Quick Mat Flow

Hi there. We're going to do a quick one today. The weather is good, and I want to get to the beach. And I'm sure you want to get out and do your summer activity too. So we're going to do a once over tapping into everything.

It won't be traditional. I'm hoping you can do it wherever you are so that you can get going. Let's start at the end of the mat, feet parallel. And it's worthwhile, even though we are going to move quickly and not for a whole lot of time, it's still worthwhile to find your center. So whatever you need to do, take a moment.

I'm just feeling the weight into the ground as I lift up off of it taking a deep breath. And I just kind of have to loosen up. And now we go. Arms coming up. Let the arms turnout and up as you take the big inhale.

I'm rolling down head first through the spine. Try not to shift back. If you tighten the legs, let yourself soften. Everybody bend the knees, flatten out the palms. Now, you're going to straighten the legs, but you're going to pull the abs up with that exhale first.

And then straighten the legs. So you're starting to already connect into the middle. Let's do it again. Inhale. Bend.

It's like the knees are being pulled to the forehead, curving the spine. Start your exhale. Pull the abs or ribs off the thighs to straighten the legs. Feeling that? One more.

Inhale. And exhale. We're going to roll up with that, feeding the sit bones into the backs of the legs. Let's do it again. Inhale.

And exhale. And my arms are going side. You can take them forward, rounding down just like before. Hands to the ground. Inhale.

Bend the knees and really bring the tail bone through. Exhale. You can send your forehead closer, but you're still drawing ribs up. Lift two more. Inhale.

Exhale. Feel the sensation coming from the middle of your body first. It's going to matter in a minute. And one more exhale. Let's roll it up on that one.

We're changing it. I want you to think wunda chair pike. Exhale. We're going down the same way. Feel the-- almost stretch to the dura of the spine as you go down or just curving the spine.

Hands are down. Now, check it out. We're not going to bend the knees this time. Palms are flat. Put some weight into your hands.

You don't need to look. I'll be clear. Your shoulders are not up at your ears. You're just going to inhale. And on the exhale, you feel the ribs pull up so much, the abs pull up so much that it floats your heels up, and you're still-- you're almost going to hand stand.

Reverse it so you're inhaling heels down. We'll do another one. Exhale, scoop the belly, or at least just feel like the sensation of being lifted from your waist and down. Keep the heels down. Inhale.

Exhale. Roll up. Hands leave the floor. And inhale. I'm warming up already.

We'll do it again. Exhale. We're going down again, speeding up the roll down now that we know what we're doing. Palms are flat, knees are straight. Inhale.

Exhale as if the pure act of exhaling floats those heels up. You're about to put all your weight in your arms, but you change your mind. You put the heels back down on the inhale. Do it again. Exhale.

One more. Heels down. Go back one more time onto the toes, but make it come not from the feet but from the middle. Head is down. Inhale.

And exhale to roll yourself up. Just leave your arms by your side. OK, still thinking wunda chair, we're going to go back to parallel feet. I'm just turning so you can see, and I'll probably turn again. Weight is pretty even.

If anything, I'd say a little bit more in the heels. And we're just sitting down. OK? We're on that wunda chair, right? When you're on the wunda chair, of course, you have to think of the front and the back too.

So there's a sense of, well, support hopefully. For now, arms down. And we're going almost to the top, maybe not even almost. And then back down. So you can dip as low as you want so long as you don't shove the knees beyond the toes.

Keep the heels flat. And we're just going up. Exhale one. Inhale down. Exhale two.

It's like you're standing firmly on your feet, pressing through the floor, being mindful of your low back that you're not tilting even more as you go down. There is a curve. And push and down. And push and down. Think about what your back isn't doing.

Push and push. Push. Work through the glutes, right? Feels as if you and the floor are working together. We're not going to be here long, but I know it feels like a long time, doesn't it?

Let's do a few more. Boom and boom. Just when you thought it was over, lift the right heel but don't move anything else. Make sure you haven't arched more or thrust the ribs. Put that heel down.

Do the other side. Nothing else changed. Switchback first side right. And down then left. One more each side.

