Creative EXO Chair Flow

Hi, I'm Delia, and today we'll be working on the EXO Chair. I have a chair already set up for you. So we have the short yellow spring with the handles on there attached to the top, and they're on both sides. And I also have the chair resistance ready for you here as well. I have mine on 1,3.

So we have three up from the top on the Cactus. We are gonna be staying at this resistance for quite a few exercises, so if it's not right for you, please stop what you're doing, change the spring, and then follow along. So I'm gonna turn towards the pedals, reach my arms up to the sky for a big stretch, and then flex forward. I wanna make sure that I'm standing at the right position. So on the first one, I just stop before I press the pedal down and make sure that I am the right distance away from the chair.

Then press the pedal towards the floor, softening your knees, feeling a nice stretch at the back of your hamstrings. And then roll up, release the pedals altogether, and then stand up nice and tall. Let's do that again. I'm gonna reach the arms up and then exhale to flex, hands on the handles, pressing the pedal towards the floor. You don't have to reach the floor, mind you.

You're just going down low enough that you are stretching the right parts of your body. And then roll yourself all the way back up. The arms will come back up to the sky. One more time before we add on to it. So exhale to flex forward.

Let's stay steady on our feet, making sure that we're not leaning back or leaning forward. Soften the knees at the bottom for one more, and then roll up to standing, and reach those arms up. We're gonna stay down on the next one. So flex the spine, hands to the pedals. Let's just press the pedal down only as high as our hips.

And you'll have to guess if you don't have a mirror as to where that might be, but it should feel pretty comfortable. From here, lift your eyes and start to flatten your back. So I've got a nice little stretch going on with my back here, looking towards the top of the chair. Flex the spine, and then roll yourself all the way back up, arms reach back up to the sky. Now when you roll yourself back up, make sure that you stay steady on your feet 'cause if you don't stay steady on your feet, then you're leaning back and might lose a little bit of balance here.

So inhale breath, extension, exhale breath. And I wanna really feel my inner thighs working to assist me as I stack all the way up for balance. Arms back up, exhale, flex forward, hands to the pedals, and you press. Stop right at the hip height, extend the spine, even bend your knees more if you need to. That's a really good stretch in the hamstrings.

Exhale to flex, and then roll all the way back up to standing. We're gonna stay down on the next one. So flex the spine again. Hands to the pedals, press down. Once you're here, just extend the spine and pause for a moment, and then pedal the arms up and down, warming up the shoulder joint, and then enjoying actually the stretch while you're here.

So my hamstrings are feeling that static stretch. I'm also feeling some work between my shoulder blades. One more time, and then press the pedal down with a round back, and then roll all the way back up, arms back up to the sky. We'll stay down again. Flex the spine, hands to the pedals.

Find the height of your hips and pause. Pulling through your abdominal, so navel to spine, chin to chest, press the pedal down a little further and maybe a little further and then a little further. And then lift up to where the shoulders meet the hips again. This is a torso press-down. So when you're pressing down, one, it's the weight of your torso, two.

Exhale, three, shoulders back up to the hips. So don't let the shoulders rise with each push of the pedal down. We'll do that again exhale one, exhale two. This is your final one, three, roll up. Lift through the arches of your feet.

Fire those inner thighs, stacking your spine, and then reaching the arms back up. And again, exhale to flex down. We're gonna hold it down again here and pause. And then from here, soften the knees, one more time. Extend the spine, round the back, press a little further down, maybe do that again.

Extend the spine and round the back, and press a little bit further. But be careful here as you extend the spine, and release the pedal. We're gonna move on to using the slastics on the chair. So I'm gonna grab onto the handles. And then quick note about the resistance.

This is just the amount, the right amount of resistance for me to be able to do the leg presses. If you need a little bit more resistance, please put that on. If you need a little bit less, please make that adjustment. But if you don't have enough on the pedal, it's gonna be hard to lift the leg up and down. So I'm gonna put the foot on the pedal, my right foot first.

And then before you do anything, make sure that you feel nice and square here. So you want enough distance between your hips so that way you could balance. The wider the stance, the easier to balance. If the legs are too close together, then there's that little bit of a wobble feeling. So start off by just holding the resistance.

