Restorative-Style Mat

Hi, I'm Delia Buckmaster and welcome to [inaudible] anytime today I'm here with Noel and she's going to join me for a restorative style mat class. Not all of the exercises are going to be stretching, but we are going to be flowing from one exercise to another with emphasis on mobility and stability and also a little bit of a workout on your core to see if you can get those muscles to fire. So we're going to start actually in child's pose, which is not normally where I start but I think that it's a selfish move on my part. So we are going to drop into child's pose and there's two ways to get into child's pose that I prefer. So either your arms are going to reach out in front of you and your forehead will fall to the floor. But in the beginning of a class sometimes my shoulders are too tight for this.

So I like to bring my arms behind me, Palm facing up and my forehead or as the yoga he would say third eye resting on the mat. And we are going to breathe here. Deep. Inhale, breath through your nose and exhale breath through your mouth. And what you want to focus on are the ribs stretching. So they're going to expand towards the ceiling, giving you some room at the middle of your back and on your exhale, bringing awareness to your abdominal muscles. And we'll do that two more times. Taking a deep inhale breath and exhale breath. And one more deep. Inhale breath on the next exhale breath.

Go ahead and come up with a torso bringing your hands to all fours. So you're now in a Quadro pad or a cap position from here, curling the toes under stretching the toes. You're going to drop your bottom back towards your heels for the fetal stretch a little bit more, but your body will stay in neutral with your fingertips spread and wide. You're gonna shift your body weight forward so that you stretch your wrist out. And you'll do that a few times.

Dropping your bottom back towards your heels and then bringing your body forward and what you'll feel as you come back as a stretch in the feet. And if you don't have the mobility in your knees and you don't have to go as far and be careful as you come forward, that's you're not dropping all of your weight into your arms. You're actually just mobilizing your bones and in the beginning of a class, sometimes it's hard to visualize muscles working or even at all and most people can visualize a S a skeletal systems. If you think of your spine, you think of your wrist, you think of your shoulders, hips, knees and ankles and toes makes it a little bit easier. We're going to shift forward one more time and then when we shift back, we're going to go to a down dog position or an upside down teaser as I'd like to call it, dropping the heels towards the floor, spreading the fingertips out, holding it here. The arms are going to reach into your back as though they are wings attached to the center of the spine and then you're going to slowly drop back to your all four or a Quadro pet position. And we're going to do the shifting to pike.

Again, you're going to shift forward. Shift back, shift forward and back. And we're going to do it in three. So one more time. I'm going to reach forward. And then as you come back, go ahead and lift up, dropping those heels down towards the mat. And this can be done slow or a little bit quicker to bring some heat into the body. Dropping your knees down. We're going to do that again, Noel. So you're going to shift forward and back and forward and back. Maintaining neutral. One more time, forward and back.

And then lift up to that pike position. Holding steady here for one more set, dropping the knees down, neutral spine towards your hands, towards your feet, towards your hands. And then feet one more time forward. And then you're gonna lift up to that down dog position or again, upside down. Teaser arms are nice and wide. From here, reach that right leg up towards the ceiling. Opening up your right hip. And this is just a nice transition so that we can get down to a lunge.

So bring your right foot forward in between the hands ends, UROP, that back knee, relaxing the back foot. From here you're going to reach the arms up towards the ceiling and then open up through that left hip breathing here. Inhale breath and exhale breath and just one more deep inhale and then bring that left hand down towards your left foot so that you can come into a rotation bringing the right arm towards the ceiling. And if it resonates with you, you can bring that right arm behind your backs. You can bend your elbow and rotate and then bring that hand back up towards the ceiling, bringing the hand to the floor and then curling the back to under the lift the back knee so that you can extend the forward leg and find a nice stretch in the hamstring. But be careful here since at the beginning of your class. And then from here we're going to shift back to down dog by placing both hands on the mat. The right foot comes back.

You're going to lift your hips up and find that pike again. Here you're thinking again, shoulders, hips, and ankles. Left leg towards the ceiling. Hold it there, open up that left hip, and then this is to transition into that lunge left foot forward. Right knee comes down. Make sure that you feel stable here before you bring your arms up, opening up through that right hip. Take a deep inhale breath.

Exhale breath. One more deep. Inhale and exhale. Bringing the right hand down towards the left foot, reaching that left arm towards the ceiling. Careful on rotation. Do not force your lumbar spine to twist if it's not ready to do so. Always modify for your body, bringing the hand back down. You'll curl up, back to under so you can lift back up and into that hamstring stretch.

