Physioball Fun

Hey, good morning and good day everyone out there in Internet land and Pilates Anytime Live land. Again, thank you so much for coming to take class with me and all of us that are now doing our live classes for you. And as you can see and read, this is physio ball day. So, I hope you all have your ball ready. Nothing too, too intense but definitely getting all of our major muscle groups.

For sure the hamstrings and the glutes, all those bridges and all those hip lifts, really challenging core stability too, with the ball. Good abdominal work, some good back work, trying to get everything in a good workout for you, okay? So, I will say I worked in my garden or outside yesterday for about five hours (chuckles). I was in mission accomplish mode and I, many, many times during my gardening time, I'm like, gosh, I'm really strong. I'm so happy I can lift these big pots and do all this digging.

But today my body is just kinda like, hello! Knocking on my spots where I get a little bit irritated, which is technically in my lower back, especially on my left side. So, I'm gonna take care of myself. I want you to take care of yourself. Again, thank you for being here and joining me live and we'll get started on our back with our legs over our ball. Enjoy your workout, enjoy your session.

And I want us to start with our knees bent and open, and really just allowing your pelvis to be where it is. And if it's a little bit posterior tilted, great. If it's a little bit anterior, that's fine. Let's just all take notice into where our body just lands when we come down on the floor. Okay?

And as I always do, I love to start with focused breathing. And as you know, I do all the breathing up and down, the side to side and the front to back. So, let's go ahead and begin that. We'll take our nice breath in through our nose. And as you exhale to feel your body making a little bit more of a heaviness or more weightedness on the floor.

Just start to let yourself settle. Okay? And each breath inhaling either think, if you need front to back breathing to get your thoracic spine and lumbar spine more imprinted, you might want the back breathing. If you feel like you're really gripped in your abs in the front right there where your solar plexus is, you may really be interested in the side to side breathing. If you feel like you've been at the desk all day or going to be and you're flexed forward already, you might want the top to bottom breathing.

And for all of us, we should probably be doing all three so that we really get as much space in this trunk of ours that we can. So, that waistline, absolutely. Ribs away from pelvis. As much space between all of the ribs as possible. (Amy exhales) A couple more breaths.

And also, I want you to focus on where your shoulders are. Don't change a thing, but see if right now you can just kind of think about or feel a little bit more weight distribution on the back of each shoulder just a tiny, tiny bit. Okay. So, with this position still with your legs slightly turned out, let's go ahead and do a little bit more intentional pelvic tilt. So, take a breath through your nose.

Let's use the exhale for that abdominal compression and press your sacrum, the top of your sacrum and your lower lumbar and all of the lumbar to the base of your ribs into the floor. So, I've just barely, barely picked up my pelvis and then inhale as you come all the way down, just settle into neutral. Let's go again, exhale. So, I'm feeling that intra abdominal pressure come into my abdominals against my upper sacrum, into my lumbar and then right to be basically the base of the rib cage. So, we're not bridging yet.

We're getting that low back environment really set for us. Take three more here, exhaling. And I want us to remember that this low back region, some of you have a very short low back or waistline like me. We need to focus on how much length we can put between our ribs and pelvis. Some of you are, have a really long lower back area where it might be hard to stabilize that long, lower back.

So, take this opening time no matter what class you're taking from whomever to really check in on your body, right? Your positioning. And exhaling. Last preliminary. Just getting some ease into that lower lumbar, lower thoracic area.

Okay. Feel free to always come back to that if you need a rest at any point. It's such a great reset kind of position. Okay. Now though, we're movin' on.

We're gonna, I told you we're doing hip extension. We're doing a fair amount of hip extension in the ball work. So, tabletop legs. My feet are flat on the ball. I'm gonna take my shoulders and press them back.

And then just start to press your feet into the ball. We don't want to roll it away. You can go to that small pelvic curl or join me for coming all the way up and I'm gonna really enjoy coming up into my upper back. Chin is away from the chest. Standing tall on that ball use those glute muscles and press the hips even a scooch higher.

Breathe in everyone. Exhale from your sternum first. Delay those pelvises. Keep them up as high as you can. Let that sternum come down, right?

Some of you have a really long sternum. So it needs the time. And we're moving down through the ribs. There's that lower rib cage. There's that lumbar sacrum all the way down, inhale.

Coming up again starting at that sacrum. So the feet play a role. I'm pushing down into the ball with my feet, but I'm concentrating on the muscles in the back of the legs to my sit bones, to those glutes and to the top of the glute where it gets that seat. The top of that sacrum up. Breathing in.

