Class #3603

Strengthening Mat

60 min - Class
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Description

You will focus on building strength and stability in this Mat workout by Ed Botha. He teaches an athletic class, adding cues designed to help clean up your technique. He includes wonderful variations to exercises like Semi-Circle, Push Ups, and much more!
What You'll Need: Mat

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My name is ed. Um, and I'm super excited to be back at [inaudible] anytime with you guys. Um, I'm from Sydney, Australia and I'm gonna take you through a map class at, I guess we could call it an accelerated math class, but really focusing on strengths and stability, right? So enjoy. So what we're going to do is we're going to stand with our feet in the hip distance, politely stance arms down at our sides. And we're going to start with two roll downs. Fingers are stretched out and together so the thumbs are facing forward. So we have the shoulders in a neutral position and we're going to take a breath into prepare. And as you exhale, just allow your head to be heavy.

Roll Down

And we rolling the spine down one vertebrae at a time, keeping the arms parallel to the legs on the way down. Inhale. And then exhale to restack the spine. We just curling up. And really the emphasis of the roll down is definitely about the spine, not the stretch of the legs. So we'll repeat that one more time.

So inhaling and exhale. So just allowing the head to be heavy. I'm really thinking about my arms staying strong and straight and I'm not burying my head in between my shoulders. Deep breath in and exhale too tall standing. Great. All right, so ladies, if you can face the front and just take a step back off your mat. So we need a little bit of space to maneuver, right? So I'd like you to stone in a stance that's a little bit wider than your shoulder width apart.

Squat Stretch

And basically it's going to be a stance that enables you to squat down with wide legs and keep your heels down on the floor. So that would be the most important part that you keep your heels down. I'd rather use squat less and keep the hills flat. So from here we're going to go down, knees, push out hands if you can. You want to hold onto something at the bottom.

So it's either your feet or your ankles. So you want to hold on. Now we're going to keep our back nice and straight and we're going to start lengthening the legs and flattening out the spine. So I'm not pulling my spine down. I'm thinking of elongating my spine out in front of me. So I'm getting that strength through my back and a little bit of stretch through the leg. So I'm going to sink down again. So I'm dropping through the hips, lifting up with the chest. Good. So you want to be proud and the chest position.

And we're going to lengthen the legs and keep the spine nice and along good. So we'll just do that one more time. So we're going to drop down, lift up through the chest. Good. Open Up. So try, push the knees out slightly if you can. Good. And then lengthen. Lengthen. Lengthen this time. Allow your spine just to relax forward and curl yourself up. So you rolling up in the wide. Beautiful. So guys, we're going to take the leg that's furthest away from the door and we're going to step it towards the door in across step position. So we're taking the leg that's further away from the door and we stepping it behind us in a cross step position.

Curtsy Lunge Stretch

So right now my shoulders and hips are squared off the right to that side of the room. Now we're going to turn to the front of the room as we drop and rotate. So what you're going to do is bring your palms together and drop and rotate, trying to keep the front foot flat on the ground. So what I'm doing is I'm getting a little bit of stretch of this glued over here and from there you're going to come back up and you can just step your leg out again. All right, awesome. Good. So you got the idea. So I'm just stepping back to the center. So let's repeat that. So we take the leg furthest away from the door and we're going to step, uh, towards the door and then we're going to drop down and rotate.

Yes, good sinking, nice and low. Chest up. So you want to try get your spine ups. I'd rather have you upright and higher than low and rounded. And then we just step back through the center. So now it becomes a literal step. So let's just do it one more time.

So we step and rotate and drop. So getting through that stretch and back up and through the center. So you guys stay with you. I'm just going to scoot a little bit across out and step into the mat and we go to the opposite side. So we go around the back. Shoulders and hips are facing forward initially to the front door.

And now we rotate towards each other. Dropping down nice and low. Good. And step out of it. Okay. And again, so we go step and rotate. Drop. Good. Chest up. Nice and high and back and in position. Good. One more time for me please. So we step and twist. So everything glues together through the legs. Back Up. Nice and tall.

Shoulders are squared off and back. Up and center. Perfect. So if I could have you guys turn to face inwards and just take a step forward. So we're all flows towards the front [inaudible] right? So we're going to step back everyone with your left leg. All right, so step back into a lunging position. Need just off the ground. So what's going to happen is you guys all gonna lift your backs arm up and you're gonna rotate or laterally flex towards me. So, um, if we could switch arms, they're beautiful. There we go.

Lunge w/Lateral Flexion

So we're coming towards me and then you guys are same as we are. That's it. Good. And then step back up through the center. So let's change the opposite leg. So we step and we laterally flex and I'm just looking over my shoulder and I come back, stepped through the center. We'll do one more on side. So we just step, so find the balance and laterally flex looking over the shoulder and come back up through the front one more time. So we stepped back, I laterally flex, boom, and good. So we're going to take a little bit of a step back and we're going to work into what we call a scale. So a scale is really a tipping forward of the spine following with our leg that's lifting up off the ground. So let's use our left leg, everyone.