Again. Careful here. And then you're going to transition back to your planning. So once you are back to your plank, you're actually going to hold your plank and I want you to think about your body here. If you cannot do this, you can drop your down into a modified plank, but still think about what we're working on. So I want you to think first it's your feet. So if you shift your feet back, definitely the weight's going to come back towards your lower abdominals. If you shift your feet forward or shift your body forward by planner flexing your ankles, you'll get it more in your shoulder.

So you need to find that sweet spot. Now instead of thinking of muscles, I want you to really think about your ankles, your knees, your hips, your ribs, your shoulder blades, your elbows, your shoulders, and your wrists. And your, did I say risks already? But you can think about it twice and the length of your neck and the head being an extension of your spine. And then slowly bring the right knee down, bring the left knee down, and then find that child's pose again for the second time. This time you might have a little bit more mobility in your arms, so you're going to reach the arms forward and give yourself a nice stretch and then glide your hands down the mat to create a little resistance for your spine as you roll yourself up to a seated position. So begin your legs around to the front of the mat. We're going to start in a half, roll back. What we're going to do.

Some isometric work. You don't, all right, so theater about the distance of your fist apart. So not as wide as you might think your hips are, but it's really smaller than that. Hands are behind your hamstrings, pushing the weight of your hands into your hamstrings to create a little bit of length in your spine. So think about your tailbone all the way up to the crown of your head and little space between each vertebra and breathe here. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. And what you're trying to create is as much posture as possible.

Your feet are grounded, your sitz bones are grounded, and your head is rising towards the ceiling. From here, tilt the pelvis back and find a little flection in the lumbar spine and you're gonna hold it here. If you need to adjust your feet, you can adjust your feet to pull them back. If you need to squeeze the knees together to create a little bit more of some support for your hips, you could do so as well. Now release those arms. Palms face each other, continue to breathe. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth and we're going to work our way down to the mat. We're going to do it pretty slow, so start to tilt the pelvis a little bit more and you're going to flex just a teeny bit more towards the mat, but then you're going to shift your feet a little bit closer so you're bringing your weight back, which is going to make it a little bit more challenging and you would tilt your pelvis back again. Way comes a little bit closer. How are you doing? Tilt the pelvis back again.

Weight comes a little bit closer and as slow as you can as though you are trying to massage the mat with your back. You're going to turn the palms down and roll yourself all the way to the mat, one vertebra at a time, and then extend your legs nice and long ones you're like, legs are nice and long. It's okay to rest here for just a moment and feel all the bony parts of your body on the mat, including the back of your head, which is going to keep your neck in a neutral position. From here, draw the legs close together so that you can activate the inner thighs and think about how the inner thighs play a huge part in the support of your hips. It's like a little pedestal. And then reached the arms behind your head and interlace the fingers behind your head. Once your hands are back here, think about the head end of the hands as heavy weight and lift the head and shoulders up and find flection. Anchoring your legs.

Hold this position here. So you should start to shake after a while cause you're trying. I'm shaking, but maybe the camera doesn't see it anyhow through the nose and then exhale through the mouth. Now you're in that flex position with your thoracic spine. It's gonna force the breath, the breath to move laterally. But Noel, can you press the weight of your head even heavier into your hands and then get up a little bit higher on your upper part of your back. Now hold that they're breathing in through your nose and exhale out of your mouth and then lift a little higher with the weight heavy into your hands. Inhale and exhale. Maybe even a little higher. Can you go a little higher?

Yeah, you go. No one can see your face, so you're okay. Inhale and exhale. Keep those legs nice and straight. Squeeze those inner thighs together and hold from here. Flex your ankles the way it's going to drop back, but the curl of your toes lift a little bit higher. Squeeze your thighs even more. Pressing your heels into the mat. Inhale, breath.

Exhale. Maybe a little bit more. Can we do it one more time? Yup. And then go ahead and release everything back down onto the mat. Relaxing your feet. Draw your right knee into your chest, holding onto your shin and give your hip a little bit of a stretch and then switch the legs out. Take the left leg in and give that leg a little stretch and then hold that left knee. And as you bring the right knee in to meet the left, and then gift both legs and both hips, a bit of a stretch, lowering your feet to the mat so that they're close to your bottom. Take your arms out to a T position. Palms are facing up.

Drop your knees to the right side of your body. And as your knees drop to the right, your eyes go to the left. Hold it here and think about your spine like a little corkscrew. So as you bring your knees back to center, you'll start to move your eyes where you want your spine to go. And then your knees will send her back up with your body.

Take it over to the other side. The legs go to the left, eyes, go to the right blue, hold it here and breathe. And then come back to center. Let's try it with a breath. So inhale to drop the knees to the right look left. Use your breath. Exhale to put everything back together. Everything should have come from your belly button. Let's go to the other side.

