Prenatal Mat Flow

So this is the first of a series of um, Claudius classes that we're going to be doing for prenatal and postpartum. So I am at this point 19 weeks pregnant. So I'm into my second trimester and I'll come back for a few other classes as I progressed through my pregnancy and then I'll be back postpartum to kind of show how you can use Pele's to kind of help you through your postpartum period as well. Does that sound good? Fantastic. So the work really here is again it's, there's going to be some modifications but at this point the real major modifications are going to come in toward the latter part of the second trimester and certainly into the third trimester. So there's definitely some modifications and as I progressed through my pregnancy and progressed the classes we'll be going through what those different modifications can be.

And also this workout is particularly good for postpartum as well. It's going to be a nice way to get back in touch with your abdominal muscles, get back in touch with your pelvic floor, with your upper back muscles and such. Does that sound good? All right ladies. So we're going to go ahead and start. Okay. So turning to the side here, I want you to again, just sit nice and tall, lifted good. Just imagine that your shoulders are directly over your hits and we're just gonna start with some gentle breathing here. So again, you can breathe relaxing your abdominals at first, and then we'll go into a little bit more of our Pele's breath so you can keep your eyes open or you can keep them closed, whichever you choose, whichever is going to help you to draw a little bit more into your internal focus, a little bit more into your breath.

So let's just settle here for a moment. We're going to take a nice big breath in through the nose and the big exhale. [inaudible] and breathing in and Xcel. Just one more preparatory breath and inhale and exhale. Now you can choose either place with one hand or both hands low on your abdomen.

There you go. And just cradle your belly into your hands. And I want you to breathe deep down into your abdomen and deep down into your pelvis. If you were sending fresh air down into the low part of your belly, and take the breath in, exhale and every breath and feel like you're filling your pelvis up with Nice, fresh air. And with your exhale, just relax. Three more for me like that, and breathing into your hand. Feel your belly. Press forward into your hand. Good. Then Xcel just feel it, the lax and dwell away from your hands. Fantastic. And again in inhaling. Good. And exhale, and one more for me. Breathin and the exhale.

Yeah, great. Just feeling the softness of your shoulders, softness in your throat. Let's go and take a feat. So they're nice and flat on your mat. They can be as far out as you choose or as close in as you choose. You just want to make sure you're comfortable on your bottom. You're comfortable in the front of your hips.

You're going to take your hands behind your thighs and you're gonna use your arms to assist you to get into this nice vertical position. For me, that's it. Good. Now from here, I just want you to feel that gentle drawing in of your abdominal wall as if you're supporting the whole of your trunk with your abdomen, pulling your abdominal wall back towards your spine as best as you're able. We're going to take a nice big breath in through the nose as you feel now, the expansion of your bid cage. And as you exhale, I want you to haul your abdominals and just slightly round through your lumbar spine or your lower back. And I want you to inhale restack the spine app and then with your Xcel hall though the abdomen, curving that lower back. Nice and gentle. Yes. Good. Nice Candace. And then inhale restack stack the spine up and the XL hauling is, if you're creating space in that lumbar spine and you're gonna feel the pelvis respond and move underneath you, let's just hold here for a second.

So you're really enveloping the whole trunk with the abdominal wall here. Nice and solid through your arms. Then inhale, feel yourself roll over your sitz bones. Restack the vertebrae from the top to the bottom. Energy out through the crown of the head. Three more like that. [inaudible] and breathin.

So movement during pregnancy is so nice and so helpful because it really helps you to stay connected with your changing body that changes rapidly and it helps you to build that connection also with your child's cause. You can just kind of focus. Imagine what's going on inside of your body at the same time that you're moving. Creating that nice sense of control and breath and fluid movement. One more time for me and the exhale.

Nice. And inhale, restock the spy net. Good. If your legs are comfortable, I want you to take your arms straight up in front of you. Palms are going to face up for me. So a little bit of shoulder movement here. Inhale out to the side to shoulder. There you go. Then exa slice your arms in in how?

Reach out to the side as if your opening, expanding your collarbones out to the side. The next cell. Slice your arms to come in. Great. And Inhale, reaching, feeling nice and tall, stacked up in your spine, and Xcel. Create that sense of what we call co contraction, the abdominals in the back, working together to create that stability of the trunk and exhale. Good. Two more like that. Inhale opening, feeling that stretch, that reach. Good and exhale. You're kind of expanding in the Pex, in the front of the chest or the front of the arms and holds here.

