Class #770

Abdominal Mat Burn

30 min - Class
71 likes

Description

This Mat sequence focuses on the Series of Five but includes a few other important exercises too. Niedra uses creative setups for helping the newer student effectively work the abdominals.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Jul 21, 2012
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Transcript

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Standing with your feet together. Just to kind of open up the spine, put your hands on your hipbones and push down slightly with the hand and lift up out of your pelvis and then pull your stomach up so you feel this traction. And then lengthen up through as though someone's grabbing you behind your ears and lifting your net cop and then relax. And then again, push down and lengthen the rib cage job and start. Pull the stomach in a little bit more. Oh yeah. So your nice and long legs and through the neck and relax. And one more time. Lifting up nice and long.

Pull the stomach in length and through the neck. And now let the arms come down, keeping this lovely length going, keeping it, clasp your hands together and put your hands above your head with your hands inside out. And then pull your stomach and keep lengthening the ribs out of your hips and stretch weighed up. Really pull up. So you open up your side body a little bit. See if you can stretch your elbows. Let the shoulders come up for a minute, right up by your ears. And same feeling, Louise. If the rib cage up, pull the stomach and bender slightly over to the right. Say, open up the left ribs and come back up. Lift up over to the left and come back up and bring the arms down.

Shake your hands out, put your hands on your hips. Press down to lift the rib cage up. Lift the waist up. Can you get another inch out of your waist and get your waist even smaller? Lengthen through the waist. Pull the shoulders up for a minute and then roll them back and down.

But keep that height lifting the sternum and our clasp your hands behind your back. Squeeze your shoulder blades together even more, Sandy, even more. Pinch, pinch, pinch and lift the sternum. Lift the waist and then stretch the arm straight. Or lift your chest. Lift your chest, lift your chest. Now pull the arms away from your back and then relax. Shake your arms out, and then take your hands and cross them and cross your feet. And then take one the back foot and pointed behind you.

Just stretch the toes back and bend both knees a little bit and then take this foot further back and see if you can bend all the way down to your knee. Comes to the floor. Good Tim. And then put your hands on the floor and lower down and bring your feet in front of you so you're nicely sitting. And then stretch your arms in front of you and roll back an inch. Pull your stomach in just an inch. Roll back another inch.

Pull your stomach in, roll back another inch, and then roll back up. Grab your knees. So Tim, bend your knees and lift AARP as high as you can. Just the same feeling. Pull right out of your waist, out of your hips. Broaden the shoulders now and then lean back a little bit and lift out of your waist. Now talk tail and then lean back a little bit more. Now close your ribs, close your ribs a little bit, arms in front of you. Roll back an inch, pull the stomach in, roll back another inch, and then roll all the way to the floor.

So you're nice and long with your hands by your sides now. Yeah. Sit Up your pillows. Reach your arms in front of you and take the arms back over your head with your shoulders gliding down your back and your stomach and bring the arms up and bring the arms back and open the chatsy. Reach long through the fingers and bring the arms up. Now right here, Tim, keep the knees bent. Keep the knees band and take the armpits and move them to the floor.

Yes. Now how long can you make from the armpits to your fingers? Length in the arm bones, but keep the armpits moving down and check that your neck is long and then float the arms back, keeping your chest wide, reaching through the fingers, reaching through the fingers, long, long, long, long, long, long, long arms. And then bring the arms all the way down in front of you on the Mat. Take one hand, place it on your sternum, one hand on your belly and curl your head up and feel your sternum dropping down and your rib cage closing a bit. Come back down as you left again. Keep your neck long so your rib cage contracts and your back broadened your shoulder blades broaden a bit and you press your sternum down.

Come back down and again, lift up. Feel the shoulderblades run, which means they come a little bit more into your chest space. Yes, that's it, Cindy. Now shoulders away from your ears. Yes and lower back down. Very Good Megan. And lift up again. Curling up like that. A little higher. Debbie, make that front body contract very good. All of you and come back down. Now if your neck is not hurting, that's the shape you want to get into for your upper body.

