Powerhouse Activation

Today, I'm going to teach a [inaudible] session on turning off your hip flexors and really making sure you're using your powerhouse. I get a lot of requests on how to do that in the workouts. So I'm going to be using a ball and a magic circle to do some of my favorite moves to relax your body and to relax your lower back, to really be able to engage your abdominal muscles and turn off those hip flexors. So this is going to be about an intermediate mat work and you can end it with that. But if you do have a Cadillac or a wall unit or even some leg springs and some eye hooks around, I can talk more about that later.

Then there'll be an ending of about five to seven exercises that you'd really enjoy turning off those hip flexors and getting a good stretch. So, and if for any reason you live close to Chicago, visit Janice Duloc. She is passionate about this and is just phenomenal in this area, so you would really enjoy a session with her. So if you do not have a ball, many of my clients just roll up a yoga mat and use that to put underneath their tailbone when we're going to be doing the stretches. And if you don't have a magic circle, you can either squeeze the ball that you have or roll up a bathroom towel and squeeze that. It's going to just be between your knees. So no need to get any professional, a little tools here. All right, so we're going to lie down on your mat and have your knees bent and your feet flat.

I'm going to put the circle down for now and we're going to start off with your ball underneath your tailbone. So my lower back loves to get tight and I'm sure I've mentioned this a thousand times on plays anytime. So sometimes I will put it underneath my tailbone to stretch out my tight, lower back. And that is one of the things that happens when we have overworked hip flexor muscles and we don't know how to turn them off. Part of it starts from the very bottom of our ribs or, and it helps to learn how to engage those shoulder girdle muscles right here.

So if your ribs are flaring up to the ceiling and you have an arch underneath the bottom of your shoulder blades or a your bra strap, you need to tried right now to decompress that. So we're going to start with really enjoying this part. I like my clients to start by nodding yes, because your spine starts right between your ears and then it works its way down to your tailbone. And so you want to make sure that the vertebra right between your ears is nice and flat and you're aware of it on the mat. Then picture the next bone right below it and then right below that.

So we're working down towards your shoulder blades. And so between your shoulder blades, you don't want there to be a valley there. You want the shoulder blades, those vertebra to be nice and flush on the mat. Now we're working our way to behind the bra strap or the bottom of your shoulder blades between those ribs you want each vertebra. I often tell my clients, picture this mat as a wet slab of cement and you want to make an impression of each vertebra on the mat.

And that is because generally when we have tight hip flexors, we hold our back bracing it almost even if I had something underneath my tailbone, I'd still have this gaping light underneath my back cause I'm holding myself with my back instead of allowing my stomach to work. So we're relaxing the back right now. So now I am down towards my waistband as I've worked my way down and I really want my navel to sync to my lower back and I've used that queue a lot. You've probably hear the scoop and all of that, but what that really means is your lower back is stretching. I use the image of a hammock with my clients.

Just allow your lower back to feel like a hammock hanging and your belly is just sinking in there. You'll, you might notice that your quads or your thighs are tight right now and your feet are pushing into the mat to try to hold yourself. That is going to only prevent you again from relaxing the back. So you want to just let go of those legs, maybe give them a little shake or lift the feet a little bit heavy feet. Pressing into the mat is a dead giveaway that you're trying to use your hip flexor muscles. So we're trying to relax all that and I'm going to start with a few breaths.

You're going to put my hands on top of my ribs for awareness to make sure that they are not, uh, really high up off the mat. So I'm going to take a big breath and exhale. When I inhale, I will, we're gonna do this five more times. I want you to feel the air almost fill up the top of your lungs here. And when you exhale, I want the back of the ribs to really open and have space between each vertebra, each rib, and sink into the mat. And we're going to inhale and exhale again between your ears, your, um, vertebra is flat, you're not looking behind you, okay. You're on the back of the next almost flat, big breath and exhaling.

So we're going to be doing an intermediate mat that I mentioned. So this is not going to be a beginner's workout. This is if you have been doing polis for a little bit or either that or take it as far as you can today. But the point is that you have a little bit more awareness of how to use your powerhouse and you're just trying to learn now how to turn off the hip flexors to get more out of your powerhouse. So we have our [inaudible] box that square, and I'm going to take another breath. And this time on the exhale, I'm going to bring my right knee. And so I'm going to scoop my belly in.

I'm not going to rock back and forth and I'm gonna stretch my right knee into my chest. If you do rock back and forth, inhale, put that foot down. Exhale, bring in the left. That's us. Another sign that you're using a leg too much too depending on it to hold you stable and we're going to inhale, so we went and bent knee. We're going to do that again. It's a progression. You're going to bend in the right knee.

Now we're going to straighten that leg up to the ceiling and you're going to put your hands behind your thigh and notice that my shoulders are still on the mat. My hands are behind my thigh, not my knee. Make sure the leg is a little turned out so that your hips can stay square in cause you want to pool that leg as close to you as you can without pulling your pelvis. If that's super easy, go ahead and go past your knee and grab behind your calf. Okay, you're going to point your toes trying to make a straight line from the shinbone all the way to the toes and then you're going to flex the foot. Okay, point and flex. One more point and flex and now you're going to circle that ankle, making a full letter o a full circle three times and then reverse it. Don't make a letter d and make sure that that leg is stretching significantly the hamstring that you're pulling that leg as close to you as you can to do this without lifting the hip. All right, we're going to bend that knee again.

When you bend the knee. I used to always want to almost arch my back when I do that. Still using my back, so make sure you're pulling in and stretching your back, your hip, your knee, whatever needs a stretch there. Exhale, bring in the left, scooping in your belly, not using the hips. We straighten the leg. I'm going to go straight to the position I like behind my calf and point and flex so you fear if this is too much of a stretch and your shoulders are really lifted off the mat, go ahead and put your hands back behind your thigh point and flex one more and now three circles. One, two circles. Again, not a letter d and reverse for three.

Really be aware of how much range of motion is in that circle. All right, we're going to hug the knee in and then we're going to do an exercise, an awareness exercise that we're going to repeat several times today. So we're going to draw the belly in to bring the right knee in. Straighten that leg up again, a little turned out and give it a little stretch. Now I want you to feel the ribs and belly. Everything having energy going into the mat, including the arms, the back of the arms are going to press down into the mat.

So I have energy going down into the mat and now I want you to take that thigh and foot and reach up to the ceiling and I want you to almost push the ceiling away with the ball of your foot. Be careful not to lift the hip. Okay, this isn't me. Remember that the powerhouse in the box or going into the mat while the leg lengthens away, very important to turn off the hip flexor, the idea of lengthening, and we're going to reach that leg down the middle of our body with our belly. Stang scoops of the leg is reaching, reaching, reaching, and we're going to from our belly, pull it up to the ceiling and to more sweeping it down, you'll feel the back of the thigh and bottom engage and scoop it up. And one more. Don't forget to press your arms into the mat for energy and scoop it up and then hug it in. So these are just warm up exercises, not necessarily Palazzos exercises scooping in. We're going to draw on the left, okay.

