Postnatal Mat Reintroduction

Hi there. I'm Leah sewer and I'm honored to be back with so anytime to do my second to postnatal Polonius mat class. I am now about six months postpartum and this class is really designed for a little bit later in your postpartum period, maybe a couple of months after your a you gave birth to your baby. And we're going to kind of reintroduce some of our abdominal work, which we wanted to kind of shy away from traditional abdominal work early postpartum to allow our abdominal muscles time to properly heal. So we're going to address that in today's class and we're also going to work a little bit on stretching out the sides, stretching out the lower back and the hips, which can often get tight from carrying a baby, um, feeding a baby and so on and so forth. So come on and join me.

We'll have some fun here. So we're going to start in a seated position. And for this class you may want a towel. You're more than welcome to use it if you want. You also certainly don't have to use it. A kitchen towel or a bathroom hand towel will do just fine.

So go ahead and sit with your legs crossed and I want you to take the towel and wrap it around your lower belly and across your waist. And the previous postnatal class, I did this in a supine position with a theraband. So essentially we're going to do some breathing exercises to begin to reactivate the transverse abdominis into connect with the pelvic floor. So here we go. So I want you to take the towel and actually face you for this and I want you to wrap it, crossing it in front of the bodied. Sit Up as straight as you can, feeling comfortable. And we're going to have a nice big inhale with the nose and a nice big XL through the mouth. So breathing in with an exhale, I want you to literally squeeze the towel around the waist, inhale into the towel, expanding the rib cages. Why does you can, and then Xcel tighten the towel even more around the waist, jaw on the abdominal wall, back toward the spine, and inhale, expanding.

You'll feel the tele move and then exhale, engage even more. Drawing the abdominal wall back toward the spine and gazing the transverse abdominis. Let's do this two more times. Breathing in, it's my chair. As you can get in and breathe out, tightening, squeezing, letting the tele help you pull the trans versus tighter and tighter rounds your torso. One more time. Breathing in and sale. Drawing the abdominal wall back, scooping into the belly, feeling as if you're going to touch your spine with the belly button. Yeah. Now we lease a towel and you're going to do two more. Without it, you're going to place your hands reading your abdomen and you're going to give me two more big breath here. So breathing in and exhale nice and tight.

Feel the fingers interlace in front of the body again. Inhale and excel, flattening the abdominal wall. Feel the rib cage closing and getting nice and tight to the abdomen and release. We're going to move on from here, so go ahead and sit with your legs out in front of you. You can take the distance, whatever you feel more comfortable with. If you want to sit with your legs further forward, go ahead and do so. If you want to draw them back in towards your body, that's fine, but the key to this is that you're sitting straight up and down.

You're right on top of the sitz bones. You're going to put the hands behind the thighs. We're going to do some single leg lifts in a seated position, so it's going to be a small movement. You want to really activate the spinal extensors to keep your torso up right up toward the ceiling. So take the breath into your nose. With your exhale, you're going to draw the left knee up to your left shoulder. Okay, inhale, place it down. Exhale again.

Okay, in help place sit down. So this is a very small movement, deep into the hip joint, but as you do this, I want you to think of flattening your abdominal wall as much as possible, keeping the back extensors strong so you're feeling that sense of what we call co contraction. One more time with the left leg for me. [inaudible] let's reverse or excuse me, repeat with the right leg, Xcel, lift up and take it down and lift. Okay. Keeping the abdominal wall nice and flat and strong. You can even place your opposite opposite hand in front of your time.

You say you can feel that drawing in that constant drawing in of the abdominal wall. Two more [inaudible] last one. [inaudible]. Now with the left leg, we're going to slide the leg out one. We're going to lift it up to take it down three and draw it in on four. Sliding out. One deep connection with the hip flexors to take it down.

Three, pull it in for sliding out one tightly abdominals and lift. Take it down and draw it in. Two more. Now what we're doing here is we're working the stabilizes of the trunk, which is very, very, very important and again, we're working the deep hip flexors, strengthen them back up and let's go into the right leg. Take it out, lift it up, take it down and draw it in again. And one deep connection to take it down. Three, draw it in on for two more. And slide. Bring it up, take it down and draw it in. Last one slide. Keeping everything nice and strong. Take it down and bring it in.

Go ahead and take your fingers in her lace behind your head. We have to do a little bit of side bending here. I'm actually gonna face you so you can see exactly what I'm doing. So you're gonna interlace the fingers here. So we're going to go over to the right inhale and getting that nice stretch to the left side of the body.

Makes sure that the left side of the palaces anchor down. Exhale, use your left, settle, bleak. Supple your torso back to center. Inhale, nice big stretch over. You're fanning up the rib cage, stretching up the right side and Xcel come back to the top. Inhale over again, leading from the torso, letting the shoulders, head and neck and the shoulders, neck and head follow than Xcel. Draw yourself back up and over to the left. Inhaling and XL up. Let's do two more sets. Inhale. So again, these exercises are designed to help you keep your transverse abdominis, your deep back extensors, muscles all engaged so that you're retraining them, rebuilding their strength after you had your baby and XL. Back up to soon. One more to the left. Inhale, nice big side. Stretch over.

Feel that nice stretch and back out. Now we're going to add some arms to it in halo over to the right. Exhale, extend both arms, getting in Nice pool across your chest, but the hands behind the head again with an inhale and exhale, draw yourself back to vertical. Inhale over Xcel. Extend both arms, deepening into that side. Stretch Xcel hands behind the head. Use Your right side obliques to pull yourself up. Inhale.

