Isometrics and Leg Day

Hello, everybody, Good morning or good afternoon, whatever time you are watching this. For this episode of Pilates-ish, we are gonna be focusing on isometrics. So isometrics are not actually the best way to strengthen your body, I would argue that eccentrics are the best way to strengthen your body. But isometrics can play a really important role. And that role can be that you find a spot where you're weak, and you wanna get stronger at that particular spot.

A personal instance is I'm working on getting to be able to do five pull ups in a row. My toughest spot is like from here to here. So I'm working on holding this position and then holding up the different positions around it. So in this class we're gonna be doing, holding positions, but then also finding them maybe tougher positions that are around them that we ignore, because we think we're at the plenty hard enough to hold. We'll be doing some like small pulses, we'll also be doing some more full range of motion leg stuff, we haven't done a ton of legs in my class.

So go ahead and start. Seated up right, you can have your hands behind your knees, and we're gonna start with a little bit of sort of a half roll down. So on an exhale, just gonna round back, letting your arms go straight, and then stay round as you come forward. And then you can extend your spine all the way tall. Again, leading with your lower back, begin to round back, arms lengthen, and then round forward, and come back up.

Now what we're gonna try to do is find a spot that your body doesn't like to hold on to. So arms for being to round back, and you're gonna find the first part where it's a little bit hard. So it's like a little bit hard here. And we're just gonna hold. This is like a good time to plan your day.

If you're going grocery shopping later to plan that. Never go grocery shopping hungry, it's not a myth. Totally true, you'll just end up buying snacks. So now, this is probably not your hardest point, the first point where you went down. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna try to go back a little bit more.

And then don't forget to breathe, especially in isometrics I think we forget to breathe. Oh, side notes, if you have hypertension, isometrics are not for you. So this is not your class. There's tons and tons and tons of classes on Pilates Anytime, find something that doesn't make you hold one position, we're gonna see if you're lying to yourself. And if you go back a little bit further, is that more onerous or less onerous than your last position.

Because if it's more onerous as it is, for me, that means you're weaker in that position. And they will give yourself a break, by letting you come all the way up and extend your spine. Remember the spot you didn't like, we're gonna go back to the spot you didn't like. So arms forward, exhale as you round back to the spot, maybe you didn't like. And we're gonna add a second isometric exercise, you're gonna bring your palms together and squeeze.

So you wanna do something's called maximum voluntary contraction, where you're going to push as hard as you can. And one cool thing about isometrics is attempts to really target all of the little muscle fibers around something, reach your arms forward, come back up for a little bit of a break. So you might wear, if you did a bicep curl, like a considered bicep curl, you might get like 60% of the available muscle fibers, you're gonna get more of them when you're doing an isometric. So let's round back not quite as far. We'll do that again, where you're pushing your hands together, really squeezing your hands together.

And we're gonna rotate towards your computer screen, or television or whatever you're watching on, and back to center. And then you rotate the other way, and back to center. And rotate, and back to center. We might not be in our peak, hardest position, but maybe you can go there, and then you rotate the other way. And I'm just trying to keep my chin in line with my fingers here, and rotate the other way.

And then you can make yourself all the way back up. I do one more arm position here. I'm gonna do a little turn towards the camera so you can see it. So if I bend one arm into a bicep curl, I'm gonna push down. This also kind of looks like if you were posing in some sort of muscle magazine, what you would be doing, but what we're gonna do is the bicep curl one arm of tricep press, the other arm.

So still in a roll back, so bicep curl, left, push with your right, and you're really trying to make your bicep pop, and your tricep also, pop. You're gonna feel more bicep and tricep. And it will rotate towards the bicep side. Maybe you can go back two inches, maybe you can go back four inches. And don't forget to breathe.

Come to center, just switch hands, more of a twist towards the bicep side. This is so unpleasant. And then come back to center, and then sit yourself all the way back up. We're gonna do that one more time. So left bicep curl, right tricep press, round back, maybe let's do straight legs this time.

And then we'll turn towards the camera side, see if you can round back a little bit more. And then really push and then really pull your abs in and lift back up. Then you have your right bicep, left tricep, you round back, and rotate. And then see if you can round back a little bit more. And then we come back to center, sit yourself all the way up, do a little bit of a forward fold, just to release that.

