Abs, Buns, Back, and Arms

Hi, everyone. Amy Havens here. I'm so happy to be at Pilates anytime again. All right. So this is a class that's, you know, it's based on the mat work, but we're kind of breaking down some four components, abdominals, buns, back and arms.

Okay. So where there's not the full mat repertoire, but exercises in this class are definitely from the mat list with some variations and some variety to it. So no wasting time, let's get going. Everybody, we're gonna lie on our back to begin. Align yourself, feet parallel, knees parallel.

Little space between the knees is fine. Just start by kind of centering yourself with your breathing. Feel the hands pressing into the mat, the feet, the lower back and be neutral. Pelvis is definitely in the level position, ribs relaxed. Okay, so let's take about three, four breaths there.

(inhales) Just collect that in and feel the body imprinting, sinking into the mat. (exhales) Nice, deep inhale. (inhales) And your exhale. (exhales) Two more. And exhale. (exhales)

And one more time. All right, here we go. I want now to change your position, ankles together, knees together. Take your hands all the way back around the back of your head. Interlace those hands.

Make that hammock for your head, elbow slightly lifted, shoulders nice and wide. Scapula, I should say. Starting with some chest lifts. So take a breath. So today we're going into kind of four counts of things.

So four counts to come up. And four counts to lower. So I'm not gonna count it out, but if it were counting, it'll gonna be like a one, two, three, four and down, two. Okay, something like that. And two, up and lower.

I often have a little musicality going on in my head when I'm working out and planning materials. So that shows up in things like class today. So come on up and we're gonna hold, all right? So now adding your rotation of your upper body. So to the right and staying center and over to the left and staying center, and over to the right.

Knees stays centered. In fact, you can press your knees together, keeping those legs right in the center of the pelvis. We're gonna take two more each direction. And twist, two, three, four. If you are wondering when the timing.

And over to the left, two, three, four and center. Once again, and over, one, two, three, four, and center. Sometimes it does help to count it out. And one, two, three, four, and center, and then everybody take your body down. Take a quick breath.

Exhale back up we go. (exhales) So breathe and prepare. We're gonna exhale one leg up to 90/90, and lower down. So this is nice and challenging. Kind of getting that heat in the body, in the center.

Imagine your leg starts way up underneath your ribcage. So you'll engage for way up there to bring that leg up, right? It's not just at the hip joint, way up under the ribs. We've got four more. Exhale, lift.

One more on this leg. And then I'd like you to keep this leg up here, add that second leg, now you've got two. Okay. You've gotta keep your back down, okay. So I want you to take both legs down.

If you can dip those toes all the way to the mat and exhaling up. Only to your level without arching your back, okay. Everybody's different, and lift. Gonna take two more, all the way down, exhale, lift, and last one, all the way down and lift. And then now you can take your head down, keep your legs up in the 90/90, hands right at the front of the knees.

Now take a breath. Exhale, and press your hands into your knees. And I want everybody to flatten their back. So again, deep, deep, deep contraction of the abdominals. You should have no space here now in your lower back.

And then as you inhale, you can relax that lower back there. So we'll make a change from our kind of neutral position to the pressing your back down. Okay. And again, breathe in. If you're going in counts, it would be, one, two, three, four and release.

Two, three, four, again press. Two, three, four, and release. We'll take it two more times and press. I want your back really flat and release. Last one, and exhale press.

Now keep it flat, take your head up. Put your arms by your side. Flex the heels of the hands, extend your legs, We're gonna do two count pulses here. So we have a pulse, pulse, open the legs, reach through, go back to the beginning position and then arms down, knees bend. Here we go.

And it's one, two, open, reach through. It's like you're really pushing away. Upper body down, arms up, knees bend. A couple more, and one, two, really push, curl, curl, and push, push, and lower down. One more time.

And a one, two, and one, two, and one, two. Hello, abdominals. Okay, single leg stretch. Everybody bring yourself up. Bring yourself onto one shin, pull that in.

We're gonna go slow and then quick. So we've got two and two. That was our slow, and then four singles, two and three and four. Repeat, and one, two, and one, two, and single, single, two more sets. And a one, and a one.

