Upper Body Wunda Chair

Today we'll use the Wunda Chair to get strong arms, strong shoulders, and really stimulate the work for the upper body in all different places and directions. Let's start warming up with 100 and we'll go from there. I set up one spring in the middle because that's what I will need as soon as we start pushing the pedal. For now, we're gonna go reaching long and pumping. We need to get some blood flowing into the body.

We need to warm it up. This is a great cardio warm up. We're really moving the blood around the body and we are breathing. We're gonna expand, inhale, and then exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale, reaching forward nice and vigorous. It's always good to start with a nice warm up.

Anything we do, the body moves better when we do, so that's why just Pilates, put the 100 in the very beginning. Let's do two more and exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale out. And again in. And you pump it out. Exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale.

And bring it in. Nice stretch. And now we come up to standing and we turn around. And this time I want you to step a little farther away from the pedal. Don't be too close.

And we go with the roll down. From here, arms go forward, head goes down. We roll down. We find the pedal. And just to press the pedal down using your stomach.

The top of the shoulders are relaxed. The head is relaxed. And now scoop into your stomach and pull the pedal back up. And again, push it down and up, up, up. And I want you to really picture the shoulders as almost not moving.

What moves is the stomach. The stomach pulls and everything comes up. And then the stomach pushes everything down. Now stay down there with the elbows pointing back. You pump.

You go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Try not to grip the shoulders. Keep 'em down and away. Pull into your stomach and scoop it up, up, up, up, up. All the way up to standing and open down.

Let's repeat. This time, we pump with the elbows out. Arms go forward. Head goes down. Find the pedal.

Relax the top of the shoulders. Press all the way down like we did before. Going out with the elbows, I want you to think about shaving. Bend and push. Bend and push.

We are shaving behind the head. And again, shave down and push. Scoop. Roll all the way up. This is the last time we come up.

And open. We'll repeat, executing both. From here, arms forward, head down, curl. This is a nice gentle warm up. Press down.

Relax the neck on the shoulders and you go 5, 4, 3, 2. Keep it there. Let's go to shaving. Elbows go out. You go 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1.

Now keep that paddle down. Step back a little bit. Pay attention to keep weight on top of your arms, otherwise the pedal will snap up. Now I want you to try to lift the toes. Shift your weight back, keeping a lot of pressure on your hands, otherwise it's gonna snap back up.

You test. You go back and then you go forward. Now pretend you are on the reformer and you're doing your up stretch, your combo. Vigorous and purpose push through the arms and then the weight shifts back to the hips. And again, front, front, front, scoop, push, and then all the way back.

And now we go forward again. Scoop, bend. And let's go to our knee stretches. Hold it here. Relax ahead as much as you can.

Shift back a little bit and shift forward. Shift back a little bit and shift forward. Scoop, scoop, scoop. One more time. Back, back, back.

Now we're working the shoulders, all the muscles underneath, on the side. And now slowly down on the mat. Let's go to a table top position. As much as we can, flat back. Of course it's inclined.

It has to be so because we have the pedal, but we try to keep the back as straight as possible. Now shift just a little bit more weight over your knees. Just enough to move the pedal. And now we go. We repeat. Elbows back.

5, 4, 3, 2. Press down. Hold. Now let's go onto one arm only. Let's shift the left a little closer to the center just to be more in control. The right goes up here.

We keep the box even. And we go 5, 4, 3, 2. Press it down and hold. And now we switch. Right hand goes on the pedal.

Left goes on top. I'm doing five reps. It's totally fine to start with two or three reps. Or if you want to to challenge yourself more, go beyond the five. Press.

Now from here, you're going to scoop up and press it down. Round up and press it down. And again, up, up, up, up, up. We're gonna slide back. We stay on the knees.

Try to keep the hips in front and on top of the knees. Lift and open. Now we turn around and we get even more into the arms. Sit pretty close to the chair. Press it down.

Keep it down safely. And now you lift. Now bend the elbows up little and press down. And pump, 2, 3, 4. Keep it down for 5.

Reach open the chest and lift. Slowly, head into chest. Go back down and you go 1, 2, 3, 4. Push down five. And again you go lift, lift, lift, and chin to chest all the way down.

Release it up. You can round over, release with control. Lace your fingers. Lift up. Keep your ribs lifted.

