Day 1: Glow Up

Hello, hello, hello and welcome to your five day challenge. My name is Mychele Sims and I'm ready to get Pilates hype with you. So let's get to work. Come to a standing 'cause you're already standing, right? Standing position.

Have your feet a little smidgen, or wider than your hips. And we're just gonna center ourselves and ground into the floor so that your toes like just wiggle around and feel the ground under your feet, okay. Shoulders are nice and square, nice square. See that line across there, beautiful. And take a breath here.

Set your intention for movement today. One more breath. Yes, and now we're gonna take a roll down. So go ahead and take your chin and tuck it into your chest and then roll down your back. Let your head get heavy and let it roll all the way to take you towards the floor.

Head hangs heavy. If your legs are feeling tight, go ahead and bend those knees. And then on the way up, press your heels into the floor, work through the back of your legs. Squeeze everything in the back body to bring your head back up to the top, and set yourself back up, perfect. Let's do that one more time.

Tuck, tuck the chin into the chest and then roll down. That's a hard word sometimes. And then get nice and heavy. And this time maybe your hands reach the floor, maybe they reach on your shins wherever you are. Or maybe just hug on your elbows, hug there.

And just hang heavy, getting a stretch in those hamstrings, stretching your back, putting space in your spine. Yes. And then release those elbows if you held them. And then just roll yourself back up to the top. Heavy arms in everything.

And then the top of your head resets. We're gonna go ahead and cross one arm over the other, cross one leg over the other, and find the floor really gently. Now, if you're like this doesn't happen for me Mychele, go ahead and just find the floor the way that you feel comfortable. And set yourself down in a comfortable position. And we will start to do a little bit of our head series.

So for our head series, I just want you to tuck that chin to the chest like we did last time. And then look up at the ceiling. So we're nodding our head yes and no. Gentle practice. And now we're gonna take that ear, right ear or whichever ear you like to the shoulder.

Other side. One more each side. Relaxing those shoulders. My hands are resting on my knees, and now let's take us to a head roll, roll around. Oh, something click, there we go.

One more this direction. Come back to center and go the other way. Yes. You probably need this because I know I do too. And bring yourself back to center and we are going to start moving right now.

So now we're gonna turn to our side. So turning sideways towards our mat. Feet are flat on the mat, knees are up. And I want you to tuck that tailbone under just a little bit, and roll yourself down your back. My hands are on my side just 'cause I need little help rolling down.

Legs are long in front of me. And just, I want you to just settle yourself in this mat right now. So in settling, let your back be heavy. Back of the arms are heavy into the mat, and the neck and everything is stretching long away from the shoulders. Reach your arms back behind your head and just take a yawning stretch.

Let your ribs reach and just play out. Let it be messy. Just like let your feet flex and point. Shimmy those hips a little bit just to get reacquainted with the mat. And now we're gonna click it in.

So go ahead and flex the feet, pull your shoulders back into their sockets, and get serious for a little second. We're gonna do part of a roll up. So fingertips will come towards the toes and just roll the top of your body up. Just the top, just the top. Looking down at the toes, fingertips are reaching towards the toes with energy, and then roll yourself all the way back.

Pull those ribs down into the mat. And we'll do it again. Roll up just a little bit. Just the top of the shoulders. Yes, getting some thoracic spine and some cervical spine love.

And we do one more time. And reach, roll up, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll. Hold it right there. Oh go, we're gonna hold that for five, four, three, two, one. And then roll it all the way back.

Go ahead and take those feet and put them on the mat flat. And we're gonna do just a little bit of a half roll down. So that same action is gonna happen again. I'm gonna have my feet just a little bit about right under my hips. And then I'm gonna roll up halfway again with these knees.

Up, rolling up halfway. More, holding it there. Feeling a little bit different. Then you shorten that lever. Shorten your legs so you don't have to go so far.

And we'll do it again. Two. Warming up that back. We do one more. On this last one we're gonna roll up, stay up as much as possible, and then take your hands to the side of your legs and just hold on and see if you can curl up just one more inch.

Yes? Hold it right there for three, two, one. And roll yourself all the way down. Let the legs go long in front of you. And we're gonna go into our hundred prep.

So again, find the space in your back. Move anything in your hips if you need to. And bring that right leg in the table top, parallel to the floor, left leg comes to join. Legs can be together or in the number 11, a little bit wider than your hips. And then we're gonna take those hands back behind our head again.