(exhales) Just keep your breath going. And a one, two and one, two. Singles. Whew. Okay, double leg stretch.

So bring both knees in. Gonna do four sets of this slow. So reach towards your legs first. Reach your arms back over head, second. Curl and squeeze everything in and let the head go down.

Okay, three more times. We have got a one, two, and reach. Two circle in, two, head goes down and energy, forward. Arm energy back. Circle in, lower down.

Last one, reach, and stretch, circle in, and lower down. And then scissors, much like single leg stretch, we'll do a slow, and a slow, and then quick for four, three, two, again, and slow, and slow, and quick, quick. Nice and brisk, two more sets. And slow, and quick, quick. Good.

And slow, and slow, and quick, quick. And then we'll take our head down, fold your knees, hands behind the head. Straight leg, lower lift. Okay. Straight legs, up we go.

Lower in three, two, one, and it's up. Lower three, two, one, and pull up. Two more, down. Two, three, and lift, and one. Oh boy, Criss Cross is next, you guys.

Slow and quick. So it's two counts, and two counts. And quick, quick, three more sets. And two, two, quick, quick. Good.

Two more sets. Really stretch, really stretch and twist. Last set. Reach, and reach, and twist, twist, twist, and twist, and roll all the way up. We're gonna keep moving for rolling like a ball.

Wrap your hands around your ankles. Get into that nice tight shape. Try to do a four count back and four count up. Here we go. And a one, two, three, four.

And a one, two, three, four. Suddenly I've gotten faster with my counts of four. It's okay. Back two, three, four. Up two, three, four.

Back two, three, four. Keep going if you'd like to or advance it. Elbows on the knees, here we go. Back two, three, four. Up two, three, four.

Back two, three, four. These are tough. Oh, they're so good and hard. And up two, three, four. Up two, three, four.

Okay, spine stretch forward. Arms reaching long, body nice and tall. Nothing fancy, four reps, we breathe in. (inhales) But slowly press your stomach back, reach as far forward as you can, and four counts to come up. You know, the rest, right?

And four, three. We narrow the sides of your waistline, and up. Press your shoulders down. Go get into the center of the body. Feel the strength.

And up, two, three, and four. Last time, and a one, two. How far can you go? And up, two and three and four. So...

So of course, right. And I was really reaching in opposite directions with those arms, but narrow through that waistline. Everybody all the way to the other side. So four, three, two, one. Transition to the other side, and a one, two, three, four.

Try not to really let go of those, the abdominal contraction, leaving it, intensify it, right? So you can breathe louder through the ribs. One more each direction and twist, two, three, four, and up. Last one here. And one, two, three, four, and up, two and three and four.

Lower your arms. We're gonna go into some sideline now, everybody. Don't take your time. Get onto your side. I went on my left side.

It doesn't matter what side you go on. Get completely side lying here. I am gonna come to the front of my mat a little bit. You might wanna do the same. Okay.

And right by your front body here, let's take a breath in. Exhale up. Two, three, and four and down. So that same cue I gave us a moment ago, where do the legs start? Think that they start way up underneath your ribs.

And as you go to lift these legs up, it's contracting through those obliques, right? I think more like the ceiling part here, the ceiling tummy is working pretty hard. Yeah, and down, okay. We didn't do the hundred. We get to try to do a little bit of the a hundred shape right here.

Roll onto your back. Hit that hundred shape. Try to roll back to the side you came from and over. Okay. So you've got two legs up.

Two, three, four. Take your time. Two, three, four. Back to your side. Two, three, four, not easy, and down.

Got a couple more tries, on one, two, three, four, and roll. Two, three, four. One, two. Gotta reach those legs out down. How you doing?

Well the last time guys, up, two, three, four. Just really narrow into the center of your body, and up, two, three, four, and down. Oh my goodness. Now up again, one, two, three, four. Legs are gonna go forward.

You can use this front hand. Try not to bring your tailbone with you. Leave your tailbone behind you. Keep your legs up. How far can you go?

And then bring your legs back in line with you, and down, right. Up. And to the front. Ooh, and back. Always toughies, and down.

Yeah, last two. And lift. Keep those legs up. Keep 'em up, keep 'em up. Bring it back and lower.

