Gentle Prenatal Reformer

Hi, welcome. This is Leah Stewart and we are doing a prenatal [inaudible] reformer class. This class. Um, I've kind of, I kind of called nesting and my idea behind this was really, there's this phenomenon that happens with women toward the end of their pregnancy and they start nesting, which means they just get this really big surge of energy and they start wanting to clean and organize and get everything ready before the birth of their baby. And it's just a really beautiful natural thing that happens. So it kind of just kind of made me think about kind of some of that energy surge and some of those, some of that stuff that we kind of really can hone in on, on kind of that end of our pregnancy, you know, prior to giving birth and there's so many different options.

But I kind of wanted to marry this idea of, you know, like movement that kind of calms and relaxes and is a little bit on the gentler side, but also movement that is full of bursts of energy and requires strength and requires a dedication and focus. So, um, you know, I'm, I'm just kind of playing with that in this class and really I just want to demonstrate, I'm certainly toward the end of my pregnancy, I have about six weeks or so until my third baby is due to be born. So I'm definitely feeling that nursing, kind of a natural instincts coming up. And so I just kind of want to bring that into some of my plots practice. So let's go ahead and dive in and we'll just kind of talk to some of the things. And most importantly, just want to enjoy the movement.

So for a warmup and if you've taken classes when we for, you know, I'm a big fan of long warmups, so we're going to do, I have a half a spring, so I want to late spring. You're certainly more than welcome to increase up to one spring, but I think you're going to find a half a spring is sufficient for you. So want you to start with your legs cross and sitting towards the shoulder rests. You should be close enough to the shoulder blocks or the shoulder rest to where you can hold onto them. And we're gonna go really nice and short and sweet in these first initial movements here.

So I love to start my prenatal will really any of my classes with kind of a little rocking of my pelvis here. So just rocking in and out of a posterior tilt. So just starting to utilize the abdominals a little bit, the pelvic floor a little bit. Just really nice and easy here. So just a few more exhale and inhale. So just starting to warm up the body a little bit with the use of the shoulder blocks here, you can kind of pull a little bit more forward here.

You can kind of push a little bit of way here. You can kind of play with that. So now I wants you to release your right arm and I want you to twist and back to center and twist and back to center and twist and back center. One more time. Twist. Now I exercise that I've done a lot in my past series is what I call through the pipe. And so we're going to revisit it here. We're going to drop the chin down to the chest. You're going to extend the back up on the diagonal, and then you're going to reach back with this time since we have the shoulder blocks, we're going to reach back a little bit more and kind of hang on our fingertips.

We're going to come forward, extend and reach back. So let's try to do a really long exhale here and a really long inhale here. Now why I like doing this with my legs crossed is that I get a little bit of a stretch through the back of my hips, which is so nice, especially toward the end of pregnancy. Let's go one more in this direction because of the pressure that the baby inevitably is going to push down into our pelvis, it kind of tends to make our muscles a little bit tighter and so we're gonna go the opposite, opposite direction leaning forward. So it was really nice to do some exercises that help stretch it out. So in the interest of keeping things balanced, before we go into our next rep, I want you to switch the legs. So whichever leg was in front, I want you to put it underneath or him back now so that we can maintain that balance and get a little extra stretch on the opposite side and bring it up.

So the opposite through the pipe is forward with the flat back and then curving through the spine and reaching up, hanging back on this fingertips a little bit and full word. Inhale, exhale and bring it up one more time forward and exhale and praying it up. So now moving along, we're going to take our hands on the foot bar and we're going to take our legs through the shoulder blocks and let them rest on the headrest. So here you're going to start with your arms nice and straight. Your shoulders are slightly internally rotated here to accommodate this movement and we're going to start with the little pelvic tucks and reaching up XL. And so again, a little bit of freedom of the spine, a little bit different than we initially did because we have our legs straight, we're moving the carriage. Now we're getting a little bit more dynamic.

Stretch to the chest and up. Just feeling that nice energy here as we move a little bit faster. So hold in this position. Then I want you to extend the spine to keep the carriage out so it's more demanding on the shoulders and then curl in. So the difference is I'm not bringing the carriage in all the way.