Do you feel your quads yet? If it's only quads or knees, you might be shifting too far forward. Get your butt back there. Both feet are down. Stand all the way up.

Deep breath up, and exhale, changing it. Going into-- we're not going to go quite together with the feet. So let's just leave them apart. Not as far as you could, but just sort of like that. Same idea.

Just turning against so you can kind of see the general angle. I'm sitting back, right? And I can lift my toes. That's sort of the measure for me. And I'm-- well, I guess I could have gone a little lower, huh?

Then, a test I like to do just while your legs are working, I take my arms to the side, and if all of a sudden I feel my mid upper back working overdrive, it usually means I've thrust the ribs more than I thought I did. So I'm pulling them in. And I test it there. Then we can put the arms back in front. If you need a little more upper back work in a good way, take your arms overhead and sit a little lower.

And we push up one, push up two, push up three. Strong. Trying to get the upper arm by your ears, yup, trying to heat up, trying to work the legs quite a lot. Hopefully. How many more are we doing?

How about six? Five. Four. Keep that angle. Three, two, and one.

That's still down there. I'm just going to move my arms off to the side. We're lifting the left heel up, put it down. Right heel up. Notice nothing else changes, and down.

Lift. So maybe I won't play beach volleyball today. I might have to wait on that one, not that I ever play beach volley ball. But I could until I did this exercise. Feet are down.

Stand all the way up. Go back to feet parallel. We're going to do a rollback down again. You can do it wherever you have room, but we're going to walk out to planks, so know that. Exhale.

We round over. We will walk out to plank. Feel the length of your quads now that we did all that. Feel the strength in your arms not by over gripping them but there you are. From here, lift the right leg up.

One. Touch it down. And two. Strong-- nothing else moves. Three out of five.

Here's four. Five. Foot down. Switch sides. One.

Reach long. Two. Can you feel the heel reaching, kind of the head reaching as well. That's it. Put it down.

Lift your hips up into a pike stretch or an up stretch or a pyramid. And now lift high on the toes, tuck your pelvis a little or feel the backs of the leg pushing backwards as you roll yourself back into plank, and from here, we're going to bend the elbows a little or a lot-- you can go all the way-- and let's do it again. Bend to press up, strong through the whole body. Up. Holding it up.

From there, you're going to bend the knees so they touch the ground. And as you do, think of almost biasing towards tucking your pelvis so you're not just hinging down or dropping down. I just barely touched them, and I'm going back up, and I changed the whole body to do it. So I think almost of tucking here so my thighs are pushing backward as I bend the knees. I'm still strong in my feet, lifting my head to go into a down stretch position.

Hold. Hold, hold, hold. Yes. And then come back to your plank. Let your body lift.

Head goes down. You're walking back to roll yourself up. You didn't think we were done with the legs yet, did you? Single leg. So, from the side it'll be easier for you see.

I start parallel. Let's take the-- pick a leg, take your leg back, and then, it's going to-- I want to get us into that little flexion of the hip and an awareness of reaching from the top of the head through the tail, so you're not in hypertension. You're not rounded. You've got to be aware. Your whole self is in this one.

In all of them, but feel it here. Then nothing with the arms at the moment. It's just going to be down and then touch in with the legs. So you're going to come up. Just reach back to that place you just were and up.

All the focus is on that leg that's not moving. And up. Let's go a little quicker. Down. Five to go.

One. So you're going to get knee flexion. Two. Hip flexion. Don't make it just a lean back.

Two to go. And one more. And change legs. So you could start out, but I like to kind of know where I want to end up so I can feel it, so I've got that angle. And the change is going to go through all ranges, right?

So you want to get all the way back up. Alright. So we're down. Ready? And we just push and lift.

The other foot is quite negligible. It's not doing a whole lot except for letting me balance. If you want to pick your knee up and really challenge yourself, you can. You get five more. Here we go.

Get down there. And touch. Two and touch. Three and touch. Four.

One more. We're going to switch sides. Get right into it. Here we go. The other side.

