Unilateral EXO Chair

Hi, I'm Meredith. Thank you for joining me here today for this quick intermediate workout on the EXO chair. Today, we're gonna do a little bit of unilateral focus. So let's get started. My spring setting in this moment is one spring on two, which is the second choice up from the very bottom of the spring choices.

We're gonna walk around to the back of the chair. Standing pretty close into the chair. Taking a moment here just to find your feet, feel your feet on the earth. I like to close my eyes and just find center. So bringing awareness into the body, bringing awareness onto both feet.

Notice where your arms are resting against your body. And if they're forward of the sides of your thighs, allow them to just come next to your thighs. So just by moving the arm slightly back towards the middle of the thigh, we'll get better posture and a better shoulder alignment. And from there, we open the eyes if your eyes were closed like mine. And we're gonna take the head down.

We're gonna right away roll down reaching the hands out towards the pedal. Now as you reach for that pedal, try not to let your pelvis go towards back. Once the heels of the hands find the pedal, we're going to inhale and elongate through the spine. So feeling that spine lengthen and flatten. And then exhale, lift through the center of your body, pushing the pedal actively away even as it's lifting up.

So they're just creating opposition is the idea. And then reaching out, feeling the sacrum and the tailbone reaching up towards the ceiling, the abdominals supporting that downward motion of the spine. And then exhale to round. We'll do one more like that and then make a tiny change. Inhale, reach out.

Head stays in line with the spine as that spine elongates. Exhale to round. Inhale, reach out. The change is happening soon. As you exhale, round back up, hold your deep flexion position, and then let the elbows bend and straighten. And bend and lift up into the center of the body.

So really using this as an abdominal warmup. And straighten, reach back out towards straight. We're doing it two more times. Round the spine. Feel the backs of the legs pressing forward, the collarbone staying open, bend and straighten.

I'm taking my elbows out wide, and straighten. Think of wringing out the spine with the breath. Straighten. Elongate the spine. Last time. Round the spine. Your most deep connection with your waist, and bend and stretch and bend and stretch and bend.

And last time with straight arms, take the spine into a long position, flattening out the back, stretching through the backs of the legs. And then rounding all the way back up. Feeling your weight come onto your feet. Trying not to let the pelvis shift back at all as you roll all the way back up to standing on your feet. And once you arrive in a standing position, you'll walk around and come down onto the mat.

We're gonna do a warmup here laying down on the mat. So place the heels of the feet up onto the pedal, bend your knees and get your feet organized so that you're able to feel that you can have a good, firm perches with your legs. We're gonna try to hold the pedal still there. Reach back to bring the hands behind the head. As you exhale, keeping that pedal still, curl the head and chest up and feel that you're trying to pull the chair towards your body with your legs.

And then return back. And again, exhale, trying to hold that pedal still. It's difficult, curling the head and chest up and returning the head and chest back down. And again, exhale to curl the head and chest up, pulling the chair back towards the body just energetically, and down. And we'll do two more.

Now I know I said hold that pedal still, but it's difficult. I'm trying hard. Recurl and back. And curl, hold. Rotate the spine.

And center. And feel the feet push down on that pedal, trying to hold it as steady as possible and center and rotate. And as the upper body is rotating, we try our very hardest to keep that pelvis from rotating, two, and center. And two and center. And two, my body is warming up quick, quick, quick.

And center. And one. And center. And one. And when you're in center, lift the pedal, take the body down. So for the next thing, I like to scoot away from the chair a little bit.

We're gonna place the feet on top of the chair, or the pedal, rather. Bring the pedal all the way down to the ground. So I wanna be able to have my feet on the ground, the arch of my foot right curling over the top of the pedal. We're doing a pelvic curl hold. We'll roll up, lifting the pelvis and roll down.

We'll do three. And then we're gonna do a little unilateral challenge. And roll up, fully articulating the spine, pressing down with the arms, feeling the weight of the head against the mat. And down. And one more time. Lifting up.

Noticing the collarbones are open, the shoulder blades are heavy. And down. Keeping that pedal on the ground. And lift, holding the pelvis at the top. Can you, without shifting your body, simply just lift the left leg up into a tabletop position?

Now, continue to keep the pedal down as you do a single leg pelvic curl. Rolling all the way down to neutral. And oops, rolling all the way up. That oops was the pedal tried to get away from me. And roll down.

It's when the pelvis is dropping into neutral that it's the very most challenging. We're doing rolling up and rolling down. Now instead of articulating up, we're simply lifting straight up and straight down and straight up and straight down and straight up and straight down. And placing that leg down, rolling the pelvis up. Coming up into the other side, tabletop leg.

We articulate the spine down and back up. And articulate the spine down. Using the arms to help to stabilize the shoulders and articulate the spine back up. Last time, articulate the spine down. And now from the bottom we go straight up and straight down.

