Theraband Mat Flow

Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me today. We're gonna play with the band. So stand on your band. I'm just gonna give you a profile view.

You can stand as you wish. Step on your band. Just be careful as you stand up, now you've got some tension against your spine, so let's work with support. So starting in a standing upright position, let's just take a minute to take stock. So notice where your feet are.

Are they parallel? Mine are, I know, because I looked when I was down there. Are your knees just over your ankles? Is your pelvis right over your knees? Can you feel that your shoulders are organized just above the pelvis, not forward or back, and that your shoulder blades aren't squeezing together they're just softly resting down.

As you do that, feel that you could also lift and lengthen the spine upwards and we all just got a little taller in just about ten seconds of pilates, so way to go, guys. Inhale. And as you exhale, we're gonna bring our chin into our chest. We're gonna involve the abdominals, so engage the abdominals, and then just begin rolling towards the floor. Keep the hips just over the feet, and let the top of the head just reach toward the floor.

The band will let go. It will pool around your feet. Just allow for that to happen. Inhale. And as you exhale lift from your navel first start rolling up and then you'll catch the tension in the band.

As you catch the tension in the band slide the pelvis forward or encourage the pelvis to go forward and then stack the rest of the spine above the hips. It's just a little bit of a different way to feel the stretch. Inhale. And exhale chin coming in to the chest, equal pressure on both feet, equal pressure through the big toe and the pinky toe and the heel of the foot. Easing the arms and the head, energy upwards in the abdominals.

Inhale. And then exhale. Press in to the band with your feet like you're pressing it into the floor. Catch the tension on the band and roll up. And we'll just do that one more time.

Inhale. And exhale. Roll down. So just checking in. Taking stock.

Bringing your mind and your body together into the room to work for just the next little while. Inhale. And then exhale, lifting up, letting go of any distractions. Anything else going on and just bringing yourself into this moment right here, right now. As you inhale, let the band on the right hand side of the body pull your right arm down your right leg, feeling the stretch in the left side of the body, and then lift from the left side of the body as you come to standing.

And as you inhale allow the band on the left hand side of the body to just pull the spine in that direction. And then lift. And again, inhale, over. And exhale up, just opening up the side body. Inhale over.

And exhale up. And as you exhale for this last moment here as you roll down, just allow the spine, just feel the movements, the segmental movements of the spine. Once you arrive at the bottom, if you need to bend your knees to touch the floor you should, but we're gonna let the band come out from underneath our feet and we're gonna bring it with us and come back up. Take the arms up with you as you come up to standing. Now inhale we're reaching over to the left we're going to hold the band in the right arm still.

We're gonna pull the left arm down so it increases the stretch in the right side of the body. Lift that arm up and lift your spine. Inhale lift up to go over. Exhale pull down on the band with the bottom arm. Inhale release that and exhale to lift up.

And inhale reach up to go over, this time take the top arm and rotate your body so the band comes to be parallel to the floor. Inhale as you find your side body stretch. And exhale to lift. Inhale as you reach up to go over. Exhale as you rotate through the ribcage through the torso, bringing the band so that it becomes parallel to the ground.

Inhale as you unwind. Exhale as you lift up. And then from there we're gonna take the arms down in front of the chest. Heading into a little bit of standing balance work here. Let's start by taking the right leg just behind us.

So just by stepping that right leg back you're gonna feel like you have to shift forward a little bit. That's fine. Energize through the right leg. Lift the right leg up off the floor. Let the band come down towards that supporting leg and then press it against the thigh.

And then bring the band out in front of the chest as the legs come to the floor reach the arms overhead. Take a little bit of extension and then arms come down. This is not very easy for me, so if I am not making the most beautiful picture, I apologize but I am certainly trying. And use that back leg really hard, really a lot. Arms come forward, arms come forward.

Band comes over head and take that little bit of back extension and then arms come forward. Leg lifts, that back leg is our strong leg, it's reaching out in space, it's reaching behind us, we bring the band to the thigh. Bring the arms forward and step all the way back in. Take the left leg to the back. Here we go.

On this side. Stay nice and strong in the supported leg, lifting the left leg up, hinging forward to bring the band just to touch that right thigh. And then reach out. I'm just pinching the band in between my thumb and first finger. Let the toes come down.

Take a little bit of extension. Arms come back. Back leg lifts up. Reach out. Feel the straight line between the heel and the top of the head as the band comes against the thigh.

