Strength-Building Flow

Hi, today we're going to play on the chair and on the Cadillac. So let's get started. Standing on your feet, looking down, make sure that they're parallel to one another. Look straight ahead then and reach the arms out to the side. As the arms lift overhead. Feel the entire spine lengthening upwards. Bring the arms down, let the head fold forward. Take just a moment here to connect with your body.

Reaching down, reaching down in here. As you exhale, lift through the center of your body. Feel the work in, in the abdominal, stacking the spine all the way back up over the hips. Take the arms up out to the side in here. Press the arms through space, and as the arms press down, feel the spine grow longer and more energized and inhale. And as you exhale in the body forward fill. There's an energetic upward lift holding a supported through our midsection.

Shoulders away from the ears, palms of the hands facing one another all the time in here. And exhale as we roll up. Ah, ah, AH, understand. I've won spring on four on my chair. I'm gonna start with some cat stretches. So take the arms overhead, reach down into the chair, find the hands on the paddle.

Inhale, lengthen the spine into a straight long line. Feel the shoulders pressed down, away from the ears, and then draw back through the center of the body. Feeling the shoulders draw down and back in how the pelvis lifts up. We reach out through the chest, reach out through the spine, inhaling to hold, and excellent to curl the spine back in. So as you begin to lengthen the spine, lead with the pelvis, let the low back flatten out first and then start to take the paddle downwards.

In my mind, that's the best way to really make sure that we've got that lower spine straight and working, reaching, stretching the spine down as the hands are reaching for the shoulders are always pulling backwards towards the hips and rounding back up. We're going to go one more time, guys. Here it is. Yeah, allowing the neck to lengthen the spine to lengthen and exhale as you come all the way and allow the hands to just lightly leave the chair and roll yourself. Come around to the front of the chair. Sit down and lay back. So find a place on the chair where you feel that you can stay strong and connected. Hands on the knees. Find a knife, deep curvature of the spine and reach into the double leg. Stretch and, and inhale double leg.

Stretch and feel the energy in the body going in both directions. Feel the strength in the legs, the stretch through the arms, the very powerful strength holding in the middle. And we reach and we come back and reach and come back. And we'll do four and push around so that the arms are moving through something thick, something heavy. So we create an energy there. Last one.

Okay. Take both hands onto the left knee. Reached the right leg forward and switch single like one and reach and pressing down on the knee with the hands to help us remind ourselves to engage our back muscles, our upper back muscles, and feel that the straight leg is very actively pulling away from the body as we breathe and move. And now the Chris Kresser you reach across and reach across. Be careful. This one's a little tricky up here and a reach across keeping the body lifted, coming high through center and four and three and two and holding on one, pulling herself a little bit higher, pulling yourself up, letting the arms go and reach, reach, reach four and switch the getting up nice and high, getting that Nice connected position, let the arms go and left and left and three and two and one coming back to center and bringing the body out [inaudible] that feels a little bit too challenging. Done short ways on the chair.

You can always do a long ways which slightly easier. Okay. I have now one spring on four and one spring on three [inaudible] and I have a pair of arm weights, putting my heels on the chair, getting ready for some foot work, so assessing that the spine is straight and lifted and now we inhale and press exhale. The powder goes down, the arms lift up and inhale, reverse and press and lift and just pressing the paddle just slow enough so that the spine doesn't change at all and reach and left and the arms float up as the legs go down and then they press back to the body. They float up and they pressed out and we'll do four more reaching and back and reaching and back and keeping the spinal extensors in the working all the time to maintain trunk stability and back and one and back. And now we shift to the toes and the arms reach to our sides and we press down and lift the arms to the side and lift up and press lift and it keeping a nice strong connection in both feet. Feel the back sides of the legs as where the movement originates or starts and reaching out and pressing down.

All the while the spine is still and left and Tressa and left and two more and lift and one more and lift. We swivel the heels together into a small v shape, elbows into the waist, arms slightly in front of the ribs. We're going to reach the arms out as we press the legs down and then everything comes back reaching out like you're offering something and back and reaching and pulling and reaching and pulling and feel the heels connect into one another and feel how that helps you feel the strength and the connectedness into the inner thigh muscles. And we go for pulling the elbows in three and two and in, Oh and then we take the heels out. Why? Okay.

