Day 8: High Chair

Welcome to class number eight of your 30 session challenge. Today we're going to be doing big chair and we're going to end with a few exercises that you might have taken out of your repertoire and have decided not to do them anymore, but they do leave you with a lot of energy, so I hope you're not going to quit on them and you're going to do them. I'm going to give it my best shot as well, but we're going to start off with some really basic pumping to get our spine nice and aligned. So I have my pad, I'm going to make sure my springs are always both on top for the big chair. So let's see. Yep, I got one on the bottom here, so I'm gonna switch it to one on the top. So now both. We're on the top. I've got my pillow to sit on.

You might need a pad on your chair. I'm not sure, but we're going to, there's really no graceful way to sit down. You just want to get in there. And I had been challenging myself lately to really stick my tailbone into the board first and have my feet in Pilati stance, wrap my arms around, and now I'm going to draw my pelvic floor, draw my lower belly and anchor my waistband. How are we doing? And then if I can get my waistband, then I'll start adding a few more bones. Okay, so I'm going to do a few reps. We're going to do 20 here and we're going to push down and pull up. And as I'm doing that, I'm going to get higher and higher on the board.

All right, now I feel like I'm really working back the thighs and pump and pump a good rhythm, powerhouse in and up, shoulders down, pushing and pulling up. Let's do five, four, three, two, one. All right. Now we're gonna switch to one leg, pumping one leg. So feet, legs stay the same. Powerhouse stays the same. Extend the right leg, dead ahead and give me ten one, two, hips, even powerhouse, even into the board. Eight, nine, 10. I started with my left foot on because as I said, last class, my left hip is the one that gives me a little trouble. Find out which one's your weaker one and do that one first and then the stronger one next. So that's my right, so I'm going to keep it on. Extending the left powerhouse in and pumping. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven growing taller, nine, 10 and an extra set on my left. Here we go. We're really going to be working the legs today.

We didn't work them too much this class before and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. So now let's do a little more advanced. Can we do parallel hip width apart? Joseph Polis did a lot of parallel work working a lot of the quad, so we're going to work the entire leg here without the knees going all wonky. Here we go. We're going to do a set of 20 and I want you to think of your wall. Sit.

Okay. As if right now we're standing up tall and then we're sliding down into the wall. So really energy with your powerhouse. Both ways at, but a good rhythm. Here we go. One, two, watching my hips, staying in alignment with my feet. My heels are lifted into demi point or over the ball of my foot and I'm really trying to get the back of my thighs back and my ribs. Four, three, two, one, and enough of pumping. We're going to do going up front next. So carefully. Step off.

We're going to get rid of our pillow. Now we don't need it for the rest of the class and we're going to do going up front. So I stand with my toes almost touching the floor board and always like I talked about with the class, the one to chair, the one right before this. It's how you begin an end. That's so important. So I'm standing, pressing the earth away, lifting my powerhouse in and up. Let's put up the right foot or left.

Bring the pedal down and I'm going to step up. It's so important because later on maybe we'll get on without even without the big chair and getting up without hands. All right, so now I'm going to take my right foot. Align it with that middle. Get my knee and I'm going to make sure my hips are even, and you can do this with your hands resting. You can do it with the opposite arm of the leg up, but I'm going to do it starting from strong legs, strong powerhouse, hugging a midline. Let's go for five. Here we go. Scooping in one and and we're gonna do four more.

Lift that pedal all the way up and down. Really keep those hips align line and three and yeah, and we're going to do two more and last one back of the ribs, back of the thigh. Make that connection. Place your hands on the handles. S weight shifts back as he put your right foot down, left foot in line with that board. Knee stays glued to the back board. Make sure your hips are nice and even you again here or your right arm can extend. Okay, I'm going to really connect this with this as I stretch my hip flexor and scoop my belly in and strong arms. This is my weak hip. Here we go.

We're going to scoop in one and Dan and hugging and midline with my strong arms that we've been working and we're going to do three more [inaudible] evening out those hips if we can. We're going to going upside in. Just a second. Last one all the way down. I'm going to put my hands here. I'm going to bring my left foot to the pedal and I'm going to apologize. My back's going to be to you as we do going upside with your right foot up.

So I'm going to turn towards the ocean and I'm going to, right now I have both feet on the pedal correct, but I'm gonna put down, lift my back foot, lower my front one, put the back one up with the diagonal bar, put my knee into that edge. This hand is going to go here for the first few and then if I can, I'll put both hands behind my head so I'll start with one hand here. You could also hold it here, but it's all about your box. I might even play a little bit in will really get that hip to open up. All right, here we go. Five Times scooping it up and Dan add up and I'm going to put the other hand up and add two more [inaudible] work in your entire body and hold down. Return your hands to your handles.

Bring your right foot down. Turn completely the other way. Lower the front heel, lifting the back leg, left foot goes in that diagonal bar, left knee into that, and here I feel like all of this is rolling forward on me. I don't like that placement. Your heel should line up with your arch. Okay, but I'm going to see if I could maybe open up my hip that much more. Yup. That like really needs to work on it's turnout. All right. Trying to keep your hips pretty even. We're going to arrest this.

Put this one behind and let's work head to toe. Here we go. Pull. Pulling up, up, up and down. One more with the hand here and down. I feel like my left hips hiking, I'm going to concentrate on that elbow gets stuck there. I might lift my arms up so my elbow doesn't get stuck. Okay, and one more and down. All right, now I'm going to face forward here and I'm going to do press down on demi point facing front. So I mentioned all the time, super important how you begin. So you have your feet in demi point or up onto the ball of your foot, lifting everything else up. Good. Kind of pushing down with the earth here with your upper body.

