Short and Sweet Mat

Hi, and welcome. My name is Lisa Hubbard. I am back for a mini ball work out. Thanks for being here today. So we're going to start standing in a parallel position.

And we're going to bring the ball in between our ankles. So place it above your ankles-- actually, yeah, between your ankles, just at the leg. So we're going to be in parallel in a neutral spine. And I will actually turn to the side. What we're going to do is we're going to start standing, drawing in the inner thighs, and working the external rotators, bringing your legs truly parallel.

So we're going to begin standing nice and tall, feet flat into the mat. Lengthen down the tailbone. Lift your abdominals. Soften the sternum. Open your shoulders.

Now, let's just go ahead and squeeze the ball in. So you're going to draw the legs in, spiraling your femur bones around. And feel the external rotators engage. And slowly release, just a little bit. And then externally drawing in-- actually, use your external rotators to pull the ball in, squeezing it.

Hold it here. We're going to go for a roll down, exhaling, keeping that squeeze in the ball, lifting up and over, reaching your arms down, relaxing your toes. Take your hands to the mat or to the floor. We're going to start a breath inhale here. And then I want to have you go into a flat back position, lengthening out.

It feels so great in the hamstrings. You're going to release. And let's just roll it up, keeping that wrapping sensation in the legs. Open your chest. We'll do two more.

Take a breath, inhale. Exhale, going up and over, keeping that wrap in the legs, squeezing the ball. Go all the way down. Take a breath here, reaching the crown of the head towards the floor. Let's start from the tailbone, low back, mid back, upper back, and feel that gorgeous stretch.

Release and take a breath. Roll it back up. Open the chest. We'll do one more. And we'll go inhale, exhale up and over, reaching your arms, lengthening down.

Inhale, hold Exhale, start to lengthen out into that flat back diagonal. Release. And squeeze the ball to roll up. Your inner thighs should be saying, hello. All right.

Take the ball. And we're going to place it on the mat. We're going to start in a supine position. We're going to do a pelvic series. So we're going to start, bringing the ball right under the sacrum.

It feels really nice. Bring your feet parallel and hip distance apart. We're going to start with pelvic tilt. So we're going to take a breath. We're going to exhale.

We're going to hollow the abdominal wall. We're going to reach the pubic bone up. You're going to release your tailbone towards the ceiling. And then bring it back to the neutral position. Exhale.

The pelvic floor engages. Hollow. Soften your sternum and ribs. Tuck your pelvis. Feel the hamstrings engage.

And then lengthen. Let's do five. Exhale in, tucking the pelvis. And bring it back to the neutral position. And last two-- inhale and neutral.

Exhale, drawing the abdominals in and up, releasing the low back. And bring it to neutral. Now, we'll pelvic clock. So we're going to go-- tuck your pelvis. Draw it around to the right.

Bring it into that anterior tilt, and then bring it over to the left, and back to tucked position, posterior tilt. The main thing is that you want to make sure that your knees are not wobbling around. So we'll go again. Let's do four in each direction. Scoop.

Go around to the right, arching, lengthening your abdominals, and circle, two. The last two-- circle it around. Exhale on the tuck. Inhale on that beautiful arch. And then find your center.

We will exhale, tuck. We will go to the opposite direction. We're going to go around to the left, around to the right, tuck, and good. We'll do four on each side. It feels really nice.

We're releasing tension in your low back and sacrum. And find neutral position. Take a breath here. We're just going to go into a little-- let's go hinge. Let's go press up into a hinge.

Feel your hamstrings engage. And then we'll articulate down. Find your neutral. So your ball should be kind of bouncy. Take a breath here.

Let's go back up to that hinge. Automatically want to articulate up. And then we'll go articulate back down to neutral. Let's hinge up for three more. Lift up.

Find the hip extensors. And then roll down. Let it be nice and heavy into the ball. And last two-- press it up. Keep those inner thighs working and then roll down, and neutral.

Last time-- press it up. And then exhale to lengthen all the way down to neutral position. Go ahead and lift your hips up. Take your ball. And we're going to place it in between our shoulder blades.

So let's imprint our low back into the mat. Place the hands behind the head, knees parallel and hip distance. We're going to arch over the ball. Inhaling, releasing your chest, find that beautiful extension. Engage your abdominals, and we're going to come flat up, exhaling.

Inhale back so you're articulating down. And then you're coming flat up. Exhale. Let's do a three-- exhale to come up. Feel the crown of the head reaching towards the ceiling.

