Class #3013

Day 4: Energize

30 min - Class
157 likes

Description

Welcome to Day 4! Kristi begins to add more challenging movements so you can start to wake up the muscles in your body. She starts standing so that you can use gravity and ground reaction force to energize your body. She encourages you to notice how you are working in your space so that you can get as much as you can out of each movement.
What You'll Need: Mat, Theraband

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Transcript

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Hi everybody. It's day four and again we're here. We stood up for ourselves and so we're going to stay standing today. I am using a theraband again a little more than last time. So go ahead and grab that now if you haven't, if you don't have it, a towel could work and honestly you could do pretty much most of what I'm going to do without one at all. But if you have one, it does add to the experience. Feel your feet, feel your bones, feel, just feel, just notice, feel might not be the right word. But here we are and that's the truth. So I like to kind of Shimmy around a little cause I didn't really never quite know I have a plan but I never quite know what I'm going to need or what I'm going to want to offer from my body. And in this case yours as well.

So I'm just shifting my weight. I'm noticing if I'm rolling from side to side and that kind of stuff does have its effects throughout the day. So there we are and you know the standing roll down, I'll stay here. I've got the band laid out. Mine is actually a lot longer than it looks. I've actually folded it in half because when we get going, I just want to be able to hold it a little wider than my, my hips, my shoulders even. So we can adjust that when we get there either.

You don't have to set it up in any special way from here. Just be on your feet and then lift up off them. There's gravity coming down on us, but guess what? There's ground force reaction that supports us the other way too. It's not ever one way. We don't ever use one body part. So here we are.

Turn your arms out, palms away, biceps away, elbows away. Pick up some energy. You're rooted into the ground, but what else can you get from up there? There's some form of an inhale. Push down against it. Go with gravity, but notice how you can also rise up against it. I'm not going to say anything else because I'll ruin it for you. Inhale, look for some space.

[inaudible] just one more. Oh, reach part. Reach for it. When you come down. Arms about shoulder height, let your head go down. You're doing that standing rolled down. Yeah, and you know it just round forward. Bend the knees if you need to. I do. Still, not always, but certainly. Now stay here. Hands on the floor. Inhale, bend your knees. I'm going to turn just for the sake of [inaudible]. If you do look sideways, bend the knees, but make it come from the spine so your spine is rounding, not just you dropping lower. Exhale, straighten the legs. To the extent that your body is willing to let you without tension. Inhale, bend again. Pull the whole pelvis with. It's not just the knee joint, it's a little subtle stretch. Exhale. Try to straighten just one more. Inhale, bend. Exhale, go to almost legs. You can use your hands on your shins.

Let them help you as we're rolling up or just tucking the pelvis under. Rounding up. Notice how few push your hands into your thighs, your hips, whatever it's touching. You can create resistance for the back of the body. Nothing is alone. That's how this works. The more you get used to it, the quicker the workouts are. We're going to roll that one more time and this next time we're going to pick up the band, so make sure it's near you in yellow. Turn the arms out, brings them energy into your body. Stretch out however you want. Push down, but rise up and then when it feels right, yeah, lower your head. You lower your upper back. Your arms are just there.

Find your band if you have to look, do otherwise, just feel for it. Ben, Johnny's a little, I've got the band in my hands pretty wide. I'm not, I haven't done anything else. I just held onto it, but as I've been my knees, I'm ever so slightly pulling the band, my hands to the side. Just look and feel that connection. Start to straighten the legs. Nothing else happens. We're doing two more, just like before. Inhale, bend, maybe a tiny bit more resistance on the band. Not a lot. We're not working the arms, we're just feeling it or feeling ourselves in relation to it or self in relationship to ground. Last one in the bend, in the straight and of the knees. Drop your head when you've gone to as straight as your knees will allow with comfort.

You're either going to roll up straight from there, bringing the band with you, or you might need to bring your hands to your shins and roll at that way, or you could just slide the band up. Either way, it's just come on up. Get up here. From there, we're just going to warm up a little bit more through the shoulders and to do that, so the grip, there's nothing precise about it other than we want to have a sense of that. It's taught, I'm not pulling, I'll pull later, but it's taught, it's not there and I don't want to have to Redo that all the time. There's just a subtle sense. All right, from there with your body flat to the front, flat to the back, meaning you're not arching, you're not dropping into any of those drinks.