Now take the Xcel come up. Yeah, and inhale, reach open and Xcel up. And inhale, reach, good. And Exxon, they'll start to draw the attention deep into your pelvis and reach. You want to feel the sensation of the pelvic floor musculature engaging, creating that shelf for the rest of your chunk, for all of your organs and reach up with the next tail and inhale, open nice and wide. One more time and exhale and inhale, open. Good.

And gently bring your hands back behind your thighs and back into the abdominal work. The lower back mobilization and exhale down. You can go little further now, kind of pressing energy of your heels forward into your mat. And then inhale restack. This is going to become a little bit more waive like now and XL, your thread and your belly button through. Nice, good. Go a little bit further. Perfect.

And then inhale restack we're not going to be real strict about perfect form here. I just want more of that mobilization, feeling that joy of moving through your spine and inhale. A lot of times with pregnancy we start to feel a little bit of tightness in our lower back because of our changing posture. So this is a nice way to kind of mobilize through that area and inhale up and one more XL staying nice and focus down into your abdomen, down into your pelvis. Perfect. And inhale all the way up. Great. Now I want you to put both hands on your right Fi. That's it. You're going to rotate your trunk a little bit.

So now we're going to add some rotation to it. Some, some oblique where and now XL we go down [inaudible] yes. Good. And in how restock all the way up. [inaudible] nice and inhale. You guys are moving really well. I can see you initiating from that little bag. Good. And all the way up. One more time. Good. Hasn't feeling good. Exhale and all the way up. Good.

And then slowly spiral yourself over to your left. Find your alignment first, your elevation, your extension first, and then we break that extension with the little lumbar flection as we go down. And then in how restack and FEMA feel your chest. Open your scapula open wide. Then exhale and inhale all the way out. Let's go. Three more to the left. And the exhale feeling is if you're hooking right underneath the lepto bleak, the left side of the rib cage. Great. And all the way up. Beautiful. Two more exhale.

And inhale. Three stacking the spine up. One more time. And the big XL nice and gooey through your spine. Wonderful. And all the way up and find yourself center. Good. Let's go ahead and slide forward on our mats. We're going to go down for a little bit of supine work is going to be our next series here.

So we're gonna take the nice big breath in and you're going to start to lower yourself. Nicest, slow breathing out through the mouth, you're going to feel the lower back. Good. And you can slide your feet in. And if also, if you need to slide down a little bit more, you can arms going to come right down to your sides. Go ahead. I want to start with just four pelvic curls here. So I'm going to take the nice big breath in. And with the XL we roll into the posterior tilt, so the same position that we just did sitting, but we continue to peel the spine off the mat, pressing the feet into the mat, pressing the shoulders into the mat all the way to the top.

We take the breath in at the top and then the XL we say quench, really roll down the spine all the way articulating, finding each vertebrates place on your mat and roll all the way back to your neutral pelvis. Just feeling the tailbone hit, take the breath in and with the XL, use the abdominals, collect the pelvis into the tap or the posterior tilt rolling up. Did you feel like you can't quite get that belly flat at this point? That's okay. Just activate those muscles to flatten that spine. Allow that opening of the hips. Then exhale, roll down. Good, good, and join that stretch to the spine.

That opening at the lower back and then just rest your tailbone down. Very nice. Take the breath in. Two more and the next. So use the abdominals to scoop your pelvis set. Great. I feel the power of this position, the power of the hips, the power of the shoulders as you press the pelvis up. Great. Nice big breath in. Fill that hole of the rib cage up with fresh air.

Then Xcel soften through your throat and your sternum. Good. Nice. Okay. Getting back in touch with the abdominals. If you're a postpartum here and Xcel deepen, go ahead. Allowing those hips to open that are a little bit tight during pregnancy, allowing them to stretch and expand. Take the nice big breath in.

Wonderful Ladies and then Xcel down. We go finding yourself all the way to the bottom. Okay. Open your arms out to the t position. Palm is facing up. Bring your legs all the way together. We're going to do the spine, chest supine with our feet on the mat. So it's a bit of a modification. So we're going to take art's spiral from our waist. This our legs go to the rights.

You can keep the left foot stacked on top of the right foot. Take a nice big inhale. Try not to just drop your legs, but actually feel the spiral coming from the waistline. The next cell. Pull your body back to and to the left. Feel that spiral coming from right underneath your ribs. And then the excelling gage, the right side of the waist is you draw back to center.

Now I want you to focus on the control and also on pulling the abdominal wall as flat as possible as you do this and Xcel back to center and to the left. Inhale. So making this more about obliques and abdominal control and less about getting a spine to spine stretch at this point, or just tossing your knees from side to side and inhale and the XL flat and the abdominal feel that pull of the abdominals to rotate your trunk back to center. And last one to the left. Inhale, keeping the arms expanding the throat. Open the face soft and exhale back to center. Nice job. Look good. Let's take the hands right down by the sides.

