Foam Roll Fun 2.0

Hi everybody, good whatever time of day it is for you, it happens to be morning here in California. We are going to enjoy working on this foam roll again today. I'm hoping that you will feel both stretched and worked and relaxed and also have a little bit of fun. Remember, as you listen to your body, don't do something if it doesn't feel right, if you need to move in a slightly different way, I always welcome you to find your own way and additionally, I'll try to give you various different options today. So go ahead and just have this sitting right here somewhere, we're not gonna use it just yet and survey your body.

Look down at your feet, make sure that they're separated a bit not too much, and then grow tall and try to feel that your weight is centered on both the fronts and the backs of your feet, both feet equally. And take the arms up for a breath, gazing up as you do. And then with an exhale, take the arms down and grow a little taller through the crown of the head. And again, inhale, lift. Focus on breath today.

Pleasure, patience, work to find something new and interesting in each move. One more time here, hold it up. So go ahead and hold on to one wrist with the other hand and take a little side bend stretch so think about reaching up and just find a little something to loosen. And then change sides. So I'm just gonna take my wrist, my other wrist and I'm gonna reach over and just breathe and stretch.

And then take the arms down and let's do a roll down here. Allow your head to go first, your upper back, your low back, your knees can bend here, I like to bend my knees especially in the morning time. Allow your head to dangle, relax, shake it out a little bit. Allow your shoulders to relax. Take a breath and then round and roll yourself up to a standing position.

Again, feel free to keep the knees a little bit bent the entire time if you'd like or straighten them if that suits you. Inhale, exhale, peeling forward, head, upper back, feel the belly working, allow the arms to relax. So when I say the belly working, just a hint of kind of drawing in with my belly so that I'm supporting my low back and then roll yourself up to a standing position. This time let's just add on down there, inhale, tall. Exhale rolling down.

Feel the support from your core, the softness in your legs. And then allow your hands to rest wherever comfortable so if you can touch the floor, that's a great place to be. If you wanna put your hands on your thighs or your shins, that's fine too, we're gonna bend the knees a fair bit. Let the head and the back and everything dangle and then lengthen and see if you can find some stretch. Inhale, bend the knees, relax the head.

And exhale to lengthen. And just one more time like that, bend and then exhale to lengthen the legs. And then soften your knees and roll all the way up to a standing position. Good. And then just for fun, I'm gonna go to the back edge of my mat so you should find that place as well.

We're gonna hold the foam roll on our bodies and you're just going to use it as a tool to roll down one last time. So as you roll down, just kind of roll, roll, roll with your fingers until you find the foam roll on the floor and just roll it a little bit out in front of you so it's out of the way. Walk yourself out to your hands and knees, keep rolling your foam roll out of the way. With your hands underneath your shoulders, round through your low back, your upper back as well, your neck and then arch through your back. So change your gaze open through your heart, just check things out.

Exhale, round, equal weight on both feet. I'm sorry, not both feet, knees and hands and then extend. And just one more time. Rounding here feel that nice little stretch through the back, I'm swaying forward and back that feels good to me. And then come back through to center.

Go ahead and cross your legs behind you and have a seat on your bottom. Let's take this foam roll up underneath the bottoms and have a seat. So we're gonna work a little bit like we did last time a couple weeks ago if you joined me, we're gonna just add on a little bit. So here, try to find that spot where the foam roll is right underneath your hamstring in front of your glute. Yes, so right at the crease there and just roll down and see if you can feel a little bit of a stretch here reaching around, maybe you're holding your feet, maybe you're on your ankles, your shins, it doesn't matter and then roll yourself back up.

Now we're gonna round through the back here so we create a connection and then we skip forward, the feet are grounded and you're gonna find that place where you can balance. So here at any point I could lift the foot up, my feet are not actually holding me but I'm gonna keep them down for now and I'm using my abdominals. Then I'm gonna ground down through my feet and round back through, it's a little tricky if you're on carpet my friends. Here, I'd like to flex the ankles, take my hands further forward so I'm now holding my feet, that feels good to me. I'm gonna use my hands to pull back on my feet, and extend my spine a little bit for a little more hamstring stretch, wiggling around, round.

And then roll yourself back up. Dig into the feet, scoop the valley in, find that shape again where you're balancing. So here, just be here for a moment and try looking around. So don't lose your balance if you're able to, but try looking around with your upper body, your collarbones, your arms. No real choreography here, it's an exploration.

Come back to center, dig deep into those abs, I'm a little stuck today and roll forward. So flexing the ankles, this time get a grip somewhere around your ankle or your shin, push forward with one leg pulling back with the other so my pelvis has shifted and I feel some nice little stretches in my back and my leg, it doesn't matter where you feel it and then do the same thing on the other side. I will say if you're on a mat and your mat is moving around, just jump off your mat for this piece, the mat can be a little bit of a nuisance. And then come back through to center, round through your back, I'm actually opening through the back so my shoulders as well, it feels wonderful. Dig in through the feet, scoot forward.

