Class #71

Mat Technique

55 min - Class
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The Pilates principles of concentration, control, and centering are addressed in this class. After a solid warm-up, Meredith takes you through intermediate to advanced exercises like Rollover, Back Support, and the Push Up. In most cases where an intermediate to advanced exercise is taught, Meredith teaches a modified version first, followed closely by the traditional exercise. Using this technique, the objective of the exercises becomes more clear, the movements more precise and the practice more focused.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Feb 02, 2010
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Right? Um, we're gonna get started. We're going to sit, uh, start sitting until like moving today. So let's, um, look for some flow in our work. So what I'd like for you to start doing is just place the feet down, separate them slightly knees are bent, guide yourself up a little bit straight or maybe through the backs of the hands or through the spinal extensors themselves. And just with that it's stay and, and have a couple of breasts. So as you inhale and exhale, expanding and contracting through the rib cage to the trunk, remind yourself what it means to do out is that it's not just about performing pictures of movements, that it's about looking for the work within your own body and looking for perhaps depth in your body and potentially looking for ways to make an exercise easier by modifying it. And I'll help you with that. But let's all look for what we need, each one of us individually. And with that, taking another big, deep fulfilling breath. Inhale, exhale. Draw the sitting bones closer to the heels, rounding through the lumbar spines. We're just warming up the back end here. We sit up tall, so moving a little quickly to this morning or this afternoon or whatever to right now is evening, actually is evening, isn't it?

Sunset and everything. Here we go. Feels like morning to me, lengthening up, just coming from a straight back and think about connecting the ribs downwards, talking the tailbone under, so there's some pretty deep work to be had there in the trunk. Anyhow, we're sitting at at any point, if you're ready to let go, let go. The arms are going to come down a little bit lower. Now. Now only go as low as you can feeling that you're secure in the movement, meaning you may go to the bottom of your ribs. That's where I'm going and you may not take a breath. Start Your exhale. Curl from just underneath the ribs. Start coming forward.

Continue to curl forward until your shoulders and your hips are one right over the other and then sit up tall. Inhale, exhale, move in the pelvis first, drawing the abdominals in. It's a feeling in my mind of being pulled back by a strap or by, by something that's heavy. Inhale, hold and starting the XO, curling the ribs downwards. Keep the spine round. Stack the shoulders over the hips, and then lengthen the spine towel. We're going one more time here. X, how we round feeling a little bit of contraction through the inner thighs or a sense of hugging. Do the midline with the upper inner arms as well. By the way, shoulders down away from me. Years in here. Start Your Xcel. Let the breath move you. Okay. Sit and tall. Make your hands into a triangle.

Turn towards me. Okay. No roll down. Your hands should be exactly where they connected in front of your chest, meaning they don't get ahead of you. Roll down to where you can roll down on that side and he'll come across through he the hands just in front of the chest. We start our XL as we come up on that side all the way, I keep the rotation in the spine and inhale to unwind. Breathe out, breathe in. I'm going to give you a different breath pattern this time we roll and he'll come across center. Look for deep abdominal work.

It's rotation through the spine. Exhale, we're coming all the way at that side and back to center. All on that one breath. Inhale, turn towards me. Shoulders down and gentle, rolling down and you find ease in the movement. Can you look for what you need in your body? And we remember the principles of awareness of breath.

Come back to center. Last one, turn away. Exhale. Full deep breath in. As you come across center milk it. Come out the other side. Come back to center once again. Separate the arms and we're coming all the way down onto our back. So just rolling yourself down.

Slide your feet a little closer to you are setting up for the pelvic curl here. So you may need to adjust yourself so you're a little happier on your matter. So you feel like you have enough mat space for your head and your feet. All right, so just checking in with the body. The feet are slightly separate. They're a comfortable distance away from the hips.

Check in with the arms that are reaching down towards the heels, potentially getting a little bit of work in the upper back. And with that, we're going to start the pelvic crawl. So in deep in the abdominals, make them heavy, push them in towards the Mat. That's going to let the pubic bone lift up. And then we're coming up into the pelvic curl. So we've all done a pelvic curl, at least, I dunno. What do you think? At least a hundred times in your life. Maybe more. Breathe in at the top. So what can you find in your pelvic cradle? How can you make it different from all of your other pelvic curl experiences?

Can you make it round? Or can you make your abs work more? Can you work your legs for and by working the legs? Inhale at the bottom. Exhale, we're coming up. I mean, can you find the backs of the legs? The hamstrings were reached. The knees out over the toes. Feel the heels pull back towards the fingers.

Breathe in at the top and breathe out as you articulate down order. So just allowing the spine to be mobile, allowing the front of the body to manipulate the back of the body, going three more times. So using these fundamental exercises, exhaling as we roll up to prepare us for what potentially might come later in. Yell, pause, exhale, round down. Feel the top of the head going away from the toes. Ribs down, one at a time. Shoulders definitely down, away from the ears.

All the bones of the low back. There's five of them and the pelvis and the last one coming up on the exhale. Okay, I'm looking for a little bit of a stretch at the tall, beautiful work. Breathing in and breathing out. To come to add from now, let's just, uh, turn the palms over. Separate the arms a little bit so they're in a small, Low v position.