Palms facing down. We're going to start with leg changes, so the right leg is going to come up to tabletop position. We're going to feel that sense of deepening through the abdominal wall so we have practicing that sense of stabilization through the trunk. When you take a nice deep breath in to prepare and we switch with the XL. Okay. As you may or may not know, the hindering is directly coming from the hip, not from the knee and I want you to ask yourself if you're feeling as if your back is remaining steady on the mat.

If your pelvis was remaining steady on the mat, your shoulders are open and free of tension. It keeps switching and just feel every switch who compress that abdominal wall deeper and deeper. Last set, keep the left leg up and picking the right leg up to join us and making it a little bit more challenging. We're going to do a double leg toe tap here, so we're gonna take both legs, tapping both big toes onto the mat. The next, I'll bring it up. Try really, really hard to not let your back arch if this is a little too challenging for you. You don't have to take your legs all the way down to the mat. You can go just halfway or you could simply just hold your legs a tabletop and do some deep breathing and exhale up.

Make sure you lengthen out through the crown of the head and excel app. Let's go for two more ladies and inhale and exhale. Last one to take the breath in and Xcel all the way up. Great. Take your left foot down and extend your right leg up toward the ceiling and flex. You have a choice. You can either leave your knee bent or if you want, you can slide your leg out along the mat and take your arms back out to your tee position. For our leg circles, so nicest steady through your pelvis. You're going to cross over the midline of the body and inhale our circle and XL for circle.

Let's go a little bit faster and inhale for a circle and XL for a circle that's better. And inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. Very nice and inhale good and Xcel candidates. Little more flex to your foot. Good. Inhale and exhale. Last.

Set an inhale and exhale all the way up. Good holds here ladies. Nice big. Flex the foot as best as you can. Nice power through that right leg. Good. I'd like you to point your foot with an inhale and then exhale, pull your toes back and flex. That's it. And point your foot with an inhale. Beautiful. And next a, pull the toes back and flex. Good and point.

And when you do that flex feel like you're going to flatten a little bit more through your abdominal, widen the arms, the energy through the chest, a little bit more. Inhale and exhale, flex. Good. That will be the last one. Take that right leg down, gently slide it out or keep it bent that foot flat on the mat and then take your left leg up and flex that foot. So lots of energy. Feel like that thigh, that left leg bone is called the femur is sliding down into your pelvis. I'm going to go over to the cross to the right midline of the body and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. Inhale.

Exhale two more. And the last XL hold it and we point up on the inhale and we flex on the exhale and point working through the Fi and exhale. This is great if you've started to feel a little bit of cramping in the fee, a little bit of swelling in your feet, just eating that nice movement, that mobility. Great, good. And Flex with the exhale. One more time, point all the way up and as you flex, dry the energy of the abdominal wall down. Beautiful. And we move all the way. Good. Nice ladies, let's go ahead and lie on her sides. Yep. So head facing out. Okay.

Just wanting to be supine for just a short amount of period of time and then we'll go into our side work. Everybody's still doing dead Nice. Okay, so you want to skip yourself all lined up here, essentially shoulder over shoulder, hip over hip, other m bottom arm, whether it's right or left or right underneath that year, senior tips gently placed on the mat in front of you and just bring your legs slightly forward. Sadly, that's going to give us a little better sense of stabilization here. And again, you want to feel like your abdominals and your back are like two bookends holding your spine nice and steady. You want to feel nice, gentle in your throat and in your shoulders. We're going to squeeze those thighs together for the side leg lifts and just gently lift them up. That's it. Take the breath into prepare and exhale. We'll go up a little higher and inhale down and XL. Good. So at the top of your XLE first breathe out.

I want your first thought to be to draw the abdominal wall in. The second thought to be to lift those legs up, to fill the oblique work. As you slide your pelvis closer to your rib cage, that's it. Check yourself that you're calming your shoulder XL. You should be feeling the sensation of a cough from your front body to your back body around your waist.

Really squeeze in those ties and feel like you have the zipper coming up from your pubic bone all the way to your sternum. I'm giving you a lot to think about. So go ahead and just hold onto those thoughts for five more reps and down and four nice down wrapping the abdominal wall in and down. Beautiful and too great. One more time. Very nice. Last one. Hold it. Bend your bottom.

Me To a 90 degree angle. Good. And take the top leg down. That's it. So building a little bit of energy in your top hand. That's it. I want you to lift the bottom arm and the top leg up together. Uh Huh. That's it. And then slowly lower down and think of going out to come up.