We're gonna come back all the way down to the floor. But we're gonna go slow, so start seated upright, exhale, you round back a little bit. This should be like really easy to hold, we're gonna round back a little bit more, still relatively easy to hold, round back a little bit more. And each time I'm rounding back, I'm thinking about trying to bring my hipbones towards my rib bone. Some gain more length, through my lower back, more length, through my lower back, more length through my lower back.

Until I'm all the way down on the floor. That feels awesome just to be stretched out here. We're gonna come into a hollow body hold and we're gonna do it. First one leg forward, next the other leg forward, we've done hollow bodies and other classes of mine really big fan. So let's bend your right knee.

So it's in line with your left, right knee, left knee and right foot are in one. You're gonna lift your head and chest up, hover your legs, and we're just gonna hold and breathe. And your brain actually really likes isometrics because it has to pay attention to doing the same thing. And it's like, why, why Mariska? Are you being so mean and make us do the same exercise and just hold it.

Then you can go ahead and lower that down, right leg extends, left leg bends. So left arch of the foot is in line with your right, you can even make them touch each other. Head and chest lift, hover your legs and breathe. And really extend through your right leg. I think quad is engaged, abs are engaged, chest is pulling forward, shoulders are down, and then you can lower that all the way back down.

We're not done with hollows, we're gonna take a little break. And we're gonna do a bunch of different bridge variations. Some will be isometric, some will not be. So let's go ahead and start by pressing into your feet, have your low back touch, lift your hips up. Now I could make a bridge focused on pretty much any muscle that I wanna focus on just by how we would queue it.

So on this first one, let's go ahead and walk your feet away from you a little bit. Think about pulling with your heels towards your armpits so that you should feel your hamstrings engaged. See if you can lift your hips up a little bit more from there, and we're just gonna hold the hamstrings hamstrings hamstrings. It's kinda hard not to talk and ramble when you're just trying to hold positions instead of smoothly moving from one position to the next. See if you can get more pull up your hamstrings, you might have to lift your toes up so you can really dig into your heels.

And now I'm also feeling glutes, I've lifted my hips up. And then without lowering down, walk your feet in a little bit more. Now this time push like you're trying to extend your legs without actually pushing yourself off the mat and you should feel more quads. And keep pushing like imagine you're on one of those really stupid leg extension machines which I'm sure are good for like one rehab exercise, but other than that are fairly useless. You're trying to extend your legs out, extending your legs so we're isometrically doing a leg extension.

Keep your abs pulled in, but tucked under, lift your hips up. And now release that tension a little bit, it's like lower your hips down, just a little break, right? Tilt your pelvis lift back up. Now on this one, think about screwing your feet into the floor, and you should feel your outer hips turning on. And you can have a little rotation of your knees out, I think that's fine.

And you should be feeling more outer glutes, glute med, a little bit TFL. Also just regular glute max like hip extensors, and breathe. And then lower that all the way back down. We're gonna do another Hello hold, we're gonna do sort of an X. But I might do my arms more to a T but my legs will still be up.

So head and chest lift, arms reach, reach a leg and extra rotation, reach a leg and extra rotation can reach your arms and we're just gonna hold, hold and breathe, breathe and hold. Go ahead and bend everything back in, lower your feet back down. This time, our bridge will be a little bit more active. So go ahead and press into your feet, peel your hips up. We're gonna drop down halfway, let your left leg open like it's in a clam, lift back up, it comes back to center.

Open your right leg like it's gonna clamp and back center. You can keep your hands on your hips, so that you feel that your hip bones stay pointing up towards the ceiling. And the movement is happening from finding an external rotation in your hip joint. And then coming back to neutral. I actually don't think it's...

I don't think any movement is wrong. But I don't think it's bad in this exercise to maybe even let your hips dip a little bit. I think that kind of feels nice. You're letting one leg open, closed on the left. Other leg open, close on the left.

Right leg up. And in, left leg out and in, right leg out, and in left. Right and left. Now we'll do both together. Both legs out squeezing.

Now I'm not actually touching my legs, but you wanna feel like your inner thighs are working as you pull your legs towards midline. Inhale to open. Exhale to lift. Inhale to open. Exhale to lift.

Let's do eight more. Maybe you can come a little bit higher on your lift too. Three, four five, six, seven and eight. On this one really squeezed. So I'm not actually gonna get my knees to touch but I'm thinking of as much energy in towards the midline as possible to really feel your adductors working.

