Mat Class with Spinefitter

Hi, everybody. Amy Haven's here at Pilates anytime. It's always so good to be in this room in front of the window with you. And I have a spine fitter today for our mat class. Just a few reminders. There are a few contraindications when working on the spine fitter, osteoporosis, severe kyphosis, any joint spinal joint issue, sciatica, cervical pathologies, If you're curious about knowing more, let us know. We can be happy to help you with those.

Today, we're gonna move. Alright? So some of the best ways we use the spine fitter is to mobilize, gain segmental control in our spine, and alignment. Right? Instead, all this core strength that we all know and love so much really shows up on the spine fitter. And what I love about it is it's really feeling so good to move my rib cage. My thoracic spine in particular. And a lot of you who know me and have seen me for a while, that's an area for me that I need to keep working. This is a wonderful tool for that. Alright? So have fun.

Breathe. I'll lead you through. We're gonna start on the mat not on the spine fitter. So I'm just gonna come on down. And what I wanna do is have us all first feel how we are in space before we get on it. You'll notice there.

I'll be a little on and then an off on it and off it to compare and contrast. Right? So let's just lie supine for a moment. You know I say this a lot. Notice what you notice, feel what you feel. It's a great place to learn about you and your body. So as you're lying flat, take a few deep breaths.

I'm gonna place my hands on my ribs that just feels like the right place to go, and I wanna feel how my ribs are expanding side to side in my hands and back into the posterior rib cage. And kinda self assessment really is what we're doing here. So taking your big breath in, and use your exhale. This is not judging at all. You're assessing. How do I feel right now here?

What's my breathing like? Could it be fuller? Could it be larger? More free. Right? Something like that. Maybe one more time.

I can tell you what I'm feeling. I know I have potential to have a lot more expansion, in my breath, in my ribcage, and what that's how that's gonna come, how am I getting that is moving this in various ways. Right? And we know that to be true in Pilates, but we we like tools, right, to work with to help us. So mobilization, segmental control alignment. Alright? So on this fine fitter right now, we're gonna sit at the very bottom.

Very bottom. You just look there and place your tailbone in your sitting bones. Now I'm gonna guide myself down slowly so that when I arrive, when we arrive, our head is on the roller. Excuse me, the spine fitter. I keep calling it a roller because it's like the roller, but it's the spine fitter. And I don't want us to have our head hanging back off the edge.

That does feel great. Maybe later, right now, we're here. Alright? So make sure your head is on. You're looking straight up. Maintain your your curves in your neck. We are not in a flat cervical spine and maintain your lumbar position.

We're not gonna move that right now. Here you are. Check in. How does that feel? Allow yourself to just sink into the balls. You might already be feeling some, oh, my gosh. This is amazing, some different feedback, right side, or left side of your back.

Those big erector spinae muscles, possibly even in your upper glutes. Notice everything. Right? We're all trying to find this symmetry between our sides. We're trying let's take two or three big breaths here. And use your exhale. Just gathering your abs a little bit.

But notice when you breathe in, your back is reaching back into the balls. So you're getting feedback. It feels so good. It's a feedback from those balls that are pressing up into the back muscles into your tissue. Oh, good. Okay. Let's begin this way. Everybody, raise your arms to the ceiling.

Notice where your shoulder blades are. Just let them first. Just let them sink back. Okay? So I'd like to start with protraction retraction a lot of the time. So inhaling protract your scapula and exhale retract your scapula. So there's that beautiful gliding, shoulder blades around your ribs.

And then again, as you're going down to that spine fitter, the balls are there giving a quite a significant amount of feedback. To those muscles and joints there. Okay? Now we're gonna do some circles of the shoulder blades. Yum yum yum. Yeah. I can I can feel some Nvis around me right now? I'm kinda wondering what this feels like feels so good. And then the other wave through shoulder blade circles.

Make them as as the size that feels good to you. I will say the the feedback is quite noticeable. So be go easy here. Okay? Now go ahead and open into a big wide open chest expansion feeling. How about a breath in?

And then exhale to raise your arms up. Inhale as you expand, making sure you're breathing back into the back of your ribs and exhaling center. And one more time. Keep allowing yourself to drop into the prop, into the spine fitter. Alright. Large arm circles.

So I'd like to come up first. I'm allowing my scapula to elevate up my back a little bit, taking open circles, So good. We'll do three each direction. Breathing in. This can also help elongate, decompress your spine. Beautiful tool for spinal decompression, and the axial length we're gaining in between the joints through the whole spine. Right? So we're gonna reverse the direction palms face up.

