And now stay down.

Switch the legs. And know what you just felt, how that knee got you back up. You can keep that resistance to hold you, but when you let go to switch, you don't drop. Let's go in, in, and out. And the in in means my breath in, and exhale, exhale, and in, in, and out, out, one more set, and out, and out. Both knees in head goes down.

You're holding on to each knee with one hand. No rest for the weary. We bow those elbows out. We push the knees into the hands, and when it feels right, you curl your head neck and shoulders up. The body stays the same.

We're just trying to confuse the strength. Or the middle of the body to see what strength we have. Everything shoots forward, inhale the arms and legs reach. Pull them back in. Hold on and push into it a little.

But remember, you don't really wanna be lifting and lowering your body at all. Let's go inhale reach. Exhale, pull it in, eyes forward. And he'll reach, exhale, pull it in. When you hold on to those knees and kinda push into it, you'll see your belly sink in, out. That's the hard part. Well, it's all hard.

Who's who's getting new here? Couple more. La la. One more and hug it in. You can roll to one side, then the other.

With your neck, I mean, with your head, Just loosen it up. Now let's push up into that starting position. I'll guess I'll call it curl up. We'll take our hands behind her head. This makes us heavier.

So we just know that. And we're gonna extend one leg twist toward the bent knee. And I mean, toward it, not just twisting. Get that shoulder toward the the hip. Switch to the other side so you can feel that. We're gonna go quicker now, keep the legs passing one another.

Let's go inhale. Inhale. Excellent. We call it crisscross. In in, out, out, in, in, and out. We could do one more set in, stay up, in, and out, and out pull both knees in, hug them to your chest. Head goes down.

Cross one leg over the other while you're here. And we're gonna just do a little bit of a reverse lift that's gonna build some strength for future exercise. The rollover. So I have my arms down by my side. They're straight. My collarbones are wide. I'm gonna let my thighs come toward me just a little bit, and here, just try to lift your hips a bit.

It's alright to use the back of your arms, maybe a little of the hands, but not all hands, and down. It's tiny. It's kind of annoying. But it's good. It's important. The the initiation of breath, the exhale, helps. Just a few more. I want you getting used to that.

And and Good. Uncross the legs, hug the knees to chest, hands behind the knees, curl your head neck and shoulders up to that start position. We start rocking. Nice, easy. I Shake out what you need to because we got lots to do. Come on up.

And here, we have options. You can ultimately, we're gonna end up with straight legs. So if that's easy for you, start there. If it's really hard for you to sit up straight, you can either just bend your knees. I have my feet apart just wider than like a yoga mat. And another option is to be in a diamond position. So you choose what works? But we wanna start with a straight spine because we're gonna try to roll into it.

It goes like this hands behind your head. It's a variation on a classical versions within here. We're gonna exhale blow out all our air as if we are trying to fold into ourselves without leaning back eventually top of the head to the floor. So I'm told, from here, dig your heels into the ground and start lengthening your spine on a diagonal line. So it's like If you do yoga, you're you're almost in a down dog like version, so you did? XL extend your arms right alongside your ears with the thumbs pointing back. I know it's a lot of words.

Stay with me. Inhale refold your arms. Keep the rest of the position the same. So the arms are behind your head now, and you exhale round forward. And now from the base of your tailbone, you're stacking your spine as if you're sitting up an imaginary wall or back to the start. Okay. Here we go. Inhale.

Really try to get your air out. It's it's it helps the rest of the exercise, blow out, blow out, blow out, blow out round, round, round, but then naturally, you wanna expand. Right? Do it on a diagonal. Nice and long. You might touch the back of your neck and see if your chin is reaching forward because it shouldn't your neck should be kinda straight with your back. Extend the arms. Thumbs are upwards.

Inhale refold as if you're pulling something from the ceiling down your upper back, lay some behind your head, exhale forward, and roll back up the imaginary wall slight bit quicker, inhale. You're tall. Again, knees can be bent, exhale round. Get that air out. Think it coming up and over something then, inhale into nice long line, exhale the arms go to straight. They separate there, by the way. Inhale refold, exhale go down and roll back up.

Let's do just one more. With a bonus, exhale forward. Your elbows can be forward a little. Don't hang them, but they're forward. You can see them.

Inhale. Like, if your legs are straight, press the hamstrings into the ground. Help yourself. Like, you know what I mean? Her body wants to. We're all in this nice long line. Extend the arms. Oh, here's the fun.

The thumbs are pointed back. Right? Lean into it. Lean into it flex your feet if you can, whether the knees are bent or not, and pull the upper arm back. Back. You're not gonna see much else in your body in terms of movement, pull back. Can you lean into it more? If you're super flexible, like, the answers around us, you might pull back a little bit because we want that energy right into the upper back. Let's do, hey, four more. One.

Two, three. Hold for four. Oh, what else can you get out of it? Refold the hands. Take the stretch forward and roll it up. Shimi out your legs, and we're heading into the saw. So keeping your legs here, we just take those arms out to a t and check it. Right? Sometimes we're we do things that we aren't aware of. So let's focus on straight off the shoulder. Again, you can bend the knees or go to that diamond position.