Now make sure you keep that constant check throughout the movement that you're keeping the abdominal wall, Jon in the pelvic floor muscles activated, and that you're not shifting your weight on your pelvis. You're keeping it even and extend those arms. Inhale hands become behind the head and Xcel back up. So now we're going to move on to a little bit of rock and release of the pelvis. So I want you to again, to stay seated on your bottom, your legs out in front of you. Place your hands behind her size, using your arms for additional support here.

Breathing in through your nose with the next self. Thread the belly button in first before you produce any movement back. Then allow your pelvis to roll underneath you so you're really engaged. We have that deep connection to the pelvic floor. You have that hollowness through your abdomen. From here, you're going to articulate the spine and you're going to release the pelvic tuck into a neutral position on a day out of the line than Xcel.

Thread the belly button in and pull yourself back into that posterior tilt. Inhale, roll back. You'll feel yourself rolling over your sitz bones, which is absolutely fine. Then excellent. This is such a fantastic exercise to engage the pelvic floor musculature to engage the rectus abdominis in a safe way, and also to keep the trans versus intact. Then inhale, release it with control. It's not just that that release is the lengthening. Then exhale, you're shortening those muscles, squeezing nice and deep and inhale, bring it all the way up. Let's do four more exhale. You'll feel that contraction, it feels great.

Then inhale, release it like a piece of elastic. Put tension it. Then Xcel recoiled back into that contraction and inhale all the way up using your arm for support if needed, and exhale. Okay, and inhale all the way up. Let's do one more and exhale. Now this time I want you to hold this position.

Feel free to draw your legs in a little bit closer. Keep your hands on your thighs and knees DB. If you feel like you want a little bit more challenged, place your hands right down by your side. If you want even more, place your hands behind your head. I'm going to go ahead and keep my hands behind my size here. We're going to let the right leg up with the next Nextel, take it down, left leg, take it down, right, like so.

We're doing late changes in the scoop position and and so again, you'll feel those, that little vibration through your center body. You're just really challenging the musculature. So I don't care if you get your legs up and down per se. What I'm interested is that you keep the abdominal wall flat, so put your eyes down into your center body, and every time you lift that leg, make sure that you're pulling the trans versus in even deeper there, like all the musculature is coming in and pouring into your belly button, right? Like we'll do one more with the left.

Come up and release it. So that should feel good and challenging. Go ahead and open your knees, joining the soles of your feet together. So we're making a little diamond shape with your legs. This exercise is just a bit more challenging. I'm going to place my hands behind my head, but you're more than welcome again to use your arms, 200 thighs for that extra support.

So from here we're going to start the same way. We thread the belly button in. We hollow first. That's activating the chance versus correctly. Then we roll back. We're going to find that position. We're going to close the legs. We're going to open the legs and we're going to roll back up, shoulders over hips, and then extend. Exhale, thread the belly button in and start to roll over the back part of the pelvis.

Thinking a nice deep scoop and in how close the legs Xcel open the legs and inhale, come back up to the seated position. Xcel. So every time you have to reinforce those patterns every single time. That's the beauty of plottings is that it requires that dedication, that commitment mentally. Each time we perform them as physical movement and Xcel curving in, roll back over the pelvis in heels, squeeze the lights together, getting those adductors as inner thighs active. Open the thighs and roll back up.

Let's do one more and curve it in and roll. So we're safely engaging those abdominal muscles. Remember, you can place the hands behind the thighs at any point if you need that support and roll back up from here. Bring your legs in just a little bit closer so your diamond shape heels are this little closer to your center body. We're going to take the fingers and release behind the head. We're going to do an exercise. I call through the pipe.

We're going to take the breath in, chin to chest. You're going to roll forward and down, taking your head in between your legs. Inhale, you're going gonna extend your spine up on a diagonal. Don't worry about coming up high. That's perfectly okay. Excellent. You're going to take yourself back into the courage position and you're going to roll yourself all the way. Get finishing with an inhale. Exhale Chin to chest, roll down, hollow the abdomen and extend all the way up with the next sale and release and continue to Exa roll all the way up and take an inhale at the top. Xcel Chin to chest, roll down. Inhale, extend.

So we're activating the spinal extensors all the way from that telephone up to the school, elbows out to the side. Feel like you're reaching your chest full ribbon. At the same time. Keep your abdominal wall nice and flat and then curve yourself back over. Let the spinal extensors stretch and roll yourself up. Keeping an eye in your abdomen, making sure you keeping the abdominal wall nice and flat. Let's do it again.

Xcel Chin to chest, roll down. Inhale, extend it up all the way. Find that link, find that back extension. Pull the abdominal wall in and Xcel over and all the way up. This is a great spinal articulation exercise and roll down. Chin to chance. This is going to be our last one ladies, so feel that nice extension and I'm going to take the arms out to the side. We can do a little extra shoulder and upper back work here.

We're going to draw the shoulder blades together with the next cell one and then again to now. As you're doing this, make sure that you're keeping the abdominal wall nice and flat. Keep it intact. Draw the shoulder blades together, draw the shoulder blades together, allow the scapular those shoulder blades smooth and let the arms be secondary. Pull together, pull together and at the same time feel like you're lengthening out through this mine continually reaching tailbone and crown of the head away from each other. Last two, last one and place the hands behind the head. Reach a little bit longer and then come all the way forward.