Lifting the arms, shoulder height. We're pressed down on the paddle and lift the arms overhead and reach back down and exhale, reach down and up and feeling the alignment of the spine all the time. Stay straight. The abdominals work every time the legs work to maintain that strong stable spine position. And yeah, the arms float overhead in the shoulders are reaching down the back and we do four more repetitions to up one up, lowering the arms down. We come to the toes. Okay.

I'm just going to hold the arms up, palms facing up. They'll stay right there as we press the feet. Yeah. And, um, and yeah, in a little full body workout here, abs, spinal muscles, arms, legs of course. Um, back and reach and back and for lifting up, three lifting up to and one guy take the arms all the way down, step down off the chair, but the weights away. Turn towards the chair and press it. The paddle down again.

So what I'm going to have us do is a little prep for the pike and a little calf work at the same time. So the hands will be right close to you on the chair. I want you to lower your heels towards the floor and then drawing deeply into the abdominals, creating a nice rounded scooped position. Feel that this position will meet, be maintained all the time as we lift from our center to bring the heels and lift from the center to drop the heels down and left as the heels go down, it's critical that we remain upwardly lifting through our waist so that we keep the shoulders under control and list and lift and down. So we build the foundation here, the shape, the feeling, the experience that we're going to take to the pike. And just a moment, last time we left, and then let's walk through the fee. Princey.

So looking down at the pelvis, making sure that as the feet change, the pelvis isn't dropping and lifting all the, all the time through the center of the body, through the waist and lift, I don't know, reached down and reached down and reached down and reached down. And then both heels up, both heels down. Take the hands towards the front of the chair now and lean back. Dropping the heels towards the floor as you reposition your hands this time. Do so at the front end of the chair.

Shift your shoulders so they're directly over your hands. And once again, draw into that very rounded shape through the spine. Inhale there. And as we exhale, we lift the paddle up off the floor without shifting the shoulders forward of the hands, reaching, reaching, coming all the way up and inhale down, working on the way down. And as we exhale, we lift through the center of the body. Reaching. Trying to find where the springs let go at the top. And then as we come down, we're still upwardly lifting. Still maintaining the scope and curl and Dan and curl [inaudible]. And then I have a nice little variation for you here. We'll do two more like this coming all the way to the tops of the springs all the time. Letting the head drop down every time the hips lift, Huh?

[inaudible] stay here at the top. Bend the knees without lowering the paddle down and rise up often and bend the knees. So I'm at the top of my springs. I'm not lowering and lifting my paddle. I'm simply bending the knees, but staying lifted off my springs and we'll do four reaching three, reaching two, lifting and lifting up. Lower the legs all the way to the ground. Step down off of the chair and we'll go over to the Cadillac. Okay, so moving onto a hip work. Oh my spring set up. Coming down onto our backs.

We're just going to do on both seeing the straps today, reaching the arms above you on the Poles. Find a frog position. Press into the polls with your arms and inhale. As you exhale, we reach the legs forward and bend the knees and reach the legs forward. I want you to imagine, or please try to imagine that as the legs go out there, sliding along a flat surface and as the legs are reaching away from us, we're reaching their rib cage and the pelvis downwards into the mat. Just let them soften those bony structures, softening into the mat. We'll do four and pull the springs just as much as we push them and three and pull the springs and two and one from here.

We lift the legs up and press the legs down. Exhale, bring the legs are around to the top. Exhale, press down, bring the legs over around to the top, try to delay the spring movement. Feel the musculature of the hips working before the legs actually start to move forward so we don't focus on the work coming from the feet, but instead come from the source from close to the pelvis. We'll do three more down around and two down around and last time death around and up. And we reverse, we take it open and reached together. Bring the legs straight up the center, visualize the rotational movement inside of the hip socket, the bone turning inside of I have a bone and open and press together and draw open. Press together and draw and we'll do four more.

