Prenatal Full-Body Cadillac

I'm going to say hi there. This is Leah Stewart and I'm back for some more prenatal classes here on Pele's anytime which I'm so thrilled and excited about. I am now pregnant again for the second time, which I am again so happy and thrilled about and so is my family. I am 22 weeks pregnant at this point, so into my second trimester and I am going to continue the prenatal series and what I did with my first pregnancy, which was about three years ago and I'm actually going to do my first class here with this pregnancy on the Cadillac. So we're going to have a lot of fun when we're doing a great leg series.

We'll do some nice spinal movements, some nice and lateral flection and rotation, nice safe rotation of the spine. So really hope that you enjoy doing this with me today. All right, let's get started. But before I start, actually let me make a note. You're going to need to set up here. You're going to need your role at bar or your role down bar. I want you to have two hip springs.

I actually prefer this series that we're going to do with some long yellow springs if you're working at balanced body. But if you have some hip springs or leg springs, the lighter springs will do here. You can certainly do it with the heavier springs but you may want the lighter springs you. And also we'll need a long box, which I have down ready for us. If you don't have a long box accessible on your Cadillac work, you can always also use a foam roller or if you have any sort of like a stiff cushion cause we're going to be kneeling on it. And then finally this is very optional cause we'll just use it very shortly and overboard there. But you also, if you don't have the access to that, you can roll up a towel and put it in between your legs when we do our standing leg work. So let's go ahead and get started with that little warmup.

A little spinal movement. So when you take your roll up bar, I want it to be loaded from the very top, as high as we can get it up to the top. And placing the hands on the outside and I just want a little bit of connection down through your arms. Nothing crazy, nothing with too much, just very gentle. I'm going to start with some scapular movement along with our breath. So as you're sitting here, I want you to think of really being perched up on top of your sits bones and feel how your spine naturally sits in this position. Do you notice that your pitch forward, which you might be depending on where you are in your pregnancy or do you notice that you're able to kind of keep a little bit more balanced over your sits bones and starting in this position, I want you to melt the scapula down your back and we're going to start with just a little bit of scapular movement. Inhale, let your scapula rise. Yes, you can let your shoulders rise and with a nice, soft exhale, lower them down and inhale.

Let the scapula softly rise at and exhale. And what I really want you to focus on here is letting your breath coordinate with that scapular movement. But more importantly, I want you to focus on really sending fresh air, okay. Into the ribs, into the lungs, down into the pelvis and into the belly. One more time.

And exhale. Now this time I want you to bring your shoulders forward, like you're a little round of your upper back and then excellent wants you to draw them back together. Like there are two doors closing and inhale, draw them forward. So let them glide across your rib cage. Then Xcel feel like you're bringing the two scapula toward each other. Okay. And inhale, let the upper back expand and widen as you do that. And exhale, let it narrow and close and engage and inhale doing this upper back work. The spinal work is very, very important. This, I'm scapular work during our pregnancy because we tend to get very kyphotic.

We tend to full forward, round, folder, forward rather in our shoulders. Yeah, bring it back to the center. And now I'd like you to place your feet up against the Poles here and get us close to the snug as you can. You're going to keep that nice depression of that role at Bard. Taking your breath in here with your Xcel, I want you to draw the center body in and just gently roll over your pelvis.

Then inhale, roll back on top of it. So the emphasis here more than pulling and tightening the abdominals extremely is I just want you to lubricate and mobilize that lumbar spine and that pelvis. And as you do that, you'll start to feel a really gentle and easy and actually feel good kind of contraction of your abdominal wall. But I want to add a little bit of a thought to this. Prior to moving. I want you to think of engaging your pelvic floor is if the bottom half of your pelvis was getting more narrow, then I want you to go into that little curve.

Then I want you to imagine that pelvis getting wider and more open as you come back to the upright position and Exelon narrow the pelvis. So what we're doing here is prior, just a split second before we go into the lumbar flection, we're engaging that pelvic floor. We're creating that shelf of stability. And got back up. Let's add a little bit to it. So I'd like you to come into that lumbar flection. Make sure you have that support.

Really let yourself be supported by that spring. Once you the inhale, extend your spine up on the diagonal, feel the whole of the back. Straighten, lift your eyes up. Feel glorious in this moment. Then Xcel engage the pelvic floor. Then the abdominals. As you let the spine soften back into the curve and you roll back up into the vertical position. Xcel in health and the pelvis, it trickles all the way up your spine, filling linkedin, filling tall. Exhale, folding back, and then inhale up again. Pelvic floor abdominals round in that lower back, letting that pelvis slide underneath you. Inhale, feeling the abdominals and the back body work together. Feeling the depression of the Scapula. Exhale and roll up. One more time. Can I just do this for the whole class?