Push into your heels so you feel your quads working, turn your that idea of rotating your feet out so you feel are your hips working. Now switch so you pull in with your heels, feel your hamstrings working, press down a little bit higher so you feel your glutes working. And then slowly, bone by bone, lay your spine all the way back down. We'll just let your legs kind of windshield wiper a little bit from side to side. We gonna take your left leg stretch all the way long on the floor.

You're gonna bring your right leg up so that your hands kinda plastic behind your right leg. And what I want you to do is actively try to crush your hands with your legs. So really squeezing your hamstring and your path towards you. So it was a really big hamstring squeeze and a really kind of tight range of motion. And then you can release a little bit.

Again, squeeze in, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Again, try to crush your fingers, and release, ready three more like that. Squeeze hold, and release. Squeeze hold and release. And squeeze hold, and release.

Put a little bend in your left leg just so your left foot can be planted down on the floor. Extend your right leg up towards the ceiling. Give it a little bit of a pull in towards the point your foot, flex your foot, point and flex, point and flex, we'll do two more. One and two, you're gonna release your leg. So this gravitationally does not really feel like work 'cause it's just gently going straight down.

So I'm gonna do is I'm gonna reach my leg away from me, so I feel some work in my hip flexor and just hold on, at like level one, we're gonna go through five levels, go to level two. So a little bit lower. And then we go to level three. And then we go to level four. And logically, it should feel heavier, the lower you get.

And then go to level five, which is not on the ground, it's just kind of hovering. And we're gonna hold the longest here 'cause it should be the hardest. Now while we're here, I want you to bend your knee a little bit, push, bend your knee a little bit push. So you think of releasing the tightness in your quad reestablishing the tightness in your quad. Bend, push, bend, push.

Let's do eight more one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight, go ahead and lower that like all the way down and take your left leg. Squeeze like you're trying to crush your fingers. Squeeze and hold, and release. And then squeeze and hold, and release. That's three more.

Squeeze, try to crush your fingers. Squeeze and hold. And last one, squeeze and hold, and release. Little bend in your right leg can extend your left leg up towards the ceiling. See if you could pull it toward you, flex and point now I have very little flex in my left ankle.

So I'm just doing the flex that I have. Leave your leg up, arms come down by your side. You're gonna lower lower to level one or five, just lower and hold lots of energy till you're like level two, level three. Go a little bit lower, there's four. Again, lots of energy through your life.

Here's five, we're just gonna hold. Think length through that side. Make sure both sides of your sacrum feel evenly heavy into the ground there, we're gonna bend your leg a little, push. Bend a little push. Bend, push, bend, push.

We'll do eight more. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Go ahead and have both of your legs come down. So we're gonna bring your right knee towards you. Left hand on top of your right knee, right and on top of your right ankle.

You're gonna lift your head and chest up. So really pulling this leg in. Less leg extends lots of energy through your leg. Pull your right leg in as much as you can. So see if you can pull it in even further from there, and now our goal is gonna be to hold it in without having your hands hold it.

So let's hold for eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight, switch legs. So left hand on top or right hand on top of left knee, left hand on left ankle. You really pull your leg in, see if you can pull in. Even a little bit more in there, see if you can keep it there. And just hold on for eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight.

Both legs in, head down for a second. We have both legs pulled in, extend both legs out. So it's a double leg stretch, we're just gonna hold each position. So lift up and hold. So maybe hands on your knees to get a little bit more pull, reach everything out and hold.

Pull to come in and hold. Reach to go out. Last one, pull to come in and reach to go out. Hands behind your head, lower everything down, we're gonna do the world's slowest book, probably not the world's slowest, but it's slow crisscross. So head and just lift up.

Bring your right leg to tabletop, bring your left leg to tabletop, pull your knees in a little bit closer, we're gonna twist towards the right. See if you can lift up another entire right knee and another inch closer. Come through center, rotate left. Pull your left knee in a little bit, lift your chest up a little bit more, and at center. Right twist and center.

Left twist and center. One more each side. Right twist and center. And left twist and center. Go ahead and have your legs come all the way in, maybe you rock a little bit from side to side.

Let your legs go straight and then prop yourself up on your elbows, and then you can push your arms all the way straight. So hands can come behind you, and then take your shoulders, roll them back, I have my hands turned out. We're gonna lift up, see if you put your shoulders back a little bit more. To get your feet more towards the floor. Lengthen your spine, tuck your pelvis.