I'm keeping myself in that out position. And then I'm moving. The care's like little tiny pulses, if you will, if you want to liken it to that and keeping the carriage out and just doing a little movements there. So I'm getting into that extension thing using my abdominals to jump back into that flection. Two more. Inhale. Okay. And I want you to use your breath deliberately here.

I want you to fill that nice surge of energy here and back to now. Bring the cares all the way in. Now this time you're going to lift the right leg and bath four on each side, up and back. So if you're feeling a little bit of pressure in your elbows, we're going to relieve that in just a moment. So just hang in there with me. [inaudible] try to use your breath to hone in on the center body and the left leg. So again, just in the interest of kind of just a celebrating that nesting, kind of phenomenal that women experience in the end of their third trimester.

We're just going to try to keep our energy levels up here as we move through this movement. Good. So once you to come in and then wants you to release your arms, just let that pressure come off your elbows a little bit. You can shake your arms out if you need to, but we're going to stay here. Okay. Now we're going to take the right hand back, left hand out. We're going to rotate to the right and back again.

I'm really liking the number four for this reformer series. So I find myself doing a lot of repetitions of four. I don't know why, I can't explain why, but it seems to work really well. Exhale. So now using your body release and go the other way. Press back and up so you have that nice hinges thing of the body and up. Exhale, press and up. One more time, press.

And then you're going to release, it might be a little bit of the bang of the carriers, but try to keep it to a minimum and app. Now lasting we're going to do here. So we're going to press out and then what we're gonna do is we're gonna curl the back of the spine underneath us. You're going to devil up, pay the leg up, then you're gonna switch legs. You're going to curl, you're going to draw the knee into your chest. So keeping your focus forward and then extending up. So it can be a really small movement and extend up.

And we're just doing three sets of this. So of the Sussex and app. One more time. We're drawing in and up. Last time with the left legs drawing in and Apps of filling that come up. Draw those arms in. So that looks really good.

Another suggestion for you, if that's a little bit too harsh on your shoulders, is you can always take your foot bar a little bit lower. You can lower it down and that'll be a little bit of a gentler angle on your shoulders if you need to. So let's move on to our footwork. So I want you to load up to a footwork weight that feels comfortable for you. But keep in mind, we're gonna in this football foot work going to be sitting straight up and we're going to have to rely a lot on our own trunk stability for the series. So I want you to keep that in mind when we move through this.

So if you're used to working really, really heavy, it might be a little bit more challenging to hold your chunks stability. So, um, I'm going to try three springs here. Um, and some days I might feel like I want to try three and a half. So it just kinda depends on what you're feeling like today. So we're going to go into a really short little footwork series here. You're going to start, well, we're going to keep the position wide in our hips. We're going to hold the hands behind the thighs and we're gonna use our arms to pull our trunk straight up. We're going to press out, keep that verticality of the torso and bring it here in excel and bring it in.

Yeah, so I really just want you to focus on that challenge, that that challenge of holding your chunk nice and slow steady. You're going to feel a little less of them. The leg dynamic that we do when we're sitting or lying supine on our regular footwork series, but we're going to feel a lot of challenge in the full body work here and press and in press, out and in and now halfway out and little pulses. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight. We're going to do 51011121314 and press out. Then reach your arms forward to the foot bar. Let your knees come forward. If you have a care, a foot bar that's locked in, you can certainly pull this directions.

Who can get a nice stretch through your spine or you can play with kind of pushing your heels forward in opposition to that foot bar stays steady and you get a nice CBE stretch through your spine. So now our last position here is just going to be wide toes. So sitting yourself up nice and straight. Press out. Ah, so I want you to feel again that burst of energy coming up through your torso, that nice extension through your legs and feeling that deep hint at your hip as well. Using your breath to hold that energy filling joyful in that energy.

Yeah. Sanda sense of urgency. It's just a sense of excitement. Press one more. Press come halfway in. 15 pulses. Okay. More extension through your spine.

Okay. 11 okay. And extend all the way. Reach the arms forward and find a stretch here. Stretching out, feeling that beautiful stretch of your spine. Relax of your neck.

Okay. And Rolling yourself up. We're going to move into allying side hip work series. Okay. Moving on to our lighting site, hip work series, and anywhere from one spring to one and a half springs. Some of you may even want to try it with um, two springs.