Scale

So I left leg is going to just step behind us a little bit. So I'm starting to think a real energy, a real straightness through my left leg. And then from there, just a tipping forward of my spine, a little softening of my front leg, but I'm trying to keep the left hip. So the leg of the, uh, the hip of the leg that's lifted, we want to turn it down to the ground and I'm trying to bring my body into a long parallel line to the mat. And then from there we just come back up and we just anchor our back leg.

So we're really thinking about the back leg as a rudder. So that's controlling our lateral movement. So from there we're going to tip. Okay. Tipping forward, tipping forward, tipping forward. Beautiful. And then coming back and up. So let's repeat that one more time.

So we tipped forward. So it's a hinge at the hips, trying to keep your back nice and strong and steady, and then bringing it back up. Wila very good at the side. So the right leg goes behind us. So you just take it back to a position where you can start feeling a little bit of straightening, a little bit of energy through the back leg. And then we hinge at the hips. But what we don't want to make the mistake of dropping our body without lifting our legs. So we really want to think of the two moving together.

So it's really pivoting equally, front and back. And we come back up. Good and repeat. So drawing through the middle, strong through the center. So I'm keeping my spine nice and long. Nice and stable. My back leg and I'm thinking about energy going through that leg and coming back and up. Good. So we're going to repeat that one more time for me. So let's go down.

So let me just have a look and see how you guy arms are just relaxed, aiding you in the balance. Try, rotate the back, hip down. Good. And then coming back up all the way up into standing. Great. If you guys could stand on your mat and then from there if you could squat down. So you're going to come to the front. If you could squat down as deep as you can.

Supine Pretzel Stretch

Take a seat onto your backside and then just down onto your backs from there. All right. So from as deep as you can. Good. And then we'll take it down all the way onto our backs. Excellent. So at the moment we're interested in a nice neutral spine position. My legs have got a little bit of bend in them and my arms are relaxed down at my sides. Awesome.

So what we're going to do is I'm going to have you guys roll onto your side facing the front and me being the front. Good. My top leg. All right, I'm going to bring it to 90 degrees of hip flection. Yep. And you need to put your hand on top of that knee for me. Good. Right. Your bottom legs. Can you see how it pops up? Can you do that for me? So you pop your leg up and you take hold of your foot, right?

So we're going to go into a pretzel position here, right? So I'm going to keep pressure with his hand on my knee and then try to bring this leg into hip extension and then see if you can rotate your shoulders flat onto the mat. So we squaring off our shoulders. Our top gluteal is into a stretch position and we're trying to get our bottom hip into an extended position to release the hip flexes. But it's a very passive position. So you just want to relax. But what's really important is both those shoulders are trying to square off.

So there's an element of thoracic rotation. So it's just got a couple of Nice elements this position before we start movement and then release. Good. And then what I'm going to do is I'm just going to spin round if you guys can do it to the other side for me. So if you're just rolling over and we'll have top knee bends over the front, bottom leg, you're going to get a little pull. Exactly. Yup. And I'm just going to get this leg to pull back a little bit, Mandy. Yes. And try keep that knee down. Right?

So you only rotate as far as you can keep the top knee down, right? So that you getting that stretch through the glutes. So that's going to give you a true indication of your thoracic rotation because that's thoracic rotation with a nice stable pelvis, right? Awesome. And then relax and then you can come back out of that back into neutral position. And so we'll refer to this as coming back to neutral every time.

So we go arms up, interlace the fingers, pop the palms up and back. So this is our modified semicircle and I'm reaching my arms up and back. And then from here I just simply take a pelvic call. So I take a breath into prepare, exhale as I flatten my back down and I start peeling my spine up off the mat and I want to just come up into a nice long line. I'm going to inhale once I get to the top. Now my emphasis of my pelvic [inaudible] has to change a little bit.

Modified Semi Circle

So I'm starting to think about my upper back. So I want you to roll down, upper back, mid back, lower back and keep pressing the arms down into the mat, my straight strong arms and release the pelvis. So you really, you're imagining you're doing the same work as what you would do on the reformer. Again, shoulder, wrist. So we're going to take a deep breath in and exhale is I roll up so I'm getting use of my shoulder flexes to keep my arms up above me and then exhale as I roll back down. Now my shoulder extensors are going into stretch though my lax that's at my lower back and release the pelvis. But more importantly, this gives an opportunity for the thoracic spine to drop between the shoulder blades. So we'll do that one more time. So we go deep breath in and exhale as we pelvic coal up. So roll it all the way up. Try find a nice long line at the top.

Arms are strong, arms are straight. Deep breath in. And then exhale as we roll back down. Sound great upper back, mid back, lower back and then release the pelvis all the way back into your neutral. And natural position. Now separate your arms, palms facing the ceiling. Take a deep breath in and exhale. Arms come up, head, chest, and we're in a modified hundred position over here so we go arms come up perpendicular and then we take it all the way back. Now this time press the palms together above your head. All right, so your arms look like they're in a prayer position.