We reach the arms forward, leg goes down. Arms reach up and back. Just one more time. Arms forward, leg lifts. Reaching, reaching, reaching.

Hit that straight line, reach back, and here, we'll just step in. And that's come to the mat. So let's just take the band and wrap it around our feet. Sit up there nice and tall. And take a breath in.

As you exhale what I want you to do is pull down on the band. As you pull down I want you to think taller grow taller, be taller. And then take the arms forward. Inhale as the arms pull down and back. The spine lifts up.

It lengthens. You get taller. I want you to feel the muscles in the middle of the back working. You feel the muscles in the back of the arms. And we'll just do two more, so almost just using the band as a little bit of assistance just to be in a more upright place.

I know I can use all the upright placement I can get. That is true. And we're gonna push the feet into the band. We're gonna start curling the spine down. I want you to see if you can locate individually each vertebra.

And we're gonna come all the way down. The head and chest will be the first thing to lift. And the band will give us some assistance. What I don't want you to do is just let the band pull you up. I want you to feel that you're resisting the pull of the band.

Resisting the pull of the band, we'll come forward in a round back. Bend the arms and sit tall. Take the arms forward, the inhale. Exhale tuck the tail under push the feet way. Roll down through the spine, we'll go a little quicker.

Head comes down. Head comes up. And roll the spine. Shoulders over the pelvis get nice and long. And now bend the arms and lift your back.

And then stretch the arms. We're going three more times. Exhale, round the spine and roll back. Pushing the feet away. Lengthening, creating space.

Inhale. Exhale drawing in, finding the long spinal position. Pull the band wide and lift up navel to spine. Arms forward, twice more. Exhale round down.

Feel the ease in which the shoulder blades just fall they just slide down the back. And then inhale. And then the creation of resistance as we peel the body away from the mat. Round the spine and lift the spine one more time. Inhale the arms forward.

Exhale true round. So we're pulling through. We're trying to create length. We're trying to create space. Trying to create energy.

Head down. Head up. And roll. And lift. And then take the arms forward, bend your knees.

So you wanna keep the band around your feet. If you typically have a challenging time moving through your lower back, give yourself plenty of tension, hold on nice and close to your feet. You want it to be harder, give yourself less tension. We're rolling down now just to the shoulder blades. Keep the knees bent.

Inhale. Exhale, curl through coming just to the sacrum. Oh yes, this is where it gets a little tougher. And exhale, curl. And then as you're moving, doing that up and down curling, see how deeply you can feel that you're dropping your abdominals.

How deeply can you feel that you're engaging your abdominals. And how can you feel that there's work on the up. That's obvious. But can we create work on the down as well. And we're going five more times.

And back, and forth. Pull with the band down, and three, pull down. And two. And down. One more time coming all the way up.

This time lift the spine, keep the back straight, lean back and pull one. Out of five, pull two. Every time your elbows pull back I want you to feel your navel's pulling, pressing against the spine. Two, just a little breather for your abs. You're welcome.

And now roll down. Rotate towards me. Knees are still aligned. And now we just come up and we rotate in to that side. And down.

And lift and rotate. And pull the band down. And lift and rotate. And pull the band down. And just continuing like that, we have five to go.

So working both directions, being present, focusing on the details. Last three. Breathing. Breath is so important. One more time.

Come down. Find the center. Roll up. Sit up, lean back pull the arms back and forward. So you can get the pull of the band, but can you resist the band as it goes forward?

Can you feel even taller all the time? One more time. Take the arms forward. Exhale as you tuck the tail under, round the spine down. Rotate the body and lift.

The opposite way. I hope that was understood intention. We rotated away from me now. And pull. And resist.

And pull. And keeping the feet flexed, creating some activity in the lower body, you can push down with your feet. You can push into the band slightly with your feet without actually straightening your knees. And four. Three.

Two. Get that deep work. One. Come down. Come center.

Come up. Sit up, lean back, last time with the arms pull. And one, abdominals in. And reach. And three.

And taller. And one more. Come all the way through, stretch the legs out straight. What I want you to do now is take the arm that's closest to me. Turn the palm of the hand up, bend the elbow, lift the body, and rotate.

The other arm's just reaching forward. I'm not doing a lot with it. Maybe pushing down slightly. And then center. And then rotate maybe that straight.

And just push this down. It's not a real big push, it's just some activity. So the band, I love the band because it's helpful. It helps you get more, or get deeper. Also it's a nice way to really target the arms.