Pick up one leg, but can you do it by pulling in with your abs? So can you make an an abdominal contraction? Pick up the other leg, bolt the legs together. They're touching. We're going to go towards me on the inhale. First spine twist supine, warming up the low back. Exhale, come back to center. Okay. Inhale, keep the knees lined up. Let that back hit.

Pick up right away and exhale. Work in through the trunk to come in. He'll use in the breath for four your rhythm, keeping the knees knitted together at the end of your inhale. That's where you're starting to exhale it quite obviously, but maybe not quite obviously. Right? Can you find that that a little bit deeper here?

A little bit more intentionally. That's good. You guys looks real good in facts. I'm going to go one more time to the front of the room. F back to center, followed by one more time to the back of the room. Well, bring it back to center. Place. Feet down. One at a time. Reach back fully into lacing your hands. Place your hands behind your head.

Hook your thumbs, just where your neck meets the base of your skull. Let your elbows lift off the mat so that you're, you can see them in your periphery and breathe in. As you breathe out, start to lift the head reached the top of the head back for so the neck feels like it's getting longer than coral lab ribs. Press down into the mat. Come up high enough so that you feel your low back contract or pulled down into the ground. Breathe in, hold and breathe that we work our way down roads. So can you create space between the bottom of the ribs and the x? Inhale at the bottom, no resting, just preparing for the next movement, coming up or checking with your neck. Are you pulling forward with your head?

Can you rest your head in your hands and work from your trunk a little more? And then we inhale to exhale down again, allowing the body to go through multiple ranges of motion to allow the spine to warm up gradually and now maybe a little more intensely through the abdominals. Releasing downwards. Breathing in again. Breathing out to lift. Coming up as you exhale, whole deepen, intensify on the inhale. And exhale as you work your way down where it's looks good.

Once again, we're coming up. We're gonna stay up this time. So here it is. Bring your hands behind your thoughts. Oh, pull up a little higher with your abs, more than with your arms, but let your arms assist you from there. Let your legs go. Reach your arms back over your head. Hands behind the head, hands interlace. Drop the head into the hands. That'll make the abs work more right away. We're turning towards me. Chest lift with rotation. Bring it back to center.

Keep the pelvis still as you rotate the other way, try to find a relatively small, that deeply intense movement that you're not letting go of either side of the waist. They're both working through this movement. Inhale back. Exhale. As you turn, let all the air out of the body. That's important. Inhale back. Excellent. As you turn, bring it back one more time around turning the spine. Avoid turning the head or pulling around with the elbows. It's really the rotation around the trunk that we're looking for.

Hold in center. Stretch your arms forward towards your hips. Lower your head and chest. Arms go overhead. Challenge the bottom rib to stay down. Exhale comes straight back up. If you need to hang onto the backs of your legs, do to curl up a little higher. If you're happy with your position, stay. Pick up one leg, pick up the other leg, curl up a little higher through your trunk.

Lower one set of toes. It's an inhale. Exhale, bring it back and change so the legs passes. You inhale, you exhale to drop down. Here's a place where you can use your own breath or a breath pattern that works for you, but make sure that you are breathing for sure. And we reached down and we reached down. One more time. Bring both knees up, reach around to the backs of the legs. Pull yourself up just a little bit higher. Hands behind the head, low the toes closest to the back of the room, down.

Turn to the front of the room and change. Now bottom allocation for this exercise would be to hold onto the outside of the thighs. Feel free to do that if you want to and turning the trunk. Just as important as the chest lift with rotation, right, making them pelvis stable. As we work around through the upper body, we turn and we turn on one more to each side. Fingers are still interlace, had still heavy. Come back to center both knees in. Can you lift your trunk a little higher and let's lower down.

Hug your knees into your chest. I know it's going to get worse. Sorry about that. I mean the legs back to table top or recommit to your abdominal. Slide your arms back over your head. Heading into the a hundred now. No, please that you can keep your knees bent. You can also put your feet down on the floor, so utilize those options.

Here we go. XL to lift up. Either keep the knees bent or straighten them. It's totally your choice and we exhale to start two, three, four, five. The pump of the arm is coming from the back too. It's calm and control, but collected you. I might move your legs up just a little higher. I think you'll be happier there. [inaudible] big full long breaths. Allowing the ribs to expand.

Trying to keep the trunk stable in space. Trying to keep the head still [inaudible]. Yeah, Colin, three more breaths cycles here. [inaudible] here is to exhale. Here's one X. Yeah. Finished with an inhale set. Exhale, bend the knees.

Can you curl your drink up just a little bit hard to be your last chance. Put your feet down on the ground, stretch your arms over your head. Go ahead and let the back hurts a little. If it would feel good to you. Let the ribs let go. They're just going to have to pull back down and in a second anyway, stretch your legs out straight along the Mat. Glue them together.

Lift your arms away from the floor enough so that they're hovering and the bottom of the ribs can stay pulled down. The roll up. Here it comes. We inhale, lift our head and chest. We exhale. Curl from just underneath the ribs. It's going to be tough. I know. Keep the shoulders over the hips. Take a breath at the top. Exhale as you come down. Reach your feet in opposition.