Now my low back is nice and loose here in the morning time. I want you to find that place where you're balancing, try lifting one leg up and then try lifting the other leg up so your legs are narrow and then see if you can find a moment to hint a balance. And we change, yeah. And we change. So I'm balancing on my foam roll, I'm using my abdominals.

Don't fall off. (laughs) If you need to put your hands down because it's too frightening to you, please do that. This should be a fun game. It's a little leap of faith, a balanced change, a balanced change. Now look toward the leg that's lifted, change your gaze that should have made it really challenging for your balance, which is fun.

One more time, come back through and you're gonna dig into those feet or roll back to those hamstrings and then shift to one side so we're gonna roll out the glute for just a moment. Your hand is wherever it suits you, and really sink into that glute tissue. Let everything melt, you don't work very hard here and honestly, a lot of times when I see people rolling out the tissue, I'll see them moving really quickly. I encourage you to go a little slower. Scratch an itch nice and slow until you feel something and then when you feel what you need, sit there for a moment.

We'll take one more breath on this glute and then we'll change to the other side. So remember, this is about you and finding what you need today in this moment. Beautiful. we'll change to the other side so I won't look at you for this piece and you're just gonna find the glute there, your hand can be wherever it suits you. There's not a ton of weight on the arm, you wanna try to put as much of the weight into that glute tissue as possible.

And this one feels extra tight today for me, breathing in my friends, and breathing out just notice where you are and allow the stretch, the release, the massage to happen. One more deep breath here please. One more pass, one more itch, if you will, scratched. (laughs) I know that's funny but that's the way I like to think of it. We'll come back through to center, a center position and then just slip off of your foam roll.

Notice I did a little tricep dip there, you can give that a go, that's a preview. And we'll take that roll underneath the center of your upper back. Your hands are gonna clasp and you're gonna let your head really rest in your hands so I encourage you to really release the weight of the head and the hands and roll up and down the ribcage three times. Noticing where you feel a little tight, where you feel you might need to offer a little bit of attention. That was my second time.

We're gonna do it just one more time so notice how far you're comfortable rolling, how high up you can go without slipping and then how far down you can go without feeling vulnerable, right? Now find the very middle spot for you. So see if you can find that spot where it feels like you're right in the middle, you let your feet rest. Your head now rests in your hands as you release over that foam roll, that should feel like a little bit of a stretch somewhere or an opening. Engage your belly a bit and lift yourself up in the direction looking in the direction of your pelvis here.

We're gonna inhale, we're gonna go overhead as heavy. Let your head, your eyes relax a little bit and then exhale to lift. Now I bring my elbows forward here because I wanna take the shoulder component out of this, I want this to be spinal articulation or spinal movement. If you wanna take your arms wide and that feels like a better choice, feel free to do that, that would be okay with me. I just personally want this to be more about the spine so my elbows are forward to take my shoulders out of it, so that I can feel the movement of the spine or the movement from the spine.

So now we're gonna slip up a bit, so we're gonna go back in space so the foam roll is at the lowest point that you don't feel vulnerable, don't go to vulnerability here. We have the head resting in the hands, we relax. Well, we're not really relaxing, we're reaching. We exhale, we engage the abs, and we lift. So this is a little bit more abdominal based here, because you have to use your abdominals with this much of your body over that foam roll so that's what we're trying to do here.

We're gonna exhale to lift and feel yourself grounding onto that foam roll to create a little more engagement in your core. Inhale down, and exhale to lift. So still see if you can lead with your head and be in back extension, thoracic extension but use those abdominals at the top, the whole way through actually. So inhale down one more time here, we're gonna exhale, we're going to lift. Now, at the top, stay here, scoop your pelvis a little bit with your abdominals so you're in full flexion of the spine, hold that shape, look down at your pelvis, it stays utterly still.

Float one leg up, and then put it down, float the other leg up, and then put it down and change if you can midair. Change, and change, and change, and change. So you're staying very connected to your core, your legs are doing a little jig, a little walking, a little dance. Change, and change, and change, and change. One more time, make sure you're breathing.

And then put your two feet down and relax over that foam roll, let's do rotation. We're gonna lift, we're gonna rotate toward one leg, it doesn't matter which one. Stay with the rotation. If you feel more comfortable, take your arms forward and reach. I actually liked the way that feels, I can get more opposition here so the leg you're twisted to is going too, without moving the pelvis lift and lower, five times.

Exhale, four. Exhale, three. Keep that reaching and two, nice. And one, come back through to center. If you wanna put your hands back, go ahead, otherwise, find the reach.

Reach through your arms the other leg lifts up, five. And hopefully you can reach and touch your arm there. Four and three, breathe, please pelvis is still. Three and reach, two and one. Foot down, arms forward, feel that reach, let's stay with this reach for a moment, I like it, it feels good.

Without lifting off the foam roll, I want you to do little pulses up. 10, nine, yeah, eight, keep the reaching. Seven, six, five, four, three, two and one, good. Now I feel my abdominals, let's slip the roll all the way up behind your collarbones in your mind so not your neck really, but almost at your neck. Let the head rest in the hands and see if you can release a little bit there so I'm in the sweet spot for me.

