Class #779

BOSU® Mat Fusion

30 min - Class
249 likes

Description

Erika Quest joins Pilates Anytime with this level 1/2 Mat class utilizing the BOSU® Trainer. This class is designed to get you familiar with working on the BOSU while doing basic Pilates moves. If you're just starting Pilates or a pro who would like a different take on tradition, you'll enjoy the energy and variety of this class.

The BOSU® can be substituted for a small stability ball or baby arc in various places. You can also do the majority of the class with no BOSU® at all.

What You'll Need: Mat, BOSU®

About This Video

Jul 23, 2012
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Transcript

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Hello [inaudible] anytime. Welcome. This is Erica ques. Thanks for taking my Bosu class. We're going to go through an introduction to the boasty balanced trainer and this is going to be about a level one two for you to get familiar with the product. And if you don't have one of these guys, don't panic. Just simply omit the prop from your mat routine. You can certainly do this with your feet on the floor and or with a small stability ball or an arc as needed.

So I'm here with Bridgette and Meredith Meredith today. So let's go ahead and get started. What I'm going to have you do is come and lie down onto your mat. There are going to be times where we may have to make minor adjustments here. We may be off our mat. If that bothers you at all, you can certainly slow down a little bit and adjust your boasts you accordingly.

You're going to lie down supine with your feet up on the apex of your Bosu Dome. And of course we want to in a parallel hip width, distance apart stance. Just like in Palladia, if you had your feet down on the floor, arms are nice and relaxed down by your sides and you're in a nice neutral spine position. So the natural curvature of your bony structure is imprinted on the mat. From here, take an inhale to prepare on an exhale.

All I want you to do is tuck the pelvis, scoop in hollow. Don't go any further to where you've smashed that imaginary grape with your lower back muscles into imprint. Inhale, roll the tailbone back into neutral and exhale you go again. So as we're going through this today, you're going to feel some different feedback with the Bosu Dome and the balanced trainer and how it just changes things for your neuromuscular system and it's a lot of fun. So just have fun with it. Exhale, tuck that pelvis, mash that imaginary grape, decompress the lower back, and inhale, roll the tailbone back into its neutral state. Two more of these, and then we'll start to roll up into the pelvic curl. So exhale, you tuck and inhale, you link them back down, dropping the tailbone onto the mat. And the last one.

Exhale, scoop and hall low. So now I want you to stay in that imprinted state and really try and Tuck a little bit further. Take another inhale here and exhale. Slowly begin to curl the spine up off of the mat into the pelvic curl and up onto the shoulder girdle. Only. Go to as far as you can go here at the top. Inhale, pause, and exhale. You roll all the way down. Imprinting bone by bone, by bone, each and every vertebra.

You want to find each vertebra as you're articulating through the spine. Again, exhale, tuck that pelvis and roll all the way up. Get a little hip extension at the top here if you can, but don't decompress the lower back. Inhale and exhale. Pull the tummy down into the spinal column blanketing each and every Vertebra as you articulate down and through all the way down into neutral. Now, some friendly reminders here. I want you to focus on weighting each foot equally. Even though you have your feet on a dome surface, rolling up. Inhale, pause and exhale, roll down, and I want you to really focus on keeping your arms relaxed and as you're doing these checking on your system, is there an area of your spine that may feel a little bit tighter that you might want to focus on for the next 30 minutes? Good.

Inhale and exhale you roll. We're going to do one more of these pelvic curls and we're going to stay lifted at the top. So inhale and exhale. Tip the pubic bone, tuck that pelvis, smashed your grape, and then continue to peel the spine up at the top here. Let's start some hip dips. So you're in the inhale. Release your right gluteal and hamstring. Let that right hip lower down slightly, and then exhale, engage it, push it back up. Inhale, the left hip goes down and exhale, push up.

So you're just finding that subtle rotation around the mid thoracic spine here. Inhale, release the left Tush and exhale, push up, engage it. Good. Last four and push lasts three and press right glute releases and press and left glute releases and press holding at the top. We're going to hold here for a little bit of marching. Inhale, lift your right knee up into tabletop. Exhale, you lower it down.

Transfer to the left side. Inhale the left leg lifts. Exhale, place it down. Good and the right leg lifts and exhale, trying to keep your hips nice and stable, flat facing the ceiling as best as you can. Inhale, the right leg lifts and pressed down and the left leg. Good and press two more. Inhale, the right knee comes up, place that foot down and the left knee comes up. Good readjusting here at the top, even out those hips. Take an inhale. Exhale, slowly roll all the way down. Enjoying that nice wave of your spinal column through imprint and all the way down into the neutral pelvis position. Ticking the arms up to the ceiling, palms of the hands, face towards each other. Let's just open up your shoulder girdle here a little bit. Inhale, you're going to open the arms out to the chief position.