This is gonna be an assist for you to maintain a tall posture and keep your balance. Allow the pedal to rise, and you want to rise maybe about the height of your hip, and then press the pedal down. And for the first few, you're pretty much just checking the resistance on here. So this works for me, obviously, 'cause I've practiced what I need. So don't be afraid to change it if you need to.

Press it down, now my left toes pointing forward. My left knee is extended long. If that's uncomfortable for you, then go ahead and soften that knee. But what you wanna feel is a little bit of a lift through the hips, nice tall posture, and the resistance with a soft elbow on the slastic. On the very next one, as my leg comes up, I'm gonna gonna rotate my upper body towards my right.

So I've got a little bit of an offering here as I rotate from my ribcage, and then back to the center, and press the pedal down. Inhale breath, so my left arm is reaching away, my right arm is reaching back. I don't have a lot of resistance on here. I don't wanna hurt my shoulder. I just want enough that I can feel that fire at my back and my arms, and press.

Let's just do that two more times. Inhale and exhale. Last one, reaching it away. Inhale breath, and exhale breath. Now, remove the foot off the pedal carefully.

If you need to put your foot down, go ahead. Otherwise just take that right leg back and balance here as you pull the wrist slastics back and hold that resistance, almost like a chest expansion. So I'm just gonna lower the right foot up and down and lift and lower. And if you're on a mat like I am, which has a little bit of a cushion to it, it'll be a little bit harder to balance. So if you don't need the mat there, feel free to move that out of the way as well.

Now I'm gonna take my foot back to the pedal and then press the pedal down and alternate just four sets. So pedal comes up, arms go back, and you lift, and you do it again. Foot to the pedal, arms out in offering, and then release and bring it back. We'll do that twice more. Inhale breath or whatever breath works for a fluidity in your movement.

Leg goes back, palms go back. You stretch one more time, foot to the pedal, palms face up, palms face back, and then you release. But I'm gonna put my foot back onto this pedal. Now, the handles will stay at your hands, 'cause we're gonna reach, we're gonna put our arms through there. So hands here to the chair just for balance, and I'm gonna adjust forward.

I was a little too far back. My right knee is going to rest at the very edge of the chair. Right now what I feel is just a big stretch at the back of my left leg. But my right knee, it's resting, but I'm not dropping all my weight into it. It's a very active rest here.

Then I'll bring my hands inside the handles, the hands behind my head. And what the straps or slastics will help me do is maintain a tall posture as I point and flex my ankle, point and flex. This mobility in the ankle is so important, and especially if you're very active outside, but just to stay on your feet. And you don't wanna do too many here 'cause you are resting on your knee, so we'll just do three, two, last one, and then place your hands on the chair, and just press the pedal down. Let's take the left foot that's been on the floor this whole time and place it on the chair.

Now, this is not very much resistance on the chair itself. So if you're having a hard time floating up, just add a little extra, just pull the spring up one. The handles aren't doing anything here at the moment. You're just gonna shift your body weight forward to find a sprinter start, and you can just pause here and hold a stretch. Or if you like the work in this exercise, you can lift up to where the hip is about the height of the knee.

Pause here and then press. My fingertips are pressing into the chair to remind me to not just rest into the palm of my hands. And even though my belly is resting on my leg, I'm actively pulling my belly away from my leg. Two more, last one, pedal will drop, left foot will come off, then the right foot will rise. There's a lot of strategic movement getting on and off of the chair so that way you don't trip or let the pedals slam.

So now on to the other leg, toes pointing forward. Left foot goes onto the pedal, and you'll notice, of course, one side might have more balance than the other. So we'll fix ourselves here, palms up, elbows bent, and then the pedal will rise. Inhale, exhale, one. So the inhale just comes natural for me, 'cause it's like the balloon floating up, filling with air, inhale.

Then exhale to press down. But you can change your breath. It's most important to breathe in through your nose to get as much air into your lungs as you can and to exhale out of your mouth so you can fire all of those supporting muscles that are holding you up right here. So just a couple more, and then we'll add that rotation. Last one, next time the pedal rises, you rotate.