By just having that little bit of extra resistance to work with. Sometimes can help us create more range or more movement. Let's do just one more to each side. Rotate, grow tall, lift. And center.

Rotate, grow tall, lift. And center. Bend over, take the band off your feet, bring it with you, roll down slowly, bone by bone, just like you did with the band around your feet. Prove it to yourself that you can. Bend your knees, scoot in for your pelvic curl meaning move your feet closer to you or move you closer to your feet.

And then take the band and reach up over the chest again. We're gonna inhale here. And then as we exhale flatten the lower spine into the mat, stand on both feet. Roll the pelvis up and as the pelvis comes up we're gonna take that band, wrap it around, pull down on the band, press up with the hips. Lots to think about, I know.

Arms up, spine rolls down, and those arms are gonna end up back there by our ears, back by our ears, just hovering off the floor. Inhale. Exhale slide the arms through space, stand on both feet roll up, wrap the arm around the thighs and lift up into the band with the hips. Then reach the arms back, roll through the spine as we come down, reaching all the way down through the tail. And inhale.

And exhale, press and lift. So moving two parts of the body. Everything's working in extension though, really. Back of the body's working. This is an exercise that works the whole back of the body.

The back, the back of the legs, the back of the arms. It's a nice extension practice. Pull, sit tall, lift and roll down. One more time. Inhale dropping the tailbone.

Exhale rolling back up. Taking that band wrap around the thighs, pull down lift up. Arms up spine comes down. All the way and then from there just take the arms from behind you just over the chest. Lift one leg, followed by the other.

We're going to do some spine twists and what I want us to do is as the knees say go towards the left we're gonna pull the band with the right hand. So that's what we're gonna do to create a little bit of mobility. Exhale let the band come back, let the spine come back. Inhale as the knees go to the right, we pull out with the left arm. And then we feel the work coming in the trunk.

So there's a little balance here. And inhale the first direction. And exhale abdominals in to come back. And inhale the other direction. So what I do when my hands get tired of pinching with my thumbs, I just alternate between holding with the full fist and pinching.

And if your band is long enough, you can even just wrap your band around your hands and let the wrap of the band hold the band for you. And then center and from the center what we're gonna do is we're gonna curl the head and chest up. And I want you to take that band and wrap it to push it down on your shins. As you push down on your shins, pull down and use that to help you lift a little bit more. Then we're gonna reach the arms and the legs.

I still have tension on my band. We're gonna pull, connect, lift. Inhale reach. Keeping the height of the body as the arms go overhead. So we'll have reached through the legs.

Keeping the height of the body as the arms go overhead is the most significant piece. And we're gonna do that five. Let the band come down on our thighs. Curl up and reach, four. And wrap and lift, and reach three.

And in and higher, and two. And back and higher and one. And back now take that band and just keep it there. Take one leg forward and change. And forward.

So you're trying to reach with your body, with your trunk, so that the band's coming towards the ankle as the knee comes in to the chest. And we go four. Four. Three. Three, think of the knee pulling to the midline of the body.

Here's number one. Number one both knees in take that band wrap it around your shins. I know it's hard here but we're gonna stay. Now we're gonna twist to a bent left knee. Pull down on the left arm, up on the right arm.

Come center wrap the band over both legs. Twist the other way, down on the bottom arm, up on the top arm. Come center, lift both. And exhale. Inhale.

Exhale. Inhale. I know I'm mean for keeping us up here for so long. But we're gonna do one more like that to each side. And other side.

And now no stopping in the middle. Four five. Five. Stretching that band four. Four.

Three. Two. One. Center lifting both feet come down. Arms reach overhead.

Inhale. And as you exhale roll your hips up, take that band forward. So it's probably gonna go, depending on your flexibility, around near your pelvis or just above your belly button. You're gonna lift the left leg off the mat. I want you to stretch that leg, but I want you to be able to touch your band.

So the arms can move to the leg. And then we're gonna take the leg down. Flex, pull, touch. Take the leg down. Flex, pull, touch.

Keeping the body high and stable. And reach, and back. Reach, and back. We'll do five. Four.

Hips high. Three. Two. Hitting that target each time. Number one.

Up bend the knee, lift the hips, square the pelvis, arms overhead, inhale. And use your breath to move through your spine segmentally. You don't have to pull the band a lot but just keep some energy back there with it. Slowly bringing the back down into the mat, inhale. Exhale.

