Build Strength Wunda Chair

Hi. I'm Jamie. Welcome to this chair class. We're gonna explore a variety of movements looking at a good strong foundation so that we can free up our limbs for dynamic movement. And we'll try and make this as flow in as possible. So let us begin.

So I'm set with, one spring at the top one at the bottom for our footwork. So find your seat, lift up tall through your spine, and let's fold our arms so that we we're not like supporting ourselves here, and we'll start by pumping the legs down and pulling them up. Trying to keep our spine as straight and tall as possible. Alright. At the top, change to our arches, feet together thighs together, press it down, lift it back up. So working to lift on the way up, but also trying to stay up nice and tall as we press our legs down. Let's do three more.

Two more, one more onto our heels. And again, press down and pull back up, lifting tall through our spine. Five more. Last one. And then for our tendon stretch, Just bring the pedal down, step onto it, and we'll lower our heels down, lift our heels up.

And you can lean forward a little more to get a little more stretch out of this movement if you want. Alan also encouraged you to move the foot position. If it feels better in parallel, why not? Just explore the space and try and find that stretch that's working for you. We do one more of these. And carefully bring the pedal back up.

We're ready for the 100. So from here, the 100 always feels a little more extreme if we're doing it on the chair. So let's be there. Find your 100 position and pump your arms nice and strong, good vigorous pumps, breathing in, and pressing the air out your lungs. Keep working nice and strong now scoop your abs.

Reach out through the fingertips. Four breaths in. Four breaths out. One more set. Bring the knees in, and then we'll come up to sit ready to change the springs, ready for our next exercise. So I'm going down to take off the bottom spring.

So I've got one top spring. Said confidently. There we go. We're ready for the roll down or the push down. So, standing tall, arms up by your ears. And then from here, like wallpaper, just peeling off the wall, roll it down, hands to the pedal, We round over just press the pedal down. Scoop the abs to pull it up.

Press it down. That's it. Fill this in your abs. Fill this in your glutes. We do two more. And then rolling all the way up again.

Arms come with your ears. Add to little extra load. Just go up and over again. Press down. And then from here with your elbows in, let's pump eight times.

Still pulling your abs up and press the pedal away as we roll back up. One more time, this time fingertips together roll down Press the pedal down, elbows out now for eight pumps. And then roll all the way up. Arms with the ears, bring your arms down by your sides. Well done, we're step to one side and we'll do the same with a twist almost like the the saw.

So it's a great opportunity to bring some rotation through the body. We roll down, take one arm up, one arm down, and we're not rolling with the body here. We're now twisting. So I want us look into that top arm and twist your torso as you press. Press reaching your fingertips towards the ceiling. Rotate in your body two more.

And then all the way back up again. Step around to the other side, and we'll repeat that on the other side. Rolling down hands to the pedal, other arms to the ceiling. So it's a twist. We're not rolling down.

We're twisting. Trying to get the talk through our torso. One more and then roll all the way up to stand nice and tall. Moving on to our tummies now. Keeping it on that top spring, We move into a little swan series that I like to play with.

So on to your tummy, pedal down towards the bottom. Alright. From here, try and hold a plank position. So we're not arching back into extension. We're simply bringing the pedal up, bringing the pedal down. Just holding our body straight and long. Getting all that connection.

Through the whole body. One more. All the way down. Nicely done. Reach one arm out to the side, and we're gonna pump eight times. Keep your hips even.

Change arms. No lifting hips. No wiggling hips here. Just a strong, long body, reaching from your head through your toes. And then bring both hands to the pedal. Now let's bring some extension in with a little swam prep.

Just lift your head, chest, and shoulders, lengthen and up, and lengthen as we lower back down. And again, lift your heart. Squeeze your seat so that the back body is connected as well. Two more of these. And then if you feel like you would like to add in a little rocking, then we can rock our swan.

I like to keep my head lifted as I go down and lengthen as I go up, last one. Bring the pedal to the top, slide off the back of the chair. And let's take a counter stretch here. Just pressing our hips back. Very nice. Alright.