And again, exhale up, shoulders down the back. Inhale, releasing your sacrum into the floor. Just breathe and relax. Lengthen out and down, lifting up. Last two-- lift.

Let's do one more. Inhale. And let's come up. Hold here. We're going to rotate towards the right.

Now, I don't often say this, but I want you to flare your right side out and look behind you. Good. And then, you're going to lift up two inches and come to center. You're going to rotate to the left. You're going to flare open and look behind you.

You will feel this really deep in the obliques. And then curl back to the center. Let's do four sets. So we go rotate and open. Flare it open.

Look behind you. Lift to center, and hold. Rotate to the left, and open. Spiral open. Look behind you.

And lift back to center. Two more times each side-- rotate and open. Reach it back. Feel this really deep. And lift back to center.

And twist to the left. Open it up. Open, look behind you. Curl back to center. One more time-- and we'll go right.

And we'll go deeper, deeper. Lift to center. Hold. Last time-- left, and open. Reach it around.

Lift and hold. We're going to go into continuous. You're going to just exhale, inhale, rotating right and left. Good. Just feel the ball gliding along your shoulder blades.

You're staying curled in that position. I love the ball. And let's do one more each side, opening. Lift. Bring it to center and release.

Good. Now, we'll move into the hundred. So place the ball in between your ankles. We're going to lie supine on your back. So take your legs table top.

We're going to start with an exhaling all of the breath out. But we're going to add some double leg lowers to it. So let's go ahead and start 90. Exhale all the breath out. Extend your legs up.

Use your inner thighs to squeeze the ball. So we'll begin, inhaling two, three, four, five, and exhale two, three, four, five. Three, four, halfway there, lower. Let's go a little bit lower here. Challenge.

Up, two, three, four, five, and seven, eight, nine, up, last time, hold. Bend your knees. Circle your hands. Interlace them behind the head. Give you a little bit of a break.

Inhale here. We're going to exhale, lift the chest. Reach the legs out. Inhale. Pull it and exhale.

Reach out. And exhale. Good. Reach the legs out. Let's do eight.

And going out, reaching in, squeezing the ball-- you should feel your abdominals here. And reach. Make sure you fully extend those legs and keep your shoulder blades off the mat if you can. And one more. In and lower.

Rest your feet down. Keep your ball, because we're going to straight into the lowers. So let's take our legs back to that table top position. Lift your legs perpendicular. Curl your chest up.

Now, lift your hips up. And lower. The goal is to try to get the legs vertical, lifting up. And lift it up, three. Inhale.

And again, up-- scoop it up. Lower with control. Scoop and lift. Two more-- that feels like enough. But we'll just do the last one.

Up and lower. Bend and release. Good work. OK. We're going to take it into corkscrew.

So let's take the legs table top. You can always modify this exercise. So you can always just do the hip circles. You can just go here, down and around to the other side, and circle it that way. So we're going to do an inversion.

So we'll start here. Inhale, exhale over. Keep the ball. Good. Now, lower your legs a little bit.

Rotate towards your right, but keep your hips square. Now, you're going to roll down. You're going to circle your legs down in around, up the left. Peel at the left. Center it.

And to the left-- inhale. Hips are square. Roll down, stretching out that side. Scoop the abdominals in an up as it comes around to the center. One more set-- take it over to the right.

Center it, and over. Roll down. Scoop your abdominals in. Reach it out and lift it up. Exhale.

Bring it center. Last one-- roll it down. Circle it around to the center. Let's bend the knees and rest. OK.

We're going to take the ball into a side lift with kick-- excuse me, side kick position. Take your ball underneath your ribs. You're going to press your elbow and forearm into the mat. Square off your hips. Feet are going to be slightly in front.

So let's just go ahead and take the opposite hand down. Lift the top leg up just to the hip level. So we'll begin. We're going to flex the foot forward. Exhale.

Inhale. And bring it forward twice. Inhale twice. Exhale, keeping the shoulders down, head relaxed, neck relaxed. Reach it back.

And again-- back, back, three more. One more set-- lengthen it out. Bend your knee. Now, we're going to just lift the leg up and down, stabilizing here. Two-- we will do eight.

Reach it up. Three more-- find that gluteal, glute medius-- and up, and up. Last time-- we're going to stay up. Squeeze. Now, extend your knee all the way.

Bend your knee. You're going to find this in the hamstrings, in the glutes. Let's do eight. This is three. And reach it out, four-- four more, halfway done, and out.

Keep breathing. Last two. Out-- reach. And last one here-- bring it in front. Spin it around to the other side.