Don't forget that there's a lot of benefit to what's going on in the insides of the legs. Inhale as the head and chest come up. Exhale as you articulate forward. Nice modification. Candace. It's perfect. So I think it was hard or if you needed to, you could bend your knees and continue to move through your spine. Jennifer, I'd like for you to try not to hunch your shoulders in both directions, meaning as you lift your head and chest, feel the shoulder blades heavy on your back. That's better, and then try to keep them still in healing as you pause and excelling as you move down. Whereas right, moving with the breath two more times. We inhale to lift. Exhale, ring all the air out of the body so that at the end you're totally empty. Inhale and exhale. We come down.

Oh the way, arms overhead last time for the day we're coming up to stay. Yeah, and just allow yourself to have a little bit of a stretch forward or a big stretch forward bend, knees. If you wanted to. Definitely take some time to think about where the shoulders are and if they're pushed up into the years, that's not really valuable place for them to belong. Okay. Come up, sit up legs separate. A, here's a place where if you, you're limited by your hamstrings are by a tight low back, it's worth it to bend the knees. I would if I were you, um, you can also roll up your mat and sit on it.

I think you're going to be okay where you are. So spine, stretch, forward, leg straight or bent. Breathe in. Exhale. Start from the head. Feel as you start to round your chest forward that you're keeping your back long or you're lifting up through your back as long as you can. Once that happens and you start going downwards, then start to go forwards. You go where your body will let you, but you don't get to push it any further than that with your shoulder, upper shoulder muscles. Exhale as you articulate up through the spine, coming all the way up to sitting up straight, sending the chest up, creating space between the pelvis and the ribcage. And we breathe in again, excelling as you round down, starting with the head. So don't just lean forward. Curl like you're peeling away from a wall. Go to avoid any, any shoulders creeping up into the years. You guys look gorgeous in you hold, it's nice. Exhale. Just double roll yourself up. Stacking the spine, work in the front of the body just as much as the back of the body. Good.

Keeping the head still is, it comes up in space. Breathe in and read that to round down this our last one year. Make it work it. Work it for your body in healing at the bottom. Exhale to roll back up through the spine and it had some extension here. You're ready and he'll prepare. Exhale, round down says to that same focus of pulling up through the ribs. As you go downwards, we'll help you in this exercise as you start to send your tailbone back, your ribs in your chest, forward your arms up near your ears or just in front of your shoulders.

If you need to modify for shoulder stuff, exhale round down and roll up. Inhale, prepare at the top. I'm going to do the modification for the shoulders. Now you guys know where to go. If you want to bring your arms to your ears, you roll down. So if you're leaving your arms down, it's just your spine. Extend your arm, stay just in front of your chest and from there, if you wanted to challenge it, you could just float the arms up. Exhale, we're all coming down at the same time and we're all coming up. Uh, okay, we'll go one more time here. Breathing into prepare, breathing out as you focus on the length through the low back, lift up through the center and then continue to roll yourself forward. Send the tailbone back even it's worth it. Even soften the knees if that's a, if that's a tough place for you. Find the long spine. Find the ribs and hold it.

Can you grow a little longer in the direction of the corner of the ceiling? Reach your arms down, hang onto your legs. Pull yourself out into it a little bit more. Connect with your abs. Hold onto that position. Float the arms nice and a lie. They're going to make the back work harder, but nothing else.

Changes in the spine. Inhale, reach down. Exhale. Give yourself a little more how flat the are heavy three space one where to go and how reach town x, I'll find a little bit more and your body for your practice and they'll float the irons an exhale. Take it all the way back forward and really yourself back up to sitting from there. Bring your hands behind you. I'm going to do, I'm going to teach the back support if you want to modify the back support. In fact, I'll teach both a everyone bend your knees, feet are slightly separate. Hands are behind you. So before we go anywhere as far as lifting the pelvis up, can you push down into the ground and try to find a feeling of lifting your head away from your hands by engaging the muscles just below your armpits or your lats? Joe, go further back with your arms. Yeah. Okay.

So from that place when you've got real stable shoulders should feel a lot of work in the back already. We're going to pick up the hips and lift the spine. The knees will reach out over the feet. We've got a nice straight back at the top and then I want you to think about slightly arching back so you definitely stay straight. There's no roll in here right now. Not Today, not this moment. And we exhale to come up. So engage the muscles in the backs of your legs.

Pay attention to your knees. They should say just out in front of the hips, meaning they don't pull in and they don't pull out. See [inaudible] knee hinge back down. Okay, one more like that Jennifer. Push up away from the floor with the top of your head. That's it. Come on, hold it up. Press the chest through the arms. Look Jen, uh, up at the ceiling, but not behind you on the ceiling. So slightly forward is a better way to say that. Sit all the way back down. Okay, so there's a modified version you could stick with that we're going to do for the other one. If you want to come with me. So the legs are straight, although very much feels and looks like an arm exercise. I promise you that if you involve your legs, it'll be better for you.

Here we go. The back support, lift up out of the hands right now. It shouldn't feel like you have a lot of pressure there. Then as the pelvis lifts the leg, muscles engage, come and straight up. Reach the tippy toes down towards the ground in. He'll sit the tailbone back. Keep the chest reaching forward as you come down. Good. Good, good.

Excellent job. Lift up again. Reach the toes down. I think this is your first time doing this exercise and you're doing a darn good job. Sit down. Chest goes forward. Lift up away from the floor. So it's that I'm trying to defy gravity feeling that I often mention or talk about with this. Did I say three? Do I say four? Alright. And that was three. Yeah. So I suppose this is our last one coming up. Coming up. Look for a little more on the ABS.