Staying on that same spring setting onto your side. We're gonna sit and add a little stretch opportunity here. Keeping our foot or our toes connected to the floor, hand to the pedal. Glue it to your ear and we'll just simply reach over. Feel long here, long stretch, lengthen to come back up.

And again, reach, reach, reach lengthen and lift. Two more. Lift and lengthen one more. And then while we're here, bring both hands to the pedal for a nice q l stretch. And I like to pulse down and up here to increase the stretch. Just take it a little deeper each time.

Let's go one more pulse, and then all the way up. And then from here, staying on this side, we're gonna stack our hips and find ourselves reaching our body as long as we can. You've got your hand to support here. Or if you want, just reaching it out. And we rise the pedal up and we get some work into the obliques.

If you're feeling really keen, you can reach and get a stretch here, and then curling up into the obliques. Let's do two more. Cur it up and stretch last one. And the last stretch. And then we'll ride the pedal all the way up with control and change sides and repeat on the other side.

So once again, sit in on the edge, a little space between our hip and the end of the chair and the foot or the toes stays connected to the floor as we lengthen, reach long, lift and lengthen up. And I stretch through the side body, and the higher and longer you reach, the more stretch you're gonna get. Last one, let's reach over. Bring both hands down to the pedal. And once again, just stretching the cue out.

And then we return all the way up, stacking our hips, ready for the oblique work, press the pedal down, and we can start here with the arm Just reach into the toes. And when you feel that you've got that connection, you might wanna add in a little stretch as well. One more with the stretch all the way up, and then bring the pedal to the top. Very good. Alright. So from here, going back in time and do a little bit of old school job work here. It's like a mermaid variation and we found this by finding some of his old cine film footage.

So we're gonna sit with our legs out straight. Flex your feet back. Hand comes on to the pedal, by your ear. And then instead of the stretch, I'm gonna let the hit lift. So it's gonna challenge us to stay connected to our powerhouse as we reach over, not too far, and we come back up. Two more of those, and we'll add some arm pumps as well.

Lift one more. Reach over how far can you go without falling? And then can you challenge your your connection here by pumping the arm down and up. Let's do two more, make it five. And then ride the pedal all the way back to the top. Alright. Changing sides, making sure we stay nice and even.

Through both sides of the body. Here we go, legs out straight, flex your feet, arm by your ear. Once again, we're lifting the seat up. We're challenging our core control really So it's not to go all the way over. So stability, even in movement.

Here we go. One more. Reach it over and hold, and then here we pump the pedal and then ride the pedal all the way up. Nice work. And we'll take it down to the floor now. We're staying on one top spring. Of course your chair may be different.

All chairs I find are different. So go with the spring setting that works for you. I'm on to my back now feet on top of the pedal. From here, let's peel our hips up, we're bridging up keeping the pedals still and see if we can just lower down through our spine, vertebra by vertebra. You should already start to feel that you've got some work happening in the hamstrings.

We lift up again. Lower down again. Ready to turn it up. Here we go. Lifting our hips up.

See if we can do a few curls here. Just not too much. But enough to get the hamstrings firing. Not just the hamstrings. Your whole body should be working.

These arms are pressing down nice and firm. How low can you take it without losing control of the pedal? One more And then I'd like us. If you can, can you stay up there? Lift one leg up to the ceiling, and we're lower and lift. One, two, three more.

Change legs. Other leg goes up, and we lower and lift. And lift. Three more. Push your hips high. Keep them even.

Last one, and then lower down. Through your spine well done for staying with me on that one. We stretch our legs out now. Move a little closer to the chair. It wouldn't be a workout with a fun teaser. So find this position, press your heels down, reach for your knees, reach for your toes, reach for the sky, and then hands on the pedal.

And press the pedal down, elbows wide. Two more. Reaching forward, lowering down. We go straight back up again and lift lift lift. Now as we're pressing the pedal down, I want you to pull your abs up and over the pedal. Over so we got that lift.