But sometimes if we have tight hip flexors, we need to do some stretches first, we really get the nuts and bolts out of our workout. So we're going to press the back of the arms down. Energy legs turned out, hips are squared. Reach that leg to the ceiling as you reach out of the hip to go down and you're going to scoop in and pull it up. Make sure that this right leg is not trying to work too much. You might hear that hip popping if you do that. And uh, and the back of the thigh and seat reach that leg here popping into, right?

We'll get to that later. Hopefully turning it off. Now after that, I want you to cross your ankle over your right side and w we're going to pull your belly in to bring the right leg towards you and both hands go behind your right thigh, pulling that leg towards you. Now take your left hand and enjoy pushing away or not enjoy it. It's a tight stretch your left knee away. So my right foot is not dropping down. It's as if someone is pushing it towards me or against a wall.

And you're going to feel a huge stretch right here in your hip. We're gonna switch legs. You can either switch in the air, put that foot down, put the other one down, and then crossover depends on how tight your hips are. And you're going to use your belly to pull again up both hands behind your left thigh. This time to start again, my foot is at knee level and you're gonna push away your right knee. So you're going to feel that right in that hip and in the bottom I'm going to switch legs in the air and go directly into the pool and push at the same time. And one more. If you're left handed, usually it's going to be the left that's going to be tighter.

If you're right handed, usually it's your right hip. Mine is my right hip. And then hug both knees into your chest and enjoy that. We're going to take away the ball or your Yoga Mat, whatever you had underneath your tailbone. And I'm going to let my knees fall to the left and I'm going to reach my arms in the opposite direction. So just allowing yourself to twist and now I'm going to roll to the other side. But you don't do it by leading with the knees.

Try to get the back of the ribs down first because that's super important to understand how to turn the hip flex or off is anchoring the back of the ribs and we're going to scoop in and stretch the other way so your knees are falling to your right arms are reaching the other way. And one more each side scooping in. See how my ribs go down first, my back is flat before I go to the other side. Stretching and one more to the other side. Back of the ribs. Pulling in your belly and stretch. Good. Yeah.

All right. Now we're going to have our back nice and flat and I'm going to not need the ball anymore. But if you, that's all you have. We'll revisit it in a second instead of the magic circle. And I want to be a little bit of a, give you a little awareness of your pelvis. So right now, if I put the heel of my hand right here on my hip bones, bottom of my Palladio's box, and then point my fingers towards my pubic bone, I want them to be at the same level. Okay? I don't want, that's the ultimate goal.

I don't want my fingertips higher than the heels and my hands like this. Okay? And I don't want the opposite, which is where your heel of your hand is a higher than the your fingertips. So we want somewhere in between is the goal. In the next exercise. You'll notice if you are tilting too much like this, it's because you're gripping in that hip flexor. So we're going to try to work with that.

Part of getting your pelvis like this though is relaxing and stretching that lower back so it's flexible enough to get flat as well as strengthening those abdominal muscles enough. For now, I want you to bring the legs together and we're going to work on an awareness exercise to engage the back of the thigh and C so we had between the ears flat on the Mat and now without the ball it's a little harder, but you need to have every bone on the map and we're going to take a big breath and we're going to draw on our belly as we exhale to bring in the right knee. Try not to bring the whole pelvis towards us, straighten that leg up again, turning out, and now I'm going to bring that leg down till it's 45 degrees inc till it's a 45 degree angle. Suppress the arms, reach that leg up to ceiling like you did earlier. And we're gonna try to engage the back of the thigh and the seat right where it connects. Sometimes I use my fi hand right there to build awareness and I'm going to bring it down to a 45 degree level, eight angle. So I'm going to hold it there for five counts.

This is part of the rap that we talk in piles. I use a barbershop pull muscle as a image. Sometimes you want to feel that working on a scale of one to 10 at least a five. Then you're gonna go down a couple more inches. Putting your hand there, engaging a little bit more. Maybe you can even use those muscles to pull the thigh more out of your hip joint. And then you really get this nice stretch.

I hope you're feeling it about a seven. Now let's see if we can get it to a 10 so we're going to use again right where the fold of the back of the Phi and the seat hit as I lower the leg. So we're holding it just over the mat. I'm squeezing til about a 10. Notice my lower back is still flat so I haven't arched my back or use my back. I'm really using the back of the find the seat, my stomach that staying behind the line of my hips and most um, the real magic that happens is, is right here with the ribs. If that's arched, forget it. All right, I'm going to lower the leg completely onto the mat and hopefully you guys are all right there and we're going to slide that foot into us using our stomach.

Okay? See if you can make sure you're not, maybe put your hands right here and feel whether there are tight rubber bands there or if it's relaxed. Cause if you feel a tight band there, that's your hip flexor overworking. You're trying to turn that off, right? So we're gonna slide your right leg straight and bend it three times. We're going to use the back of the thigh and seat to slide that leg. And I'm really working on stretching that connection from the back of the thigh and hip through here, through my stomach and anchoring into the back of my rib. I'm gonna reshow it on my left side and we're going to bend it when I get there so that you can, might be able to see it a little easier and two more sliding the legs straight from the back of the thigh and seat.

But you should be able to see my scoop here and bending. And one more from the back of the thigh and seat building awareness here. And we're gonna see that on the Cadillac. If you do that later, and then bring the leg up with those muscles, hug it in and return that foot. All right, left side. So since I'm right handed my left right sides, one that really likes to take over, so I have to remind myself not to. We're going to draw the leftin and stretch it up and then press your arms down. Roni is right where the back of the thigh and the seat, right?

And here's what I'm saying, the magic happens where the rib stay anchored scooping in. And we're going to take the leg down to a 45 so it's the same level. The thighs are at the same level and you're trying to feel right where the thigh and the seat connect to about a five. And then as you go down lower, you want to try to feel it a little more. So you're about mid calf on your other leg. Make sure this leg is not working.

Try to turn it off so that you can turn this on more. Okay? Be Real aware there. And now we're going to go down all the way to hovering over the mat and hopefully you can see a little bit better here. I'm working holding the back of my rib, I'm scooping in. So from here there's a tendon that goes through just keeping it in layman's terms and we're going to lower it all the way down to the mat.

And I'm going to slide that foot into me and I'm going to extend it working from here, not by overworking my other leg, right? And two more bending it in and sliding it out. You're going to want to use this image, a lot of sliding your legs on the mat to engage the back of the thigh and the seat, which is very important to get rid of overusing that hip flexor. Now that I'm fully engaged, I'm going to use that to come up and then to hug it back in and I didn't put my foot down. All right, so I've done a lot. Now I'm going to grab my magic circle, a lot of prep work here, and we're going to do one more before we start our hundred. If you have a magic circle, put it between your inner thighs and we are going to and your feet are about hip width apart.