So whatever feels good for you. Um, you can keep the foot bar up or you can take it down. It kinda just depends on how you like to kind of get into the, the um, the exercise and get into your strap. I'm going to find myself lying on my side, getting myself all aligned. And then I like to keep my foot bar up and I put my bottom foot on it and then I can put my top foot in my strap. And that kind of feels really nice to say for me.

So we're going to go into a parallel frog and play with a little bit of rotation here. So again, the idea is this inspiration of this idea of late pregnancy and kind of gaining that burst of energy that comes with nesting and kind of feeling that same idea and in our own bodies, we're just going in and out here in a parallel frog of just that surge of energy. Just that final, like I got to prepare my body, I got to prepare my energy. I've got to prepare my mental and emotional state. I'm about to have a baby to birth and to take care of. So one more like that. Now what I want you to do here is rotate out with the hip and with the hip and come in. Exhale. Now generally is recommended in the third trimester that when we do hip work, we shorten the lever by putting the strap up over the knee.

And I certainly agree with that. You know, I'm actually going to transfer you to that position really shortly. But for something like this, as quite conservative, the frog, I feel like it's perfectly safe to keep that long lever and to enjoy that work. So because we're not putting a lot of pressure or vulnerability on the pelvis here and come in, and then last one. Now what it wants you to do here is bro, hug your knee in and I want you to take your strap with your hand and carefully let it slide or kind of slide up over here knee. So now we're in this shortened lever.

So what we're gonna do is we're going to work on kind of moving through a devil, a pay or a bend and straightening of our leg here. So we're going to externally rotate here. We're going to reach the like up and then we're going to bring it down. We're going to reach the leg up and bring it down. So we're still putting a little bit of vulnerability on the pelvis here, especially in this part right here where it requires us to use our adductors and our hamstrings to pull the leg down.

But I really want you to just feel that opening of that palace and just that fluidity of this movement, which feels so great and down and you should feel pretty like a pretty ballerina and press. Now, pelvic stability is definitely admirable here, but I'm not so concerned with your pelvis thing. Rock solid. If it wants to move a little bit as you bring that knee in, cause you want to hug that knee a little closer to your arm, let that happen. Because what you're going to get is that dynamic opening of the pelvis. So hold there, reverse it, bend and straighten. Reach out. Now if you find that the foot bar is getting in your way, that's what I was talking about. You know, you could always put it down. Um, next time you do this, or when we switch sides, or you can pause me, put the video on pause, put it down, and then come back and join me. Press.

Now what I like about this direction is as I go down and I really reached the energy through that hip and up. So once you to see that, that line I'm making up, down and around, one more, up, down and around. So now this time I want you to bring your knee in and I want you to hug that knee into your arm and then want you to fill this stretch. Close your eyes if you need to, and just stretch here. So there's freedom in that movement. There's energy in that movement, but there's also an element of control and stability for that whole entire movement, integrity that we want. So now this time, just very gently bring your leg back to parallel. And I want you to take your leg back and I want you to extend the leg.

And then I want you to let the lake hang down a little bit so that you're getting a little bit of opening in the front of the hip. So there's a little bit of a pool where the strap hits my thigh, but it's nothing that concerns me so much where I want to adjust. But if you feel like you want to adjust, go for it. So bring that leg back a little bit. And then I want you to rock the top side of your pelvis forward and back.

So I'm holding onto the shoulder block here so I don't feel like I'm going to go rolling off my reformer like Humpty dumpty. So I'm bringing that leg back and look at and letting my body rotate in open and it feels really good. So forward and open. And then just let your spine and your shoulders and even your heading, your neck respond to that openness a little bit. So a little bit more free here and back and one more.

Bring it forward and back. Finding that stretch, bend your knee in. Now getting out of this gracefully is always, you know, a challenge. What wasn't so shabby was it? And Go ahead and come on up. So we're going to slide the carriage in, use our arms to come up and to stick around to the other side. So a nice little short hip book series, but one that certainly leaves us feeling good.