Open your arms. Yeah. If you're a person who enjoys fascia and the study of fascia, this is a prop you'll really love to work with. I kind of imagine my own body just like a big net right here of potential space and potential expansion going on. And then as my arms circle around, I'm just gonna place my elbows down and then my palms face up, arms on the floor. Take a breath. Alright. Now let's go into some pelvic tilt.

So as we're doing the exhalation, now we can move that lumbar curve into more of a flattened position. Right? Cause we've changed the pelvis and then rock into your neutral. Take a breath. XL, engage your abdominals a little bit. Go through your flat back. So this is interesting already.

Now I'm starting to really feel in, oh, Can I control this movement a little more right to left? So those little balls back there giving me that feedback. I'm trying to concentrate and control how I'm moving so I don't bias one side more than the other. That make sense? Yeah. Okay. So let's go for bridging. Now with bridging, let's make our heels in.

Bring them up a little bit. Take a breath. You choose how high you're going to go. Take your moment. Take your time. Hello, sensation.

Coming up your back. Take a breath here. Mobileization. Right? So as you're coming down, track yourself as evenly as you can. You're getting length just by nature of the prop and the design of the prop.

There's a little bit of stretch that occurs segment to segment. We'll do three more. On the way up. Feeling the hips rise, you're getting that beautiful hip extension. Breathe in at the top.

And then the sternum thoracic movement. Yeah. Like my spine is smiling right here. Inhale. Xhale. But it is. It's the mobility that I'm or I can already feel that's changing.

As I'm moving through here. How do I know that? I know my body well, but I can feel more motion less stiff in the middle of my back. Yeah. That's so nice. That's a place that holds quite a bit of potential for gaining some, freedom of movement. Good. How are you guys feeling? Good? Alright.

So let's take a breath here. I'm gonna walk my feet a little more forward just for change. And now comes hands behind the head, interlace your hands. And let's check-in here for a moment. Now your hands behind your head is gonna avoid your head touching the spine fitter, of course. But what I want you to feel, let's do a compare contrast. Open your elbows as wide as you can comfortably go and notice how the scapula shoulder blades are coming closer together toward the spine fitter.

But I cannot feel my thoracic vertebra right there any longer because my scapula kinda moved it out of the way. So I'm gonna do the opposite. Try that with me. So bring your elbows up. Right? So my chest spine, as I often refer to my sternum spine, now has sunken, kind of sunken in against that, prop. And now as they start to do a chest lift, I'm allowing those thoracic vertebra to move toward the spine fitter. Again, we're going for mobility. Right? Mobileize. We're gaining segmental control right here, which you know, aim goals for helping our alignment coming forward into that forward flexion.

Now this might feel pretty sensitive in that part of your back. Stay with it or just hold on. I'm gonna do a couple more. Use the exhale. Again, the goal is more mobility, freeing up our thoracic spine.

What's in there? Lungs and hearts? We want some freedom also helps the diaphragm. Hold this position. Now very small thoracic rotation. And I mean small.

Meaning, you don't have to make this big. I'm only gonna do right, left, right, left, my first round. But as you notice, if you go to one side, when you go to one side, how's your control going? Is your pelvis going funky? Try to stamp your feet down.

Use your lower extremities for some support. Let's come down and take a reset. We'll do it again. Take a breath. Exale forward flexion.

I'm gonna start going left first. So I'm still with elbows narrow so that I can really feel into that very specific area of that upper mid upper back. Having a conversation, with those balls to mobilize that tissue. Feel so dang good. And we'll come through center, everybody, and roll all the way down. Okay.

Let's do a compare contrast Okay? So I'm gonna just roll off, scoot it to my left so you guys can see. Oh my gosh. That's worth the whole thing. Just there. I feel like I'm underground. A little bit. It's so lovely.

Bring your knees to your chest. See how you're feeling. Alright? So roll yourself up. Now we're gonna change the position of the spine fitter to go horizontally across the mat. So you just go here. And then We're gonna put our sacrum on top.

Make sure it's not in the lumbar. Nope sacrum. K? And this is a fantastic glute stretch, knees are parallel, legs are parallel. Place your arms where they feel best for you and let your knees sway side to side. So we're mobilizing now sacrum, iliums, pelvis, pelvic abs, but also the tissue in the glutes.

And sometimes those glutes need a little bit of, help, right, a little massage. Let yourself go sway side to side. I'm pressing myself slightly down into my spine fitter to garner a little bit more, feedback. I could do that for half an hour, but I'm gonna keep us moving. I'll do a couple more each direction.

You can make them bigger if you like. I have an idea. Come to one side. This is just a spontaneous move a little bit to see if you need a little bit more kind of rocking. Yep. And four, that feels great. Three, two, other side. Just a little rocking.