You're just raising their arms. It's, it's really nothing and notice that I'm barely pulling on the band. Again. If you can go straight overhead, that would be really great. If you have to stop because it forces something else to happen, you have to stop, right? That's just how it works. Do a few of those, but what you can do, remember that sense of gravity, ground force reaction, whether you know what I mean by it or not doesn't matter, but what you could do is push the whole arm through the air as if the air were more of a solid or a thick solid. You're pushing up. I'm not working so hard. I get that, but now I'm going to come down. I'm going to push down just just as hard. It's not about the band, it's never about the band. It's about what? How am I working in my space?

Just one more. It's more or less a warmup of the shoulder joint. Okay. We're going back up. We're going to keep it there. I'm going to face you for this piece of it, but your feet together pretty close. If you struggle with balance issues, you can keep them apart a little bit. I'm going to, I am going to keep mine over part a tiny bit with your arms overhead to the extent that you can make sure there's nothing in your back. If if you are going for the arm position and your back hurts, bring your hips back under your ribs and let your arms be forward. That's okay. That's better than the other option. From here, nothing happens. Well a lot's going to happen. Nothing happens with the hips.

Just pick up the ribs. You're pouring the ribs out directly to the side and I'm taking my time because it's not always easy to know are you turning the ribs? Are you arching? No. You're stopping short of it and you're checking things out and it's like, okay, I got it. Other side, but you're also not leaning yet. Let's do few of those.

You're knowing that you have some sense of control from upper and lower body. That's all. And from side to side and you're noticing those differences. Maybe only one more like that. I kinda think of reaching like a big stretch through here to the lat through the shoulder, really lifting through there now. Then do the same thing as a start. Remember, you still have that top band from there. You hold that, but you let your hips go. The arms aren't doing much other than accommodating.

You see, don't fall over. Push in. Both feet are flat. That might be key. So you know, rollout them right? Both feet flat. Look towards your hand. Then to get out of it, push the hips back to the center to come up. Okay, let's start just again with the ribs. You lift up, pour out like you're pouring water or something. And then like the wind just kicked up and you slide over. Up Chick feet. Don't roll out on them.

Push the hips back to center to lift up a little bit faster. Now start the same, lift poor and then oh and it can feel good. So I'll quit queuing. You just find a sequence that is keeping twisted. I twisted. Oh Man, now I know why when I untwisted I felt the metal stretch. And if you can kind of start to blend it for the last two like that.

So just sort of as you go lean out. And I would encourage you to push the hip think hips to get you back up. A little less straining. Let's do one more thing for fun over. Same thing. Hold it there. When you get there, that lower arm pulls down, the upper arm doesn't change. Bring it back up, then lift back to center, reach it over, slide over it from the arm pit. Sort of press down. If your band is doubled, it's going to be heavy and you can undo it or you can try.

We're not doing a lot. Slide over. Do your best to keep your feet level. Once you're there, that lower hand goes down, not from the hand, but from somewhere in that upper arm. Or are you even armpit or lat? Probably what most people wish I would say. And and at that really it's just get there, move it. What can you do? Find that less side or right side. In this case of your body, find the left side of your body and come up. Stay here and let it down. I feel it a little bit kind of a lot actually, if I'm honest. All right, let's, we'll come back to something there.

But now where you're going into more of a warm up for the legs, there's some equipment work we're not going to do. I'm going to stay on the map for this challenge, but we're going to pretend more on equipment and do some foot and leg work. I'm going to keep the band. I think I like it heavy like this. That last one was tough. So change it next time. If you repeat and we're gonna sit down, sort of forget the arms for just a moment. That, and maybe just get him out of your way.