Exhale again from the sternum. All the way, massage. Feel that articulated movement of your spine all the way through. I was planning on four of these. Here we go.

Inhale. Exhale. So, the legs' engaged, the feet are stable and you're rolling, articulating. It's okay to use the arms. You guys know that, the back of those arms to help leverage and help you contract those glutes a little bit deeper.

Breathing in. Exhale, rolling down. Rolling. At some point you can kind of lighten your feet on the ball so they don't have to be so pushed down on all of them. Okay, one more time here.

Inhale. Doing great guys, without moving that ball yet, right? Roll up. So let's stay at the top this time. Just stay there and breathe.

Exhale. Flex your ankles and then put the toes back down. Three more. Flex. So I'm just, in keeping those hips up, deepening ankle flexion and lower.

Hello hamstrings. One more. Inhale, exhale. Roll the sternum down. Roll the rib cage down.

Roll the pelvis down and neutral. Good. Just move the legs back and forth a few times. That is always such a deep hamstring exercise. We don't want them to get too cramped up, right?

So, lengthen out your legs. Keep them long. I wanna look up for just a moment and make sure that my legs are nice and centered. Sometimes I'm a little listed off to the side. So take a moment for yourself.

Look up, see your two legs nice and together, parallel wrap those inner thighs here and the outer thighs and let's lower the head back. So, I wanna practice some and have us do some chest lift. I'm gonna use my hands for support behind my head. Elbows are lifted off the floor slightly. The shoulder blades are wide on the back, away from the spine, but they're not up by my ears.

Take a breath. Exhale and here we go. We're rolling the upper spine, the head, the cervical spine, that upper thoracic, curling up, and inhale as we roll down. Four times. Ready?

Curling up. So, I want us to think about the area behind our knees and engage the hamstrings a little bit so that those knees aren't just hanging down. Right? I have those hyper extended knees. So I really have to make sure I keep muscle support for my knees.

Rolling down and we're goin' one more time. And exhale, curl it up. Now just four times, roll the ball in toward you. You can kinda roll onto your toes and then roll the ball away. Let's exhale and roll it in.

It's okay if you can lose neutral pelvis, that's fine. It's actually probably pretty good 'cause you get a little more stretch in your lower back. Two more here. Exhale. Keep those elbows up.

Keep that chest up. Last time. Exhale, curl it in and inhale and roll down and then take your head down. Okay. We'll be coming back to that, but I want you to take your arms out to a T, roll your ball in and put your knees over the ball.

Okay? And then hold yourself here. What I want us all to do is take the heels, press your heels in against your ball a little bit like you're hugging it and moving into the knees side to side. So, you get to choose what direction you rotate toward. Here we go.

So as you take yourself, knees to one side, allow that opposite hip to come up off of the mat a little bit. Keep the heels pulling into the ball so that it won't roll away from you and hopefully you're feeling a nice oblique connection and then roll it to center. Other direction, everyone. Inhale as you rotate. Feel that nice oppositional connection from your knee up to your shoulders and return.

Inhale to one side, making sure not to thwart or thrust the ribs forward. Exhale, return to center. Inhale to the other side. (groans) Feels good. Exhale, center.

One more like that. You may have to keep re-hugging the ball with your heels and last time, basic over to the second side. Okay. Now, I'm gonna add onto that. If you'd like to come along, inhale twist, take the top leg and reach it.

The other leg has to keep hugging into that ball. Come through, center. So, one leg is up and one leg is hugging the ball and then return. Not too difficult. Twist to the opposite side.

But it demands one side stay active in the hamstrings, the one that's holding the ball, obviously, while the straight leg gets a stretch on the hamstrings. Return to center and re-hug. Four more. Twist. Top leg reaches.

The other leg still contracts to hold the ball. Reach to center. And in. Opposite side. Inhale.

Top leg extends. I've got actually the back of the thigh also pressing the ball. You ready? Last time each here. Inhale.

Exhale, stretch that top leg. See if you can go a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit further. Come through center and lower. Last time to the opposite side. Twist.

Getting those obliques primed and ready. Let's come through center and re-bend. Okay. Nicely done, guys. Walk your ball back out to straight legs.

Okay. Let's take the hands right long by our sides for a moment. And without picking up the head, I want you to engage your deep, like the deepest contraction in your abdominal wall that you can. Just really, as if you can pick up your legs. Don't pick 'em up but as if they become a little lighter on the ball and hopefully you feel that and you notice that deep connection in your abs, okay?