That's it. And slowly down. So you're gonna feel that extra little work in the waistline here and XL lift focusing on that oblique work, which is a great muscle group, the abdominal obliques to focus on in our pregnancy. That's it. And down last one and Dexa. So reach out to go up engaging the center body. Beautiful and down. Great. Bring that leg in.

Nice and gentle and let's go ahead and switch over to the other side. Nice. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and just cue you guys to this side. So ladies, just a little bit forward in all of your points, your hips stacked your shoulders, stacked like you can even slightly feel like your pubic bone is going to draw forward. Yes, that's it. So take your breath in just to lift those legs up off the mat, hovering them. Beautiful. Then Xcel, we lift out to go up, inhale and exhale out to go at great and down.

Very nice and XL. So you're feeling the obliques and even the little bit of the QL because those are the lateral flexors of the trunk. And what we're doing now is actually a lateral tilt of the pelvis. That's it. And exhale. Nice a member that you're pulling the abdominal wall in Nice and flat.

Good. So you're holding that stabilization. Nice. You can always challenge yourself by lifting your arm up toward the ceiling or taking it onto the top side of your waist. If anybody liked to try that, they can form more up. Good. So you're challenging a stabilization and three that says are these last two, try to get a little bit more range of motion. Okay, fantastic. One more time for me and XL lift. Find that little pause.

Bend your bottom knee to the 90 degree angle. Great. And Go ahead and rest that top leg down. Perfect. So a little bit of energy through that top hand. We're going to lift that bottom arm and that top leg together and the energy is going to go out and up. [inaudible] yes, and take it down. So I guess a little rough on the next.

You definitely have to support your head and your neck with the musculature of the neck, which is okay. And take it down. Go ahead and Xcel. Imagine that the arm and the layer gonna reach the same height. Good. And take it down. And what I really like to see as you come down is the deceleration. So the control as you go down, wonderful and form more and lift.

Great. And up. You guys look beautiful. And again and again too. We rising, brewing taller, longer. It's probably a better word and down and one more and lift up. Very nice. Good and rest really good. Beautiful. Okay, so let's go ahead and sit up facing in toward the center again.

So we're going to do some variations of, of course, one of the big rules with pregnancy is that we take fluxion out. Okay. Because we want to take a lot of the work out of the Rectus Abdominis, the center muscle, because it's already going to be so stressed during pregnancy as your belly starts to grow. So we focus a little bit more on the transverse Abdominis, which is that rapping muscle that comes around, which flattens the abdominal wall, also provides stabilization and also the obliques, which are the rotators and also the deep internal Oblique also acts as a stabilizer as well. So those are the ones we want to focus on. So we're going to play with the modification here today for single leg stretch and double leg stretch at for it. Okay, let's go. So I want you to go ahead and just come back onto your elbows. No, I prefer to work into a little bit of a posterior tilts and some people might prefer to work in a little bit more extension. I'm going to let you choose.

Here's someone to be real open to whatever feels better. But I feel with the little bit of the posterior until I can feel the oblique activation, I can feel the ta activation, but also gives me that sense of opening through my lower back. So legs come up to tabletop, go ahead and you get that nice shoulder work as well. So we're going to go into the single leg stretch for, so you're going to go with the right leg extending first XL [inaudible] good. Bring the knees in and hollow a little bit deeper. Now we're going to take both legs out, sliding them out for the double leg stretch. So inhale, Xcel hollow.

Drag those legs back in and inhale, reach, retreat. Look at your tummy, makes it as it's flat as it'll go. Then exhale hollow a little bit deeper and inhale, reach. And I want you to imagine that you're squeezing a ball right below your belly button. Really deep, wonderful, and inhale, reach those legs long and so hollow as you draw in. Now don't allow your pelvis to tilt as you take those legs out. Keep it steady.

Better the next cell to get that nice big hollow go. Do you feel that? And in how reach, let's go two more here. I know it's a little demanding on the flexors. That's okay. And one more read. Yes, and the exhale. Sink in. Draw in. Perfect. Take your legs down one at a time and just sit up to release it for just a second. Great. Good. One more set?

Yeah, just devil it up a little bit. Okay. So we'll go back to the 10 single leg stretch and we'll do some more of the devil leg stretch. So let's go back down. Halloween at the tummy. Nice and tight. Good, nice and focused here. Deepening, imagining yourself and casing your whole trunk with the abdominals. And right leg goes. Exhale.

