Mat Warm Up

Hi, today I wanted to give you a nice warm app in case you need to ever stretch or get your body in the groove before just hitting the ground running with our 30 session challenge. Most of those classes are going to be really vigorous and quick moving right from the get go. And sometimes I for example, need to really get my body to loosen up and get my mind connected to my body just by holding certain stretches in positions. So I'm going to show you what I do to warm up before really going intensely into a good plotting session. So I'm going to have a ball that's a little bit deflated and if you don't have a ball you can grab a towel and roll it and you can use that to go onto your tailbone. And then I'm going to use a magic circle as well. And if you don't have magic circle, you could use a towel also.

So this class is just meant for, not a workout, but just maybe as a little sidebar in link to help you get warmed up if you ever need to before your 30th session. Challenged class. All right, so let's lie down on your mat. Knees Bent, feet hip width apart. And we're going to put the ball right underneath your tailbone. So the idea is that it's supporting just the very bottom of your spine and not your waistband. So if you think about your sacrum, that triangle bone between your hip bones, your it's gonna support, just the very bottom. And then you really want to picture your spine. So we're going to start picturing our spine from between your ears, or at least this is what I do and I kind of nod my head yes. So I'm very aware of the bone that starts my spine from the top between my ears.

And then I'm going to picture the one right under it and under that, and I'm going to keep working down to my tailbone. So what I have noticed on my body is I will hold everything super tight and tense instead of relaxing my spine and letting it just go and allowing my powerhouse to scoop in and support it instead of my back supporting it or my quad supporting. So I'm going to try to turn off a lot of muscles. So with that I'm gonna start with some breathing. I'm gonna take a big breath and exhale the back of my ribs into the mat. So Joseph [inaudible] did a lot of deep breathing and he really used the ribs to squeeze the air out of the lungs. So you're gonna try to inhale to the side, but really or you could let the air float up all the way into your chest.

I really don't mind which way you're inhaling, but when you exhale, try to picture your spine going down into the mat. So big breath. And as I exhale, I'm going to think about my next sinking and not trying to hold up, relaxing, big breath. I'm gonna work towards the, between my shoulder blades, inhaling and exhale instead of there being a valley between my shoulder blades, it's nice and relaxed and exhaling. [inaudible] maybe right below my shoulder blades or the back of my bra strap here, and a big breath and exhaling picturing my naval, like the button on a mattress and a string has come up and pulled it down to my spine. Big Inhale and exhaling. So your spine should be able to have natural curves in your back, but it's not good if that's the only way that your back can go. So if you're only arching and your neck only arching your lower back, you're not able to round the means.

You don't have a nice supple and flexible spine. So we need to be able to arch or round and we're trying to let go all of the attention right now in our spine. So one more breath. [inaudible] and exhaling. Nice long neck. And this time I've turned off my thighs, my quadriceps, and my feet that they're not holding me at all. They're not trying to press into the mat. So when I exhale, I'm going to bring in my right knee next time.

Being conscious of keeping my polities bucks. All right, big breath. [inaudible] draw my navel in [inaudible] and it's like the knee just floats in and enjoy a stretch. This is also a really good way to start off your day. Big Breath and exhale. Maybe you're not getting ready for a play session, but you're getting ready to hit the ground running with work or kids or what have you in with the air. Exhaling. Try not to weeble wobble back with your hips or your shoulders. And now we're going to straighten the leg and let's start with your hands behind your thigh. Maybe you're more flexible, but let's start with the knee.

A little turned out. Hips have to be straight across. Make sure it's not hiking up and we're going to point your toe so that this shin continues to a straight line. And then I want you to flex. Make sure your spine point. We're going to do this a few times. Make sure your spine hasn't decided to take over and is lifting from the mat. Try to picture your back like a hammock.

Just haying down into the mat. And now I'm going to circle my ankle three times, just my foot. So that my ankle gets nice and warmed up and reversing three times and then we're going to hug it in and put it down. Take a breath. Exhale, draw your navel in. Squeeze the air out of your lungs, stretching that knee and hands behind this leg, this thigh, and stretching that hamstring as the point and flax point your toes. When you flex, pull back even your baby toe and try to have your foot like it's a waiter holding a tray. That's hard and point.