The fun thing about side lying is both sides of the waistline are always working, right? So I don't know what side is more fatigued on me, and then, right? So this side's been working, but this side's been working, but guess what? We have to do the other side. No fancy transition.

Just come on up and flip her over. Oh, hello obliques. Remember come to the front of the mat a little bit, it gives you room for rolling back, okay. So set up nice and lateral. Beautiful strong line, hand right in the front.

We're gonna breathe. (inhales) Two counts or two legs and then lower. Starting nice and simple. It's like this waist is picking up the legs and down. Way up underneath the rib cage.

And down, one more basic double leg lift. All the way up and down. Ready for that a hundred thing, right? So lift, two, three, four. So when you roll over, get narrow, get into the center of your body, reach.

Roll back over, reach those legs out, flip onto your side. And one, two, three, four. If we rhythmically do, three, four, it may make it easier. Two, three, four, and down. No promises though.

One, two, three, four, and into the center. Roll over. Reach back on to the side and down. Hope you're doing great with this. This is the last one.

And roll. Reach to the a hundred shape. Next time we'll have to throw a series of 50 in each side, right. Oh well, okay. Legs come in front of us.

We have, up, two, three, four. Bring your legs forward. You're trying not to take your tail with you. No tucking, right. And then just bring your legs back in line with your hips and all the way down.

And up, two, three, four. Legs in front. Two, three, four. I am using my front arm. Try it without...

You might fall over. I don't want you to fall. So light hand can work, reach those legs, bring it back, and down. How about the last one, guys. And up, two, three, four.

And front, two, three, four. And back, two, three, four. And we're down. Okay, we're gonna roll into our back just for a moment, hug your knees into your chest. (exhales) Okay.

And now comes the bun section, okay. So I had tempted in my brain to make this a huge long circuit class. Can you imagine if we went through all of these three or four times. We're not. Maybe some other day.

Getting into the back body, the buns. We're gonna start with pelvic curl and add little sprinkles of fun. Hands on your thighs, take a breath. Let's go, up, two, three. Know when I'm counting, four.

Down, here we go for three more, up, two. (inhales) Good, and down. It's keeping it moving today. Press your feet into the floor. Good, and down.

We're gonna stay up on the next one. And, one, two, three, four, and hold. Okay, up to you to keep your hands here or put your elbows on the floor, that feels pretty good too. Walk your feet in a little closer. Keep your abdominals engaged, and we're gonna do heel lifts, which is strangely interesting work for the buns.

So we do heels up and heels down. We try not to drop the pelvis at all. So this position stays where only thing is happening, heels up and down, but you'll start to feel the work in the back of the thighs and your glutes, and press, and lower, and press. I actually think, I say to myself, hips higher, Amy, when your heels go down. Go hips higher when the heels come down, just so I won't drop 'em.

Now you're gonna stay with heels lifted. Hips come down now. Just hips down, hips up. I'm not really rolling my spine, I'm lowering. So coming kind of down and neutral and up and down.

If this is bothering your feet to be heels lifted, you could do this with heels flat. Three more, and two, and we are gonna stay up. Here's the last one here. I am gonna put the heels down. Now everybody take one side of your pelvis, rotate and put it down on the mat.

And then come up in the rotation and then center the hips at the top. Other side. So we rotate, both hips come, or one hip comes down, and lift and center. Let's do it again. So we rotate, one hip comes down, press up and center.

How about some breath. (inhales/exhales) Lift, four more now. And twist, and hip, and lift and center. (inhales/exhales) We've got one more each direction, really go for that. Press those hips.

Lift. It's such great preparation for shoulder bridge, which is coming next. And let's roll down out of that though first, okay. So shoulder bridge. Let's take our arms by our sides.

Feet can be a little narrower or wider. You're gonna pick that up and see what it feels like for your knees. I just want you to press your hips up everybody. Just go, lift. Okay?

Use the back of the arms to, you know, stand on, pick up a leg. I'm doing my right leg that's closest to you. Now, lower the pelvis again, just like we did. No rolling really. Just set it down and press it up.