Make sure they're not wider than your knees, okay? Instead they're in line with your hips and your feet are a little bit close to you. All right, so again, here's my flat pelvis. I'm just going to say it's flat rather than tilted toward me. And that's super important in this awareness exercise because otherwise you're going to use the hip flexors and not the back of the thigh and seat to do this one. So keeping your tailbone on the Mat, can you feel your tailbone on the mat? Keep it there. Let's see if we can bring our, um, almost like our sit bones together, our hip bones together.

And you use the outer thighs and the inner thighs to squeeze that circle, not tilting my pelvis. Right now I'm gonna use the inner thighs and my pelvic floor to draw my tailbone towards me. I'm going to curl my tailbone towards me. And what happens is, is my waistband goes really deep into the mat. You can do that all day by using your hip flexors, but you want to feel it from here and turning on your lower abdominals in your pelvic floor. Now as if my spine was a strand of pearls, I'm gonna peel up. Well, I'm gonna hold my hands up. Jessie. You can see I'm going to peel up one bone, the next bone, the next one by one. But you want to press the back of the arms into the mat to really feel it and you or you might want to hold your hands right here cause you want to see a fold right where the back of the thigh and bottom meet.

Now holding your hips up so that there's a straight line from knee to shoulders. You're going to give me 20 squeezes, one, two, three, four. Give me 15 more. If for some reason you're cramping, you're probably using all the right muscles and be really happy about that and then just go ahead and hold the positions you find more four, three, two, one. Then hold it and you want to sink down the back of the ribs first member. That's where the stretch starts for the hip flexor muscles and then the next vertebra until you're all the way down with that tail bone again. We're going to do that one more time, so really making sure we're using the right muscles in the wrap as well as in the stomach and anchoring the ribs.

We're going to use the hips that come together while our tailbone is down and inner thighs and outer thighs. Use your pelvic floor and lower belly to curl towards. You notice my reds are still down and I'm going to appeal up one bone at a time. You can squeeze a yoga mat between your thighs. You can squeeze the towel, holding it up, make sure you don't dip and rise is with the hips. You're just going to give me 20 so really feeling it here and be aware is your pelvis. A lot of times it'll tip away from you.

You almost want to feel it tipping towards you. Really exaggerate that this is the deepest. You're going to feel your lower stomach and almost all of your work if you're doing it correctly with the inner thighs, pelvic floor and lower belly. Last one, hold and now sinking. Really get engage that lower belly sinking, sinking all the way down to your tail on. All right, so we should be super warmed up.

Now we're going to put the circle between your ankles. If you don't have one, don't worry about it at all. You don't even need anything between your ankles if you don't want. We're going to start by putting your hands one over the other behind your head cause I want to really engage the back of the ribs where I said the magic happens to start turning off the hip flexor muscles. Okay? So we're going to take a big breath and exhale, sinking those ribs. So one of the hardest, we were stretching out our back a lot, but once your hands go behind your head, exhaling, it's really hard to get the whole spine flat on the Mat. Big Breath. This time on your exhale, pull your lower belly in and use it to round up your head and shoulders.

Look at your belly, take a breath, and then pull your belly. And again, as you roll down, pushing your head into your hands. So notice I want you to see how my lower belly pulls into my lower back and I use it by imagining my lower belly and back can slide up and round up my, uh, shoulders and head. So anything from here up is really a reaction of what my powerhouse is doing, so I'll show you the wrong way real fast here, taking a breath. I'm going to exhale, pull in my belly, but I'm going to lead with my head. Okay, I'm leading right through here. It's not connected, I'm just picking up my head. So you really want to see the back of your ribs sink down before you round up your head and shoulders. So here's the correct way. Take a breath. Exhale.

Lower belly pulls in and it pulls all the way to the back of the ribs. And then it's like a seesaw reaction to lift your head up. Take a breath, look at your pelvis. Is it tilted towards you? If it is on, tilt it and pull your belly and more as you exhale to come up higher. Do that again. Take a breath, exhale, pull it in and come up as high as you can get. Get unstuck there. Take a breath, and now roll down. You're going to use your belly to pull into your lower back to push into your hands. So a nice upper body stretch there, one more like that, and then we'll start the hundred. Take a breath. Lower belly.

Exhale pulls in and rounds up, looking at your pelvis as you inhale until tid or get your tailbone down if you need to, and exhale, breath round up more. Okay, keep sticking to the mat today. Here we go. All right, taking another breath and exhale. Lower belly pools in and get a nice stretch on your back and neck as you go down. All right, let's start the hundred taking a breath. Exhale, pulling in your pelvic floor, lower belly, rounding up. Take another breath and exhale. Come up as high as you can. All right, we're going to bring your knees right over your shoulder, your hip bones, and we're going to reach your arms long not hanging back here.

Use your belly almost as if I said, let's roll up and do a teaser and here we go. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. I'm going to show you a more advanced way to get into the a hundred in just a second. And exhale if that's good enough for you. I want you to then stay here. If you want more challenge to feel the back of the thighs and the hips to get that wrap, you're going to straighten your legs forward.

So you should be feeling the connection of the back of the thigh, the seat, and this stretch with anchoring those ribs and XL 31 Tawney inner thighs back in the legs. And one more. All right, so we've done our hundred let's put our circle down and say we don't have a circle or say you want to start it a little more advanced. So I want you to have your legs right here and take the right thigh and back the Phi and glute. And I want you to slide that leg straight. Really engage. You can get it to a 10 on a scale of one to 10 feel the back of the thigh and see. And then that nice scoop. Let's do the left leg too.

So we're going to stir wretched out. So if you wanted to start an advanced mat, you want to feel these muscles here and I want you to lift your head up to look at your powerhouse and how that's working. So this should be here and this scoop that's going to come through your body connecting to those ribs. Let's see that. So I'm going to come up and I'm going to really feel this and see that scoop so that my legs can lengthen away from me. And then I start my a hundred here, but it's not coming from a hip flexor. My legs are really reaching out, reaching away, and I'm getting that deep scoop for my hundred. All right, so choose your way that you want to start.

And now we're going to go into the roll back in, into the roll up. So we're going to sit up. So I mentioned that your lower back usually is very tight when you have a tight hip flexor. So sitting up tall, hands under the knees, knees together. We're going to keep our shoulders over our hip bones, but we're going to round our back. So I'm gonna Round, round, round here, or you're going to be tilting your pelvis, but that is not going to be engaging your hip flexors in this position. So I want you to put your hands here so you feel these muscles and I want your upper stomach to actively try to keep stretching your upper back forward instead of leading with it. So we're going to actively stay rounded and we're going to use your lower belly to pull, almost pushed the back of the thighs into your hands as your lower belly scoops in and get the waistband. Take a breath and exhale forward.