Good. Placing the ball on the opposite side, stabilizing here, adding the instability of the ball really challenges this position. Resting your left hand down, lift your left leg up. We're going to flex the leg forward, drawing it in twice with the abdominals. And reach it back.

So the saw is pulling the leg in. You're stretching the hamstrings. When you reach it back, you're lengthening the hip flexor and working the glute. Reach back and forward and back. Let's do three more.

And back-- shoulders still. And back, forward, and back-- I think we have one more-- and back. Reach back. Bend the knee and lift the leg up for eight, seven, good, lifting up. Lift.

Last three-- and up, two, and three. Hold it up. Now, extend the knee all the way. Reach it out. Keep the knee behind your hips so you can get that gluteal work and that stretch in the hip flexor and the front of the body.

And lengthen out. Last four-- good. Three, and last two-- you got it-- and one. Bring it forward and release. Now, we're going to go into a full body integration exercise, similar to the scooter or the knee stretch.

You're going to take the ball down at the feet, near the feet and ankles. You're going to find a plank position. Don't let that ball roll away from you. So I'm going to place the ball just above my ankles. And I'm going to stabilize myself with my shoulders.

We're going to take a big inhale. You're going to draw the knees in on an exhale. Inhale, find your neutral plank. Exhale, round your tail under, bringing the knees toward your forehead. And inhale out.

I'm eating my necklace. Exhale, pull it in. Inhale out. Let's do two more. Pull it in.

And lengthen out. It's OK if your hips to lift up a little bit. This is a small ball. Exhale, round. And inhale, lengthen.

That should be enough. Good. For the next exercise, we're going to into cat stretch. So this is my version with the mini ball. You're going to take the ball.

You're going to kneel in front of it. We're going to place the hands down onto it. Let's roll forward. Your hips are going to shift back a little bit. As you go out, let's just arch the back.

You're going to roll your arms onto the ball. It feels good in the shoulders. And then you're going to pull your navel in an up and you're going to roll back up. Exhale out. Let's inhale and arch, opening the back and thoracic, your low back.

And then roll it back up. Let's do three more. Roll it out, lengthening out. Go head and arch. So lift your chin just a little bit.

And then pull it back in. And again, out-- just resting into the ball, lengthening the abdominals. Feel the stretch and then slowly bring it in. Let's do one more. Roll forward, arching out.

And pull it back in. Good. OK. Let's move into the swan. We'll do some back extension here.

So I have the ball in my hands. Shoulders down, arms are fully extended. So we're going to take the forehead into the mat. Legs are together and parallel. We're going inhale, lift, and come up.

So I'm going to pull that ball, actually, a little bit closer so my wrists are resting onto it. So we're going to go inhale. The tip of the head articulates up. Draw the shoulders down. Open your chest.

And then lower. Let's do eight of these. And reach it out, inhaling up. Exhale to lower. Bring it up, drawing the ball in towards you.

And lower. Halfway done-- and inhale, lift. Pull the ball in. And exhale to lower. And three more-- reach out and down.

Last two-- one more time, lift. It feels great. And release. OK. The next back exercise I'd like to do with the ball in between the sternum, so at the sternum, actually-- in between your pecs.

You're going to just rest your hands down. I'll pull my hair away. We're going to inhale, lift up. Extend on the diagonal. Circle around.

Take your pinkies towards your thighs. Bend your elbows and lower. We lift one, we reach two, we circle around three, get a little higher, bend. And lower. We'll just do five.

Inhale, exhale, inhale up, exhale to lower. And reach, straight arms, shoulders down. Feel the mid trapezius pulling down. So as you reach your arms, draw down the shoulders. Open, lift a little higher, bend, and lower.

Let's do one more. Up, reach, circle, get a little higher, bend, and rest. For the last exercise, let's do the teaser. So the teaser, you're going to place the ball in between your ankles. We're going to start with the legs 90 degrees.

So you're going to just balance that position. Find it. So squeeze the ball. Extend your legs. Now, reach your arms.

You're going to take the ball, lift, separate, place it, and roll down. How many do you want to do? Let's do maybe four. Inhale. Let's exhale on the up.

Find it. Take your legs together. Lift, lift, lift. Open, place it, and roll. Keep your legs where they are.

Inhale. Roll forward. Exhale. Climb up. Find that cradle position.

Open. Lift, lift, lift. Separate. Take your ball back in between your legs. And then roll it down.

I think we have one more. Inhale. Exhale. Climb up. Take your ball.

Lift. Separate. Take it back. And roll it all the way down. I think that was four.

Bend your knees. Roll up. Stretch your legs. And you are done.