Modified Hundred

We're going to do the modified hundred from there. So we bring the arms up to vertical. Then we lifting up head and chest and I've got a little gap between my legs here and my arms reached through that gap. All right. Then from there the arms come up. I don't drop the thoracic spine, keeping your height, keeping the height and as we go back down then the arms go overhead and now we are looking for the stretch of the lats by pressing those palms together. So we'll do that one more time. So we go, arms come up.

Once we hit perpendicular, we reaching up nice and open through the shoulders. Good. Right now we stay there. Lift your arms up all their whole. To have a look. What I'm going to do, I'm going to rotate to the front of the room and then I pressed down and come up a little bit higher. I left my arms up. Okay. I go down through the same time.

Modified Hundred w/ Rotation

I lift my arms up and then I'm going through the back. So I'm just going a little bit deeper into rotation. So I left my arms up and I go through the center. Say every time my arms come through the center or to the side, I try lift up a little bit higher than mom's come up. I have a little drop by, I rotate and I come up a little bit deeper. So we go, arms go up and we go through the st a little bit deeper in the left. Um, just come up and then to the back. Good. And again, arms come up and a little bit deeper through the center.

Ums come up. And here we go. Last set. I'm just come up and through the center I'm just come up and there we go and bring it back up. And then we just lift arms up to vertical again and let's find our stretch, a stretch, a stretch, and we reach and we separate the arms. Palms face the ceiling, pelvic colap arms just float and they come down to our sides. So we're going to press the palms down into the mat, right? I try.

Pelvic Curl w/ Single Leg Lift

Keep a steady spine. Same consistent height of the pelvis. Right leg comes up to the table top. Okay, so we'll do five single leg lifters or shoulder bridge prep. Exhale, one. Okay.

And exhale too. Okay. And exhale. Three. Okay. And exhale for one more to go at XL for five.

Lay gums down. Check your pelvis. We've got the same height so you use the hip extensors, trying not to roll out with the feet or the knees. And we lift up one, exhale two, and exhale three and exhale four. And then exhale four, five. This time we keep the leg up and just roll the spine down, roll the spine down, roll the spine down, bring your leg to a true tabletop position. Bring the other leg up as well. And then we're going to bring the arms up to the ceiling, right? So we're going to try keep the shoulder blades stable on the mat.

Spine Twist Supine

[inaudible] both legs rotate to the front of the room. So we're gonna inhale. Good head and shoulders don't move. Exhale as you draw back to the center. So obviously our range is a little bit limited here. So we inhale as we take the legs to the back. Try keep both shoulder blades anchored on the mat and exhale as we bring it back to the center. Inhale.

Yeah, and exhaling. Good job guys. And inhale and exhale and good. One more. So we go one to the front, one to the back and exhale. And this is our last one to the back. And then exhaling back to the center. Turn the palms to face the thighs and we're going to lift straight up into our hundreds. So we got up, exhale, legs come up to about 45 degrees. Long breath in to prepare. And we start out two, three, four, five and into four, five, two, two, three, four, five. And in three, four, five and three. Two, three, four, five deepening the left and four, two, three, four, five in two, three, four, five, five, two, four, five and in two, three, four, five, six.

Hundred

Got me up a little bit higher. Keep the pace. Ah, a eight good. And nine good. One more time. 10 in two, three, four, five and hold. Lower your right leg down to the mat.

Roll Up w/ Leg Lifted

Take the arms up overhead so you're stretching back like you're in a roll up position. Now my palms face each other and from there we're going to come up lifting up the head and the chest. So watch my arms, get the parallel position. Exhale as I roll up. Try keep your leg height consistent. Inhale and exhale to go back. Okay, good. And change legs. So we lower and we love.

So you try and make a commitment to way or leg is so it will restrict the height of our roll up. So we lift up with the head and the chest and we're going to hold and we exhale as we go through and we go through and we reaching and then lower both legs. Good. And then sit up nice and tall. All right, good. So I'm just going to scoot back just an intro, abnormally long legs here. So I'm going to take my feet into a little bit of plantar flex and we're going to do some compression exercises. Okay. So grateful building, strong flex position, strong safe flex positions of the spine, right?

Seated Abdominal Curl w/ Leg Lift

And the translates really well into our apparatus work, right for pikes. So we're going to take our hands and always like to say use Zombie arms out in front of you. The ride. Open your fingers. All right. And then all five fingers of lefthand or five fingers, right hand equal pressure onto the mat, let's say about midway through our shins. So if we want to be quite generic about it, okay, so guys, what I want to do, I don't want to be flat. I don't want to be in my full stretch. I want to be in a c curve position right now.

From here we do five times the right leg. We got up one and down all the way and exhale to and down all the way. And exhale three. And just think of your stand and facing down towards your pelvis. Four and one more and five and change and left leg one, two and three and four.

One more and five and down. Now both legs are going to come up, but both legs are going to do little beats, so they're not going to touch the ground. We're going to up one, two, three, four, five, six. Exactly. Rock and roll. All right. The quicker you go, the easier it is, right? Okay, so head stays down and let's lift the legs up and we got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10. Oh good. Right? That's a good warmup. Okay, let's repeat it. Let's do another two sets of 10 right? So we go down, it should get easier. So we go to keeping the flections. I'm pulling my ribs, lower ribs backwards a little bit guys.