Look for a little length in the spine. Sit down, sit up, bend your knees to the sides and take a quick stretch forward. Okay, Well Your Sofa we're going to get, we're going to do the sauce, so again, straight legs, bent knees, please do what works for your body, but they are going to be separate about mat width. Arms are going to come overhead. Don't worry about it. Okay, so as you inhale, you're going to turn in my direction. Now the arm that's just coming towards me, so going to go to the foot that's closest to me as the other arm presses back.

So there's an oppositional type pull. Push. Inhale, lengthen out through the spine. Try to stretch it up a little bit or reach that back arm up in turn back center. On the exhale we inhale to turn. I'm going slow for now. Push the back arm back, send the top arm forward, ring out the spine. Excellent work. Lengthen back out. Lengthen up. Back. Arm comes up and we XL two one one. Let's do it a little quicker. It looks good.

Inhale, exhale, monitor your feet. They should be still. Inhale, lengthen up and exhale to unwind. And we turn and we reach and we lengthen up. Back on comes up and we unwind and let's do it a couple more times. I'm changed abreast. So here's your exhale. Here's your inhale.

We're coming all the way up and around and we're exhaling to go over. Inhale, lengthen all the way, bring the back arm up, go all the way around. It's gotta be a big inhale. So you've got a lot to exhale as you reach for the stretch. Here we go. Last one to the other side, big, and he'll fill up and reach.

[inaudible]. Get back up, bringing the arms down to the sides. Bring the legs together and bend the knees. Okay, so we're going to head in to the teaser prep. I'm going to have you sit just behind your sitting bones. Lift the Shin so that they're parallel to the floor. Hang onto your legs for the moment. Now for those of you who want to or need to, feel free to just walk yourself down your legs.

The movement is going to happen from the pelvis to the shoulder blades in here we go start to Tuck the tailbone. Let's all hang onto our legs for a moment. And then roll down to your shoulders. If you're hanging onto your legs, the hands can walk or you can just slide. Don't rest down there. You're still pretty actively working. Roll yourself back up, trying not to allow the knees to move at all the legs to move. So the lower the half of the body is really relatively still in space. Very still and space if possible, let go. If you can. If you don't want to, please don't round down.

Find the bottoms of the shoulders and bring it back up. [inaudible] and we'll down. Go again. We're going two more times so find your NSI. Good squeeze, Comma. Okay, that's excellent. That's really good. Last one for the day. Take yourself all the way back down. I lied.

You have to get back down and bring your knees into your chest. Sorry about that. All right. Give yourself a quick hug heading into the double leg. Stretch, single leg scratch and crisscross cross. So put your, push your hands into your knees, your knees into your hands is a better way to say what I was asking you to do. So knees into the hands that curls you up off your shoulders. Check here, kind of Hane on with your arms. So use that as a as a good opportunity to go. Real stable, real focus in the ads tailbone down. Here it is all in a row.

If you need a break, he will sit down and have a break or lie down the double leg stretch. Send your legs out or up. Jo for you. Yep. Circle your arms around and hold your knees. Any of the arms and moves. Legs move simultaneously. Exhale, the arms come around in heel. We stretch. Hold.

Are you still as lifted in your trunk as you were when you were holding onto your knees? And we come around in here. We're going a little quicker and exhale. No less precise. Can you feel the legs being pulled in from just underneath the ribs from way deep in the trunk. God left up a lie, so keep it up. Don't worry about how low the arms go with the bodies falling back. Last two friends. Inhale. Two. Exhale.

One more. Two. Exhale. Hold the knees. Curl yourself up a little higher. Stretch your right leg out in front of you. Let's keep that left knee at a 90 degree angle. Toes are lined up in space and change. Now here, feel free to kind of push down on your knee with your upper back and use that as an opportunity to help you get higher or to help you at least maintain your height. Find the back of the straight leg, meaning squeeze your tuition and not just that straight leg. Tushy there, both of them [inaudible] and last four quicker for three. Keep all the details. Shoulders down, trunk stability.

All right, both knees in, curl up, a little higher. Hands behind the head. Stretch the right leg. Turn to the left knee, left thigh and change. So if you'll remember when we talked a little earlier about head heavy in the hands, rotation around the ribs. Can we find all those details even though the exercises may be a little more challenging here. Again, feel free to hold the leg and hold the leg. It's worth it to do something like that rather than suffer through.

Feel like you're falling back. Go in three more. Both sides. One and one and two. Last one here. Then that right knee. Pull the knees right into the chest. Keep the tailbone down. Lift your trunk a little higher. Lower your head and chest down. Place your feet down onto the floor.

Arms along your sides. Pelvic curl. Breathe in. Breathe out. Mobilizing this fine, articulating through this vine is going to feel good. Let some go slow for the first one. Good. The more you talk the pelvis, meaning pubic bone over hipbones are higher than hip bones. The bigger the stretch will be in the front of the hips where we all desperately need. I breathe in at the top and breathe back. Bring the chest down, bottom of the ribs down.