And we're going to circle through three times. Try to make a full circle, not in letter D and reverse. You're really trying to stretch right now, so make sure you're asking yourself, are you stretching? Okay? And we're going to hug that knee in. And again, we haven't changed our neck or keeping that long. The back of the ribs.

Button that down and I'm going to inhale and exhale. Bring in this leg. The right leg floats in, hugging it. If you have a bad knee, you can hold underneath the knee. And now I'm going to put my hands behind the calf. Make sure you haven't switched and your energy and are now pressing with your left foot or tightening your left leg, your hip flexor. Okay, and I'm going to stretch again. Point and flex. I'm trying to keep my hips even.

I'm trying to pull my leg up as high as I can and I'm going to circle and making sure my neck isn't taking tension or shoulders. Reverse those circles and we're going to hug that knee in, putting the foot down and exhale, bringing in the left, straighten the leg. Good and point. I give this series of stretches to my clients a lot. If I see that they've come in and there one more time and then we're going to circle three times and they've like just have too much of what's going on in their life, in their head and they're really tight and tense or maybe they drove their kids around for three hours a day before. So this is a great way to make sure you're getting the most out of your Polonius exercises.

Now I'm going to bring the right leg back in as I exhale and I'm going to work on my lengthening. So I'm going to stretch with my leg, turned out hands behind my calf. Now I'm gonna really press my arms down because strong arms are important. Draw my belly and make sure my left foot is light, not working, and reach my right side. Add to my hip to try to touch the ceiling with my foot. And I'm going to keep that length and my belly sinking as I reach up and down as I inhale.

And you should be stretching that hip flexor anchor in the back of your ribs, working from here when you're down and pull it up with your belly and stretch. So this band right here that dives through your body and connects, you're trying to really lengthen that and stretch arms pressing down. You should be able to almost see your chest and up. And now I'm going to give it a hug and we're going to grab the left. Exhaling, Belize.

Always sinking into that and now I'm going to straighten, stretch behind the calf, press my arms deep into the mat. Try to not have your shoulders like that, but here, pressing belly anchored member, right light leg, not pressing. Reach that left thigh long to the ceiling and we're going to stretch and exhale up. Make sure your ribs or the back of your ribs I should say are really firmly anchored into the mat so that you don't get any clicking in that hip flexor. One more and we're going to now cross the ankle over the right thigh and let's see if you can bring your right thigh towards you.

Always drawing your belly in and we're going to have the right foot like at a tabletop position, not down here, not up here, but just here almost as if someone's pushing it on you and we're going to put your hands behind your right thigh and pull it towards you. You can have a flex or relax foot. Once you're pulling it towards you, I want you to keep your right hand where it is and use your left hand to gently push the left thigh away. You can either switch legs in the air or put it down. I'll show you both so you can either put it down, put the other foot down, cross the right ankle over and using your belly. Draw up the left. Be Very aware whether you're hiking your pelvis up at all. It has it. Have you lost your Pilati Xbox again, you can flex or point and now keep your left hand where it is.

Take your right hand and push. Some people really lift their shoulder when they push to like this. Try to stay aware, aware and stay square. Hmm. All right, we're good. I'm going to switch in the air now and one more each side. Now I'm going straight to pulling and pushing at the same time, trying to keep my body square, my spine relaxed belly in one more other side and I'm going to stretch, pull, so you should really be feeling it here. All right, so that's enough stretching of the hips there.

I'm going to hug my knees in, delicious, grabbed my ball and you can either keep it in your hands or you can put it down, but I'm going to let my knees fall one way and I'm going to kind of press and my arms fall. The other stretch, stretch, stretch. Very important. When we roll to the other side, you want to roll through your center. So we're going to roll through the back of the ribs, get the back flat with our powerhouse and switch sites. And we're going to do that again. Get in the back of ribs nice and anchored. It's not the legs that are Mo, uh, moving us.

You don't want to initiate from the legs. So that would look like my legs moving right now versus coming down with my spine and then following it and switching to the other side. Great. All right, so now we're going to come center. We're done with our ball. I'm just going to put it down and I'm going to get a little bit aware of my pelvis here.

So I'm going to take a big breath with my hands on my ribs and I'm going to exhale because now you don't have a ball, right? So you don't have anything tilting your pelvis towards you, allowing for your back to sink effortlessly into the mat. But I want you to be aware of your pelvis. So is it flat? We're going to first tilt it towards you. I had my rit hands on my ribs originally because when you tilt away from you, a lot of people do it more with their upper body than with their lower body.