All right. Again, one more like that. So we're going to actively keep our upper back reaching forward while lower back pulls back into the mat and exhale forward. And we're going to go down to your bra strap or the bottom of your shoulder blades now. So we're gonna squeeze and we're gonna s pull dry your lower belly in, rolling down your waistband first, then add another bone, another toe. You get to that point, take a breath and exhale.

Keep your powerhouse pulling your waistband as you use your upper belly to come forward and round over again, back of the thighs and seat, lengthening your hips away from you, your lower bellies pulling into your lower back, trying to pull up towards your bottom of your shoulder blades. Take a breath and exhale. Upper stomach, your waistband stays on the mat cause your lower belly is pulling into it. And now we're going to straighten your legs as you go forward and stretch. And then as you pull your upper body away, you're going to slowly bend the knees towards you and roll down against squeezing right here, drawing your lower belly into the mat. First bone by bone. Roll down your neck and head in with the air.

It's a reaction. Remember of your lower belly and exhaling, rounding up with control, straightening your legs, stretch, and one more like that. We're going to bend the knees back the thighs and see and we're rolling down. Now if you're getting a lot out of your powerhouse right now and you're rolling up without throwing your body forward, keep your knees bent and stretching them only when you come forward. But if you can go further and want to be more advanced than use the back of the thighs to slide both legs straight like we did in the hundred and then reach forward and then you're gonna roll back, pulling your lower belly.

So my lower belly is really pulling in one direction in the back of my thighs so that I can stretch this as I roll back back. This position is really important and I'm going to keep the back of my ribs down. As I stretch back and back in, the thighs and CDE are squeezing into the mat and lengthening head comes up exhaling. So I'm really, this home intermediate mat is going to be, can I turn my hip flexors off and stretching back? One more arms. Upper belly pulls up, see how my ribs are anchored and I'm going to scoop the back of the thighs or pushing down into the mat. Inner thighs are squeezing and rolling back. A lot of muscles are getting toned right now and it's not my hip flexor. All right and stretching back. We're going to have the right knee into your chest for single leg circles, and if you can't straighten your legs straight up, then go ahead and bend the knee to make sure this leg is straight.

So if your leg, this is a 90 degree, if your leg is tight and it's down here when your leg is straight, then bend the knee so that it can make a 90 degree. The advantage on turning off the hip flexor if you can straighten your leg, is that you can use the back of the thigh and seat to slide that leg down the middle of your body and actively use that as you're doing your single leg circle. So I'm going to do it like that. Okay, I'm going to start by one leg. This leg going down, so I'm going to use the back of the FYE and seat back of the arms. I'm going to reach that leg down the middle like I did earlier and I'm going to pull it up with my scoop, right, my lower belly and all this stretch, anchoring that. So now that I have that, I'll start my single leg circles crossing up around Hannah and cross around up three more cross. So this leg is really working. I'm stretching, I'm not using that hip flexor tempo. Super important. Reverse and feeling the back of my thigh in both of the legs, filling my scoop. Two more. Circle around. One more stretch and hug in that knee.

I'm going to slide the right leg straight by using the back. My Rep, I'm going to anchor that. That's what's going to turn off my power, my a hip flexor and turn on my powerhouse. I'm going to straighten my leg. I'm going to repeat you trying to do that awareness. I'm gonna press my arms down. I'm going to reach up and use the back of my thigh so that I can get that scoop. Okay. My ribs are anchored, I'm using here and you can see that there's a band stretching right there and pulling it up.

And now starting my single leg circles and it's cross around, up, cross around, up, cross around, up my right legs. Really working one more reverse so that my powerhouse can work. [inaudible] three more reaching out. I feel the left back, the fire. Also one more and hug that knee in. Really important, right about now we lose our powerhouse to roll up.

So you're going to put the left leg, slide it out from here. It's like you've just put on a mermaid tail and all of its working and lengthening so that you can turn off those hip flexors and scoop up the head and shoulders cause it's, you're going to do a roll up for the transition. So right about now is when we lose it and you can't do that. Roll Up. We're going to lift our bottom forward and we're going to hold our pelvis like this and use our belly to pull up our legs and grab onto your ankles. Balancing for rolling like a ball six times.

Okay, we're going to make sure on the way up, we really roll up using our upper stomach, impressing the back of the ribs on the mat. So lower belly rolls us back. Exhale, ribs in with the air and same idea here. Actively try to keep your upper back rounded forward so that your waist man can go first. And it's the reverse on the way up. You actively use your upper back belly first so that instead of just throwing your legs forward, two more last time. Very nice. All right, we're gonna rest your feet down.

Put your hands behind you and lift up. All right, now I want you to go ahead and slide the leg straight from here. Again, always thinking that as a reaction. My belly just goes instantly scoops in and we're gonna roll down the lower back first, right middle back, hold the back of the ribs, draw the right knee and float up the left leg. All right. Right here. You're going to want to really see that the back of the thigh is engaged and so the ribs so that you can get this scoop. You don't want to see anything sticking up here and switch.

You're going to squeeze that right thigh. Same thing, scoop, scoop really long. Get that leg down in the middle of your body. That's going to allow you to turn off that hip flexor. So I'm really pushing like the imaginary reformer bar away from me so that I can scoop my belly and an opposition. We're going to do one more set after this. That's right and a left. Let's pull in both. Nice.

This is the granddaddy of them. You got to keep the ribs anchored and we're going to work from here to reach out. Okay, while we stay here and we stretch and exhale, let's do that together now instead of one the legs and then the bottom back of the thighs and powerhouse. Two more. Last one, right leg up, left leg forward. When you take the left leg though, right from here. Squeeze it one, two and try to use your upper stomach to come up higher. Higher. All right, let's switch. Right thigh squeezes. One to left, one to right, one to left back the thigh, not the knee. Right? Watch those knees. Don't let them work. You want to shape the muscles above the knee, one than to tempo.

So it's switching. Switching. Switch should be light and fly through the air because you're using the right muscles. Last one, both hands behind your head. One hand over the other. My ribs are open right now and just not where you want to be. You want to [inaudible] pull your lower belly in and round up.

Get the weight of your shoulders and head over the bottom of your shoulder blades. Reach the legs up and they squeeze down. And this weeds out and five more. Yeah, back of the legs. Ribs are anchored. Two more. Keeping your scoop, not the hip flexor. Last time. Polite stance for sure. And now bend the right knee and use that scoop back the left eyes working and switch.