Roll up, taking the band forward. Left leg stays on the mat. Right leg comes up to touch the band. Don't make it easy for yourself, make it so it's pretty hard to find that band. And then reach and back.

Reach, and pull. Inhale, and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Here's our halfway point. Keep that leg nice and straight.

Keep the back of that free moving leg working hard. There's three, touch. Two, touch. One, touch. Bend.

Square the pelvis. Take the arms back, maybe lift the hips a little higher there. And then roll the body down. Lift the arms up. Take one leg and then the other out to straight.

Lift your head and chest, and come all the way up. Once you're up, bend forward and put the band around your feet. And do a little bit more rotation here. So coming all the way up. This time as you turn towards me, I want you to bend the elbow.

The elbow closest to me bends out to the side. Now the other arm's going to pull out on the band. We're using that to help us rotate and lift. And then center. So we're rotating towards the arm that's bending.

The straight arm's pulling down towards the ground. And center. And lift, pull, twist. You're getting help from both sides, help from both arms. And center.

And pull, twist, lift, get taller. And center. And pull, twist, lift, get taller. And center. We'll just do one more to each side.

Growing taller, band is pulling down. And center. And growing taller, band is pulling down. And center. We're gonna take the feet and separate them now.

So they're just about as wide, maybe a tiny bit wider than your own hips. Roll the spine up, just a spine stretch forward, a version of spine stretch forward. So that flexing through your feet, bend your knees if you have to, just sit up all the way tall. We're gonna bring the chin in to the chest and as we bend the elbows start taking the top of the head like it's gonna go through the band. Using your arms there a little, inhale.

Exhale stack the spine. Allow the arms to just straighten as it feels natural. And stand sit tall and inhale. And exhale chin comes into the chest, curling the body forward, reaching down. And inhale.

And then just rebounding, allowing the spine just to just float back up. We'll just do one more inhale sit tall. Exhale round down. Inhale to pause. Exhale to roll up.

That last one felt particularly good in my body. Just thought I'd share. So now we're gonna start the same. We're gonna go down. This time we're gonna bring the elbows next to the body.

Push down with your arms. Push the band down, lengthen the spine up on the diagonal line. Sit up all the way. And inhale. And exhale rounding down, pulling the top of the head forward.

Arms come down. Arms straighten, spine goes forward. Lift the body up, bring the arms up two more times. Round down. And down.

And press and lift, bringing the navel to the spine, finding that nice flat back, sit up all the way. One more time. Exhale round. Arms come down. Press out.

Lift up. Slip the band off your feet, take it in your hands. I'm holding it quite wide. Twist towards me. You're gonna stretch the band so we're into the saw.

Take the bottom arm and pin the band to the mat. Now you're gonna stretch the band by lengthening the spine on the diagonal. Then we lift the band, free it up from the floor and come center. As you inhale rotate first, exhale pull the band apart. Press down into the band with the bottom arm as you lengthen your body up, lift the arm, and come to the center.

And inhale, grow tall. And exhale to reach. And using the spine to stretch the band lift the band, come to the center, inhale. Exhale to your reach. The band is being held down, we're stretching the body up, lift up, and center.

And now inhale. And exhale. This time we're gonna do the same thing. We're gonna lengthen up. Now we're gonna take that band across the front of the body, go into extension.

Come back. Lift the arm, come to the center. Inhale to rotate. Exhale to find your saw. Inhale lengthen up through the spine.

Exhale, bring the band across the front of the body. Go up and back. Come back through the side. Lift the back arm and find center. That feels so good I think we should do one more to each side.

So we reach through. We reach up. We wrap the band around the body. Come back. Lift the arm.

And center. Here's the breath pattern. Inhale. And exhale. And inhale, stretch.

Exhale, rotate. Inhale come back. Lift with our arm and come to center. Okay, that's enough of that. Let's come up onto our hands and knees.

Okay, so what we're gonna do, and I'm just gonna talk left and right so that it's just easier to follow along. So you're gonna pin the band underneath your right knee. You're just on it with the weight of your body. Then bring yourself into a quadruped position so four points kneeling. Stabilization in the scapula, you're gonna take the band in the same side hand, so the right hand, we're gonna lift the left leg up, we're gonna stretch the right arm up.

And then just bring the arm down in front of you and bring the knee in. Notice if you shifted. So you go up, stretch the band, stretch the hip. And back. And reach.