Yes. Oh, something click for me. All right, so we're gonna roll that same roll up. Keeping those legs glued in space, roll the head neck and shoulders up to meet past the hips. Hold that there.

This is our hundred prep hold. So we're gonna hold for five, four, inhale and exhale. Three, two, one, hug the knees into the chest. Do you feel that it's just a little hundred hold. We're just holding and you're already feeling that powerhouse kicking in.

Yes. We're gonna do that one more time. So bring those legs back to table top, fingertips go up to the ceiling, press hands forward, head comes up into that curl. We're gonna hold. This time we're gonna post the arms for that breath of five.

So five inhale and exhale. Squeeze those shoulder blades together. Inhale and exhale. Yes. Inhale.

This is three and exhale. Two more inhale and exhale. Last one, almost there. Let's go. Inhale and exhale.

Hold. What? Five, four, three, two, one. And roll everything down. Give your legs a hug and a squeeze and then shoot those legs out onto the mat.

And we're gonna roll up again just to reset. So I'm gonna flex my feet here, hands come behind and I'm gonna see if I can roll up all the way this time. So head and neck and shoulders come up. Roll all the way up. If the first one's messy it's okay.

Take a yawn and stretch forward. If you're like, I didn't quite get there Mychele, we'll try it again. So stack your spine up tall here. Now I want you to gimme that C curve. So tuck the tailbone under, look at that tuck.

Tuck the tailbone under, roll your spine all the way down. And let's see if it gets prettier this time. We'll do... Let's do about three more. So head, neck, and shoulders go up, arms come up, press.

Look at me. Oh, one leg wanted to come up. I'm gonna keep it there. Keep it there, roll forward, hold it. So here I want you to think about this hold.

When I say puff up your back. I want you to puff up right there so you can get more stretch. I'm holding onto the tops of my feet, but you might want to have your hands on your shins, or on the thighs, and just puff your back up to see that letter C. Go ahead and stack yourself up tall, shoulders and arms together, and roll yourself back down in that same letter C. We'll do one more.

Roll it up. See how it's getting smoother as we go. Let's do one more. Oh my God, let's get that puff again. Puff, stretch, stack the spine and then roll it back.

Roll it back. Yes. Roll it back, arms reach behind you. Take that yawn and stretch again. And I'm gonna bring my legs into a butterfly stretch.

So I'm gonna take the soles of my feet and put them together, and just take that stretch right there. Just let it be messy. Arms are at your side and take a quick little relax because we're going in for the big, big movement with the legs and hips here. All right, bring those legs back up to the center, back to neutral, and then shoot those legs out. We're gonna flex both of our ankles.

So you'll see my hands. My arms are at my side. Palms are into the mat, back of the arms are heavy. I'm gonna point this right foot and then take it up to the top, holding it there. Checking my hips to make sure that I'm nice and square, and just hold that there.

Holding it there. Other leg, back of the leg is pressing into the floor. The heel is digging into the floor and we are flexing that ankle for our single leg. Single... English.

Single leg circles. Taking my right leg around, circle down and around it up. Hold. The circle might not be too big. Down and around and up.

Might be big. I want you to try to keep both hips on the mat. Keep going as I talk you through this. Two, or maybe that's three. Let's say this is four.

Yes, this is four down and around and up. Still pulling those ribs in. Still pulling the abs towards the mat. Hold this last one. Let's reverse those circles for five.

I'm really counting this time. Good. And if your circle looks more like a D it's okay. If it's like a oval it's okay. This is three.

This is two. Yes. And one. Hold it there. Without touching that leg, can you stretch it toward your forehead just a little bit for a hamstring stretch.

Can we flex that foot and then let it all the way down? Woohoo, good morning, let's do the other side. So this right foot will go flex flexi flexi. Dig that heel into the floor. Point the left foot.

Take it up to the ceiling and hold that there. Again, if you are really tight in the hamstring, a little bend is okay. So point that toe and then check in with the hips, and then take that circle around. Cross that leg down and around and up. Five, four, three.

That looked like a zigzag. Two, yes. And one, hold it at the top. There's one. Reverse those circles for five, four, checking in with the body.

Yes, three, two, and one. There it is. Again, no touch stretch. Pull that leg toward your forehead without touching it. And you're like, my leg is dying.

Flex that heel so gently and then take her down to the floor. My leg is a her, I don't know yours could be a he, or it could be a they, but my leg is a her. All right, so we're gonna hold that there and we're gonna go into our butterfly stretch to kind of reset the hips really quickly. Enjoy that openness of the hips, feeling anything through the hamstrings and that's in the back, or the hip flexes in the front. Yes.

