Mat for Posture

Hi everybody. Amy here, and we're about to do a little mat class, you know, 30 minutes, maybe 35, 40 a theraband is all that you'll need. I've got a green theraband. This is by theraband, so it's kind of a medium ish kind of wait, feel free to use something heavier if you'd like or lighter. And what I want to just have us start with really is, um, just a little breathing work, a little breath work in the centering work. So I'm sitting folded legs just Kinda rock back and forth, finding your sit bones and just that sensation or the quality of sitting tall on your body but not too rigid. And we're just going to take about five deep reps.

This is just your chance to let go of maybe whatever has gone on today, puts your mind elsewhere. Other than all that stuff, and just be with yourself. Be with your [inaudible] movement, your concentration one just one more time. Then we'll do some kind of just easy motion to open my eyes. I just went there and lift your shoulders up by your ears, lower your shoulders down. Just feel that natural motion of gliding up and gliding them down.

Easy. No extra effort to do this. Action, fish and Sea of motion. That's one of our kind of principles with our work is doing the work, you know, with just enough muscle effort to perform it and try to take anything else extra out. I'm going to use that theme a little bit today and so we'll take the easy shoulder circle about five times. Can imagine maybe that this shoulder blades or you know, rolling over the bones or this the ribs, there's lots of like warm soapy water all around your rib cage. Let's go the other way. I'm doing five just real slippery slidey easy to move and four and five. Then I want you to take your head and tilt it to one year.

I'm just going to kind of let this ear listen to this shoulder. What does that mean? I'm just listen or maybe this year is listening to what's above. Excuse me, your auditory senses a tune in and then we'll do the other side. It's a beautiful long stretch of the neck into the upper trapezius.

And as we work with the theraband for some of the arm work today that I really find it's important to stretch the neck. There we go, relaxing the jaw. Okay. And then an easy head turn. I'm going to rotate and look a little towards this wall. Being mindful to keep my collar bone as as possible. It's easy to let the spine come into rotation in the opposite shoulder to advance. So really very much in isolation for your head and your neck.

Same thing with the ears. You could be listening with this front ear or the back ear both. And then I'm going to take my head the other way. Come out of those stretches slowly. So kind of finding the frequency through your auditory sense.

Sometimes that may just encourage you to find a tiny bit more rotation of your cervical spine if you're listening and curious about what you're hearing or you may find that I did it and just felt myself go a little further. It's really fun just to play with that. Okay. So with the band and what we'll be doing somewhat today is just um, some shoulder. Rick, I'm gonna have my hands, just easy angle, a carrying angle, so I'm not directly in front. I'm just kind of out. And then I'm going to roll my palm. And so that the band is in the palm of my hand and I'm going to unroll just a little bit of that for four or five times.

And as we're doing these warmups for the arms, an image that I like sometimes with myself to think of is that my arms are branches or stems off of my back. So my arms really are from my back first, not just from my shoulder to my fingertips from, from my back. I'm going to do one more and then I want to bend the elbows and reach them forward. And so as I bend my elbows, I'm going to start asking a little more of some muscles. Think about the muscles between the shoulder blades.

They're not contracted so much that they pinched the shoulder blades together. We're just starting to feel the work, the effort. Maybe a little warmth in your body. As I'm bringing my band toward my chest, I'm thinking about reaching my elbows wide to the sides of the room here, but not directly behind me so much that I [inaudible] pinch and throw my chest forward. Just easy, really easy. Two more times. It's Kinda again, ease of motion, just enough.

Now what I'm gonna do next is take a take us in about halfway and then rotate so that the band goes up. I'm actually bringing my forearms forward toward the band and then I want to lower my forums parallel to the floor and rotate. What this is asking quite a bit of is my upper arm in my shoulder joint. That's that external rotation. That's so important. We'll be seeing this when we're prone in a minute and also supine in just a minute.

So this external rotation and we'll take three more. And if you don't have a theraband you can absolutely do this just with your arms. You don't have to have anything extra. You could even just have a set of hand weights if you wanted to as well. Okay. And just one more time and I'm going to ask us to hold and then just straighten the arms up. I'm not going to take my elbow fully extended. I'm just going to lower down eight times.