Pull in the abdomen in and roll yourself up to the seated position. We're going to finish this warmup series with a little bit of rolling like the ball, so come a little bit forward onto your mat and I want you to find that nice scoop position and draw your heels just a little bit closer to your bottom and grab onto the shins or just at the top of the ankles and you're going to pull yourself nice and deep into that ball position. Now I want you to imagine that you're holding a towel or $100 bill in between your thighs. So I really want you to squeeze your thighs nice and tight and at the same time I want you to feel like you're holding on a balloon or a ball deep within your belly and you're trying to use all that musculature to wrap around that ball to hold it nice and tight and secure. We're going to take the inhale. As we roll back XL, we roll up and we find it.

We pause, we balance in how thread the belly button and use your abdominals to draw yourself off your balance and Xcel backup. Now I know for me continue going that my back can get very tight with the demands of caring from caring for my son. So exercises that open up my lower back kind of massage or stretch it out, feel really good for me and if I do that on a daily basis, I avoid any unnecessary back pain. And by avoiding back pain, I'm going to avoid any chronic issues that I don't want to establish in my body. So breathing in and exhale up.

Let's do one more together and breathe in and hold it at the top. Place your feet down, grabbed behind the thighs and lift up into your extension. Lifting your chest up, smiling, feeling open and release. Now we're going to move into our supine series. Next we're going to be moving into our supine or our line series to go ahead and I would just suggest that you lie onto your side and just roll over onto your back and we're going to start with some pelvic curls. We're going to do a little pelvic curl and then we're going to start to reintroduce some of those traditional abdominal exercises.

So placed in the hands down by the sides, the heels in line with the sitz bones, nice openness to your collar bones. We're going to take the breath into prepared with your Xcel the same way that we did in the seated position. You're going to threaten the belly button in, rock the pelvis into a tilts and I just want you to roll halfway up. Take the breath in there and then pull the rib cage down first, followed by the mid section, followed by the lower abdomen, followed by the pubic bone, and then let it release completely. Take your best in and scoop and feel like you're literally taking your pubic bone and scooping down and then up just halfway feeling the glutes start to engage. Take your breath in and then draw everything down, nicest, steady, and then let it release all the way. Let's do two more like this, breath in and pulling everything in. So again, you're training yourself to really activate that chancellor of sip.

Dominants imagine that both sides of the abdominal wall are starting to knit back together even more. Take your breath in and roll yourself down. This is a fantastic way to do abdominal work here and excellent. As you start to do more and more, you'll feel those working. You'll feel them starting to fatigue. Restrengthening take your breath in and roll yourself down.

Now four more times, we're going to go into the full pelvic curl or the full bridge to again, keep the abdominals nice and active and the extensors of the hip and also open out the flexors of the hips. Roll all the way up into your bridge. Now when you're in your bridge position, keep yourself trying to draw the pubic bone up toward the ceiling so you keep that short aspect. If you, if you will, of the abdominals, they're taking your breath in and then roll yourself down. Now you may find that your flexes are a little tight, completely normal and adaptation that carried through postpartum from your pregnancy period, which is fine. So I want you to go just as high as you feel comfortable and always trying to buy us toward a posterior tilt and take your breath in and roll down. Opening up the spine. Scooping is as deep as you can.

Getting those abdominals activated to find that scoop and then release. Let's do two more. Breathe in and rolling up and this is an also another goto exercise for me. When my back is feeling a little bit tight or I'm feeling a little imbalanced, just drop down on the floor and do some pelvic curls. Rolling Nice and deep through your spine.

Some member of the pelvic curl is essentially for that spinal articulation. It awakens that spine and rolling up to the last one that pressing your feet into the mat. Take your arms out to the side, stretch them nice and long. Take your breath into prepare XL. Close the arms. Inhale Open. Now I'm doing this exercise for you, postnatal women here because I want you to feel that openness of the chest with the arm movement, but I also want to challenge your ability to keep your abdominal wall nice and flat as you perform this movement. Does the strength of your gluteals pressing your hips up into that extension and open the arms. Let's do two more XL, close and open. One more time, XL, close and open.

Hold it there and start to roll down. Keep your arms reached out to the side, deepen, deepen, deepen all the way, and then let your tailbone completely release. Now from here, you're going to take your feet and take them all the way together. We're going to introduce a little bit of a chest lift exercise here. Now my suggestion is to use the towel, but you're more than welcome just to place your fingers interlaced behind your head. But I would use the towel, take the telemed, place it just right at the base of your school and you're just going to hold onto it. Nice. And from here, you're going to squeeze your thighs together as tight as lil go. You're going to take your breath in and you're going to rock your pelvis into a tuck. Once your pelvis is too in tech, you're going to XL, lift your torso. Webb flattening your abdominal wall, looking straight forward at your thighs. Inhale, take your torso down first and then XL. Release your palace.

So this is your introduction to your pelvic, or excuse me, your chest lift. So again, we start with the pelvic curl. Allow your lower back to press imprinter spine into the mat with an Xcel. Engage your abdominals as you slowly start to lift the chest, trying to maintain a flat abdominal wall in how lower your chest down first. Then XL, release your pelvis again. Inhale, tucking the pelvis XL, lifting the chest.

Now the reason I'm giving you the towel is because I'm wanting you to literally let the weight of your head rest into that towel. So you're giving it complete support here. Don't not pool your head up with the towel. Just let the weight of your head rest into the towel. Try to feel the abdominals activating and drawing your torso up.