That'd be really nice and up. Exhale and all the way here. So holding here. Now I want you to lean forward on the diagonal. Depending on how large your belly is going to determine how far you can go. Little bit. It's fine. So wants you to reach your sits bones out behind you. I want you to fill the back of your pelvis is open and wide and really glide almost. Um, I'm gonna use a harsher word.

I want you to kind of push your heels into the Poles. So from here you have this beautiful diagonal line. Exhale, you're going to curve yourself forward. Then inhale watches. I trickle up from the base of my spine out through the crown of my head and exhale as a soft rounding of your spine. I don't know about you [inaudible] but now when my second pregnancy and death and my first pregnancy, I needed to move a lot and mobilize my spine, lubricate my spine in order to keep the discomfort and the lower back pain that so often accompanies pregnancy at bay. I didn't want it.

I still don't want it. Now I have a two year old to pick up and carry around and just mobilizing your spine and safe flection and strengthening your spinal extensors. The whole of your back is very helpful for that. And exhale, as you bring your body forward, you'll fill the narrowing of your pelvis. Inhale as you take it back and for the widening of your pelvis. Now holds here I have the bar press down.

I'm feeling the whole of the pelvis open and wide on my bat. I'm stretching out that pelvic floor and widening the pelvic bones, but I'm stabilizing my co contraction of my back and my front body EQ. So I'm gonna pull the bar down five times one okay too. And I'm getting the lot connection. This surveyed us. Think of opposition as your arms go down your body. LinkedIn's more in that diagonal. One more time.

[inaudible] bring it up and soften your spine. Feel how wonderful that feels to stretch. Feel the hamstring stretch and roll yourself at moving into a little lateral flection. We're going to go to a side tilt to the right, bringing the right rib cage down to the right hip. Hold that position. Anchor your left hip down away from your body. Hinge back slightly, letting the spring supports you. Come back up with an inhale and then exhale, come back to vertical. Other side. Inhale lateral flection. Exhale, hinge, get taller, get longer, you'll feel a really delicate but lovely little stretch through your front body.

Come back to the lateral flection and all the way up. So the breadth is inhale, exhale, so you can feel that control in health. Think of increasing that lateral flection and XL up. Inhale, exhale, back. Inhale increases slightly and up.

Very lovely. And to finish this, because we were a little strict in our movement, I want a little bit freedom. Pelvic circles or as I like to call with my clients, sexy hips. And you're just going to circle around. So what I'm doing, as I laterally tilt my pelvis over to the right, I'm letting my left hip come off the mat. Then I'm coming into circling and see my knees slightly bend, bring the other hip up off the mat and even go a little bit forward into an anterior tilt here. So I'm getting as big of a circle that I can and I'm letting that spring support me so I can go back a little bit further than I could without it, without having to grip my hip flexors.

So I'm really focusing on that mobilization of my pelvis. Why we like this is because it's an internal massage of those pelvic floor muscles. It's the mobilization of that pelvis, but we're not putting such extreme ranges or pressure on it because of the laxity of the ligaments that in the pelvis as we progress through our pregnancy. But this movement is stretching and strengthening the pelvic floor kind of simultaneously. As we roll around and exhale and roll around. Now reach your heels into the Poles, find your finishing position here, and we're all done there. All right, let's go ahead and move on to our standing leg series here with our push through bar with one spring top loaded. So this is a fantastic squat series and for the first portion of it, before we go into some of our wider positions, I'd like you to place the overhaul or any other ball that you have accessible to you or even a towel folded in between your knees or your thighs rather right above your knees. And we're going to actually, the secret here is we want to have a nice firm grip on the Poe push through bar.

So you kind of want to start leaning back a little bit into your position here. So as you come down into your squat, your back is going to become vertical and I can, you can go parallel or even slightly below whatever feels more comfortable to you. Then exhale, you're going to press up. So in health, think of going down slowly, Xcel kind of press through the back of the thighs, getting the hip extensors. As you press up and inhale, let your feet just soften and melt into the ground as you go into these squats and Xcel and just focusing on keeping the spine vertical, feeling that deep hinge at your hips. From here. I'd like you to lift your heels up just a little bit. You have some just very modest heels on here. No crazy Friday night.