And then settle out of that for a second. Feel the difference between that kind of less active to exhaling and deep contraction as if you're gonna pick up your legs and then release. Okay. Add a chest lift. So, roll the head neck and shoulders up, reach the arms toward the ball.

Okay? So, shoulders are back, but the blades are not poking the ground. You've gotta flex your thoracic spine enough, curl up. Let's go ahead and get the legs lighter and start some pumping of the arms. Try to keep the ball steady.

I want us to think about the waistline stretching also toward the ball. There's energy up the upper back and up the top of the head. Now, I've got a little wrap going with my legs. So, a little bit of wrap here. My inner thighs certainly working.

Breathing. (Amy exhales) Can you get lighter with the legs, almost float them off the ball? If the answer is no, don't do it. I don't want you to hurt yourself. (Amy exhales) Always do what your body needs.

Modify if you need to. You can always put your head down (Amy exhales), and we're all gonna rest. Okay, wonderful. Again, just roll the ball a couple times, but then keep it in, in a knee bent position. Return your hands behind your head.

So, I want us to take that chest lift again and hold that chest lift. So, it's really demanding on those upper abdominals quite a bit to keep you up. Four times, roll the ball away, inhale, and exhale, pull it in. Three more. Inhale, extend the waistline.

We did this once but now you'll probably feel a little more connected to it. Last two. (Amy exhales) I think we can actually start adding a rotation. The next time the legs come in, take your upper body and rotate. It's a little version of our criss-cross.

Center, other side, exhale. And I'm rolling the ball all the way onto my toes, but I've got my feet pressed down on the ball just a little bit. The heels and the toes. Four more. Exhale.

And other side. Go one more in each direction. (Amy exhales) And center. Now, come to the center. Let your head come back for a moment.

Breathe in. Exhale. Reposition if you need that ball into you a little bit, making sure not to just thrust the knees down. Keep those active hamstrings, right? Curl the chest up again.

Little higher in your chest. Lift everybody. A little higher. Okay. Bring those knees in.

Now twist toward the first side. The leg that you have here, you're turning to keep that foot really well anchored on the ball and then roll it out and roll it in four times. Exhale or in? Let's do inhale. Yeah.

(Amy exhales) A little coordination on my brain (chuckles). And then center, put both feet on the ball. Take your chest back down. Breathing in. Exhale, curl it up.

Okay. So you're rotating toward the side, whatever side you're to that leg stays anchored on the ball. Okay? Lift the other leg to table top and you roll with the leg that you're turned to. You need to keep some pressure of that foot on the ball, continuing to feel your hamstrings and that relationship to the abdominal muscles.

Okay? So we're doing kind of a breakdown. In a second, that's plenty, turn to the center, we'll be actually taking both feet one foot off the ball at a time. You'll see. All right?

So curl back up. Turn to the first side. That foot stays on the ball. The other one floats. Now, reach the ball away, inhale.

Exhale, pull it in. Put the other foot down. Inhale and exhale. Put this first foot down. Inhale.

Exhale. One more. So, you're alternating legs. That's all. Not that tricky.

But it's more obliques. Come to center and take it down. One more round like this. Breathe in. Exhale, chest lift.

Turn toward that second side. That's the leg that starts moving first. Inhale, leg extension. Exhale in, change feet. That one steps down, lengthen.

Exhale in. Once more, change feet. Inhale. Get longer. Exhale in.

Second leg, inhale. Exhale in. Both feet on the ball. Come to center. Not done there.

Don't come down. Reach your hands toward the ball. I want you to flex the wrists. It's like you're pushing the ball forward. You're gonna just do a little more focus of mobilization through thoracic.

Good. Just five, six, seven, eight. How you doin'? Nine and 10. Let's roll all the way up.

(Amy sighs) It's a lot of work down there. Okay. Guys, we're gonna take ourselves into, kind of the roll up situation. So I want to, I know what I've, as I practice on this particular mat, I like my heels to be over the front of this edge. That just feels good for me so that I can almost pull my heels back into the edge of the mat to help me get my hamstrings connected or keep them.

If you want to try that you can. Hands on your ball, reach the ball towards your toes. Keep the abdominals pulled back and I want you to keep your lower lumbar back, okay? Head above the arms right now. Let's have ourself roll backward.