Your weight for this leg work is more on your hips, I'm sorry. More on your heels then forward. Right. We don't want to Jut the knees forward and let the heels come up and everyone will have a different way of doing that. So for me, having to do with proportions that don't need explaining, you just, I'm going to sit back. Most of my weights in my heels, my toes can lift up. This is what it looks like on me for you. If you've got longer legs or lots of other things, as long as you don't get the knees forward, it might mean you have to jet your body with a little more forward. Right. So if if you stick to the, I can wiggle my toes part will probably be okay.

All right. With that in mind, arms down rested, but the strap is slightly taught. We go, we just sit back, wait more toward the heels. The arms just come up like we did before. With that resistance upwards and down, we stand up, we push into the feet and we also pull the band backwards so we get the back of the body involved. Ready? Here we go. Inhale. I'm working this way, XL, I'm working way. Inhale, I'm pushing up as I sit, I'm exhaling and feeling how tall I am as my back works to hold me up there. Press. If you have to adjust the band from more tension, pause and do it, make it work. But basically upper body is stationary with the exception of the arms, but even their straight, let's go a little quicker for you.

You push up as you sit down. Inhale, exhale, stretch. You can tighten anything you want. I would encourage you to think of driving the heels through the floor for a few. Yes. Work the triceps in the back of the arms and the back. Be Mindful that you're not going into any kind of arching or changing of the spine. We'll do five more. Here we go.

One per, I'm going to close my grip because I'm warmer now. I want more work. Number three, press. Here's four. Pushing up as I push down. One more time. Five. I'm staying up and I know it didn't look like it, but I really am pressing back and I'm trying not to roll my shoulders forward. So should you keep those collarbones wide arms down. Um, I got resistance.

That's all I need. From there I press into I my upper arms back as I arise up on the toes. One I got to lighten up. I won't be able to breathe down. Exhale to find your balance theory down. Feel the back of your body, fall down. Can you do this same thing with a little less emphasis on the hands and feet?

Yes. Is the answer. Try. Okay. I'm still going if you're not watching this good cause you got to focus, don't you? I'm rolling around on my feet though. I wish I didn't do that but I have to. I want to be upright and I liked that. My brain knows how to do it so I'm happy. I'm okay with it. I hope you are.

If you are rolling then you kind of tried to moderate it. Oh we can do one more. I'm going up and down one more time. Um hmm. I've stayed turned sideways cause we're going back to that position. Sit down again. Check your knees right. If you need to lean more forward, you can. It's going to be harder on this one. So sorry. But if you can sit lower and have your toes up, great. From here, abs are in a little and all that means is there some sense of, hmm, like of course, sit on, raise the arms as much by the ears as you can.

Ring the band and arms down to your knees, pull back again. You can almost push your knees into my heart rates even up and we're not hardly moving our way. Yes we are. We're moving energy. Paul. Inhale, arms up. If you can say there's so much back work in this. I know the legs are working. If it's too much, the straighten that your legs a little and I'll give us a break but not for five more. Here we go. In help up and down.

You could alternate a lifting and a lowering of the legs, but we're not [inaudible]. Oh, I don't know. I think three, four. I still have that constant inherit five. We got it for Reston dear, like stand up and let go of the bat and don't let go, but let it be light. Easy to work out quickly from we're not done. We're going back almost the same thing, but this time as we sit we raise the arms one.

Exhale up, pull back. That was still one years too. Only five. Okay. Thirdly, be kind to your knees. You could do this with just a subtle hinge forward as well. Last one. But guess what? We're going to stay down there when we get there.

So here it is from there. Again, we're not pulling hard to the side. We're just keeping it taut. Check your shoulders, get him back down. Then from there it's a pull back back from wherever you were. If you need to stand up and hinge, fold a little. That's okay too. It could even be done on your knees, but not now cause we're almost done.

So for next time I'm going to go lower. Can you, would you like me to tell you how many more for three hinge forward. If you've got it in you long neck. Last one, let the arms come down. Maybe put them above your knees. Really support yourself raw up. Okay, no big deal. Let's, uh, I told you there was one more. So we'll do that. I'm going to, and actually I don't need to unwrap them.