Just feeling the rhythm as I gesture my arm up my arms. I want to let my shoulder blades melt down. They don't melt. I have to use muscles to move the shoulder blades down my ribs, a lot of muscles. I don't need to call them out down the middle of the spine on the sides of the shoulder blades two more times. And then one more time.

And then I'm going to keep my arms straight as I lower all the way. That's all. Just a little bit of wake up to the upper body. So if we turn sideways or you can lie, walk on your Mat. Some of the abdominal work I'm going to do this afternoon will not involve any chest lift so that you can imprint your back and not not bring your head up at all. It might give you a little bit different challenge. So again, as the arms come up, uh, I want the is right in the crook of the thumb. Now before we do the leg work, I want you to feel your shoulder blades wide, a little pull on your theraband ever.

So slight and that's not coming from your arms, but it's coming from trying to widen your shoulder blades on the floor, on your mat. On an exhale, I'm going to take my feet apart actually and begin a rural up through my spine, toward the base of my shoulder blades. And Nice breath in. And exhale as we unroll the spine. Let's do five of these. Inhale at level pelvis. Exhale, curl [inaudible] so right where the leg meets the pelvis, I'm giving a pretty good squeeze and an unroll. Inhale level pelvis and x sail solid feet on the floor. Feel as though those hip extensors are waking up a little bit more to stretch those hip joints up and rolling down last two.

And if your arms begin to get tired being held up like this, feel free to move them out of the way. Lower them down. Rest for a moment. Yeah. So as we're kind of going from level one to material today, you're building some strength. Let's go up one more time. All right. Now as your pelvis is up, what I'm going to ask us to do is you're going not be able to really see me too well from the side view, but I'm going to glide my pelvis a little bit to my right, but I don't want to drop the hips at all on either side. It's really just a shift of weight. I'm putting more weight on my right leg and foot.

And then over toward the left it's a hip glide and I'm gliding to the right. What you want to feel is some work in the side of your muscles on your hip, [inaudible] and again over to the right and over to the left. And one more time to the right. One more time to the left. I'm going to come center now I'm going to move my arms further back, trying to lay the hands on the floor, pull on the band just a little bit, and then as I start to articulate myself, fine. That delicious open stretch of my upper thoracic is happening for me.

I'm going to come to level pelvis. I'm actually going to bring my ankles, knees together, rolling up again. Now this time as I exhale, I'm going to raise my right leg and bring the band toward the knee and inhale, step down, alternating sides, exhale. And there'll be eight of these. So as you transfer weight to the one foot, you just did that hip glide, somewhat preparing for standing on one leg. So that's what this is. And four more [inaudible] [inaudible] last time coming and the next sale, what I'll be having a student, I was keeping the arms overhead, but Ben, those elbows again, just like I showed a moment ago from a sitting and I'm going to roll down the spine all the way, way taking an inhale here.

Now for me, this is a little bit of a a work I have to work my shoulders to get my elbows to lay flat on the floor, uh, without popping my ribs and changing my spine. That's my body. You may not have the same thing is going on. So by all means, if this is easy, um, great for me, this is work. I have to work my, my stability. So on the exhale I'm going to have is taken a leg up and down just eight times. [inaudible] so you're getting that nice differentiation of your hip and four and three keeping space between the top of your shoulders and your ears.

So if you sense your ears creeping up towards your head, you may have to readjust and walk those shoulder blades back down your back, one leg, then the other leg. Now I'm going to take my leg in a turnout position, flex feet and work some pushing or frog. Basically this is like our reformer footwork maybe from Palladio's v Ah, we'll do parallel in a minute and really want you to concentrate on the stability of your back. So here's another option. You could go straight up with your legs and your feet. Wow. Imprint your spine. I want you to not push too much weight on your head, on your floor, but if you're feeling pretty good, you're stable and no, nothing going on in an art work to get your legs a little lower.

We don't always have to do abdominal work with our head and chest up. Right now I'm really doing a quite a bit of Ab work. [inaudible] Emma closed parallels. Same thing. Eight to 10 times one and, and push and and yes. So I'm not gripping my bottom. I'm not trying to squeeze my butt right there.

