Cardio Mat

Hi everyone. I am in the mood for a little bit of sweat, and kind of a faster paced mat workout. Sometimes people say that mat work isn't cardio, so I'm hoping to change that attitude a little bit. There's a transitional thing in here, a movement, it's rolling like a ball, and come up and jump. And don't worry if it's pretty or not, we'll see if mine is, but just to give you a little bit more intensity in your mat work.

So I've selected a few mat exercises, kinda increased the intensity on them, which might feel faster, but it's also just more intense. So we might burn a little calorie here and there and get a little bit of sweat going. So, I like to start that kind of workout with some jumping jacks. About 20 of 'em. And four, and five, and six, and seven, eight, and if you can't really jump like this, all the way, you can just step your feet apart.

I know sometimes the whole jump thing isn't really accessible. four, three, two, and one. I'm gonna just do some high kicking kind of steps. So I'm pulling my knee up toward my shoulder. (inhales and exhales) And I'm working in my amount of turnout here, I'm not overdoing it, just trying to find my ball and socket, and lift.

So right away, doing some larger physical movement to get my heart pumping. (exhales) And I'm gonna do eight more. one, two whoop, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. I'm gonna turn. Do a standing roll down.

I'm gonna soften my knees and around. (exhales) Just loosen up the back. Gonna walk out to my hands and then jump my feet ahead and sit down and roll back down. Okay, let's do some abdominal work with some chest lifts. Hands behind your head.

(inhales) Level pelvis, exhale, curl. Just do four basic chest lifts. This is typical for me to start with these in a short workout and build some layering on. Onto the basics, here's four. I'm gonna stay up on this one, add a little knee lift now.

Take the opposite hand and reach behind, and in, four times, and reach, and in. (exhales) three, trying to reach my arm away, my leg away, and stay in the chest lift. And switch, four times, reach. If it feels good to point your toes, you can point the toes. Mainly think about that, again, you're trying to keep the back stable, working those abdominals.

And then in, let's just take it down, breathe in. Curl the chest, knee in, so let's take a little variation. Take your arm and leg away. I'm gonna do leg out to the side, arm out to the side. Watch for and feel for the level pelvis.

Bring back in, same thing, and open. You can't see my left arm probably, but it's reaching over to the wall. Four of these. And there's four, and then I'm gonna add a little circle. So my leg and arm go, but they're circling in opposite directions there.

And two, trying to use those upper abdominals to stay up in that high sit-up so that I'm not straining my neck. Working those abdominals, there's four. Now let's go the other way, with the arm and the leg, keeping stable in the pelvis, my other foot is pressing onto the floor, for little added stability, assistance in my hamstrings. There's my four, around, and let's take everything down. Breathe in.

(exhales) Other side, so leg in, arm and leg reach. Alright, so we're gonna go away. Leg out, arm out. Whoopsie, I went this way. And arm, and leg, it felt weird.

And pull in. And arm and leg reach. So you're taking your leg, I'm in parallel, so I'm a-b-ducting the leg, so I can't go all the way. Now if we come into a circle, open, around and in. You'll do both directions, I may have just started the opposite way.

(exhales) It's alright, you'll go the other way just momentarily, so we did four, so here it is. Coming down arm and leg, they go away from center, pull the leg and arm up. The single arm here is pressing downward toward the floor. Up, two more. And lift, and lower.

Last time, then we're gonna start going into just some nice, easy set of criss-crosses, here we go. So take the twist to the right, lift, twist to the left, and then four fast, one, two, three, and four. So two slow, and slow. Four fast, one, two, three, two more sets. That twist, hold, twist, hold, and stretch, (exhales) twist and hold, twist and hold, criss, cross, there we go.

Tuck your knees in and roll for a second. Okay, so here's the transitions. Next one, let's go ahead and reach, little jump. Five times, push with the legs. Push with the legs, and reach.

Push, one more, we're gonna stay up, turn back to you and just high knees, in parallel. It's kind of a high marching, work your posture here, so I'm setting up to the top of my head, my navals in, all that good stuff. Fold your elbows. So can you get your knees up to your elbows? I'm not quite there, so I gotta activate my hips.

There we go, little more. It helped me to turn out a little bit. (exhales) I am gonna try to go back to parallel though, and parallel. 10 more, one, two, three, four, without shortening the spine, seven, eight, nine, and 10. Okay, little swimming, turn, roll down.

Let's walk ourselves out, lower down, stretch. Arms and legs up and paddle. (inhales and exhales) So I'd like you to contract your glutes, look at the mat, long neck there. Now start paddling a little wider, and a little slower. (exhales) And then faster, come closer together.

four, three, two, one, a little wider, slower. Two more sets, narrower, faster. three, two, one, soften, a little bit wider, and in, two, three, four, and rest. Okay, I want you to take your toes and your legs, stretch them apart, put them apart, wider than your mat, probably. Put your hands by your shoulders, and if you can, in one movement, push up into plank.