Seated Abdominal Curl w/ Double Leg Lifts

So it's the one time where you can really slouch a little bit but not collapsed. And here we go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine ad. Ah, good. Do that. Cool. Let's go again. Straight over reach and round and up. And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 sitting up tall. Good. Now I'm going to take a long shot here, but we're going to open the legs out into split position there.

Horseback Variation

So split being a moderate kind of opening. Okay, so we're going to do the same thing. Yeah. And again, so what this does is this takes the advantage of the adductors art, right? Cause I add is obviously synergist with ipe flection. So now being an abduct position, you can't really rely on them to lift your legs up. Yeah. Okay. So we've got to really dig deep into the ABS and into those deeper hip flexors. So find your position. All right, so make sure it's round, that's it. So kind of horseback like on the operators as well, but make sure you reach a little bit further forward. Okay.

So we're going to go up and down. So do the 10 we go, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 right? It's just, it's just reminding you they still there. Now we're going to add in circles guys. So let's go. One, two, three, four, five and one, two, three, four, five. So five forward, five back. How about that? Huh? No, I don't think I was going to be doing this today. Alright, so circles forward. So are we going around? Okay, so let's lift the legs up and we do little forward circles. We go one, two, three, four, five and backwards. One, two, three, four and five. Five. Good job guys. Bring your legs together. All right. Bend your knees and now you deserve a pelvic hull.

Pelvic Curl

So we'll just do one because that's just going to help us to open up because we still have some work ahead of us. So we're going to take a deep breath in, abdominals, roll up through the spine. And I'm, I'm just thinking stretcher of my hips, opening up, little opening of the abdominals, not flaring, but just opening up. Inhale. And An exhale as we bring it back down, down and down and release. Right. So I'm going to take my legs long again. Arms up overhead and I'm coming up into my roll up. So ums, come up, head and chest.

Roll Up

Exhale. Now try, keep you arms parallel to the floor. So nice and neat. So fingers together, shoulders out of the ears. Deep breath in and an exhale as we roll back. So this is a straight forward kind of roll up. So if you've, you know, studied different style of politeness. Inhale, try, create the c curve. But I don't want to change your roll up as long as it feels like you are creating a shape and then when you come down we maintain a shape.

Yeah. So I'm not thinking of changing into deeper flection as I come up or down. So I come up to here, I create flection and I stay inflection and other movements coming at my hips to come up. So it's really just a change in the angle of the hip joint. Eventually inhale and exhale as we go back. So I keep my same shape, so I don't want to do this thing of compressing into my lower back and good inhale, exhale, inhale and exhale. [inaudible] and one more time to come up. So we go in, inhale and keeping our shape, keeping our shape, keeping our shape, keeping our shape. Now we here, now what we do is we keep our shape, bring one and two hands on and we still in our shape, right? So that's going to be your role, like a ball position.

Rolling Like A Ball Prep

So if you can just turn the fingers in width, that's it. Good. And Give Yourself, I love it that you close, but I would open the space just slightly there. So it's going to be a little bit more forgiving if you're fise on pulling onto your ribs. Yeah. And are hold that position. So right now, just think of balance. Now try, start using your breath to inhale, just to tip back slightly. Look at slightly and exhale to rock forward. So in, so it's more of a inner rhythm than my limbs that are moving.

So it's inhale and exhale. It's kind of hard to explain what's really moving me back in, but I like to think it's my breath and just a little bit of change of my center of gravity, possibly coming from a little tilt of my pelvis. Inhale and exhale. So let's go into the role. Likable. So we go inhale and exhale. Inhaling, exhaling.

Rolling Like A Ball

One. Okay. Two. Okay, good. And three. Okay.

Excellent guys. And four and one more. And pause hands higher up on the knees and slowly melt back. The shins are going to come up. We're going to stop at the tips of our shoulder blade. So you set up for the abdominal series. So there, so right now my knees are a little bit deeper in than my hip joint. I've got my hands right over the top of my knees where they meet the Shin and I'm pressing down. I'm very deliberate with my hands. I'm looking up through, my thighs are, this is my strongest position here.

Double Leg Stretch

And we reach arms and legs out. We go. Inhale. Okay. And then we stay in exhale one. Okay. N Two.

Yeah, and three. Okay. Okay. And for and exhale five and just lower the head and the chest. Alright, so that's one of three. So we go deep breath in and exhale as we come up.

So we go rich. And it's one and too. So we playing around with those isometrics literally. Yeah. And for and five good head down and chest down. Good. Last one. Deep breath in. And Ah, that this was planned by the way. It's just happening. And here we go and reach and we go one.