Stilettos just feeling nice and steady. Go down, XL up. Well, she'll fear here. Feel here too is as we move through the progression here, the series, your heart rate's going to go up a little bit. Yeah, and exhale. Last one, keeping that spine nice and straight and lower the heels down. Now we're going to do three with the flat feet. Inhale, so again, nice fold at your hip. You're going to hear me get out of breath a little bit.

[inaudible] excellent. That was three. Now lift your heels up. Inhale. So the ball there is meant to help you activate your eye doctors and therefore engaging your pelvic floor. So again, you're feeling that shelf of support in your pelvis. Heels lower. We're going to alternate one and one. Inhale with five feet, heels up. Inhale, exhale, heels down. Inhale, exhale, heels up. Inhale, we'll do one more set down and up and down.

Hold it there and lower. Has that feel good? I hope I'm feeling good myself. So we're gonna go into a wide view position and we're gonna continue to do squats, but we're going to add some pelvic movement as well. Let me catch my breath here. You will fill your arms here engaging. You'll feel your back as well. So in your wide V, I want you to just rotate from your hips as much as your body will allow. Now when we do the wide view position, I want you to focus on picking yourself up from your hip extensors, but I also want you to focus on opening and widening your pelvis as you go down.

Then engaging and closing it as you come up. Here we go. Inhale wide pelvis. Open it. So squeeze those pelvic floor as you come up, creating a nice pyramid all the way up through your body. The tip of the pyramid comes up to your belly button in Hawaiian. It let it spread out to the side. Xcel, pick it up, bring it up into your center body and inhale.

So we're getting this really nice balance of opening and closing the pelvis, which is lovely in Helen. Very, very, very, very important to have that strong but flexible pelvic floor. Inhale and [inaudible]. Again, inhale and I've now we're going to add a little spinal movement to it and in her lower, your body can come into a rounded spine position. XL, articulate as you come up in health folding yourself forward, your pelvis comes underneath you head can go down between your arms XL. Roll that. Okay, two more. Curving over [inaudible] and Exhale, get as much movement through your spine as you can.

Just let it feel good and inhale [inaudible] and roll yourself up and he'll come down into the play and you're going to take your hips from side to side. Rakim laterally, right and left. He had some music on. Can start grouping a little bit, but you're going to feel this beautiful stretch in your hips. You can look from side to side. We're getting this beautiful interplay of lengthen and contract through your pelvic floor, keeping the spine vertical and come back to center. After you do the left and come into your curve and roll yourself up.

Oh, it feels good. And come back down into your play. Excuse me. Come into your rounded position into your Pa. Now you're really gonna Hang. You're gonna Inhale, articulate to the flat back. Exhale, draw the center body and like you're doing a pelvic curl and come back into the curve. Inhale, reach from your pelvis, open the pelvic floor, reach that pelvis back, fill that glorious stretch. Then Xcel engage as you draw back in.

[inaudible]. Inhale, feel that deep hinge, crease at the hips, and exhale. And one more time. Inhale, hold it here. Let yourself hang and roll yourself up. Uh, I hope that because you're not talking when you're doing this, you're not as out of breath as I am. So please forgive me. Ready? So now we're going to do a little bit of rotation.

I want you to take your right hand out of hand and grab the sidebar. Take your inside hand and grab the front bar of the push through bar. So we're going to do again that piking. We're going to come into the pike on that slight rotation. So your chest, it's not over your side, but just slightly in front of it and roll yourself up just three times. Yeah.

Inhale, still feel like you're really curving up in over in this case, that right side rib cage XL in hell, up in, over. Hold it here. Three pelvic curls in hell out. Now really keep your hips square. Don't rotate your pelvis. Keep this square. You'll feel more of the length through the opposite side back and exhale. Come in.

Yeah. Inhale, shoulders, draw down. Exhale and inhale. Feel the richness of your pelvis. Move and exhale. Hold the curve.

Lift the body up vertically. XL, rotate. Follow your head with your hands rather with your eyes. Come back up and fold into the curve. Inhale, rotation on the vertical line. Exhale. Inhale, come back. Exhale, curve, isometric. Hold at the legs.

You'll feel it. Inhale, exhale, inhale, and curve. Roll yourself that nobody said prenatal classes are easy. Grab the outside of the bar and rotate. Here we go, and we're going to curve. Exhale. Yeah, and roll yourself that. Now the reason I'm doing this series is because you need hip mobility.

You need leg strength for Labor, square off your hips, pelvic curl. Inhale, you need pelvic floor mobility, stretch, but also strength to support the baby as a descends to the birth canal. Inhale, ah, you need good cardiovascular health, good breath for your breathing and you're pushing hold here. Come up vertical. Exhale, rotate. Inhale, exhale. Okay, come up. Vertical.

