Day 12: Powerhouse Lift

All right. Welcome to class number 12 of your 30 session challenge. I hope your body is starting to feel as good as mine is. It's not always looking forward to it because they are sometimes really hard and exercises that we like to say we can't do, but just keep going cause they all feel really good at the end. Uh, today we're going to do start off with a similar one to chair warm up and, but then we're gonna really add a lot of different exercises we haven't done yet and focus on pulling our navel in and up. So we're using the one to chair today to help lift our powerhouse. We always know how to pull it in, but we're trying to learn how to let, not learn, but practice how to lift our powerhouse.

And that is what's gonna give us a beautiful back extension for our more advanced exercises. All right, so let's start off with our footwork. On top of the one two chair, you're going to have one spring in the, at the top, one spring at the bottom. You'll want to have these pads or nonstick paths because we are going to be ending with uh, going up front and going upside. And then you'll also want to have a mat to roll down or towel if you have carpet on the floor so that when we're lying on our back doing corkscrew or on our stomach doing flying eagle, you're already to get, so get your stuff. Press pause if you need to. And now come and join me for footwork. Here we go.

So you're going to sit down as close to the front edge as you can. And we're going to do our toes first, right? Some sitting close. And you, we started off a couple classes ago like this. So let's see what we got here. We're sitting right on those sit bones. Draw a line from one hip to the other. Draw the belly in. Can you feel your standing work from last time?

Here we go 10 times one belly in and up. So you're pulling your navel in and up against the resistance of that Spring and four, three, two, one. You guys are getting it now. So arches, super steady. Let's put our hands here and round those feet. Draw the belly into your lower back.

And let's do ten one Belize into your back. But lifting up to your sternum, we're going to push down. Squeeze those inner thighs to push down. Pull up, but move. Keep your focus on your powerhouse. It's as if you're pulling out that reformer with your belly. One more and let's go to heels. Okay, pulling back those toes. And here we go. The more you do with your powerhouse, the less you're going to do with the quads to squeeze in the back of the legs. And five, six, seven. I'm going to change my hands. Eight, nine, and 10. All right, so you can start off here. Do all 30 like that.

Let's go ahead and step forward and do our tendon stretch. So we're going to get as close as you can have. Real strong posture that a force of wind could come over and it would not push you over. Rolling off an imaginary wall always. And now I'm going to [inaudible] pushed down the pedal and the other foot. And again, I put my hands, you're not going to need this, but no point in moving it right now. Shoulder with the PARP.

Draw your [inaudible] belly en and up to the back of the ribs, bringing your weight over your shoulders. And we're going to stretch down. Now really focus on the lift of your arch, the lift of your inner thigh, your pelvic floor, and the belly goes back up to that upper back. Stretch your whole body from your head to your heels and then up, lifting that navel in and up and stretch to three and squeeze and draw it in and up to three. And that's for squeezing those inner thighs together. And Dan two through. Hey, okay.

Trying to stretch my lower back here, pulling the belly in and up. Let's do three more [inaudible] squeeze in that era anyhow and last one, hold your energy up, control your foot down and the pedal up. Hands Return, foot returns, and roll up using your naval. That's always pulling in and lifting up. Great. Now we're gonna do the hundred in the series of five to really get those basics in. So I'm just gonna turn the chair so that you can see my side profile and I'm going to get rid of this path. All right, so you're gonna lie down with your tailbone off the front edge.

Knees come in and I want you to take a big breath and then exhale, squeeze out that air [inaudible] and then extend the legs and pump [inaudible] in deer and XL. [inaudible] let's see if I can get my legs lower. Sandro Min and squeeze them nice and low. And here we go. [inaudible] hi, I'm squeezing my seat, my inner thighs and I'm really trying to pull my belly in and up. [inaudible] that's 50 big arms. Strong arms. I know that's 80 here we got two more you can do. Last one.

[inaudible] hug the knees in single leg. Stretch left leg forward. And here we go. Right and left drawing the belly in and up. Pulls into the chair, pulls up to your sternum, right cheeks, squeezed in a way. Left cheek. Let's do one more set after this right and left both knees in double leg, belly in and up to your fingertips and exhale in with the air and itself. Oh, long and lead. And exhale. Three more. Last one and we'll go into single street like right leg up.