If you want to put your foot bar down, you can and then all you need to do is to put your foot on the inside of the platform to kind of get your feet into the straps. So whatever you prefer, whatever it feels better for you. So my bottom foot goes on the foot bar, so my top leg can be released and I can put my strap in releasing. I'm going to come into a parallel frog [inaudible] so I want to feel nice extension through my upper back and I press out and in excel. Yeah. So what's so great about parallel frog is I can really feel that surge of energy through my heel and how that affects the whole backside of my leg. And even into the back or into the back part of my spine as well, into my, into my whole posterior chain here. And it feels really good.

As I bring the leg parallel, I feel that deep stretch in my hip joint here. They use my hamstrings to extend them. Finally, my quads to extend the knee at the final bit. XL Two more like this. Using your breath, using breath deliberately here. Really strong breath externally. Rotate the leg internally, rotate and en [inaudible]. So try to increase the inhaled inhalation and the exhalation. So try to see how long can I inhale for it and how long can I excel.

Two more. And that breath alone, just kind of challenging yourself and breathing so deliberately with movement and kind of keeping that smile on your face. And again, feeling that energy. That's the energy we want to feel. And come in. You can go ahead and place your foot going to find it. There it is. So kind of give myself a little support as I pull the strap down or up rather over my knee. So from here, I'm just going to let my hips relax a little bit. As I repositioned myself externally rotate, I bring the knee into the arm, bring it up, using the inner thighs to bring it down in, up, and a lots of energy.

Feel like you're lengthening your body as you bring it down. Squeeze that hip in. Take it up and down and drawing it in. Inhale, exhale down. Yeah, he used long breath, intentional breath.

As much inhalation as you can. Do as much exhalation as you can do, and now let's do one more and down other direction. Bring it up, then the knee and sweep it down. Bring it up, bend the knee, sweep it down and up and see if you can increase that range of motion as you feel the flexibilities. Start to gain in the legs, in the hips and out. Keeping the waste as long as you possibly can. Again, as much stability as you can through your pelvis, but not being to focus on that rock solid stability, but just more stability so that you're not out of control. That was our last one.

Now bring the leg behind you as much as you can. Keep it nice and straight. Then roll the pelvis forward and roll it back. I'm thinking here of trying to get this back foot. This is my left foot. In this case, down to the floor.

I know it's not going to reach the floor, but that's the idea that I have in my head and forward with the pelvis and reaching back, feeling that opening, feeling that stretch. I'm forward and back and you can think you're just rocking your baby here, forward and back. And this is our last one. Hold it. Feel that stretch and slowly and carefully come back in. Bring your foot up. Find your bar or your platform to feel a little security as you slide your leg out of the strap and come on up nice and slow.

So that was our, where are you guys? Anyway, that was our hip work series. So now we're going to move on to a standing arms slash balance slash um, abdominal series. Again, kind of as short and sweet series because we're gonna do one side and then the other. So I'm on a half a spring now when I do this on my own equipment, I do it on actually balanced body has a yellow spring, which is a quarter spring. So I'm not sure obviously what equipment you're working on, but you want to work on your lightest spring. Now even with your lightest spring, it might still be really challenging.

So if worse comes to worse, you can do a little bit shorter range of motion or a little bit less repetition. Or if you want to do this and not quite have the resistance, but have the work with the balance and just the movement vocabulary, you can take off all your springs and just move the carriage. So it really is so versatile, um, because the variables are changed because it's just we, everybody's working on different equipment. So I'm going to grab the strap. I'm standing on the outside and I'm holding onto the rope here. So we're going to go just kind of four, four, four, maybe some five repetitions here, but we're going to go through the series.

So I'm in a PA now, here's my secret weapon for pregnant lady. Balance Concerns. I'm letting my left leg in this case or my inside leg push up against the reformer frame. So I'm feeling like a little more secure with that. So there you go. You can tell it's not a cheat, it's just a little extra security. So you're gonna hold it here and you're gonna pull the cares forwarding your arm back.

So that's movement we're going to do with that left arm one more time. So now the right arm is going to go up and as you pull, the right elbow is going to come down to the right knee. Then you're going to extend up XL. Now notice how here I'm bending this left elbow in here. If I'm working with a lighter spring, I find myself able to do it with a straight arm. So heavier spring, it's a little easier to bend the elbow in.

Lighter spring is a little easier to come with the elbow straight. So there's just a little difference in nuance for you for movement XL, a number for the skull, a little bit more with this one XL. So notice how my left leg is staying bent and in that was six, two more and up and eight. So now what we're gonna do is we're going to bring the body into a rotation or a kind of like a swing. So I'm going to be swinging through the center and to the left.