What I am trying to do is keep my back in contact with the Mat [inaudible] war and three and two and one and I'm gonna rest. I'm gonna bring my rmsn and I'm going to take off my poems and push them against my thighs and my shoulders back. And now I'm gonna move my hands to one knee and just reach the heel out. Breathe three times. [inaudible] we really work on imprinting.

[inaudible] bring it in. Same thing. Push. This is your time in your body to feel the floor, feel it, support you, feel the work in these held positions. [inaudible] now we'll do single leg stretch and yes, feel free to gesture the leg a little lower. I'm going to go forward. I feel stable enough right now. Eight more and one and two elbows are out and four and four and three and two and one. I'm going to bring both knees in.

Now I'm going to take those arms back overhead for uh, a little bit of bicycling with my legs. So if I take my right leg up and begin to reach it forward, I am gonna drag my heel along the mat and back. Left leg. I don't want you to worry so much about pointing your toes. Extend your hip. Bring it to flection. Extend. Bring it to flection. Extend. Bring it through flection.

Extend inflection there. I'm going to just work them at the same time. Open. Take one more each side, everybody one and two, and bring them in and fold and hands on your knees. All right, hands on your knees and circle. No, nobody. Easy. Motion in your hips and then the other way around. Yeah, to. It's okay that you're rocking maybe a little bit through your lower spine needs that imprint. So if we take our feet down, I'm going to actually now just put the band off to the side and reach the right leg, long right arm up, long change sides. And as we go into leg circles, I'm not using the band. You could absolutely use them if you'd like to, but I'm just going to go ahead and do traditional leg circle. But I'm going to make these rather small today.

And what I want to feel is not the circle out in the air with my toe. I want my thighbone in my socket, my femur head to be doing the circle. So I'm really going to concentrate and I want you to is the feeling of your back of hip on the mat. Here's our third circle and fourth circle and fifth circle and that's our five. Let's go the other way and one.

So with how your femur head is in the socket and that relationship to the floor, creating a good solid foundation. You don't have to have such a large range of motion today. And then n maybe next time we'll do bigger circles. Alright, so here we go. Think about it, feel it first you're imprinted your femur in your socket. You start to stir that thigh bone.

You can visualize the circle in your socket. Don't worry about your foot, it knows where it is for and five and then the other way for five. And are your rib cage muscles active? Are Your hips anchored and four and five and then that need comes in. All right, we are going to do one more here in the AB series. I'm going to take your legs into scissor and then as you pull, pull also reached the bottom leg away. So we have a reach, a reach swap and reach and a reach in a swap and a reach and a reach and a long set of hamstrings.

And you'll notice I'm not taking the other leg all the way to the floor. I don't want to lose my my imprint. Sometimes if the V goes all the way down you could rock and arch the spine. So right now I'm thinking just the length and the firmness of my back on the mat. Last one and last one and we're going to Tuck in and now as we roll over toward tummy, we're going to bring our band with us here and just read it out wide. Okay.

You can grab a light up. Yeah, you could hold it lightly. I suppose for this first one, and I'm just going to put my forehead kind of on it. It doesn't matter if it's on it or the mat and then bring the elbows back in toward the body a little bit. So as I first do the m prone position, I want to get myself adjusted again, the organization of your front body, so that means the hip bones, pubic bone are anchored, your stomach is contracted up off the mat as best you can to lengthen your lumbar spine, organize your shoulders. Now from this position I first, then I want to have this hover, just the hands, forearms, elbows, and then I'll bring my head up.

It's going to stick to my there. So I've got a little body float and then lower the hands, lower the head. Exhale however the hands, however the head, I'm not coming up very high. Concentrate on their front body. Staying very active and FCL. Hands and forehead. Two more XL arms I should say arms cause we really are lifting those branches again and now the head and it's just up in the height of the breastbone off the floor. You don't have to lift your head here. And then down and down. Last one, lift the branches. Float your head.

Check your stomach. Now from here everybody just set your hands on your mat, on your floor, wherever you are there. And I would like you to rotate your head. Look to the right shoulder just like we did on our warmup. Turn those, those cervical. Um, use them, your cervical muscles and turn your head and then glide your head and rotate to your left and then center it. Lower your head. We're going to do that head gesture one more time. Breathing in, feel your front body activate and lift. We're going to not squeeze our, but we are going to rotate this time left first.