Exhale, rotate. Twist from your spine, twist from your spine. Come back, square those hips and curve and XL. Rotate. Supporting yourself by holding onto that bar and her. Roll yourself up, grabbing the center. This is the nice part. Now come down into the deep squat. Get your heads as low as you can to the floor and the best part here is to breathe and relax. Yeah, we know that squatting has been the position of choice for birthing for centuries.

We know that squatting is so healthy for the pelvic floor. Keep your deep breath. [inaudible] I want you to roll yourself up to a nice big pike. Let your upper back round. That's fine. Then inhale, sweep your pelvis down and hold it. Just two more XL. Curve it up.

Draw the scapula down and then inhale, sweep it down and forward as you come into your squat. So we're getting, we're interplaying with the strengthening of that pelvic floor, the contraction here. I'm feeling this energy radiate up through my inner thighs, through my pelvis, through my abdominal wall. I'm holding, and then I'm letting it open and release. Let's do one more exhale [inaudible] and open and release. Roll yourself up. Come all the way up. Now I want you to push up through the pushy bar. Please use caution here.

As you're coming out of that hindering position by relying on the bar, you're going to push into the bar and just slightly hinged forward for a little stretch. So I'm trying to get this straight line of my body in this position. I'm just going to rotate. Looking under my arm. Is this on peeking at somebody and come back to center and rotate to the left. You can see how I'm getting the rotation.

I'm letting it really initiate from my rib cage, but I'm letting the pelvis join in on the fun. And what's you're getting here by just gently pushing into that push through bar. So you're getting a beautiful front body stretch, lateral lung, excuse me, leftism is door sigh, gentle hip flexor lengthening. Come back to center. Now very gently here, wrap your hands around. I want you to hinge back, so make sure you're very careful of that transition. Now with this nice straight back, we're going to release one arm and rotate.

Bring it back to center, other arm and rotate. Now just twist. Now, Hey, really? Hey, if you're feeling so inclined, you can go out of that straight line and get a little bit more of a arc of your body if you want. But this time I want you to really focus on keeping those hips as square as possible so you get that. Stretch that length through your spine. Exhale, and just enough of a contraction of the support of your abdominal wall. So you just feel that gentle drawing in and hold in the center. Square yourself. Let's bend your elbows to come up.

I'm going to come to parallel so this a little bit of standing abdominal work paralleled, makes sure your feet have a little bit of space. Arms are going to be straight. I want you to hinge forward and lift the right leg up so we're feeling the glutes. We're feeling that full body and lengthening. Then Xcel, you're going to bend that knee, bend your elbows and narrow to your body and may get a nice little hip flexor, but also abdominal work here in how arms and legs move together. They reached their end destination simultaneously. You'll get a little hint at that left ankle. Maybe you'll feel a little stretch to the left calves and then bring it up.

Inhale, reaching forward not too far, just very conservative. Now engage the lats. Draw the shoulders down using the Trapezius, the lower trapezius. Pull those elbows down. Lift the knee up. Inhale, stretch. This is our third one. Exhale, so we're getting supported. Balance here. Little Nice CIF, abdominal standing work. Now this time as you draw and you're going to come into a gentle flection inhale, roll through the spine, reach out and Xcel come into a nice gentle flection.

One more [inaudible]. Make sure that you're a clearing your head with that push through bar and exhale, draw it in and transferring sides on. Straighten left leg, goes back, get the hip extensors, filling that nice length and then bring yourself up. Really supported on the right leg in this instance. Draw it down. Inhale numbers, stretching the abdominal wall very gently along with the front of the hip along with the shoulders. And then we're contrasting and drawing it up. So we're getting this interplay of lengthen east centric and then Xcel con centric as we come up and we'll add the flection in how reach.

Ground yourself through that leg. Find that reach and then haul though yourself, round your spine and bring it up in hell. Just expand. Fill yourself. Stretching, getting longer than Xcel fit. How strong your pregnant body is. You're not weak, you're not fragile, you're strong. Cause Trust me, if you haven't already gone through labor, when you are going through labor, it is all of your strength, all of your control, all of your power coming all together in this beautiful moment.

You are strong. You can do this. We're done with our standing series. So let's go ahead and take the push through bar down and we're gonna move back over to the table to go onto our abdominal series. All right, we're going to continue here with an abdominal series. I'd like you to do one spring top loaded here on your push through barn, and I want you to come and sit almost inside the little square here of the push through barn. With your knees bent again, you can widen your legs according to the size of your belly here. Your arms are going to be up, so you're going to get as vertical as you can. And the chick here is, we're going again to just start with that pelvic tilt and pressing on slightly forward and down. We're not going very far, but as you do that, you're going to lift the right leg up. You're going to inhale, you're going to rotate it externally, rotate it back to center and then exhale, roll yourself.