And lift three and lift two analyst one and lift. From here we rotate the legs to parallel and we start to kick little flutter kicks and we take them down to three, four, five, six, seven, eight up to three, four, six, seven all the way to the top of the springs and as low as you can without losing trunk stability down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, up, up. Uh, I like to imagine that I'm running in a Kimono or in very high heels, in a miniskirt, just little teeny weeny steps. Reaching down and lifting up and reaching down and lifting up. And we'll do four. Okay. And three and too, and one.

And moving into the bicycle, we take the right leg to them, bend the right knee just inside of that spring. As you start to press the left leg straight down, find straight legs and continue reading, shooting and over reaching and reaching and reaching. We'll do one more bicycling the legs until they hit that straight position and then reverse. Bend the top knee. Push it down and forward and the top knee. Reach it down and forward as the bottom lead comes straight up a lot.

I'm like slides down the mat, scrapes across the mat, surface the top leg straightens and pulls into wards the body. We'll do three more here and three and two and two and one and one. And lifting both legs, bending the knees, taking the feet out of the straps, turning to the side, helping ourselves up. Coming to the opposite end, I'm gonna set up the push you bar with one spring. We're going to do the cat stretch, so fingers facing slightly inwards. Knees just underneath hips.

I straight ahead. Inhale to prepare. Stretch the arm straight. Exhale, fold the spine forward. Endeavoring to keep the hips just over the heels. No, just over the knees, the hips just over the knees. We lengthen out into a straight back and inhale as we exhale, pressing the pelvis forward, reaching, feeling the pelvis, draw through the legs. There's a lot of work there, lots of Ab work, lot of hip extensor work. We find our way all the way back to the top and then we work the springs to the top. There's always work on the pressing or of the letting go of the springs.

We reached the arms straight. Feel the spine fold forward going down and then begin to lengthen through the spine until the head and the tail bone are in a long line that had stays above the arms. Inhale, exhale, draw deeply inwards using the front of the body and the backs of the legs to hold the pelvis steady as you roll through the spine, coming all the way up and finally bending the arms. Press the arms down. Exhale, take the spine for reaching out, reaching and India an XLE curl back, curl back, curl back and signing the top, letting the arms come up, sitting down for the push through, feet up against the bars, lifting the spine to a straight position. Inhale here. As you exhale, allow the feet to press into the bars. As we curl the spine backwards, then press down and forward on the bar.

Inhale, build the spine back up straight so you reach out on the diagonal. Exhale, curl the spine again are going to head into the side. Reach here, so hang out when you get there. Take the right arm or one arm in a reach open. Here we are keeping the lower spine round as we open and stretch the upper part of the spine. Take the hand back to the bar using neo bleaks. Let's take it to the other side. We unwind, reaching out through the side body, pressing the opposite heel into the bar in front of you. Exhale, recurl this spine. Come back to center and lift this spine tall again. Exhale, we curl the spine, holding the arms in the wrist straight.

The Barb moves down and through the legs, knees are facing straight up. We inhale and lengthen the spine. Exhale, feel the spine roll back. Let's go start on the left side. This time, taking the left arm out and reaching and drawing down on the right shoulder. And this time we're going to take that left hand underneath the bar. Sit Up, rotate and stretch into the saw, keeping the head of line with the spine. Taking just a moment here to reorganize to really find your lines and then lift back. We'll go through the push through in the middle. Exhale, go down and reach forward, although away and inhale lifting the spine outlaw and exhale curling the spy and right arm again reaches lower spine around. How will this still, I know, start to come back to the bar and as you come back, reach under the bar, lift up, rotate the spine and reach for that far bar.

Taking again a moment to just line the body to feel the stretch. Lift back up and turn around for the sitting back. If you tend to hyperextend your elbows and you feel a lot of elbow pressure here, you might think a little bit about softening. Meet elbows. We're going to inhale here as we act. So we draw into spinal flection, allowing the head to drop down into the chest and come forward. Reaching the forehead down for the size and now lift the spine and as the spine re stacks to come straight up with sit up and inhale and exhale down into spinal flection, keeping the shoulders in a neutral position and inhale the body comes over the thighs and we exhale and use our spinal extensors to lift our arms behind us, but still maintaining deep control through the front of the body.