Offer with the right, pull back with the left, and then back to center. Find your breath on the inhale, reach it away, and then exhale. So now you get the view of the back. So you'll see how that right shoulder blade moves further away, and then back to the middle. Let's just do two more. (exhales loudly) Last one, and return.

Now, the option of just resting your foot back or just floating it off, and then finding that arabesque. Once you're here, just lower the left foot, and then lift the left foot. It is a bit of a struggle on a padded mat, so just work really hard. Try not to crunch your toes onto the mat. That'll just give you an arch cramp.

Two more of these, two, last one, pulling back with those slastics. Now, palms up, foot to the pedal. Pedal up, foot behind, palms face back, inhale. And again, you could just touch your toe to the mat if that works better for you today. And then lift and then back.

We'll do a total of, ooh, lost a little balance. Put that foot on the pedal We'll do a total of four, and up and back and lift. Last one, left foot forward. Pedal drops, pedal lifts. And then you're gonna go ahead and keep your foot there.

Place the foot all the way to the floor of the pedal, and then put the knee on to rest. Make sure that your right leg is comfortable, because if you're too far away, you're gonna get maybe an uncomfortable stretch at your calf. So you wanna make sure that that feels good, and you want a nice straight back. So I want you to think of that imaginary line here of your hip all the way to your head. Arms go inside the handles.

Hands come behind the head, and you'll feel that resistance pull back, but make sure those elbows are still in your peripheral. And then start your little presses with your ankle, dorsiflexion, plantar flexion, nice and tall with the spine. Think back posture, think the back of the leg, the back of your spine there. Good, just a couple more. And then hands come down for support on the chair as you press the pedal to the floor.

And then I'm gonna bring my right leg up, which is actually kind of a nice relief after being back on that stretched position. Fingertips on for balance. Shift the body weight forward. Float the body up, or stay down if you want for a stretch. But if you're up here, let's pedal that leg. You're in a sprinter start.

Take that tension out of your neck. Place your head in a position where your neck doesn't bug you here. Actively pull your belly away from your thighs, two more. One more, pedal to the floor again. Safe dismount off the back, pedal comes up, and then you release.

All right, so now I'm going to take the handles and place them at the bottom, and then once they're at the bottom, then I'm gonna find my place on the mat. So we'll be lying down. I am gonna switch the spring, and if it's not conducive for you to switch from the front, just walk around the back. But I'm gonna hold the pedal up with one hand, un-clip, and I'm gonna clip it at the bottom. So now I have one on 1, which is the lightest spring resistance you can get on this chair.

Once you are on your back, just bring the, or on your seat, bring the handles back that they're close by. We're gonna test our position away from the chair. So put your feet on the pedals, and then lie all the way down. And your first test here is can you press the pedal to the floor comfortably, or do you need to make a little adjustment? Looks like the spring had to adjust itself as well.

And then start here by just pressing the pedal down, up and down. It is not a ton of resistance, but what I have found with the repetitive movement of the series, one, and also I'm really focused on the position of my pelvis going up one is just too much resistance, so I'd rather stay maybe a little bit on the lighter side and also lighter on the feet so there isn't the tendency to push the chair away from you. So you're working with the hamstrings here, focusing on the pelvis-to-ribcage placement here. So this position, this distance stays the same the whole time as I'm pressing my legs down, and now I'm starting to feel my hamstrings fire after a few repetitions, okay? Now, if the handles are in a good spot, you can grab those, and then just bend your elbows just so there's enough resistance here, and this actually will keep your chair in if you're pushing it away.

And we'll do this again, but now you're holding the resistance of the arms, and press. Inhale, exhale, press. We'll do two more, last one, and then let the pedals rise, arches resting on top of the chair, okay? We're gonna keep the legs just how they are. Now they're gonna rest, and we're gonna work on the upper body.

So chin to chest as I flex up, and I do a little bit of a bicep curl here so that I could feel the resistance, and then release back. This is just a little ab curl or an ab prep. Nod the chin, and exhale. (exhales loudly) Inhale to lower back down. Two more for a total of four, chin to chest. Exhale breath (exhales loudly) and lower.