Roll back. The ball is still on the legs. I'm gonna take my arms and hold that ball in my hands and reach it as far back as feels comfortable. I don't want to let my ribs just thrust up though, okay? Now, arms up.

We're doing a roll up. You know what it is. Exhale. Follow low the ball. Put it on your shins if you need to.

I want you to roll it farther, keep going forward. Head above arms today. Stomach really pulled back in opposition. And then rolling backward. So, I have my hands holding the ball with a little bit of just some easy press of my hands to keep the upper arms integrated and the chest integrated.

We've got two more roll-ups. Head, neck and shoulders. Oh boy (chuckles). You're rolling forward. So as much as I'm reaching an effort forward, I'm really pulling that stomach back.

You wanna match the effort and roll backward. Good and one more time. Inhale. Exhale. Someone wrote in recently in a, one of the questions, one of you out there, I don't know who it was.

I mean, I do, but I can't say who it is. Asked me if roll up and teaser and flexion rolling exercise ever get easier? And my answer to that is, I don't know, 'cause I still find that they're challenging too, but that's why I practice. I think they get easier but they never, for me haven't really become like so easy that I don't have to think about it. That's just the way it goes.

Okay. Take the ball in your hands, sit up tall and let's just do some arm work you guys. Just take and on your back work. So, easy movement of arms above head and then down but you know what the challenge is, is to stay organized in your sitting position and your shoulders. If you want to change your leg position, feel free.

(Amy exhales) So, I'm really using my back muscles to help keep me sitting tall. It would be really easy just to slunk down. So, use the back and lower. Let's take two more. Shoulder blades just easily roll down the base of the shoulder blades kind of pressing in to the upper back.

Okay. One more. Now what I wanted to do is add that arm lift. We'll do two more roll-ups. We'll do that arm lift up at the top.

Do some little extra. Roll back all the way. Here we go. Inhale, head, neck and shoulders. Exhale.

Roll up. Now, pick up that ball. Lift the side of your body tall. Inhale and exhale. Here we go.

Take it back. Roll. Yes. Feeling long, feeling of getting some blood flow. (Amy exhales) Oo.

Yeah, reach. Lift the ball up. Inhale and exhale. Roll ourselves back. Okay.

We're gonna move into legs circles now and where I want you to do this, you just have to reposition (chuckles), kind of a weird transition. Sorry about that. And then get your calves and ankles and heels on the ball again. Integrate the wrap of your legs. Inner thighs and hamstrings and glutes.

Long spine. Make sure your waist is long and pick up one leg. I don't have a preference because you always have to do either one, right? The leg that's up in the air, straight above your hip. The leg is slightly turned out, but both sides of you, the pelvis is pulling equally into the mat.

This leg today, I don't want it to go across the mid line, lower it down. Brush that ankle against the other ankle. Take your leg out just a little bit to the side and make your legs circle up. So it's like a half a circle. Straight down, brush the ankle, open out to the side and up.

Straight down, brush, open around and up. Two more. Down, brush that ankle. So there's a little external rotation of the femur when that leg starts to open out to the side. This is a much different way to do the leg circle.

Okay, other way. Open down to the side. It's a little externally rotated. Down. I want you to brush your ankles together and up.

Breathing in, exhale, exhale and up. Total of five. The other leg working hard to stabilize. The other hamstrings, right? That leg is active.

One more here. Open, down, pull and up. Okay. Easy does it. Change the legs.

Make sure you're centered so the other leg comes up to the ceiling before we circle. Anchor both sides of the pelvis and into the floor. Ribs are down. Your up leg is slightly turned out. So, that leg comes straight down today.

Brush the ankle, open out and up. Let's come down (Amy exhales), around and up. The other leg is active. Make sure if those hyper extended knees, you're not walking that knee. Engage more of the meat of the hamstring muscle on your stabilizing leg.

Last one on this direction. Around and up. Now reverse it. Tiny, stable, intense. (Amy exhales) Check that waistline, you guys.

Make sure you're still efforting that you have length in there. So, sometimes abdominal contracting can make us feel short in the kind of midsection, in the gut, the tummy. We want a long abdominal wall. We don't want it so crunched and shortened, right? There was your fifth one.

Bring the legs down and then just once again, just kinda roll the ball back and forth a few times, okay? Now, grab the ball with the inside edges of your feet against the outside of the ball, pick that ball up and hug it. So, my legs are in parallel although the legs are apart. I'm gonna put my hands behind my head, curl the chest up. Okay?