Just go down. Lift up. If you want to challenge it, add your full knee lift. Three of ten. Four.

You could add just a little arm for balance. Six. Eight. And nine. You know we have one other side, right?

10. Here it is. Switch. Down. You don't have to do the arms.

It kind of helps. Whatever you need. Three. All the way up or just tap. And feel yourself tall, right.

Know you're changing those positions. Four to go. One. Two. Breathe.

However you want to, just breathe. I'm kind of breathing a lot. And there we go. Feet parallel getting ready for your roll down. Exhale.

Here it is. We walk out to that plank again. Nice and long. Nice and long. Take the hand that's in the back, your furthest from me, and put it near the middle.

Swivel to turn. Arm is up. Now think about the bottom foot, or both feet, for that matter. But the one that's in the back-- push it down. Use it to feel that whole side seam of the body.

Then we lift out of the waist to go over. One. We come back to that line. Lift the hips up. Two.

Here's three. And there. And hold that. From here, just hold on for dear life. Wrap around your waist-- if you can.

If you're up for it, without changing the shoulder, you're going to let that elbow bend just a little. Straighten it out just a little. Rael did these the other day, and I'm determined to get better at them. Three's enough though. Switch.

So you're going to go back through plank first. We're going to lower the knees just like before, extend your chest. Get your extension. Get your back extension. So here it's like you're pushing into the ground.

If that's too hard on your toes, you can relax them, but find where your butt meets your leg and use it and then lift up out of that place through the chest and upper back. Watch those hyper-extended elbows, Kristi. Then we pick ourselves back up to plank. Move that hand to the middle. So we're switching arms, so you're going to turn away.

Rotate side. We're on our side plank. Top arm is up. And then we lift at the waist to reach over the top. Optional, you can turn your head down.

Come back to the side plank. Don't make your arm do it all. Use that bottom leg. Number two. Up and over.

Back to the side plank. One more time. Up and over. Come on. Lift, lift, lift.

Big rainbow shape. Come back to the side plank. Bend the elbow just a little if you can. One. I'm doing three.

Here's number two and straighten. Number three. That'll do. Come back to your plank, and from there, we're going to lift the hips up, walk your hands back, roll yourself all the way up. Have a seat on your mat.

From here we're going to-- feet together, knees together, just start to roll yourself back, let your arms hold on behind you. And then you get about to that no man's land, come up a half inch from there, deepen at the belly and let go. And then just come up another half inch. And then back down the half inch. Down.

Up the half inch. Lose the strain and down. Same little distance I'm traveling, that hard part. And down. One more.

And guess what? We're going up, so hang on. But just trust it. Look up a little bit. Don't look down.

Don't let the shoulders creep up. Hold the knees and give yourself some extension. No big deal. Draw the feet in closer so you're lifted up. Your feet are quite close.

For now we'll just do a couple rolls. Here we go. Inhale, roll back. Exhale up, hold. And inhale, back.

Finding sort of that circle of resistance. Back and up. Hands up to the knees. We're rolling down for double leg stretch. We're almost there.

Roll down. Release the tail a little. Maybe not. Actually, bring it in. Why not?

Bring it in, and lift it up. Bring those knees right up to your nose. Can you touch your forehead? Oh, watch those shoulders though. Can you do that and let go?

I know your butt's up. That's OK. It's intentional. Now stretch the legs out, reach the arms back one. Inhale.

Circle around, bring it all the way back in. Just make yourself do it today. Open. Inhale. Exhale.

Your hips must go back down, right? You're intentionally setting them back down. Two. One more. Bring the right leg in only.

Hug it in close tonight. Don't let the foot cross the body. Keep it nice and aligned. You almost don't see your foot. Switch.

Hold on for a second. Line yourself up. Check shoulders, and let's go. Pull. Pull.

I usually exhale, a little inhale in between, but you do what's natural. Or maybe not. Maybe challenge yourself and don't do what's natural. For time's sake, we're going to go right into hands behind our head and rotate. Let's go.

Twist, and twist, and twist, and twist. OK. Are you sure that you're stable? That you're working as well as you can? If so, you're going to speed this up.