Don't forget to breathe, we're just holding. Holding everything, breathing and holding the most today. Lower down just halfway, lift right back up. Lower down just halfway. And again, lift back up.

Make sure your shoulders roll back. And let's lower all the way down to just a hinge from your hips. Go ahead and bend your knees, bring your feet flat to the floor. You can have your fingertips turned in. If you're on a squishy mat and the squishy mat is disagreeable to your wrists, you can have your hands come to the floor, you're gonna lift your hips up a little bit, we're gonna do a tricep bend, and just hold.

So from here, make sure your shoulders are rolled onto your back elbows, pointing straight back. Thinking happy thoughts about traveling again and going places someday. Elbows back more, shoulders back more. See if you can dip a little bit lower. Now shift your weight back.

When you shift your weight back, should feel way more tricep. So I was feeling more kind of front deltoids when I was more forward, just not bad, different muscle. Just thinking of the Princess' Bride when he sends his mind away to other places, when he's doing stuff that's unpleasant, like being tortured. Not that I'm saying I'm torturing you, but maybe a little bit. And let's go ahead we'll have a seat all the way down, you check out your wrist a little bit.

We're gonna do a little intermission before we do another tricep-type exercise. So I want you to sit with your legs in a butterfly. The first part is gonna be more of an active motion. So arms forward, exhale to round back a little bit. Right, take your right leg lift up and lower down.

Left leg and down. Right and down, left and down. Right and left. We'll do eight more. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight.

We're gonna take your arms rotate towards the right at the same time as your right knee comes up and your left wrist ends up on top of your right knee, and then open it back up. Your left knee comes up with your right wrist coming on top of it and back to center. Rotate and center. Rotate and center. Rotate and center so I guess this would be a butterfly clam, twist, half roll back.

If you need to give it a name. Rotate and back to center, rotate and back to center. We'll do four more. Two, three and four. Go ahead and come up to seated.

Shoulders back ran around back a little bit more. This time I'm gonna take your right leg up here just gonna do eight low lifts. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Lower your right leg, left leg up. Two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight.

Bring your hands back behind you and your legs, you're just gonna scoot them away a little bit, but they're going still be in a butterfly. I think I might want my hands, fingers facing side, you're gonna lift your hips up. You're gonna shift forward and push back. So I can almost go, straight, push. Push, forward, and back.

Forward and back, we'll just do three more like this. One, two and three. I'm gonna go ahead and have a seat down. I'm just gonna walk my hands closer, so that when I come into that forward position, I'm really forward. So moving forward, almost till your butt touches your heels.

And then back. Forward and back. When you go forward, see if you can open your knees more so you get more of an inner thigh stretch. Open and forward. Open and forward, last three.

And two, and three. Hips lower down. You're gonna come up to see it, I want you to take your right leg first, try to push your right knee down to the force as an active press. So it's a stretch on your right adductor. Engagement of your right abductor.

And you're just trying to hold, and then you can release that tension. Now you're gonna push your left leg down. So again, you might feel the stretch, in your left inner thigh so your left outer hip working. And then come back to center. Now we're gonna use your arms at some leverage here.

So you're gonna push down. Now push up. So engage your adductors or adductors or inner thighs to try to lift your knees up towards the ceiling. Now we're just creating our own resistance for an isometric hold. And then release.

We'll do that twice more. Push up and lower back down, and push up and lower back down. Scoot back, a smidge. You're gonna have your legs still in this butterfly position. Lean back so your legs can lift up.

You're gonna push them out, pull to come back in. Out and in, out and in for eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Straight legs, reach forward for your feet. Now if you have tighter hamstrings, you can keep your knees bent, but we're actually do some isometric calf work. So you're gonna push into your hands but try not to actually let your feet move, and then release.

Again, push and release. Press and release. Press and release. So do four more. One, two, three and four.

Hands calm, let's see. Have your knees bent, hands come kind of by your sides and lift your hips up, resend your hips through sort of like we're coming into an L sit or would be like a tendon stretch, and you're gonna try to hold your hips up. And if you have a bigger butt or a longer waist or shorter arms, this might not work without you having your hands propped up on something. And that's not a character flaw, that's just how your body is. Pressed down the top, pull your abs in.