I'm going to bring back the ear, visual or auditory cue. Listen to the floor now with your bottom ear. Listen to the ceiling with that top ear and center other side. So again it might get you into a tiny bit more range of motion. Good and all the way down. Now we're going to go into a little swan.

I'm not going to go a full swan. What I want to first do is hover that head in, chest, reach out through the breastbone, like is reaching passes band. Now with my hands, I'm going to slightly drag them on the floor, my feet as I reach my chest forward today I just wanna to come up about halfway. I don't want my Ri ribs to leave the Mat, but I do need to bring my stomach more into this exercise. So I want to lift and I want to lower down. We'll do two more of those as we start to come up. We'll do the hand drag, check that you can do this without such a grip in your bottom. Bring those stomach muscles up and lower.

Yeah, and again, inhale, exhale, slight drag of the hands. It's helping to charge up those back muscles right across the upper back between the shoulder blades, often our poor posture, slouchy muscles and come all the way down. Okay, now I'm going to let go of the band. I'm going to push my hands right by this size of my chest and come back into a little rest pose. But same thing here. I'm going to use my hands and slightly drag on the mat and pick my chest up a bit and then coming back out for the single leg kick. Single leg kick.

Today I do want to have us up a little bit more on our elbows and we can bring the palms face down. Look straight ahead and lift the breastbone. Tell me he's pulled up and I'm going to do a kick at kick and a lower and a kick and a kick and a lower wow. So it's important to keep thinking of stable or quiet hips meaning no bouncing there. So this is a pelvic stabilization exercise as well as back extensors. Really actually charging up the back body once again you side kick, kick lower and kick, kick and lower. So I'm going to put my right facial cheek down.

I'm going to move. This guy's just a little bit and as the rice facial, chicken's down, hands in the small of the back. Let's try something here today. Everybody gets your elbows down on the mat if you can. If you cannot separate your hands enough that you can or you might even hold your theraband in your hands behind your back. Okay. But I want us to take the the shoulder heads back. See what I just did back this way. Now for the single leg kick today, elbows are down, shoulders are back.

We're going to take our heels in three times. One, two, and three. Full extension. We know this part. You're reaching your hands old when the heart. Sure. And here we go again. Elbows down. But the shoulders are back. And we have three kicks. One, two, three Ab stretch once again, each side today and one, two, three.

And in here, reach back and other side. We're kicking it. One, two, three. And we're going to reach, I'm gonna release my hands, bring renew right underneath my shoulders and push again into that little rest pose. There'll be crawling back out onto our knees and taking a little [inaudible]. Push up with slight knee variation here. So I've got my knees bent. I'm going to open them up, bring my feet together.

This one I do want you to give your glutes a bit of a squeeze and we're going to lower ourselves by bending our elbows. And you don't have to lower much, five times three and five and lift. And then let's reposition herself in a quadro pet position. So shoulders are right above the wrists. Tuck our toes and we're gonna balance on our toes. And our hands only. So on an exhale, it's the knee lift.

Inhale, lower. Exhale. So I'm trying to hover the knees without changing the length or shape of the spine. In other words, no flection here guys, lift and down. And then one more time, we're going to lift and then aim the pelvis up. Chest down. Looks like a down dog. I don't do yoga and maybe I should, but it's the feeling of the pelvis going up, chest down in opposition. And now I'm going to bring us back down. Chest comes up, pelvis goes down, but you're not going to lower those knees three more times. Feel the hips, high chest.

If you have the flexibility in your calves and ankles to lower your heels, by all means rise. You want to arrive in a beautiful controlled way. May help to imprint your thumb and your index finger into the mat to really feel the connection of your arm into your shoulder. And one more time. [inaudible] and lower, lower and lower and down. Okay, we're going to move into some sideline work and I do want us to use that theraband for this. So I'm going to take it. Got It. My foot and just hold. Bottom arm is going to go long. Bottom leg is going to bend and first and foremost just feeling our sows lineup.