Either way, we're going to rotate to the front towards the screen and keep the arms opposite as best you can. Right? The forward arm is gonna make you think you're doing more. Just think more about pulling the back one back. Then that backhand gets to go to the floor, and you're gonna reach the forward hand right over that leg, use the back hand to help guide you forward. Now, by the way, I should have said both hips are equally weighted. That changes things, doesn't it? While you're rounded forward, lift the back hand, as if someone pulled you back up, you're still in a rotation, you come center. I'll speed up in a minute, but one more like that.

You rotate the other way. Check your arms. You start to hinge forward. You can put the hand down to help you push forward equal weight on the hips. Then as if someone pulls you back up into the rotation, you come back home. Let's go. We rotate.

We reach forward backhand assist. We sit up and come to center. We rotate. Reach forward, but use the backhand if you want and lift up. Center. Couple more. Rotate. Reach. So much to be gained out of this one, but for now, just enjoy the change in movement likely from what you do all day long. Okay. From there, just take your hands back behind you.

Gonna bring my feet into, closer to me. I'm gonna go into a table, like, position. My fingertips are toward my heels. They can be sideways if that's better, but I wanna work on some skill setting for, again, later movements. For now, Isn't it easy to keep your arms straight and drop into your shoulders? Okay. Well, that would be fine if it weren't pilates. So you're gonna push away from the ground.

You're gonna maybe squeeze those shoulder blades together. For some, it's gonna be really tight, but I do want you to try for straight arms from there. Just bend your elbows, but don't let the shoulders come up and straighten and bend elbows go straight back. Go ahead. Just get used to it. Seems maybe mild at the moment, but this opening in the chest, it's so critical for so many things. So we're gonna practice just Can I bend my elbows and keep my chest open? Of course, you can. Now stay up straight.

Nothing changes there. Just lift your hips up into somewhat of a tabletop position. Now it gets hard for us with the tight shoulders. We're gonna exaggerate trying to pull the shoulder blades together, looking up at the ceiling. You can rely equally on hands and feet here, and then just hinge back down. Keep it going up. Just lift without the tricep dip, lift lift lift straight arms if you can, and down, and lift.

And down. You happy? You could stay here. I just wanna try one to give you a sense of where this is gonna go. Straighten out your legs and put them together. Your hands may have to change because there's gonna be more weight away from them, but we can handle it.

We lift up first. Start to press into your heels. Your hamstrings have got to work here for this to even happen. Try to come up to a straight line, strong arms, strong sense of intention and hinge back down. Shake it out and just stretch forward. Take a second.

Yes. We're getting there. Come on to your side. We're on our elbow. Quick set up here.

It's called a prep, but I really like this one. It it's elbows directly under your shoulder. You're not resting. You're just, like, lifting up off yourself. The lower leg is at a 90 degree position, and the top leg kinda reaches away from you almost like you could get off this elbow.

There's not a ton of weight in it. Top top hand can just be on the ground. List that leg up. It's straight. You're gonna kick forward, kick back. Let's go.

Kick forward, forward, and sweep back. It's almost like freedom in the middle of the move. You get it up there. You control it. You get it back there. You control it. Oh, or you should.

And back. Nothing moving in the hips. We're just looking for freedom in the hip joint right now. And back. Alright. We're doing two more here. Forward, forward, back, and forward, forward, back. Great. That's fine with that. Straighten out your legs and place that leg that was just working in front. Same setup. This one's a bit trickier because you're gonna have a lot more body weight on it, but again, building towards other things that it's gonna be absolutely required.

So we're lifted away. I think of it as being like a proud position, then the humiliating sometimes physician can be. I have to bend my knees a little bit. I'm gonna stand up and make a side bend. I'm gonna make a side plank, I should say.

So I had to adjust my feet to make it, and then the arm can just be by your side. Oh, hello. But you're not sinking. You're strong. You can raise the arm up. And come down.

Okay. So you can bend the knees, be comfy. Adjust the feet if you have to, but ultimately, we're gonna keep it the same. You can put the hand down first, stretch your legs out, hips are stacked, arm goes up. Hold. How about here, lift from under the waist, and arc over. You can look down at that forearm. Come back to the side and bend the knees to come down. Again, we'll do three.

Lift up, arm in that tee. If you can think about I'm gonna lift the lower waist, curve the arm over, look down at the floor, bring it back to alignment, and down one more to go. Inhale, lift up. You can keep the arm down too, by the way. Over to the side and come down. Just draw your knees in. Slide them closer to you. Take a I'm holding onto my ankle.

You could do it in figure four. Just stretch it over. And other side. Down on our elbow. Bottom knee is at that, but I think of a figure four or a 90 at the, 90 degrees at the hip and the knee.

And for a minute, I like to think I'm gonna lift that way. But I can still use the elbow for support sidekick. Here we go. Forward forward. Back. Forward forward. Back.

And it's not really a pulse. It's sort of like, get there. Go further. And then back. Get as far as you can and then take it as much further forward as you can. And, okay, kick back. Okay. Kick. Think.