Reach the bar down and lift the spine up and one more. Exhale round. It didn't heal over the size. XO control the springs and reached down and lengthen the back. Carefully letting go of the bar in the bottom, load it. Setting up for the tower. It's always important to set your safety strap first.

I hope we all are doing that together and I'm loading my bar with one spring, so lying on our backs, arms overhead. Place the feet underneath the bar, parallel to one another. Draw down in, back through the pelvis and inhale, plantar flex the feet. Exhale, start to undulate the spine upwards, so we roll through the spine. As always, we want yes spinal flection, but we also want to allow the back extensors to work a little bit. Going to emulate and bend the knees to about a 90 degree angle. Reach back up, still breathing in and roll the spine down.

Create this idea that the pelvis is going further away from your hands at every moment. Let the front of the thighs relax. Drop the femurs into the hip joints as you drop the pelvis down. Inhale, flex, then point the feet. Xcel, peel the spine up. Push into the bar with your feet like you're trying to push the bar forward so you feel that the backs of the legs are working hard, they're helping you support the weight of the springs. We bent and stretch and exhale, keeping the legs strong. We the spine, Duh. All the way, all the way, all the way. Oh, this drops feet flex and point and lift and bend and stretch and okay. Taking the feet off the bar carefully. Letting the springs go.

Coming all the way. Take the springs away. Yes. Come to the opposite end. Take a hold of the roll up bar for the thigh stretch. So we start with the bar and our hands again. The knees are parallel. Feel the inner thighs hugging together, the knees hugging together and inhale as you exhale. Create a deep post teary or tilt pubic bone towards ribs, ribs towards pubic bone.

Continue to exhale as you take that one long line backwards pass. Inhale, lift that whole shape up in one piece and unwind. Exhale, create your posts. Cheerier tail flattening out the lower curvature of the spine. We reached that position backwards. Reaching back in here.

XO drawn deeply as you lift the spine back up and on y and two more. Reach under and roll her. Reach back and pull the bar to the chest and forward and the bar comes to the chest and reaches forward and the spine is still straight and XL. Everything comes up and the spine on wines. I'm last one looking to see the pubic bone come towards the breast bar.

Hinge back. Keep that long line. And Paul and rich and poor and reach and pull and region. Inhale and exhale to lift. Yes. Okay, so we're going to set up for some arm work now. So let's start with some chest expansion.

I'm going to be a little creative in this arm series today. Forgive me. I know you'll like it. Okay, so we reached the arms down and we feel that just by that downward reach, we're creating tension on the springs and then we start to take the arms back just behind the body and down and forward. An XL is the arms reached down and back and inhale as the arms reach down and forward and exhale as they reach down and back and inhale to come down and forward and just continue that. I know for the next few as you reach your arms behind you, rise onto your toes, feel the lightness on your, on your structure, and then as the heels come down, take the arms forward, never closer, that never too far in front of the thighs, always tension. And we lightly lift up arms, reaching back and take the arms forward. And again, reaching back and reaching forward and last to reaching back.

I don't know, reaching forward. And last one left. Love this feeling. It feels so light and now we're going to bend the arms in a sit, in a squat position, drawing the abdominals inwards. From there it's just to try step extension. So we hug the elbows close to the body and we straighten the arms and bend and reach and Beth reach and drawing, always supporting through the spine, reaching back and reaching back for three, two and one coming here.

Back in. Stand the spine up. Take your springs and hook them down onto the eyelets that are closer to the floor. So very simple bicep contraction here. Gonna bend the knees, sit again in, in a more of an upright squat, not a leaned forward squat, but just a nice bend upright position and bend the arms and straighten working the springs, not only on the way out, but also on the way down and you reach and resists and reach and recess and your reach. Four, three, two and one. Reach back down. Take up this screen, roll, put them back. Turn around holding the handles by myself. I lined myself up my spine up with that center, the hook that's in the center of the Cadillac. I just step out from there.