Inhale and exhale and we'll do one more on each side. Inhale to your right eye, so the left always take your eyes where you want your spine to go. It leads the spine back, back to center, excuse me, and over to the other side, over to the left with your legs and over to the right with your eyes and then back to the middle from are you going to reach your arms up towards the ceiling? Once the arms are reaching or they're reaching behind you, Palm space in the ceiling, the arms are going to come up towards the ceiling. Head and shoulders will come up and you'll find that fluxion again. With the heels a little bit closer to you. Now, grab your hamstrings, bring your heels a little bit closer, even head and shoulders up a little higher.

You're going to pull what the resistance of your hands, allowing your hands to be your hip flexor for you. Move a little bit higher. Exhale, breath, pause here. Release. If you can keep that weight or that tight. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. Let's grab the legs against it. We can lift up a little bit higher crane, a little bit more fluxion than thoracic spine arms come down the height of your shoulders. Inhale, breath. Exhale, breath. Grab the legs.

Lift a little bit higher. Now hold it here. Grab the head with the hands and see if you can keep that weight in your hands. Again, rotate the upper body to the right, dropping their right elbow to the mat, finding rotation. Stay here. Don't move. Breathe. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth.

Now with that inhale breath. Can you think Noel about separating that left shoulder blade away from that right shoulder blade. Inhale and exhale breath one more time as you breathe. Really big to stretch your back and then rotate back to center and then go over to the other side. Dropping the left elbow down or right arm reaches away. So curating a little bit of an isometric rotation or an actual isometric rotation and you're thinking more about the lengthening of the muscle behind you versus the shortening of the muscle to your left. One more inhale and then return back to center end just to see where we are.

Grab those hamstrings, curl yourself just a little higher and then rest everything back down. Moving into a little bit of hip extension heels are a comfortable distance. Apart from your bottom, you're going to go into some hip rolls, so tilt your pelvis back so that your low back gently presses into the mat and then roll yourself up and pause there. Now all those of you watching at home, anytime you're on inverted position like this, it's really important that you don't move your head too much from side to side. So if you're not understanding the cues, it might be best to just watch for a moment and then lie back onto the mat and then go through these exercises. So palms press into the floor.

Shoulders are nice and wide. Can you release the tension from your glutes? And as you release the tension from your glutes, can you lift your hips a little bit higher as though you're trying to just stretch your quads deep? Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. Stay here, Noel. Don't move your feet. See if you can draw your knees a little bit closer. Inner thighs are working really hard. Do you feel them? Good. Inhale and exhale. Breath.

One more. See if you can get that stretch into your quads. Hold it. Breathe in through your nose, all the air out of your mouth, and then lower one vertebra down and pause and see if that can relax the tension in the shoulders and then lower another vertebra down and pause. Actively moving through a spinal articulation inflection. Do it again. Roll down and now complete the roll down. And then allow your tailbone to be heavy on the mat.

Extend your legs nice and long and reach your arms over your head. And from here, just Yon, your body, your fingertips. Yawn. If you need to with your mouth. Stretch through your shoulders. Wiggle your toes. Take a deep inhale breath. And on your exhale you're going to bring your arms up towards the ceiling.

Lift your head and shoulders up. Look for your feet. Hold onto your hamstrings. Curl yourself up to your sticky point. Pause. Reach your arms out in front of you. Roll yourself back down. Reach your arms overhead. We're going to do that again. Arms come up, head and shoulders come up and separate those shoulder blades here. Grab your hamstring, curl yourself up to that sticky point, arms reach, roll yourself all the way back down to the mat. Reach your arms back.

So this is a really great way to prep yourself for the roll up. And the roll up is one of those exercises as sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it does and it's like going on a run and one day is good. One day it's not arms are out. And I'll have clients say to me, roll yourself back that they are not. They're weak today. And I'm like, you're not weak. You're tight. Arms come up, your lower back is tight. Head and shoulders come up. See if we can loosen all of that up.

Grab your hamstrings, call yourself up now. Crow all the way up. Reach for your feet, grab your toes and give yourself a stretch and then nice and tall with mine and you were going to swing the legs around. Noel, we're going to lay onto our bellies so our heads are towards each other and we'll resting completely on the mat except for the nose. We don't want the nose pressing into the map from here, just press up. So the hands are going to be the side of the shoulders, but can you relax everything else for me? Don't tighten anything.

Just [inaudible] your body. Okay. All right, eyes come forward. So look to where you want your head to go. Start to lift the eyes up as you come into a press up or what we call employees a Swan prep, but only go as high as you can. Maintain that stability in your shoulders and lower it down. Now try really hard not to make this about your lifting your hips off the mat.