So this is from an abdominal series of five. Straight leg lower lift. However low you'd like to take the ball or your legs, I don't want you to lose stability in your spine. We're just doing three. They're kind of slow and intense and exhale and lift.

Two more. Can you lengthen your waist? Lengthen your waist, lengthen your waist. You might want to be squeezing your glutes right there. Exhale up.

And our last one. Inhale, inhale, inhale and exhale up. Okay guys, wonderful. Coming up to, we're gonna sit on the ball, okay? Get up off of that floor.

Okay. And I do this almost every time I do a ball workout. I think it's important to feel some bigger movement and stability challenge. So I'm sitting on the ball. I've moved back to the back of the mat.

Reach your arms forward and we're gonna do, I'll move this for a second. There we go. We're gonna do a flexion of the spine, articulation. We're walking out. So pick one leg.

But before you do, flex your lower spine. Start walking out. Slow control. Look forward. Contract those abdominals.

I want us to get to the shoulder blades. Pause. I'm at the base of the shoulder blades and I'm just gonna have us pause and do the arm piece from double leg stretch three times with just the arms. Inhale the arms back and exhale around, contract deeper. Inhale and exhale, contract a little deeper.

One more time. Inhale, exhale, contract a little deeper. Now, pick your nondominant leg. Hopefully you know what that is. Step backward with it and push it to the floor.

Roll yourself up. Walk up to sitting tall. We've got that one more time, okay? So, flex the spine. Start walking out, slow controlled, trying not to hike either hip when you walk.

Same position. I still am maintaining this posterior tilt of the pelvis and flexion of the spine. So, the hamstrings and hip extensors are still active right here. We could actually have a conversation for awhile. That's what I want you to feel like you're in the ability to do great.

So you've got a lot of connection here to here, but let's challenge it with three arm circles and exhale around. Inhale. Reach further. Exhale around and one more. Inhale and exhale around.

It's time walk up or walk backward to sitting tall. You've gotta push. I'm also reaching forward all the way. Lift, inhale. Walking out again, everybody.

Same walkout. But this time we're gonna walk farther so that, whoop, I want you to get your upper back and your head on the ball, okay? And arms are straight up to the ceiling. And then with this take, make sure you have your glutes really engaged, your hips are in a posterior tilt. Tongue to chest expand.

Inhale, open your arms as wide as it feels comfortable and exhale. Arms up. Total of four. Inhale, open. Try not to sag the hips.

Use those glutes. Press your heels firmly into the floor and exhaling up. One more time. Inhale. Feels so good.

You know what? Stay there, let's go for five. Oh boy, one more repetition, but really get that stretch. Press those hips, arms up. We have to walk back.

You got to pick up your head in your chest. It's more abdominal work. You're walking back, you're walking back, you're walking back all the way up. Okay. Really nice.

Let's come on down to the floor again. And I want us to now think about the bridge. Not just think about it, we're gonna do bridges with straight legs, okay? So, we've warmed up the hamstrings quite a lot. We've warmed up the glutes.

I think you're ready for this. Excuse me, everybody there. For those of us that have the challenge in the back of the knees, this is a really important exercise for us, for everybody. But we really get to work extra committed I would say on the hamstrings and the connection actually at the top of the leg. Okay?

So here we go. Legs are together. Take a breath in. I want you to exhale and just simply press your hips up now. Press your hips up.

I've got my heels down on the ball. Say these things together, heels down, hips up, heels down, hips up, heels down, hips up and then we can come down to the mat. (Amy exhales) Two more times, breathing in. Now look straight to the sky. Shoulders are pressed.

Here we go. Heels down, hips up. You can say it the other way. Hips up, heels down, hips up, heels down, hips up, heels down and then lower all the way. Okay.

I'm going up again. I'm gonna add some bringing the ball to me. Choose it if you want. I'm only doing three. Press up.

Hips up, heels down. Roll the ball in, roll the ball away. Hips up, heels down, hips up, heels down. One more time with this round. Lower to the mat.

We've got one more exactly the same way. One more time. Breathing in. (Amy inhales) Exhale. Hips up, heels down.

Three rolls in. You're maintaining that nice high pelvis. I've got my arms connected to the floor. They're helping me. And one more time, inhale.

Exhaling out and everyone roll the hips down. Okay, great. Roll the ball back and forth. Okay. What I would have us do now is bring the ball in and hug your knees over it.