This one is a little more of the band ends up be more support than work. So I'm gonna leave mine kind of heavy. I'm not going to do any crazy arm work, but we are going to do a little bit more aside. Oblique side body work. Everybody was seems to want that. Everybody. I want that. That's what I'm doing and I'm glad you're with me doing it. Stand wide. [inaudible] and I can just check it out like what's going on with your body?

Do you stand in and out? This stuff matters when you're recommitting to how you feel in your body and it's worth kind of evening it out. Big Tote, a little toe. Why not stay that way? Bit Try. What does what happens through the inner thigh all the way up are the hips level as opposed to anything else? Things to think about. Especially on something like this. We raise the arms up, wide knit if you need to, but that's all they're gonna do.

And then life before only the hips won't move on. This one you're going to side bend again. It shouldn't hurt if you're, if you're overly rotating up toward the ceiling, it will hurt and probably the other way too. You're in between two plates of glass. Exhale come up. I won't leave you that long except for once more on this side. Cause you know, sometimes we act like symmetry matters. Okay?

I mean inhale, exhale up. [inaudible] now flow with it, but there's no doubt there's a stretch happening each time. When I'm here I'm, I'm anchoring with that left foot into the ground before I come up. My right foot is into the ground so I know what's happening. I can be anything happening up top. Keep going. Let's do six more. One and two and up. It's not a down.

I know it looks down, but you're really reaching out to the side that way or even up. If you don't bend, that's okay too. Oh this must be the last one. That might've been eight but anyway, here we are. [inaudible] and just for fun, drop the shoulders first. But this is a tricky thing. It's going to sound boring, but I challenge, I'm challenging me.

When you bend your elbows there not to go behind you. You see, right. So you try to keep the van right above you. The elbows come straight down there, the rest ride over the elbows and the shoulders are down. You'd barely touched the head. You pushed back up like you're pushing the ceiling away. I don't really care how you stand if you're sick of standing with your feet wide, but it's kind of easier. The whole thing starts at the shoulder blades.

They pull down and somewhere in here, most of us want to tip. If you don't be careful, but you could also encourage the elbows more forward. That would be it. Right? And then imagine it's heavy not by tightening your hands. That's why I have them open. That's my reminder. You don't want to take your hands. He's got nothing to do with the band. It's what the mechanics of my body can do. Last one, inhale Ben, long neck.

Exhale up and let it come down. Let's go to our maths for just a few exercises. Finished off the side and back and we'll be done. So come on down to your mat. We have the therabands still nearby. I'm gonna start us on one end. It's all planned out so we can end up with it down there, so leave it on the far end of yourself.

Lie down onto your forearm and elbow. We'll do a few single leg kicks, you know them, practice them. We're going to do it with a double beat, which we started to introduce last time. Main thing for now. Find stability so that you can find freedom and sometimes it's just a tiny bit of stability that allows you to move so much more. Key things lifted away from the floor. The elbow, if you get too far out, it's just harder and not that good for you.

Solid underneath you lift that top leg, look at it. The kneecap faces. The front straight ahead is not pointed up to the ceiling, right? Preferably not to the floor. Either. Do your best to keep it straight ahead. Support Yourself, kick it forward twice. Kick, kick point the foot kickback back twice, twice. Rather get there on the first one and then maybe you get a second pulse out of it.

It's not about seeing the range and I want my inhaling and key things. Basically your body stays still, but get that leg behind you. If you want to keep walking, get it behind you and then you don't move a whole lot of pier. You got to move some and later we're going to get free with it. But let's make sure we can do it without do two more. Kick, kick back, back. Don't worry about the range, stay back there. Love it.

Bring it to the side. There was a difference, right? Put It on the ground. Move away from your Theravent if you're on it. Same position. And what we're gonna do here is start challenging more of that side action. Pull that bottom foot underneath. You. Just slide it underneath you. You're gonna use this bottom leg.