Make sure you exhale and come up over your shoulder blades. [inaudible] one, two, one, two, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, Belize in and up into the chair. Up to your chest, up to the back of your ribs. One more set both legs up, hands behind your head and double leg, stretch belly and into your back, your arms. And three more. Two more. Last one, Chris. Cross.

Last one. Hugging. And up we go. Okay, next is spine stretch. So we're going to turn the chair, change our springs. We're going to put one spring in the middle and then maybe slide it a little here. So I had two springs. I'm going to drop one, put one in the middle and I'm going to grab one of my black pads and I'm going to put it down about that far away from my cause.

My hands are going to need to be on the pedal. Any graceful way you can to go ahead and sit down on that pad you're going to straddle right fetal be flexed. I'm going to need a slide just a little forward because I want the heels of my hands on the pedal, but I don't want to have to start leaning forward for that. Okay? I want to start up Nice and upright for it. All right, gage, the back of your thighs, a spine stretch. We're thinking about belly lifting in and up, so we're going to press with the back of our legs, scoop the belly in and up and then look down and an exhale.

The m pedal will just follow how much we can round. We're not making an arm exercise. [inaudible] lifting your parallels, lifting, lifting, lifting and inhaling up and exhale. Let's do two more. Looking down as you inhale, exhale. Notice my shoulders are staying in joint. I'm just trying to lift my belly up, up, up, up, up as if I can.

Tuck it under my chest bound one more and that was enough. That felt really great. We're now going to do teaser teaser stretch, so my feet need to be right up here. I'm going to pull it just a little closer to me. Put my hands behind me as I gingerly balance on my tailbone here. Hmm. A little closer. All right, and I'm going to reach for the wood for a stretch.

Getting real comfortable here. All right. Stretch. Yeah, some of you, this might be super easy. Some of you, this might be hard. Okay. Now I'm going to put my hands on the pedal and I'm going to keep my feet there and I'm going to do just the first part of it, squeezing the back of my legs, stomach in, and I'm going to pull the pedal back as my powerhouse lifts, pulls in and up and release. Two more.

Notice my arms and shoulders aren't doing the work. One more. Okay. And release. And now I'm going to just stretch. Yeah. And now I'm going to pull down and then lift my legs. Once that's there, you want to lift your legs from the back line? Not from the quadricep.

Here we go. So I'm going to scoop my, squeeze my inner thighs, draw my pelvic floor, pull my belly in and up. And then lift two, three and release both. And again, squeezing, drawing in an app, and then lift two, three and release. And one more [inaudible]. Very important that you didn't change the shape of your back when you lifted. Now stretch again. Finally, we're gonna put all three together. So put your hands here and then before you begin, we're going to lift up the legs, hold them up, and do three pumps with your arms. Okay, here we go. Squeezing.

I'm gonna lift. And one, two, three. Hold again. What? Two whoa. Lesson one, two. [inaudible]. Okay. And stretch. Good job. All right. That really teaches you how to hold your legs properly. So now we're going to go and do Swan and mermaid.

So we're going to take our pad with us and we don't need it. Still one spring in the middle. So we're going to lie down with your ribs and chest off the front. Push the pedal down and let's have the pedal so that your shoulders right over the wrist. Squeeze your legs together. Remember Flying Eagle? We pushed our pubic bone down into the bots.

Got had the stomach in Arra. Here we go. We've done swan before. Let's do three pumps and bending Belize in and up. Long neck. One more. Now I'm going to use a spring to help lift my belly up to my sternum and down. Let's do three more. Here we go.

Pull it up. Press it down, pull it up, press it down one more and scoop it in. I just heard Sharie's voice in my head. I was having my elbows go wide and she would like them straight back by our sides. Let's try that. Here we go. Like our pushups. Straight back scoop. Two more. Last one, scoop and press your pelvis.