I'm a polite instructor. All right, and then we're gonna close those legs right there and then come back up to the top with that right leg. So let's bring that right leg right back to where it was. The knee can stay here or you can keep it low. Let's flex that ankle one more time.

Again with that stretch this time we're gonna touch it. We're gonna grab. So you can grab behind in the... Like this foot, this foot is being rogue. Let's flex that other leg that's down there.

So grabbing at the thigh, grabbing at the calf, or grabbing at the ankle, you pick your poison, hold that stretch right there, and pull that knee toward your forehead. Try to keep both shoulders on the floor as you do this and just stretch as much as possible. It's lovely, it's beautiful. Now here comes the fun part. Take those hands off and then take that right leg across at a diagonal to stretch the IT band, and everything in there.

We have the tensor fasciae latae, the TFL. And know this is not a latae latae, but this is a good little stretch. And you may feel it really pulling and giving a delicious stretch that way. And then let's take it back to center, and take it out to the side as far as it wants to go. So today my leg, the right leg wants to go all the way out.

Little hip activation, totally okay. This is the beginning of our challenge. So remember that we are just getting reacquainted with the exercises through our body. And we're gonna let that leg come to the floor. Right leg will stay on the floor, heel is into the ground, that left foot is gonna come up and do that same thing.

Let's grab it for that stretch. Now my left leg does not like this as much as the right one does. So you may find both legs are like having a bad day, but stretch that puppy anyway. And if you feel like your hip is hiking up, just center yourself and just adjust that hip down, and maybe not go so far. Go as far as it's comfortable.

I want you to feel a stretch, but no sharp pains. So hold that puppy. Now she's a puppy. Hold it there. And then we're gonna let it go.

Stretch that left leg around, over the right and a diagonal to hit that IT band. Stretching that leg, we're gonna hold it for a couple breaths here. Bring it back to the center or neutral, and then let it come out to the left side as far as it wants to go. You see this one? She don't wanna go that far.

I'm asking a lot from her today. And just check in with the body. Make sure you're not crunching in the neck and the shoulders, and then bring it back to center. And then straight. This is a straight.

Straighten her down to the floor. Yes, I love it. Let's take those arms behind our head, and then roll ourselves back up to seating. Hello. Hi, now we're gonna roll like a ball.

So bring those feet to the mat as close to your bottom as possible. Holding on... Traditionally, we hold at our ankles with wide elbows. You can hold whatever feels good for you today, okay? Remember that.

So the movement that we're doing here, you wanna tuck the tailbone under. So watch the curve of my tailbone, it tucks under. As it tucks under, my shoulders are getting a stretch. And the top of my back, cervical spine and thoracic spine is getting a little bit of a workout. It's delicious.

Now, we're gonna keep those heels together and point those toes and find balance on the floor. All right, I'm gonna go a little bit lower here, wide elbows, looking at my feet. And I'm gonna keep tucking my tailbone under so much so that I just tip back. Going as far back as my shoulder blades and coming back up. Let's do four more of these, yes?

Roll like a ball. Keep that gaze going towards your feet. Looking through those ankles. I think this is four. This is five.

Holding it right there. And let's just lets struggle these and just a little bit more, and give ourselves a nice little stretch. A little bit more, more please. Holding it there, and then find the floor. And we're gonna flip over to our belly.

All right, flipping over to our belly. I want you to be mindful of what's going on with your boom boom. So the legs can be together squeezing, or they can be separate. But when you're in this position, I want you to pull the tummy away from the mat like you're having a little golf ball down there. And the butt is active.

So this is no butt active, this is butt active. No butt active, butt active. So keep the butt active and then pull the elbows under the shoulder. See my unicorn. It's right there.

Wide wide fingertips, yes? Tall, proud spine collar bones are open. This is gonna be our six, or a cobra, or a swan. What? Holding that there, press the floor away.

Palms are pressing into the mat to find length between the neck, shoulders, and a little stretch in the back of the body. Again, bum is on, top to the feet are pressing into the floor, and we're just gonna hold this position. I'm watching you. For five, four, three, two, one. Lower everything down to the mat.

Head goes towards the mat, and find length right there in the lower back. So find that stretch, is delicious. Now we're gonna press up and do that again. Press up. Elbows are closer into the body.