Last one, exhale to press up, (exhales loudly) and then lower all the way down to the mat. Let's do a little combo. So I'm going to lift my head and shoulders up. Then I'm gonna press the pedal down. Then the pedals will come up.

Then my head and shoulders will lower to the mat. So now we've got a little combination going. Nod the chin and flex. These are interesting movements because you're feeling that front body working here, but now you're trying to get that back body to work, so now all of a sudden everything integrates together. And then you lower back the to the mat.

Let's make this more simultaneous. Chin to chest, head and shoulders up, bicep curl. And then lower, and again, and lower back to the mat, chin to chest, up. Let's just do one more. (exhales loudly) Now hold it here, pause. And then arms only for four, three, two, one.

Arms release, legs come up, and then down. And then don't worry about full release of the tension. It's just like using Cadillac springs. You'll get slack when you're doing the work sometimes on that. Okay, so from here, now let's do some ab series work.

So head and shoulders up, and you're gonna pause. I'm gonna hold the bicep curl here, and then I'm gonna take the right leg up to a tabletop position. Now, I only have one foot on the pedal, so I'm not gonna have as much strength. So just a slight press of the pedal, right leg reaches one, two. We're gonna go for four, three, last one, four.

Switch, left leg out, and oop, here we go. And it's one and two, three, four, foot to the pedal, lower yourself all the way to the mat and release. We're gonna put the handles out to the side, feet down. And then just sit yourself all the way up, and the handles or the slastics will just be out of your way here. As a matter of fact, I'm going to unhook them anyway, and once I have them unhooked, I could sit pretty close to the pedal here to do a nice spine stretch.

So hands to the pedals. I like to keep my elbows a bit soft, and I'll show you why here in a second. My legs are open, and you wanna obviously be close enough that your arms can reach for it and also close enough that you can get me a nice tall posture and then also comfortable for the width of your legs. So I'm gonna flex my ankles. I'm gonna start with a little sitting ab press.

So bend your elbows, chin to chest. I could feel resistance here. And then sit back up, exhale. (exhales loudly) What I want you to think about, not even as much as your abdominals working, which they are because your abs have to work to flex your spine, but more of a stretch in the middle of my back. And exhale, (exhales loudly) and then back up. Now, I'm gonna take a little lean back.

So I'm gonna lean back and then press, little different feeling, extend the arms, and then sit up tall. My fingers are gripping the other side of the pedal. So I'm gonna pull, lean, so you feel a little taller here, and (exhales loudly), and then release. And again, inhale to lean. Exhale, elbows towards the ribs.

And then sit up nice and tall. Last one, lean back, pause, bend your elbows. Flex, extend the spine. And then sit up nice and tall. All right, going on to some prone exercises.

So I'm gonna come to my knees, and I'm just gonna move the slastics out of the way. I am using them again, but I'm just gonna move them towards the front of the chair just in case I get a hand caught on them or something. So I'm gonna come back. Prone exercises on the chair are very interesting because a lot of it could be a lot of pressure on the shoulders, or you're not quite in the right spot away from the chair. I always keep my elbows a little bit softer just to protect my rotator cuffs.

So I'm gonna press the pedal down with one arm. So you can see I'm soft here, and there's not a lot of resistance. It's the lightest you can have. But if that's even too much for you, then just let the resistance go altogether and just place your hands on the pedal. I'm gonna lie all the way onto to my belly.

Both hands are gonna go to the pedal, and then you'll see the pedal comes up, and see there's that little extra stretch here. So I'm just gonna pull myself forward. Right here, this should feel good. If you've got nothing going on with your shoulders, this feels good. There's a little elevation of the shoulder, then your head falls between.

You've got a nice little stretch happening here at the chest. Let's set up your lower half of your body. So let's press the pubic bone down into the mat, and then your legs will fire here, feet pressing onto the mat as well. So your nice and strong base here at the bottom. Elbows, I mean, abs are pulled in.