Yes. The bottom of the ribs come down. You've got five bones in the low back. Can you find them individually and finally that heavy pelvis drops. Breathing at the bottom. Breathe out. As you roll out, I'm going to feeling the ribs kind of knit together. The knees reach out over the fee positive. The top I hold onto it. I'm going to stay. Lift up onto your right toes can slide up onto the toes.

Yep. Yep. Jessa just lifted your here. We're going to pick that leg up. So as you exhale, can you keep the rest of your body very still? Pick up the leg. Keep it Ben. It's lifted up. Inhale, reach down. Touch the toes gently to the ground and exhale to pick up. Good. Using the back of that left leg to keep the body lifted. Just tiny bit on do one last time.

So as you put the toes down, put the toes down, a roll through the foot, picking up the other leg. Ride away. Here we go. It's exhale to lift. Inhale to reach down. Touch. Look for stability in your trunk. Looks good guys. Check in with your shoulders. Stability. Try to find a little ease in the movement. Last one here you look good. Christie. Put your foot down, roll through the foot, place it down. Take a breath, little inner thighs, Joe and XL to round down bone bible feeling the arms reach in the direction of the heels.

You might actually be happier with us wider feet as well as the switch. Okay, shoulder bridge, the real deal. Now, if you're not wanting to do a straight leg free moving leg, you stick with the shoulder bridge prep and here we go. We XL to roll up. If you're not wanting to do that, just do a few pelvic curls that won't take long. So let's lift the right leg again, roll up onto the toes first. Set your intention stability in the trunk. Pick up the leg, let it float, stretch it to towards straight XL. It goes down towards the floor only as low as you can.

Keep your other hip hop and then bring it back. So keep the pelvis stable, lifted and back. We reached down, feel the back of both legs working and we bring it back. Go in four more times. It's down and back. Good. Feel free to use the backs of your arms as much as you need you to help you keep your shoulders stable. Last two and back. One more to go and back. Stretch the leg down. Take it just opposite that bottom me bend it. Bring it down to the ground.

Roll down just to the bottom of your rib cage to give yourself a moment to reevaluate, to recommit coming straight back, leading with the pelvis with the pubic bone to be more specific, more precise. Roll up onto the left toes. Nothing should have changed. Don't let anything changes. That leg floats up off the ground. It's going to take a great deal of work in that supporting leg. As you exhale, take the leg down, keep the the HIPAA and bring it back. We're pointing the foot as we reach past the knee and bringing it back with a flexed foot. Could look for your abdominals to sengage. Look for the abdominals.

Actually actively be pulling the leg through space. Let's go four and back. Three and back. Work the inner thighs on both side. Here's our last one, and back. Lower the lake to knee level. Oh are we still lifted up, Ben, to put it in, adjust if you need to and take as long as you want or as you need to to milk your way down bone by the railing down through the spine and coming all the way. All right. When your tailbone comes down and bring your knees into your chest, hugging men.

And I do just a couple of rollover, some set the knees at a 90 degree angle to start. And then just, I'll give you a prep for those of you who, if you don't want to do the roll over, you'll just keep your knees a little bit, you know, roll just a tiny little roll up and down away from the Mat. For those of us are going into the rollover, we're gonna, um, start with the legs bent at 90 talk you through it and he's together. Breathe in, breathe out. As you extend your legs to a diagonal with which you can support your low back from that place you inhale to bring the legs up and you reverse curl two particular legs overhead, you know, it go to rounding over rounding.

Over the legs, lower sit until they're parallel to the ground. If you have the flexibility to lower them down more than that, you can, as long as your spine doesn't change. From there, round down, slowly, energetically reaching through the heels in the opposite direction. As the tailbone touches down the toes, point the legs, make a small circle to come together and we go again. Inhaler, Xcel, chill, rollover in heel-toe flex and separate the feet and exhale to roll down. So this is where your circle comes in.

Point your feet here and they just circled down and together like so. Last one, shoulders down. So let's milk the stretch here, Jennifer. Um, finish. Finish your roll down. And I'm going to say what I want to say and I'll actually say it now. So if you, when you're rolling over and you're looking at your toes as they go over your face, that's gonna cause your neck to be in. Not a great alignment for you. So just look forward constantly at Chin into the chest and let that, that focus stay pretty continuous through how that was much better. Jen, and this is our last one gang. So just make it down onto your back, wherever you are in space. Come down, take your time.

And when you get to the bottom, go ahead and bend your knees into your chest and how you need some to your chest and have a couple of moments free breath. And you've had enough of that turn and face me. So I want to do the sideband today and I wanna do it on down on our forearms. So for those of you who know the full side band and want to do it up on your arm, that's perfectly fine. Um, for those of you who want, I'm going to teach it on the forearm. So the most important thing in this exercise is first of all, that we're not just sinking into the shoulder. That could be disastrous, quite frankly. So put your hand underneath your ribs and, and Kinda let your hand relax into your ribs just for a minute.

And then what you want to do is pull up or away from the Mat, away from the ground. You'll feel your ribs actually move away from your arms slightly. And that's what's going to help you find your obliques, which are, uh, the focus of the exercise here. So you want your top leg crossed over your bottom leg. Legs are a little bit bent. If you want, you can use your hand to help yourself up.