Go as fast as you want for four, three, two-- come back to center. Right leg up, hold onto it, stretch it, press the left leg into the ground and set your head down but bring the leg with you. Long through the right waist. Keep your leg there, curl head up. And it's pull, pull, switch.

Hold for second. Stretch it out. Lie down. Bottom leg is pushing into the ground to help you. Curl right back up.

Pulse, pulse. Let's go. Just a few. Switch and switch. And pulse, pulse, pulse, pulse.

One more per leg. That'll do. Both legs up, bend the knees, rock up, and find open leg rocker. We roll back. We roll up.

Do it again. Roll back. See, already strong. And up. Roll back.

Control up. Roll back, and up. Beat you. Stretch the legs out for spine stretch. Very, very close here.

Arms in front. Strong legs. Everything working. Exhale. Round over.

Push through the heels. Come on. Go ahead and get down there tonight. Think about your low back. It's reaching behind you.

I don't mean roll back, I don't mean lay back, I just mean intend, and then just come right back up. And again. And we'll add our back extension here, because we need more of that. Down we go. Now, just take your arms down somewhere around your shins or calves, wherever you can.

Slightly bend your knees just a bit. Now, we're not going to go up yet. We're going to draw the pelvis forward, front hip bones going toward thigh bones to get longer in your back. Try to straighten your knees from there, pushing through the heels. Lift as much as you need to, to feel like you have a long spine or check it out if you have a mirror or your hands.

Arms then come up, line up alongside your ears. Although, don't forget your head. Let's just stay here and pull back. One. And two.

Think shoulder blades. Go ahead and feel like you want to pull the shoulder blades together. However, you're not going to thrust the ribs forward. I don't want your back to move, just your shoulder blades. It's different.

They're on your back, not your back. Alright, right same thing. Take your arms out to a T, palms just forward for this one. Reach further, lean into it more, and, again, shoulder blades back. You can probably move the shoulders or the arms more on this one probably.

One more time. Take the arms overhead, real really easy with the shoulders here, round over to roll up, and we're just going to have ourselves stand up. We're going to do one more roll down. Here it is. Inhale.

We're not done. Almost, but not quite. Down we go. Whoa. And from down here, let your hands slide up your shins as you flatten your back again.

You might need to bend the knees a little, but reach through, check your ribs, feel your head, feel the opposite ends of your trunk. Fold over again. Arms are there for support. And roll up. And, given we are talking summer, we're going to go into just a standing swimming.

Right leg forward, right arm up, left leg back. And for a moment, push into the ground like you're going to get propelled forward and up. When you know the back leg is straight, you're on a lean, so preferably the front leg is straight too. When you know that's happening, you're going to pick up the back leg, and you feel that connection. Then from there, just stay on the side and pull both back, but keep the spine absolutely still.

So you shouldn't have an effect at your low back or your chest, just moving the limbs. If you want a little more resistance, take it forward. Lift. Come on. Get longer.

Reach more, more, and hold. If you want to go further, take it there now. Now's your chance. And then bring it back up. This is it.

Last one. Last side. Toes on the ground. Might be worth looking to see that, that leg is straight. Left foot is forward, left arm is up, right leg straight in back.

Hinge forward a little. You're going to pick up the back leg. Feel that it's working. Didn't bend-- you might check it, because you'll still feel hamstring, but you want to feel butt and hamstring here. Alright, lean forward a little bit.

And now we lift them both. One. Don't let it turn you. Two. Three.

It's tiny, because you're already out at maximum, right? You just want to feel it get longer. Oh, watch the ribs. Watch the ribs. Watch the extension.

Do you need more? Lean forward. Other arm is just there. Come on. This is not the easy side.

That's why I came here last. That's not a good idea. Couple more. Hold it. Come on.

Come back up. Take one deep breath. Exhale. And then a long breath. I'm not going to have you roll down again, but I would say just stand tall.

If you need to stretch out, do a mild little hip flexor stretch, but otherwise you're good to go. We did enough for now. Thank you.