I feel as stable you are in this middle. I'm doing one more. Take it to the back. Just for a quick check, body scan. Have you rolled back on it?

Don't do it next time if you did. Almost wanna tilt that hip forward. Okay? Sit up. Sorry.

Side, how could I forget? So same elbow position, top leg is in front, bend the knees a little just to help you get up to it. I had my arm on my top leg to start or on the ground, and we lift up. If that feels okay, so you can take the arm up, just hold. Okay. Little quiver. Never hurt anybody.

And, Ben, then come down. Student again. Lift up. I do it sometimes adjust my feet a little so I can really feel like I'm one long line in between two plates of glass. And down? My heart rate's going up.

How about you? We're gonna do the side bend if you want or just continue with that. We lift up arm and t. Now from under the waist, it's not so much about the feet. You arc over. Go ahead and turn to look down. Feel how beautiful it is, and you are.

Come back to a line. And down, we did three. Again, lift. Nice t position. To go over. We're not rotating the body.

Just the head. Come back and down. You got one more and you pick a version, if it's not this one, up over. Back to the center. And down, draw your legs in.

A little stretch up and over. Stick with me a few more to go. Just turn on to your hands and knees. Palms are down right in front of you or right below your shoulders. Maybe a little in front. Okay.

Spread those fingers out. And we're gonna extend one leg back. Tows are curled under. Right? You're gonna stand on them. So toes are curled under. You're on the ball of your foot, but really prove to yourself that leg is straight. Like, you're not you're not not doing anything halfway so that when you go to put the other leg, nothing else has to move. And we inhale, feel how the exhale supports you from underneath.

Push the ground away. Not so much that you're rounded or doing anything weird because you still have collar bones wide. And you're breathing, you're breathing. Now if you're up for it, take one leg point to toe so it's off the ground and level with your hip. Take it higher for five.

Four three two, one, switch sides, rest of the body still, five, four, three, two, one, put it down, bench knees, rest position. You know what's left, back extension. So we're gonna lie down just right here on our stomach. Our arms are gonna be in a goalpost position or another way of saying that would be elbows straight out from the shoulders. The then bent at 90 degrees, you're looking at the floor. You can even put your forehead down.

Minal hover for the mic. From here, legs are straight. They're energized, but not doing a whole lot. Let's hear me out. I I'll do it. We're gonna lift the wrist and hands, but not the elbows.

Yep. Then lift the elbows so that they're level with the wrist and hands that are near. Look at it. Check it out. Don't close that right. Right angle at the elbow.

Then the fun part, stretch your arms overhead. Get as long as you can. It can be a wide view. It could be straight overhead. Inhale, rebend to that 90 degree angle.

Xhale put your forehead back down. Inhale rotate the elbows to the ground, exhale your hands. Shoot. We can do four, and we're done. Here we go. Keep your forehead down for now.

Inhale, the shoulders are gently away. Lift the hands and forearms. The elbows are touching. Now you exhale hover the elbows to level out with your hands. Inhale reach the arms long, straight.

And pull it back on that exhale. Now here, check that your elbows didn't get really low. They should be straight out of your elbows. I mean, out of your shoulders. Inhale rotate the elbows to the ground.

That's the hard part I know. Oops. I forgot the forehead. We'll do it next time. And starting again, forehead is on the floor. Keep it there. Inhale, hands, and forearms. Exhale elbows lift. Inhale, head and chest lift.

Exhale extend your arms. Pulling your elbows back to that 90 degrees forehead down. Rotate the elbows down and then the hands. Let's do one more. Just that your shoulders aren't creeping up.

This one's tiring. So just kinda gently keep them away. And now keeping the forehead down, we will lift your hands. We hover the elbows to match the lift of the hands. We lift the head and chest.

Not real high. It can't be in this position. Exhale extend your arms to straight, inhale re bend them, exhale forehead down. The fun part elbows go down. And then hands. Shimmy out your low back.

Bring your hands by your side. When you're ready, press yourself up into a rest position. Take a moment, breathing, kinda opening up your back again, feeling your shoulders, feeling your breath. And then let's just curl the toes under. And start to lift your hips, feet my feet are parallel.

We're gonna basically end as we started in that standing roll down. Head hangs heavy. Body weight is over the center of your feet. The muscles can start to relax primarily. And then when you're ready, you can bend the knees.

It's absolutely fine. Start to tuck the pelvis. Let your hands be heavy. Your arms be heavy. Start to realign your body, knees over ankles, hips over knees.

Tell us over knees, ribs over hips, etcetera. And then I'm just gonna face you because I wanna see you. And we'll do one more. Take a deep breath, shake out whatever you need to because you did good. I know you did. I could feel it. In exhale roll down.

Your head is the weight. You just support yourself in the middle just like you have all class. Take it down. Take it down. If you need to, yes, you can bend your knees, but you can also just shimmy, you know, do what you need to do to release any excess tension to bring back some energy to remember that you just did a very good thing for your body, and it does a lot of good things for you. Thank you for being here.

Come again, please. Bye.