Yeah, right thigh. Scooping in switch. Get the weight over your ribs. One more hugging those knees. Alright, spine, stretch forward so you can throw your body up or rest your feet down. Slide them out from here. Get that scoop, draw your belly lower belly in and exhale to round up. Yeah, always working that am right in position to open my feet onto the boxes. If you don't have a bar, a grots mat, just a little wider than your shoulders, about three inches wider, arms up at shoulder height. You get to use the back of your thighs and seats.

Surprise to push down, not your knee. You lift by pushing that to make sure your knees. Sometimes some of you can push your knee down and lift your foot up. You're hyper extended so much. Make sure your heel is down. Make sure you're squeezing from here and that allows your belly to scoop in.

We're going to even push a little bit with the arms to really work the shoulder girdle muscles and get that height. Take a big breath and exhale. My lower belly is lifting, lifting, lifting, lifting, lifting and rolling up. I'm going to take a little break, use the back of the thighs and seat to lift up and exhale. Usually I like to just inhale and exhale and keep the movement going. For this particular, um, hip flex or turning off, we're going to stop each time back at the FYE and seat presses down. Powerhouse scoops up in opposition as you inhale and exhale down.

Now notice that I've kept my hipbones over my sit bones. You don't want to tip forward cause that's not going to stretch your lower back. Okay, and that is part of this exercise. One more time. With that in mind, take a press down. The arms are shoulder girdle, muscles, hips, and exhale down. Okay, rolling. All right, open leg rocker. So we're going to prep for it.

We're going to prep up for it by bringing your legs together and using the back of the thighs and seat to squeeze, right? We're going to draw your belly almost like you're doing a roll back and we're going to use that to pull the knees towards you. And then the hands. If you have tight hamstrings, you can put your hands behind your knees, otherwise put them on top of your ankles and I want you to use your left ball of the foot to slightly press down as you extend the right leg and then bring it down. And I want you to use the right ball of the foot to slightly push down, keeping your Palati Xbox square, not shaking back and forth as you extend the left. Now we're going to extend both legs, so I'm going to pull my belly in for balance and I'm going to extend both legs.

I'm going to put my hands just a little behind my ankle so I can push with the back of the thighs in the seat into my hands and feel my belly lift. Lift, lift. Bring your legs together, open and rest them down. Okay, another one scooping in. Extend pushing the back of the thighs and seat into your hands. Use your belly to lift. Lift, lift onto those sit bones together apart. And you're going to want to focus on something forward to do six open leg rockers. We're going to use our belly first in with the air. Exhale, push the back of the thighs into those hands to get the scoop and roll back with it. Using the upper belly to come up for more.

Breathing in with the air exhaling, and three more. Massage your spine. That's another class, but two more [inaudible] and last one. So the legs are not necessarily along for the ride. You should be able to press down even doing it with the magic circles. Wonderful. Squeeze your legs together. Push again.

You're engaged in the back of those sties and we're going to roll down your lower back, your middle, and your upper. Press the arms down. You're ready for corkscrew. Circle the legs to the right around to the left and pull center to the left around to the right. Now you know corkscrew, anchor your arms, your belly reached the legs out. Try to really use the back of the thighs to stretch all the way down and over and to the left. Stretch as far as you can. Use the back of the highs, the scoop and center. One more set like that. And reverse.

And now back to the thighs and seat and stomach to sit up. And we're going to be opening the legs right into position. We're going to start with your hands behind your head for Saul to really emphasize the twist in the ribs. So push your head into your hands back to the thighs are pushing down. Scoop your belly in and twist, twist, twist your bottom, didn't move your hip bones in. Move just your ribs.

And then reach one arm forward. And when I'm back, as you exhale, sit up, putting the hands behind your head. Use your belly to twist. You're bringing the right rib over your left hip bone. Try reach your right arm forward and left back. Exhale. So this is a breathing exercise, so we're going to twist with the breath and we're going to exhale really pulling your ribs in and squeezing the air to your lungs. And inhale and twist and exhale, pulling the rib into your lungs. Exhale, exhale.

And one more. We're going to twist and we're going to reach an exhale. Stay here though. If this hip has come up at all, press it down as you exhale more. No. And inhaling up and twisting to your left.

Same thing here. Exhale down and be aware of your right hip came up. You want to press it down and stretch further down to your foot and inhaler. Alright, bring your legs together and we're going to flip over onto our stomach. If you have a grots mat with the pole, come up to where you are, right? Your ears are between the pole. If you don't have a grass, Matt, just have your hands about where your ears are and if you have a stiff back, you're going to make them three inches wider. If you don't have a stiff back, you just keep them right where they are.

We're going to go over your placement on your belly for a tight hip flexors. All right, so my hands are going to be here and your foreheads down. Uh, I'm going to keep my forehead up actually for a little bit for explanation. So my lower back doesn't want my, uh, hip bones and belly pushing through the mat and my pubic bone lifted. I want the reverse. I want to use the back of the [inaudible] seat to squeeze down my pubic bone.

And I want my belly to pull up off the mat, almost behind my hips. So instead of it looking like this with a tight lower back, I want this to squeeze down my pubic bone down. And then I've got this nice sacred like this. Okay. So you really want to engage that so that you have [inaudible] a chance here. So keeping that your belly is going to pull into your lower back and then lengthen your spine out the crown of your head and you're going to keep that as you come up with your head. Did your pelvis change?

Don't let it. And we're going to keep lengthening as we come up and we're going to be in this position. If that's too much on your lower back, you don't have to straighten your arms. Don't move the shoulders though. As you look over your right shoulder circle down, left and look forward. Really check your pelvis right now. Have you kept your pubic bone down? And now we're going to lengthen as we come down.

[inaudible] let's regain that inner thighs squeezing again. Don't allow this. That's going to hurt. Squeeze. Use the back of the thigh. Let me see that fold lengthening Belize in, and we're going to use our belly to pull up. This is called neck roll, so you should be stretching your neck. You shouldn't be tensing it. Look over your right shoulder, almost behind you.

Looking down and around and looking forward into your belly. Give yourself a check. Is it in? And we're going to come down. It's almost like the last thing that you're going to come down on is your stomach. All right, single leg kick. This is really important to stretch the quads or the front of your thighs, so you're going to push your knuckles together. Again, nothing the lower back. Watch it. You got to squeeze down. You've got to lift in the belly so it does.

Your lower back doesn't hurt. And with that you're going to try lift your legs a little off the mat, the left legs reaching out while the right ones in to now that's turned for the right leg to reach out, not lie down as the left pulls in. And now the tempo right to left to right, two stomachs lifting. Just take it out of the hip flexor. Stretching your quad while working your hamstring and seat last one and now right facial cheek on the mat. Okay, you're going to regain this. Make sure it's not like pulling into you. So squeezing belly n and hands go up as high as you can.

And elbows down. We're going to lift the legs without changing that pelvis and we're going to give three kicks. And now reach out from here as your belly pulls up and switched cheeks, three kicks, pelvis, correct. Kicking one stomach working and pulling your belly in. And one more. Set elbows at Pie.