We're gonna lift up and actually you're going to want to pull it back a little so that the knee lines up just under the hip. All right, so the back foot is still down. Mine isn't cause I'm on a high map, but yours is on the floor, however it's comfortable. And then from there you lift out of that shoulder, you reach the arm. So most of the weight is on bent knee or Shin, not just the knee with the Shin, but my energy is trying to work from the waist. So I'm really trying to lift from underneath. Stretch the top side. Fair enough. Come down just for today to a straight line, which is not the easy way to do it, but here we are from under the underside, not the leg so much.

You lift the waist, you lift the waist. Yes, that arm is working. If you've now found your elbows too far away from you, pull it underneath you. Okay? But keep in mind you've got to go back down again to a straight line. Hopefully lift again up, up, up. It feels sometimes good.

Now that you know the position to look down when you're there, don't turn your body. Just your head. Come back and straighten. Now last one, lift up, push into the shin. It's okay. We don't really need this leg, but we will later. So I want you to know where that goes. Come back and all the way down. No big deal.

Switch around to the other side on your elbow. For the sidekick. Elba. Basically underneath, if you air on one side, maybe a little out from underneath you check your hips. Each side is different. Even though it doesn't seem like it should be. You've reached, we kick forward, kick, kick em back. Inhaling forward, exhaling back, mix it up. If it doesn't work for you, try not to over control it. I do it. It kind of stays still in the middle for now, but that's just so you can feel that difference, right? It's way up there. It's already for back bends a little. Just don't go flying around.

Know the difference of what's happening in the upper and lower body. We're doing three more starting now. It's one one back behind you. You know the rules. Oh, and by the way, you can't bend it when it's back there. You should look on this last one. Hold it there. Look at it. Is it bent? I surprised it was bent because you feel your hamstring when it's bent.

You want to feel where the hamstring meets your butt straight into like more. Even if it's straight, just do it. Pushed back further. Feel how much more your glute works as good for us. From there, bringing the leg to the side, put it down, know that it will work harder later. So pay attention to where it is we're helping ourselves cause we're already ready on this underside, right when I just chill it, we're ready. We pick up the knee to pull it back.

I'm more on the side of the knee and the Shin and baby foot than anything. There we go. And from under the waist we lift up, make a rainbow or whatever. Just channeled new on my work. I think something under there or whatever. Lift, lift, lift. And sometimes, because this is a modification, I feel like I want to bring my elbow tiny bit closer. Some actually instead of doing that and I'm just going to move over it a little more, lift up on and I can really feel that underside waste, we have one to go lift.

And I noticed that turning my head cause it does feel better and when you get used to it, just know to do that. And so it ends up later. Come on down. All right, we're going face down. This'll be it. You can do this without a band very easily. I'd like the band cause it kind of serves a lot of purposes, which I'll spare you take it behind your back and just hold on a stand up just to show it to you. I'm taking it behind my back a little wider than my hips.

I don't care where on the band you hold. Then what's going to have I go a little wider so that you can either come in easily like just putting your hands together or maybe you could even wrap. Mine's already double reps. That's going to be, that's right. That's right. Sorry I wrapped it and that's more or less. But I want my hands close. So that's the position I'm going to be in when I go down.

I'm going to bring my hands up as high as they can and drop the elbows and then all we're gonna do from there is stretch our upper backs and I'll be straightening my arms with a subtle pull to the side. Okay. If your band is loose, it's not about the band. Don't go so wide that it turns into something else. We're really trying to get this action here, this action here. Okay. It, I can't lay down like that so I'll meet you back on the mat. Grab your mat. I mean Vande grab your band.

I am going to go really wide cause I rather wrap just once so it's around my hand. I don't have to grip my hands so much and then I'm looking at the floor. My feet honestly are not totally together. Supposedly could be and maybe should be eventually but I'm not worried about it at all. I wouldn't worry about it but I would consider pulling the abdominals off the mat and all you really have to do with that is stay low and maybe exhale and feel what that is to feel some strength in not even strength, just some support from below. My legs are stretched long now I have space.

If you can see that I have space between my hands, I'm going to choke up on it. I'm not going to wrap again cause that'll be way too hard in a minute. I'm just going to choke up on it so my hands are closer together. I'm gonna bring my hands up as high on my back as possible. Forehead is down. Here's the fun part. Do it.

