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Hi, I'm Mariska from Washington d C fuse plots and today we're going to do a chair workout. The first, I would say about 80% of the class is going to be without using the handles, but I did want to do some exercises that are showing you some ideas on how to really use the handles as part of exercises. Um, just as an FYI, broke my leg about six months ago and then three months back to walking on it. So my legs aren't as strong as they were prior to that. So it's going to be kind of arm heavy. Um, this particular workout. But still we have to start with foot work, which is where we're going to start. So I'm the only spring weights I'm gonna use.
Our two springs are one spring and this is a balanced body chair, so I'm only using the black springs. There are white springs. Honestly, I don't know why. So I've never used them. We're just gonna go ahead and have a seat and then we'll start with a plotty V and we're just gonna do some arm movements at the same time as we do foot movements just to get our arms warmed done. So growing tall, imagining that the crown of your head is lifting up towards the ceiling. Just start pressing your legs down, exhale up, down and up. And then you can begin moving your arms. So I'm just going in towards my chest, in towards my shoulders, in, towards my chest, in towards my shoulders. And I'm also going to take this time first to just kind of settle, but also to get some spinal movements involved as well.
Pilates Stance
So do four more and in two and in three and in and four and in hands. Come to the front of the chair. Push the pedal all the way to the floor and stand up. Drop your head slightly. So our goal is gonna be not to touch your hips or the back of your legs to the chair. You're going to bend your knees, send your hips forward, lift your chest, change that shape. So you're going to move it back.
Table Variation
So it's almost like as if we're going into tendon stretch, except that we're just not going to do that. Come forward and then pull your abs in. Send your hips back, come forward, lift up. We'll do two more like that, pulling back and then forward and last one, pulling back and forward one. Back to transition, pulling back. Sit your hips down. We're going to change two arches of your feet on reach your arms forward.
Arches
Let's do thumbs up at the same time as you press down. We're going to rotate towards one side. Follow your thumb. Inhale back to center. Exhale, twist, inhale, center. Exhale, twist, inhale, center, twist and center. Twist and center.Trying to keep your pelvis really still twist and center. Last two. Well actually have to do one more I think to be even. And last one we'll change your foot position again. This time we're going wider on the pedal and let's actually start with the pedal all the way down. You're going to bring your hands behind you, send your hips forward and then back a little bit. Hips forward. Squeeze between your shoulder blades, hips back a little bit, hips forward, Lean your weight into your arms, let the pedal lift up, press down, lift up, press down, trying to keep your pelvis at the same level, which is hard to do, period. And especially while talking, we're gonna do four more. Two, three and four.
Table
Pedal comes all the way to the top. Have a seat all the way down. We're going to do the hundred. It's really no one's favorite exercise. We have options. Option one, the smart option, which would be doing it on the floor on a mat option to the less smart option. We'll be doing it long way on the chair, which makes it a very small mat and crazy options. Three is doing it's short way on the mat.I'm going for crazy option three with the hope that pure pride will get me through it. I don't think I can talk at the same time. So if I'm not talking, just talk in your head and talk fast because that's what I'm going to be doing. So I'm going to come all the way kind of off the chair. So that when I come on the chair, I have enough of my back on. They don't feel like I'm going to fall. I'm going to start by pumping my arms and then extending my legs.
Hundred
Inhaling and exhaling.We're going to take a spring off and we're going to do an entire series. That sort of a swan series. Swan being my favorite exercise, unlike the hundreds short way on the chair. So first you're going to stand behind the chair and we're going to do a little spinal warm up. You want to be pretty close going can inhale your arms up, exhale to round forward. Try to keep your seat where it is in space. Hands to the pedal. Send your butt back, chest forward, round. Bring the pedal to the top.
Washer Woman Over the Chair
Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Couple more times. Inhale and exhale, and last one. And then the part of this exercise that's hard is to ground your feet. Let your arms lift all the way up, and then bring your arms down.We're gonna come lying on the chair and then press the pedal down. Um, and you want to be straight line from your shoulders to your wrists. With your hands not really folded back. You want them lengthened. So we're going to start with like a regular swan. So you're just lifting your chest through your arms and then press forward. Inhale up and exhale forward.