Think more about just extension. Eyes come up. What we're doing is prepping the body in all planes of range of motion. So eyes up. Start to come to that extension. Elbows face back. Just let it go here for a second. Do you feel that stretch in your abdominal wall and then lower yourself back down? So we prep the abs and flection and now we're just stretching them out, eyes up, and we're moving spine in the opposite direction.

It wants to be an all day. And not only that, but the bonus here is triceps. You can fill your triceps and then lower yourself down. This move is a lead with your eyes. So eyes lead up the top of your ponytail reaches to the ceiling unit. Come into that press up position.

Are you relaxed in your lower half of your body? Does that feel good? And then keep those eyes forward as you roll yourself all the way back to the mat and then hold. Now pause. Arms are going to stay here where they are. This time I'm going to actually have you activate the lower half of your body. So you're going to press the pubic bone down and these are a little preps for the breaststroke, but you're going to float your buddy off the mat upper body as though you're saying don't shoot to the mat. And I want you to really squeeze your shoulder blades together to promote that retraction. Make sure you've got length at the back of your neck.

Check other parts of your body while you're doing this. Shoulder blades are pressed together, pubic bonus, pressing down, abs are active, lower back is working, hips are pressed into the mat and you're pressing the tops of your feet into the mat and you're breathing really big. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. So we are finding our back muscles and isometric and an isometric position. Inhale and exhale.

A couple more here. Inhale breath and exhale breath. One more, but not to arrest just to change arms. So deep inhale, take your arms out to a T position, turn your palms towards your feet and then bring your hands all the way to your thighs. I want you to just hold here now drawing those shoulder blades together. Lengthen through your neck. Inhale breath and exhale breath. So even though we're trying to flow through the movements, sometimes we have to stop and pause and think about what muscles we're actually working, what parts of our body are moving and are liberated throughout the flow of the exercises and where we're stiff and continue to breathe. And don't be afraid of this extension.

If you're doing this at home and you're finding some pain in your low back, then of course you need to stop. But I want you to think about those back muscles working. If they just need to hold you in place, they're there for you. And then bring your hands back to the mat and then find all fours again. So we're going to go to a quad or pet position to find a little bit more mobility in our spine in different directions. So Noel, just give me a cat stretch. So whatever your cat stretches, I'm not going to cue you. You just move.

It's really hard when you're applies instructor. Just keep your mouth shut. So I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut for a second, which I'm actually not keeping my mouth shut. Yeah. Okay. So now we'll cue you cause it make me feel better. All right, so now tilt your pelvis posterior. So back. Okay. Then round your spine. I think about your lower abdominals working to flex your spine.

So if you think about a skeleton and where your low back would be, it's probably is happier in that extended position. You're scooping your Babs in and bring it into its opposite position. As you straighten your back out. Think about your upper back. Most of us are around it in our shoulders and we're opening it up and making it about that and not so much about the low back. So find flat back with one breath, exhale, breath, find your cat and then straighten out your back and then find your extended position.

And just one more time. Exhale, breath as you flex, draw the navel to the spine and then find that extended position. If your wrists are happy here, we're going to stay here for a couple of things. So hands are on the mat, heart between the thumbs. Take your right foot up off the map, but leave your knee down. So the heels closer to your bottom.

Now rotate that leg to the right as you rotate the upper body or flex it laterally, filling the stretch on the left side. Follow it with your eyes so that your neck maintains consistency. Now take it over to the other side and hold it there. Once you have found your range of motion, you could move more fluid. Inhale, exhale. You take your breath where you want to take it and if you want to feel that stretch, the inhale feels good as the legs to the side and the exhale feels better in transition. But again, up to you and where you want to feel that great.

One more time and then bring that foot down. We're going to try the other side. Left foot comes up, look to your left and hold. See that range of motion and then take it to the other side and the surprisingly feels amazing. And then over to the left, inhale, breath, exhale into the other side and again and left and right. One more to each side and then back to center. Okay, one more thing here on all fours. For now. We'll be back to all fours in a little while, but take your right arm out in front and as you take your rider mountain front modified swimming, what most people will complain about is attention and their neck.

So I need you to make sure that your arm is only as high as you have flection in your shoulder. You might have tight pecs, tight rotator cuff. The arm is only as high as you can maintain the length in your spine without tension in the neck. Bring that hand back down. Find the other side and be humbled by the fact that the arms aren't the same. My left arm has a little bit more range of motion even though it has less stability cause I've injured it in the past. And then bring that arm back down. Take it again. Right arm comes forward, you reach nothing moves.

It's like you're balancing your favorite drink between the shoulder blades. I won't judge you as to what that could be. Bring your hand back down, left arm out, inhale breath, and then exhale, breath. Now try arm and leg. So right arm, left leg, and reach. Now from here, think about a band from your right hand to your left foot and pull that flex band apart. So instead of thinking about your back body am I do think about your front body and opening that up and then lower everything down. Now the flex span is left hand, right foot, opening it up, it's like half of an X. Just really pull it apart, thinking again, front body, not back body and then return. And then alternate.