Okay, good. Draw those ribs down. Make sure the shoulders are away from the ears, both knees in hold tight. And let's go just to touch faster on this set. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. So try not to let your body be pulled forward by the weight and the lever of the legs. So keep your bodies steady and XL, Greg. Good resistance coming in and exhale. Five more. Reach and hollow and for and deep in each time.

Good. Three exhale. And to exhale. Last one, reach and draw all the way again. Hold, hold, hold. That was great. And come on up. Beautiful. Okay, so you're going to face heads in ready to do some plank and some modified back extensions. You guys are great. Okay, so hands are nice and flat. Shoulders are over the wrist and these are just below the hips. Now again, you want to check that you're not falling into your shoulders, but you're nice and lifted up out of your shoulders.

Your abdominal wall is drawn in. Here's yourself. The cue supporting the baby in your belly by pulling the abdominal wall in and up. Great toes are going to tuck under or forward. Okay? Whichever way you want to think of it. Yeah, so you have to take your breath in. The first set is simply lifting the knees off the map. Okay.

Now the energy is out through the crown of the head and out through the tailbone. Simultaneous, slowly as you breathe, you want to feel your shoulder work. You want to fill your abdominal work, your back work. You want to feel your thighs activate. Give me two more breath. Good. Keeping that sense of upper back lane. Wonderful. That was a good cue for you and last one, and he's come down good and you might be a little bit limited as far as you can go over, but go ahead and just drop your heels down or excuse me, your bottom down to your heels. That's it. Just to stretch out that back a little bit. That's good. Nice ladies. Okay, number two, we're just, we're going to hold this position. This is going to be it for us, so we're pulling that abdominal wall up.

We're sending lots of energy out through the pelvis. Take the breath in and lift those knees up. Now per really press the energy of the heel, the hands down into your mat. It feels if your shoulder blades are gonna grow wider and wider apart through activating a muscle, we call the serratus anterior. Feel the shoulders strong every time you breathe out.

Breathe up into the abdominal wall. Two more. Last one, knees come down gently and take your heels over your bottom of your heels. I just can't get that right. Can I? Good, nice. But let's do a little modified back extension.

He has to go ahead and relax your seat. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, we're going to start with the spell this nicest steady. We're going to think of a basic back dissension that we lie on. Our tummies are prone and we're just going to repeat here on the kneeling position. So we're going to lift the head, the neck and the chest as if you're breaching your heart forward and then inhale, take it down. So maybe a little more direct with my breath. I do want you to Xcel as you come up. So XL, lift, head, neck and chest.

You can draw the abdominal wall up and in and then slowly take it down. And again, lift, head, neck and chest. Feel like a string is pulling your stern and Ford. Wonderful. And take it down. Go ahead and again, so you're working that sense of reverse articulation if you will. Wonderful. And take it down. Good.

Now this time you're going to float your left arm as you do it. So you're going to lift up, exhale and take it down and float your right arm up and exhale, reach holding the tummy and tight and take it down. And the left or no. I only want you to lift your arm as far as it feels comfortable. This one feels a little bit uncomfortable. And your shoulder, your neck, just go to a range that feels comfortable and down and lift the right arm, lift, head, neck, and chest. It. Feel like that arm is growing out long, infinitely long outside of your shoulder. Good. And take it down.

One more set left and right and reach. Wonderful. Trying to stay balanced on the knees. And last one with the right and lift. Accela excellent ladies and bring it down. One more time. You can sit your bottom over your heels good and fast. I want you to roll up through your spine. Gently sit yourself on your bottom.

And one more time. Just sit with your legs. Gently Cross one in front of the other, enhance on top of your knees and we'll just finish your very quickly. So as you're sitting here, you should of course feel some differences in your body. Should feel a little bit looser, a little bit taller, a little bit more space, perhaps in your pelvis, a little bit more space perhaps that your waistline a little bit more softer and relaxing your shoulders wherever you tend to hold tension or you know your problem areas in your body wants you to see if you feel a little better there. You may or may not. Hopefully you do.

Okay. I want you to put your hands back lower in your belly [inaudible] and whichever thought you want to focus on right now. If you want to focus on your child, you can. If you want to focus on a certain achy spot or spot that feels better in your body, you can, it's your choice, but I want to finish the class with five deep breath here. Let's take the breath in and exhale.

Just find the rhythm of your breath and inhale with each breath. Focusing on a thought, a good thought. Congratulating yourself for doing something good for your body. Not only your body, but the growing life inside of you. Two more big breath, as big as you can. Don't worry about form. Just breathe. Yes, yes.

Good. And one more time. Nice. Release your hands again. Opening your eyes if they were close, giving yourself a nice big smile and nice work today. Very good.