Now we've got this single leg work, down and up. Two more, down and up, up, up, and down and up, up. Now we emphasize the up. The up, the up and up, just four more, and three and two, and left. Last time.

Set that foot down, now the other leg comes up. We're not rolling down out of that. We're gonna set the hips down and press yourself up. Set the hips down, single leg, press yourself up. Two more.

(exhales) Feel that in that bun, right, right in that place. Okay, eight pulses now, we go guys, one. Three, four, press that heel into the floor. Six and seven. Last one, eight, bend that knee.

You can roll down. This probably feels really nice after that. Let's give our knees a hug. Okay. So if you pick up your head in your chest with your knees towards you, you're probably gonna feel some nice stretch through that area that we just worked.

It's also great for preparing that area a little bit more for your grasshopper. So here we go. We're gonna flip over to our tummy. Okay. Two choices.

You could stack your hands with your forehead down to do the grasshopper series. That'll help you imprint your pubic bone and hips, right? Or you can also put your hands underneath your pelvic, the SI bones, and I'll show a few like that. Your forehead will be hovered. Bend your knees, flex your ankles and open your knees just a little bit.

Okay. This doesn't take a lot of lift of the legs. I want you to take a breath, press your pubic bone into the mat and raise your thighs. Okay. And lower.

Now the heels sometimes like to kind of drift away on the grasshoppers. So try to keep your heels toward your bum. Let's try it again. So we're going up, and down. Exhale up, and down.

Concentrate on contracting right around the bottom curve of your glutes, and up. You're gonna stay up. Let's add little pulses here. Going up and up. (inhales/exhales) And four, three, it gets even better, okay.

You're gonna straighten your legs. Now keep your legs up, stretch your legs. Flex your feet, pull them back in. We have three more. Point your feet, extend, try to keep your thighs up.

Flex and pull them in. Last two, and open. How are your buns feeling? Hope you're feeling this. And last one.

You've got one more little layer. Lower your thighs. You're gonna do four straight leg lifts, you guys. Breathe. Straight legs, go up, and down.

Oh boy. And up, and down. Last one. I'm gonna throw one more little piece in here. Let's do some heel beats.

Why not? And beat. Just, eight, seven, six, five, three, two, one and rest. We're gonna get ready for flight. Moving into more of the back.

So we're working our way up the back. We felt lower back. We're gonna move into upper and middle. Same thing, forehead can start on the floor. Arms long by your sides, stomach lifted.

So we're gonna just take an upper body lift and stretch those arms beautifully long and lower all the way down. Okay, and you don't have to lift very high. Think about lifting with length. Legs are on the floor for this series right now. We'll make a change in a moment.

I want your collar bone beautifully open. Okay, we're about to add. So keep your upper body there. Let's add the legs again, and down. And legs, and down.

(exhales) Last one. And everything comes down, head, chest, and legs. We'll do four more with everything combined. Upper body and legs, ready? And lift, and lower.

Three more. Lift and lower. And two more, and down, and last one. Bend your elbows. Put your hands right by the sides of your chest wall.

We're going up for our swan. Here we go. And we're lifting all the way up a full stretch and down. Three more swans. Inhale and exhale, and down.

I love those little cues of eyes, nose, chin, and chest, initiating that swan lift. We've got one more big movement. And then coming back down for some smaller moves for your upper back, okay. So forehead stays down, everybody. Organize your arms in this 90/90.

Sometimes we call that the goal post on this particular mat. My hands are on the outside of the mat. Once again, your forehead is down nice and light, okay. Support your back with your tummy. Forehead stays down for a moment.

But what I want everybody to do is to press your elbows into the floor and lift your forearms and your hands and then just lower that. And again, exhale. So there's some external rotation of the upper arm. You're feeling into the caps of the shoulders and around to the back of the shoulder blades. (exhales) Okay.

Little Darth Vader there, sorry. Four more, and down, and three. I haven't lifted my chest too high. I'm just a little hover, focusing on the space in my upper back, and then holding here. Okay now, lift yourself a little bit higher and reach one arm front and bring it back.

Opposite arm, and bend it elbow to the floor. So if your back is getting fatigued, just put your chest down, but keep the arm work going, okay. So we have a single arm and down. Stabilize your pelvis the best you can. You could be moving a little side to side, that's okay.