Just to add a little bit of balance and coordination and return how fast you move in. [inaudible] has mainly to do with how much control you have and how much precision you have with each exercise. It's not meant to be done slow, but we sometimes lose control when it's done. Chew fast and then we lose the essence or the objective of what we're doing. But of course if you have that strength and control, you can move as quickly as you'd like. And then return one more on each side.

Inhale and back, one more to the other side. Inhale and back, and then go ahead and sit back. A child's pose. Child's pose. Number three, reach your arms out in front and then roll yourself all the way back up. The where to go into some sideline so your head will come towards mine and then will lie on your are you on your left? Okay, so just remember that you're opposite of me. Okay, so folding the bottom arm under, you're going to rest your head. You're going to pull your knees up towards your chest and you're not going to flex in the spine. You're not trying to stretch that low back. Excuse me.

As I messed with my mic here for a second, you're going to take that opposite arm that's not our under your heading. Going to reach it out in front of you. From here, see how far you can reach and separate that shoulder blade from the center of your spine and then reach that arm up towards the ceiling and then follow that arm with your eyes. And I want you to hold it here in rotation. Thinking about your ribs opening on your inhale breath as you reach a little bit further. One more time. Inhale breath, reach a little further, and then reach the arm to the ceiling. Bring the hand back down and we'll start over. You're going to reach Oh away, so you're stretching that shoulder and then you're going to bring it up towards the ceiling. And then you're gonna open up through the ribs. And the inhale breath should fill the lungs with air on the right side for me.

Left for Noel. Inhale and exhale. One more. Inhale and exhale, bring that arm all the way up towards the ceiling and then go ahead and stretch it out. Now for transition sake, we're going to both lie on our back, so your head's going to be that direction and then you're going to be on your back or come back to the rotation on the other side. But we're going to work on some abdominals here. So let's bring the legs up to a table. Top position, right leg and left leg. Don't overthink it unless your back really needs you to be careful when your legs come up. Squeeze in the inner thighs together.

Lift your head and shoulders up, and I want you to tuck the right knee into the chest in, hold it and extend your left leg out. Now this is your single leg stretch. Most people will ask you to hold that leg so it's got more stability. I'm allowing you to really bring it in and stretch it out. Drop that left heel down and think more about abdominal flection and hip, hip mobility. And then switch legs. The other leg goes out, the right leg comes down, the left leg comes in and you'll feel that stretch. Do it again. Inhale, exhale. So what you're focusing on more, I'm just going to scoot back so I'm on the mat.

What you're focusing on more is control of your legs, the stretch of your hip, and then see if you can maintain that fluxion of the upper part of your back. But use your hands as your hip flexor. So what's helping you stay stable? Left side comes in, right side, goes out. We're going to do that one more time. Inhale, breath. Right side comes in just because it's a stretcher. Restorative doesn't mean we don't have to work the app, so we're going to have to do that a little bit. Knees come in now, tuck both knees into the chest and then carefully rest your head and shoulders down. We're going to go into a double leg stretch, so lift her head and shoulders up and really pull the knees, the chest.

Feel the stretch here. You're going to extend the legs out, but you're going to find more of a hundred position by bringing your arms down by your hips and then pulling the knees back in. So avoiding that arm overhead so that there isn't caused any tension into the neck. You're just working on the lower half of the body and then maybe just adding that coordination of the arms anal as you reach away. Arms come to your hips and then return I stay at your knees so that way your neck is consistent with your upper back. So one more on the double leg stretch. You can extend your legs out, arms are going to come down by your side.

You're going to pause here for a moment and focus on the shoulder blade separating, so really reach away from you so that way you can create a little bit more flection in the upper part of your back. And then bend the knees, pause and lower yourself back down to the mat. We're going to go ahead and do the other side in rotation. So tucking the knees into the chest, folding them bottom arm under. You're going to reach that opposite arm that's not under your head and you're gonna reach it away from you and stretch that shoulder blade away from the center of your spine. Bring the arm up towards the ceiling. Look over your left shoulder and stretch.

Take a deep inhale breath here. Maybe reach a little bit further on that rotation and then bring the arm up towards the ceiling and then bring that hand forward. Do that again. Stir at that shoulder blade. Bring the arm up, looking over that shoulder, giving yourself a nice stretch here. Go a little bit further. One more inhale, and then exhale to bring that arm out and forward. And then we're transitioning up to our knees now.