Hovering the backs of the hands up off of the floor by about an inch. Exhale, press that nice thick air back in between the hands. Good. Again, inhale, you open, stretch across that chest, and exhale, press. Remember, these are active movements here. You're really pushing that air out and squeezing nice thick marshmallow cream in between the hands. Two more. Inhale, open and exhale. Don't lose that core. And last one. Inhale, hold here. Reach long through those fingertips. Stretches far outwards as you can, and then gently rest the backs of the hands down onto the floor.

So the shoulder girdle is externally rotated. I'm going to ask you to take your heels now and put them up onto the apex of your bow. Su. Pull your toes up towards your knee caps and squeeze your inner thighs together. We're going to do some spinal twist supine here. So inhale Tiffany's over towards the right side of the body, keeping the left shoulder reaching down.

Take that nice length around that thoracic spine. Exhale, blow into the transverse abdominis and draw the knees back to that center point. Inhale, tip to the other side. Now you can leave your face facing up to the ceiling if you'd like to, or you can get that bonus spiral by looking to the right, wide, the wall, the knees tip to the left. Exhale, draw back to that center point. Good. Inhale to the right with the knees, left shoulder reaches down, and exhale, awakening the transverse abdominis as you draw the knees back to center. Inhale to the left and exhale.

Good. Just two more of these. Inhale you tip. Keep that nice neutral pelvis here so that you're rolling across the back. Bony structure of the pelvis. And the last one here. Inhale, you tip and exhale. You pull good. I want you to roll over to one side and what we're gonna do is come on up to the seated position and I'm going to have you come and place your Tush on your Bosu, but you want it to not be all the way up on the apex, but you also don't want it to be all the way down on the floor if you're down on the floor. This is a perfect regression for the very beginner stage, but I'd like for you to try and be at least at the bottom concentric circle.

Now this is going to vary depending on your spinal link because the longer you are in your spine, the more cancelled lever you're going to be at. Back off of your boasts you in, the more challenging it's going to be for not only your abs, but also your lower back. So we don't want to Reese risk compressing your lower back here. We're going to start with some nice reaching just to feel the dynamic biofeedback of the Bosu, so at palms of the hands or shoulder with their arms or shoulder with distance apart, palms of the hands face towards each other on an inhale. But you're going to begin to roll back over your boast.

You coming to a nice long position here and exhale, blow into those abs and roll back up to your starting position. Good. Again, inhale, you roll back to breath pattern here and exhale. You roll back up. Staying slightly in a seeker of here at the top. Inhale, you roll back, not re restacking that spine cause we want to keep that beautiful circular energy. Good. Last two, inhale. Make sure that you're waiting each foot equally here, that your hips are staying square facing forward and last. And that's going to come into play even more as we go into some side reaching.

So from here you're going to inhale, rotate and lean back. Reach looking at those fingertips. Exhale, come back to your starting position. Other side. Inhale, rotate, reach, and exhale. Great. Inhale, rotate, reach and exhale. Good. Here's four. We're going to go to eight of these. Just really getting a hang of how this Bosu is going to impact us throughout the workout. Good. Last three, and exhale and what comes next is a little overhead reach and we're going to add a leg in here and when we add in that leg after this last one, I want you to really be mindful that as you're going into extension and flection of the knee, that you want to be using your obliques or your low abdominals to pull that leg back in. So inhale, stretch one leg out. As you reach back, take a nice big circle with the arms. Exhale, come back up to your starting position and draw the knee back in other side.

Inhale, extend out as you reach back. Exhale wide and around. Pull from all right here. Good inhale, you link them. Feel free to adjust yourself at any time on the Bosu if you need to. Sometimes your clothes get a little bit slippery. Sometimes we get a little bit hot and the Dome gets a little bit sweaty.

So you might want to have a towel nearby as well. Good for more of these. So inhale, we go back and exhale you both good last three and wide and around. Good. You're absolutely starting to get nice and warm. Now left to wide and around. Nice. Openness of the chest here and exhale wide and around. Great.

So now we're going to move out of your abs for a little bit and go into a bit of hips. So think of this as a nice supine sequence that you would oftentimes see done on an arch barrel or a spine corrector. So the best way to get into this is just to simply reach back behind you and slide yourself back. You want to bring your tush up on the apex of that boasts you dome and just slowly walk yourself down. And what you're going to find here is that you want to have your tush on or near the apex of the bow, pseudo home if you can. Okay, shoulder girdle is down, so pardon the adjustments there.