So we're going to tilt towards you and I want your ribs to actually stay down. Maybe firmly press your arms down as you tilt the pelvis away from you rather than just giving up your upper body, your chest. And so now you feel the pelvis tilting away from you. You should feel your tailbones down. You should feel there's a little tunnel under your waistband.

Let's do the opposite. Use your belly tilt towards you and you should feel your waistband glued and pressing through the mat and your tailbone slightly rocked up off the mat. Now we're going to do a full circle. So I'm going to tilt my pelvis towards the right notice. I'm not moving my knees too much and it's like my hips are a seesaw. Am I right?

Hips down into the mat and my left hip is up and I'm gonna rural through my Elio sacral junction, right where the hip and the sacrum come together and have my tailbone down and in a rural through my left joint. And now I have my left hip bone down and my right up and I'm going to come back center and I'm going to reverse. So if you have a tight lower back like I do, this is really good to stretch out before you start doing all your teasers and roll up and neck pull one more each way. So rolling through. So I'm trying to turn off my stiff lower back, stretch it out and also get my belly to start warming up. And the other way, last time, circling the pelvis down to your tailbone over to your right hip and center.

All right, now this is tilting towards me. So I want again for us to be really aware of what is tilting. I'm just having nice and flat. We're going to revisit that in a second. So I'm going to grab my magic circle. I'm going to put it between my inner thighs and my feet are hip with the part and I'm gonna press my hands into the mat.

And without tilting that pelvis, I want you to squeeze that circle to wake up your inner thighs. So inner thighs squeeze. Now I want you to connect the inner thighs with the pelvic floor and your lower belly, and you're gonna use those muscles to tilt your pelvis towards you squeezing k so I haven't lifted. We're going to lift up your back, starting from your bottom, using the back of the thigh and bottom as well. So we're going to curl one bone at a time, lifting to a straight line from your knee to your shoulders and give me 20 pulses of the circle. One, two, three, four, five, six. Keep going. Trying to get that deep connection of your inner thighs, pelvic floor. Your scoop should feel like no other right now.

Hold the circle tight, keep your bottom up, keep these muscles working and lower the ribs first and just lifting my arms. You can see that I'm going to squeeze the air out of my lungs and then articulate my spine down. Super important cause we're limbering up for our Palati session. All right, so I'm going to do it one more time. Press with those inner thighs. Engage the pelvic floor, lower belly to tr.

Tilt the pelvis back in the thighs and see are working to help even try to think of lengthening your thighs so that your knee is more over your ankle and gimme 20 again, you're trying to get this super deep scoop right now in your belly where the inner thighs, lower belly pulling in and up while you press. That is the point as well as stretching the front of your thighs a bit. Five, four, three, two, hold. Drop the ribs. Exhale, articulate. Your bottom should be on fire and relax. So we're getting a little work there. I'm going to put the circle away for a second.

Hang it up right here on my mat and I keep my pelvis flat, but slide by feet and knees together. All right, so now I'm going to take a breath and exhale, draw my right knee in. These all these exercises are kind of a collaboration of all my studying with incredible instructors and putting it a little together. So I'm going to stretch and I'm going to press my arms down, reaching out and I'm going to lower my right leg so it's at the same level as my other side. So I'm going here, right there, holding it, holding it, and I'm trying to feel the back of my find seat. On a scale of one to 10 at least a five. Try to send a message, engage that and turn off your left hip flexor or right hip flexor. Okay.

Make sure your ribs are still anchored and we're going to go down a little lower also reaching long. Okay, so our box is square, our stomach is scooped, our pelvis is not tilted and we're not gripping. We're turning this to a seven. Now go almost to the mat and that should feel like a 10 that should be really easy to feel. And we're stretching that hip flexor and we're going to go ahead and lower the foot and slide it into you. Be Aware of where your pelvis is, use the belly and slide the foot out and make this atten back the finance seat or warming up and waking up that muscle. Slide it in, keeping your PyLadies box, slide it out, making the back of your thigh and seat a 10 that's the wrap and bending. And one more time sliding out. And now with this great scoop that I would like to see in any of your series of five or anything like that, we're going to pull it up and hug it in, so nothing but length.