That very simple but nice and deep XL. Roll down and lift your leg. Inhale, rotate. Exhale, rotate. Changing my breath here and then inhale, roll yourself up and exhale. Pelvic floor abdominal shoulders contract. The leg floats up with those hip flexors. Rotate.

Let the pelvis kind of open on that right side. Rotate back to parallel from the hip bone, from the thigh bone from that Femur, whatever you want to call it, and back up. Exhale, inhale, externally, rotate, exhale, and then restack the spine feeling alive and well up at the top. Exhale in him and it feels really good. It's just the gentle abdominal work. Deep Pelvic floor work. And then again, so lovely on that spine. Rotate, rotate back to center and feel tall here.

Right on top of the sitz bones. Create that space from your rib down to your pelvis and gently bring the bar down and relax. Turn around so you're facing the push to the bar. You're going to take your right hand and place that on the outer bar here, the Sidebar, and take your left hand and place it behind your head. We're going to do a little shoulder adduction, a little scapular depression with the marriage of lateral flection.

So Xcel, draw your shoulder down, bend your elbow, keep your elbow narrow, keep it down, not out. And and actually laterally flex over to the right side, so the same side as your arm, keeping that hip drawn down away from you. Then inhale come up. I think you'll really like this little series exhale because it really hones in on contracting one side of the body, but lengthening the other and then we're getting that scapular depression and that good upper back activation as well. Feels really lovely. Feeling kind of tight and confined and your rib cage is definitely, um, something common that pregnant women kind of experience as everything is pushing up and out, we feel really tight. So this is a great way to mobilize that, hold this position with the lateral flex and then just do the arm five times.

Xcel squeeze one exhale to notice that I'm not extending the elbow all the way and I'm not focusing on bicep here. I'm focusing on lettuce and the store sites, the radius interior. Last two, if I counted correctly. Last one, bring it up. Now this is my favorite part, so indulged with me. If you will reach your life arm out, keep your back straight, push the bar up and rotate underneath you so you're looking under your arm and then you're going to inhale. Bend your elbow. Don't be afraid to let yourself hang a little bit and reach up and come back straight and your arm. Reach around, rotate and come back. You're just hinting over the top so your spine never Benz.

Here in deflection is these straight and if you feel as good as I hope you do, you just can't help but smile and bring it forward to fill that wonderful hip stretch. I'm feeling a hit a stretch through my rotators. I'm filling the openness of my pelvic floor here. Now I'm not tucking my pelvis. I'm hinting back and then bending my elbow, listening to my own cues and rotate. One more time. This is the last one. And come up. Bend and hang.

Yeah, come up and rest. Hand on the outer Bard right hand behind your head. XL. Pull the bar down as you would laterally flex. Okay, Xcel, we love to hear from you after you do this class to let me know if you feel open and kind of linkedin but strong at the same time and mobilizing your body. Last one, shoulder, scapular depression meets that lateral flection. Hold that lateral flexion. Let your right hip melt down. Let it seep down into the mat.

Tried to feel even this through your sits bones as much as possible and arms down Xcel one and two and three and four last one and five come out of it. Take your right arm out, push energy up into the left hand, rotate around, reach and hinge back then the elbow. And now again, as we're doing a lot of kind of hanging work in this class, make sure you feel like you have a good grip. So if that means that you need to change your hand position to the front of the bar, if that feels more comfortable for you, please by all means do that. It's more important to me that you feel safe first and foremost.

And secondly that you just feel you can move through the range that feels comfortable and best for you and hinge and go back and last one, hinge forward. Let the hip stretch happen. Open that pelvis, feel the stretch. Don't bear down on your pelvis, just feel like it's opening and widening and then bend the elbow and reach back holding it and come back to center. All right, wonderful. So I hope that you feel good after that wonderful rotation. Go ahead and take your push shoe bar down and we're going to move over to the other end of the Cadillac for our hip work series, our kneeling hip work series where we're going to need a short box. Again, if you don't have a short box, please feel free to use a foam roller or anything else that you have at your disposal here. So I like to keep the box several inches away from the Poles and I have the cross bar down where if I were kneeling, it's just above my shoulder heights.