Let's bend the elbows, start to lift the eyes. I'm actually gonna press the pedal all the way to the floor so I have a feeling of a little bit more support. And as I lower down, I'm gonna safely lift the pedal, find the long arm, head drops between. Inhale, elbows bound as I lift, and find extension and then lower. And your extension can be whatever it needs to be at the moment.

Elbows bend, start to lift, push the pedal down as your head comes up. My pedal's all the way to the floor. Elbows bend, arms lift up. One more time, elbows bend. So I don't have any strain on my shoulder here because I'm using all the muscles around my arms as well.

So I'm gonna lower down and then reach it back up. From here, press the pedal down to where you have enough resistance and you feel the fire at the back body. And then float your legs up off the floor, and just swim the lower half of the body. Just swim, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. And you're gonna go in a slow count so that you can feel the back body working.

So you wanna feel the glute to hamstring fire, and you're not flipping those knees like swimming from here. You wanna swim from the hips. And then release the arms and then lower the head for rest. Next one, you're gonna press the pedal down to the floor. You're gonna hold it here.

From here, see if you can hold that pedal down with one arm, okay? The other arm is gonna come right by your side. So all you're gonna do here is swim the legs as you're holding that pedal down. Reach the arm behind you. Look over your shoulder. You're only doing one repetition on each side because of the amount of resistance that's on the pedal.

Then you'll bend the elbow, bring the hand to the pedal here, take the arm back and around, swim. Give me that nice rotation with extension so that we're utilizing all parts and pieces of the back. Bring the hand to the handles, or the the pedals, excuse me. And then release the pedal up, rest. And if this is something that works for you, hang here.

Otherwise, take your hands to the floor, and you're gonna find a child's pose. So bottom to the heels, arms out in front. Deep inhale, don't worry about resting as long as you need. And then exhale to return. Now the next set of exercises come at the right time because we warmed up that shoulder.

So this should be a little bit more friendly to the shoulder. We're doing one-arm presses facing side. I am moving the mat back. These are hardwood floors. So I'm gonna move the mat back about halfway to protect my knees so that I could be centered with the pedal. Once my knees are on and you feel comfortable here, you're gonna take one hand, one arm, press the pedal all the way down.

The other hand comes to underneath the shoulders. So now this pad is gonna be lower, higher than this pad. If that poses a little issue for you, just take another pad or anything that will rise the upper body up so that you appear more level, and that maybe that works better for your spine. So here I am on the floor, bend the elbow, and then press down. For the first part, this should feel pretty good.

The elbow can point back. Say if my head was at noon, my elbow's pointing back at eight o'clock, feels pretty comfortable to me. Now once you completed that, if you don't wanna rest, we're just going to continue on. Otherwise, you can come up to your knees and rest. But now I'm gonna bring my legs a little bit closer together for balance and then take my right leg back to the floor.

Lift the pedal up, and then lift the leg up. The leg's gonna stay as the pedal presses. And the reason I had you hold a foot down there is so that you can get comfortable with this. If it's a lot of resistance, there's a tendency to rock to the side, and we don't want the shoulders to have to work that hard. Inhale, exhale, use those abs, and then bring the knee down and hold.

Another thing here is a little flexion-extension. So it's gonna look very similar to say knee stretches on the Reformer. So we're gonna take the right leg back. We're gonna let the pedal rise. As the pedal comes down, the knee comes in, you round your spine, you pause, as the pedal comes up, can you find a little extension and exhale? (exhales loudly) Two more, (exhales loudly) last one, (exhales loudly) and then I am gonna rest for just a moment, 'cause we are gonna try a little plank challenge while we're here.

Hands are gonna come back, or one hand's gonna come back to the pedal. Make sure you got a little room back here for a plank. My hand will go back on to the pad of the mat, legs back. Now before I go back into plank, a little quick review. The wider the plank, the easier.

The closer the legs, the harder. Start conservative, or you're gonna be flipping to one side off of the chair pedal. So legs back, here's my conservative. Here's mine together. No big deal until that pedal comes up. So I'm gonna bring my legs out, and you ready?