So releasing the back of the neck, actually, you might feel a little bit of a release in the collarbones. Sway side to side. You may stay with that if that feels like you need to stay with it or if you're not feeling anything and you wanna try something different, just slip down and place the foam roll right underneath your neck. Now I'm gonna modify this a little bit because I have a microphone and a ponytail holder back there, there we go. So you want your head to be really resting on the neck, I'm sorry, on the foam roll, and your hands will just kinda hold the foam roll.

So keep your head where it is and try to swing your legs side to side a couple times see how that feels. And actually get just a nice little stretch in various different places that are unexpected. And then keep your legs sort of still and roll your head side to side. So really roll your head all the way to the right and all the way to the left. Again, I'm modifying my movement here personally just because I've all squished things around here and then you won't be able to hear me.

So see if you can hold your head all the way in one direction and just kinda relax a little bit into it. Nod your chin, say no, say yes. And then do the same thing on the other side so roll all the way over, all the way over and feel that you might be getting a nice little like pressure point, right? Behind your ear where your skull meets your neck and then kinda roll into it a little bit, just a little movements of the head, not a lot of pressure. And then come back to center and go ahead and take that foam roll out from underneath you and just enjoy that for a moment.

I've got my fingertips on the roll just enjoying how my body feels in this moment. Take the foam roll and place it now underneath your knees if you will, but my knees are bent so it's between my feet and my glutes, yeah? Let's do a pelvic curl without using the foam roll yet. So your arms are by your side, your feet are grounded, your belly is engaged, we exhale, we feel that pelvic curl. How does that feel?

Open across the front of the hips, abdominal is active. Exhale, lower down one vertebrae at a time. We'll do a couple more like this and I want you to check in with your body today, if you're feeling a little tension in this pelvic curl, if you're feeling that it's hard to release your back, exhale to peel down one vertebrae at a time then don't add on, just keep your feet grounded as they are. Exhale to peel up. Feel the backs of the legs, feel the abdominals, you should feel pretty comfortable here.

Maybe a little stretch across your hips, and then exhale to peel down. Now, if it feels like a good idea to you, you can go ahead and place those feet for me on the foam roll and try right here a pelvic curl. A pelvic curl with feet on the foam roll is quite challenging. So you find the abdominals, you lift your pelvis up and you wanna still feel that your low back is long, your abs are active, your hamstrings are working a lot and lower down one vertebra at a time. Beautiful my friends, let's do three more like that, exhale to peel up.

So I like to put the center of my foot on the roll, you choose what suits you. You could be more on the heels if that's a better choice or you could be more on the toes, that's more challenging. One more time, we're gonna lift up and stay here so you're in that high pelvic curl and then you're just going to slide over those feet, bending and straightening your knees only as much as you can sustain the height of the curl, breathe. Let's do three more like that. Here's one, and here's two.

And last one, three. Lower your spine, one lovely vertebra at a time. Go ahead and bring that foam roll back underneath your legs if you will then prop your pelvis up and rest your pelvis right on top of it. So see if you can find a point where it feels pretty restful for you and you feel like you can comfortably be here, not really on the low back, not really on the tailbone, sort of right across the hip bones. Now your hamstrings should be nice and warm so wake them up here.

So try to feel both hamstrings back so the legs are working supporting with your abdominals. Let's find just the right leg, we're gonna lift it up, we're gonna stretch the right leg to straight, we're gonna flex the ankle. We're gonna point the foot as we reach down and we're gonna flex the ankle as we lift up. We're gonna point as we reach down and flex as we lift up. Really think about your opposing pelvis grounding down so really grounding down through that left side of your pelvis.

Nice and slow here my friends, reach. Try to feel stretch opening lift. Good, we'll just do three more reach and lift and reach and lift. And one more time, feel the reach and feel the lift. Hold the lift for a moment flexing the ankle, it's like I want you to think of lifting your leg up more toward the ceiling so you're grounding down through the other leg, hopefully feeling the hamstring a little bit more do a little circle in and another little circle in and breathing here and stable through the core.

One more time, circles out, and a little circle out and another little circle. So you're grounded by that foam roll but you're having to work to stabilize here. One more time, hold, point your foot, play, sit down, relax for just a moment, settle in, change sides. Feel that right hamstring grounded, lift the other leg up, flex the ankle in the air and feel that. Position, supporting with your core we point the foot as we go down and we flex actively as we come up.

And try to reach as you go down all the way to the floor opening and flex as you come up and reach. Nice and slow breath, and reach. I like to exhale down and inhale up, you can choose though, and reach. And go for like scratching an itch, finding the edges of this position, you've got the support to maybe feel just a little bit of stretch. One more time.

Keep that leg lifted, ankles flex. Now think about lifting the leg up a little higher, feel the other leg really working to support you here, a little inward circle supporting with your core and your breath, quick little circles here, there's three more. And two, you're gonna try to keep your legs straight and one. Change sides and little circles. Certainly if you wanna make the circle bigger, that's up to you but you do wanna make sure that you're stabilizing your pelvis with your core.