At the lower you take it, it might give you a little bit more attention, so I'd really encourage you to kind of play with what it feels good. Again, I'm using the gilt long yellow springs on the outer most setting. I'm going to take it and put it in my foot. Yeah, and I want you to come to a kneeling position trying to get your knees underneath your hips as best as possible and take your leg out with the pointed foot and the knee extended, engaging in the center body. We're going to push it down through the elbows. It's very important through this whole series that you really think about your placement here. If you start to lose it like so, stop, take a break, realign and continue.

I don't want you to push your abdominal wall out. I don't even want you to sag into your spine, especially the more pregnant that you, once you'll be able to feel like you can support yourself as you do this work. It's not worth feeling the burn in your glues and sacrificing your stability and your positioning. Let's take the leg out, hip extension, slight little posterior tilt if you like and lifted up. Very important that you keep your leg parallel and lift only as high as you think you can. Keep the stability of your pelvis. I do not want to see you come into an anterior tilt of your pelvis.

Stabilize your lower back drawing that support three more and two and one very short and sweet. Here we're going to take that leg, add depth to the hip across the body and you're actually gonna let yourself bend to the side. Then inhale, bring it out and abject the heck. Okay. Sweep at across. Cross the midline of the body. Kinda gonna bend like you're looking back at like a like your tail. You want to look back at your foot and then bring it across.

We're just in a few of these just to kind of mobilize the spine, reach it. It feels a little bit awkward because the spring will come into your side body. But I love the way that it feels. A Nice feeling here. Okay. And back to the abduction. Come back to center. Bend your knee, flex your foot coming into a parallel frog. And exhale, bend your knee, keeping your spine totally straight. And as you bend your knee, really hand just your hip folding that knee. And you can almost touch the box with the knee if you can keep tension on your spring.

And another thing here too is that you're gonna feel the outside of your supporting hip as well. So your left hip abductors are going to be working immensely here. Three more XL too, pushing away with your arms, keeping your scapula open and flat and one take it out. Rotate the leg out, bend the knee so your knee is bent underneath the spring. Keep your foot flex. Do Little lifts here. One.

So the rotators two and three so you're kind of an externally rotated frog. Pushed his arms away and up strong body. Last two, last one, rotate back to parallel. Bring your leg in and sit back. You can open your knees here if you feel more comfortable taking the spring off before you do this stretch, please do so and just stretch here and relax. Okay.

And role your at. So again, it really is about strengthening those hip extensors, strengthening those glutes, which are really going to help with maintaining the best posture that we can with our pregnancy posture. But I just can't emphasize enough his more important that you are maintaining your torso and your alignment than it is that you're powering through the hip series. So that's why I'm doing just such a couple, several exercises and not doing a big long grandiose series. Okay. Left foot, getting yourself in your position. Nice quad, your pen squaring off your shoulders and your hips. Lots of energy through that leg. That leg is long, the energy doesn't stop with your toes and it contains the energetic line reaches out beyond your body, beyond the Cadillac. Exhale. Just again, focusing on the glutes. Lifting the hip.

Yeah, lifting the thigh. Focusing on reaching energy out through the crown of your head, filling the upper back. Work in the shoulder work. Yeah, making this full body last two and hold it. Cross the side body and look at your foot. The little stretch to that right hip.

Then cross the midline and abduct the hip. Try to keep the leg parallel, engage the abductors, fill that pelvic floor, connect and reach over and take it out and across. Widening. I can feel myself wanting to do it too. So I'm gonna say here, don't release everything as you come across and back. Really feel like you're just doing a little side bend of your body, but you're not dipping down. Look and back out. Come back to parallel. Flex your foot. Come into your frog, hindering at your hip. Inhale.

The next cell press hinges, your hip. Inhale, reaching long with the body. Yeah, focusing on your form, focusing on your breath. Can You keep yourself calm as you breathe the still exert energy through the musculature and x. We need that in so many aspects of life, but particularly for the big event that you're preparing for exerting a lot of energy, but using your breath to stay focused and stay calm to more. Last one, hold it. Rotate from the hip.

Bend your knee, draw your center body again and let yeah, from the hip. Fill the rotators two more and hold it back to parallel and down and straight. So it that, why don't you lay eggs, let your forehead rest on the box. Just feeling that energy radiate through your body. Roll yourself up and gently come up on all fours. And let's go ahead and take that spring off.

And I want to finish this with just a little stretch. So what I'd like you to do to kind of get a little greater angle on your hip here, kind of sit with your legs crossed, but I want you to take your foot and place it up on your box. If this doesn't feel comfortable or your foam roller, you can always do this with your leg down in front of you, but it kind of like the extra angle that it gives us. Take your hands on the outside of the box and bend your elbows forward, trying to maintain a straight line of your back and you'll feel this nice deep stretch through the hips. Yeah, and breathe.