I'm just feeding a few guys at two three fall. One more circle round one. Find the strong position and bring the head and the chest back down and exhale up. So single leg stretch. So we take left leg out both hands on top of the right. Make sure there's nice pressure there and I'll bring your chest up. So I'm not pulling myself up. I'm lifting myself up from my chest and we got one shot and two and three and four and five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 and again, one, two left, three exhale four and exhale. Five.

Single Leg Stretch

Exhale, six and seven. A two. Beautiful. Mine. One more time and 10 and hold. How good the knees. And so let's table top the legs again or in fact a little bit deeper than the table. Interlays so elbows wide but not pinching the shoulder blades that we come up into the chest lift. Okay.

Abdominal Curl w/ Rotation

So I want to lift, I want to get off to the tops of their shoulder blades, keeping our forward intention. Just rotate up and to the front. Hey, we caught and to the back. Okay. So stay there, stay there, stay there, stay there, stay there. Mandy. Rotate a little bit more, but come a little bit higher. That's a good looking at me. Turn your head towards me. Good.

And then up a little bit. There we go. Beautiful. Good. That's it. Good. So really the Ford intention. Now rotate back, keeping your forward intention, your forward intention. So you're looking at towards me and then maybe we can stay in the center because we've got more to do. So come back to the center and then come back down and then hug your knees and suggest. So now let's put that in practice. Yep. So it's just about keeping that lovely height in your chest for the crisscross, right? Don't be tempted to move your head.

Criss Cross

All right, it's coming from here. Yeah, so that's what we want to achieve. So that lovely high sternum. So let's go again. So we can start into that. Not to table tops or just knees and a little bit deeper. Hands behind the head. Deep breath in and exhale. Okay, so we're going to rotate to the front of the room.

So it means our back leg needs to extend. So I'm coming forward and Ford and Ford and Ford add stay and one shoe two. So my sternum is just past my thigh and three and four but I'm trying to stamp off the shoulder blades. Four, five, exhale, six, seven. Exhale eight and Exhale, mine and 10 I think we can do another 10 and go one and two, three, four. Exhale. Five. Keeping the lift. Six. Exhale. Seven. Exhale, eight, nine. One more time and go back to the same to keep the height and hey down.

Legs Up. Hands down at your sides. So both legs are vertical, right? Try to keep perpendicular legs, right? So I'd like everyone to be perpendicular. Even if you need to bend your knees a little bit. Then we're going to take our right leg and straight down without our back arching. We press the leg down and then we Dorsey flex the top foot and then plantar flex. And then Dorsey flex up.

Leg Circle

Push your heel up to the ceiling for me. One more time. Doors are you applying to flex and endorse the flex? So push the heel up and then hold and we'll do small circles. We cross the midline of the body and it's inhale and exhale. Two and three and full.

Yeah. And one more is five and hold. So we do the reverse. So we got, it's down at, crosses the ankle to come back up. So we got inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Go. One more cycle. So it's in and it's out of there. We hold it up. Plantarflex bring the other leg up, hold it up. Keep both legs up. Legos down. Opposite of this knee. So my left, I'm thinking of stretching out of that left hip. For Lex, the right for drive the heel up to the ceiling and point and again, flex, flex, flex, flex or do your ankle a favor and point.

Do One more on the side. Add flex, flex, flex. Not keep that flex. Keep pressing down through your left and cross your midline. Inhale. I'm not going. Big. Exhale to three. Four, yeah. Five.

Yeah. And hold, let's go to the front of the room or reverse. Inhale. Some of you yes to the back. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, oh one more time. Eh, Eh, ah, and hold point. Bring the leg up. Take both legs down to 60 degrees. See if you can do the roll over for me.

Roll Over

So we go up to nine to exhale to rollover. Flex, separate legs come down if your legs are down and they straight. All right, tighten your thighs a little bit more and then roll through the spine. Shoulders. Stay down.

Plan to flex and bring the legs to a point. So I know that's where I've got to work is keeping those shoulders open. But I do want you to press the arms down so we go. Inhale, exhale up and over. Now keep the legs straight. Flex. Keep them straight. Separate. If you've got them straight, lower them down to the ground.

If they're not straight, maybe just try work on the straightening first and then roll down raw Palantir flex. Bring the legs down. And to appoint one more time for me, please. Inhale up to 90 exhale to do the rollover. Good. Now just check your parallel position there. Just pull the knee caps up if you can. So we tightening the legs a little bit.

We fix the feet. So this is our stretch. Then we separate [inaudible]. Good. So you guys are all great in this position here. Now slowly try. Keep your feet on the ground for as long as you can as you come out of it. That's it. But you guys should know how busy. You don't want to hurt your spine. You want to look after it and then just bring the legs together to a point.

Beautiful. Ben, Johnny's in good. And come up onto your knees for me. Can you do that? [inaudible] tall kneeling. So tall, kneeling right over there. Beautiful. Okay. So up tall pelvis at the moment is probably airing two more of a, a towards more of an anterior tilt because of our fives being a little bit tight. All right, I want you to change that and brewing it into a little bit of post area. [inaudible] look down slightly, just a little bit.