My intuition told me that would feel best. That's fun to listen in there. Oh, this feels different. I knew that about my left hip. Okay. So we'll come back to center. Alright? Now how does that feel guys? We're gonna lift your hips now.

Move the spine fitter up toward your lower thoracic. Alright? Now this is interesting. I'm not in my lumbar. It's higher. It's my lower thoracic. I want you to set your hips down.

No. Interesting. Right? It increases the lumbar extension, but we're not gonna be there just in a static position. Hug your roller. Your spine fitter with your elbows like this. We're gonna roll a little bit left and right. Mhmm. And I'm allowing my rib cage, that lower rib cage, those ribs kind of eleven twelve to rest and hammock into the spine fitter.

Just allow yourself to rock. Again, we're mobilizing. Right? Working on mobility, rest. It's nice and easy. Something also that's wonderful about this tool because it frees up our diaphragm and our breath and our thoracic rib cage so much is it welcomes our parasympathetic nervous system.

Not our fight flight system, our rest and digest. We're healing happens and we're calm, collected, control lives. Okay? But we're gonna keep moving, lift yourself a little bit, and know when we're placed on the back in this horizontal design, replacement, the shoulder blades that upper thoracic. So it's right again. Behind the sternum, let's place our hands behind our head.

Take a breath. I'm I'm feeling so much different already. So I'm gonna just work on some extension now. Lovely. And a little bit of the flexion and extension.

So again, we're working on, like, that decompression, mobilization, segmental control. Alright. Now when we come back up to the chest lift shape, we're gonna go right to left again a little bit of thoracic rotation. And don't get too specific in fact. If you wanna let your hips come with you guys, it might feel really nice. Couple of times, just kinda go more like global movement there.

It's rolling across those scapular muscles, even some of the rotator cuff teres. Alright. Now I'm gonna make it a little more local and not let my hips come and just focus more thoracic. Good. And four three. Is anyone feeling more oblique work? Just by nature? Yes. Good. And then you can rest, rest, rest, rest. Okay.

Let's go ahead and come up and you're just gonna bring yourself up. Take a moment. I'm gonna move it out of the way. Lie back down. Let's do another com oh, amazing. Compare contrast. Check some orange circles.

Oh, free. One more. Alright. I'm gonna tuck my knees to my chest rock up to sitting, and now we're gonna sit on it. I'm gonna sit on my spine fitter. So I'm gonna bring it this way. And why seated is kinda fun to really check-in.

Are you directly on top of those sitting bones evenly? Check-in there. Okay. It's cool. There you are. So you really root those down. Let's take our arms out to the t.

It should feel pretty open and expanded. Little bit of spine twist. So how about a breath? And twist to one direction. Remember your so much more free through the rib cage one, two, three.

Yeah. Send to breathe in. Twist to the second side. And one, two, three. Without a lot of extra effort, right? We don't have to over effort. Breathe in. Exhale.

Two, three, one more each direction will be perfect. One, two, can you see I'm going farther? Oh, so just me. And one, two, three, good, and center. Let's take a diamond shape with the feet and just feel there. Okay. I'm gonna take a little saw kind of movement. So again, a rotation. Now I'm gonna round over that front leg and just feel the back of my back just stretching a little bit.

Not lifting that hip, but keep sinking and sitting into the little crevices, and then just bring yourself up. We'll just do a couple. I just want you to feel the space around your lower back. And that you can sink into both sitting bones on the spine fitter. Once again, twist and sink.

You hopefully are feeling some of this lower quadrant stretching an opening and then one more time. Yeah. Good. Okay. And now we are going to quadruped. Alright? So I'm just gonna roll off. And as I come to quadruped first, I'm gonna move this just toward you guys. Let's just work our wrists a little bit. And just, palms, heel of the hand, fingers, experiment.

Those muscles in the hands matter too. It's kind of nice. If you know yourself to have some issues with weight bearing, maybe you need a little bit of this. Okay. But as we come to Quadripet, and of course there are so many things we're we can do. But what I have planned, we're gonna do a little bird dog thing.

So You can do a diagonal alignment of your, spine fitter, knee on one end, opposite hand on the top end. And then just for a moment, your knee gets to fit right in one of those little crevices. And the hand. And just be in your quadruped for a moment. Side to side is gonna feel a little different because you're elevated. But what I want us to do right away, ideally, pelvis down to the mat is just extend one of your legs behind you. The free leg.

You don't even have to take the arm up. Let's just take our leg up and hold. Let's feel that. And then take your arm and you don't have to lift it high. In fact, just work on length of your mid body. And breath, and then bring your limbs down.