If you're happy and you know you're strong enough through your sides, we're going to lift up onto the side. So from there I'm gonna lift that free arm up. As you exhale, lift up through that bottom waist, up, up, up, up, up at the very last moment, Joe, keep both feet on the ground. That'll help you. Yeah, take your top arm overhead and just turn your eyes to look down at your elbow. Inhale as you come back through a straight line looking at me and we're going to exhale. Bend the knees, keep the lift up through the waist, but move slightly away from the arm.

So we've got to have a lot of pretty good shoulder stability to make that happen. You guys look good. Here we go again. The leg straight and the trunk lifts you up. It's an exhale to lift up from the waist. Turn the head of the last moment, or if you want to keep your head nice forward to look, that would be just fine with me. We're coming back and we're bending to come in and let's do one more. Then he other legs come up or the spine comes up or we hit that straight spine x, lift the trunk, turn the eyes down to reach the arm overhead and heel.

We're coming back and we exhale to come all the way down and then just put down that free arm, push up, come up all the way and let's just all go into kind of a figure four position, one foot up against the other. We're just going to stretch that side. The arm that you were just resting on is the on that's going to be lifted and you just modify as you need to reach up first and then reach over. So allowing those obliques to have a little bit of a stretch as well. Yeah, from the muscle that you feel stretching a great deal. Right now, can you connect, commit to it and come up, use it. We're going over one more time. Lift up first and then stretch it over.

And personally to me it feels really good to let the, that chest turn forward slightly. If that doesn't feel good to your body, you don't have to do it, but that's what I need. So I'm going there. Come back, come up and back to the elbow. All right, is there a bottom and he's going to be bent here today. Let's can modify this exercise a little bit. Um, we're going to be up on her elbow and, and all the same rules of a rib cage in really strong waistline's going to apply for us today here as well. Lift the top leg up, pull it away from you enough so that you feel maybe an ability to connect more through the low waist. Definitely a sense of lightness on the arm and shoulder. Yeah. Are you there yet? Now you are. Now you are flex your foot, bring the leg forward. It's a double kick and it's a double kickback.

So the breath is exhale as you bring the leg forward and inhale as you bring the leg back. But it's always appropriate to breathe as you need to. Yeah, good forward and back and forward. If you have any doubt about whether or not you're in the right place with your body, put your hand under your ribs and you should feel it kind of pulling up. Yeah, that's it. And back. Sorry, windy last two and back one more time. Bring it back. Hold it back there. Bend it to the, keep the knee behind the hip and then push back like you're pushing against a wall. It's just back and backs here. Tightening your glute, using your hamstring. What you don't want to do is arch your back to make it happen, so it's a little bit of a tilt forward with the pelvis.

Has that legs taken back? Maybe you'll even be able to find a little bit of a stretch to the front of the hip. We're doing two more. One more. Going to stretch it out behind us. We're going to take that free arm and reach it forward. Turn your body in the direction, right that arms reaching and just go for a stretch. Feel free. Find it for yourself. I'm pulling my leg away from me and reaching my arm.

Oppositionally I've actually put my foot on the floor so it's going to feel different for every single person. So find a place that feels real good to you and then let's come up out of it, bending that knee up yourself, up off that elbow, and turn yourself around to the other side. Okay. All right, so we're on the forearm and then again, just so just to illustrate what we don't want it to. Sinking in the shoulder, a shoulder bone coming up right up near ear or in boon or specifically the humerus. Put your hand underneath your ribs. Let's all feel it pull up. Okay, so once you've got that from contraction through your waist, the opposite arm comes down or comes down to the mat test issue. As you lift up, it's an inhale to stretch the legs out, to come to a straight line with our trunk. Bring the opposite arm up. Exhale, lift the waist, turn the eyes, reach the arm overheads that you're trying to lift up, make the biggest art you can with the lower waist, and then come back and then bend the knees. Move slightly away from the arm, but don't lose the waist. It's good, Jo. Okay, inhale to come up.

I said, just look a little forward. You might even think about moving your elbow slightly forward from where it is and don't worry about the arm and heel to come back and bring it down. Okay? Okay. I don't want more than one more for the day. [inaudible] if you want to hold hands and pull on one another, that'd be pretty cute.

Then bring it back. Good and bend down and then just maybe help yourself above that arm. I was slide that bottom leg out and then bend the bottom and he had their knees as well. Okay, so we're coming up for the stretch. Didn't I tell you to be on your best behavior today? What was that about? So we're going up first and then we're going over, up and over and then most of us will feel great big stretch there, but can we commit to pulling up with those muscles to set ourselves back up?

Go ahead. So there's never any wasted movement. There is a stretch, the need along [inaudible] of that side of the body, but can we reuse it or reconnect to it as we're bringing ourselves up? All right, arm's going to come down right and come back down onto that bottom elbow bottom and he's going to be bent. Feel free to straighten out the bottom leg. It'll just make the exercise harder. It's up to you. I guess I should have given you that option on the other side first. All right, now, same thing, ribs up, ribs in, abs in pelvis, stacked stretch, so like away from you and see if you can't get a little maybe a feeling of lightness on that arm or flex in the foot.

It's going to come forward to little kicks and reach back. Now the kick isn't like a throw throw sort of thing. What I'd prefer you to think about is come as far as you can and then challenge it and then stretch way back and away from you and on the diagonal forward, forward and back on the diagonal. And then just keep thinking about that lower waistline back on the diagonal. Do I think you could just maybe pull down just a little bit. You're good.