And so our BW pubic bone in naval in line with each other. What I mean there is that if your pubic bone is behind you in your belly button for wood, you're on non and low alignment. So if you can aim that pubic bone and naval in the same line and your long, your bottom waist just slightly above the floor, and we're going to do eight lifts laterally of the leg. So the therapy and adds a little bit of extra element, I think of feedback. Reach into what you want to stretch as you lift stretches you lower, ah, last two and last one and down. Now Front and back.

So as I bring the leg forward, showing you the foot, bringing it back. I want to squeeze my glutes but not take the leg so far back that the ribs thrust forward and flex at the hip. Sweep the leg feeling as though you're in ultimate control of how you're side lying on the mat. This is also fantastic abdominal work. Call on those abdominals to hold you on your side. It's also your back muscles.

Wow. Three more. Stretch out the hamstrings. So as you're sweeping the leg, be mindful that your bottom wasteland also stays hovered above the for no dropping. That might take you off of your square hips. Okay, so as the leg is going to go behind, now I'm going to do the the circle part, the circle of the leg. Now I'm going to keep my leg were turned in slightly and begin to lift my hand.

Will let go of the tension of the strap a little bit and I'm bringing my leg down. It's not a big circle. I want to continue stretching my leg toward the theraband last two and a circles this direction and then I'll do five the other way. So as it comes forward, just a little forward lift. When it goes behind you pro, turn it in. Just a little bit of a turn in from up here. Turns your heels higher than your toes yield higher than toes. Last two last one. [inaudible] and bring the knee in. Just release your hand, take your bottom arm underneath and you're going to do a really wonderful chest stretch and a rotation over and two more times.

So I'm just dragging my palm over the arm, over the chest, looking to the sky and then over the arm and over the hand. And last time and all the way to facing, I'm gonna crawl up and we're really only going to do a couple of those couple of pieces on the other hip. Cause I do have one thing for standing that I don't want to get your leg too tired down here on the floor. Okay, so we're on our side bottom, he bent or leg is in line. We're parallel, we've got our tummy lifted, we've got our shoulder set and we're doing eight live, two lifts of the leg again too. No, just have a little bit of pull on the therapist and nothing too attire out the hand. So keep thinking of reaching into the elastic and six, seven [inaudible] and last one eight and front and back. So front, front, front, end, sweeping back. Remember no thrust of the rib cage if you can help it. So as you're learning about more of your stability where you need more rib control, this is a real big example of that front with the leg and back with the leg.

Three more front, back and front back. Last one front. And then from the back we'll move it into the circle. So release your, raise your hand, work a little bit, circle the leg, sweep it back, lead with your heel slightly. And then around with the toes and heel and toe. Last two and last one. This direction and five the other way. So we're coming from front. Toes are up high, then the heel goes up. [inaudible] hi and toes he toes.

He'll reach long. Last too. Last one all the way around and bend. Okay, release. Bottom arm comes down and bottom and you're sliding the palm across the other. This is that really wonderful chest opener. Spinal rotation, easy to feel those bills heavy against the floor and you'll have one more and center. Okay. Using the hands, walk yourself up. We can let go the band for now. You're probably getting tangled in it like I am and I'm going to turn profile again for this and I want you to separate your feet about the width of your mat.

Slide your hands down toward the tops of your feet and stretch your spine forward. Just take a nice inhalation there and as you exhale, slide up, put your hands on your shins and lift your chest. Arch your upper back a bit. We'll do about five of these, so slowly rolling down and exhale using your arms and holding firm. Lifting myself up out of my pelvis, trying to bring my shoulders back, feeling the back in an extension and flection. Take a breath and up on those sit bones up out of the lower back using the back extensors to bend the spine back. That's two guys coming down.

Yeah, center. [inaudible] then I've got a fun little kind of version of a teaser we're going to do and up, but it's not the teaser that most of us know traditionally. Okay, so what it's going to be, I'm going to stay profile and I want to hook my hands underneath the back of the size and we're going to balance on our sit bones. Now the reason I don't want us to do I just a variation and you could go back into Lumbar fluxion here if you'd like to challenge your lower back strength to get up in a bit of a, a flatter back. Okay. And feel free to keep your feet on the floor if you'd like to use your arms. This is actually some arm work in, in the exercise.