Last one here, go ahead and point the foot, bend the knee, place it down. Now using your abdominals, you're gonna lift your two legs up, you can do one at a time if you want or you can ground down, you can lift your two legs up, keep the knees and feet together, stay engaged, we're gonna tap those toes in the direction of the floor and my friends this is about abdominal stability. We're gonna reach down and we're gonna lift up. And we'll do that two more times, reach down and lift up and one more time stay engaged and we lift up. Allow your spine to come into flexion, a nice little stretch there.

And just very sloppy like roll your legs side to side. Yes, I did say sloppy like my friends, sloppy so they don't have to stay together. And maybe as you roll your legs side to side, you can scratch an itch, something that needs to be stretched, something that needs a little bit of attention. So you explore here in a way that suits you and one more time on each side please. That helps me really set my back after being in extension and it always feels like a good release as well.

So here keep yourself in flexion if it suits you, meaning your legs are hugging into your chest and you can just slowly walk your pelvis off the foam roll and slide it just a bit for me out of the way. Hugging those knees deep into your chest, lift your head and chest as well. You can hold the backs of the legs or the shins if you prefer and I want you to just try to get yourself to rock and to roll until you find yourself in a beautiful sitting position. Move back on the mat just a little bit so I have a little more space. Cross the ankles out in front of you bring your foam roll so that it's in within reach in case it got away from you.

So my my legs are crossed, I'm gonna roll over my legs onto my hands and knees. Remember you can get there however you need to at any time, you can make a change here. Option one, your hands are just directly on the floor. We are doing foam roll fun though so the option two we go directly to the hands being on the foam roll which provides us with a little bit of a balance challenge, changes things a little bit. So regardless of your choice here, find your inner thighs kind of squeezing the legs together a little bit but they're still separated and feel yourself lifting your head back and up as well as the back of your heart up so it's not this but it is this length through the back of the neck and this idea of levitating the back body.

Engage those abdominals, slide one leg two straight, slide the other. Yes, you're in plank, right? Feel the freedom in your hips here so I can shake my legs out at any time, my pelvis, my spine should stay pretty still so my hips are not locked here, there's freedom. Once you feel you've got the freedom, solidly connect to those abdominals. Lift your right foot pointing the foot, five times up.

One, two. Freedom of the hip. Three, four, and five. Change sides. Five, four, three, two, one.

Good, stay here, five little push-ups, we're gonna do pec push-ups here. one and two. You can do many push-ups if you need to. Three and four, and five. Good.

Now, walk your feet in, your legs are underneath your hips, your head relaxes, your hands are on the foam roll but take the weight out of it. So if your wrists are a little tired, give your fingers a little bit of a wiggle. Good. Bend the knees a little bit, feel this position. So we're gonna work with this just a little bit as an opportunity to feel more stretch, and more work in the abdominals.

So find a place where you can hopefully put a little bit of weight on the foam roll, this is for everyone. Bend your knees a little bit so it's like a standing quadruped almost, right? We're gonna try to feel that the back is close to straight, although if you're tight then then you're not gonna be straight and that's okay. Now what I want you to do is hollow your belly in, let your head relax and in your mind you're lifting without lifting, you're lifting your weight out of your hands and out of your feet through your center, through your core so feel that. And then you're going to flatten a little bit looking forward so you're extending.

So now you're rounding, you're lifting out of your feet, you're lifting out of your hands in your mind, using the abdominals feel the head relax, and we flatten. And we're gonna do that one more time and we round. Now take that lifted feeling and use it to just kind of roll the foam roll to your legs and just kind of walk and roll, walk and roll all the way up to a standing position. Now that's just for fun, really, right? Let's take this foam roll straight out in front of you.

Now just so you can see me a little better, I'm gonna move it a little out to the side, you may or may not need it for this next piece, we do a little bit of standing work. Your two feet are underneath you, you can use it for balance if needed or just leave it there if you prefer. You're gonna bend your legs just a little bit my friends, I want you to feel length through the crown of the head as you length it. Now I say bend the legs, yes, you're bending the knees but think my friends more about bending your hips and bending your ankles. So think about that for a few moments here as you do this first piece, if you just bend your knees it throws us a little bit out of alignment and puts pressure in the knees.

Think about bending all three joints simultaneously and staying on the plumb line, okay? And option one could stay right there. And option two, we bend, we continue to bend until we have to lean forward just a little bit to go as deep as you can keeping the heels down and then stand tall. So you can choose to use the foam roll or not, we're gonna bend, you're reaching in the direction as the foam roll and you're gonna stand tall. Good.

So it's kind of nice, the foam roll is actually right between my legs, it shows the symmetry of my legs right now, I kinda like it. And stand tall and just one more like that, use your legs, see how deep you can go comfortably and stand tall. So now I'm gonna lift my heels up and I'm gonna be in, looks like a little high heels and we're gonna keep the heels like that as we bend. Now you're bending all three joints, not just your knees so maybe you stop here and stand tall. Keep the feet the same.