Lift with correct pelvis stomachs in an stretch and one more and pelvis correct. Kicking one, two, three with the back of the thighs and bell bottom working. You can use your belly to lift up and round your back and sit on your heels. We're going to turn over for neck pool. So flipping over. Now we're going to try to bend.

They're going to be hip with the part and you're going to, so they're not together. They're parallel, they're hip width apart. And guess what? We're going to straighten our legs by using right here. So the back of the thigh and seat. Now here's something kind of different though, is in pilot phase, when we start, we do almost everything in Pilati stance and everything's about that wrap or you're gonna use the back of the fine seat. A little different here and it's going to be in parallel. So no turnout here, okay?

It's more advanced and we're going to roll down by pulling your belly away from these muscles that are working right? We're going to lie down. This is different from the Rola. I want you to start with your hands right here to make sure you're engaged. Remember that I said this is a super important position that you can scoop and use your lower belly to lift up and that you see this, this angle. This is a really repetitive, important angle and all of [inaudible] work and we're going to scoop in and Wola and we're going to stretch forward.

And now I want you to sit up tall with your hands behind your head and you're going to bend for a second. Slide them straight as you pull your belly into your back and push your head into your hands. Go back a little bit, and then roll the rest down. Really reaching those legs away. Hands by underneath your bottom. Exhale, because I really want you to get this inhale, sit up tall and bend a little slide again to regain that. Scoop it in.

Yeah, and now three more quickly. Exhaling. Inhale, sit up. Tall. Bend a little stretch. This is short box also two more. So if you're throwing your body up to sit up, you've lost that control and your back's tightening up on you. You're not getting the stretch and the hip flexor that we want to get one more.

Exhaling all the way forward in with the air and bend a little. And then exhale, sidekicks. We're going to lie on your left side to start [inaudible] okay? And we're going to line up on the back edge of your mat, whatever you have. Grots mat or Yoga Mat. So we're lining up and then you're gonna bring your feet forward from your tailbone to your elbow. You're a straight line [inaudible]. We're gonna focus on the ribs and the back of the thigh, right? So we're going to lift up your right leg at hip level, and we're going to reach that leg long.

And it's going to be in a turnout position, cause we're going to engage the back of the find the seat and reach it as if you're pushing the wall away with the ball of your foot. Your right hand is going to be in front of your belly. We're going to kick the right leg forward. One, two. Now here you're going to take the leg just even with your body. Here's what the awareness I want you to get.

You're going to use the back of the thigh and seat to squeeze that leg back. But let's think about this rib here. Don't let it push forward. If you can keep this in alignment, then you'll really feel the back of the and seat work. Scoop your belly in as you reach forward and give yourself a little one too. So again, if you let go like this and lie down with your chest and ribs, you won't let go and stretch that hip flexor. Okay?

So you have to keep your hips squared and get this stretch that of that Bam that I was saying connects these ant, we're gonna kick forward to and back to and forward. Really using that right leg to push away and forward and back and forward and back. And two more and last one and now legs together. I like to put my right hand on my hip to keep my hips square as I go up and then squeeze my inner thighs down cause I don't want to lose my hip alignment. I don't want, I can fly my kip up, but then I lose all that correct alignment. So make sure you're using the right muscle first. And then if you want to, you can put it down one more outer thigh and then pull your belly and reach that leg out. So important this opposition to stretch that hip flexor five circles, one, two, it should be a 10 here, three, four stomach in reverse for five.

It also was really great for the knee to one. We're going to bicycle, kick the leg forward, bend the knee into your chest, take the knee back. Now I want you to take your free hand and grab on tier top of the foot or ankle and I want you to stretch this angle straight and I want you to keep your ribbon as you use the back of the fines seat to pull back. So you should be getting a really big quad stretch here. Super important to turn off that hip flexor, keeping the thigh and knee where they are. Use the back of the thigh to straighten the leg and kick it forward.

You with your powerhouse. Bend the knee, take it back again. Return that hand, get the ribbon, get that straight line from me, really stretching and then extend from here. One more forward. Bend the knee, take the knee back, and then we're going to reverse it after this and extend from here. Really getting that stretch legs together. Reverse squeezing back, right toe to your head, need of the chest, and extend working from here to go back. Don't lose those ribs. Squeeze, pull it forward and extend one more back of the thigh and see, keep that thigh where it is as you use the back of the find seat and then draw it all forward and extend legs together.

We're going to lie on your belly and regained that correct pelvic alignment here. So you're gonna want correct pelvic alignment here. Again, not short, lower back, but a nice pubic bone down and we're going to squeeze these muscles to do so. Hands make a little pillow for your forehead. Stomach is in. You're going to use the back of the thighs and seat to squeeze up. Open the legs with the mat and then squeeze them together using your inner thighs. And now 20 nice and quick. One, two, three, four, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 more. Make sure your pubic bone is down, your belly is in enough. We're gonna roll to your other side. Rolling over onto your right side.

So you're gonna rest your head on your right hand and bring your feet forward to a 45 degree angle. Make sure, again, from your tailbone to your elbow, your straight line, we're going to lift your left leg up at hip level, turning it out. So you're going to engage here and here, and now always keeping this stretch, not popping out in line down. Here we go. We're going to take your left leg forward for one, two and then taking it back right here is where we pause last time so he could really engage the back of the find seat and feel that your rib is in and we're going to take it forward to and back, really engaging. And now let's do eight more to tempo. It's forward two and back two and forward. So feel that powerhouse, feel the back of the thigh and seat stomach.

And it's almost like traction that someone's pulling on your leg. You're reaching all the walls and someone's pulling on your leg. You're not pushing your ribs and chest onto the mat. And two more really trying to stretch that hip flexors. You go back last time and legs together is where I like to put my hand here and we're going to go up.

So I use all of this and then squeeze my inner thighs together and up and then pull my belly in and up about the crown of my head. I'm gonna return my hand. You can keep it there. Two more or put it in front of you. Last one. And now five circles. One, two, three, four, five weavers, two, three, all in here, right and hold. So that should be a 10. We're going to do bicycle, kicking that leg forward, bend the knee in, take the knee back so it's in line with your hip. Check your ribs and you're going to put your hand on either the ankle or the back of the foot.

To stretch and extend from here all here and to get forward, bend the knee, taking it back, stretch that hip flexor, and then work from here to extend without the ribs going in. One more. And this drug stomach need a chest, knee, back hand goes for that stretch. Working from here to extend, reversing it back the thigh and seat. Pull that toady. Your head needed the chest and extend back the thin thigh and seat. Works harder to get that foot in knee to chest and extend one more back of the thigh and seat toe to head.