You can go with the way we did it at the very beginning with letting the hips open a little bit or be more parallel. But think of the exercise corkscrew. We're not doing the roll over bit of that. We're actually just gonna do the spinal movement of his corkscrew. I do this a lot as most of you know from the bridges.

So, here we go. Let's just bring our hips up. Okay? Again, I don't want you to focus a bunch in the hamstrings and the knees being fully extended. Do what you need there.

But think about your spine. I want you to start at your sternum spine on your back. Thoracic. Start to rotate that side of your spine more against the floor, articulate down. You're going to need to do a long posterior tilted lumbar spine to get to that side of the pelvis and then roll up that same side.

So we're in rotation as we articulate. Let's go to the other side. I'm thinking about the chest wall, starting the rotation at the chest wall on my back. That part of the upper spine coming down. I know you can't really see this very well probably, but it's the idea of the corkscrew tracking one side then the other.

Let's go to the first side, tracking down, down, down, and all the way up the same side. Rotate to the opposite side. I'm coming down my left side, left side, left side and up. Now we're gonna do one on the way round. So, come down the right side of the spine, come all the way to the pelvis, come across to the left and up.

And then we'll reverse it. Come down the left to the pelvis around and up the right. Good. We've prepared ourselves for saw. Come all the way down, everybody.

Roll yourself up. The kind of saw we're gonna do today is with the legs pretty wide apart. You need to sit yourself up, get yourself lifted. I need to adjust my mic pack and my pants. Okay.

Flex your ankles. Okay? So instead of this hand going to the outside of the pinky toe, it's gonna be busy holding the ball. So, I want you to take one hand on your ball. The other arm out into the side.

Rotate toward that leg. I'm gonna go toward you. You roll the ball, just like our normal saw, Flip that back arm up. Now reach. This rolling ball helps you go forward.

Go forward. Pull the waistline back just like in roll up. Use this back arm and press it up. See how much opposition you can create from the front to the back arm? Roll yourself back up and return to center.

Rotate to the other leg. Just roll the ball with you. So, you're reaching that ball kinda inside the big toe, back arm pulled up, lift through the stomach, lift the stomach in up and wide. Roll yourself up. Again, twist inhale.

And a little fun with the ball. Just reaching it forward. Pull the opposite hip back. See how much opposition you can create and roll yourself up to the other side. Inhale, exhale, reach.

How much opposition? You still want a long, lower lumbar. Back arm is lifted. Okay guys, we have one more each side. Go for it.

Breathe in, sit taller (inhales). Exhale. Get everything out of this. That quintessential kinda twist. Wring it out, wring it out, wring it out and up.

Other side (exhales). Reach. Okay and roll all the way up. Legs together. Flex the ankles.

We're gonna come into holding the ball in front of us again for a spine twist. Okay. I want you to breathe in where you are. Squeeze your butt. Rotate toward me as you exhale.

Three little pulses. One, two, three, center. (Amy inhales) Other side. Again, try to think of this more as a back exercise, not just abs. Really about the beautiful spinal erector muscles.

They're helping you stay lifted, strong, keeping space or the idea of space in the disks, right? So we're not compressed down. Two, three. One more like that (exhales). Now, we're gonna add a little bit onto it.

Take the arms up, get more extension. We're just doing side to side. Take a breath and rotate and let's pulse two, three, center. (Amy inhales) To the other side and pulse. Two, three, one more.

Let's check ourselves here and exhale and one, two, no leaning back, three, center and one, two, three. Oh my goodness. Okay. Stretch forward for just a moment. Okay, team, we're gettin' ready for some plank.

Okay. So, planking. Walk yourself to the far back of your mat. Adjust your clothes if you need to. (Amy sighs) Here we go.

Really have to challenge our connection. Okay? Let's start the first plank with our thighs on the ball, right? So, I'm just gonna have us hold the plank length for a second. Shoulders are well positioned.

You've got your shoulders right above your wrists, pressing into the pads of your fingers a little bit and then walk yourself back, okay? We're gonna try that again. And if that doesn't feel good on your flat hand, you can go up on a fist and I can show you what that looks like. So, that feels better to me today. I'm gonna go on my fists again.

So, let's just hold the integrity of this long body. Try to hollow out your tummy, energy to the crown of the head and back out through the legs. From this position, engage one of your legs a little bit so you can slightly lift it up off the ball and lower. Other side. Exhale.

I'm not lifting high. I wanna connect to my hip extensors. Hamstrings right up to that sit bone to the glutes. (Amy exhales) The lower glutes, right? 'Cause I'm not actually picking my leg up off the ball.