Thigh Stretch

So we've created a little bit of shortening here. So we're going to go into a five. So now the only movement is happening at the knee joint and my shoulder joint stop there for a sec ad. Okay, good. So we don't want it to become a backbend. So from there we really want to shorten, just look down a little bit there. Yeah. But it doesn't mean we push the pelvis forward, it's just the post stereotyped.

And now from there the movement's gonna Happen. Okay. At the knee joint, knee joint, knee joint, knee joint. Okay. All right, good. So I think we holding back a little bit there.

So I think we can go a little bit further back. What do you think? So, you know, we did all those little leg raises. Those compressions didn't do our quads any favors. All right, so let's get them into stretch there. So we go, arms come up, keep the scoop looking down and we go, Dat, Dat, Dat, Dat, Dat, Dat, Da. Keep it. Keep it, keep it, keep it, keep it, keep it, keep it, keep it. Keep it, find your position. I stay in that long line. Perez through the Shins. Good. One more. So I'm just come down and here we go. I'm just come up scoop and lower and lower and uh, and uh, and uh, and uh, and uh, and whole all fours, hands and knees.

Wow. So from all fours, Tuck the toes under for me. And then you're going to press up into a pyramid position. So what I'd like you to do is get to a position where you can ground your heels. So if you need to move your legs in a little bit closer to you, by all means.

Pyramid Tricep Press

So it's not a perfect downward facing dog. It could have a little bit of flection in the lumber. So from, here we go and, all right, good. So we're just going to keep that flex position there. [inaudible] and then take another step forward with your feet. Boom. And Paul. Good, right? So make sure your arms are shoulder width apart, so not too narrow.

Cool. Now from there we're going to bend our elbows and a crown of our head is going to go towards the Mat. Yes, Mandy or I try not to go too wide. So from there I'm going to go in and up. But now guys, I'm trying to keep my heels down so as my crown of my head goes down, I'm pushing my heels down in opposition. So that's going to help me maintain length. So I go, as I bend, I'd press my hill. Yeah, sure. Good. Let's go two more. So we go. Okay.

Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Dog, Dutch. Good. So press the hills down. Yeah. Down, down, down, down, down, down, dawned on them, and come down onto your knees. All right, so we're going to do some scapula abduction, abduction. So you've got shoulders directly over your palms, knees under your hips, and we are going to stretch one and two and you're going to push out of your shoulders for me. So all you want to do is keep a nice long line, a little bit of abdominals, and we let the shoulder blades adduct little bit and then abduct. And let's go add that and abduct, not exaggerate your abduct. Become a little bit less, watch it come become a little bit Kyphosis, little bit Kyphosis, but not with dropping your head. So we go again, add duct and abduct, become a little bit kyphosis and again, add duct and abduct a little bit kyphosis.

Plank w/ Scapular Abduction and Adduction

And then bring the knees in one and two, roll up to tall, kneeling [inaudible] and then face me. Good. So just be, you know, it actually works best if you guys are a little bit staggered. So Mandy, yeah, you can start by coming in a little bit. Good. And the two of you all, you do have to switch perfectly. So you just want to watch out for kicking the person in front of you. So we're going to take our arms, let's say, um, to the right side. So we're going to bring my, I'm going to do mine after we go arms out and we want to tip and lift. Okay. So I want to lift my leg up simultaneously. So I'm tipping, tipping, tipping and lifting, trying to get this arm quite close to you.

Kneeling Side Kicks - Front and Back

So squeeze it in one 30 so I've got a small little shape going under here. Hand behind your head. And then just reach your top leg out nice and long. Good. And try. Lift that top leg up a little bit and then we're going to bring the leg forward. Two kicks out, flex, flex and point.

Point and to there and back there and three and two, the back. Good and full. But try bring it up a little bit and five and back. Six and to the back and seven we should get energized and a little bit high every time the Arab lost count and back. Do two more. Go One and back. One more. And to kick and back and back. Bring it off to the side.

So I love doing this. Just push a little bit across and lift up a little bit higher. That's what gives us the work. Bend any arm up and just tip over and turbo straight away so we don't lose our momentum and hand behind. And rich. Good. If you can't think of pressing your pelvis forward a little bit, I tend to sit back into my hip flexor so I press further forward with my hips, eh?

Okay. Exhale. This is the negative of long legs and back there. Quite a few in this work and eh and back and kick, kick and back, back and back. One more to go. And then I'm getting comments from higher powers and then above and hold the leg.

Good and Ben and reach and let's lift and left. Whoop and back and sit. Good. So we're going to change other side again and have a seat on the side of your leg or your hip, right? So guys, what I want for this exercise for the side bend and the twist is, you know what I find is that most people just fall the way I like to do this exercise, and I guess the way it was taught to me is that the emphasis should really be on your obliques and not so much your legs. So legs a bit longer always helps. I'm in a bit shorter. As soon as the legs are in too close, you're going to want to use them. Yeah, they're in a bit of a disadvantage now instead of pushing up at a diagonal, just lift your hips up. So from here we float up tee position there. All right, those legs got nothing going on. Yeah, you can do that to try that.