And then from here you want to make sure that the palms of the hands are cuddling onto the side of your Bosu and you're going to take the knees up into the tabletop position. From here, you're in a good position to then extend the legs all the way up to the ceiling. Spin the femoral bones inside the hips and externally rotate the hip sockets. Now want you to feel like you're power washing the ceiling with your big toes. Do you want that nice long link coming out of the big toes? We're going into scissors. So inhale, you're going to scissor and pulse. Pulse.

Exhale, come back to the top. Other side. Pulse, pulse, come back. Everyone's range of motion here is different because everyone has different functional elongation capabilities. So you want to be buying full that you do what works best for you. Reach, reach and back to center, reach, reach back to center. These are nice active movements with the legs. I want you to imagine that your legs are stuck in like a vat of garlic, mashed potatoes or something very, very thick or you're doing these underwater so that you can really get that sensation of activity through the legs.

Last four and then we're going to transition into some helicopter. Good. Just two more. Reach, reach and back to center and reach. Reach back to center. So let's do a scissors. So do what you just did and then exhale you're going to circle wide and around and all the way back through the mid line. Good. Reverse direction. Inhale, exhale, slide. And around and back to the centers. So we're taking a little bit of a challenging variation, switching directions between each repetition. Certainly if you'd like to, you can just stay in one direction and then switch to the other after you've done enough repetition. So this is four and back to center.

We're going to go to about 10 of these and then we'll start some openings and I want you to keep your pelvis nice and stable here. So there should be no rocking and rolling through the pelvis last three and around and last two are you really keeping those needs as straight as you comfortably can and last one wide and around and back to centers. Straight into some openings. So from here you're going to Dorsey, flex the feet and open, straight out. Exhale, point the toes and draw back to the ceiling. Good Dorsey flex reach, why point the toes and squeeze back. Good. Flex and reach point and press.

Good. Last two like this point and press last one. Flex and reach. Point and press. Now stay in a point and reach out on an inhale. Flex the feet and schoolies pointing at the top and reach on an inhale.

Flex and squeeze three more points and reach elects and squeeze plantar flex and reach Dorsey flex and squeeze. Last one. And reach and flex and squeeze. Point the toes, the top. And I want you to just hug those knees into your chest for just a moment. And what we're going to do from here is we're going to go into a little bit of a roll over and I'm going to ask you to do what works best for you. So take the legs back up to the ceiling, parallel with the fleet, the feet, and you're going to lower the legs down slightly on a diagonal.

On an inhale, come back up to that 90 degree angle. Exhale, use your abdominals to roll you over and you don't have to go into a full inversion here. You can go as far as you'd like to. We're going to take it over, flex the feet open out and reach down if you can. And exhale, pull the tummy into the spine. Keep those knees as straight as you can. Find the feedback of the Bosu assist here, pointing the toes at the ceiling, and then closing your loop back down again. Inhale to the ceiling. Exhale, roll over.

It's fine if you can only make it to that 45 degree angle, flex the feet open out, reach down, and exhale, pull the tummy in and roll. The great thing of having the Bosu underneath the Tush here, or an arc barrel as that it really offers some of your clients and assist to get into that rollover position. And exhale, you roll over, flex the feet, open out and reach down. And exhale, pull the tummy in and roll. Good. Let's do one more. Pointing the toes at the top. Close in your loop. Inhale to the ceiling. Exhale and use those abs to roll you over. Flex open, reach down, and exhale.

You roll. Good from here, point your toes back up at the top. Close your loop, finish the exercise, hug the knees back into the chest. And now I'm going to have us roll over to one side and we're just going to go ahead and come into a front support position. So you may want to move your boasts to a little bit closer to one end of your mat here because you may want that room. We're going to use the dome site up here.

So from here I want to do a bit of cat stretch before we go into a plank position. The best way to set yourself up is to really have a wider grab here on your dome. And what's great about this is that you can actually translate that load through your wrist, so you shouldn't get that out. Genus of that nice cranking down on or cranking down too much on your risk. Sproat from from here, stack the knees directly under the hip and I want you to bring the tail bone up to the ceiling slightly. On an exhale, you're going to curl the tailbone under, pull the tummy into the spine and the look in between those legs.