Slow elbows down. And for somebody that's like walk in the park and for some of you that's like, she must be crazy. Do what you can. Don't hurt yourself. Keep those abs helping. Are you ready at that? You're so ready. Feet on the floor. All we're doing is looking forward. Remember this from last time. Look forward. You're curious and ostrich. The arms. Oh, there's a fire. There's a fire in Santa Barbara.

Okay. Starting over. You've choked up now. Just like before, you're curious. You look forward as you look forward. Start to straighten your arms. I'm not doing anything special with them just yet. I'm just straightening and my hands are coming apart. Naturally.

When I get to the height that I can, I'm lightly pulling the band apart, meaning my hands apart and up. Work those posterior delts, work that, all of it really. Then you come back down. Then the elbows bring the hands up high. Now to make this more comfortable and more like the actual exercise, it becomes your turn your face to one side and set it down. Okay. This is just pieces, but it's all good. Inhale, exhale, extend your arms, look down, lift your back, pull the arms apart and maybe a little bit up.

If you fill your low back, check to see if your pubic bone could be into the mat a little bit more. As you bend the elbows, turn your face the other way. Bring your hands close together. It doesn't matter if the band is loose here. Okay, you've exhaled. Inhale and come back up. Exhale where it works. Email where it works.

I have to keep changing it so I'm just going to do what I do when I do it that way and come on down. I'm inhaling down. Can you get your elbows all the way down and exhale up. [inaudible] it's not about the height of the back, it's more about length one, more like that. Stay here. I'm going to, if you're looking forward, look down a little but maybe a few inches out in front of you. Just a few inches or centimeters, whatever.

And now just a little lift from there. A little lift to my band is taught. I'm not pulling on it more on just lifting three, five, four, two more one that'll do to let the band go. Get it out of your way. Put your head down. Take a moment just there and let you, but go. Maybe she me side to side because you get to start acknowledging you're done.

You did it day four, you got this, we got this. All right. Help yourself up carefully into around his position. Okay, and I'm going to end like we started. You can stay right here and just breathe and be happy for what you've done. You've the time you took for yourself.

Oh, but I'm going to stand and reassess. So maybe roll yourself up. Okay. Turn the arms out. Pick up that energy you didn't get in in the movement. Okay.

Or take all that energy that was there that you don't want and get rid of it. I can't really get rid of it and make it go [inaudible]. Next one will roll down and be really done in how pickup, energize, lift yourself up, sort of how it works, I think. Okay. Yeah. When the arms get where it feels right, let your head go and then you just kind of let go.

But your know that you're supported by gravity, but ground force reaction by the muscles. You just woke up by yourself however far you go. Bend your knees, hands to thighs or wherever, wherever it feels right. Roll up, stand tall, rooted back in the ground space between all those parts that we sometimes forget about. I will see you on day five comeback. There's more.

Spring Mat Challenge: with Kristi Cooper

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Comments

1 person likes this.
Great start to the day. Loved the class! Loving the challenge :) Thank you Kristi
2 people like this.
Day 4: check! Haven't done a standing class in awhile, so it WAS energizing! Thank you, Kristi.; -)
1 person likes this.
Thankyou :)
Stephiney G
1 person likes this.
Side stretches were exactly what I needed today! Thank you!
Lori
3 people like this.
My favorite so far and your cueing always seemed to catch me doing what you were correcting. I especially liked your cue for the side leg lifts, just a subtle shift made them a lot easier for me. I also did an Elizabeth Larkham foot class today and noticed how much more balance I had doing this class Thanks!
3 people like this.
Cannot believe this was 30 minutes, it felt so nice and ended so fast!
3 people like this.
I loved when you said "I'm not worried about it… At all"! Because sometimes we just have to honor what our body will and will not do.
I'm a couple days behind, and sitill committed. The theraband warmed my shoulders up beautifully and I discovered some uncomfotabity I havent felt in a while. I always feel better with renewed energy after the workout.
Thank you
1 person likes this.
Another great class!
So glad you're all still with me. Looking forward to the next few classes with you!
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