Swan Variation
Inhale up and exhale forward little change, Dan, your elbows. Extend your arms out. Moving the pedal. Press your arms down. Bend, lift yourself up. Press down to more like this. Bend, lift up, press down, bend, lift up, press down. So you're going to pause now you're going to bend your elbows. We're gonna do 10 lifts with your right leg. Then 10 with your left.Bend right leg up, one bend up to bend up. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Keep your abs pulling in nine and 10 and we switch left leg up and two. And think about. It's a squeeze of your glute to lift your leg. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10. We'll take a little break by just pressing the bar to the floor and I'm going to scoot the tiniest little bit forward because the next one's going to be a swan dive. So you're going to lift up lower down.
Prone Leg Lift
Bend your Elvis. You can lift your legs really high and then lift back up. A couple more like this. We die forward. Elvis, Ben. For this chariot to have to out a little bit and lift back up. This, we're going to stay down. Think about single leg kick, right, like kicked twice. Reach left leg reach, right kick, reach, left, kick reach, fancy transition one knee bends.
Swan Dive w/Single Leg Kick
Lift yourself up, keep it bent. Go down, switch, lift up, go down both legs, up, and then lift yourself all the way to the top. In honor of my mentor, Julianne, we're going to do a last challenging variation. I need to scoot back some and because I have done this before, I know I can take the spring completely off the chair from the position that I'm in. I'm going to adjust full dowel a little bit in case I want to use it. We're going to do three lifts with only the assistance of our own strength. So shoulders back, lift the pedal up and back down.
Swan
Lift the pedal to and back down. Ooh, one more. Lift the pedal three and then back down. Go ahead and just press yourself back. Hands come to the seats. You're going to take a little bit of a stretch and we're also going to use this opportunity to put a spring back on.So I'm going to lift the spring up to put it back on the one spring that I had on the first round. Next thing we're going do is some more abs Cirina do them. Not the short way, because that was really awful. We're gonna do them the long way and if you want to, again, you can do them on the floor. So I'm going to do them this way. This is a much more this like three times the Mat I had for the hundreds. So that feels really spacious. So we're gonna come to lying down and bring your knees in towards you. So legs are immune tabletops, start hands behind your head.
Chest Lift
We're going to inhale back and take a little couple of breaths here and then exhale, chest lift up, inhale back, exhale, inhale back. Exhale up. Two more. Inhale, exhale. And last one, and I'm right at the base of my shoulder blade, so it's kind of a nice stretch. We're gonna go into a variation of single leg stretch, which is my favorite of the classical mat. So you're going to lower your non Hilde onto leg lower than it normally would go. Lift it up and switch. So you pull in, leg, lowers, lifts, switch down, up, switch down, up, switch down, up switch, do a couple more here and last to down, up and down. Up can bring your knees back.
Single Leg Stretch
We're going to go back into that little bit of a back extension and take it into a crisscross. Lift up, twist one side. You're going to go back into that little bit of a back bend up. Twist. Inhale, back up, twist. Inhale, back up, twist in hell, back last four and two and three and four hands to the front of the chair. Just gonna. Rock yourself up to seated. And then we're going to hook one leg around the front of the chair to hold onto it. The other leg is reaching all the way out. If you're shorter, you might need to have like a reformer box or a moon box down.
Criss Cross
We're gonna start by bringing your arms out to a tee. We're gonna follow your away from the pedal arm. As you reach over, look down towards the floor, lift up, look up towards your hand, reach over.
Mermaid
Nice stretch and back up. Reach over and back up on this next one. Let's hang out there. Reach over left hand to the outside of the pedal. Right hand moves to the side. Push the pillow down more. When you lift the pedal up, back leg comes with you.