So lift up one more time. This way. Stretch your arms out. Bring your knees to tay into your chest first and then bring your legs to table. Talk and start pumping with the arms. Breathing in for five. Exhale three, four, five into three, four, five. Exhale, pull the stomach in. Four, five saphenous Sturman. Write down. Four, two, three, four, five. Nice. Long arms working hard. Five, four, five. Exhale. Three, four, five, six, two, three, four, five. Exhale, three, four, five, seven, two, three, four, five. Exhale, five, eight, two, three, four, five, eight, seven, three, four, five, nine, four, five. Exhale, three, four, five. Last set, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

By your knees to your chest. Give yourselves a lovely hug. Take your elbows to the side so you feel your shoulder blades widen and roll your head and chest down with your knees to your chest and feel your spine nice and long and your belly in. And now move your sit bones into the mat too. So you may have to move the legs away. So sit bones on the mat, Sandy, yes. And now hands on the Mat and put your feet down. Very good. Now keep your sit bones on the Mac and broaden your shoulders and lift the knees, the table top.

And now take your right foot down to the math tap and bring it up. Left foot down. Tap. And bring it up, right foot down. Tap and lift it up. Left foot down. Tap and lift it up. Right foot down. Tap and lift it up. Left foot down. Tap and lift it up. Now Sh feel that shape. So Sandy, you're bending your knee too much. It's like you're in a cast.

Now take your right foot down, tap and then the left foot so you alternate. Tap and tap and tap and tap. Sandy. Don't bend the knee too much. Keep the, it's just some the hip. Just better the hip moves sounding up. The thigh moves down and up. Tap and tap and tap and tap and tap and tap both knees up the knees in first.

Squeeze them into your chest. Nice squeeze. Check that your neck and chest as long. And now bring your sit bones down on the mat. Put your hands on the mat and pull the stomach it. Keep your pelvis steady and float your feet all the way down.

Stretch your arms over your head, stretch your legs out nice and long and reach with the legs. Press your calves into the mat and reach the toes away from you. Reach the toes and pull your belly in. Bring the arms to the ceiling. Lift your head and chest and roll up. Roll up, roll up and stretch over nice and long. Come back up.

Sit Up nice and tall and slowly roll down. Roll down, articulating through the spine. Stretch your arms over your head. Reach Nice and long. Point your feet away from you. Press your calves into the mat and pull your belly up. Bring your arms to the ceiling again.

Lift your head and chest contract and roll up up. You come lift over your powerhouses. You pull your head down towards your knees and then roll back abroad and your shoulders on the way back. Broad shoulders broad. Yes, him. Roll, roll, roll, roll down. Stretch your arms and reach your fingers and your toes as far away from each other as you can. Long arm Sandi lengths in the elbows, even if the hands don't touch the floor. Yes, and then bring the arms up again and roll up again. Roll. Die Your head down between your arms and lift your powerhouse up and on the way back, broaden shoulders, roll, roll, roll down, and [inaudible] reach your arms and toes away from each other and a few more faster. And Rosie, work at your own speed now and just make sure you're working consciously and sensitively on the way down. You keep broadening the shoulders, very nice reaching long rolling through the spine.

Make sure you contracting the front body as you come forward and you broaden in the back on the way down. Very Good Sandy. Keep your hands apart. Don't let them touch because then you don't work as hard in your center. And last one coming up and bend over and grab your knees. So if you already, he'll grab your knees or grab your calves or your ankles and just bend over for a minute. And in this position, take a breath in and breathing out. Soften the elbows and go a little bit further down. Just feel yourself as a dead weight. And one more time.

Breathe in and then breathing out. Soften the elbows and try to soften a little bit further down onto the next and then roll up. Sit Up Tall, lift up, broaden the shoulders, lift away, stretch the arms and slowly roll down onto the mat. Until you're lying nice and flat. Put your hands by your sides. Set yourselves up on your pillows so your neck is nice and long. And take your right knee and bend it into the chest. And Tim. Okay, that's going to be good. Press your left calf into the mat.

Stretch your left leg and lift your right leg up. Straight up to the ceiling. Right leg so the foot is above your own hip. Hands on the map. Now hands on the mat. Tim, can you get your right knee straighter? Yes and slightly. Turn the leg out just slightly. Reach the toes to the ceiling and lengthen your right hip away from you.