And straight up and straight down. And straight up and straight down. Reach down both feet down on the pedal. One more pelvic curl with both feet on the chair, just recentering. Rolling straight down the center of the spine all the way down into a neutral alignment in the pelvis.

And once you arrive, with control, lift the pedal up. Place the feet just inside of the chair. Take the arms up overhead, lift your head and chest. Feel your heels pulling against the chair as you use that connection to your feet to roll all the way up. And here we're in a perfect place to just scooch forward and adjust the springs.

So we're heading into footwork. You'll choose an appropriate spring for you for footwork. Keep in mind we're not gonna be holding our hands down, so if you need to choose a lighter spring than you might usually, you could. We're also gonna be doing some rotation. So I'm choosing two springs on the second hook.

We're gonna take the feet down to where you can stay nice and upright over your pelvis. Bring your arms out to your side. We're gonna press down on the pedal as we turn the body to the right. Lift the pedal, come center. Press down, turn the other direction.

Trying to stay exactly upright over the pelvis center. And press down and turn. And center. And press down and turn, wringing out the spine in that rotational movement. And center.

And last time, press down and turn and center. And press down and turn and center. Come to a small V shape with your feet. Take your hands behind your head. Lifting the knees up just to where you can keep the spinal alignment consistent.

And then same rotation, but different hand position. Press and rotate. And lift and come center. And press and rotate. And lift and come center.

And press and rotate. Lifting the spine up away from the pelvis, but also feeling that the pelvis is anchored on the chair. And press and rotate. And center, feeling the spine is equally long on both sides of the body. Press and rotate, and center.

And press and rotate and center. Take the hands down, take the feet to the outside of the pedal. Arms out to the side. Orient your spine in an upright position. Press down with the legs.

Take the right hand to the chair, lift the left arm up. Side bend to the right letting the right elbow bend. Come back up. Both arms out to the side. Legs come up.

Press down, left arm goes down, right arm comes up, left elbow bends. We stretch over the top. Come back up. Lift the legs and press down. Right arm down, left arm up and stretch and center and lift and press.

Feeling the inner thighs connected. Left arm down, right arm up and over and back. And lift the pedal, last time in each direction. Press, right arm down, left arm up and over and back. And lift and press.

Using the abdominals to hold the spine in its stable position. Reach up and over to the left and back. And lift the pedal up. Step off the front, turn around. Put the right foot onto the pedal, the right knee just on top of the chair.

And then stretch that left leg long onto the ground behind you. There's two options that you can do with your hands. One is to just leave the fingertips down. The second is to bring the arms out to the side, which is what I'm gonna choose here, squaring the pelvis. We take the foot down and up.

And down and up. And down and up. And three, fully articulating through the foot. Two, and up. Helps to find something stable to look at.

One, and up. Place the hands down. Lift the knee by rounding the spine into the chest. Step that foot down. Bend the opposite leg, put the toes on the pedal.

The other leg is on the floor. Reaching down into a stretch. Once you get organized and get squared, arms come out to the side if that's what you're choosing. And we take just the foot and back, and just the foot and back. And just the foot.

Feel there's some grounding pressure into the leg that's on the ground behind you. Three, and up. Two, and up. One, and up. The hands come down, bring the knee into the chest.

Lifting the pedal to the top of the spring. Step down onto the floor and roll up. So we're gonna step in closer to the chair. Take the pedal down with one foot. Bring the opposite leg up onto the chair.

Reach your fingertips towards the front corners of the chair and then stand into that front foot, lifting the pedal just off the floor. Rounding the spine, feel your abdominal connection and bend and straighten. Exhaling to straighten. Keeping the upper body still. We'll do two and one.

Now hold right there. Take the arms out in front of you, find your balance. And five, four, the back leg moves, the front leg stays still. Three, two, one. We take the body down, take the hands down, change feet.

Starting with the hands in the front corners of the chair. Lean into that front leg, round your spine. Feel your abdominals working to support that shape. Lift partway up and bend and straighten. And two and three and four and hold.

Here's our challenge. Can we hold everything organized, nice and still as we bring our arms up in front? And press and two and three and four and five. Let the body come down. Place the hands down, step off and pick the pedal up.

Reach down and take one of those springs away. So I'm now on one spring on two. You could choose heavier if you want. Come around to the other side of the chair. Sit down onto the chair and lean back to bring the legs up placing the hands on the pedal behind you.

Take the pelvis back far enough so that you feel that you're grounded in your low back on the chair. From there, press down in the pedal and curl the chest towards the thighs. Little bit of abdominal work. And press down, inhale, and curl forwards. And press down, inhale and curl forwards.

And two, really deepening into that round body shape. Holding the legs nice and still. One, we're about to make a challenge. Are you ready? Go down till where your pelvis is flat again. Well it's always flat, till your body's more parallel.