Side Body Twist Variation
Lift up one and down. Lift up two and down. Lift up three and down. Lift up for next. When we stay there, lift up, hold the pedal at the top. Don't move it. Little circles with your leg for eight two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Switch at eight two three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Pedal goes down. Right hand for me. Comes to the middle, left arm up and then you're going to lift yourself all the way back up to seated quarter. Turn to face. This way we're going to do a couple of little add things on the seat with your hands on the pedal. So I need to have some seat behind me.So I'm going to sit really super far forward. Some right where my glutes and hamstrings come together and then you can have your hands turned out or turned in on this one. I think I'm going to do n because on the next one I'm going to do out. So coming back, reaching for the pedal. You're going to start by bringing your legs up so that you can just get a sense of how heavy the pedal is or is not serum.
Teaser Variation
Press it down a little bit and lift it back up. Press down, really tucking your pelvis under you, trying to get your low back to touch. Lift back up, reach down, see if you can extend your legs. Lift up one more like this. Lower down, lift up, bend your knees, lower the pedal down. About halfway we're going to go for a little walk. Try to keep the pedal still as we switch and switch and switch and switch.Last four, two, three and four both legs back up, both legs straight. Sit yourself up, lower your legs. Make your way all the way up where you have to do the other side hip, so we're going to turn you have your foot hooked. Your other foot is really think about reaching it energetically through the ground. Arms out, so we reach, I remember we're following our reaching arms, so we're looking at it and then it's going over and we're following it. Looking up and over. I've got three more. Look up and over.
Mermaid
Look up and over. The next one. We're going to stay there. Look up and reach, right hand holds on. Left hand, walks out. Push the pedal down a little bit more. Lift up, back leg lifts and lower lift two and lower. Lift three and lower. Lift four and lower. Lift up. Hold.
Side Body Twist Variation
Trying to keep the pellets top. We've got eight circles each direction. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Switch it. Eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight pedal goes down. So you can bring your hand to the middle and then you're going to sit yourself. Oops. All the way up. So last one, I had my hands turned in like this. So this one, I'm going to have my hands turned out like that. We're going to do hip circles. Um, I did this once on Instagram and then somebody was like, oh my God, that's so amazing. How did you do it? This is how I did it. Do not push on the pedal if you push on the pedal.
I don't know how that's possible. You're gonna grab the pedal and pull it up and you're still sitting kind of to the front. So see how it goes. How's that on this one? I'm going to pull it to till it's at the top. I'm going to take my legs down, around and up, down, around and up. Here's three,
Hip Circles
Some gonna do a couple more exercises before we come to the mat. So I'm going to add another spring though. So I'm on, currently I have one spring on and I'm going to bring the other spring on a similar height. So you can have two springs on three. I actually have one on a three and one on a two because I've done this the last part of this series before and it's too heavy for me if it's on two on three. So this is sort of my perfect position.
We're going to do a couple of form pikes. So what I want you to do is first come to your forearms and then you're going to do, it's very height dependent. So if you're not as tall as me, this might not work. You're going to lift up onto your tip toes so that you can bring your knees and I'm right at that little dip in your kneecap, knees onto the pedal, and then you're going to lift your feet up and take the pedal all the way to the floor because those your start position, think about it like knee stretches on the reformer. Round your spine, push into your arms, lift the pedal to the top length in your pelvis or lengthen your spine forward to your low back. It's longer and you push your hips forward and then you're going to round up, drop your head and then lengthen to come all the way back down. Chin to your chest, ponytail forward,
Forearm Pike
I'm going to do left foot first cause this is my easier side. So left ankle crossed over right ankle, right hand. Then it's going to turn so that you're um, parallel with the front of the chair. And then you're going to lift up and you're outside and you will lift as well. So lift up one and down.
Forearm Side Pike
Lift up to and down. So it's sort of a pike clam. Three. We're doing eight, four,Round your spine to lift the pedal up to the top. Drop your feet to the floor, come off the chair can drop your chest through your arms. We're gonna bring your hands. I always think the front of the chair is whatever side I'm on. So I'm gonna call this the front of the chair. Now you're going to step onto the pedal and we're going to start with your heels together. Toes apart. You're going to bend your knees, Bend your elbows.