And leg circle. Circle one and circle two and circle three and circle four. Very good. Circle Five. Reverse it. Circle one. Circle to circle three, circle four, circle five. Bend the knee a bit. Pull behind your hamstring, stretch the knee closer to you and stretch the legs slowly. Long leg. Stretch your knee. Stretch your knee, stretch your knee.

Push the hamstring into your hands. So your length. Lengthen the right hip. So sandy hole. Yes, no, no, no. Low. Closer to your hip. That's it. Now stretch to the knee. Yes, exactly. Hands by your sides and float the leg down to the mat. Long legs, heels together, stomach in and lift your left leg up to the ceiling. Press your hip down and Pilati stance from the hips.

Long legs reaching up and crossover. Circle one. Circle to circle three, circle four, circle five reversed. Circle one, circle two, circle three, circle four, circle five. Bend the knee a bit. Pull the leg in towards you, but take your left hip and push it away from you. Now straighten the leg by pushing the hamstring into your hands so your waist gets longer. And then float the legs down to the mat. Very, very long. Legs on the Mat.

Bend your feet into your chest and give the legs a hug. Yes, a nice squeeze. And then come back to a place where your sit bones are on the mat. So your knees are gonna move slightly away from you. We'll do a few of the legwork. Flex your feet, turn the knees open the needs of the shoulder with the part and your toes will be slightly apart and your heels are together.

Press your sit bones and waist into the mat. Extend the legs away from you to straight and bring them back. Extend them out and bring them back. Extend them out and bring them back. Extend them out and bring them back.

Extend them out and bring them back. Hug your legs in, pull them in, and then press your sit bones into the mat. Hands by your sides and wrap. Curl the crunch the toes over. This is like bird on a perch. You're wrapping your toes around. So curl the toes towards your heels, Tim. Yes, that's it. Press your sit bones into the mat more Ben, Sandy with your knees.

Otherwise shape is good. Extend the legs out again and pull them back. Extend them out and pull them back. Curl the toes over. Debbie back and, and, and back and, and back. And then, and shake your feet out for minute. Wiggle the toes out and pull the feet in. Knees into your chest. Sit bones on the mat again and flex your feet strongly. Pull the toes up. Knees and feet are together. And one more set.

Press your sit bones into the mat. Pull the stomach in. Push the legs away from you heels. Press out and come back healed. Push away and come back. He'll push away and come back. He'll push away and come back. He'll push away and come back. And one more time. Hug the legs in.

Hold behind your knees and rock yourself up to sitting. Good, good, good. So sit up nice and tall. Shift your hands to your shins. Round your spine very slightly for rolling like a ball and see if you can lift up in the air so you're in this nice balance holding your Shin. Look down at your powerhouse. Let the elbows float out.

You feel air under your armpits. Keep the shape roll back to your shoulders and come up and roll back and come up and balanced. Pretty Good, Sandy. Yes, it stays a little further forward, Debbie and up. Good that side, Megan, back and up. And one more time. Back and up. Balance. Put your hands behind your head. Bring your elbows to the outside of your knees, outside of your knees. Elbows. Come forward, Tim, and bring your knees closer to your elbow. The stride to get in there. Hold it, hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Put your feet down. Hands out. You're lucky. We're not going to roll like a ball in that shape today and lie down on your back. Your hands by your sides. Very, very good. Now, length in the stomach, single leg stretches.

Now bring both knees into your chest nice and close in to a little bit closer in. Extend the toes, Sandy. Good, good. Hold your shins if you can, or as close to your ankles as you can and then curl your head and chest up. Now spread your shoulder blades apart. That's it, Tim. And lift your elbows. Yes. Make sure your neck is long left-hand to right knee, left leg out. Pull your foot to your bottom and you need to your chest, switch your legs foot about a neater chest switch. Squeeze, switch, squeeze.

Always the outside hand to ankle and switch and switch. Shoulders down away from your ear. Sandy. Suppress the elbows down slightly and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch both knees in. Put your head on the mat and now just for a minute, lift the elbows and then take the elbows and pull them down away from the ears. That's it. She relax your shoulders. Lift the elbows up. And one more time.