Stomach. There we go. All right, let your feet touch. Pedal comes up. Hands on top. Rounding up and always lifting in your powerhouse. Let's do some mermaid. So we're gonna put the pad right on the top, kind of the back half, and we're going to learn how to or remember how to use our belly when we go side. Sorry, waist. So how about a little distance behind you, not quite on the back edge and now your front, your leg closest to the pedal is going to go over and let's lift your arms up as if you're holding the short box bar. And then while you're lifted, lower the right arm, it's going to go towards the middle of the pedal. Here we go.

I'm going to draw my belly in and up and then keep it lifting up as they go over. Once my pedal hand touches the pedal, I'm going to press down and use my belly to lift in and up. Two more. Trying to get my left hand as close to my head as possible. Mostly I'm concentrating, I'm using the pedal to lift my belly up, up, up, up, and I'm going to go to the other side. So there's a ton of things you can concentrate on, but what we're thinking of today, getting our belly to pull in and out. So sit with your back. Just shy of the back edge, maybe even a hands with distance. It really depends on your leg length though.

Make sure it's comfortable. Then the left leg is now the one closest to the pedal or go angle. We'll cross over. Here we go. Arms lift. Feel both sit bones pressing down into the box. Left arm goes down to the pedal.

I'm going to send my sit bones down so I can lift my belly in and up more as I go over, over, over, over. And then I'm going to use my belly to come up to more. Doesn't have to be a big motion. One more. I'm trying to also use my left shoulder to not roll up and then all the way back up. Whoa. Okay. So I could use a lot of different wrong muscles. Do the exercise, but I was really trying to just use my belly in and out.

We're going to go to the floor now with backward arms and, um, arm frock. So I'm going to take my path and I'm going to sit it down just here and we're going to low ourselves down to the floor and have your feet flexed. You're going to reach back, press the pedal down, make sure it's still on one spring. And it is just so that your shoulders are over your hips, you're not leaning back and you're not hunched forward, you're back with straight arms can be perfectly straight. How are we doing? We straight. I hope we're straight. Feels pretty good. I'm trying to give myself a little visual check here. It's hard without a mere.

Okay. So again, sending my sit bones down, dry my belly in and up. I'm gonna let my not shoulders keep my shoulders down. Triceps, lift the elbows, elbows. Great opening of your chest. And as you press down, use it to lift your belly and always using the spring today to lift our powerhouse. Two more. One more. Switch your grip. Hands. Point the other way. Same thing. Such a great opening the chest exercise. I feel like I'm a little close to keep a tall back. Here we go. Point.

Pull those toes back, belly in and up and lifting and upset. Easy. Elbows up, powerhouse up. Keep that height powerhouse up. Two more up and one more up. And we're all done and put my left hand on.

I'm going to carefully turn this way and we're going to grab our exercise Mat and Kay. So get rid of this little guy and let's grab our mat. Now that our mats in place, let's go ahead and lie down and we're going to do cork screw first. So I'm gonna roll back and then I want to be straight arms. It's still one spring in the middle and you cannot move the pedal while you do it. Okay? That's the whole point. We're going to draw the legs, keep them straight, and you're going to start with your feet right above the chair, not the pedal, but all the way to the chair. Sort of squeeze those inner thighs, almost like the rollover, right? And we're going to lift the legs and over and just tap. Okay.

Roll down your spine. Exhaling over to the right. Make sure you're not taking the chair with you over to the left and up and roll through and over to your left. Draw that Bellion oh for two more sets. Okay. And with your exhale.

Damn Hm. In with your exhale, your belly makes you liked one more set. Alright. Roll down. Last one. Yeah. And then down the middle. Okay. Okay.

Great job. Let's turn over on to our belly for Flying Eagle. So we're gonna turn and now our hands are going to be on the pedal, right facial cheek on the mat as much as you can. Long body pelvis down. Okay. Now I could afford a little more stretchers. This is great for me. I'm going to press my pelvis in, scoop my belly and I'm going to use that spring to lift.

Make sure you're not making a big FID and coming down long through your back. Switch cheeks and squeezing the hips, trying to keep the legs together. Belly lifts, lifts, lifts and long down. Switching cheeks and again, press. Yeah.

Belly in and up. My shirts hanging a little bit so it's hard to see it, but really look at how my back looks. Last one naval lifts the sternum against the spring and lengthening down. Um, that felt great. I'm going to let go the pedal around my back and sit on my heels. Now we can get rid of our map and we're going to do the pull up. So get rid of your mat to what to do to do. And let's change our springs for the pullup. What do you want to see your pull up?