If you're feeling ready and want a little more challenge, you whoop you lift your toes off the floor and hope you don't fall back like I just did. Now I'm going to take one leg and gesture it out and bring it down. Alternate legs [inaudible] and down. So the use of the arms, I'm pulling on the back of my legs to help kind of give me some feedback to lift up as well. [inaudible] I'm gonna try the same thing with my foot flexed heel and down. My leg is shaking, open and down. Open and down. One more single leg.

Now we're going to try both at the same time. Extend and returned. Three more. Feel how strong your back is. Two. We're gonna do one more. Hold. Soften your toes and just now tap them at eight times. One, two, three, four, five, six.

I lost it. Seven and eight and down. Okay. I'm going to take my feet just there on the map. I'm still turned out holding on. Gesture one arm up. And as I lean back, I mean definitely using the other arm for support, but I want to rotate an arch, the upper spine and return. So feel a little free with this [inaudible] you're like, I'm kind of, I don't know what I feel a lot of expression through the chest.

A lot of strength in the back for more up and back. Last one ride side. And last one left side and then what we'll be doing is coming up to standing. Let's bring our thera brand with us. Just a few more things here. So the standing arm work.

So I'd like to hold open up the thera-band step right in the middle of it with both feet. First we're going to do some rose. So I'm, I'm going to bring my knees into a bent position and hinge slightly forward and taking my fists. I'm kind of cuddling up the last little bit of the theraband and I'm just gonna row my elbows up and lower down eight times [inaudible] so I have my eye focus slightly forward on the floor, my chest phone reaching. Also kind of really right out to you. I don't want to do this with a round back. This is kind of a series of exercises in today's class for posture improvement. Upper back.

Yeah, and I'm going to change it for some bicep curls for eight. I like to lead my thumbs too. I'm still in that little hip hinge. Three and four, four and three, two and one. No from here. Open the arms a little. Now if you feel it, you'll find out a second. If this is too taught, let go and go way out here. I might show it like that. I can always cuddle it back up.

Now what I want to do is that shift of my weight like I did earlier in the bridge position, so I'm going to shift a little more weight to my right leg, lift my left leg off, hold balance for a second and I'm now going to try to push my leg sideways into the thera-band and n eight times. So I'm almost thinking of going down to the floor, skimming right across the top of the floor and coming in down to reach out, three down under, reach out for so some great balance work and five and 10 and six and in and seven and eight and in a step that foot down. Regroup if you need to shift your weight to your left or right if you did your other side unweight the foot. Here we go. So think go down to floor than out to the side. That might help you keep your hips square. If you go too high, you might lead with your hip up. So think down to the floor, sideways, down and sideways.

Meanwhile, in the upper body, I'm not gripping my neck. I'm not gripping my shoulders. I feel strong between my scapula on my ribs, my upper back posture is where I'd want it if I were walking down the street. No slump. One more time. Here I believe is eight and step. Now take one foot out. I'm gonna take to go back to my first leg and I'm going to balance on that leg. You can put your toe down behind if you'd like to.

I am slightly leaning forward. I'm going to pull my elbows close into my body. I want to cuddle up a little more. I'm going to do eight tricep extensions, one and two and three, four and four and three and two and one. We're almost done. I'm going to step down. Do that on the other side, just easy. Here we go. Square the hips and shoulders. One, two, three, and four. Give me your leg and reach back there. Five. Let me reach for something. And seven last one.

Everybody ate and stepping in. Let's take our hands out or her feet out of the band. Step just wide with your feet. Reach your arms long up above your head. Just a really easy, gentle side bend. Before we do this, we'll do eight of them. Bring your legs towards each other.

So pull almost like you're sliding your feet on the floor to the center line and up and over to the side and center. Up and over. Up and over. Wow. Four more easy shoulders. Yeah. Side lasting we'll be doing is lowering the arms. You know, Walk your feet into the center.

You're just gonna rise up on Relevate. Put your feet right underneath your hip sockets and just rise up on your toes and just hold yourself on your toes. Feel yourself steady and just easy. Does it take your head and look to the right and easy, does it back to center and over to your left and center. Let's lower both heels to the floor and to take a knee. Nice easy knee bend to finish. And there you have it. Thank you very much.

I'll see you next time.