Some people can like hover their legs and I am not some people. But it's pretty cool when they can. Again press back, lift up and breathe and breathe. And then you can lower all the way back down. We're gonna hug behind your legs and then try to find a balance position.

So from this position here, see if you can extend your right leg straight and lower down. Left leg up and down. Right leg up and down the left leg and down, think about really engaging your quad. I have a tighter left leg than right leg. So I have to think harder about what my left leg is doing.

Right leg extends, left leg extends, glue your legs together, try to get them both to lift without you turning this into a rolling exercise. And lower back down. Again, lift and lower, lift, maybe release the death grip on the back of your legs, see if you can keep your legs where they are, reach your arms forward. And we're gonna cross your legs at the ankles, so we can roll over your feet and come to a quadruped position. Ready to hovered knees two ways.

So the first way is gonna be a protracted shoulder, which I think is much easier. The second way will be a neutral shoulder. So you're gonna tuck your toes under. From here, hover your knees and push into the floor, maybe tuck your butt under a little bit, and we're just breathing and holding and shaking. Shaking is sort of mandatory and some of these isometrics you're not shaking, you're either way stronger than me or you're doing it wrong.

Yes, we're still holding, case you're wondering. And then go ahead and drop down to your knees, can have this little sit back. Let's take that little sit back into some knee squats. So a knee squat is just doing a squat standing on your knees. So we're gonna do a down for count up one.

So you can have your arms wherever, can tuck your butt under you, we're gonna go down two, three, sit a new pop right back up. Again, down two, three, four, up. Down two, three, four, up. Two more, down, two, three, four, up and down two, three, four and up. We're gonna come back to our quadrants.

So in the last one we really pushed away, protracting our shoulder blades, this one shoulder blades gonna stay neutral on your back, your back is gonna stay neutral, just hover your knees and hold. I don't like this, this one is much less fun. Not that the first one was fun, I didn't enjoy the first one either. This one I enjoy less. Go ahead and drop down to your knees.

We're gonna do a little bit of active movement here. Just because God knows we need to do something or removing a lot. So I want you to take your left leg. You're gonna stay down your left leg, and you lift your right leg up. You can have your toes pointed or flexed or whatever.

So from this position, we're gonna do little lifts for eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Extend your leg, I'm gonna say what that's maybe a third of the way. Lift up, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. We gonna go maybe a little bit more back, lift up.

Eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Goes all the way extended, it's eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, just lift it up and hold. Bend it a little bit and hold. Bend it a little bit more and hold. A little bit more and hold.

And then we'll come to your tightest position. See if you can lift up a little bit more. If you feel like you're dipping into one side, try to even off your hips. And then we're gonna take the foot that's up and you're gonna step it forward, so it's in the lunch. So you want your knee to be over your ankle, Come up to your back toes, and we're gonna do a little hop from left to right at the mat eight times.

There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Go ahead and drop to your knees. That you want your front knee to be forward. And your back knee can be kind of right underneath your back hip. We'll see how bad my balance is.

We did that exercise before we squeezed our hands together and do it again. So on this one, we're gonna lean forward into your right leg as you rotate towards the left. And return to center. If you need to lower your hands down to the ground fall, lower hands down, we rotate, and back to center and rotate and center. Hands can come down, let's step it back into a plank.

And we're gonna lower down slowly. So it's lower down on an eight count down on one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Gets us all the way down. You do a little Swan stretch, just because we need sometimes a break from one thing to the other thing, right? Take your left leg.

Actually come to your left knee first, just to be even. So left knee first, right knee down. It will all come together eventually. You bring your left leg up, it bet, gonna do eight bullets. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Do a little bit more extended. Eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. A little bit more extended, Eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. We go all the way straight, for eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Slow pull in, hold.

Slow pull in, hold. Slow in, slow in, and then our biggest end, see if you lift your knee up a little bit higher. And then we're gonna take this leg forward, so that we're coming into sort of a short lunch. And this is actually one of my rehab exercises. So I'm not good at it, but it's one of my rehab exercises.

So it's something I should be doing. Then tuck your back, toes under. We've got the eight hops, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Knee down, top of your foot down. Go ahead and bring your hands into that position where they're squeezed together, you're gonna rotate and come back to center.