Nice shoulder flexor exercise. Hip extensor exercise. Good stabilization for the opposite arm. And back. And we'll do three.

And back. And two. And back. And one. And back.

Let the right hand come back down, lift the left hip and knee so your knee is bend and your extending your hip. We're gonna press that leg up onto the ceiling for ten, nine, trying to equalize weight through the arms, six, nice and high. Three, two, one. Stretch it all the way out, and slide it in. Once it's in, then we can change the band over to the other side.

So remember it's the same side arm as the knee that's kneeling on the band. Takes a little while to set up but it's worth it. Okay, so holding onto the band, stabilizing the spine stabilizing the scapula. There you go, stretch out. Can you feel the length throughout your body.

Like maybe the arm going forward and the leg going back could be like being pulled in both directions, like drawn and quartered except for only half. Drawn and halved. But we're not pulling the body apart I guess. That's kind of a gruesome visual isn't it? We're just making the body longer.

Forget I said anything about being drawn and quartered. Sounds pretty awful doesn't it? Let's do two more. And back. And stabilize.

Try not to lean. And back. So now both hands on the mat. Find your base of support. That right leg lifts up.

Try to get it up level with the feet without letting the back change. Flex that foot and push up. And up. Really staying strong through the center of the body. Breathing.

And you go four. Three. Two. One. Come in with that knee.

Back the other knee up so both knees are a little further back. Just have just this huge desire to do some push ups. And I wasn't gonna do push ups in this class but I wanna do them. So I'm gonna choose to do bent knee push ups. You can choose to do bent knee push ups.

Or straight-leg push ups. I'll do three. Two. One. And now round the spine.

Let the shins come down to the mat. Reach back. Roll the spine back through. Come back lift the feet and five. Bring the elbows right in close.

Three. Two. One. And round. And sit back.

And you think we're done nope! Lifting the feet. One more set of five. Four. Supporting through the waist. Three.

Two. One. Sit all the way back to the stretch. Okay so the last couple of things we're gonna do here are gonna be kneeling up on our knees. So if you're not already facing me directly go ahead and do that now.

Hi! So take the band in your hands like this. And this isn't a time where you need to do a lot of trying to make the band really stretchy. Just gonna use it in a really gentle way. So I'm pinching with my thumbs. We're gonna bend the elbows and just careful the elbows don't get behind you.

They're gonna be just slightly forward of your shoulders. We're gonna rotate the arms so if my band was longer I could actually touch the band with my elbows. Then we're gonna take the arms up and back and we're gonna take the body into a little bit of thoracic extension. And then bring the arms back in, the elbows forward towards the band and then bring the body back to center. I'm gonna turn to the side and then I'll be right back.

I just wanna give you a side profile. So again we rotate, that's external rotation of the shoulder joint. Keeping the body, keeping the body as the arms start to reach, and then as they go to the very last we take just a little bit of that upper spinal extension. It's different than leaning. It's just, in my mind and then back and forth I'll do one more like this with you.

So rotate. In my mind it feels almost like trying to go forward rather than backwards. Forward and up rather than bending backwards. Elbows come towards the band and then we return. I'm gonna come back this way and look at you again.

We'll do two more like that. So rotate, reach. So it's like the sternum is just getting lighter. Getting lighter, lifting up. Bend.

And return. One more time. Feels good, doesn't it? It's one of my favorite things to do, I love it. So thank you for doing it with me.

Tying back. And return and just straighten the arms all the way lift them up. Inhale. Reach over to the left, hold the right arm up. Pull that band down, exhale.

Take a full nother inhale. Exhale take the right arm and reach it forward, pushing down through the right and getting a stretch. Come back to the side, and up. And inhale reach over. Watch the stability of the up arm.

Pull down. Getting that nice side stretch. And reach, reach, around with that upper arm. And come back. And come up.

And take the arms down. If you have tight shoulders you want to go right out to the outside of that band probably. You wanna take it up and make a full circle behind us opening the chest. Because I don't know one person on this earth who doesn't need a chest opener. Well maybe a baby.

And down. A baby before they're handed their first smart phone. Up and back. It's all open. Reaching back.

Okay Good. And then all the way up. And over and one more time we're gonna reach back. We're gonna let the chest lift, we're gonna take the band back, we're gonna drop it behind us. Take the arms back overhead.

And bring them together in front of the body. And we say thank you. Thank you for joining me. And I'll see you soon.