We have a slight lean forward. Knees are gonna stay equally bent. Push into your arms, lift the pedal up, knees lift up, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 heels lower. You can actually get a little bit of an Achilles stretch here, which feels nice. And then you're going to bring your hands forward to let the pedal lift up. Now I've done this exercise before, so I know that my perfect weight for this exercise is a spring on a three in the spring on a two. You're going to have to figure out based on your size, what's the right spring weight for you.
Frog
You want it to be supportive but moveable. Um, and then you also want to make sure your fingers are not over the pedal there on top of the pedal. So when a step back into a plank with the pedal all the way to the top to start. And I'm going to push the pedal down probably no more than halfway. I'm just kind of shimmering my shit. Uh, I'm moving my feet back so they're in the right position. You're going to start with 10 pushups, one, two, three. And this is definitely one of those where you have the tremor of truth.
Push Up
The ponytail is moving a lot.
Up Stretch Variation
At some point, it can't go further unless you move your hips. So I'm gonna move my hips backwards and I'm going to drop my weight into my heels, but not a ton because I won't be able to keep the pedal down. And then I'm going to curl my hips under as the pedal lifts up to the top, hopefully smoothly without kind of slamming. We're doing five total of these. Push down two can't push down any more. And then you have to lift your hips upward and then curl.
So coming forward, lifting the pedal back up. I've got three more of these pushed down. If you need to work on arm strength, just go ahead and break your leg. And if you can't do anything other than arms, your arms will get really strong in that period of time. We've got two more press down,
The next exercise we're going to do are with a map, so go ahead and get your mat. We're going to roll it down on the floor and we're going to come to a single spring. Okay. So now that you have your mat down and we're on one spring, I chose a spring on a two because that's how heavy I want it to be. Um, you're going to come lie down on your stomach and depending on how your chair is, you might have to have your hands go wider than the pedal, which is what you have to do on this because there's a lot of stuff you can run your hands into. But we're just going to do a variation of swimming and I'm going to go for hitting these outside, um, dowel pieces. So you're gonna start with your head down and then you're going to lift your left arm, right leg and head. Tap the bar and lower back down. Lift up, tap and down.
Swimming Prep
Lift up and down. Here's four,
Side Double Leg Lift
Swan
I feel like I'm a little too far back, so I'm going to get for a little bit. Let your head drum begin to pull the pedal, try to time it that your chest lifts up and then keep your chest up as you let the pedal lift up and lower back down. Stu, three more. Press down, take your ribs with you when you come up or don't. I don't think that's like really that, um, necessary of a rule sometimes. And here's two of those last three and then let the pedal lift as you lower yourself down. And we've got one more lifting up and then pedal lifts as you lower all the way back down.
Enjoy the stretch. And then we're going to move on to kind of got my head propped up on my arm. I'm going to hold onto the pedals so I can pull it down a little bit. Hip stacked, lift your legs up and the pedal down and then we'll go up
Side Double Leg Lift
And then you just have to be careful that your head is in the right position. So I want my head like right up against the wood on the way this chair is. So, um, where the, what you're doing with the pedal isn't really that important cause we're not going to try to pull on it. We're just going to have your hands resting on it. So first thing just to kind of warm up your spine a little bit, your extend your legs up, we're going to take it into a rollover until your feet find the seat of switches further away than I thought and then you'll lower back down. That's why we do a practice one now on this next one, let's get it right. So we'll go up, tap the seat and lower back down. Now on this next, when I'm thinking more straight up, some reaching up towards the ceiling, trying to keep my legs straight and together and then slowly down to the floor. Up and pause. You're gonna bring your right knee towards your nose or forehead and then lifted back up. Left leg slides and back up, right leg down and back up.
Roll Over
For all the ladies out there who are being smothered by their own boobs, I feel for you. I'm going to lower leg and lift up lower leg and lift up. Now the next one, we're going to lower your right light down. Now the shape that you're lower body's in, you're just gonna lift it higher and back down. Lift two and you have to be really careful about your neck and what your neck can tolerate cause we're coming higher onto it. We're doing five, four and five and we switch so the other leg is down.