And now we're going to take a breath and do the same with the left. Exhale. If your pelvis tilts a little bit while your leg is up, that's okay. As soon as you can untilt it do so. So we're trying not to use this right hip flexor or foot or quad reach that left leg up, anchoring the back of the ribs. And this is where all the magic happens when you're stretching your hip flexor and you're going to lower that leg nice and long right there. All right, I have to turn on the back of my thigh and seat.

Make sure this guy's not working. Try to get my scoop and I'm going to go down a little lower trying to make the back of the Phi and sita seven I'm starting to feel it getting the scoop. This guys looks like it's working a little. There we go. And now I'm going to go almost to the mat. Try not to use my right leg or hip and all the way down and I'm going to slide the foot in, keeping my pelvis flat and slide it out, making my back of my fine seat atten and drawing it in and scooping it am checking my hips if they're even, and getting that steep stretch on my, so as are hip flexors last time.

Slide that foot out and we're gonna control it up. This is really your footwork as well, reaching, reaching, reaching when you're sliding your foot in and out, and bend and great. Okay. Now we're going to grab our circle again and we're just going to do a tiny bit of the mat. So I'm going to put it between my ankles. And first I'm going to warm up my neck, so hand over hand behind my head, and I'm gonna rest it down. A little tricky with the headset, but we got it. So I'm going take a breath and as I exhale, I'm going to pull my lower belly in.

Okay. Your lower belly should always scoop in and you're gonna pull your belly towards your chest or your lower back towards your upper back to round your upper body up. It's always what supports your neck. So taking a breath, exhale, pulling it in. On the next one, we'll lift big breath. Exhale, draw it in. Okay. And rounding up, if your belly is popped out at all, pull it in as you inhale and get it. And even deeper to come up. Maybe a little higher if your tailbone is tilted up until [inaudible].

So if it's done anything like this until to taking a breath. And as you exhale, pull your belly in and roll down. When you roll down, you should be pushing your head into your hands for beautiful stretch again in with the air. Exhale, draw the belly in and you round up in with the air. Exhale, pull your belly in more and come up as high as you can. No tilting that pelvis. Big Breath. Exhale, draw the billion. Push your head into your hands to stretch your spine. All right, we're going to do just 50 of the a hundred just like I said to warm up. Big Breath. Exhale, draw it in, in with the air. Exhale, pull your belly and more come up higher.

Okay, I'm going to extend my arms and I'm going to start pumping and I'm gonna sink my belly. And on the next exhale we'll bring the knees in in with your and exit in with the year and XL. Now let's just squeeze her straight leg straight and exhale. One more and exhale and bend. All right, just a little bit of movement. We're gonna s rock up to sit and put the circle between your inner thighs and I'm going to have the feet hip with the part. Sit Up right over your sit bones. Squeeze the circle with your inner thighs and now bring your round your back, almost touching your forehead to that circle round, round, round. And I'm going to take a breath, squeeze a circle, draw the pelvic floor and make my lower belly pull into my lower back to roll back just my waistband, keeping my hands where they are. Take a breath, pull into my lower back and round forward again.

I'm trying to stretch out my stiff lower back. Big breath squeeze. I also want to think about lengthening my lower back as I go back down. Big Breath and exhale one more and we'll go a little further. Big Breath. Squeeze. Try to keep the energy only in your belly, not in your arms, in with the air. And exhale forward. Great job.

Let's go a little lower to the back of the short bottom of the shoulder blades. Big Breath. Actually, we'll start moving this time as we, uh, breathe, squeeze and in with the air and exhaling just down. Slide your hands a little if you need to, to get to the back of the Bra Strap. Take a breath as you look at your belly and exhale all the way home. One more. Squeeze in with you and exhale, articulating one at a time, right? Big Breath.

Squeeze here out to come forward. Really important to squeeze the air out. Let's even go all the way down. We're going to end his squeeze and draw that pelvic floor in with the air. Exhaling all the way down, rural through the neck and head in with deer. Exhaling, squeezy near at Arrow. One more. Squeeze in with you. Exhaling. Inhale, lift the head squeeze, squeeze out the air, and just take the circle away and finish by putting the circle down and stretching to your ankles and feet.

And I think you're ready to go now to do any of our concessions.