It's like doing the footwork on the reformer. Maybe you'll go a little deeper, don't fall into it. Stand tall, go to an active point, that's gonna be your end point so you're gonna come down and maybe you're not using the foam roll and that's okay and you're gonna stand back up. What's nice about having it there is if you find that you lose your balance or you run out of gas, you can just use a little bit of help, use your hands just a little bit to help you get up. I stayed there too long, almost bottomed out.

Let's just do one more like that. Again, don't go so low that you don't feel like you're able to go right back up. Good. Lower the feet, make a small V position. So here try to feel open across the front of the hips, those of you that are ballerinas I'm sure you have this beautiful opening position here.

Once again, we're gonna lift the heels up just a little bits so I actually had to walk my feet in just a little. I'm gonna keep my heels lifted, and mimic my footwork on the reformer. So again, if you have a ballet background feel free to give yourself a beautiful port de bras type arm. Those of you that are working a little more on balance just use your hand there and press and the original version I gave was to use this out in front of you so you actually have both hands there to help you which is what I recommend. I just was moving it out of the way so you could see me a little bit better if you happen to need to.

Let's do two more please. Wonderful standing work. Breath in my friends. Nice. And one more time please.

Okay, adding just a little bit of a change when we go into open position so find an open turned out position, take that foam roll out in front of you so that you can touch it with your arms straight standing up right. We're gonna bend as deep as we can here, trying to really ground down. Yeah, and then stand tall. Do that again, ground down, feel that and stand tall. Good.

This time, we're gonna ground down and we're gonna stay. I want you to push into the roll in your tailbone back, your arms forward so that your head is framed between your two arms and see if you can use that opposition to create just a little bit more reach back with your bottom and then we stand tall, what about a stretch there too. We go down, we reach, it's kind of a two part movement and then we stand. We go down first, we reach second, I'm gonna move my roll just a bit so I have a little more to push from and I want you to actually use just a little bit your arms, right? So I'm reaching into it, my head is between my arms, I can go a little deeper here and I'm standing tall.

Good. One more time, please. Reaching, try to use both legs equally and standing tall. Walk your feet in. Alright, let's do single leg work here so I'm going to keep my right hand here and my left leg is my standing leg so if you're mirroring me, then it's just the opposite but whatever leg is lifted is where you want that little balance beam to be.

Let's stand here for a moment and bend three times all three joints, feel that you're bending your hips my friends, your hips not just your knee. Feel that you're bending your ankle not just your knees. Stay here, leg lifts, leg goes back. Leg lifts, minimal body movement, leg goes back. Leg lifts, leg goes back.

Now, pivot at the hip joint the whole body looking down, standing tall, the foot might touch. So we're pivoting and standing. Now if you don't need your foam roll for a balance beam, don't use it. I'm just giving you some options, you're actually moving your standing hip joint right now so it can be pointed or flexed. Last one.

And then stay on this leg, let's do a little more here, you know, lift the leg up, you're gonna take it to the side, okay? Move that roll to the other side for your balancing. We're gonna find a nice high lift here, keeping the leg shape here the same and then we come back to standing. So I'm pivoting around my straight standing left leg and my other leg is staying still and we're gonna do that one more time hold. Hold, I'm a little bit wobbly right now.

Draw your belly in, look where your leg is going, extend the leg two, straight five. And four, the lifted leg, and three and two, and one and shake it out. So hopefully you fatigued your standing leg there a little bit while moving the other leg around. Let's change sides please, okay? So, I'm going to lift the leg I was just standing on that happens to be my left and just stay here for a moment.

First we're gonna get used to being on the standing leg and I'm gonna ask you to bend and lengthen. Remember, we're not just bending the knee, we're bending the hip and we're bending the ankle as well so feel that, feel that, think about it, it's amazing how much less pressure you'll feel in your knee when you think about that. Stay here. We're gonna extend the leg back, and lift it up. Trying to keep the body pretty still extend the leg back and lift it up.

So the goal here as you extend back is you're creating energy through the crown of your head, and stay back here. Now we're gonna fold so the movement is at my standing leg hip as I fold forward, looking straight down and come back up. So we're looking to be in that T-shape here, right? Parallel with the horizon or the ground and do it again. Try to feel that you're supporting your body pieces but you're moving at your standing hip joint.

Good, and you just use this other hand as much or as little as you need, good. Changing your gaze challenges the balance. We'll do that just one more time please. Good. And then hold yourself upright, take the leg up.

We're gonna move that foam roll to the other side so you've got a slightly better support system here. Take the leg out to the side and lift a little bit. Ideally the body stays the same here, you're using lots of things and you're just moving at the hip joint and moving at the hip joint so my pelvis is kind of, articulating is a better word, around my hip. Now stay here, support with your abs, support with your glutes, extend the leg out to straight. Here's five, and four, and three, and two, and one, come on in, shake it all out, yeah.

All right, just because we don't wanna throw our foam roll down to the ground, I would like you to roll down, walking it down your legs. Just notice how your body feels, hopefully it feels a little bit more open than when we first started. Roll it out of the way, walk out to your hands and your knees. Sit back in a child's pose for just a quick moment here, stretching from your back. And then you're gonna wanna retrieve your role and place it underneath your shin.