If you need to put your knees down and come up this way, that's fine too. Otherwise, here we go one, two, three, push. So I'm just gonna hold this for a minute. Get strong, get solid. We're gonna bring our feet in and our feet out.

Foot, foot, foot, foot. (exhales) And, in, in, out, out, in, in, and then you'll start with the other foot coming in. (inhales and exhales) (inhales and exhales) Push the floor away, lift the chest up. Now one pattern each side. Foot, foot, out, little tap, bring it in, (inhales and exhales) in, last one.

We're gonna end open. Bring your right arm up, a little twist, put it down. So I've just made a little fist, and pulling, using my upper back, back of shoulder, and down. And twist, same time other arm, pushes to the floor. (exhales) It's okay to get a little out of breath (laughs), I am.

It's a different intensity. Okay so those were slow, let's go a little fast. For eight, seven, turn, and push. four, three, two, slow it down for four. One, now you can feel a little contraction in the glutes, probably as you twist, let that happen.

Four fast, one, two, three, four. Now just two of each, slow, down, slow, and fast. Fast, one more. Slow, and slow, and hold. Okay, push it up.

Hold here for a moment. I'm gonna open my hands about the width of the mat on the floor. I'm gonna try a little snake push-up. Drop the chest, bend the elbows, and skim your nose, and then push, push the floor down. You are in a back bend.

Lift, two more times. Try to skim the nose, chest down, push. Last one, and skim the floor, whoop, I missed that one, oh well, and up. I'm gonna walk my hands in, walk my feet in. I'm gonna turn around for my little transition.

Here we go, roll, and jump five times. Reach forward with your hands, reach, jump. (exhales) Reach, jump, one more. (exhales) Up, and down. Okay, hands behind, right foot over left knee, and twist, twist, twist, and center.

Crossover, I'm turning my pelvis, trying to still push the floor down, and right over left. Use those center ab muscles, twist, twist. Chest stays open and twist, look straight out, single again or slow, twist, twist, twist. Twist, twist, twist, we're gonna go a little faster. Twist, so think about lifting the hips, roll the hip.

Roll the hip, roll, roll, roll, we're going for eight more guys, here we go. (exhales) three, four, and then into some back support, we're kinda doing some already. Alright bend your knees. Press your hips up. One leg extends out.

Now just hold this position. Feel your heart bouncing or beating and pumping, feel some body heat. Now this foot that's long, this leg that's long, flex your foot, drag your heel in, reach it out, four times, drag, I don't want to drag my mat but drag something. Like if you're at the beach and you're pulling sand up towards you, push and down. Change legs four times.

So first just extend, pelvis level, push the floor down. And we drag, we reach, we drag, we reach, we drag, reach, drag, and reach. Back to the first side. Now let's go up and down. Up and lower, up and lower.

Try to reach the window with this foot. Four on each side, ready and, one, and two. We're gonna go back to each side for two and then singles. Here we go, lift it up first, one, and two, bring it in, lift, one, and two, bring it in. Now just one big bicycle, and up, and up.

If your arms are getting tired, they probably should be, four more, rest if you need to, two, and push, and push. That's it, bring it down, walk the feet out. Get a nice stretch forward, cork screw. So, I want us to roll back, okay? I'm gonna take my arms out to the side, and roll, and place my hands.

Both legs up, so I'm taking myself overhead first. (inhales and exhales) Rolling down the right side of my spine, but I'm gonna stay within the framework of my mat, with my legs. I'm not gonna go outside my parameters here. (exhales) I'm gonna kind of trace inside this rectangle shape. Toes, bottom corner, top corner, center.

(exhales) Around, up, I'm gonna go one more each side. Down, around up, and down, around up. We have the transition, one, two, push, we got three more, push it, can she do it? I'm thinking about Kathy Rosnat, if she can do that with no problem. Okay, side kneeling, up, arms out, windmill over to one side, bring that leg up, bring it down and windmill over to the other side.

Keep going, let's do eight of those. So you're looking to get that leg up, hip height. Lift, lift, lift, so adding two arms, over, now keep the arm going, and two, and three, other way, one, and that'll pick us up here to go to the other side, and around, two, three up like a Ferris Wheel, and around. Let's do those again, three, each side. And one, two, leg is upright, three, and down around, and give a little bit of emphasis to lift up.

Now, I'm gonna go back to the first side, come along. Now just the leg circles, one, two, three, other way, one, two, we're gonna add that arm and leg. Circle, circle, circle. circle, circle, other side, that's all I promise, on that side, leg first, one, and two, and three. And one, add the arm, same direction as leg, two, and three.

And one, two, and three, and here. Hands, tuck your toes, walk yourself, roll up. Choose an end of your mat, roll down again. (exhales) Walk out, jump your feet, and jump your feet back. And jump 'em in, and jump 'em back.

Three more, in, and back and in, last one, in, stretch, roll up. So we've burned some calories, we've gotten our heart rate up, hopefully sweat a little bit. See you next time. Thank you!