Jackknife Variation
And then we sort of pike that up more. So it's a squeeze of your glutes to lift your hips more forward, engaging your back extensors. Two more after this one and to both legs. Reach feet back towards the seat. And on this one we're going to lower slowly down, folding your feet closer towards your face at the bottom.Bend your knees. Go ahead and just let your arms go to the side. Feet come to the floor and you're just going to kind of turn your head side to side in case you did create a little bit of neck strain just so that you can relieve yourself of that hold onto your legs and just gonna rock yourself forward. And then we're going to come to a kneeling position. So I think kneeling, we're going to be a little bit away from the sea. This is just kind of to reset our bodies. After that one hand on the pedal, one arm reaches up, we're going to side reach over. Imagine you're between two panes of glass and then lift yourself back up.
Kneeling Mermaid
Reaching over and lifting up. We're doing three and then a variation and lifting up. Now on this one, I want you to go over but also kind of lean back like you're trying to reach your hand towards that side of the room and then come back up and over and back and come back up. One 80 to face the other direction or the surfers depending. Opposite arm lifts grow tall. First we're going to side reach over and back up.Here's two and up and three, and then we're going to add the reach back and come back up over, add the reach back. And it's not a big reach. It's a little reach. I think we did three overs and two back on the other side, but here's two over and three back and then come all the way back up. Can turn towards the chair. Make your way up to standing. So the last exercises that we're going to do are using that, um, the handles. We're also gonna use a dowel for the first one. The first couple of exercises you do not need to have handles or Dallas for the last couple you will. So if you have handles, let's go ahead and get them attached to your chair and we'll do the sort of home stretch. So we're back with a chair that has handles on it.
These are the highest setting, which is what you want to do. If you're going to do this variation. I'm also going to use a dowel. Um, this is a perfect variation for if you have somebody who is afraid of doing going up front, which may be me. Um, also if people have balance issues also, if you really want people to target more the back of their leg than the front of their leg. And um, I use this as, um, sort of a training wheel exercise before doing the full ongoing up front. Um, so I have two springs on three, which is difficult for me, but I just don't wanna have to change the springs all that much time. So what you're gonna do is your step onto the pedal and then you're gonna step your foot forward onto the chair, take the Dowel, it goes in front of the handles, but behind your knee, and then you wanna make sure it's even on both sides. And what I'm gonna do is I'm actually going to pull back, so my weight is going this way more into my back foot.
Going Up Front
And I always like to start with one kind of coming up to the top is this isn't my chair, so I don't really know how the Spring Wade is. And then we'll do down and up eight times. Here's two. This is not my best exercise anyway. We're not going all the way to the top three, four and you can have your arms crossed, you're gonna have your arms overhead, lots of variations, five and the handles are here if you need them.
We're going to pause about halfway hand on your knee bend and extend your back leg. 10 Times two,
Mountain Climber
One thing about the dowel that's interesting is if it starts tipping to one side, it tells you your foot or your knee is rolling on that side, so it gives you some good feedback. We'll do four more, two, three and four. Stay low, bend and extend your back like eight times two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight coming all the way down. We'll take the dowel off and I'm just going to let the pedal lift up just so I can place the dial back on the floor. So it's going to go over here. Next things are going to be kind of arms and a little bit of legs. Again, I still have the handles on a three. I'm going to step all the way down on the pedal. If you are shorter, you might need to already lower the handles down. We're going to do some tricep dips first, so leaning forward, lifting the pedal to the top. I've got three dips, one, two and three. Now really push in.
Going Up Front
You're going to take a leg off and a leg back, chest forward, pull in and switch, pull in and switch. Pull in and switch both legs in, find the pedal and there in a ride all the way down to the floor. Let the pedal lift up, quick breather and they're going to actually change the height because I need it to be lower for the next exercises. And you also need to also make sure this is really screwed in. Well,
Mountain Climber
So I'm gonna go one foot over and then stand up tall and we push the pedal down. Um, I think eight times and it kept my light can't go all the way straight from the position I'm in. Two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. I'm going to have it at the top. Lean forward, push up. We've got three tips. One, two, three step over, both feet on extend your chest. We're going to push down and lift up. Feet come off, see, come to the pedal, extend your chest, push down, lift up feet to the pedal, extend one more time, lift up, left foot on down to the floor. We've got thredup's two, three then down to the floor, eight presses, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. And then we'll come all the way off.