Unless do it again, just extending back. So what are you noticing? Hopefully, you're noticing a little balance challenge. Yeah. That's what it's for, partly. Alright. And also some of that myofascial sling, your obliques, and adductors, which really do help with being balanced.

Alright. Let's check that out on the other side. There's so many things we could do here, but we're gonna stay with the bird dogs. Okay. So opposite knee, opposite hand, opposite hand, opposite knee. Right? And then feel that connection of your abdominals, your adductors, your lats, all your good core muscles going for hip extension first. You could even just stay there.

That's a lot of balance challenge. But we know we're checking it out. We're gonna go a little bit more. I'm not worried about how high my limbs are going. I'm thinking about the quality of that extended long spine.

And then my control, my maintenance of my alignment, and reaching. Mhmm. Let's go one more for good measure, and reach. Oh, yeah. Oh, hello balance system. Thank you.

Good. And relax. Okay. Let's do a hip stretch. So you can align your spine fitter now here. Straight ahead. I'm gonna place a knee opposite foot can come forward. And this is just a delicious lunging down, letting that hip extension, show up back there in that in that hip. Right? I'm gonna take my arm up.

Extending that line and hopefully you're feeling nice and open and spacious. Yeah. And one more time. There we go. Let's change sides. Just kneeling there.

Here we go for that hip extension. So leaning into that open hip feels so good. And adding your arm and you can add a little bit of thoracic extension if you wish. It feels pretty nice. And again and one more time, and then bring yourself down. Alright.

We're gonna come up to standing now. Right? So just get yourself up to standing. Similar to what we did with our hands, we're just gonna place our feet on the spine fitter. Oh, and enjoy I'm gonna do one foot at a time, actually, and just kind of mush it. There's really you know, we could get really detailed. But I love personally having the the one of the balls in the arch of my foot.

That just feels so good to me. You can get more of your medial arch. You can get your lateral arch. Yeah. Back by your heel.

Make sure both feet get a chance. Mhmm. Good. And then we're gonna step up on it with two feet. Now this is interesting. In the two feet, let's put our balls of our feet on it, heels on the floor behind it, parallel legs. Now that's not easy.

It's a deep, deep, deep calf stretch. What I want everybody to do is bend their knees a little. You won't have a lot of range. Bend your knees, and if you wanted to pitch your torso forward just a little bit, what are you feeling? I'm feeling the front of my shin, that really important muscle in the front of the shin, the anterior tibialis. Read for ankle.

Strength and mobility, the deep calf stretch. Right? Yeah. Now you could try to do it with your body completely vertical. It's just not I don't get as much depth than the stretch. I'm gonna go a little bit more into it down there. Okay.

Now let's try walking on it. So I'm gonna walk on it just like heel toe and heel toe. Me heel toe. Alright. Back the other way. And he'll tell why am I looking? I wanna make sure I'm on it.

Good. One more round. Maybe not looking at down on it now. We And one more. Boy, there's all kinds of things that you could do on this wonderful tool.

Next one, I want everyone to stand on it somewhere, middle, and let's let the other leg do soothe some swinging. Okay. So I'm gonna step on there, heel, spread the toes, and stand. Now as you stand, be tall in your stance, let the other leg come and just swing that leg. It's kind of challenging. You wanna let that leg be really free and swing, swing, swing. Okay? Now I wanna have us challenge our balance one more time and our body and slowly bend your standing knee. Let's see if we can touch the spine fitter with the opposite arm.

So I'm just gonna come down and see if I can touch Mhmm. Gotta concentrate. Must focus. Yeah. All those little mobile ill mobilization movements of the ankle, little wiggles as I sometimes call them very okay to have. My my body said, no, I'm not gonna let you fall. And my ankle just got a big workout hold there.

How'd that feel? Good. Okay? Let's try the other side. So heel on, spread your toes, shift your weight, come up on it, and then swing that outside leg. The leg you're standing on, nice and tall, you're lifted. Okay. Now let's see. We're gonna go down slowly and see if we can touch opposite hand to the spine fitter.

Take your time. No rushing. No need. All those little mobilization things that are happening, body is saying, I am preventing a unstable, unstable. I won't let you fall. There we go.

Bringing it up, standing up. Hallelujah. Good. And then just step onto your mat. And then just kinda feel into how you're feeling. Feel into how you're feeling.

Let's go back to very, very beginning, even though we were on the floor with our breathing, place your hands on your ribs and just take some breath. And exhale. Two more times. So do we achieve the goal of feeling more mobility through your thoracic spine? I have. I feel like I've balanced. I didn't do a long class, but I certainly feel like I got segmental control.

Definitely more mobility. And a lot of alignment and balance. So I hope you had fun. Join us for more spine fitter classes. We'll see you soon.

Bye bye.