Let's just do six of these. Inhale, exhale, press one, exhale two. You wanna keep those hips nice and square. Obliques are working hard. Three more. (exhales loudly) Two more (exhales loudly), one more. And then the knees come down, and you rest here.

Now, there's a lot more to that. You could do more to make it more challenging, but we're good for now. So I'm gonna move the mat back to the center. And before we go to the other side, we're just gonna do some more kneeling work so I can continue to face you. So the hand's gonna go on, and I'm just gonna give myself a little side stretch, little side bend, and then return.

And again, and inhale. I love this stretch, and exhale, two more. Inhale breath, stretch, exhale breath and up. And you have one more here. You're gonna reach it up.

Give yourself a nice little stretch, and then release. Now I'm gonna press that pedal all the way to the floor for some kneeling work with the side legs. However, you can remove the pedal altogether, but you're gonna have to readjust or remove the spring, not the pedal. The pedal doesn't come off. So I'm gonna press the pedal down all the way, and my body weight's gonna keep it down.

So and what's nice about actually even doing the kneeling side work here is that I've got some room for my wrist, which feels really good. So my wrist isn't in a lot of extension. So here we are with a free hand at the head. Let's just lift that leg up and down. And just like anything you would do on the mat, though you're very conscious of the fact that you have this pedal underneath you.

And it'll come in handy here in just a moment, two more. Last one, let's add some pulses. Bring that leg up, pulse eight, seven, six, four, three, two, and rest. Now I'm going to go ahead and take the knee down, let the pedal come up and stretch. So now I'm getting that nice little shoulder stretch.

Never fall into the shoulder. Be very active with that stretch. And then press the pedal back down. You get a little arm press. We'll go one, two, three, and then the pedal will rise, and you'll stretch, two more sets.

Pedal down, arm press, one, two, three, and control, that negative resistance. The pedal will come up, one more, press the pedal down. The arm reaches one, two, three, and stretch and release. That concludes the entire series. So I'm gonna turn around and face the other direction.

I'll move my mat again so that way my knees are comfortable 'cause that's really important. So now on my knees, hands on the pedal, left arm comes down, and you wanna make sure that they're squared off, so you don't wanna have one arm further out than the other. And then from here, I'm gonna relax my feet, and here we go again. Bend and extend with the right arm, one. Inhale, exhale two.

Now with my head being noon, my arm's coming to four o'clock. What people will do here a little bit is come into a little rotation, which could be an exercise all on its own. But let's, we're working on stability here, one more time. And then the pedal will rise. My legs will come closer together.

My left foot will come back. And now press the pedal down, and lift my leg up. So now I'm square with my hips, four of these here, one. Now I'm not gonna pause on this next one, two, three. We're just gonna move on.

So now the pedal will rise, and the pedal comes down. Now the knee comes in, you round one, extend the spine. Exhale two, two more. (exhales loudly) Last one, (exhales loudly) pedal will rise, the knee comes down, and then you rest. Now we're gonna do the plank challenge here. So the hands will come down, the hand will be on the mat.

Remember conservative first, so legs a little bit wider. And we're gonna do six of these here. And it's inhale, exhale one, nice and strong. But the quads, two, those quads are gonna help you balance here, and three. You are halfway there. (exhales loudly) Keep those hips square. (exhales loudly) And one, and the knees come down, and the pedal will rise.

And then you can give yourself a teeny little break here. So I'm gonna move the mat back to the middle so that way I can continue on with the rest of the series. So hand to the pedal, little side stretch. Remember this one, this feels good. And then return and down.

Now, you're taking a little bit of that body weight as you press the pedal down. But don't discount the fact that you are working your lats. Your lats attach there into your armpits. That's where they insert. So pull that lat down and fire that to keep that shoulder out of your ears.

And one more stretch, and then release. So let's take the pedal all the way to the floor for the kneeling work and then take that leg out, find a good position, making sure that your right hand is slightly forward. Left leg is out, hand behind your head. And then here come the lifts up and down, one. Feeling the side of your hip, nice stability here.

Let's just do a few more. Two, one more, and the little pulses here for eight, seven, six, four, three, two, and let's rest. First knee comes down, let the pedal rise. Be careful here as you reach for a stretch. So my hip is pressing back so it feels like a nice little stretch.