And I'm going to put my left foot down on the floor with the pedal staying down. My right knee is going to slowly bend, so my foot's on the floor in a polite stance, squaring off my hips and I'm going to have the foot come up, pedal come up. So Dami point here, and we're really working on where the back of the thigh connects to the seat. If you make that connection with the back of your ribs, you're really going to work your powerhouse and your hamstrings and stretch that hip flexor. So we're going to do five push downs. Kept pushing down here with the arms scooping in and we're going to push down and release. I could use my calf, but I'm really trying to use the back of the thigh and the seat.

Push down, lifting in the belly, releasing two more. Okay. Really seeing last one square hips and now we're going to return the right foot to the floor. Right next to the left. Left foot goes up onto demi points, squaring off the hips, feeling a lift in my right arch inner thigh, scooping in my belly. Here we go. Pressing down five back the find seat.

I'm going to slide my toes a little forward on that one and four. This is my bad hip. My, I can even put my hand on my hip to make sure it's not cheating. Three, I like this. Two more. One more time. I'd probably stand on this hip a lot. Really? All right. Both hands on these handles.

I'm going to bring this foot down and now we're going to do press down demi point or push down. Demi point sideways. So I'm going to face you. Line myself up with the middle, grabbed my front handle, really always pulling up and I'm going to try to keep my hips squared. This can be a hard one for me. As I bring the foot closest to the pedal on the chair, you should have it aligned with the middle of the pedal and your hips squared and to try to, I'm going to go for it. All right, so I'm going to use all of my outer thigh, the back of my thigh, my seat while I lift with my standing leg. Always really important. This legs not asleep. You're lifting the arch, you're lifting that inner thigh.

We went over that with the barrel work and I'm going to just hold on to here or here, but I like holding onto my hips here as I press down and release and I'm focusing on the outer thigh and seat and release and squeezing my hips forward so it doesn't go behind me. You can do three to five. I'm going to go for the five and one more. Who is my weak hip? I forgot and release. I'm going to bring my foot down and turn the other way. So with my back to you, I'm winding myself up roughly with the middle of the chair and I'm going to put my right foot up.

And this standing leg is lifting my arch inner thigh pelvic floor. And I'm going to really try to open up that right hip, keep it even. I just lowered it. Use this hand to lift in your powerhouse to on demi point. Here we go. It's five and for working the outer hip and three lifting feels really good and too, and we'll do one more and release.

And now we're going to do pumping demi point crossover. So I'm going to step just behind the floorboard and I'm going to hold onto here and I'm going to cross my right leg over and I'm going to hold it there. I'm going to even out my hips here. Okay, I'm going to hold onto that hip. I'm going to use all of this to try to pull the pedal down. You can do it like flat foot and or you can do it on demi point, right?

And here we go. And pushing down and releases is not a big movement and release and lifting in your powerhouse. Whew. Two more. Feeling the burn right here. Everything else is lifting. One more, keeping square and watching my foot and let's do the other side. All right, so I'm getting right behind that floorboard with my right foot crossing my leftover squaring off my [inaudible] box, holding onto this handle, holding onto my hip, lifting in my right arch, right inner thigh, pelvic floor. Hope you're feeling all that left foots and demi point. Hope you can see that and we're going down a little woo and release and dam and release and three and release and two each time.

I'm trying to get a little deeper into my powerhouse and working my hip. All right, bringing that foot down. Okay. We're going to do press up bottom with some tricep dips and some inner thigh extensions and then we're going to turn around and do press up front for our grand finale. Alright, this is the part where I want you to dig deep and throw away those words of I can't and just go for it over super fast. At least you're trying, but right before we begin, my hands are getting a little sweaty. So if yours are fine, but I'm going to grab some non-slip pads and just so that I don't chicken out on this at all just for the sake of some sweaty palms, right? So here we go. We're going to press down, grow and taller through your powerhouse.

One foot press down just like you did with all those pressed down on Demi points, right? So here I'm going to need to lean in a little bit. You might not need to, I'm just a little lower than some people, but it's super important that you feel everything else connected so that when we do our inner thigh beats, you're super strong. So I'm going to lift my arches, lift my pal, squeeze my inner thighs, pelvic floor. It's hard to talk and connect, but we're doing it and we're going to come all the way up into five tricep dips. Get Nice and up here, add in my shoulders, scooping in. And here we go. Bend the elbow straight, back and up and four and shoulders away from ears.

Powerhouse. Doing all the lifting. Anyway, one more. And hold yourself up there. Light on your toes. Powerhouse. Lifting the ribs away from your pelvis. Squeeze the inner thighs back and give me 10 beats. One, two. Don't touch that from bar four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Hold. Hope you did that with control. Lower the toes.

Bend the elbows all the way down. I usually get to do a big stretch here, but I don't have someone holding and you probably don't either. The um, big chair. So we're going to turn around. Put One foot on the wood is okay or peep both feet on the pedal. All right, you're doing good. So let's do the grand finale here. My shoulders are a little tight. I'm going to lean back and do five dips again.

This way, ending with my legs lifting. Here we go. Squeezing, lifting. Hope you see my transformation in my body as I work and shoulders open and squeeze up and one and two work those arms for one more whole. You're lifting everything with your powerhouse. And we're going to lift those legs up and circle one, two. I'm trying three and a lower down and come down.

I'm going to make those look better. Next time turning around to face the chair is going to be super steady. Okay? And we're going to end with beauty and grace, right? So we're gonna put one. I'm going to keep my left foot on. I want to work my left hip more so I'm gonna keep the left foot on the pedal, lower my right foot. It goes into plotty stance.

I resist keeping my left hip down. I let the pedal come up, return my left foot, exhale reaching to the earth and ceiling and in with the air and exhale and I am done. I'll see you next class.