You're good. It's your shirt that's throwing me off. Yeah. Two more. Where I did, I hope Ms Cowen. Okay. Take it to the back. You want again, hit stack a little bit of a press forward with the pubic bone or a movement towards a Tuck. Then the knee, flex the foot and then push the leg back. You're going to see very little movement. It's going to be small, but what we're targeting is the hamstring glute connection. Maybe getting a little bit of a stretch.

Definitely still working to to focus on supporting through the waistline. Got Four to go. Here's three, here's two, and here's one. Stretch the leg. Yeah, take the top arm, stretch it forward, rotate towards the arm. Feel free to play with the stretch. So that works for your body and then bring it back. Turn yourself over, coming onto your hands and knees, hands and knees. Okay, so we're gonna head into front support and leg pull front. So in order to do that, what we first have to do is make sure that we've got good stability. So, um, let's do this. Let your chest just sink through your hands.

You'll feel your shoulders kind of squeezed together. That's a place that we want to avoid. Pull up with your abdominals. Pull up with your ribcage, your feel the shoulders, perhaps separate slightly, but you don't also don't want to round your upper back. So Lisa, you can squeeze a little right there. Okay, so from that place we've got a good solid upper back focus. Slide one leg out behind you. Talk a little with the pelvis without rounding the upper back when you've just got a little tiny bit round. That's it.

Now slide the other light back without creating a lot of commotion in the body. And let's just breathe here for a moment. So as you breathe and your heels away from your head, keep your head in line with your spine. We're working our legs pretty energetically here. Definitely work in the ams. That's what it's all about. Breathing in and breathing out.

Breathing in and breathing out with every exhale, go a little deeper in your trunk points. Your right foot lifted up behind you for five the leg lifts, but the trunk doesn't change, meaning you don't arch your back to lift your leg to the feeling of going out in a way. Last two, last one. Put the toe down. Release, recommit. Find stability. Point the other foot. Reach out in a way. Pull your head in the opposite direction. Here's three of five.

Put the toes back under. Bend your knees to the Mat. Sit off your arms back towards your feet for a moment. Don't relax too much for coming back. Okay. Articulating through the spine, around through the spine, bringing your hips back over your knees and shoulders back over your hands. Okay, and I do a modified Polonius pushup, please. No.

And I'm going to make kind of a fuss about this, that if when you're bending your elbows, your shoulders are pushing up into your ears, the exercise isn't even worth it. So if that's occurring in your body, it's worth it to just either make a tiny or bend point the elbows out to the sides or just hold plank positions. So, uh, let's all come and in fact, come up onto your knees. Everyone hands out in front of you. Now imagine a force against your hands, cause essentially that's what we're doing. Creating forced by putting our body weight on our arms. Now Bend your elbows, point your elbows towards the ground. Don't squeeze the shoulder blades together. Just feel them moving downwards.

Good year working against an imaginary force, but you're creating the force for yourself. Good. Now Push. And as you push, feel that there's more work in the back first, then the ads or the abs down the back simultaneously. And finally the arms as well. So we all kind of feel it. Get it. Let's do it one more time, Ben. Feeling the shoulder slide down the back. Don't arch the back, don't arch the ribs. Once you're in the bent position, then who want to feel the shoulders and the hands moving oppositionally to one another. Always with a sense of downward motion in the Scapula and the shoulder plates.

Okay, so that is what I'd like for you to focus on in your pushup. And if that, that feeling in the back is impossible, then it's worth it to modify to come to your knees to do one of the other choices that I gave you before. I'm sure all of us are going to be just fine, but that's what I wanted to say. So I did it. Okay. Shoulders over your hands, ribs in, abs in. So those are the most important things to find for us. We've got to find a good sense of solidity. Solidarity. I'm not sure what the correct word is, but anyway, solid. Be Solid.

Take both legs back. Stop laughing at me. Elemental. Just making me laugh. Okay, so here we go. ABS in a little. Come down a little windy just with your pelvis right there. Here we go. Bend. Move slowly enough to be able to focus correctly on. Press up and going again. Bend, pull up with your ads, feel the work in your back. Three more or two more?

One more. I'm going to do three, so yeah, a lot. I'm going to watch you do two more and then I'll do one more. Good job. Good. Windy. Everyone looks so good. That was at three. Okay. Engineers and sit back. I missed out on my last one but I'll live. You guys looked good and that's, that's what really counts.

Okay. Come all the way up and work your way down onto your abdominals please. Okay, so I kind of want to bring it down a little. Is that all right? And what I'd like for you to do it on, I think I can show you this without messing up the sound and this'll be your starting position. Your head can be down by him and keep mine up for now. So we're gonna just let the arms or the shoulder blades move downwards with that intention. Moving the shoulders down the back. That is just going to slide the arms towards us and lift our body up.

Now might feel better to do it on the, on the wood. Um, you might feel sticky on your mat. I'm not sure, but so from that upper position then we'll just slide the arms forward undulating through the spine. Okay, so arms out front. Here's what I'd like for you to remember. We talk a lot about articulation in [inaudible]. We know that we can articulate from the pelvis, from the spine, so know that you can articulate upwards as well and put that focus into what you're doing. First things first abdominals in that may cause you to talk a little Lisa.