I want you to breathe in for four, so breathe in one, two, three, four. Then breathe out for six again in two, three, four out for six, five, four, three, two, one again, one, two, three, four out, six, five, four, three, two, one. And as you, yeah, you should feel just that energy kind of seeping down through the hip, deepening into your stretch. Let's do the other side and some of my other prenatal classes, so foot, just about half the foot on me. So your hips are squares, you can reach forward. I'll go back to my sentence and in just a moment, but I want you to pay attention to that. You're not shoving your knee down. That's not going to be helpful here. I want you to let the rotation fall open from the hip.

Let the knee respond to the amount of rotation you have in your hip. Now what I was going to say is that in previous prenatal classes, I've done a four eight breath pattern, which is also very valid. But the reason I'm choosing to do four, six today is that I want to see if you can over time increase to letting the air out for eight breaths or eight counts or even 10 is that cal? Can we increase that capacity of that? Inhale, oxygen in and that breath out. So we want to just practice by shortening up the numbers and then increasing it over time. So let's go in for four, three, two, one and then out six, five, four three two one and n, two three, four out five six, four three two one and n, two three, four and out for a six, five, four, three, two and deepen into it on one and release.

So we've done some really nice squats and we did a nice kneeling series. Go ahead and take your box and place it down. I'm going to come back over to this end of the Cadillac and I want to just do a couple of our cat stretches before we go into a little bit more side work. So a little bit different than our traditional cat stretch that we do here. I want you to actually sit with your knees open and your arms straight.

So we're going to go into an up and down kind of position. So taking your breath in with your Xcel, I want you to roll through your spine, just tumbling forward diving. Now here as you reach forward, you'll lift your hips up, then want you to try to come into a straight position with your hips over your knees as best as you can. Now XL round your spine. Sit back over your heels. Now this is a little treat that you get. Press your hips up and give me a little high back arch and reached out.

Start to roll through your spine and reach out. Now here, right here ladies, this is like one of the, I don't know, my opinion. One of the best things you can do here. Open your pelvis and feel the stretch to the pelvic floor. Feel the strength or the shoulders. Feel the support there through your torso. Then Xcel draw that pelvis underneath. You narrow the pelvic bones, narrow the issue tuberosities toward the pubic synthesis.

So to roll that up and stretching out the hips, lifting the backup, we need to stretch out those hip flexors and down. This will be our last one. Stretch an XL. And now from here you can laugh if you want, cause I feel very Jane Fonda when I do this, but she looks great. So we'll do it. You're going to lower your hips down, come vertical, and you're gonna squeeze, or your husband's might think you for doing a little pelvic thrust here.

And I want you to squeeze your glutes. Was that inappropriate? And go down in Hell is the truth. And squeeze. So you're getting glute work, but you're continuing to open up the front body, the hip flexors. You'll feel a little stretch through your quads and then up. And then what you're going to do is you're going to circle your hips around, down and up. Yes, we are gyrating down and up. And here's the thing.

If you go into your labor and you can move around if you're free of a medical equipment or if they allow you out of the bed, I guarantee you naturally, instinctively you're going to do pelvic circles with your hips. It feels great. It feels wonderful. It's very conducive to giving birth and come back up. Hold it one more time. Reach forward. Let's do this opening of the pelvis one last time. Hold it, find it and then roll back. At this time we'll just stay seated on her hips.

Let the hips heavy into the heels and that's fun. Okay, so here I want you to come and sit like a cheerleader. You can have an underhand grip here on the push through Barstow, one spring top loaded arms out to the side, and depending on your arm length, your body position will dictate how close you can send. I want you to do a lateral tilt and just bend over. Just tap, just brush your fingertip on the mat and then exhale you're going to contract and lift up in health side, bend over reach. Let yourself hang by that bar XL.

You're going to just draw the right ribcage down to the right hip as you come up. And inhale side this. This is really delicate, really small but effective and I'm actually feeling a little better. I think if I move just a little bit more side Ben, so just please play with your positioning. I know it doesn't look like much, but it feels wonderful to just again mobilize in and out of that lateral flection. What you need to do is, because we're not bending the elbow here, is you really need to use your obliques to come up into that straight line. So here once you to hold this position, palm faces up on the outside hand and it wants you to do a little bicep curl one and take it out. XL Two so you're holding your arm in external rotation as you pull yourself fin and exhale up and you'll feel the lats here as well as well as the biceps up.