So just pushing yourself up to tall knees and we're to take our arms out to a tee position. So you've got a big wingspan here. Your legs are a stable base, so the closer together that they are, the harder it's going to be for you to balance. So you want a comfortable distance between your knees, with your arms to a T position, like an airplane. We're going to go to the right arms are nice and long and then back to center and then over to your left and back to center.

And we're going to do that one more time in each side, trying to keep our hips from actually pushing away from the direction that we're flexing. We want to keep them nice and stable. This time going to place that right hand down to the mat and the red. Extend the opposite leg out. It's important the position of your right arm for the stability of your shoulder. So make sure that it's slightly forward of your shoulder. It'd be like if you had a marble at the front of your shoulder and if you had it roll down, I wouldn't lay on a ride at your thumb.

Take the hand that's free and place it behind your head and really push the weight of your head into your hand and that's what's going to keep that body straight. Taking the left like apps with the height of your hip, you'll pause. Bring that leg forward. Bring us far forward as you can, allowing the fluxion to happen, so don't be overstated here with the lower part of your back. Then bring the leg back and then open up the hip and do the same thing on its opposite size. You're stretching the front of the thigh. Think I'm stretching the hamstring, I'm working the low apps. Then you're thinking, Oh, well I'm working my glutes and I'm stretching my hip, and you'll do that again. Exhale as you stretch forward and then inhale as you open up.

How are you doing? Well, good. Exhale to flex and in hell to open. Let's try that two more times. Continue to press the weight of your head into your hand and then bring that leg back, keeping the spine nice and stable and let's do it one more time. Exhale forward and then inhale and back from here.

Bring the knee in towards the other and then you're going to reach your arms towards that right side so that you can stretch the lumbar spine. Making this just a teeny bit more dynamic. With the stretch, you're going to come back up to that position on your knee, but you're going to bring that free arm to your leg. You're going to hold it here. Just give me three pulses, go one, two, three, and then bring your hand over to the right side. Feeling that stretch. We'll do that again. Bring that arm up and over and pulse. One pulse, two, pulse, three. Bend the knee and stretch. Just like I said on this can be done faster.

It just depends on what you want to accomplish. One, two, three. What I was trying to accomplish is mobility, flexibility, strengthen that hip, bring it back up and really focusing on the muscles that are working on my legs. We'll do two more sets around and reach, but if you Yule faster, you'll definitely get a little cardio out of that. One more time, one and two and three and stir it and hold your gum back up to your tall knees. Hands come back to a T position. We're going to go back to airplane wings. So go ahead. Let's start on the left side.

Now lean over and then back to center and over to the other side. Lean over and back to center. Just more one more on each side. Then we'll end on that left side and place the arm down. Give the length through your spine. Good. And now you're going to come down.

Bring that left hand down. The position of your arm is really important and you're not in concrete. So if that arm is it right, get back up, fix it. Place your hand behind your head. Push the weight of your head into your hands and find a tall spine.

The top leg comes up, you hold, you're going to bring that leg as far forward as you can. And you'll pause for a second to feel the muscles that are need. Are you shaking? Oh, well. All right. And then you can bring that leg back. You're going to open up through the hip and you'll do that again. Think of your hips as two parts, the top part and the bottom part.

So the bottom part is what's moving, not the top. The top part is stable. Exhale. Inhale. Do that again. And if you smile when you work out, the pain goes away. It's a weird thing. And then you're going to bring a pack, little endorphin. And again, exhale, my arms are tired.

One more time. Bring it forward. Yes, bring it back, hold. And then you're gonna fold that knee in and then you stretch to the other side. So now you've got some stretching mobility at your right side of your lumbar spine and the ribs, and then your lats where they attached to the armpit. Bring yourself back up and then the arms gonna reach towards that leg. So you're going to pulse three times one, pulse two, pulse three.

The pulsing is for emphasis on those muscles. Reach the arm out and maybe to find more range of motion. Bring it back. So whatever your goals are, if you're trying to get your leg up higher without affecting your low back, then do so. And then round and stretch. I don't remember how many we did on the other side. So we're going to do like maybe three more sets, one and two and three and then move into your side.

Stretch two more. I'll go. Inhale. Inhale, inhale, exhale. Last one. Inhale. Inhale, inhale, exhale, and pause. Deep. Inhale, breath through the nose. Exhale, breath through the mouth. One more. Inhale, and then helicopter those arms around. Come back to tall knees and I'm going to rotate so that you can see my side body. Okay, five stretch. For those of you that have certain issues with your knees. If you start to feel any pain underneath your kneecap, you should go down into a shoulder bridge instead because that could be something going on with the structure of your knees. But if you feel it here, then most likely you're probably pretty tight like the rest of us from here, like for you to make, pretend that you have a big rodeo belt buckle and I'm talking big like PBR.