So I don't want it to be actually on your knees, it should be below your knees and if you're comfortable in this position right here with your feet tucked, you can sit here for a couple moments and feel the nice foot stretch. If that is too much for you just unhook your feet and come right down to your hands a little bit into like a child's pose, right? So the more weight you put on your legs, the more you're going to feel like the massage and the release of the tissue here so that's going to be a little bit up to you. I'm gonna have you release your feet and come forward using your hands to control on the shins and roll back. Again, if that is too much for you, just take a little more weight in your arms or skip it altogether, it's kind of intense, I know it's intense for me and maybe you have a softer foam roll and it's a better choice, you know, you really have to make sure you're listening to your own body.

Good. And we'll do that just one more time. And then shift your weight to your hands and to your knees. Reorganize your body so that your foam roll is below your knee joints, okay? And your knees and feet are together.

So you're going to lean into your arms for me and pull in as far as you can and reach back and pull in and reach back. Now a modification, if you want it to be more challenging, your start position is a little further back and you pull in more and you reach back. You don't wanna roll to the knee joint though so make adjustments as necessary. Rounding through the back using the core, two more here. And one more here.

Go ahead and put the feet down, come back to a little stretch, maybe you're in a squat ere, maybe in the the foam roll or still resting on the roll, it is really up to you. We're gonna roll this guy forward and we're gonna come around onto our bellies for a moment so go ahead and make your way to your belly. Just going to adjust myself here so you can all still hear me. You're gonna make your way onto your belly so that your feet are comfortable. Turn your knees in just a little bit.

Use your hands to create just a little bit of traction if that feels good. It always feels great to me, I can't not do it. And then find a place where you can rest your wrists on your foam roll and let your forehead rest near the mat or completely on the mat. You could always put a towel underneath your forehead if that's more comfortable. The hands need to be a little bit wider than you think so as you pull your arms in, I want you to spread your collarbones and your shoulder blades and then reach back out to straight.

So when you come in, I'm looking for the elbows to be bent just a little more than 90 degrees. Your hands wouldn't be hitting your head, they would be kind of above your shoulders if you will, and reach back out and come back in. Now stay here, feel that idea of spreading. Ground down into the foam roll, bring your elbows in the direction of the floor, if you can touch the floor, great. Do you feel a little stretch?

Hopefully you do. Keep that shape, pull forward with your head as you lift to just thoracic extension so you're not lifting any higher, I don't know if you really can and lower down, repeat. You're gonna keep that same grounding and you're gonna find thoracic extension supporting with your abs and lower down, that feels just wonderful to me. Two more like that. We're gonna thoracic extension and down and that's upper back in case thoracic didn't make sense to you, opening through the heart and lower down.

Stretch your arms to straight, we change, walk your hands a little closer together. So your arms are still straight, now we're gonna find a bigger back extension and we're gonna inhale, find the upper back, keep lifting, if it feels like a good idea as high as it feels good to you and lower down. Two more like that please. Now, option one, you could just stop right at this first bit of extension. Those of you feeling comfortable today, feel free to lift up nice and high but only do it if your body says yes, this feels good.

Certainly don't do it if it doesn't feel good. One more time, please. We're gonna lift, feel nice and open. Beautiful. And lower down.

Okay, one more bit of back extension before we change. Take your arms wide again, reopen through the chest and put your elbows down, feel that shape. Find your upper back extension, stay here. Support with your abdominals, please hover your legs up, single leg kick like this. Bend one knee, change.

It's an inhale and an inhale, nice. Exhale, exhale and inhale. Inhale, exhale, and exhale. Good. So you really aren't using your arms very much to hold this position, your arms are just in an organized position and you're using your back, upper back, you're using your abs to support your low back and the backs of your legs.

One more full breath please and then rest that. Just remove your hands from the roll, push yourself to your hands and knees and sit back in a child's pose that suits you for a handful of breaths here, breathing in and breathing out. Feel free to let your forehead rest and roll it side to side. Another thing I really like to do in my child's pose is to slip off to one side and give myself a little bit of a glute release. So if you look up at me and you see that I'm doing something slightly different, I welcome you to try what feels good to you.

So I've slipped off to the side, I'm getting a nice little stretch through my glute and into my low back in a different way. Breathing in and breathing out. Good. Let's come back forward to an upright position and we're gonna take the foam roll and put it behind us, okay? So we're gonna use it as a tool to do a little bit more arm work like I threatened earlier.

So start with your feet grounded if you're able to and knees bent, hopefully you're able to sit up straight here, and then place your hands on the foam roll. Now, if this doesn't work for your wrist for any reason, feel free to change it but what's nice about using the roll is you can roll it kind of toward your body and have your fingers down a little bit, you don't want your hands too far back, that's gonna be really hard on the wrist but if your fingers are down sort of in the direction of your bottom a little bit, you may find this as a little bit better. Use your legs to support and press up. So make sure your hands are not too wide or too narrow, feel open through the heart, engaged in the abs and you wanna try to avoid having your shoulders over your hands instead you're sort of pressing them forward, yeah? So now, knees super bent.