Take your torso down first and then release your pelvis. Let's do one more and thread the belly button in Nice and tight. Pulling the belly button down as much as you can. Hold that position. Let your back seeing deeper into the mat as you lift your torso up, feeling that connection. Take your torso down first and then let your pelvis roll out.

Second. From here, you're just going to release the towel behind you and wants you to place your hands down by your sides and we're going to take the right leg up to the ceiling and we're going to do some bicycles here just to challenge the stabilization. So we're going to bend the knee, take it down, slide it out, and XL, lift up. Inhale, exhale, slide it out and up. Inhale, so very simple movement, but it challenges the stabilization that we want. Slide it out and up, keeping the abdominal wall as flat as you can.

I personally like to keep my hand on my abdomen here so I can make sure that it's staying nice and contracted and slide it out and bring it up the suit two more and slide it out and bring it up one more and slide it out and up. And let's go ahead and change. Take the left leg at place the right hand over the abdomen, threading the belly button down, filling nicest steady. Bend the knee and slide the leg out and up. And when you do this to open up the front of the hip, which feels really nice as well, and slide.

Now if you're a little tighten your hamstrings, which is totally fine, you can keep your knees slightly bent as you bring it up. You just need to focus on that mobility in the hip joint, not so much on what's happening in the length of the hamstring and take it all the way up and up. And then of course focusing that we're not rocking the pelvis and forth, but we're keeping everything nice and active and up. One more time and slide it out. And at this time I want you to bring both knees up to tabletop position.

You're not going to bend too, quite a 90 degree. Go ahead and take your shoes up just a little bit higher. We're going to work on a deep pelvic floor connection, a little massage to the lower back and and continue to work on that abdominal connection as well. Taking your breath in, I want you to scoop the belly and rock your hips up and take it down and again, XL, rock those hips up and take it down. Now it's very important that you think of scooping and try and keep your abdominal wall hollow as opposed to letting it poof up or pooch out. So again, you're pulling it in, rocking across your lower back in and get a nice little massage. Exhale, you will feel the need to press down through your arms onto the mat, which is completely fine and roll all the way back. Give you two more XL and release. One more time. Exhale and release. From here. We take both toes down onto the mat, slide out, reach, nice along, slide it back in and bring them both up to table top.

Take the feet down, keeping the abdominal nice and flat. Slide the legs out, bring them back in and bring it up. The tabletop. Again, this is a challenging exercises, very challenging on the stabilization. I did a version of this in the first postnatal class, but what I want you to do is if it feels like it's too much of a challenge for you, I want you to just do one leg at a time because it's very, very tough on that stabilization of the trunk into the lower back. Every choirs, a lot of ta activation. Give me one more. Take the toes down, slide it out, bring it back in and this time it stays up. A tabletop. We're going to go into our a hundred prep exercise, so again into a traditional Polonius exercise or abdominal exercise. Arms are going to go above the head. We're going to break it up though.

So take the breath in for me to prepare with an Xcel has come over the eyes and you lift and curl the torso up. Hands come down by the hips. Go ahead and grab the back of your size and all I want you to do here for three breaths. Every time you exhale, you're going to flatten the abdominal wall as much as you can. So keep your eyes right on the belly. Take the breath in XL, flatten the abdominal wall nice and tight. Breathing in, Xcel flattened the abdominal wall nice and tight. Squeeze in those sides together. One more time. Breathe in and exhale hands go down by your sides. Take them up and back. We're going to do that again. Breathing in XL all the way up.

Grab the hands behind the thighs and use them as a tool here. Ladies, don't be afraid to use your arms to help your trunk. Get in the position. Breathe in Xcel. Pull the abdominal wall nice and flat. Look at it. Watch yourself, flatten your abs and breathe in. Breathe through the rib cage XL one more time. XL. Challenge yourself if you can release your arms and then slowly take it back.

Now this time we're going to come up two times. Breath in and breath out. All the way up. Yeah, breadth and to go back and breadth. Outcome all the way up. Grabbed the back of the thighs. Three more breaths. Inhale, exhale. Pull the abdominal wall down. Nice and flat again.

Breathing XL, pool the abdominal wall down nice and flat. You can even feel like you're drawing your sits bones together, is that you're drawing your pubic bone down towards your tailbone. One more time. XL, release the arms. Take them up and slowly go back and go ahead and serve your arms around and taking one leg down at a time. So there you go. Reintroducing some of those traditional Palladio's abdominal exercises. Brendan, go back into our bridge to finish up our supine series to taking your breath in again. Engage in the abdomen, slowly tuck the pelvis and start to roll those hips up all the way up.

Pressing your feet down into the map. We're going to do a little bit of a shoulder bridge prep or wants you to bring the right leg up to tabletop and hold it. Extend the lake up to the ceiling and hold it. Bend the knee back to tabletop and pause and then take it down to finish. We are going to alternate sides. Exhale, bring the left leg up.

Inhale extended up, Xcel, bend it back in. He'll take it down and transfer the weight and bring it up one with an exhale. Extend Two as you hold, bend three and inhale, take it down. Transfer the weight. Now when you transfer, make sure that your hips are just gliding side to side slightly, that they're not rotating or dipping down on either side. Again, the weight onto the right leg. Lift the left leg up with an exhale. Inhale it stem, pressing through that right glue and hamstring bend and take it down continuously keeping the abdominal wall in. Bring the right leg up, extend reach way up to the ceiling. Bend the knee, flatten the abdominal wall as tight as you can and slowly take the leg down.