That my only way of knowing. Truly if I'm in center, not, I hope I am. Here we go hug a tree, the arms come forward and they open. So no here that the shoulder blades don't pull back and forth. The shoulder blade sits on the back wide and as they arms come for the scapular wraps around to the front of the ribs or do the back of the ribs on the front of the ribs. Wrap backwards into the Scapula. Try to see if you can feel the bony connection of those two spaces.

It's so powerful leaning all the time into the springs in a consistent position. Shoulder blades are still last too and last one, turn the palms down. Keep the arms very narrow and straight as they reach overhead and then feel how the Scapula has to do a rotational movement as the arms open and then come together with the arms and reach up. Keeping the shoulders reaching down. Keeping both arms straight and open and come through center and reach up, leaning through the springs and open and come through center and lift. This is one of my favorite, favorite things to do.

I just love the feeling of allowing the springs to almost guide you into more shoulder flection. I love the feeling of the rotation or movement of the scapulas that arms come from up to outlets reverse. So we reach, ah, you feel that beautiful rotation and then press down, reach, ah, lift. Keep the body reaching backwards as the arms reach forward. And what does that mean? Just to me means don't squeeze your shoulder blades together and reach out and slide the arms off.

I always take my time there because it feels good and reach out, slide up, feel the whole spine reaching through the arms and down and for more nifty ing and press down and lifting and press down and to reaching overhead. And on the last time you worry children and yeah. Okay. Let's head back to the chair. So we're going to head into the forward lunch here. I've got about the same springs as I had on for foot work. Maybe a little less threes, two threes. So I'm going to put my top foot [inaudible] Sharon, I'm going to be on my back toes.

Now what I want to do here is notice that the knee isn't jutting forward over the foot, but as instead just over the ankle. Now it's going to shift forward a little bit, but we want to try to keep it mostly back here if can, I like to have my hands on my hips so I can feel if am I alignment and now we're going to start pushing into that standing leg. Try to go up vertically and then as you come up over the chair, there'll be a little bit of forward movement. Bend the front knee, reach back for the paddle. Oh Man, I'm not doing so good. That's all right. That's all right to have a little moment of struggle I believe. And then her leaning back over the paddle as we come down.

So now the thing that helps me personally is to keep the back the leg that's on the chair working a lot. Those hamstrings working like you're trying to push the chair away from you. And then we come up and we bend finding the paddle and shifting back over that leg and we'll do two more reaching up. Feel the connection into the hip of the standing leg. Lifting up. Yeah, friends, I have done this better in my day, but we're all in it together, right?

Last one, I ain't coming back. So as you find the paddle this time with your foot, take the arms forward, lean the spine forward, come to about a 90 degree angle in that front leg and bend and stretch the back leg pump and pump and push to the back of that way. And for three, two, one, place the hands down, bring the paddle down, change lanes. I'd like to say I'll do better on this side, but knowing myself, that's going to be a, that's going to be a bit of a guessing game. Okay, here we go. Lifting up, lift all the way off the chair and Ben Shining the paddle with the foot and shifting back over it. Keep that back leg strong. It's helps. And then lifting up, I've seen and back feel the connection of the glue of the back of that moving leg. Reaching up.

Whoa. Yup. Didn't think this is going to be any better. Guess me know what I need to practice, right? Yes. I have a new, I have a new urge. Master this exercise. What is mastery? Anyway, take the arms forward. Lengthen the spine. Bend and stretch and stretch and three and four and five.

Keeping the standing like stuck to one. I take it all the way down. Sat down off the chair. Okay. We're going to do the torso. Press sit next. So now their exercise I'd been working hard on. So let's take the spring down into a light spring.

I'm gonna use one spring on too. I think I'll let you know if I change my mind. Okay, so you want to reach down for the paddle with your arm. You don't want to more in the middle of the chair. I think it just depends on the chair, exactly, exactly about positioning, but you want to be where you can find a nice straight line in your spy and to keep the legs just hovering up off the chair. And now he reached the body down and as we reached down, we keep the legs lifted. Now we lift through the spine, reaching up through the chest and reached the legs away.