One more time and app. Reach it out and come all the way up and rest. I'm going to turn away from you but I'll keep talking to yet. So sitting with your legs. One in the front, one in the back, hand gripping here, starting straight. Inhale laterally. Flex over, Xcel drawing it up. So again, small inhale.

Is this the most intense lateral flection work you've ever done in your life? No. Okay. But I want you to notice how I'm moving through my ways and I'm feeling that support through my pelvis. Yeah. As if that's my platform, my foundation from which my spine and my torso move with control. Inhale and bring it up.

Apologize if my reps aren't perfect. One side to the other and up palm space up or palm rather faces up on the outside arm and Bicep curl Xcel one and take it down and two and take it down XL and right. I want you to really focus on the east centric lengthening there, bicep up and lane thin last to up and leave. Then last one up and hold it, reach it up and let the arms just float down. And that's some of our nice side work with some additional arm work.

We're just about done. We're going to do a couple of back exercises but we need to kind of change our equipment around. So what I want you to do is just simply take your push through bar off or it's not your push you by your roll up by your ball down bar. And I want you to take some handles. I didn't mention this at the beginning of class, so please push the pause button if you need to go get your handles here.

And I'm having a feeling that by loading it all the way up to the very top might be a little intense for a lot of us. You're certainly welcome to try it. So I think what I'd rather have you do is take your strings and put them on the cross bar here and then go ahead and take that up and I don't know, maybe a foot down from the top and then again you can always play with how far up that you, you would like that bar. Okay, so again, you'll see this in my other prenatal classes, but one of the best ways to do back extension is to go into a kneeling position. I want the springs high enough where they give you support when you're down in this forward position. Again, I love this because my pelvis is really open and wide. My belly is free to be in the space in between my thighs and I can work my back in back extension here. That what we call reverse articulation.

And you get this great deep hinge at your hip joint. So breathing in with your Xcel, draw the arms down, lift the head, the neck and the chest. It's intense on those shoulders. So just be mindful of that. And I'm not looking for you to come very high. I'm looking for you to think of like trickling out with your spine.

Notice. Tell articulating from my head beyond my cervical spine than into my thoracic spine. And we just, the arms are too intense for you either come forward slightly or bring that bar down slightly. Just simply pause here. Make your adjustments in the rejoin. Um, and down. The feedback I get from prenatal clients here is, although they love the back work, they fill it. It's really the shoulder work that benefits them greatly. Yeah. Just down, we're going up one more time with the next hill.

Uh, I think you're making a nice art. Now. Hold here. I want you to reach your arms forward and I want you to bring the palms to their facing in toward each other. A little change here. With your exhale, you're going to bend your elbows and bring them back as far as you can. So we're doing a little row then in how reach them forward. Feel the length through the side bodies as you come down XL, draw the shoulders down, let initiate them. Lift your head, neck and chest almost as if you're going to tuck your elbows into your waist. Pull your scapula together. So doing a backward row. That inhale, notice how you miss sheet with my arms and then I go down.

Let's do three more. Exhale, draw the shoulders down, elbows slide across your mat. Sternum reaches at pelvis as wide. Feel that strength through your back. Then inhale, take it down less too. And every time you come up you're feeling that support through the pelvis. You're feeling that opening of the back of the pelvis and every time you go down you're feeling the length. You feeling more expansion through your hips. And last one up.

This is the very end. Ladies reached us. Elbows back and forward. Hold it, stretch. Rule yourself up all the way. Gently take those springs, placed them down and come from me and sit really however way that you'd like. But I'd like you to sit with your legs cross if you can. Resting your hands on your knees.

Start to come into your breath here. At first I just kind of want you to breathe however you like, just naturally and softly. And I can't emphasize to you enough just how I really want to encourage you to just celebrate your body and your strengths and the um, the glory that it really is and that you're carrying life and that you're bringing life into this world and that you can move with freedom. You can move with strains, you can move with even some intensity, but we can still be within the realms of safety. And if we have confidence and belief in the strength of our body, that will just carry us further than we ever can imagine. But then on top of that, having that knowledge of our intuition and that trust of our intuition to slow down when we need to slow down, to stop, when we need to stop and to continue when we can continue.

And my goal and my passion with prenatal [inaudible] is to really help you and be a voice alongside your own voice. Hopefully that is really helping you access that strength and utilize that strength to the best of your ability. Because you know what, Mama, you're going to need it. So thank you so much for joining me today on this wonderful Cadillac. I really had a lot of fun and I cannot wait for you to try this again and again and again, and please give me your feedback. I'd love to hear it. Thank you so much.