So my arm's going to come out to the right a little bit, swing the arm around, bring the left knee up and swing my body to the left. Then swing my body back to the right. Swing my body to the left and swing my body to the right. So I'm getting kind of the semi circles, so kind of half of a rotation here or a circle of my torso. So swings a little more free here.

Still Bending that left elbow XL and up XL. I think that was number five and six, six and seven up and eight and come all the way up and down. So really nice little series here. Go ahead and release your grip and just to finish nice and fun here. Facing forward. Holding on with your left hand again, right arm up.

You're going to bend the elbow and just a little lateral flection. So very simple so you can see how we're getting really grounded. We're getting a lot of beautiful abdominal work with some great arm and shoulder work here and some really nice safe standing work and XL number six, seven and eight and eight and circle around and come up. What do you guys think? I think it's so much fun. Okay, so we're going to walk around to the other side to stretch out your hand if you need to. From holding on, I'm going to go straight into it. So we just did about three, just a little practice run where we pulled the arm back with a straight elbow. The left arm comes up and I love this because we can get this really tall.

Think of yourself like a big tree, like a big sequoia tree or big redwood tree. Just really strong, really grounded, and you're going to pull in and stretch up, draw in and stretch up. Just feeling that energy as you stretch and stretch, stretch using your best. You can feel how this class is really dynamic. It's, I'm trying to just again, get this like burst of energy, this burst of strength that you have this burst of belief of yourself to move with strength and to move with energy. I know sometimes during our third trimester, we don't feel energetic, but we are energetic and we need to just use our breath and our movement to gain that. So arm goes out to the left and it swings in.

Okay. And swings out. Swings in. Okay. And swings out. Swings in and out. Okay. And out. Four more and, and three Oh and two. Okay. And what? And come around to the side here. Bending both needs and out.

Then the elbow. Think of the elbow, glean behind your hip and out. Don't go so much that you cause rotation in your chunk, but just to get a little bit more external rotation in the shoulder. That's important that you don't transfer the weight of your hips over to your opposite leg here, but try to stay evenly grounded on both legs. Okay. Three more.

Okay. Two [inaudible]. I'm the one and slowly release it and come up. So that was a great standing series. We're going to work into sign the fun, some fun, abstract and spine articulation. That's going to be our next series that we're going to do. Okay. We're going to move into our next series and this is kind of a modified abstract series.

We're going to focus on spinal articulation on some shoulder work and we're going to have a little bit of fun with it. Again, still moving with that energy and that we're just relating to kind of that surge of energy of nesting. And you know what's so funny is that we just realized go up and load one and a has spring, that it's really stormy up here this weekend in, in central California in Santa Barbara and we have the ocean here, which is normally so tranquil and blue and calm, which is wonderful, but we have all this beautiful storm storm surge going on right now and it really is applicable to kind of this burst of energy that kind of swells up or can swell up and women, uh, toward the end of pregnancy. And it's just a great way to kind of matte the energy that we're trying to create here in this class. So go ahead, take a peak at that behind me and let that be some further inspiration for you. So I want you to step onto your carriage here at one and a half spring. So our up stretch, we normally have our feet up against the shoulder blocks and we're going to do that in a moment, but we're going to start with our legs together.

And I want you to get into as much of a flat back as you can and bring your chest down as much as you can. So what I want you to do is you're gonna reach the legs back, but that reaching back is initiated by my pelvis, by my tumble coming up. Then Xcel, we're going to curl. So we're kind of in an elephant position here, the pelvis underneath. We're going to lead with the pelvis and the pelvis can go so far and then the legs respond to that additional arch in the lower back. Then draw the abdominals in as you curl forward.

Inhale and exhale coming in and inhale. Two more. Exhale, drawing in one more time. Inhale and XL. So now you're going to put your weight on your left leg. Inhale, take your right leg back, then exhale, curl the right leg up. Now we can't go very far because there's a belly in the way, but I want you to just draw that knee to the chest. I'm keeping my flip flexed just to keep the movement nice and simple, and Xcel.