If you need, we bend the elbows, we touch, we press back up. Legs less bend if you wanna work harder. Let's do five, and four. Legs straight if that's better for you. And I don't know, I'm just keeping going.

(laughs) I know I said five but we're doing a few more here. One more time please. Lower your body down, you should feel a little burning in your whole tricep and hand as well because the stability is quite a nice challenge. Let's revisit our mermaid for a moment. So I'm going to have you place the foam roll, you can mirror me if you like so this is on my right side and I've created what feels like the mermaid seat.

So the thing that's important is, the the leg that's forward is gonna be in alignment about with the foam roll so that's what I would just want you to try to create. You could adjust this other leg however it needs to be adjusted, I'm not particular about that. So just sit for a moment and do your very best to try to get both of your sits bones to be down. So for many of us that's not possible but you're endeavoring to do that, right? And then stay here, take this arm out to the side and we're just going to reach away rolling out as far as you can reach comfortably.

So just make sure your shoulder feels okay and then you're gonna rotate around so you have two hands on that foam roll and then you're going to reach maybe a little further into the stretch and then you're gonna round back up. And reach further stretching, and around, back up, and reach and around. Unwind and settle and you might just have to walk your roll in, let's repeat that again. We're gonna reach away, walk it out, find your spot, where is it? That's it for me.

Use your ads to support, rotate around to your foam roll, and you're gonna reach a little further. And when you come in, rounding is coming from the abdominals in your mind, stretching a little bit there and reaching. So think being like pulling the belly in, I was gonna say being punched in the belly but I don't really like using that cue but here we've used it. Pull it in, unwind and come all the way in. Let's change sides, okay?

So just change your legs and change your mermaid, your this side of your foam roll. So once again, whatever your other leg is doing the one that's forward, you're endeavoring to have it be pretty symmetrical as far as a parallel line goes between the roll and the leg. So settle in for a couple moments and see if you can feel as best as possible the two sides of your pelvis down. You just stay there for a moment. Let me straighten my role.

And then we're gonna reach away, find your spot. Make sure you're comfortable, rotate around, my two sides are very different. Respect your two sides, feel the stretch, reaching deeper into it, that's where the back flattens and then you round with your belly up. We're reaching and we're rounding. And we're reaching and we're rounding.

And then two more. Reaching, rounding. Open, that was one more and I got lost there, it felt good, I think I probably did a couple extra. Reach away and round. Here we go, let's just repeat that stretching, wonderful.

I always welcome you to stay in a position a little longer, there's always an opportunity to catch up if you need to. And just one more here for that stretch that feels just so delicious and necessary for me, unwind and come back up. Okay, so we're going to do some rather creative side body work that's going to bring us into a stretching position so please remember to take care of yourself and hopefully it feels like a good idea but if for any reason it doesn't, that's fine with me, okay? So you're gonna want the foam roll to be where your feet are, okay? So then you're gonna lie down onto your side, it doesn't matter to me which side you do first, maybe make it so you can see me and you're gonna rest the feet on top of the roll.

Now please check in with your body and make sure that your feet are not behind you because that's gonna bring you too much into your low back. I would like them to be straight down in alignment with your body in theory, but if you need to err on the side of caution go just a little bit in front and find a spot on your leg where it feels okay. So first we're just gonna roll a little bit forward and roll a little bit back, it's kind of sloppy. And option one, you could feel free just to stick with this for a few moments. I'm going to level this up pretty quickly here, make it quite challenging.

And then come to what feels stacks so shoulders are stacked, hips are stacked. Make sure to lengthen through your low back so you really feel your abdominals working. Now I'm gonna press down into my legs to lift my pelvis up. Now it's barely hovering, but I am using my whole side body including my outer hip, including my obliques quite a lot. Feel free to put your hand down for balance if you need or keep it hovering if that feels like a good idea, we try the same thing.

Belly in, we're gonna roll forward a little bit and roll back to where you came from. So rolling forward a little bit and back to where you came from. Rolling forward and back. And one more time, rolling forward and back, lower your pelvis down. Now come up onto your elbow, check out this spot right here so the bottom leg is straight, the top leg can go wherever it needs to go, in front is a good idea for me and try rolling forward a little bit.

Do you feel some stretch? You wanna use your body to create opposition so I'm creating this energy forward a little bit, right? Now the next option would be to take your arm all the way to straight, same leg, same other arm and take yourself into a deep, deep stretch here, okay? Don't worry too much about your shoulders, I sort of feel like I get a better stretch if I let my shoulder lift up by my ear a little bit, just make sure you're safe. So I'm getting a wonderful stretch in my side body.

One more breath please. Hopefully you are feeling something. And let's change sides, okay? So we'll set the same thing up on the other side, you're going to want your foam roll to be around on the other side, I'm just gonna move my little mic pack so you can still hear me, and then your feet will rest up on the roll, and you rest your head in your long straight arm, okay? So now you have two sides and they're always a little different so honor that and be okay with it.