As you take the paddle towards the floor, lift the chest lifting up almost like you're gonna lift up out of your arms. Would you mind? So be prepared. [inaudible] [inaudible] I know he removed the left arm. I don't rotate towards the Ryan and reach out a leading with the heart. We lift up.

I didn't reach out. Leading with the heart. Lift up and last one and lifting up find center, remove the right arm, rotate and reach out. And I left that I reach out and lift up. One more reach long and lift and find center. I like go and reach into the Caesar [inaudible] and Ben the, he's my son back down. Set up some spring for the side Pike. I just added one more spring on three.

So we put the foot down on the chair. The inside foot first we press the springs down. Yeah, the foot is reaching behind. You know, put the hands just on the outside edges of the chair. You want to shift your left, sorry. Right shoulder over that wrist. So you take a lot of weight on that arm and then rotate that shoulder forward.

As you pull your left shoulder back and you're in towards your body. Find a deep tuck and we rise up from [inaudible]. Stay close to the chair. Okay. And inhale to come down and exhale, lifting up, dropping the head between the arms and reaching down and lifting and coming down. Now at the bottom, take the outside lane, reach it out to the side, shift over the hands again and do too much lifting up and down. Okay.

How are you positioning the body who lifting and down? Sit down on a chair, rotate to the other side, left-hand towards the back edge or whichever you're working with. Put more weight on that arm. Then on the inside arm. That's my strategy anyway. It seems to work pretty well. Left shoulder, outside, shoulder, forward, inside shoulder towards the body. And now he left retching and dad, I'm trying to maintain that. Squareness in the shoulders, lifting and down. And the last one, like this, lifting up [inaudible] eh and Dan, I know you leave the left foot where it is or that in Sipho where it is.

Take the opposite leg to the side. And now for tomorrow we will lift the body up [inaudible] and lifting the body up, dropping the head down and turn towards the chair. Step down onto the floor, control the springs as you lift in [inaudible] and that is the chair as grand finale for today. Okay, so we're going to do a prone one followed by prone to um, I have one spring attached to the push through bar. We'll start lying down. So it's always worthwhile to just do your best to make sure your body is aligned. So reaching through the wings, lifting through the center of the body, we start to allow the neck to lift as the neck lifts. Feel the shoulder as a glide down the back and start pulling the sternum like it's stuck to the Madden is only very reluctantly lifting.

Okay, so this could be a bigger movement. I personally like to keep it small for awhile for me. So we reached through the heads, fly the shoulders down, try not bearing down on the bar, but instead almost feeling as though the bar is easing your arms back into the shoulder joint, which is enabling you to lift with ease. I'm reaching down to finish my point earlier. I feel like most of us will just lift from our lower back anyway, so I do just a few like so really trying to find the extensors of the upper spine where we all need the most work in my opinion.

Okay, so number two, we're going to bend the elbows wide, allow the head to start lifting as the bar passes the head. Then try to stay low as the arms stretch. Keep straightening the elbows all the way, then lift the back. So we have all this, we are coming into the full back extension. Now we drop the head between the arms, dropping the body through.

We bend the elbows wide, lowering the spine down in reaching the arms forward. Inhale, bend the elbows. Why? Let the head sign the bar, stretch the arms up, but stay low for now. Then as the arm, straighten the spinal left, reaching up and drop the head through and bend the arms and reach them forward. Let's see that one more time maybe to, it feels great. Elbows Ben wide head comes up. Reverse articulation of this. Finally, arms work. They work towards straight. Then the spine lifts, keeping the eyes forward. Then the head drops, the spine drops and we bend and recheck. Yeah, nope. One more time. Gotta do it. Elbows wide. Head to the bar. Reverse articulation through this spine, arms reaching stray. Then spine lifting.

Okay, and drawing up my head through the arms and then bending and coming all the way through. Carefully lift the bar, sit back on your feet. Just take a couple of moments here in rest position. A couple of deep breaths, giving your body climb two on one. Appreciate it.

I'm slowly lifting [inaudible] and thanks for taking class with me.