One more time for me. Bring the left leg up, extend retreats, reach Benz and bring it down a hold here. Press those arms down into the mat. Keep a slight tack of the Pelvis and what I want you to do is now we're going to actually rotate the pelvis, take the left side of the pelvis and dip it down, allowing the right side to rotate up with an extra user obliques with your glutes, your hamstrings, to pull your pelvis back to the central position. Alternate sides. Take your right side of the pelvis down. You're literally twisting as if you were moving your car's steering wheel and all the way back up and twist the left side of the pelvis goes down.

Use Your obliques in your glutes. Everything to transfer it back to center again, twist the other side, right side of the pelvis down XL. Let's do one more time each way. Twist and exhale. Draw back to center one more time and twits and Xcel keeping the transversus in Nice and tight. Take the breath in and slowly, slowly roll yourself down. Take your time, stretching through your back, finding each vertebrae into its place, and then release all the way.

We're going to roll over onto the side for the side series. We're going to start with simple side leg. Let's, so go ahead and lie on the side. One hip over the other, one shoulder over the other, hand down in front of you for that nice support. Squeeze those legs together. And I want you to feel like you're nice and hollow in the underside of your waist, keeping the abdominal wall nice and flat through the work. So take your breath in and slowly lift those legs that and take them down. And Xcel slowly lift them up and take them down again. Now you should feel your strength here.

You should feel your ability to balance yourself. It should feel good. Okay. And also feel that ability to squeeze those sides together. And the Ferlie Earth, Alex's mean the early, um, initial weeks postpartum. Squeezing your legs together like this can be kind of uncomfortable, but now it should feel a lot more comfortable.

You should feel the ability to hold those sides together with Nice, strong inner thighs. Nice strong pelvic floor. Two more and down. Let's do one more time and up and now I want you to bend your bottom. Me. I'm just going to slide up a little bit here. Bend your bottom meet for me, and this is what we're going to do. We're going to flex the top foot. You're going to lift that leg up just a little bit higher than your hip height. You're going to bend the knee and you're going to sweep your torso in toward that bent knee surgery. Curve yourself into a little ball. You're gonna reach it back out to that straight line as long as you can, or you're going to hold your leg up. Exhale, curl into a little ball and then reach all the way back out.

Feeling length XL curl and bring the arm to that knee, tucking the chin to the chest and bring it all the way back out. Let's do two more and curve it in and bring it back out one more time and curve in, in an infill. Nice and deep in that connection and reach all the way nice and long and take that foot down. Now you're going to bring the same leg up and you're actually going to let that foot hang. You're going to let it be droopy. We're going to do a little outer hip work here. So again, connecting with their stabilization.

The leg goes up and over and your toe taps down in front of you. It goes up and over and the toe taps down behind you, up and over and down. So that leg is going over, let's say an imaginary log. So you're jumping over that log with that leg and you're using the outside muscles, the hip abductor muscles to create this movement. Now as you're doing this, you want to feel stabilization through your pelvis and of course stabilization through your torso. So essentially you're not lifting or hiking that hip up towards your rib cage as you're doing this movement.

Let's do four more and app and back and just breathe naturally for me and app and back. Two more up forward and up and back. Last one app forward and up and back. Now point that foot. You're going to go to the front, you're going to externally rotate or turned out like out. Turn it back to parallel. Sweep it back behind you. X. Surly, rotate that thigh. Bring it parallel and sweep it back in front of you. X. Surly, rotate the thigh.

Bring it back to parallel and sweep it behind you externally. Rotate the thigh, bring it back to parallel and in front of you two more sets. Externally rotate. You'll feel the fatigue setting in and your hip, which is completely fine. Try to keep your stabilization as you do this. As you feel that little burning sensation happening in your hip, keep the stabilization through the torso. Focus on that control. I'll take it back externally rotate.

Bring it back only to the center. Bring the bottom leg out to match it. Squeeze the size together, lift up a little bit higher and then slowly take the legs down. Go ahead and lie onto your back and we're going to stretch that hip out. Just real simple. Just grab in between those thighs, taking the one ankle over that thigh and just stretch out the glutes there. Breathing for me. Nice and deep. Inhale index sale.

One more time. Breathe in index sale. Go ahead and roll back over onto your side or we're going to come up and we're just going to sweep ourselves to the other side. Okay, so now here we're going to start with those leg lifts. So you want to stack one shoulder, the over the other one hip over the other, drawing the transverse abdominis in keeping that nice connection up to that bottom side of the waist. Two legs now become one. We take the breath in and the imagery reaches out in, up and down, so nice and controlled as you go out and up. Now here, I also want you to think about that connection through your upper back.

What do they mean by that is it's very tempting to throw your head forward to look at what's going on and the lower portion of your body, but you actually want to keep the chest, I'll say upward or linkedin so that you feel that connection, that activation through your upper back extensors as well. And that's vital to keep the whole body connection here. The whole body control and downloads to four more exos member was squeezing energy through the inner thighs, getting that zipper sensation. You should feel the pelvic floor musculature also engaged and lift up. You should feel the two hip bones are starting to draw toward one another.

The two sitz bones are squeezing toward one another. Let's do one more to finish here and XL. Lift up and down. Ben The bottom me and lift the top leg a little bit higher than the hip. We're gonna do the little curl and exercise. We're going to take the breath in and you're gonna be bend your knee and sweep your body, touching your arm to your knee and then slowly bring it back.