Rotate and back to center. And last one, rotate and back to center. Hands down, sweep your foot back. We're gonna do an on your knee plank or on your toes plank. What the hell, I'm gonna do on my toes, and we're just gonna go down into a bent position, and we're gonna hold it.

So hold on for eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. See if you can push back up. Let's take a quick child's pose, arms reach forward. And let's go ahead and come up. So we're gonna sit with your hips on your heels.

We'll do a little bit of a horseback variation. So imagine you have a ladder barrel or chair or whatever you have. We're gonna have a scoop of your abs, a press down in your shins. And that thought of lifting up just a little bit. So arms back, tuck under lift.

So we're just holding, so you should feel your quads being engaged. So we are not using inner thighs like we would in horseback we are using our abs so we would. And then you can sit back down. On the second way, come up, we're gonna do arm circles, we'll do four each direction. Tuck under left arm circle one, two, three, four.

Other direction one, two, three and four. Considered all the way back. I've got one more of this. Mentally prepare, big inhale, exhale, lift, tilt your pelvis, circle one, two, three, four. we switch it, four, two, three, and four.

Go ahead and sit all the way back down. Sometimes I feel like it really makes your quads speak to you. So you need to give them a little bit of a break. We're gonna come over and do a bicep plank. Now on a bicep plank, your arms are going to be really far back and your fingers are gonna face back.

If this does not work for your wrist, you can try turning them out, it's a little bit less difficult. Or you can go back and do a regular kind of plank hold. So I'm on my knees, hands, face back, and I'm gonna bend my elbows and just hover. And hold and breathe, breathe and hold. And then can lower all the way down.

Let's go ahead and bring your arms to an X, and your legs to an X and we're just gonna do a little bit of an arched back lift. Just gonna lift up and hold and breathe. The breathing too is to remind me 'cause I'm really one of those people who just doesn't breathe, when I'm doing isometrics. It doesn't actually make it easier. Go ahead and come back.

Shake out your wrists, we're gonna do that bicep thing one more time, because that was really super not fun at all, but I feel like it was effective. So pants back, gonna have to find your happy position. Lean forward and hold. Last eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. We'll go all the way down.

Arms back to an X. If you wanna do this more is like a swimming position you can, you're gonna lift everything up, and then go ahead and just lower down, you can kind of shimmy your hips a little bit from side to side. And let's go ahead and we're just gonna come into a downward facing dog. So you can be kind of, I wouldn't be a full planks distance away. So you just wanna feel that overhead push but lifts up towards the ceiling.

This should actually probably feel good right now, just kind of an overall total body stretch. But we're gonna bend your elbows, and just hold with bent elbows. I would say turn you're always in toward each other 'cause I think that makes it like 3% easier. And then you can go ahead and press your arms straight, step into a plank, and then we're gonna go ahead and lower everything all the way back down. Stand on your knees, we're gonna do like a kind of a regular sized stretch, tuck your hips under.

You can keep your hands on your hips, you can bring your arms forward, you can do whatever you want. Arm wise, we're just gonna hinge at your knee joint and then lift yourself back up. We'll do that again. Hinging back and lifting up. Hinge back, you can go two inches lower and then lift back up.

One more time. We hinge, see if you can go back a little bit more. And then let's come all the way up. Come to lying down on your side, I'm gonna lie down on a long arm. So me resting, like so, take your top leg up, extend it back, bring your bottom leg forward.

We're gonna start by taking your bottom leg and just doing a little lift. We'll go eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Right leg stays where it is, top leg. Eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Now your bottom leg circle eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Top leg eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Bottom leg bent, push two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Top leg bend, push two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Squeeze everything together, legs are separate, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Go ahead and come on to your stomach, you're gonna push yourself up into a quadrupeds.

So in one of my earlier classes in this series, we did a punch. A punches like a plank with your hands way far back. If it's too risky for you can have your hands on like weights, you can have them on fist, if you have a squishy enough mat, but you're gonna have your hands on the floor. And I would say start with your knees kind of closer in, tuck your toes under, shift forward. On here, I really protract.

Think about you're trying to send your head to the opposite side of the room. And we're holding. I also kind of grip with my fingers because I feel like that makes my wrists get bothered less by this. Go ahead and drop down to your knees. We're gonna come to our other side of sideline, I'm gonna turn this way so you don't see my butt.