No notice my chest isn't as far down as it would normally be in the up stretch because I'm just working on this movement here in that shoulder stability and it's kind of as far as my chest can go down at this point and draw in. Now take that right foot down, chancellor the weight onto the right slit, bring the left leg back a little bit, carriage goes back, then draw in deflection. Inhale, reach, extend on the diag. Exhale, inhale, reach. Exhale, still feeling that shoulder stability. Okay, inhale and exhale. Drawing it in.

Two more. Inhale, just that really beautiful curving of the spine. Last one, and exhale, drawing it in. Take the foot down. Now to get into a little bit more of a traditional, or what we'd more commonly know as our upstretched. Take your heels back up against the shoulder blocks, extend the spine. But now to go back into something a little bit more fun, a little bit more adventurous. As you take the carriage down, you're going to swivel. I'll go towards you. You're going to swivel your knees. You're going to think of tapping. In this case, it's my right knee down to the carriage and reaching up and pulling in.

Now, depending on your strength, your length, a lot of different factors. You may get to touch that one knee down to the carriage. But more importantly than that being your goal, I want you to take the knee down toward the carrots as close as you can get it without compromising the integrity or the safety of your position. So strong shoulders, I'm reaching a lot of energy out, so I'm going forward with my energy before I swivel to bring that knee down and then boom, I send it right back up and I draw the carriage in. So the movement's a little fragmented right now, but we'll make it a little bit more fluid and press up and rotate, pushing energy away from the foot bar and press up.

Probably the most thing you're vulnerable for here is letting your belly hang and putting all the pressure in your lumbar spine. And so that's why I want you to try to eat well, the weight into your shoulders. Send the energy out through your spine, push the knee down and app. Now if you're an advanced mover, you know what? I kind of feel like I'm doing like a pregnant lady surf safe version of, it's kind of like the snake in a way.

It kind of mimics some of that spiral that we get when we do that. And if you're doing the snake pregnant, I'm so proud of you and okay, and rotate and app. One more time and rotate. So you're just feeling that strong energy here. Now take your left foot back forward and take your right leg up onto the carriage. So my toes are going to curl around.

Kind of like the prehensile and I'm in kind of like a runner's lunge here, like I'm getting ready to go on a race, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to push the leg back, keeping my heel down on the mat, and I'm going to flatten my spine as much as I can. Then I'm going to curl it in. I'm going to look down at that thigh, inhale and exhale, drawing it. Then so I'm getting this deep lunge in my hips is really deep. Stretch in that calf muscle and that Achilles tendon of my left leg here and then that beautiful flection there and reach. Exhale forward and inhale.

Exhale forward. Now from hearing, then extend the leg up. I'm going to feel that stretch through the hamstring squaring off the hips, lengthening the spine, m and a hold here. Yeah. Now carefully. I'm going to take the right leg down. I'm going to bring the left leg up, so I'm going to wrap my toes around the foot bar, adjust myself, get into a nice deep runner's lunge, extend the back so the leg goes back.

I'm going to try to extend as much as I can, keeping the heel down and then forward in deflection. Hips are nice and square. Inhale, fill the articulation of your spine and then bring it in with nice strength, nice intention. Inhale and exhale. Yeah, reaching out, filling as you get deeper into that lunge. In this case, into that left leg. Let's go one more and exhale. Now extend the leg, reaching out, finding your breath [inaudible] and slowly bring that foot down and go ahead and take your knees down to the carriage. Now you can go onto a half a spring or one spring and we're going to work on a little bit of a reverse knee stretch series. Um, but this time what we're going to play with is we're going to do single leg, so the legs actually need to come into the middle. So you want to make sure you're not slipping and sliding there.

Then wants you to take one leg and rest it up on the foot bar. So you're going to literally just rest it there and squaring the hips off as much as you can. Keeping that knee as straight as you can. Nice straight spine neutral spine to begin with. We're going to curl in, okay with that knee and then reach it back XL Curlin yeah, so what I really like about this is I'm getting that abdominal work or getting that shoulder work, but as I keep my leg back behind me, I'm getting a nice hip flexor stretch through that leg and that's what I really enjoy about this, which is kind of fun. If I load it up to one instead of a half a spring, I'd be filling more of a challenge on the abdominal. Okay, one more time and draw it in.