One more. And then let's lower all the way down and take a moment there, bring the arms by the side of your body. And then while we're taking advantage of staying on our back here, I'm gonna do mine with by bringing the spring down. So let's take it down to one bottom spring. The more spring tension you have for this next exercise, the more challenging it will be.

So On our backs, feet flexed, arms by the side of our body, and see if you can bring one leg up and still keep the pedal down. And that's the challenge. Keep the back body engaged enough to do leg circles. That's it. Pressing the pedal down. Let's go one more. It goes as big as you can with the circles. Reverse. And you'll find the hardest bit is actually as the leg comes up.

That's when the spring wants to pull the pedal up. One more. Lower that down. Change legs. Good opportunity to see if there's any difference in the sides of the body. Maybe one side feels a little easier than the other.

Let's go one more. I'm trying to keep my hips anchored. My shoulders anchored. Reverse. Three and two. And last one coming up.

Lower your leg down. And then very carefully bring the pedal to the top with control. I'm gonna step off. Stand up. How did you do? Did you manage to keep the pedal from bouncing at all? So, a good fun challenge that. Let's bring these spring back to the top. So, one top spring and we change our focus to our upper body with your little bit of push up fun here. Now, if you, if you're not a fan of push ups, add some more tension, some more springs, and that will give you support on this one.

One hand on the top of the chair, one hand on the actual pedal, and then just step back. And once again, if you want a little bit more support, you can take the feet a little wider. Because this top arm is doing the work, and the bottom arm is on the pedal. Stay straight. Strong, whole body working. Let's see if we've got five more on this side.

Last one, and then we do the other side all the way to the top. We'll walk around. Same exercise. Other arm now. So stepping back nice and strong. So you're using all your body, full body integration.

To make sure that you're doing this with control. But like I say, add more springs if you need to. Let's go. Five more. Last one, and bring that pedal all the way to the top. We're in the perfect position just to sit back onto the top of the chair for everyone's favorite abs series.

So make sure you got a nice comfortable position here. Bring your seat forward if you need to so that your back feels supported. And we hug one leg in and lower ourselves back. Into the chair top, hug that leg in, and we change and change. That's it. Hug and reach.

We'll do one more on each side and then double leg stretch both legs in. And this one, we can really have some fun with. And we know that I'm gonna move myself forward just a little. We know that when a Pilates teacher says fun. What they really mean is it's not gonna be nice. So dive of death.

That's actually quite exciting. I'm gonna reach the legs out and it's an opportunity to come all the way back. Pull it back in, rediscover that swan position. That felt good, actually. We'll do one more.

And then we're ready for scissors. Pull pull switch abs deep, legs straight and strong, reaching legs long. One more each side. Double leg lower lift, so hands behind the back of your head, and we lower lower lower and lift them back up. That's it.

Almost there. Hang in there. Two more. Last one, and then all the fun of the crisscross. That's it.

Last one on this side. Come all the way up to sit. Take a moment. Just stretch your abs out. Breathe it in, and then we'll stand and turn and face her chair. Facing the opposite way this time for horseback.

Staying on one top spring. Find that position. It's gonna be very similar to spine stretch forward on the mat. Reach down. Put your hands on the pedal. Engage the inner thighs and find that scoop of your abs at long c curve as we rock forward and back. Just a couple of these going as far as you dare, hugging the legs. Hug the thighs into the top of the chair.

Let's go one more and add some pumps around over. Hold. Pump the arms. Four three two and one and roll all the way up. Stack your spine up. Well done. Okay. From here, back around to the other side of the chair, and we're gonna add some more springs.

So I've got one already at the top. So it's bringing one to the bottom as well for a little additional support because these next ones are pretty strong exercises. Pull ups. So we've already found our c curve shape with our horseback and with our roll down push downs. So from here, it's the same position, but a different work. Hands to the side front of the chair.

If you like, you can go here I like holding my side on. It seems to work well for my wrists. And then all the work is here and don't worry if you don't get the pedal to lift at all. That's okay. The intention is everything with this exercise. Let's scoop our abs even get five of these lift. And press and press pulling the hips up.