Now big circle around and you go over to your feet and stretch. Good. Now we go on the stomach and we practice some shaving also here. Shaving and legs. From here, relax the head down. Do arms are up.

I want you to bend and extend. Bend and extend. And again, bend and up. And now you go lift. Connect the back of the arms to your back.

And again, press, hold, and release. Press, hold, and release. Now let's alternate. We shave and you press. And again shave and press.

One more time. Shave and press. And now you release. You sit back on your heels. Every time I arch our light to compensate and give the back, the spine, the opposite position.

And then we walk forward and we go back to our kneeling position where we're left off, and we go down, pushing down the pedal again. We tuck the toes under. And now we do the same pumping on the flat back but with the elbows out. We didn't do previously. Here you go 5, 4, 3, 2.

And keep it there. Make sure this doesn't happen. It's even easier to make it happen now, so control the shoulders. And you go 5, 4, 3, 2. Press it down. Hold.

And now you change. Switch and you go 5, 4, 3, 2 press. Do we need to do everything on the first time we do this class? Maybe we break it down, right? It depends on where we come from.

From here, we stretch up. We're gonna go back on the heels. Keep the pedal down. Shift it forward. I would recommend you do is to start with less repetitions and prioritizing the arm position that fits you most.

Here we walk forward. Walk to the pedal and I want you to go as close as you can this time. Now we are really curled and into the chair. And we repeat. Pump, elbows back. 1, 2, 3, 4, keep it down.

Now we turn the elbows out. Of course, we cannot really shave. It gets the forehead and then down. And 2, 3, 4, press it down, 5. Turn your arms again.

Scoop into your stomach. Curl. Articulate as much as you can. And you slowly come all the way up and open. Good. Now let's go sideways. It gets more challenging.

For now, we were even. Yes, one end at a time, but we were working facing the pedal, which is a lot easier, so let's step it up a little bit here. Arms up. We're gonna roll down one arm. The inside arm finds the chair and you press the pedal down.

Now scoop and lift and press up. And press, lift, press all the way down and pump. 5, 4, 3, 2. Push it down and stay. Now both hands go to the floor.

And I want you to step back and go into an kneeling position in all four. From this position, prioritize the shoulder. The box must be even. And here you go. Pump 5, 4, 3, 2, and hold.

Let's go back on the knees. I'm lengthening my body. It's a little harder. I stay and I go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. When you get more advanced, you can go in a row.

Now I want you to take a break, get the fingers together, and move the fingers and the wrist around a little bit, just in case they're a little tired. Shake them out a little bit. Now we go back to that same inclined plank, and I want you to stretch the toes back and come up in a full plank. And here you go. Same thing. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Keep the pedal there. Walk towards the pedal on the mat. Head down, scoop and come up, up, up, up, up. Lift and open. You see how many options you have.

If the first one is the one you need to work on, just repeat the first one three times or otherwise the second. Or you can just do pushups three times. Let's go higher up. We do a little bit of a different work. I want one forearm on the chair.

One hand on the pedal. I go in my pushup number two. And here I go pump 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Let's repeat it another time. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Pedal up. Walk in. Now both hands. One on top of the chair. One on the pedal. Now my top arm will be working. From here, bend and up.

Two and up. Three. One more time. Sorry, two more times. Last one. Five and lift.

And now over the chair like a little swan, I want you to reach big arm out. And now the top arm on the pedal is going to pump. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Little break. And again, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

This is fantastic for the back. And now you come all the way up. And let's take a little break. We go on the back for a quick abdominal series. You go pull and switch.

And 2 and lengthen. 3, 4. We get to eight sets. Deepen, deepen, pull, pull, pull, pull. Now both knees in, you go reach and pull.

Lengthen and in. Reach, reach, reach and in. Give time to your arms to your wrist to take a break. We work the core. The core is really important for all these planks that we're working on.

And we'll land with a nice and advanced push up shortly. And now you go straight 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And again, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Now hold the hands underneath the table and you go down, down, down and lift. Lower, lower, lower and up.

Lengthen and scoop. Reach, reach, reach, up. Out, out, out. Back is flat. And again 3, 2, and 1. Bend your knees in.

Scoop up. Stay on the chair. Lengthen up the legs. And now we go find the pedal behind us and scooping the stomach, we're gonna round and push it down. Push it down.

Push the pedal down. Scoop the stomach back. Float it up. And again, push the pedal down from your stomach. Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, lengthen.