Last one, single arm, and down, and rest. Okay. Again, shake your back, put your hands by your chest. Push yourself up and just round your back for just a second, everybody. Reach your arms nice and long.

Wiggle those ribs a tiny bit. (inhales) Take some deep breaths, everybody. Okay. Working lots in the back body now. We're gonna continue working and getting into arms, all right.

So we're gonna come onto all fours. Open up your hands. The wrist of your hand, of course, be right below your shoulder line. Nice neutral line of your spine, knees below your hips. Okay, I call this the camel drinking water.

I don't know if that's really what they look like. But this is what I call it. And you'll bend your elbows, lower your forearm. So it's kind of a good, you know, push upy kind of preparation or it's own exercise here. I don't want you to lean back off your hands this way.

So try to stay over your hands, okay. If you can't get your elbows all the way down, that's fine. Go do what you can. For those of us who can, let's get the forearms down. Now, when you come up, go more toward your fingertips.

Go forward and up. Okay. How about some counting? So four, three, neutral spine, and up. Two, three and four.

Couple more. I'm externally rotating those upper arms. I'm taking that last exercise we did prone. Working into those upper arms and lift. Okay.

Those feel so good, let's do a couple more. Yeah, exhale, go toward those fingertips and lift. Last time and bend. All right. And lift.

Now walk your knees back just a tiny, tiny bit. Lift your feet up, come onto your knees. Let's do some pushups here with the little kind of transition in there. See if you can get your elbows narrow. And I'm gonna go pretty low and push and then just put your feet down and lift into a little plank for a moment, okay.

So that's our little combination. So knees down, and down in your push up, press yourself up. Place your feet and just lift into that plank line, and lower. We got a couple more, and down and push, and lift, and lower. Thank goodness.

One more time. And down, two, three, four, and push, two, three, four, and lift. Stay here. Stay there. I don't have a preference which hand, but put one hand next to the other one.

Turn onto a side plank and just hold that side plank for a second. Nice strong single arm exercise. Take this hand down, go to your plank, other side. So hand to hand, swivel and lift. Okay, hold it.

And then we have each side one more time. So get onto those hands. One hand or the other hand, swivel the feet and side plank, side arm balance. Last time. And over.

Okay. Now we're gonna go back to a plank position, everybody. We're doing great. Come into what we think is like a downward facing dog. Remember we're not in yoga, we're in Pilates.

So I want you to push your hands, push your arms, lift your seat. So now to get into upper arms a little bit more, kind of burning them out here. I want you to bend your elbows and get your forehead pretty close to the mat and straighten. So a different kind of push up. I'm letting my shoulder blade stay pretty low, on my back, and bend.

Four more times. Bend, push, bend, push. My arms are kind of short. So I'm not really getting my forehead all the way down, but I'm getting it arm close. Okay, and come down.

We've got one more arm exercise before we're finished with this little heater upper class. I'm just gonna sit facing you back how we started, shoulder. So reach your arms forward. These are whisks. Four, five, six, seven.

Reverse, and eight. These little whisky moves happen again in various places. My shoulders or back. Good. Other way, eight.

Okay, so that's gonna take the arms out to the T-position. Same thing. Whisk, open your chest. Reach, reach, reach. Other way, and eight.

Try to keep your trunk nice and still. First direction, eight, five, six, seven, second direction. Then the hardest position I think is above the head. Here we go. And whisk, two, three, four, five, six, and reverse it.

Two, three, four. We have two more sets or one more of each. Oh, goodness. One, two, three, four, and five, six and seven and eight. Reverse, one, three, four.

Now you're gonna hate me, but here we go. Each position one more time. One, two, three, four, five, six and seven, reverse. And then we'll go right out to the T-position. And one, whisk, energy in the shoulders, reverse.

(exhales) Two, three, four. Ready for the up above the head. And up, two, three, four, five, six. Try these with one pound weights next time. Two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight, and relax.

(exhales) I bow to you. My goodness. I hope you feel good. I hope you feel sweaty. I hope you feel like you've gotten your A B B A muscles worked out.

Thank you for joining me. And I will see you next time.