Just getting a nice stretch in length through the spine. Inhale, come back into an ice flat back position, and then slight extension here. Stretching out the middle back and exhale. Go again into fluxion eyes, gaze through those legs. Good. Inhale into a flat and then slightly slightly into extension. Good. Last one here. Exhale you around. Scoop in hollow and inhale into slight extension. Good. Come back into your nice flat back, set those shoulders in the lats down the back to get that Nice scapular stabilization. Now we're going to go into a nice modification on front support.

So I'm going to have you extend one leg out into a plank position, bring the opposite leg out and then bring one knee down and the other knee down. And then we're going to reverse direction. So extend one leg out the other leg out. Bring my knee down and the other knee down and reverse one leg out the other leg out, one knee down and the other knee down. When you come out into that nice plank position, you want to really feel the core activate there and use that slight posterior tuck of the pelvis should you need to support that. Lower back, one knee down and the other knee down.

Let's do two more of these and reach one knee down and the other knee down and last one and reach good one knee down and the other knee down. Sit back on those heels for just a moment. We're going to go into the full front support now. So from here, I'm going to have you come back out, find that nice stable shoulder girdle here, extend one leg out and the other leg out. And then from here you're just going to inhale, tap one knee to the floor and press up. Try not to move any of the rest of the body as you're doing this.

So you want to avoid this, right? Try and keep that pelvis nice and stable. Six and press good. Five, four, sorry to [inaudible] and one good. Take a break. Both knees come down, sit back in child's pose or shells. Stretch. Just for a moment. Good. And now from here we're going to use this guy and go into some spine stretch.

So I think I'm going to face you guys. So if you want, you can come on up to sitting. Now I do want you up on the apex of your dome and I'm going to have you extend your legs out, shoulder with distance apart. So for those of our clients or us that have tighter hamstrings and hip flexors, this is great because you have a lovely assist that's underneath you. And I want you to really be perched up on your sits bones. Arms are going to be reaching forward. Palms of the hands, face towards each other. Again, sitting up nice and tall, lifting as much as you can through the top of the crown of the head.

Take an inhale to prepare. Exhale, cruel. The Chin down to the chest. Pull the tummy into the spine. Begin to roll down, reaching over those toes. Inhale, pause, and exhale the tummy into the spine and roll all the way back. Restacking good again. Inhale and exhale. Curl the chin to the chest. Roll down and reaching over. Inhale, pause, and exhale. Tommy comes into the spine.

Shoulders are nice and low, sliding down the back and restack nice activities through those arms. Inhale and exhale. You go again, rural down and reach in hill. You pause at the bottom and exhale. Check in and make sure your knees are as straight as you can comfortably keep them. Yes, great. From here, palms at the hands. Rotate up. Take the arms out to the t position and bring those legs together.

Squeezing your inner thighs, connecting deep into the midline. Let's go into some spinal twists sitting. So inhale, prepare. Exhale. You okay. Now again, as you're doing this, you don't want that Shimmy of the hips. I'm showing you what not to do. So Watch Bridgette and Meredith cause they're showing you what to do, right?

So we're going for that lovely thoracic rotation, that oblique work that's spiraling up out of your head and not rotation. Good. Last four and three. And to reach long through those fingertips. And one good. So staying here, rotate the palms of the hands down for me. Sit Up nice and tall. So thinking about the shoulder girdle here, all I want you to do is just start to bounce the risks down and up. Let the breathing be natural here.

I want you to just think that you're floating your arms up and down and feel the feedback of the Bosu as you're doing this. So it feels like you're getting a little bit of bounce and I want you to try and control that bounce as you're heating up your shoulders. Good. So now into some forward circles with your nice big wide eagle wings. Is your core still activated and working? Are you sitting up as tall as you can? Are Your shoulders out of your ears?

Don't activate those upper traps for three. There's the train two and a one reverse for 10 good and nine eight, seven six, five, four. Nice ladies. Three, two and one holds here. Rotate the backs of the hands forward. Spread those fingers out. Feel how those fingers can stretch.

We're going into your Ron boys soldiers food should feel nice and warm. Exhale, press back. Okay. I really push that nice thick air behind you or that wall behind you is like 10 feet thick. Have pillows on it. Eight good. Seven and six. Nice. Five four. Sit up tall.

Three and two and one. Shake those arms. Good. And just roll your neck for just a moment. Just in case you took any undue tension in that region. And we're going to move into your lateral flection. So from here I'm going to have you flip onto one side.