Lengthen through your low back, right? Make sure your feet are not behind you, and ideally straight down from you. And just kind of feel with your your body is still grounded how it feels when you roll around a little bit. How does that feel? Right?

And then decide if you need to just stay there today, that would be fine. If you feel up for it, you're gonna press down into the legs and you're gonna hover that pelvis so that's quite a lot of work there, I'm just like waving in the wind a little bit. Use your hand if needed or don't if you don't need to, and do that same thing where you kind of roll forward a little bit, and you roll back, and you roll forward a little bit and you roll back. Could feel all that challenge. It doesn't look like we're doing anything but we are doing quite a lot here, rolling forward and roll back, and rolling forward and lower down.

Now you can come up onto your elbow, that's the option one here so that the bottom leg is the leg that stays, the top leg can come in front or somewhere else if it needs to and you'll feel maybe a little bit of stretch there in your side body. Now, if you know that you can handle a little more, you're gonna come up to a straighter arm and you can play with the shoulder because lifting your shoulder up is not always ideal but it's certainly not a bad idea if it gives you some stretch. So you'll see for me if I lift my shoulder in kind of round and open I get a beautiful stretch to my back body and that's what I'm looking for here as well as through my side body. So breathing in and breathing out. Remember, the opposition is how we create sensation and strength as well so by sending energy through your leg that's on the foam roll, and then out through all your other parts, you may find that you get a little more stretch here.

Go ahead and rest that. Alright, let's do just a little more back extension because I like back extension and then we'll finish with some yummy stretching stuff, now that is my promise for you, okay? So you're gonna lie on your belly once again for me, and then you're gonna stretch those arms out in front of you and have them be about shoulder width so not too wide and let's go right into our fullback extension and perhaps push it a little bit more. So feel a slight internal rotation feeling in your knees so that you don't go into external, engage your belly muscles and try hovering those legs up so try to keep neutral alignment if you can, they can be separated though. We're gonna inhale to thoracic extension.

We're gonna continue lifting as high as it feels good to your body and you're gonna lower down. Let's do that again. Inhale and lift, lift, lift, lift, and lower down. And again, lift, lift, lift. Now, can you hold this, can you lift one arm up, put it down, can you lift the other arm up, put it down.

Repeat, one arm, and the other arm and lower down. Repeat, lift to extension, feel it. Feel your height, can you lift one arm up and the other arm up. Breathe my friends, try again. Lift and lift and lower down.

Bring yourselves to your hands and knees, sit back in a child's pose or a rest pose once again, give your back a stretch, you can feel free to use that foam roll as an opportunity to create a little more stretch through your shoulders. I like my rest post to be a little bit more relaxed so I'm not using it right now but that's always an option. Breathing in and breathing out. All right, we have just enough time to do a little bit of shoulder work. So place your foam roll so it's long wise, you're gonna have to seat right on the edge and then you're gonna make your way back.

You can use your muscles to do it or you can just settle in, we don't have a ton of left over time so I want to spend a little bit of time with the shoulders here. Settle in and feel your pelvis grounded and feel your back ribs grounded and your head. You could have your head hanging off a little bit so you get that little bit of traction in your neck if that suits you or not. With your hands down on the floor, try bringing your knees and feet together. And then try to feel that you're minimizing the space underneath your ribcage so that stays grounded but there is in fact a little bit tiny bit of space for most of us underneath our low back perhaps.

If you can keep your feet together and create balance, try taking your arms up to the ceiling. If you feel like you're losing your way here as you try to breathe, separate your feet. Let's inhale and open the arms wide, spreading through the collarbones and the shoulder blades and lift back up. Now many of you are gonna think if I just put my hands down I'm gonna feel the most, I want you to think about spreading east, west so wants you to go to where your hands are still in your peripheral vision and I want you to spread a little bit, maybe with soft bent elbows and see if you feel something show up and then come back up. Make sure you're breathing, inhale, open.

Maybe in this position, you're gonna move your hands a little bit and you'll feel something and then come back up. I have quite flexible shoulders and I can always find some tightness, some unexpected tightness if I don't go all the way to the floor so I invite you to try to find something different and then back up. Now you're gonna take your arms behind you so the thumbs are close but not touching and see how far you can reach away from you with your hands that keep your ribcage engaged, and lift. When I say rib cage engaged, I mean your ribs connected so they're not lifting away from the foam roll. And breathe my friends.

Good, and one more time. Take your arms wide, let the backs of the hands rest somewhere. Take your legs wide, let the two legs straighten and relax. If that feels like a wonderful place for you to be stay. If you need to slip off your foam roll because you feel off balance, that's fine.

Breathing in and breathing out, just relax. And then very slowly, slip yourself off to one side and lie flat on your back without a worry in the world for a couple of moments. Your palms are up. Breathing in and breathing out. Feel your body calm.

One more breath everyone. And then in your own time try not to rush this. Move your fingers and your toes, your wrists and your ankles, your knees and your hips and very slowly in the most relaxed way possible. Bring yourself up to an upright sitting position or a position that is comfortable for you and I thank you all so very much for playing. Have a wonderful rest of your day.