One more. Lower the pedal down. Step back. I'm gonna bring the pedal back to the top. Nice strong work. Time to work on the legs now, but still with that same shape and space, step the pedal down and bring your hands to the front of the chair mounting climbers.

So from here, we're gonna do a series just of five and five. We're keeping it short and sweet, but really work on stabilizing holding a position that's gonna free up the movement and the dynamic movement of the limb. So from here rounding over, pull the knee in. We're gonna hold here. You should feel this work in the outer hip as we pump for five. Four three two one hands to the forehead, same comps. And then ride the pedal down.

Change legs. Same hand position. Same connection. Hold, and we bend and straighten for five, four, three, two, one, hands to forehead. Same pumps. Alright. The pedal down.

Step down. Bring the pedal back up to the top with control every time. Back to the pull ups now. Let's add a little twist to it. Staying on one top, one bottom.

Inside leg presses the pedal down. And we bring our hands. It's kinda like the snake on the reformer, really. Bring our hands to the side of the chair. And bring that foot to the inside of the other hand.

We're gonna try and do three on each side. If you feel like doing more reps, please do so as we lift. Lift. One more. And we'll change sides.

Foot on the inside of the other foot. Scoop the abs. Fire up your obliques and three lifts as we press. Press That's it. And then ride. Peddle down.

Bringing it up with control. Alright. So we're ready now for a little bit of reverse tabletop, which is kinda fun. We'll stay on the same setting. I'm gonna do this as a little combo.

The reverse tabletop with some tricep dips as well. So, a mixture of legs and arms. So we start with the hands back on your toes. Heels together. How high can you lift your hips? Keeping the pedal still, and it's pumped for eight, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one.

Bring the seat down. Hands forward. Hold that frog position. Hips forward, ride the pedal down. Press the pedal back up. So you gotta use arms, but all your body is working as we do this.

Let's do three more. Last one, lift your seat back. Hands back. Eight more, reverse table tops. Hips, lift. Here we go. And we pump for eight, seven, six. Keep those hips up.

Nice work. Last one now. Eight more triceps, hips forward, heart lifted, and we're down, and up. That's it. Fill your triceps working. Three more. Hang in there. You got this last one, and then bring your seat back.

To the chair. We step down. We stay with the arms. We do one more set of push ups and then we're finished with a nice stretch. So bring that once again, that bottom spring is gonna come off. And we stay on one top spring. Stand in front of your mat.

We're gonna take our hands, place them on the floor and step back into our plank position. Now, the push up is happening here. So once again, if you feel you want to take your feet wider, make it a little easier, stronger base, you can do. Let's press for ten, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three more. And then bring the pedal up, hand to the floor, walk our feet towards our hands, roll all the way up.

And we'll change sides. Same facing the other way. Rolling down hands to the mat, step back. Nice strong. I like to press my heels together to activate this back body as well, which is gonna help as we pump. Whole body engaged.

Three more. Bring the pedal up. Hands to the mat. Walk your feet in towards your hands. Roll all the way up.

And then to wind things down, I like to finish with a stretch. So, stand in. You can stand anywhere with the chair here, but place one foot on it, hands either side of that foot. And then he'll tell your back foot back and you want it at 45 and that's gonna allow us to draw our hips back into a hamstring stretch. You can flex the foot if that feels like more intensity and then bend your knee, lift your heart. And press your heart forward for a nice stretch into your solace.

And again, reaching back. One more lunge forward. And then we stand nice and tall. Hands on hips, We lift this leg three times. One, two, three, place it to the side.

Step this leg up, hands either side of the foot once again. Just straighten. And bend. Lift your heart. So that really gets the stretch into here. And again, straight and back.

Bend your knee. Lift your heart. And then straighten your leg. Hands on hips. Three lifts. One, two, and the third one lifts it up. Off feet come together.

We made it through that workout together. I hope you have fun felt some strength, feel some heat through the body, and, thank you for joining me for this chair workout.