And you're gonna lie down, so you have a long arm, top leg back, bottom leg forward, bottom leg up. Eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Top leg eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight, bottom leg circles eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Top leg eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Bottom leg bend, push two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Top leg eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Legs come together and separate, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. And then go ahead and just make your way onto your stomach. Whatever direction you're facing. We're gonna do another plank.

So this one, I think I'm gonna come to the tops of my toes. Actually, because it makes you have to work your quads more. So hands down, shift forward. And we're just gonna hold in this position. Hold and breathe.

Really want some chocolate right now. I feel like that would help. And then drop down to your knees, go ahead and press back remembering the tops of your hands down so that you can get a little bit of a stretch through your wrists. And then I curl my fingertips here, because I feel like that gives like a nice stretch, she might not get otherwise. And I'll turn this way.

And then we're just gonna do some hand circles. We're gonna finish off before we stretch with what I consider one of the world's best isometrics. And if you ever were in G class, or had a coach, for any high school sport, or college sport, or general sport, I guarantee you've done this, I don't have the best wall for it. But we are going to do wall squats. So you wanna stand away rom the wall a little bit.

And you're gonna have a seat. And try to bring your hips so that they're about at knee level. Make sure your shoulders stay against the wall. And we're just gonna breathe. I feel like if I had kids, I don't have kids.

But if I did, I'd probably make them do feats of strength, which might be child abuse, I'm not sure. If they were ever doing anything wrong, I'd make them do push ups or wall squats or something like that. So if they were really good, they might be out of shape kids. But if they were really bad, they could be really in shape kids, I'm not quite sure where that stands on, like the ethics of child rearing, probably best I don't have any. And again, we're breathing, maybe your quads are talking to you.

Mine certainly are. See if you can go down a little bit lower. It does help actually to push your body into the wall, and this horrible tennis coach and she used to make me do this. Can bring your hands back towards the wall, kind of push yourself up and ready to come down. That's where I'm at to do some stretches.

And I think quads are definitely an area that we might wanna stretch. So first we're gonna do a John Travolta stretch. So you're gonna have one hand on the floor behind you, you're gonna lift your hips up, other arm comes overhead. And then you can lower back down. Switch, lift up, and lower back down.

Let's go ahead and take it into a lunch, doesn't matter which leg is forward. So I'm just putting one leg forward. First I wanna come up. So instead of thinking my stretch is going down, I'm thinking my stretch is going up. So as I go up towards the ceiling, I have a slight tuck with my pelvis, which is gonna bring the stretch more into my hip flexor, then from there, if you wanna go deeper into it, then you can sort of sink forward.

I'm gonna leave my one hand on my knee and lift my opposite arm up, and then take it back some. And then you can do a little side bend, if you want. Let's see if your hand touches the floor. And let's go ahead and come back. We're gonna extend your front leg, sit your hips back a little bit, so that you can feel a stretch through your hamstring on your front leg.

And I might take one more stretch forward, one more stretch back. I would have maybe taken that into more of a normal kind of hamstring stretch except this map does not have any slip to it. So you really don't have much ability to slide. So again, other foot forward, we're not going down, we're going up, there stretch ponytail up towards the ceiling. Then you can lean into it, can take your opposite arm and begin to reach it up and behind you.

And if you wanna take it into more of a side stretch, you can see if your hands can touch the floor. I think I'll lose my balance, if I go there. Hands come down. We're gonna go back, let your left leg go straighter. It's more of a hamstring stretch, kind of pulling my ankle back on that side, come forward.

And again, we'll go back. And then we'll sweep it around and actually do a quick tricep stretch. So, we're gonna lay down, drop one elbow to the floor, reach my hand to my upper back and then see if I can push my triceps to the floor. Now I know to be on my stomach for this because I am so tight that my triceps are not gonna get there. But if you are looser, you can do this from like a child's pose.

And it actually also works if you're tight from child's pose. You're just trying to get some leverage to your elbow and I'm actually actively pressing my elbow down into the floor as well. Quick press back to child's pose. If you didn't end up there already. Nice reach of your arms overhead, and then slowly roll yourself up.

You can take any last stretches that are meaningful to you. I will be here next week, we're gonna do gliders, which I'm not super good at. So I'm already having a little agita over that, but my outfit's really cute. So there is that. I hope to see you next week, and if you have any requests for my last class, which is gonna be a little bit more free for all, you can always ask me and I will try to throw it in.