Hold that stretch. Bottom is on, back the legs are on. Holding for three, two, one. Lengthen as you lower down. And we're doing this one more time, press up, up, up, up, up, up, up.

Press, press, press. Shine your heart forward. Neck is reaching. Elbows are reaching back towards the hips. Holding for three, two, one.

I love it. Now, lower everything down to the mat. And I want you to reach your arms out in front of you, right arm and left arm go out front long. So your hand is looking, about 45 degrees in front of you and stretch the neck away from the shoulders. Pull those shoulders down your back, and like just find that pocket right there.

Yes. So now we're gonna do an oppositional stretch. So left hand will come up, right leg will come up. And feel as if you're getting pulled in two different directions. So watch that pull, feel that, stay along.

Now we're gonna put it down and other side will work. Right arm lifts, left leg lifts and stretch across your body at a diagonal. Yes. Do you feel it? I do.

One more each side. So lower everything. Oppositional stretch left arm, right leg. Hi. Yes.

And lower. Last one this side, right arm, left leg stretches across the body. Oh my God. You hear my voice? I'm feeling this.

I love it. Let's roll it there. Three, two, one, and lower everything down. All right, now we're gonna activate just the thoracic spine, the middle of the back, and the head. So go ahead and press your palms into the floor like we did last time.

So the bottom part of your body, the lower part is gonna be on squeeze the booty, tops to the feet are pressing into the floor. And I want you to find a little balance so you can take your hands off the floor. What? And that may mean bring your hands a little bit closer or stay where you are. So now I am being supported by my hips, pressing into the mat.

My hip points and pelvic are pointing... Are pressing into the mat. And I'm just gonna lift my arms up, hold it there and go into my goal post, pull the elbows towards each other behind your back, looking forward about 45 degrees and then reach forward. We only do this two more times. Reach back, elbows go back, get a little bit of extension there.

If it's in your body today. And then reach back again. Boom, hold that puppy and then reach everything out, and lower everything down. Hoo, all right, last but not least, we have super person. Superman wonder woman, you pick your person.

Super thing. So I want you to nod that head down so your nose is pointing at your mat. Yes. All right, top of the body goes and presses into the floor. Let's just lift the legs.

Let's break it up. Legs lift here. We hold for three, two, one, lower the legs. Top of the body lifts up for three, two, one. Hold that there.

As we reset, we're gonna lift both the arms and the legs at the same time, and hold for three counts. Let's go. Five, four, three, two, go hold up for three, two, one, lower everything down. Can we do this again? I think that we can.

Lift everything up for three, two, one, lower everything down. Let's go back into child's pose and just take a little stretch. And get off our tummies for 2.2 seconds, yes. So widen the hips as much as you need towards your knees and let your bottom go between those feet. All right, let's come out of our child's pose and just go ahead and roll through your shoulders and come into your forearm plank.

So we're gonna just plant the forearms down and I really love having my hands wide for this. So wide fingertips and the forearms are in, shoulders are back, and I want you to tuck those toes under, and then lift the bottom off the floor. Check yourself before your wreck yourself and make sure that your shoulder and hips are in the same line. And we're gonna hold this as I talk. Three, two, one, drop the knees reset, give yourself a second.

We're gonna do this one more time because we got a lot of planking to do, planks so much. So go ahead tuck those toes under, lift the hips ever so slightly squeeze the bottom. Squeeze your torso, press the elbows into the mat. Hold that pose for three, two, one drop the knees and then lower everything and then turn to your favorite side. I'm gonna turn towards you and check myself for a side plank.

Wide fingers, elbow and shoulder are in the same line. Legs are stacked on top of each other, hand can go on the hip or on the floor. We're gonna hinge up and lift up that hip. I'm gonna lift it right here, hold it up for three, two, one lower that hip down ever so gently. Let's do two more.

Lift up for three, two, one. Last one, you got this, can we hold a little bit longer on this one? Lift it up for three, ooh, 3 1/2, 3 1/4, something like that, are you counting? I'm not counting. Press that elbow into the floor, what?

Keep going and let's lower. Yes, oh my God. You're feeling it in the shoulder, right? I love it. Let sweep those legs over to the other side.

That was not very classical of me.(laughs) It was a teaser, but I'm stuck on the mat. All right, so same thing, same setup. Elbow, shoulder same line, hand is nice and wide, stack those legs, hand here. I like my hand here, press it up. I think we did like 15, right?