Need a chest and extend legs together. All right, we're going to lie down onto your belly, onto your back. I mean, so you gonna lie down on your back and hug the knees into your chest sometime. No matter how hard you're trying, your quads will still grip with your hip flexors. So we like to give our thighs a little shake here before we do our teasers. So I want you to go ahead and sit up and we're going to sneak into the teasers here. We're going to put your hands underneath your knees just like we did earlier with the rollback and you're going to tighten right here, the back of the thighs and seat and we're going to pull back the lower back so they should all look familiar working here, scooping in and roll all the way down. Inhale, lift the head as your belly scoops rolling up and one more actively keeping your upper back reaching forward so you can get more out of your lower belly and in with the air and exhaling.

Now holding here and extend just the right leg. Remember how we've been doing this where we're holding it at like a five, pushing something away and we're going to scoop in cause this is what the teaser is going to be in with the air and exhaling. You're trying not to use this left leg one more and in with the air and exhale and I'm going to switch and they should be able to switch. Easy as can be because they're not pushing into the mat. Right back the find seat and with the air.

And one more. Okay. And here's how we sneak it in. We're going to use both legs up now and they're engaged from here instead of the hip flexors. And we're going to roll away reaching your arms back. Ribs, go sliding it up and two more and last one, stretch that hip flexor.

Keep your powerhouse in. And I like to transition here into seal cause I like to keep my pelvis in the right position. We're going to do six seals and then stand up. So clap two, three, lower belly. Exhale. So you really should feel your lower back first upper back on the way forward. Lower back. Now the ribs using your lower belly, using your upper belt. Two more.

Okay, this is your last one. So we're going to cross as we let go and now use the back of the thighs scooping in to come up. That's what we're all about, right? So we are all done with our intermediate. I was a fantastic class to really focus on the back of the thigh in the seat and getting that deep scoop and keeping this connection right from the back of our rib going through. And here if you do have access to a Cadillac or a, um, while unit or maybe some eye hooks in your door frame and you hook some Grotte springs, then it's a great, I have some nice endings, but if you don't, this is just on its own standalone. Uh, definitely a long detailed how to turn your hip flexors off.

Either join me on a Cadillac or a thank you for joining me on this workout. Okay, so we're gonna run through a nice ending on the Cadillac and we're gonna start with legs springs. I guess I should tell you what we're going to be doing. You want your legs springs, you want a roll down bar. I have my trapeze bar ready for my breathing. It's hooked up and safely secured where you're going to do a push through with the push through bar. So you want your pushed through spring ready to go too.

Okay. So those are all the springs that you need. We're going to go ahead and you can do this. All of them, all the exercises on a wall unit, except for the breathing, which I can give you a modification if you want to still do this. All right, so we're going to lie on your back and we're going to start with an awareness exercise. This is not going to be, it's still going to be at a deliberate pace, but not as lengthy as the mat work. So do not fret if a, you just did that long Matt. So we're going to put your one spring on the right foot, it's going to go on the arch a little closer to your heel and you're gonna put your hands in a 45 in a 90 degree angle. The left knee is bent and flat on the Mat and we're going to keep our box squared and we're gonna focus on that tailbone staying on the Mat. Okay.

And I'm want you to extend the right leg using the back of the thigh and seat. And I want you to try to stretch the spring, not using your knee joint, but the back of the thigh and seat. And we're going to pull down that leg just a little bit like you did earlier. I'm trying to keep my ribs anchored so I can get that scoop and I'm going to go down a little lower. Your hands really help to keep your ribs incurred and now I'm going to go down as low as I can and really I don't even think I was turning on my valley.

Now I've got it on and I'm going to bring it up and sweep it down two more times. So I'm going to pull my belly in and in and up in opposition. So that's what happens when you use the back of your thigh and correctly. You can really pull up in the powerhouse. One more, not just in so down and pulling up. And I'm going to bend my knee to take the strap off. Let's switch legs. So we'll do some awareness with your left leg now.

So slipping it on closer to the heel. Hands go up that elbow high in a 90 degree angle, you're Pilati Xboxes square, pushing your ribs into the mat, extend that left leg and now your belly can scoop in and up and opposition tailbone tries to stay down and hold right here about mid thigh working the back of the find seat. Let me see that fold right here, scooping in. And we're going to go down a little lower. Make sure you're not using your calf muscle, but you're using the back of the thigh and seat and you're not using this leg either, right? And all the way down. If you can keep your lower back long, you might not be able to.

And then sweeping it up and down. And I'm working on my right leg, not taking over, but said really feeling my scoop. And I'm going to bend the leg this time. Keep the straight stretch the spring on your foot and the strap and we're going to add the right. All right. [inaudible] stance. Start with your pelvis and your tailbone down, right? And you're going to be here and we're going to go forward using the back of the thighs and see and instantly my belly pulls up in the opposite direction.

We're going to open the legs, use the back of the thigh and seat and really feel that scoop. Try to keep the tailbone as the legs come up. Now to tempo, we're going to do five more. So seven total ribs are staying flat. Legs are reaching out to more inner thigh. Squeeze one more and we're going to reverse inner thighs, back of the legs and trying to keep that scoop and three more back of the thighs and to one more and bend the knees and rest your arms. Staff we're going to do walking really gets that muscle, so pushing your arms in and ribs and we're going to extend and using the back of the find seat to go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and up to four, five, six, seven, eight and down.

Getting that scoop, that wonderful stretch. And so you should almost feel your belly like we did in the very beginning when we lifted our pelvis to squeeze the magic circle between our inner thighs, the awareness exercise before we started last set for eight. Really good scoop seven eight and bend the knees in and rest your arms down. All right, we're going to do, um, frog. Just have what we call a four count frog.

So we're going to start with the legs in this out position. So press and this is what I call the home position. Yeah, we're gonna open about the width of the Mat. Circle down and squeeze together. Draw the knees into keeping the tailbone down, and then we're wrap and squeeze out for one. Open circle down, draw it in and squeeze it up for two open slangs and out for that scoop drawed and squeeze it out. That was three. Reverse keeping the tailbone down, drawed and squeeze it out nice and low. Hold.

And then squeeze the other two more in reaching out. Low work. Those springs squeeze together. One more. Drying it in, reaching it low, stretching the hip flexor together. And that's enough. You're going to rest your arms and bend the knees. Two more legs. Bring exercise. We're going to do, um, beets and bicycle bicycles.

Always great to stretch that hip flexor. So hands, tailbone, scoop going out. And we're going to do 10 beats, two, three, four, five. So the springs never live there doing this. That means you're not using the right muscles. Hold 10, squeeze down a little lower. And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Hold. Either stay here or squeeze lower, but really feel this one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Hold and draw it in and rest your arms. Last leg, exercise the bicycle. So hands back again and we're going to reach your right leg out and we're gonna use the back of the fight to pull it out as far away, trying to grab something at the end of the mat and then pull it into you.