Now, shift the legs over to one side. So you're lifting one hip off the chair onto the opposite side of the pelvis. And now we curl up into that oblique. Up and back. And I've tried to keep the shoulders squared even though the spine is in rotation.

And curl and down and curl and down and curl and down. Bring yourself back to center. Take your time. Go over to the opposite side. There's a bit of balance here.

And then curl and down and curl and down. Try to open up the shoulders on the down. Curl and down and two and down and one and down. Come back to center. Lift the body.

Shift forward a little bit so that you can pick your hands up off the chair. Coming all the way down. Stand up all the way, and then come around to the side of the chair. So for this I wanna have some mat under my knees. So I'm gonna slide the mat a little bit backwards.

We're gonna come onto the hands and the knees. This is a scapula stability exercise. So what I want us to do is rest one forearm and elbow right on top of the chair. The other arm is gonna be just underneath the shoulder that's supporting us. From here, we're gonna pull the upper arm towards down.

Let the elbow lift to straighten the arm. As the pedal lifts, let the elbow come to the pedal and take the arm away. So upper arm first. There's some core stability work here, my friends. Let the elbow lift to take the arm down.

I'm still on that spring on two, one spring on two from the bottom. And reach, it might be too heavy. So if it is, go a little lighter, which means go down. So we're doing upper arm. Feel the shoulder blade connect to the ribs on that side.

Then take the arm all the way to straight. Let the elbow come back and return, last time. Pull, lift the elbow and all the way back. We're gonna change sides. So I'm gonna come up.

I'm gonna bring my mat to the opposite side. I'm just organizing it just so I have some padding underneath my knees. If you have a carpet, you may not need that, but I like to have cushion underneath my knees. You wanna get close enough to the chair that your elbow and forearm can come. The other arm is just underneath the shoulder on that side.

Get yourself sorted and push down. Elbow comes up first, the upper arm goes. Upper arm pulls, elbow leaves the pedal as we straighten and reach. And straighten. All about spinal stability, trunk stability.

Last two here and back. And one. And lift the pedal all the way back up and take the arm off. We're going to come up. I'm a little fussy with angles and lines so I'm just gonna move the mat back.

Helps me to line myself up, that mat. We're coming around to the side. Coming into our side stretch position, reaching the inside arm down. So outside arm reaches overhead. We're gonna do one side bend, reach up and over.

Go, go, go, go. Enjoy that stretch. Come up, bring that arm around, lifting the back leg as you square yourself towards the pedal. So you're squared to the pedal. You're about in line with your leg.

And then we're gonna take that pedal down. I'm using my front foot leg around the chair to hook. And then we're gonna reach up into extension. Keep that back leg lifted. Press down.

Back leg stays up, up, up, up, up. And lift that spine up using the chair to keep you organized towards square shoulders. What do I mean by that? I'm standing on my outside arm a little bit, lightening up on my inside arm a little bit just to square as best as I can. Go all the way down.

Go back to the center, leg goes down. Back to the side stretch position. All the way up. Let that leg come down. Spiral the arm so the opposite arm is on top and stretch over in the opposite direction.

And come all the way up. Change sides. Sitting on the side of the hip, the opposite leg is down straight. Arm comes up overhead. We take one side bend, reaching over into that stretch.

Come back up. Take the arm around to the pedal, the opposite hand comes to the opposite side. Lift the leg up behind you. Make your body as best of a straight line in line with that leg as you can. And then take the pedal down and reach out and up through the spine.

And take the pedal down and out and up through the spine. Little back extension with rotation there. Go down and out and up through the spine. Go down. Come back to the center. As you bring your leg to the ground, arm reaches back over into that side stretch position.

We come up, sit all the way up bringing that arm down, the opposite arm up. And we take a side stretch in that direction. And come back. Turning around, putting the body down on the chair, straightening the arms. I want us to bend the arms out to the side and allow the spring to help us lift into an upper body extension, upper spinal extension.

Take the arms straight. Now, keep the arms straight and lift a little higher up. Pressing back towards the chair with the arms. Go back down, bend the elbows, think just upper spinal extension. Straighten the arms and lower the body.

Keep the arms straight as you lift the spine up. Lifting up off, like putting most of my weight back into my pubic bone. And down. And one more time. Bend the arms and lift just the upper back.

Straighten the arms. Keep the arms straight as you lift all the way up into maximum extension that the pedal will allow you with your pelvis down. And go down. Bend your arms to lift the pedal, press yourself up. Stand just behind the chair.

We're finishing the way that we started, standing up tall, collecting ourselves as we roll down. Finding the pedal with the hands, reaching out into a flat back. So fully mobilizing the spine and fully rounding the spine and fully mobilizing the spine. Maybe you feel a little different than you did at the beginning of class. I always do.

And round. A little more open, little bit looser all the way out into a flat back, up into a round back, up off of the pedal and all the way to standing. Thank you.