Pull the elbows down away from your ears and just the practice. Lift your head and chest up with the elbow, stretching towards your ankle just to practice pulling your shoulders. So Tim, pull your elbows towards your elbows, towards your heels. Yes, that's it. That's it. That's as you have that sense of this shape, helping you stretch your shoulders out. Drop your head down to rest for a minute. That's it.

Turn your head to the right. Turn your head to the left. Roll your head to the right way over to the right. Roll your head to the left just to stretch your neck out. Double leg stretches. So before we start, pull the elbows down towards your ankles and curl your head and chest up so you're slightly tractioning your shoulders out, away from your ears. Now stomach in arms and legs.

Stretch right by your ears. Big Circle and hug and stripped. Stomach is in big circle and hug and stretch and hug and stretch and hug and stretch and hug. One more time. Stretch, hug, Neesen, head and shoulders down, hands by your mat and float the feet down to the mat. Just to rest a minute. Turn your head to the right head to the last head, to the right, head to the laugh. Now take your hands and clasp your thumbs together and just likely pull the thumbs apart just to feel that energy into the outside of your shoulders and then stretch the arms. Be Above your head and pull them apart. At the same time, just a work into the shoulders and armpits a bit.

Really pull those thumps apart as best your cap. Bring the hands back up. Change the clasp of the thumbs. Again, pull the arms apart and then reach back. Pulling the arms apart. Broad shoulders. Stretch the hands apart and bring the hands down by your sides. Very, very good scissors. Bring both knees into your chest.

Hold your shins and curl your head and chest up in one more time. Stretch the elbows down towards your ankles. Good. Good. Yes, Sandy. Excellent. Very good. Everybody stretched your legs to the ceiling. Take your right leg with both hands and press your right hip away from you. Pull, pull, switch your legs. Left height pulls away from you. Pull, pull, scissor, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Cool. Flex your feet. Keep going.

Po Po Po po po po po po po Po. Both likes come up Ben. Head down. Shoulders down, feet on the mat. Stretch your arms over your head, clasp your thumbs and pull the arms apart just to open. And now place your hands behind your head. Hands behind your head and open your elbows wide apart. Pull the stomach muscles in and press your sit bones into the mat.

Bring the knees to your chest. Curl your head and chest up. Elbows. Why? Yes Tim. Stretch your legs to the ceiling and connect the legs to the powerhouse. Float the legs away from you long, long, long. Bring them up fast and float. Float flow.

Bring them up fast. Float, float, float. Bring them up. Fast. Float, float, float. Bring them up fast. More time. Float flow. Flow up fast. Bend the knees. Put your feet on the mat. Bring your arms down by your sides. Now curl up just the way you did before 400 pulled a shoe that fingers towards your feet. Lift a little bit higher. Come down a bit. Lift.

Come down, lift, come down. Lift. So you're contracting strongly in the chest. Lift and lift and lift and lift. Lower down. This is the start to prepare you for crisscross. Now bring the hands so the diagonal angle just in line with your size.

Take your left hand on top of your right hand. Take the hands and point them to the outside of your right leg and curl up so you're on this diagonal and both shoulders should be off the mat, off the mat. That's a no lift high are one and Pote Cube and three and four and five and six and seven and eight and nine and 10. Lower Dow hands in the middle, right hand on top. Point the hands to the left.

See if you can lift up enough to get both shoulders off the mat. And here we go. One and two and three and four and five and six and seven and eight and nine and 10 lower all the way down. Okay. Did you feel that? So you're preparing the obliques now because we're going to start getting more and more into criss cross. So arms stretched over your head and stretch both legs out. Nice, nice, nice, long stretch.

And then roll up to a sitting position. Tim, Bend your knees if you need to to come back up and open your legs a little bit wider than your own map for spine. Stretch forward, arms in front of you. Big Lift. In the chest. Shoulders down. Yes. Take a deep breath in and then lift up the powerhouses. You dive your head down between your arms. Go a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper, but pull back in the stomach and then back yourself. Up, up, up, up, shoulders, down, and lift up. We talk. Do you know what? Put your hands on your hips.

Lift up just the way we did at the beginning of class, even more. Sandy. See if you can. You know what? Let's have you all bend your knees. Bend your knees, put your hands here and lift up again. That's better, Tim. That's a sandy. Lift up even more. Now try to get even more lift in the waist and then dive your head down. Let the shoulders come up right now and try and curl in on.