So lift up here. Three, two, one, lower down. You got this lift up for three, two, one lower down last one, that's extra long. Let's take it up hold 57, 29, 2, kinse all those numbers and lower down.(laughs) Oh my God, you guys are funny. All right, I'm gonna flip right around the other side to go back on my belly for 2.2 seconds.

And I'm gonna take it up into an elephant or what you might call a down dog. So tuck those toes under, press the floor in and hips go up towards the ceiling, holding that. Now to make this more elephanty, walk your hands. These are hands, back. Walk your feet a little bit closer so you can get those heels as much as possible to the floor and hold that stretch.

Press the floor away to find the stretch in your shoulders and now round and puff up that back and rock just a little bit towards your wrists. Yes. Even more exaggerated if you can, yeah. And then step it back, get a little hamstring stretch in there. Little pedal of the feet, lift that right heel and left heel pedal through.

One more each side. Last one and widen stance just a little bit. Now we're gonna take this into a twist. So hips stay up, right hand comes off and touches the ankle twist, and replace that hand. Left hand does the same thing to right ankle.

And twist, one more. Hold this one, three, two, one, and bring it back. Other side, you got this. Hold it, twist. Look above that armpit three, two, one and go back to your down dog, press away, and then bring your knees to the floor and stretch back into your child's pose one more time.

We're gonna come onto our backs. So go ahead and flip over. Lots of flipping here. Flip over and lay yourself down. We're gonna do some bridges right here.

So heels come towards the bottom. Have about a fist width between the knees. Get as close to your bottom as possible. Do a check in with the belly, pull that belly back into the mat, arms are wide at the side. Back of the arms are pressing into the mat.

Use your pinky toe, your big toe, and your heel, those are your tripods. And I want you to just do a little hip articulation here. So from the tailbone, tailbone curls up towards the ceiling and then roll down your spine. So it's like a little wave, like the ocean here at the studio and roll it down. It feels so good after all that stretching we did.

Roll, spine goes up and as you roll your spine up, why don't you think about your knees pulling away at a diagonal towards the corner of that room that you're in? And we're gonna hold this one here, holding it, balancing on your shoulders, making sure you have space between your ears and your shoulders balancing there. Really press those hip points up towards the ceiling. Squeeze that bottom. Yes, and then roll your spine all the way down.

If it feels so gentle, you're gonna take a little windshield wiper. So bring those legs together. Let the legs fall to the right of your body. So let the legs fall to the right. As they fall to the right look to the left, to stretch across the body.

Your arms should stay at the side. They come to a T or you do like I call it the cactus (laughs) or the goalpost. It could be a goalpost too. So when you're in this stretch, I want you to think about this imaginary line going from your shoulder to your hip, where you're lengthening through that hip, stretching the hip. Yes, and you can always come back to this stretch for whatever you're doing in the morning, in the evening, it's a really great way to open up that hip after sitting for a long time and bring yourself back to center.

Legs will do the same thing other side, left side try to keep those feet together. Look the opposite direction. How y'all doing? Keep it there. Again that imaginary line goes across the body, stretching the sides of the body.

And then bring it back to center. Let's do one more quickie on each side. Let the legs go to the side. Look the opposite way. And come to center.

Other side, legs drop to the left or if you did the right the other side, look opposite those legs. Beautimus and come back to the center. And as we sit here and kind of just check back in, I'm gonna let my legs go long on my mat, flexed or point it feet up to you. Let the arms reach back for that yawning stretch that lift the ribs, lift off the mat, stretch, stretch, stretch, flex those heels. Bring that belly to the mat and roll yourself up to a seated position.

Take a stretch forward and gimme that puff that we did before. Puff it up, puff it up, puff it up. Relax everything, make it messy and just bend all the way forward as much as possible. And again maybe your hands don't come this far, maybe your hands go to your thighs that's okay, stretch there. And then stack your spine up tall.

I'm gonna face you really quickly, really, really quickly. And we're almost wrapping this puppy up, so stay tall here. Get nice and tall and just recenter yourself, roll those shoulders down and back. I'm gonna take my left hand and put it in-front right hand goes behind me. I'm gonna just twist, twist, twist, twist.

And come back to the center. Other side, right hand goes in-front left hand goes back, and we twist. Widen those shoulders up really tall when you twist sometimes we dump stay tall. Come back to the center. Let's reach the hands behind us and to stretch the chest forward shine that heart towards your ceiling.

Two more breaths here. Bring the head back to neutral on top of your shoulders, hands are on your sides and you have completed challenge day number one. See you on the next one.