Fill that little length as you bring it back. And exhale, curling in Nice and deep connection and breathing in as you go out. Exhale. Okay. And breathing. And I love this exercise because there's something about this curve position that the stretches out the whole of my spine.

And they also love this nice long position here. So it's a feel good exercise, but also challenges your coordination challenges your control. One more time and draw it in and bring it all the way out. Reach, let your head and your arm rest. You're going to take that foot and let it drip down. We're going to come up and over and tap the big toe in front of you, up and over and tap it behind you. So again, this pay pelvis stays nicest steady, and you're just moving the thigh here. So you're focusing on that wonderful deep hip work and up and over to the frank, keeping the abdominal wall drawn in a as little go and up and over to the front, down and up and over to the back down.

Let's do two more sets up and over front and you'll start to feel those abductor muscles get nice and toasty warm as they're working here, and you know what? I'm going to add another set here. It just will feel better, I think more even and to the back. Now, take that foot up and then correct the alignment of the ankle there. You're going to come to the front. You're going to accidentally rotate like you're drawing that hip out of the hip joint. Come back to parallel and sweep it behind you and externally rotate.

Come back to parallel and sweeping in front of you and drive that hip. Bring it back to parallel and sweep the back and drive that hip into external rotation. Back to parallel and forward and draw the hip. You're doing great. Keep it up. This is where you'll really start to feel the challenge of that position and come forward and rotate, drawn the abdominal wall in parallel and back. Last one to the back. Rotate and parallel. Bring it straight to center.

Slide the bottom leg out, keeping the abdominal wall in lifted up just a little bit higher. Little bit higher and slowly down, straight onto your back and we'll give you a little hips jets here, crossing ankle over the side and then that mean nicest steady. And give me some deep breath here. Inhale and Xcel is, is feeling that stretch through the back of the hip. One more time. Breathe in and exhale and slowly release. Ever going to go back to our seated position? Yeah.

Okay. Now next we're going to move into another seated sequence. So I want you to go ahead and sit up and I want you to sit with one light, just kind of cross in front of the other leg, cross, cross back if this feels most comfortable for you. And we're going to do a version of the seated mermaid and this is going to give us a really nice stretch through our waist and through the top part of the pelvis and through the lower back, really getting into the quadratus and born, which is the QL, which can be a very problematic muscle for women in general, but particularly for new moms or for moms. So once you take your arms out to the tee position, they're going to inhale, you're going to just tip over until one hand comes down onto the mat. Xcel, you're going to continue turn the palm towards you and continue into a nice side bend in how? Rotate at the Torso and tail.

You touch your hand onto the mat. Exhale, come back to the side bend position. Then inhale, this is a tough part. You use your obliques and pull yourself back up to the seated position and in how over? A nice tip to start. Xcel slightly been that bottom elbow en side bend and you'll feel this gorgeous stretch in how rotate. Extend your bottom elbow pike the body. And so basically scoop up into that underside. Oh bleak. Take the hand down onto the mat, come back to the side. Ben, fill a nice, beautiful stretch.

Then use the obliques to pull yourself back up to center again. Inhale and continue. Exhale, twist. Inhale back to the side. Bend and Xcel up. One more time. Inhale over. Go into the stretch even deeper. Exhale, extend the bottom elbow and Pike and round filling that beautiful stretch to the entire side of your back and come back with an inhale, an XL backup. Let's do it one more time. Inhale over and continue into the side. Stretch XL twist.

Twist your body literally feeling that spiraled through your spine as you flatten your abdominal wall in. Come back to the side bend and exhale back up. It's a really beautiful, beautiful stretch. Let's go ahead and bring the legs around to do the other side, so sit up nice and tall here. Again, sacking the spine, up feeling nice and long. Nice side tip over, and a little bend of the elbow as you bend. This is a continuous inhale. Exhale, twist. Extend the bottom elbow and take your chin down towards your chest and find the rotation.

Come back to the side bend and use your obliques and your control to come back up to center. Now as you do this, you may feel that one side is tighter than the other, which is perfectly normal and perfectly okay. Just be sensitive to it. Maybe hang out in one of the stretches a little bit longer. If it feels a little bit better for you, you have to do what feels good and what feels right for you. That's what's most important, and go over and bend and feel that wonderful stuff to just put the little smile on your face and send your bottom elbow and twist and come over. If I didn't have other exercises to get to it. Mike does do this the whole rest of the class, but let's move on to some other things and go over and beautiful stretch here and rotate.

You should feel like you flow through each exercise or excuse me, through each moment of this exercise and come up. You should feel graceful and efficient like a dancer and offer and extend the bottom elbow and twist. This'll be our last one. Come back to this beautiful stretch and reach all the way up. We're going to go into a glute series here, so wants you to come onto all fours, makes sure that your shoulders are directly over your hips and that your knees are directly under excise, so that completely backwards. Excuse me. Make sure your shoulders are directly over your wrist and your hips.

So directly over your knees. We're going to take the right leg, you're going to slide it out, you're going to lift the leg up and bend the knee. Then we lift the leg up a little bit higher, take it back down, extend the leg and then take it back down. So it's a little bit longer of a sequence. So you go up for one and bend, lifted up two and down. Extend on three and down, lift up on one and then lift higher on two and down.