Definitely talk for sure and just energize your legs. Meaning they don't have to work very hard, but they're reaching away from you from that place. Start to pick up the head as you start to move your shoulders away from your ears. Slide the hands towards you without banding, without creating a lot of tension. It might be a big movement. It might be a small movement. It's just what you need it to be holding at the top and sliding your arms back down. I'm gonna give you a breath pattern here.

So let's all inhale and exhale to start to move the arms. Yeah, that your head's better this time. So last time I was just lagging behind you a little bit. Pausing at the top, working your body to your best available movement and releasing Back Down Jilly chess, chin, nose, forehead. As you come up again, think top of the head reaching forward. Then you don't want to look right ahead of you, but allow the eyes to go slightly forward. Maybe just to the edge of your mat. The front edge of your mat. Lovely, lovely, lovely, good.

And stretched down on the ex SAS. Yep, you're doing, go ahead. Feel really sticky. Are you guys good? We're good. Okay, let's do that two more times. So when a lot of places today, hopefully in our bodies, can this, can you find a way to make this what you need to? Definitely just down a little bit with the head to definitely find a sense of being able to relax. So the back is never something that we want to force. I mean we definitely want to work at it and specifically work the upper back.

That's a good idea. At Christie, you guys could try turning your thumbs up and sliding along the the bottoms of your hands might work better. So can we find a sense of ease in the movement was the end of that sentence, but all right, this is our last one. Go where you can go. Pulling the abdominals into support wherever you choose to go. And then undulate down ribs, chest, chin, nose, forehead. From there, put your hands underneath your shoulders. Push yourself back up onto your hands and knees.

I'm just going to do a couple of cats stretches. So separating the lower half of the body with the upper half of the body. Ribs lifted up. Nice support again through the upper body. So it's going to involve pulling up with the ribs, pulling down with the shoulders. Gently inhale, prepare. As you exhale, feel your pubic bone move towards your Chin and your chin. Move towards your pubic bone and try to avoid excessive rounding in the upper back. Try to make it happen between the pelvis and the bottom of the ribs.

It's not to say your middle back won't round summit will to touch to the lower back, but let's see if we can isolate the low back segment. Inhale back to neutral. Exhale as you reach out and forward through your opera spine. So extending the upper spine whilst keeping the pelvis stable and stationary. Looks good. Good. Looking slightly forward, he and he'll come back through neutral. Good. Shoulders down.

Start moving the hips first. Exhale, tacking. Good. You're just down through the shoulders a tiny bit. That's it. Inhale back. When do you can, when you go into that round shape, let your head follow just a little bit and get all feel better and then exhale as you extend. Think of a forward and up sort of a movement. Let's do one more rounding. The loba coming back through neutral and an extending through the upper back. Feeling light on the arms.

Align the work to occur in the back and with that round your spine, all the ways to see the difference. See the difference supporting with your abdominals. Allow your spine to go into an arch. So let your tailbone stick up into the eye. Let your ribs sink down. It's feeling the difference. There's nothing wrong with either movement, but the will reason. Exhale again around the spine and this time start to shift back toward your feet and sit down. The reason why we're working that specifically is so that we can stretch the lower back where most of us are tight and strengthen the lower back where most of us aren't, or the upper back, excuse me, alarm.

Most of us aren't as strong and that's my reasoning. Okay? From their hands just in front of the knees, Tuck your toes under, push with your arms and pull back with your abs enough so that you can come up over the feet and then you can adjust your hands to wherever you're happy. Good. And you can be up high, you can be down low. But basically what I'm asking you to do is to sit down towards your heels so you to feel a little bit of a stretch when we're going to push up onto the toes. Lifting the heels at.

So notice that you're equally weighted through your big toe and little show and then roll back down through the foot. Unless the heels are rolling through this, lifting up through the arch and I'm pulling back through the heels again and I thought what the heels press down. Start to lift the hips, raise the hips into the air and keep your knees bent for as long as you need to. If you can, straighten your knees, do so. If you can't, don't worry about it. And then let's all bend our knees quite a bit and you have a couple of choices here. You can either just hang and if that's not giving you enough of a stretch, you can hold on to your elbows. And just having nice, soft abdominal supporting the lower back, just letting all the tension or any tension, unnecessary tension that you may have in your body. Flow out through the top of your head.

We're going to bring the arms back down if they're, if you're holding them, if you're down already. Here we come. We're coming up. Keep the knees bent. Feel a sense of buoyancy through the spine. As you draw your abdominals in, moving the spine towards standing and all the way out. Bring your arms up in front of you. Raise just the eyes and perhaps the upper back, just the littlest bit as you look up at your hands and then send your arms around to the sides. And as your arms come down, can you grow taller? It's like your arms are pushing the top of your head towards the ceiling.

Let's do that one more time. Float the arms up. Let them be heavy. Maybe let him take the upper back only into just a little bit of extension and bring them around. And as they lower towards the ground, we all are growing two inches taller. Oh, we don't need those extra two inches on an idea. Enjoy Him. We're done. Thanks.

Comments

Great workout!
1 person likes this.
Great class , very detailed and in focus with my ideas of pilates .. I'm a licensed pilates teacher here in geneva , switzerland , and I really have enjoyed very much meredith Rodgers teaching , thank you
Thanks ladies! It is always great to hear from you!!

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