Side Bend

There we go. And now from here, lift the hips up and look down without rotating. Come back into your tee position. Now Pelvis just sinks down. We're not doing diagonal. We just sinking to there. So we go up again, here's our position and then we got up with the hips and look down and then we bring it back into the tee. And now just let the pelvis sink down, down, down, and then have a seat. Yeah. Good. Okay. Now we're going to do the twist.

So what's going to happen is our weight is going to transfer. When we thread the arm, it's going to move towards our feet. Yeah, the up and down is exactly the same thing. It's coming from the obliques. Okay. So we go into the same t position just by lifting up. And now from there we swivel. So try the parallel to the floor with your bottom arm and then bring it back to your tea. So you've got their tea now. And then bring your hips straight down and again at up top and round a and then back. Bring it back. Add straight down. Good job. Okay. And swing it round.

Side Bend w/ Twist

So a little bit longer in your setup for the side bend arm. A little bit close in. Yes. And up we go with the hips. So just think of lifting. Lifting. Good. Let's take this one out. Yes. So the top adductors working there and from here, hips got a pyre head, looks down a job, and then bring it back into your diagonal pelvis straight down just to Ahava up and over. Okay.

Side Bend

And back in and have a seat. Good. Right for the twist. We go diagonal and rotate. So we swivel. Try Get your arm that's reaching tri lifted parallel to the floor. That's where the Rhomboids will get a lovely stretch. Your cereus has to work.

Side Bend w/ Twist

Bring it back in. So we find our ti and that, that they're not sitting, just floating there. And let's go through all the way. Stretch it, stretch and stretch it, stretch it, and then bring it back. Bring it back, bring it back. Okay. Then from there we step one, two and we come down, boom. And relax. So down in relaxed there'd be days. Alright, so hands are gonna come to your side. So right now I'm just thinking of my head is just floating. Chin is Jane. He tucked in, shoulders open, and I'm going to inhale to come up into a gentle of and exhale, gentle, lower inhale, gentle lift. Exhale.

Prone Thoracic Extension

And again, inhale, exhale, turn your head to the front, interlace your fingers and place your elbows down onto the mat if you can. Right both legs up off the ground. I'm just keeping my head off. So this for my and my microphone. But if you can keep your ears down and we're going to do double kick as trouble kicks. Sorry. One, two, three. Inhale, stretch and turn the head. Elbows down to three n stretch the shoulders and turn all one, two, three. Good and stretch. Excellent.

Double Leg Kick

And one, two, three. Try. Keep the legs alive throughout. And one more time. One, two, three and stretch. And then your last one goes to the back. One, two, three and stretch. Awesome. Break the arms free. Bend the knees, take hold of your feet and we'll do a rocking prep so the head can hover. Try get a little bit of work going through your fives.

Rocking Prep

So I'm thinking of straightening my legs up and the more I think of straightening up with my legs and using my quadriceps, I'm going to get a little bit of help into my extended position. And then exhale. So again, use the legs some alive through my legs. So they are much stronger than my arms are. So I use my legs to lift and lift and lift and lift and lift and exhale. So important stretch of the front of our bodies. And we go again, abdominals and Perris. So the abdominals are supporting, but then eventually they're getting stretched out. Good.

And I'll try keep that height and just let go and circle. Let go and circle. So we've got arms, high legs, high, long inhale, same as the hundreds and two, three, four, five into 3.5 and two to four. Five into four. Five three to five in two, three, four, five, four two, three, four, five into five. Five, two, three, four part into four. Five, six, two, three, four, five. Hold hands under the shoulders. Tuck your toes. And so you start strong through your back and all you gotta do is push yourself right up. Oh, and we lift up with the hips and it's three steps out. One, so follow me too. And then the third is your push. And we roll. All right, so we're going to go again, so you roll down for me. Awesome.

Swimming

We step on pause. Just one, just one. I know it's super exciting, but we're going to get there now. Your second step is where your friend support's going to be. So step two, it's big. And then your third year in place and then you lower your pelvis and hold. Good. Hold, hold, hold. Push out of the shoulders, back, chest up. A little bit.

Push Up

Careful of the head dropping. Now we're going to do two pushups. Inhale, that's in his down and exhale Beta stage, right? It's okay. We go again. Inhale as we lower. Exhale as we got up. We'll do that one more time. So we go. Inhale as we low, exhale as we go up. No stop, check. Are you strongly your legs tight? 100% tight. Now lift your hips up, take one step to the middle.

Second step is close to two you. And then third is just pushing off with your fingers. Roll Up. Good. Andrew Pizza. We got deep breath in x. So what can I just do that again? So we still doing politesse right. So where do we breathe? We don't do that. Didn't try next, right. So lateral breathing. Yeah. Nice.

Relaxed in the shoulders. Okay. So it's invigorating. So here we go. So just so we get centered guys, let's clean it up so we get nice and neat. Inhaling and exhale as we roll. As soon as you get to the base of your roll down, take your walk. One, two, three, and then two up. Then you just swallow, stick. You become tight. And then we go down. Inhale, exhale. Do One more. Push up. Inhale, exhale, become tight. Then lift your hips. And now it's a smooth walk. One, two, three. Good. Now we're getting the hang of it and we roll up. Good.