(Amy exhales) Second leg. One more each side and (grunts), turning out without sagging the hips is pretty challenging and let's walk ourself back. Okay. Going on to rolling further out, we're gonna do more abdominal work, piking on the ball. So you guys, I need you to get further out so that the toes, ankles are on your ball, okay?

Get yourself positioned, exhale, roll the ball in towards you. Roll it back out to a lice flat line. Exhale. Roll the ball in. My dog is mad at me today.

Roll it back out. One more time. Exhale. Roll it in and roll it out and then come down off the ball for just a second. Okay.

We're gonna do one more round, okay? I just have to get repositioned here. What's kind of fun about doing these live filmings and classes, if I were in not being filmed, I would probably be rolling around the floor just makin' it work for me, but I have to stay in a nice little spot (chuckles). So I need to of keep repositioning how I get myself on the ball. Yeah.

Okay. So once again, I've gotten the ball about to my thighs, almost my knees. I'm gonna roll in and this time make more of a little kind of child's pose on the ball. And I wanna let my pelvis and my lower lumbar get long toward my heels. Press the shins into the ball to lift the booty up, roll back out to your plank line.

Two more coming in. Think child's pose on the ball, deep abdominal contraction, lift the hips up and then roll yourself out long. One more time guys and lift, and lift and curl and lift and lengthen out. We're gonna walk our hands back and just rest for a moment. Okay.

All right? Coming out one more time. I'm gonna do a little bit of a swan. So, roll yourself. Okay?

So, you can get that ball knees or shins. All right. Now we have to use our arms. So press your arms, lower your chest. Try to lift your thighs a little bit.

I'm looking toward my hands. And then I'm gonna roll and pick myself up to plank. And as I reached back as if I'm lifting my legs, I'm kinda trying to lift them up off the ball a little bit and then roll it two more times. (Amy exhales) Use those glutes, use those hamstrings. Try to get 'em higher.

One more and last time. Swan long, long. And that's it. Okay. And come on down.

Oo man. That's tough. Okay. Side lying. Pick a side.

Come onto your knees and get your ball right against your thigh, okay? And then let's just take a moment. I talk about this in every class. I think about when you were in kneeling and we're going into side lying that we don't just flex at the hips and lean, right? So from your side view, you'd have a really nice flat open hip line like that.

So, in fact, you could just kind of practice it like this with puttin' your hips back and then it's from the booty, your hamstrings and your glutes that press the thighs forward, right? Practice that a couple times. If you're really driving it from the hips, right? No different than when we're here. So, as we're going to side lying, keep the hips forward.

Take that one leg out to the side. This hand can come on the floor, but let's just be here. It's a nice, simple place. Which pelvis should be more extended? Well, both sides but it's probably your base hip here.

Press that forward. Let's take this arm three times arc and arc. I just like to move my head with it. Stretch and open. And last time.

And then this hand is gonna come behind the head and you connect your head into your hand. Of course we lift and we lower and we lift and I'm keeping that bottom hip pressed forward as I abduct my leg, my elbow is high, my chest is open. Here we go for five. Front and back, flex that foot. Here we go.

Kick, kick, point it to the back. Use those glutes. Five repetitions, guys. Press, press. I'm trying not to relax on the ball and it's supporting me.

I'm certainly enjoying having it there, but I'm not leaning on it. That was our five. Take your leg straight to the side. You're gonna do three little circles one direction. One.

Emphasize the up and back and up and back. Reverse it back and up, back and up and back and up. This knee comes to the floor and you do a little counter stretch opposite. Let that head go. (Amy exhales) Great work.

Ready for the other side? Okay. So just walk around and that ball was right against your thigh. Feel hip extension first. Challenging yourself, especially in this inside hip to not drop the pelvis backward.

Don't sit back. Extend as you come into your side position., okay? Even here reconnect. The ribs should stay anchored, the pelvis is forward. Arm movement over the head and down to the hip.

You can look at that hand. It's nice to breathe. (Amy inhales) And exhale. (Amy exhales) One more time. And then that hand stays.

It comes behind your head as it presses back into your hand. Your lifting leg is parallel. One and two. Right from the side of that hip. Three.

Four. Oo, my foot's cramping. Last one, five. Hold. Flex that foot, front and back we go.

One, two. From the back of the thigh, press, press. Front, front, back, back. Front, front, back, back. You've got two more.