Okay. That buck belt buckle needs to face forward doesn't face down. It doesn't face up. It faces directly forward. Yeah. Okay. So from there, like for you to find your thigh stretch as your, our bottom comes back, your arms come forward for just to counterbalance, hold it here. Big stretch in the quads. Glutes are fired, but they're not squeezing. Otherwise I'll hinder mobility and then come all the way back up and pull the arms back and exaggerate that opening of the chest. So inhale and exhale. And again, you'll feel the glutes. It's like they're a little brake system, but you didn't slam the brakes.

Just pump them real slow. And they're also pulling you forward. Reach the arms out and then return. So on the next one, you're going to reach back and you're gonna pause here. Make sure that those thighs feel comfortable. Bring your right arm up towards the ceiling.

Follow that hand with your eyes and bring that hand down towards your heel. Bring in the left arm towards the ceiling, pressing the hips forward. So you've got a nice stretch in the front body with rotation. Be really careful here that you're not pushing your body past those limitations. As you come up, you'll have to windmill your arms around, bring your arms out in front of you, and then bring your arms back to like a chest expansion.

Let's lean back again and try the other side. Tests it all out. Left arm comes up, bring that hand down towards the left heel and then open up. And again, your eyes go where your spine goes. So if you want more rotation, then you've got to move your eyes in that direction. Slowly come up when Mo, those arms chest expansion. Now if that was enough for you, you're going to alternate one more on each side. We're going to try both. You're ready. Lean back, hold right. Arm comes back in, up, and you hold. Then the left arm comes back and up and push the hips forward and open up through the chest. Take a deep inhale breath. Exhale, breath. One more. Inhale as you open up through the shoulders and you're going to come out of it by first pulling your left arm up and around, and then your right arm up and around, and then your hands back down to the floor. Okay, these next ones are knee stretches on the mat so that those of you that have done the knee stretches on the reformer. You know what? These are, um, they're awesome and they also are not at the same time.

So your hands are underneath your shoulders, your knees or your toes are curled under. This will be the last of your quadrant heads series on the mat. As you start to round your spine, I want you to focus on those lower abdominal muscles that we used earlier to come to flection from here, like for you to lift your knees up to a hover and when you do so you shouldn't have lost that awareness and your lower abdominals. Lower the knees back down and the straighten out your back. I'd like for you to visualize at home if you've been on a reformer, like for you to visualize this as a carriage with very little resistance holding the two pieces together. Your hands are on one side separated from your feet.

So as you round your spine and lift your knees up, I want you to think about keeping the carriage together. Do you feel that Noel, if you think about the resistance and then lower the knees down and then straighten out your back. We'll do that twice more. Okay, so round the spine. Pull the knees up. Really, really, really, really scoop your abs and lower the knees down and then straighten out your back. One more that I say I think so. I think a committed to another one. Exhale, breath. Lift the knees up. Hold it here. Feel that resistance toes to heel, lower the knees and straighten out your back. If that's all that you could do, you're going to continue with those.

I'm going to add on you ready? Okay, so inhale breath here. Draw the shoulders down your back and stabilize. Everything has prepped you to this point. So round your spine. Lift your knees up. If you can maintain that flection, take your right foot off the mat and touch your knee in towards your chest for time you go one. Exhale, two. Exhale, three XL four. Remember the control piece, but your foot down. Lower your knees, straighten out your back and you can exaggerate the extension if you want it.

And then round your spine again. Pull your knees up. Hold left knee comes in one. Exhale. Two. Exhale, three and four. Control. Knees down. Straighten out your back if that's all you want. You could do that again. We have one more piece. You're ready. Bicycle. Okay, so scoop your abdominals in. Use those little Rab muscles. Lift the knees. Noel, bring your knee into your chest. Hold.

Send your right leg back with a straight leg. Look up and extend your spine and hold Amber and do it four times. Ready? Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Two more. Exhale, reach away. Last one, reach away.

Control foot. Knee, pause, extend. We have one more exhale to flex. Lift the knees up, knee to chest. Take that leg away from you. Look up, hold round the spine, pull it in. One inhale, reach away. Exhale. Two. Inhale away. Exhale. Three last one, control knee, control down.

And then go ahead and come back. Taking your hands behind your small of your back and opening up through the chest. So you're going to open up the shoulders. Wiggle those risks around cause you use them quite a bit. Yeah, I feel pretty good. All right, so transitioning to standing, I did promise a stretch class, so I do apologize for that last exercise. So taking your hands back down, finding your plank position. You're going to go back up to that plank pike. So take it up to the plank. What we're going to do now is we're going to add the extension portion of the exercise. So we just did plank to pike earlier, but this time what I'd like for you to do is transition.