Extend on three and four more and up. And then now I'm not going to give you a real direct breath pattern here cause I think the movement's a little complex or there's a lot to it. So go ahead and just breathe naturally here and lift and down. Extend. Now as you do this, you want to continually challenge yourself to keep the abdominal wall drawn in nice and flat. So you don't want to arch your lower back. You don't want to sink into your shoulders.

You want to keep everything nice and connected up so we're challenging the stabilization of the torso, but we're working the glutes here up and then [inaudible] and lift and lower. Extend and down. Now take the toes and Tuck them forward nice and strong onto your hands. Pull the abdominal wall in as tight as it will go and slip that leg back. We're going to transfer with the plank, hold the abdominal wall and tight.

Bring the other knee in. Point that foot. We transfer right to the other side and we're going to lift the leg up and then bed a little bit higher and lower. Extend and down. No. Again, keep the transversus in Nice and tight, especially here. This is a very small movement. Extend and down. I'd rather you make the movement smaller or not even do any movement at all.

Rather than lose the integrity of the position of your body and lift up and then I'll make sure you have a life connection through the arms. The shoulders are nice and open and wide and lift up. And then keep the belly button drawn in Nice and tight. Extend the Su two more. Lift up and bend, keeping everything connected. A lot of energy down through that supporting me. Last one and apt.

Just remember to breathe naturally and app down. Extend. Bring that foot down, tuck the toes underneath you. Scoop the belly button in Nice and tight. Press down through the arms and slowly slide that right leg back and hold. Hold and bend the left knee in.

And we're going to take the right foot and lift it up just to about hip height. Bring your hands slightly in front of you. You're going to do some modified pushups here. You're going to bend the elbow straight to the waist, letting the leg rise naturally, and then extend the elbows up. So you're kind of doing a little bit of a dip forward.

There's a slight rocking motion to it, but the rocking comes because you bend those elbows, not because you kick the leg up behind you. So your bend in the elbows and extending them. And I want you to do a tricep style push up, which means I want you to keep your elbows as tight as you possibly can to your waistline then and press up. Let's do four more then and press up, pull in the belly button nice and tight. Then Xcel press last to Ben's and press last one.

Nice and deep empress. Bring that knee in. Go ahead and sit back and just kinda roll out your wrist for a second there. So again, the push up is going to lead from the elbows bending. The body will dip forward and the leg will rise as a result. So let's go back into the position.

Slides your left leg out behind you and go ahead and lift that left leg up. Bring the hands slightly in front, and then the elbows inhale Xcel up. So again, inhale XL up. Now try to keep your back knees extended and as straight as you possibly can. Continue to hollow in the abdominal muscles as you do the work.

And then extend three more for me. Then extend and to extend last one and three, extend and bring it all the way in. Now we're going to finish this, the sequence with a side vending cat stretch. So what I mean by that is instead of doing it right in the center, you're going to do it with your body slightly tilted over, leaning over to the right side. So if you feel comfortable placing your left hand on top of your right hand and you can do that. If that doesn't feel comfortable, just play some right by each other. You want your hips to be square and the rotation to come from the torso so your shoulders are rotated over to the right side of your body, but the energy of your knees and your two hip bones are still going straight forward. So your square, so you can take your breath in here and exhale.

You're going to thread the belly button in and curve the spine and you're going to feel this wonderful stretch through the left side of the body. And then inhale, you're going to release it and XL Draude impress the image of the hands down into the mat. Rounding the Baptist tight as you can pull the up and in and inhale, release. Let's do two more on the side. Xcel curve. This is a lifesaver for me because I tend to hold my son on my left hip and as much as I tried to stand with equal weight on both feet, it doesn't happen all the time. So this exercise is great because it just mobilizes that part of my back that tends to get a little bit tight. Let's do the other side, so hands over to the left side, knees and hips pointing straight forward.

So doing a little bit of a side bend with the upper body and XL curve and inhale, release. Exhale, curve, nice and deep. Nice and deep. Rounding as much as you can and inhale to release two more. I miss you with the abdominals. Let the lower back lead and then the pelvis in the upper back in the head and the neck. Follow and lengthen.

Let's do one more time and Xcel drawed in curving as much as you can. Find it deep and deep and deep and deepened. And back to the center with the hands from here, we're gonna lie straight down onto our tummies and I'm going to do three back extension exercises in our class today. We're going to start with the basic back extension, hands directly by your sides, nose to sound onto the map. You can take the inhale to prepare. With the exhale, you lift the head and neck and the chest step. With an inhale, you sweep the arms out to the tee position.

Exa bring them back to your side and inhale lower down. Now we're going to keep all of our back extension exercises fairly low onto the mat. I don't want to take you into any big extension exercises because the stretching on the abdominal still may be a little premature for being postnatal. So we just want to work the upper back restraints and reconnect with that upper back musculature without compromising any safety and lifting up and XO, reach out to the teeth. Feel that challenge of holding the upper back steady for just a moment.

And as you do this, continually draw the abdominal wall up toward the spine, pressing the pubic bone into the mat, letting the leg sit heavy into the mat and down. Next I want you to place your hands directly underneath your shoulders. Elbows are tight to the ways you're going to press the energy of your forearm into the mat. As you lift up with an inhale, pressing those arms down as the back comes up, and then exhale, bring it down. It's a very simple exercise, but as you do this, as you press those arms down and you lift your back up, feel the connection all the way from the base of your neck down to your tailbone. So all of the back of sensors are firing. You're working the upper back, the mid back, and the lower back. You're connecting through your shoulders. Join the scapula down, engage in those triceps and bring it down.