You want to put your hip up onto or near the apex of the boasts you dome. Now 10 everybody's body is different here, so you're going to have your forearm down on the floor and I'm going to give you some options so you can either cradle that neck in your hand. If you feel like your, your neck is going to be two cantilevered off the end or you can keep your forearm down. It doesn't matter to me. So palm of the hand is going to be cuddling onto the frontier Bosu or you can have your arm reaching straight up to the ceiling. Okay, so now we're going to go into some nice side lifts and think about how you're working here because I want you to be as even as possible on the other side. If you're using your forearm, make sure your shoulder is stacked as best as you can above your elbow.

On an inhale, you're going to reach out long through your toes and lower down towards the floor. On an exhale you are up, right? So it's a side lift on the mat, but you're getting a little bit more extension here through the upper oh bleak because you have that link to lower down towards the floor here. Inhale, you lower and exhale you lift. But all the same mat work principles apply. Don't let these interior, oh bleaks some dour sink down at exhale you lift good. Last four and three and two. Nice and last one. Hold it here.

Just eight repetitions, up and down. Good. Exhale up and six. Find that balance. Five, keep the hips stacked. Tummy pulls into the spine. Last three and two. And the last one. Great job.

Go ahead and rest for a moment while you reset yourself facing the other direction. So again, this is what was kind of critical. We want you to be as even as possible here. And you're gonna set your hip as close as you could to the other side. Four arms down. If you like, opposite arm reaches to the ceiling, find that nice long line. Again, I'm in cuing you out of your toes. You want to reach the toes out as long as you can.

And then lower the legs towards the floor and exhale, arch up. Good. Inhale, resist that temptation to crunch on those upper obliques. Exhale, you lift and inhale, you lower. Good. And notice what's happening with your hip. Hop on that boasts. You don't do.

You have to stabilize with any other little stabilizing muscles that you may not be used to. Good. Five and four. Beautiful. Last three and lift last two and lift. And last one. Hold there. Give me those eight repetitions with the top leg only.

Exhale up. Inhale, lower seven. Good six. You got it. Last five, reach long through those toes and three working that abductor two and last one. Good job. Go ahead and rest for a moment and now we're going to go into some back extension. So the pelvis is going to come up near your apex of your Bosu. And I began, I say apex because everybody has a sweet spot here.

It's going to be basic back extension. So essentially if you're doing this right or you have your proper position, you should be able to glue the palms of the hands next to the thighs. How have the forehead and the feet on the floor to start and then take an inhale to prepare. Exhale, you push that pubic bone into the Bosu dome so that you can really feel that decompression of the lower back first and then arch up into basic back extension really floating up. So if you're in position, good, Bridgette. Yeah, married. If you want to move a Scotia forward or tiny bit forward and lift good and then hell, you lower it down and a gun adjusting your sweet spot here can really be within the confines of a quarter of an inch. So exhale you it and inhale you lower.

Think about your points of opposition here. I want you reaching long. We were the top of the crown of the head as you reach your fingers towards your feet. Good. Inhale and exhale. You good? Is there a particular side that maybe having to work a little harder to help you stabilize here? Last to go and lift and inhale lower and the last one and good. Hold there for a second. Can you open your arms out to the tee and hover them? Good.

Drop back down. Good. Inhale, open out to the T. Exhale, draw back down. One more. Inhale, you open, spread your wings, and exhale, squeeze and rescue all the way over your Bosu. Don't let the forehead rest on the floor. Let your knees rest on the floor. And I just want you to gently roll your pelvis back and forth over the apex of the Dome, allowing the lower back to decompress and relax. Good. And then just slowly, last thing to do, come on up to a seated position on the floor.

And I just like to do one lie back before we finish your sessions. So all I want you to do is just lie back over your bows to rest the neck and take the arms all the way out the t and relax. Feel the heart center, open the chest open and release any tension, any undue tension, rather, that you may have taken over the last 30 minutes or so. Good job. You're all done. Thank you.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Thank You Erika !!
Really love using props on the mat for a deeper connection and the Bosu is an amazing tool.
Great flow and cues :)
1 person likes this.
Great class Erika!!
1 person likes this.
Awesome! Thanks for another BOSU class.
Erika Quest
Thanks ladies! Loved teaching it and a nice way to warm up or cool down from the day! Much love.
1 person likes this.
Perfect introduction and great workout on the bosu!!!
Amy
1 person likes this.
Thank you! Can't wait for the next BOSU class!
1 person likes this.
Thanks Miss Erika! A pleasure as always :)
1 person likes this.
A wonderful instructor -- so clear. Thank you!
1 person likes this.
Nice intro Bosu workout! You rock Erika!
1 person likes this.
Loved the workout... just what i needed to get started again. THANKS!
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