Roll through your spine, find your plank, start to lift your eyes, drop your knees, keeping your toes curled under, and then open up your chest for extension. Keep your toes curled under as an anchor. Lift your knees off, find your plank. Find your pike. Now let's translate this a little bit to [inaudible]. Okay, so as you go to find your plank, I want you to think about standing tall on the mat. Okay, so hold dropping your knees down. Hold it here. Lift your eyes.

This is your extension or this is your Swan or this is any extension that you've done earlier, brushstroke, whatever it may be, and then take it back to your plank position and then take it all the way back up to your pike. We're going to do that one more time. You're going to roll through your spine, spinal articulation. Find a flat back, knees down, and then you're going to lift and open up the chest. Hold it here and then you'll take your right forearm down and your left forearm down. And then what I want you to do from here is one more last mobility exercise for your shoulder blades. With your knees down in your feet anchored. Can you pull the shoulder blades together and apart?

So a little retraction and protraction, maintaining abdominal control, dominal awareness, your backs working, your feet are anchored. If you can do that only one more time, hold, place your hand down onto the mat and then the other. Take yourself back up to your pike position and then you'll take that right leg back up towards the ceiling like you did in the beginning of class, opening up to your hip. But this time you're going to thread it through and you're not going to drop your back knee down. We're going to work on opening up the hip. So take the arms up towards the ceiling and find a high lunge from here. I want you to find that high lunge. Interlace those fingers, stretching the risks that we've been using for quite a while.

I want you to reach those arms up. So double duty here. So we're going to stretch out the things that we used while working other parts. So now here's your stability. So you can be working on the mat all day long. But really what you want to be able to do is walk, walk around and stay stable. So you have to work on your balance cause you run up your heel down a little bit more for a stretch and see if you could open up a little more. How do you feel?

Good. Can you go ahead and lean your body to the right a little bit and see if you can stretch your lat out. Hold it there and breathe and come back to center. Interlace the fingers behind your back. Open up through your trust as you continue to stabilize. Pause and then release the arms. Hands back to the floor for transition sake. Plank pike, left Lake to ceiling again, left foot forward. Pause. Find a wide base. If you're in a slalom ski, you're not gonna be able to balance.

So arms come up and hold. My left knee is right above the center of my foot. My right hip is squared off and I'm not compromising my low back to stretch my hip in a those fingers. For most people, this hurts that right hip is tight. Drive that heel to the mat. As you open up even further, do you feel the stretch? Yeah, that's a feel good. Now to your left side and stretch your lat.

We forget that the loudest part of that core system, and if it's really tight, we can't move to really open it up [inaudible] and then come back to the middle hold. Take your hands behind your back, open up your chest. One of my favorite ways to stretch my shoulders. Take your hands now to the floor and then step your left foot back to meet your right and then come up to walk your hands to your feet. Don't come up quite yet. So reaching the fingertips forward. I want you to find a nice stretch through your back. It'd be similar to if you were on the reformer doing the elephants of pressing those heels up against the blocks. Even curl your toes up.

Maybe finding a little bit more emphasis to the back of your legs, but keeping the knees soft and thinking about stretching through the shoulders. Then relax your toes down. You'll walk your hands to your feet and then place your hands onto your thighs. Hold it to your, for a moment we're going to hinge up, but if that doesn't resonate with you, you can roll yourself. So Noel, how about I have you roll up and I'll hinge up? How's that? So lifting, I'm going to lift my eyes. Noel's going to roll up. I'm going to hinge up to find a flat backs.

You see two different versions that work best for you. And then I'm going to lift all the way back up as I find my glutes. Once we're both tall and standing, we're gonna reach our arms up to the sky. Inhale breath. And just to mobilize those joints even further, we're gonna bend the knees, bend the ankles, cross the arms and front of the shins, and then lift yourself up. And if you'd like some more energy here, you can move a little bit quicker.

I'm going to keep a nice pace. We'll go for 10. So this is number three and I want you to think about how much more liberating your body might be right now, whether it's in your wrist, it's in your neck or shoulders, in your shoulder, blades, in your ribs, in your bottom, knees and ankles. Am I counting? No. One, two more down. Last one. And then stand nice and tall. Bring your arms by your side. And I want you to move your body from side to side, but look down at your feet or your feet moving. Because if your feet are moving, that means it's still stuck in concrete.

And I did not do my job for the last hour. So I want you to move through those ankles. And then one more. Go ahead and take those hands back behind your spine. My favorite, push the hands towards the floor. Lift your chest to the sky, press your hips forward. Allow the body to extend and then let it all go. And we're all done today. Thank you so much for joining me for this class.

I hope you all enjoyed it.