Awesome. Inhale. Last one. Exhale. Roll down. Let's walk it. One, two, three. And then we pull this leg pull front, uh, left foot plantar flexes and we left and change. Ah, two more. One and one more there. Good and hold. Now we do half of the pushup. We just come up into that app stretch position.

Leg Pull Front

We're going to bend the knees a little hop. So have a look at, sorry, we've got a little hop towards midway. Have a seat on your bum, legs out. And we're going to go into the leg pool back, right? So you know preferences with your hands off. Fingers forward or out to the side on the fists. So I'm going to do the fist. I've just still wrist issues, but if I keep my wrist nice and straight, then it feels absolutely fine. So from here we're going to lift up back support and we hold.

Leg Pull Back

So we get open through the shoulders and then we're going to bring the right leg up for five and it's, this is dynamic. So we go okay. And hold. Let's just set ourselves, get your hips up a little bit higher again. So try and get the souls of your feet onto the mat and we chain okay. And hips and then come back down. Hands. This time we turned them back and we've been the knees in for the hip circles prep. Okay. So from here, try get your spine. That's first. So strong abs, but proud chest.

Hip Circles

Can the legs out. Alright, up. We'll do five circles to the front and then five to the back. So here we go. Inhale, exhale to three, four and five and hold a change in two, three, four. One more is five. Ah, cross, right over left. Stretch forward. So just say, I'm just going to scoot a little bit forward for my mat and we're going to go into our boomerang.

Boomerang

So from there we roll back and we find our hollow position. We trade this early on. Then palms go down and we do the rollover. We switched the legs one and two and then we roll back through the spine. So as I've started rolling, I got to use my abdominals again. Legs are strong, and then we left and we bring the arms into our Teza. One position.

We circle and we stretch and swim over and it's go back. So we roll back, roll back, roll back, no palms, turn and press. Okay. And we switch and we roll back. So melting. Now the legs have become alive, the hips become alive. The abdominals roll me up and I'm thinking back again, I'm thinking shoulder flexes, I've got to lift. I've got to left.

I've got to lift now. Hold there. Uncross your legs and lower and lift one and exhale two zero to modify of two, three and get the spine. And for one more and five hold it. Bend both knees. All right hand closest to the front behind you. I'm up. And just a quick stretch. So we reached the hips up and we looked down.

Modified Teaser

Okay. And change and switch and Perez up. Good. Looking down. So [inaudible] up through the hips and bring it back. Okay. And down the legs already open.

Hip Stretch

All we gotta do is lace the hands through, hands over the top of the feet if you can. Good. Right. So I'm, I like to think of a little hug of my knees into me. All right. So I'm pulling my knees in close and I'm also squeezing my knees together. All right, so that sets me up into a tight little ball. So from there we roll back, we do three taps open, they have two and one, two, three. And we come back up. And then it's one, two, three and one, two, three and, and one, two, three. And back. And one, two, three, the last one, one, two, three, and back. One, two, three. And bring it back in.

Seal

[inaudible]. Yeah, just cross your legs and all you want to do is sit up nice and tall, nice and relaxed through your hips. So now let's return to that breath in through the nose. Oh, through the mouth and emphasizing the lateral breath. Let's just do one more deep breath in and one deep breath out. Stretch your arms up to the sky and then just roll forward over your file.

Yeah, and just take a deep breath in there and deep exhale, and then stack your spine back up. Wow. And well done guys. Thank you very much. Good work.

Comments

2 people like this.
Challenging and thorough...you set me up beautifully to do the boomerang at the end. Thank you! And I keep thinking you looked like Jean Luke Picard from Star Trek as I squinted at the screen without my glasses on!
Patrizia P
Powerful one! Thank you!
2 people like this.
Another awesome Mat class! Thanks Ed
I really love your classes and the inspiration I take from them for my own classes - especially the stretching exercises. Thank you so much!!
2 people like this.
Wow, Ed, that really was a tough, but awesome class! It's so nice how you combine very demanding exercises with your calm and relaxed way of teaching. It never seems to be focused on tempo or struggling, much more like a meditation. And a huge bravo to all these ladies! I couldn't do the "zombie" movement at all. Might become my goal for 2019...
3 people like this.
I wish Pilates Anytime had a "love" button! This is my new favorite workout. I realized that I have been moving much too quickly through my own mat workouts. There is so much more power in the hold! I've always been a Courtney Miller, Meredith Rogers fan but Ed Botha is my new favorite instructor on Pilates Anytime. Thank you for a fantastic, fun workout!
Absolutely wonderful. Thank you Ed. Good job ladies!
A complete workout, amazing class thank you.
Omg I’m loving the variations and love the fact that it’s slow and challenging,just reminds me to practice more of the advance stuff . Well ,thanks a lot 🙌🏻
Thanks again for another powerful mat class! Love the slowliness. Karamba!
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