Bez We started with one in the bottom, one on top, I think. Today I'm going to do one middle, one bottom cat gesture springs where you want them to be. And let's go for it. Standing close. Here we go. We're going to reach up strong. No headwinds. Gonna knock us over and we're going to roll off an imaginary wall and hands, foot. All right, that feels like a light pedal. If he asked me. So I'm going to draw, squeeze my inner thighs, draw that Belina net because it's light.

It's not gonna be helping me lift my belly too much, but I'm really going to have to work it here we go in with the air and exhale and down and exhale to come up. Squeeze that air out. One more big breath and exhale and go on down with control. One foot to the floor, hands back here, control it out. And again, we're going to roll up [inaudible] with control. Okay, let's grab a pad and switch the springs to one top, one bottom.

And we're gonna do front balance control and then side balance control. So we did this, these in the first or second class today. We're going to add a little balancing with it. We just went up and down in the beginning. Now we're going to add balancing. Okay, so we're going to stand in our great posture from head to toe, arms up, and we're going to roll off an imaginary wall later on in this series.

I'm going to have you get on without your hand supporting you. All right, so my right foot is going to go up, just slightly turned out. And I'm going to have my left leg nice and solid on Demi Pointe. Hips stay square. Find that all right. Belly is what my belly is in and up. That's right. So here we go.

Belly in and up, up for three times, and then we will balance and do some Arabesques. Here we go. Scooping in and up. We're going to pull up and down and up and down. One more. And now I want you to extend the standing.

So I want you to lift that inner thigh lift. The r-chop back leg is an Arab ask and we're going to, I'm going to take my arms to the side. At this point we're gonna take the left leg to the side, take the left leg forward, toe to the knee, or passe one of my favorite memories. And then find the pedal behind you. Always lifting in your powerhouse and control it down.

Put your hands back, switch the pad, right so it goes down. I remember standing up there forever cause I didn't take ballet poor. Shari was asking me to posse and I had no idea what that was. A long minute up there and, and bring my left foot a little more underneath me. All right. Sorry. My right foot.

Here we are left with just a little turned out. I'm going to have my right hip, working c and then to round up, it's always my belly in and up, right? Okay. Belly in and up. And we're going to go up three times and down and scoop all the way through your fingertips. You're feeling that lift, hold, lifting the right left arch. I apologize. Left inner thigh balance in your arabesque. Hopefully it's be more beautiful and grander than my athletic arabesque care.

And now we're going to go side, which is side, front, and then toe to me holding that balance. Find directly behind you that pedal and keep lifting the powerhouse you lower with control. Put your hands down, left foot down, right foot to the floor. Control up. Let's return your left foot to your Plati stance. Round your body up. And we're done with our front and bounds, but let's do side. Now UE, we're gonna put, we just did the left foot, so I'm going to have your right foot up. So I'm going to keep the pad here. My back's going to be to you for the first one. Alright, so I'm going to get back into my position.

You could kind of do it while you're up there. Bring down the pedal, left foot up. We're going to rotate. Lower your left foot. Bring the right foot here. Alright, so ideally we have your hips squared and this heels going to the inside arch of your other foot. Arms out to the side. I'm gonna really use my outer thigh and see and inner thighs. But let's use that pedal to scoop in and up. Here we go. And down and two and down.

Last one, up. Up, up and controlling it down. All right, so what I'm trying to do is not shift, right? And trying to keep square completely keeping my back to you. Bringing that foot down. I'm going to turn towards the front. Turn my pad. All right, now it's my right hips. Turn and left knee up there. Alright, go ahead.

Let's see. I wonder if my hands here will be matter. K Powerhouse in and upright. Almost pushing your head into your hands and let's go. That's it. I was feeling my left ankle trying to resist me. How'd it stretch it out? A little last one. Up, up, up and down with control. Whew.

We're going to turn forward, left foot down, right foot to the floor. You could do it either way, both feet, but let's end with our powerhouse lifting all the way to our fingertips and lifting up even more against our arms and I can't wait to see you for the next class. Great job.