Taking your nose towards your belly button and then back. Lift your chest and push down to get a little taller and your upper body again. Take a breath Korean and then curl in. Curl in, curl and rounding your upper back and then roll back and lift. Now extend the legs, but keep them soft. One more time, lift up and then curl in. Curl in, curl in, and [inaudible] roll back up. Roll back up to live. Now. Hands on the mat, Tim.

A little bit wider with your feet wider than your mat. Yes. Big Lift in the waist and then start to crawl your hand for two. Now it's more of a [inaudible] Longreach that your background and pull the stomach in. Hold this position, take a breath in and lift up and you're between the shoulder blade and then breathe out and go a little deeper. We then in lift up and your shoulder blades breathe out and go a little bit deeper and then come back back to an upright position. Good.

Bend your feet and hold behind your knees for open leg. Drop Sandi, open the knees. Open the knees. Yes. See if you can balance now. Right leg goes up and bring it down. Oh, left eye goes up. You haven't been doing this awhile, Megan and right, like and and left leg. And then not see if you can take both legs and really scooped the belly and back. And again, lift.

Now bring your legs together. [inaudible] bring them back out. Take them down. So we're doing a nice little bit of choreography. Keep the scoop, take your legs out, bring them together, take them back out and bring them down. And one more time. Bring them out, bring them together, take them out and bring them down. Very good. And then roll back down on your backs and set yourselves up with a nice length through it, through your neck for corkscrew.

So bring your knees into your chats, make sure your sit bones are nicely grounded, and then extend the legs up over your hips. But no further than that. And just draw a small circle today. Small Circle massaging your sacred. Reverse a circle and reverse a circle and reverse a circle and reverse a circle. Brenda legs in. Give them a little bit of a hug and roll back up to a sitting position for saw.

Flex your feet, stretch your arms out to the side and lift way, way, way. Now take your right hand and bring it down and back. With the palm facing up and the left hand forward and reach towards your little [inaudible] to reach, reach, reach, and come up. Left-Hand goes down and back and go to the right foot. Reach, reach, reach, sh, and come up. Let's have the hands here. Twist to the right. Take your left elbow to your right, me, and we chit and reach it and reach it.

Sit up tall. Flex your feet, twist to the other side and reach and reach and reach and lift. Pull the stomach up for side again. Flex your feet, reach, reach, reach and up. And one more time. Other side which reach, reach and up. And then bring your legs back for one more. Rolling like a ball. You can either hold your shins whole behind your knees. Either way works, elbows are wide, shoulders are down, and then just start to roll back and forth. Find your own rhythm.

Now just massaging. You want to just massage your spine just back and forth. Not, it doesn't matter if you're too perfect or not. You just want to get that spine to be lubricated. Really feel the pressure across either side of the spine. Very, very good. And one more time rolling back and up and then put your feet on the map.

And that was excellent. Thank you very much.

Comments

2 people like this.
Excellent cues! Great class! Thank you:)
1 person likes this.
Had a sore body from long plane rides and this class was exactly what i needed! Stretched out and centered...thank you Niedra!
This is exactly the easy class I needed for the first day of my period when I am feeling drained.
Niedra, thanks for always being so clear with your cues. You have such a sweet personality too. I love your classes!
Thank you, Niedra,here from bordeaux, only had time for the 30 minutes but just did the job. Candida
Notme
Loved the simplicity of excercises. Great for starting out. Found some of the cueing difficult and would have liked more reminders about keeping my core on. Thank you.
Niedra Gabriel
Thank you Karen, I always appreciate reading what ever you and others post. if you read this please clarify what you found difficult? I like to make my cues VERY understandable and applicable so you tweaked my curiosity.
Lorie H
1 person likes this.
Sore gardening body and this provided exactly what my back needed. I'm a power Pilates instructor and enjoyed the clear instructions and variations. Thanks Niedra.
Niedra Gabriel
Nice to meet you Lorie, always nice to meet a fellow teacher from the same lineage. Gardening is good for the soul, so you probably have a wonderful garden.
Thank you, Niedra! Great, clear workout.
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