And back up. And again curl pedal. Push, push, push. And again, scoop, scoop, scoop, and release. Let's go and we'll repeat everything on the other side.

Over here. We're gonna stand. Arms up. You're gonna roll down. Find the pedal. Press the pedal all the way down and scoop and lift.

And again, press it down and scoop and lift. And again, down, down, down. You stay and you pump 5, 4, 3, 2. And push. Keep the pedal down.

Join with the other hand down into the floor. You walk back and we go in an all four position. Make sure you square the shoulders off. Now from here, you pump the pedal. 5, 4, 3, 2, and hold.

Let's go to the short plank on the knees. And here you go. 5, 4, 3, 2, hold. If you need to rest, you can rest, otherwise you go in a full plank and we do the same thing. 1, 2, 3, 4, and five.

Keep the pedal down. Keep pushing it down as you walk in. And now you scoop into your stomach. You control that pedal. You come all the way up.

Lift up the arms and open. Now we go up on top of the chair. And you go down 2, 3, 4, 5. Bring it up. Both hands, plank again.

You bend the top elbow. 2, 3, 4, 5. And now we finally go lying on top of the chair. With this little swan, we engage all the posterior muscles, and we go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Little break and one more set.

You go 5, 4, 3, 2. Beautiful. Release. And now you come up and you take a little bit of a break. Of course working on the chair, it's a lot of hand on top that support us, so do as much as you can today and train your wrist little by little. You don't wanna do too much and then have them inflamed or in pain.

Build up little by little. Pick which one of these exercise works the best for you to get stronger in your upper body. It's a very strong class. Simple exercises but very intense. Now let's add one spring.

From one in the middle, I'm personally going to one in the middle and one in the bottom, so I have a more help. And I'm going for the frogs facing out. Sitting on the chair, toes on the pedal. Nice and long. I lift and here I go.

I dip down and up. I want the nice long back. And I love this exercise because you work the arms, freeing up the neck and the top of the shoulders. Let's do two more. Down and up.

And down. And let's add a little pumping. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And sit back. Now let's do a few pull ups and then we'll put 'em together in a nice combo.

Here you remember in the beginning, when we were pushing the pedal down? Now we do the opposite. We pull it up and we push the top of the chair down. And so you go lift and lift. Again, with the stomach.

Up and up. Down and take a little break. Now we try to put them together and we switch with a pedal at the bottom. You go down, fold over, lift up and down. Sit on your heels, lift up, down, pull up.

One more time. Sit on your heels, lift up, down, nose to the knees, pull up, down and sit. Shake it off. Now we can repeat what we just did or we can try switching in between the exercise with the pedal up on top. Let's try that.

From here, you go down and up. Keep the pedal up. Fold and now you go lower. Lift. Keep it up. Bend, down, up, keep it up, lift, down, up.

Bend, down, lift. Last one. Up, push and release. Very good. Now step off.

We turn around. Now we press the pedal down. I want you to go hands on top of the chair. It's a little safer for what we are going to do as opposed to put them at at the very edge. Keep your wrist right in line with your shoulders.

Toes on the pedal. You scoop and just simple scoop and lift and down. You see how the pedal goes up and down because your core, your pelvis, pushes it down. One more. Lift and down. Now I want the pedal to move because your elbows move.

Completely different concept. From here, let's go all the way up. Now the pelvis stays. The elbows move and push. Down, bend and push.

Down, bend and push. And now with the pedal we go down all the way and release. very good. If we did everything so far, I think we are ready to put everything together. The core, the planks, the work on the hips, the arm strength.

And we can try the third push up with the chair. I'm going to one spring on the top, so less than what we had right now, but a little more to give me a little more help of what it was in the very beginning. One spring on the bottom is my goal, but that would be a little bit too hard today. From here, lift. We're gonna roll down.

We put one foot at a time up on top of the chair. Walk out until you reach your plank. Once you are on your plank, we are gonna move together. The pelvis and the elbows. And then up.

And again, press and up. Similar to that, push up with the magic circle that we did on the mat. Two more. And again, down and lift. Very well done.

Walk back so that you are on top of your wrist and you can step down. Slowly relax and slowly roll your body up. Very good. This was a pretty demanding chair overall. Go slowly.

Do the amount of repetitions and variations that are good for you today. Then you increase. And then you add even more of what you do today. And it will be great.