Now I'm gonna use that arm to press the pedal down. Three pulses here, one, two, three. And control the resistance of that pedal. Two more sets, arm comes around, one, two, three. Knee comes down, and you stretch.

Last set, pedal comes down with control. One, two, three, and stretch, and release. Yeah, so that's all done. Now we're gonna get onto the chair. So I'm gonna change the resistance and also hook the slastics back up.

So I'm gonna take the slastic now and place it back at the top where we started, and then the other. And then I'm going to change the resistance now. So resistance, one up from the top, so 1,2 on the Cactus. All right, so once that's on, I'm just gonna drop these slastics. I just wanted them out of my way for just a moment.

And then we're gonna have a seat. So we'll be doing a little bit of a spine twist with a press of the pedal down, but we're also gonna use the slastics. But you're gonna take the opposite slastic, so don't worry about them right now. I'll show you how that works. You're gonna have a seat.

So depending on the length of your femur here depends on how far you'll be sitting on the chair. However, if you sit too far back, then you're posing a little bit of danger for yourself, especially if you're long torsoed. So I'm gonna sit towards the front and then just test it out. So I'm gonna take my hand to the front of the chair here, and now I feel really comfortable, okay? So I'm gonna take the slastic into my left hand.

So just my left hand has it. My legs are extended long. And just as a side note, if you need to, you can keep your legs bent, or you can place a big huge stability ball underneath your feet to rest your legs, okay? So extending that leg long, arms are out. I'm gonna go into a little twist.

Pause on that twist, and take your free hand to the pedal. As I press the pedal down, I put a little bit of tension onto the slastic. As I come back up, I'm gonna maintain that tension and then come back to the center, release that tension. Inhale to rotate, and then exhale as you press. Now, make sure that that right arm isn't too far back, or you'll feel a little bit too much of a stretch on that shoulder, and then how far back you go is gonna be dependent on your stability.

But one thing you don't wanna do is twist into your lumbar spine. You wanna make it so that it's spiraling from your hip all the way to your head and then all the way back up and release. Just one more, inhale to rotate right, hand onto the pedal. Press the pedal down, and stretch, and then lift yourself all the way back up, and then rest here. So moving on to some side work on the chair, working the obliques, but we're gonna keep a hold of this slastic on our hands.

So I'm gonna take my hand to the pedal. Again, this is enough resistance for me. So I'm gonna press the pedal down and then find a comfortable position on the chair to where I feel about even. The spring here is more of a support. It's gonna help to elevate you here just a bit.

So as the pedal comes up, you can push up with this resistance band, or the slastic, and then lower yourself down, and then make sure that you have enough resistance there. All right, so here we go. Legs are adducted together, my elbow is bent. I'm gonna float my upper body up as though I'm drawing my rib in towards my hip and then press my arm up to the ceiling at the same time, gives me a little leverage. Start to bend the elbow, and then lower.

It's not making it easier. It's just changing it a little bit. So as I press, I can really feel the muscles fire around my ribcage to pull up and then to lower back down. And I'm gonna rest completely. We'll do that two more. Press the arm up, inhale breath, stretch, and then lower all the way back down.

One more, I'm gonna reach my arm up, pull it all the way up, and then release down. Now I'm gonna scooch myself slightly to the front. I am gonna do a little challenge work here in that we're gonna go into a little twisted teaser on the chair. So if you have more resistance on the pedal, it is a little bit easier to lift up, just an FYI. So I'm gonna press the band up, start to lift the pedal, come up, conservatively reach for my toes, is that a word?

And then lower myself right back down here, and again, and press it up. Stretch and lower, just two more. Just two more, it's what keep telling myself, just two more. And reach, inhale, exhale to lower with control, one more time. And press with that palm. It'll help make you rise.

And then come all the way back down to the floor and then all the way up. I survived. We're gonna do the other side. (laughing) All right, so remember we start seated on the chair, and we'll do the other side. So I'm gonna grab that slastic into my hand. All right, legs out in front, nice and tall with your spine. Guys, just always do a little test just to make sure.