Keep the hips stable. It's very important in this exercise, keeping the tailbone down. I'm trying to pick up like $1 million lottery ticket at the very end of my Cadillac and pulling it in towards me. One more on the right. Okay. And one more on the left. And now I'm going to reverse it and I'm going to, and now has a stick of dynamite attached to it.

So I've got a slide it as far away from me as I can and to one more on the right. Actually one more on the left and right and bending it in. And we're done with our legs spring. So we're going to take those straps off and the next thing we're going to do is the sharp or the push through on shoulder. So I'm gonna roll up and I'm gonna connect my, uh, pushed through bar.

So use your push through bar and your pursuits spring. All right? Uh, if you have a balanced body, you might use a red spring. I'm using a regular, a grot spring that only has one tension and I'm going to start with, my legs are going to want to make kind of a 45 degree angle. That's actually a little high. So I'm going to grab a little eye hook to bring down that level.

I'm going to steal it from my leg, spring extra connector because I am not very tall. So if you are height challenge, like myself, add a little extension to make the angle correct. I think that looks better. Alright, so I'm going to lie down where my feet are making a certain angle. Still need to bring it down. Just a hair. All right? So there we go. So I'm not gonna have my toes on the bar or even the ball of my foot, but just a little bit below the ball of the foot. They're going to be hip with the part tailbone down. Okay. And my arms are going to be pressing down by my side.

So with my tailbone damnest squeeze my seat. I'm going to start using this and use my inner thighs and pelvic floor to curl my tailbone towards me. And we're going to roll up. So right now you're gonna use the back of the thighs and seat to squeeze on that bar. I'm not gonna move the line of my hips as I take my right leg over. Instead, this is working as I kick kick and put it back with the back of the thigh and seat and kick kick. I'm pretending I can touch this bar. I'm really reaching and I'm gonna roll down my ribs member.

That nice connection. Ah, so if I can stretch that down, I'm going to have better chance of getting out of my hip flexor. Tailbone down, dry in the belly to bring the bar down and now working from getting this stretch as you push it away, see all my lower back is down and see all my pelvis is and I'm going to draw it back towards me and we're going to keep our tailbone down is the bar goes up. We're going to squeeze from here to roll up one bone at a time. Starting with your left this time it's kick, kick and back and kick, kick and back and always lane sitting out and up, up and lengthening out and rolling down. If you are using your knees, you're going to get a big calf cramp. And that's not going to feel good. And tailbone down and bending, using your belly, extending out from here, getting that Nice.

So the hip flexor stretch, they'll get into technical here and extend. We're going to do another set. So you squeeze up scooping in. Beautiful Line, right too. I'm going to try to really go for it. I'm not gonna touch it, but you always want to have an exaggeration and rolling down. Another thing that you might be doing is gripping with your feet instead of your seat. And that's going to give you a serious foot cramp. And this is definitely an exercise. Stretch it away from you from here. That does not lie. If you're using another part of your body, it's going to gramp on you.

And we're going to do one more squeezing up nice and long left. First one to write to another left to some holding from here, and we're going to roll down ribs. Ah, remember I said yes earlier on, so that bones down and one bone every bone until my tailbones down. Drawing it in with your belly. Here's the big transition to push through. So you're going to squeeze away as you zip in here, right? Cause now I'm gonna use my powerhouse. Do you remember how I said so much?

This position you're going to see over and over again because it's super important to roll up using this to length enemies. My upper belly to grab onto that bar and then I'm going to hold onto it and separate my feet and put them against the pole. So we're going to do the push through now. So I'm going to have you actually come for just a little bit cause I like you to straighten your legs from here. Okay. So we're gonna s press those down and scoop in more. Hopefully you saw that on my body and we're going to roll back your lower back and then lift up, pushing the back of your thighs, scooping in.

Stretch up. Two more ribs are gonna pull real in scoop. And then use the lower belly here to push down and stretch it. Rolling back back to the thighs and seat. Draw that pelvic floor and reaching up from your back of the thighs. Lift Up, feel the stretch.

And one more big breath in an exhale. [inaudible] the shapes in your body are really important in this exercise. So we're going to keep pulling, rounding that lower back as if you're rolling back. All the spring tension was in here and then use it. Now I'm not arching my back, I'm lengthening up, up, up. And that's enough with the push through bar.

So I'm gonna unhook it and we're going to do two more exercises in a stand up and lower my trapeze. Okay. I've already measured it so that if I was standing on top, I'm checking to make sure these aren't kinked. So from fingertip to fingertip, this a, the bar is right in the right position. And then I tightened it in case you want to slide this and make sure it's in the right position. If you don't have one, you can just put your feet flat on the Mat and I'll show you how.

So now I'm going to grab my roll down bar and I gonna lie down. All right, so in a lie down where my head is just a little like almost like a hands with distance. I have to reach up and grab this bar. Grads springs are nice and strong and tight. And we're going to put your ankles in here. I think I need a slide down. Just a hair. Making sure that this bar is hanging straight up and down. Okay.

All right. So breathing, if you don't have a trapeze, you're going to have your feet here and you can just lift up using the back of the thigh and seat instead of having a trap piece. But since I do, I'm going to get to use it. Alright, so separating the arms and legs, you want to use the back of the thigh and seat to squeeze up the legs on one. Okay, so I'm not using my lower back. I'm using the back of my thighs and seat to go up on one. I'm, you know, delicious. Leigh roll down my ribs for five counts than the middle back than my lower, until my tailbone is down on the count of one. My arms are also going to come down nice and straight and meet my hip so it's breathing. So we're going to lift up and pull down the same time as we inhale.

Ready, set, and inhale two, three, four, five and delicious Li roll down. Remember this is the stretch out your hip flexor and it's a breathing exercise. That was five. Let's do three more in with the year slowly exhale. Let's try it for six now back the thighs and see an [inaudible] rolling down one more time and back of the ribs, the next bone, one vertebra at a time. And we're done with our breathing. So we're going to take our feet out, let go of my bar and I'm going to return this so that it's not hanging over me when I'm doing my rollback.

All right, so to complete your hip flexor stretch, we are going to start with a little bit of bent knees. Grab onto your roll down bar and I'm going to press the back of my thighs down into the mat as I scoop in and I use my belly to pull against this spring. So the spring is not working against me. It's really helping me to get that full stretch in with the air. And exhale, stretching all the way forward and again, really enjoy. So your posture is nice and straight.

This is how you're going to walk around for the rest of the day. And one more back of the thighs and seat. Use that lower belly too. You're stretching that hip flexor back with the ribs anchored. Do your neck and head.

Open your shoulders in with the air and exhale ribs. Pelvic floor is rolling in and up. Okay. And all the way forward. Stretch. And you're all set for the day.