Press Up Front
Sticky socks get you sometimes stuck in their last exercise is going to be an inversion and we're gonna take all of this. This springs off so the pedal can go to the floor because then we'll get in the way of my head. If you are not comfortable with inversions, obviously you can skip it and obviously watch if you've never done it before and having a spotter is never a bad idea. So it's basically like candle stick. It's like candle stick on the Cadillac. Except I actually think it's easier because you have the support and your goal is that this part of the chair is kind of going to be at the tops of your shoulder blades.
Single Leg Press
You don't want your neck to be on the chair cause that would not be good for your neck. So I'm going to flip over hopefully gracefully, but who knows and then do a couple of different variations. I'll show you two dismounts. So on the first one you want to be kind of close to the back so that we can get on and you're going to hold onto the handles and think about it like it's a pull up cause it kind of is. And then you'll bring your knees in. Want to do sort of three rolling like a balls tour over one, two big pole and then flip yourself over. So we want to kind of get your shoulders in the right spot.
Tricep Press w/Single Leg Extension
You're going to start by extending your legs all the way up till hopefully you're straight. Bend your knees to come back in. And then you can do fancy things with your legs like one leg forward, one leg back and then bend to come in, switch other leg forward, other leg back, Ben to come in. We'll do another candlestick feeling slightly and then fold your legs back towards your face. So dismount. One, probably the easier one is you're going to go forward. Think, pull up, slide yourself onto your butt and then lower yourself all the way down. Fancier dismount is to go this way. Um, in a perfect world I would like Christie's making faces at me. In a perfect world I would actually like the chair to be slightly less small.
L Sit
So I'll show you how I have to maneuver based on my height. Again, this is something do not do without a spotter if you've never done it. So similar to how we got over, I'm going to start kind of forward. I'm going to do my three roles, one, two, cause I'm trying to get further back. Three flips me over, then I can go up into my candlestick. This one I'm going to bring my feet to the floor, so I'm going to start folding my feet towards my face. I'm eyeballing the floor. So there it is. I'm super close, super close feet to the floor.
Tricep Press w/Single Leg Extension
And this is where I said it's like a little bit too close so I could get my feet on the floor and it's hard to stand up. So I'm just going to bring my hands to the seats and Tut, ah, off the chair. We're going to finish with a couple of little stretches. So what I want to do is I want to take the pedal back up to the a heavy spring, so it's like a three and a three and then we're going to have a seat and we're going to do a little um, outer hip stretch. So sitting down, push the pedal to the floor and they're going to take a leg. I'm going to do left leg first and this is a light that does not feel good doing this currently because of some issues with where some screws are placed.
Single Leg Press
Um, but it doesn't feel awful either. So I'm going to let the pedal weight pull me into sort of a pigeon stretch. I'm going to sit up tall and breathe cause I'm winded. I don't know about you guys at home, but I'm like huffing and puffing over here.
Candlestick
Figure Four Stretch
Pelvic Tilt w/ Spine Extension
Exhale, little tuck and inhale, lengthen. We'll end it there. If you have any questions, please post in the comments. I hope you all enjoyed it and maybe you got to try something you've never done before.Mention
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Mariska Breland (Teacher) |
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Tova A |
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Mark Hamilton |
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Colleen Tomlinson |
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ANNA L |
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Rachel |
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Alisha M |
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Kate E. T |
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Maureen M |
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Lolapilates |
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Mindi K |
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Jennifer J |
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Heidi VDB |
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Kristi B |
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Amy D |
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Arsenia C |
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Jacqueline L |
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Patti S |
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Stuti S |
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Michelle Unzueta |
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Celeste E |
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Heidi K |
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Danielle H |
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Ileana V |
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Vanisha T |
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Rosemary |
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Connie M |
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YOLANDA J |
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NancySanchezPilates |
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David Carroll |
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Rachel P |
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Paola Maruca |
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Barb Cash |
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Lori |
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