Here I am, all right, arms out. Nice rotation, hand to the pedal. This arm helps you out as you press. Come all the way up and reach, and then back to center. Now, if you can remember how we started class, we started class very similar to this standing where we warmed up the shoulders with those leg presses, and your hand was in the handles.

So there is a rhyme or reason to some of this stuff. And then press down and then lift. Nice little lean center, one more, inhale breath, hand to the pedal and back. Careful how far you go when you lift, lift, lift, lift, lift through the chest, and then back to the center. So turning onto the side, hand stays on the slastic, hand to the pedal.

Press the pedal down for safety first, and then adjust yourself here, okay? All right, now I've got my hand onto the slastics. And one thing I didn't say on the other side is make sure you can see your arm in your peripheral, 'cause you don't want your arm back here in that stretched position, okay? So injuries happen at end ranges of motion normally with your joints, so be careful here. All right, from here, elbow bends.

As I start to lift the pedal up, I'm gonna press the slastic to the ceiling for leverage. My legs are squeezed together. I'm gonna lower myself back down, bend the elbow. Hand to the ceiling, inhale breath, and exhale. If you pay attention to my feet, you'll notice that I'm trying not to let them slide one past the other because I wanna make sure that I am keeping steady with the hips.

So one more here, and I'm gonna press up. And then release and sit, come up, all the way down, sorry, for a little rest 'cause we got that teaser. So I'm gonna scooch myself forward. I am gonna do one little thing here, bear with me, and bring the mic pack back a bit, so that way I'm not on it. Okay, so now same thing on this side.

Make sure you're towards the front. Arm comes, or body starts to float up, arm comes up. You're going to twist, lift, and then lower yourself right back down to the pedal and hold onto the chair, here we go again. Press the arm up to the ceiling. Start to rise. I know there's a lot going on here, so be really careful.

We'll do two more. I find that the pad, the slastic in my hand helps me to lift that pedal up, little leverage here, lower back down, nice and slow. We have one more, start to float yourself up, reach your arms up. If I told you this class was almost over, would you do this with me? Lift, stretch, and lower yourself all the way back down, and then back up.

See, if I say the word stretch, it psychs you out into thinking it's supposed to feel good. So hope that stretch felt really good for you guys. We're gonna drop the slastics to the floor and then come to our last and final exercise, which will flow us into our ending here. So torso press-back with both arms. So we did a single arm holding a slastic, but we're gonna do two arms just to feel that stretch.

But be really careful here. We're gonna start with the feet down just like this. And then I'm gonna take my hands back and just make sure that I feel comfortable here. And it's okay if your feet dangle, okay? If you're short, they'll dangle.

But then from here, start to press the pedal down. Find a good position, and then you can lift your legs up into a tabletop. Now, point the feet. Don't flex the feet. And you want enough resistance here that you are not gonna fall down towards the floor. You wanna make sure that you can be held up here a bit.

So from here, with my legs up, I'm gonna press the pedal down with my torso weight, not my shoulders. So I'm not trying to open up my chest even more. And as you can see, I'm not going very far. I'm just going enough that my abdominals are fired, and I'm open through the chest. Now I wanna lift from my chest, and you'll see that, if you can see it, there's a little bit of a shake there, which means there's some stability muscles that need a little extra love and care and work.

So inhale and then lift it back up. I'm gonna switch my breath. Exhale back down to torso press. Inhale as I start to float. I want you to think of a rope at your chest.

So if you have a rope at your chest, somebody at the corner of that ceiling is pulling that rope up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. And then you're gonna release back down. This is your very last one. Lift it up, up, up, up, up, hold at the top. Let's go ahead and see if you can challenge yourself.

Release one hand, release the other, teaser. Bend, hands to the chair, feet to the floor, and roll down. Once you're here, little mini in-my-head celebration of that class, softening the knees. Chin to chest, and then we're gonna come up with one, roll down, or roll up, excuse me, all the way up to the top. Feel free to add some extra stretches here at the end.

Otherwise, thanks so much for joining me. We'll see you again soon.