Let's do one more here and bring it up. Think of leaning out with the top crown of the head, letting the head in the neck, next lead, and then the rest of the spine follow and down. Now our final back extension exercise arms are going to be out to the team. I want you to go ahead and rest both hands down onto the mat. You're going to lift the right arm up with an inhale XL.

Lift the body up. Inhale, take the right arm down and exhale. Take the body down. We'll repeat again. Inhale, lift the right arm at Xcel. Keep the right arm up as you lift the chest up into a slight extension. Inhale, keep the chest up as you take the hand down and XL lower less. Repeat with the left, left arm, comes up with an inhale XL. Keep that arm up as you bring your back up.

Keep your back up as you take that left arm down with an inhale, and then take your XL torso down again. Inhale, left arm up. Exhale, reach head, neck, and chest. You're gonna feel that pattern go across your back like on a slight diagonal. Bring that arm down. Nice and long through the body and XL down. Let's do one more to finish. Arm reaches out first. Head, neck and chest follow towards. This stays, that busy arm comes down and then the body lowers down.

Go ahead and place the hands underneath the shoulders. Pick yourself up and over and stretch out the back here. So as you're stretching the back, I want you to breathe a deep breath in through your nose, followed by a nice long exhale. Although we tend to get a little tight in our back pregnancy postpartum, it's still so vital that we strengthen the upper and the mid back because those parts of the back tend to get weak because of the full word action of caring for our babies. It's true and it happens. So we want to make sure that we keep strengthening those upper back muscles.

So go ahead and roll yourself up and we're just going to finish with a couple of very simple hamstring stretches, a little hip flexor stretch. And then we're going to be done for the day. So I want you to go ahead and sit. I'll turn this way with your legs forward in front of you, flexing your feet, you're going to take your arms up above your head. Nice. Along with an x. So you're going to reach forward and whether you can grab your toes, your ankles, or your shins doesn't matter to me.

But what I wants you to do is I want you to reach and pull your chest forward and at the same time pull your toes back towards your face. So what we're doing here is we're getting a wonderful stretch to the calves and it's gonna keep, continue up through the hamstrings, back around the glues, and then continued that nice length through the back and breathe here. Keep pulling yourself forward, drawing the toes back, keeping the abdominal wall in. Nice big inhale. Now with the next exhale, I want you to release everything and come forward. Yeah. If your head can come down in between your legs, go ahead and allow it to do so.

Just relax. As you go forward deep into a forward bend, you'll feel the length of your back and feel that opening through your back. You'll continue to feel that opening through the back of the legs as well. And with each exhale, I want you to feel like you seep deeper and deeper into your thighs. [inaudible] in hell with the Xcel. Grab your feet one more time and come into this stretch again.

Pull your feet back towards your face. Pull the abdominal wall in, stretch. Press those heels forward. Feel the back of the legs. Just start to open the calves. Stretch. Draw the abdominal wall in. Nice length through the back of the neck and last time, release it forward. We're not going to stay down this time, we're just going to simply roll that roll lap, roll that up to finish the class when it come to a standing position to go ahead and swing your legs underneath you and go ahead and Tuck your toes underneath you. And we're just gonna stand up here. I wanted to do a very simple hip flexor stretch. I'm just going to take a little step in front of my mat here and we're going to do a couple of little standing pelvic techs and then we're all done.

So I want you to take your left leg forward. I'll turn to the side and keep your right leg back. The hip flexors tend to stay tight from pregnancy and they carry over into the postpartum. So as you're leaning and lunging slightly forward into your left leg, I want you to feel like you're going to draw your pelvis underneath you, like your pubic bone is going to come forward, and you lift your chest step and you'll feel this beautiful opening through the front of your right hip. And as you do that, I want you to press the energy down through your right heel. And as you do that, just take your arms out to the side, pull the abdominal wall in it, feel that nice pool and that stretch and breathe here. Arms come down nice and slow and we'll go ahead and switch sites.

So go ahead and turn the other direction. Take the right leg in front of you. Take the left leg back, press that heel down, draw the pubic bone forward and underneath if you will, take the arms out to the side to fill that nice opening through the left hip flexor and breathe, and as you're breathing, make sure you're drawing the abdominal wall, Lin continuously. One more [inaudible] and slowly coming back at. Now you're going to stand here for me to finish the class. I want you to take your hands right under abdomen.

We did this in the seated position at the beginning of class. You're going to take your breath in. With your exhale, you're going to draw the abdominal wall. Then you're going to scoop and just slightly hollow the abdomen. Just interlacing the fingers in front of you, deepening into your abdominals. Okay.

Then inhale, lengthen an open breathing through the rib cage with the next cell haul. Load deep and scoop out the belly. So you'll see me from the side. I'm doing a slight tack of the pelvis with slightly bent knees. Then inhale, lengthen all the way at again, Xcel scooping, drawing the transversus in hollowing deepening. Fill at the pubic bone is coming up toward the belly button.

Then inhale, lengthen, and last one XL. Hello? Yeah. Scoop hollow in deeper, deeper, deeper. Threading the fingers in front of your torso and inhale, come all the way yet. Release your arms down by your sides.

Just recognizing and drawing your body awareness where you feel a little bit more loose, a little bit more open, a little bit more free. Hopefully your lower back doesn't feel quite as tight. Your hips feel a little bit more loose. You feel a little bit more lifted. You should feel just like you're floating on air a little bit and have fun with your baby. Thank you so much for spending some time with me.