[inaudible]. Now this time I want you to reach back. Let your shins light up onto the foot bar and fill that reach. Open that chest up. Now from here, you're going to have to use all of your body energy to reach that leg up, bend your elbows and go down and then send it back. Shin rests on the foot bar and you're going to lend your body forwards to using the energy of your chest, your torso, your legs, your arms reach. Just a little bit, dip down and then send it back and reach my carriage.

Just moving a little bit cause I'm on such a late spring and that's okay. As long as it's not out of control and reach and forward and fill that stretch. Slowly change sides, so the left leg, or excuse me, the right leg comes down and the left leg goes up to rests on the top of your foot on the foot bar. Finally that neutral position. Then we curl the pelvis underneath, draw the knee in and reach a back. Exhale and we reach no at this point, late into my pregnancy. I feel like the blue spring is giving me enough resistance, but not so much that I'm going to compromise the integrity of my abdominals.

So that's why I've chosen to work with the blue spring and up. One more time, some curly in that pelvis underneath me and app. Now I lean back filling that stretch and ready. Here we go. Use that energy to reach forward into the salon and app and pressing and do reach back am pressing forward.

The secret with the swan is to keep a little bit of the upper back extension and use the hip extension and all the way back and down. Now this time with your legs wide, I want you to take your hands onto the floor. Okay. Reach out and reach your hips up and you use your breath here. So you're in this nice, again modified upstretched position. A nice inversion here to release pressure off your pelvis and just slowly draw in, curl unreleased so you can notice my feet come off the carriage a little bit, which is totally fine.

The movement is initiated from my torso when I pull back with my arms a little bit, engaging my lats and my shoulders and my triceps. Exhale. Okay. And bring it back. Just four of these little ones. And last one. Okay.

And reached forward. Go a little bit deeper and slowly come up and we're going to finish up with a little bit of back extension and that slight little bit of arms here. Okay. So you should feel really energetic and good. Right? So what I want you to do here is we're still on a half a spring and I've done this in other series before, other prenatal classes. So I want you to hold the body upright and lift up into the t and down XL and down XL.

So again, here we are. Toward the end of our class we've talked about this nesting energy, this beautiful preparation and of our pregnancy. And here we're using our chunks, stability, and were just grabbing onto that last bit of energy that we have for this class. Going back straight behind you now holding onto it and press okay and don't release it. Don't let go. Just keep filling that surge of energy come through your body and manifest out through the movement of your joints. Feeling powerful, feeling in control, feeling joyful and energetic.

That bringing the body down a little bit. Bring the hips up through a little bit, flattering your torso and the same less essentially a little bit more back extension throughout her range of motion and pull it down. So I'm lifting my hips off my heels. I'm actually feeling the outside of my chest. On the, I'm touching the shoulder blocks. I know that that gives me an a nice flat position. And then lifting up and bring it down.

Two more lifting and bring it down. Last one, lifting up. Okay. And bring it down. And then I want you to bring this Jobson.

I want you to come up, curl your toes, flatten your feet as much as you can and pull back on the shoulder rest and let your spine just soften as you come into this deep squat and breathe here. Okay? So those muscles that we just worked in, spinal extension, let them rest. Let them stretch. Let them relax. Find your breath. One more breath here.

Go ahead and carefully sit down in your bottom if you can, without falling, bring your legs forward so your toes are on the frame here. And then just to kind of get into a little bit of a softer position, just rounding forward, okay? And lifting up. So take that energy, that surging, you used it well in this class, we moved a little bit faster, a little bit faster tempo, and now just calm yourself down with some easy movement and some easy breath [inaudible] and just know that you are strong and you are full of energy and full of life, literally full of life. And that you have the ability to use that energy and harness it to um, use the strength and the endurance that you need to finish out your pregnancy with joy and to enter the labor and birth experience with joy and strength and to carry it into your motherhood. Okay.

Reaching at, lifting that sternum up. Couple more deep breath with me. Ah, he's just feel your body's starting to calm down a bit. Last one. Uh, well, when you're ready, opening your eyes, releasing your hands. And you don't have to be at the end of your pregnancy to do this class.

You can be preparing for it, but I hope that you feel energetic and I hope that you felt like you nested your body a little bit at the end of your pregnancy. So great work. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope to see you soon. Thanks again.