One more. Okay. And back, back. Leg is out to the side. Three circles.

Pick a direction. Emphasize when you go up and back. Up and back. Reverse it. Back and up and back and up and back and up, and then down counter stretch.

How is everyone feeling? Told you you'd feel all your body parts. We've got our hips, hamstrings, glutes, abs, back muscles, arm muscles. Now, this is one of my favorites to do. I think I've done it on every ball class I've ever filmed in 10 years from PA.

I do it all the time. It's like a squat to a swan. It just feels really good, okay? Now, feet are apart. That's not really a swan.

It's a back extension, but it kind of feels like a swan, but back dive, okay? So, what I'm thinking guys is to come down here and I get myself situated, holding the ball so it won't fall out from underneath you and squat your hips down. Yep. Doesn't look that glamorous, but it's so nice just to let the hips squat, the ball is helping us arch that spine. Arms come forward and now we press the legs and you extend your legs and you just lay back over the ball.

I really hope you can get your upper back and head on that ball. If you can't try to go as far as you can without any discomfort. Okay? Arms circle out to the sides. As the arms come circling down, pick up your head and you're coming down into your squat again.

I was thinking three to four of those. They're really slow and kind of like a nice, well, yeah, stretchy, right? And engage your back. Lift that chest. Bring your arms up and come into a squat.

We've got two more. Really lose those legs. Those are some hip extension muscles right there. Get long through your thoracic. Enjoy being over the ball.

Maybe we do two circles this time. Gettin' crazy. Two circles and down. Whew! One more time, everyone. I'm gonna go for two circles again.

And just really lay back. Circle, open that chest and open that chest. One more big circle. Ah. And come all the way around.

Okay. Last thing that we're gonna do here, ah, is a kneeling cat and a little shoulder stretch and tricep stretch, okay? So here you are, up on your knees. The ball's close to you, fingertips are on it. You most likely are gonna have to walk your fingers a little bit and so let's come into again, our hip extension into our cat and I want us to go even further and let, like, if we had a cat that wants to lift its tail up, lift your tail and rather than just collapsing the chest down to the ground, reach your chest toward the ball and open up the armpit, right?

So think about it being long and open. Now, when we come back, let's press the hands against the ball, roll ourselves up. I'm gonna do two more of those. If you wanna tuck your feet, heels are together, toes are tucked down, it might help you get a little more hip extension. Breathe in, exhale round.

Scoop that stomach. It's okay to walk your hands on the ball. What are we doing? We're doing flexion to extension. Really undulate, undulate.

Now, if you want to drop your chest lower on this one, just make sure it doesn't damage your and feel like you're overdoing it in your shoulder or your elbow. I'm thinking low to the floor, but long. Yep. And then roll it up. One more you guys.

Deep breath. Exhaling and round. And then the last stretch here, if you want to just put your elbows up on the ball, get it really close to the front of you and you gotta reach your elbows forward. It's easier to do on a flat surface? The ball's kind of a bit tricky.

Yeah. Okay. And then to finish plop yourself over your ball, put your hands and feet on the floor. Quite literally just kind of conform your body to the shape of the ball and breathe about five to six times side to side, top to bottom, front to back. And the ball work is so fun because we have to control the movement of the ball, right?

So those deep, deep, deep stabilizers are always kinda more involved than we think they are because it's helping so that we don't fall off of the darn thing. And that provides some pretty nice muscle specific work, maybe a little bit differently than when we normally do our mat work. So, thank you. And last week, if you guys were here with me last week, we did the 34, the whole list and I felt really good after that class. I got some great feedback from you.

So, thank you for that. And at the end though, I said that we would have done a pajama party today and I kinda forgot that I said that until yesterday I went oops. So, look for that soon, okay? But kind of what I'm thinking going forward in the next few weeks for sure, there'll be a cardio mat coming with just a little bit more of a feeling of intensity and speed maybe and a little bit of that. And then I get a lot of feedback on the restorative classes.

So, I'm in the mood for another one of those myself that might have some music and some of that, just stress relief kind of focus to it. So anyway, thank you all so much for coming again to take class with me and all of us on PA. Mary Rogers is up tomorrow morning. Same time. She's in her house and Kristi's on Thursday.

We've got some special things coming up. Sherri Betz is tomorrow. I get to interview Sherri at noon in California time. And we're talking about seniors and things to do with seniors. So, stay tuned.

Come play with us, come live and have a great week everyone. I'll see you next time. Buh bye.