Day 5: Fusion Fun

Hi, I'm Delia. And welcome to day five and the last day of our challenge. And if you join me all week, congratulations. This is the last of it. So we're gonna start this class.

No props, on a mat, and a lot of standing work. So if you can find the center of your mat, toes forward, we're gonna do a little roll down. It's my favorite way to warm up, especially if I'm gonna be on my feet, because then I have a moment as I'm rolling down to really assess my body. You've got a nice little stretch here at the back of my legs, my chin to my chest, and I'll roll myself all the way back up. This is for you, not for me.

So I want you to really enjoy that stretch as you come down and do whatever you want with this. If you need to rock back and forth, just be really careful. If you've got tight hamstrings, you will put a little bit of pressure onto your lower back if you straighten your legs all the way. So that's my only advice to you, is to soften the knees and reach for the floor. If you can't reach for the floor, then you've got goals, and then roll yourself all the way back up.

We're gonna start with a little squat. So just bending of the knees and extending of the knees. The ankle, knees, and hips, it's like a triple flex. It's like an athletic stance. So if you've ever played sports, if you're caught with straight ankles, straight hips, straight knees, and somebody throws you a ball, it'll throw you off balance.

So this is just getting you nice and strong and stable on the mat. Hands can be wherever you'd like. I'm gonna place them on my hips. If you're gonna place your hands on your hips and most of the time you're doing the standing, just be careful because you are bringing your thumb back, which gives you an internal rotation of the shoulder, and after a while starts to bug me. So you can have your fists on your hips as well, or just your hands on your hips or your hands back.

I think this is kind of a Rockette stance. I'm not quite sure. And then down it up, last one, and then release. Now pause here and swing your arms from side to side. Check your feet on this one.

So as you swing your arms from side to side, I live in a climate where I ski. So I think about my edges of my skis here. So we go from side to side. And you want your feet to react to this, right? If your feet are nice and stable on the mat and your upper body is moving, then there's no freedom and no movement with the body.

So I want you to let the feet just go with you and then pause here in the middle. Now from here we're gonna do a little side lunge. So take one leg. I'm gonna take my right leg to the corner of the mat, feel a little stretch in the inner thigh, and then stand back in the center, and then go to the other side. So we'll go corner back.

I'm gonna bring my hands back to my hips and then return. What I want from this is a stretch in that inner thigh, 'cause remember we're warming up. You also wanna think about supporting leg, gesture leg, supporting leg up, and then back. Your feet are so important for balance. Side to side.

We're gonna add a little lateral flexion. So now when I go to the right side, my arm comes up, I give myself a nice stretch, I stand back in the middle, and I repeat, over to the other side and back. And you think about hitting the same spot each time as you reach. My heart rate's going up already. It's supposed to be a warmup.

And then back to the center, over to the other side. We're gonna do a little rotation now. So to the corner, lateral flexion, reach, back to center, hold. Other side, stretch. And then over to the other side.

You could do as many as you'd like, but I'm just gonna do, this is my last set. Reach. Rotate, back to the middle, and pause. Now open up your legs a bit wider. Let's turn the toes out.

When you go to turn the toes out, you wanna make sure that you've turned from your hips and not from your knees. So if you place your hands at your bottom and feel your bottom, turn the toes away. You'll feel a nice connection into your glutes. From here, a little plie, bend and extend. This does not have to look dancer-like.

I am not a dancer. I've never danced. So this is more for mobility of the hip and that lateral rotation. Now if you aspire to dance but don't have that mobility, you've gotta be really careful where the knees goes. You want the knee to go over the center of the foot.

That's where your feet are the most stable. So you won't have that wiggle. And also it'll keep you from overusing the knees. Two more. Last one.

Back to center here. Now turn the toes forward in parallel, but you've got a wider stance. So you're gonna bend and extend here. So now you're parallel. We're gonna alternate the parallel and then lateral movement.

If you are wearing sticky socks, be careful. You don't want the foot to get stuck as you're trying to turn the knees down. So we're gonna bend, extend, turn it out, plie, turn the feet forward, bend. And you'll notice that I'm not pitching my upper body too far forward. I'm not concerned about that part.

I'm more concerned about joint movement. Eyes forward. More of an athletic stance. One more to each side. Lateral, parallel, pause.

Let's go ahead and turn now. So I'm gonna turn to the back of the mat and work on some forward lunges. Take your right foot slightly forward so that you feel the stretch at the back of the heel of your back leg, and stand center. Do the same leg. Forward and back.

This is little baby lunge. With that little baby lunge, what you're thinking about more is the back leg. As you make the lunge bigger, then you'll get a little bit more on the front leg. And where that back knee goes is up to you. The more the knee is under the hip, the more the knee will be loaded.

So be really careful here if you're feeling too much on the knee. Last one. And then hold. Other side, same thing. Start with little baby lunge.

A little baby lunge. If you don't have a lot of mobility in your heel, then you're not gonna get very far with your baby lunch. And that's totally okay. And then forward goals again. Goals, and forward, and back.

I'll do four more. Three, two, and one. Now step your right foot forward and rotate again so that you're centered or facing the sideways on the mat. I'm gonna take my right knee to a bend, stretch up and over, hold. And then I'm gonna rotate.

So now I've got my hands to the floor and I'm gonna get that nice stretch of the back of the hip on the back leg. And I can feel my right quad. Extend your right leg. Now if you don't have a lot of mobility, be conservative. Just bend, extend that forward leg.

A little stretch. Two more. Last one. And then hold. Come into a high lunge by lifting the upper body up, reaching the arms up towards the ceiling, and drive that left heel back down towards the mat.

You want as much opening of the left hip as you can. Take your hands, interlace them, and maybe bring them out in front of you. So now you can push that body weight forward. Take a deep inhaled breath. And now if you can, rotate the upper body slightly to the right.

You'll feel a lot of work in your right glute and a lot of balance to work with, especially if you're on a padded mat. So please feel free to step off of your mat if you need to. Come back to the center, hands to the floor. And then I'm gonna just rotate. Rotate to the other side.

Hold it here and pause here for a stretch. And then we're gonna extend the forward leg a few times. Be careful. The last thing you wanna do is overstretch. It's counterproductive.

One more. Arms up, stretch and hold. Find that balance and really drive that right heel back to open up that hip flexor. I can really feel that, feels good. And then interlace the fingers.

Bring the arms forward. Pause here, balance, and just throw yourself off a little bit. Take yourself to the left side. You'll really feel that right hip stretching. And you'll feel that left glute.

Come back to the center. Hands on the floor, right foot forward. Have a seat. You are done with the standing portion of class. From here into a half rollback.

Sitting up nice and tall, we're gonna place the hands at the back of the hamstrings and use the hands as a little assist lift for your spine. Keep the hands there and roll halfway back. Make those adjustments to your feet, if you need to for counterbalance. You're only going as far back as your arms are long. And then use your arms to sit back up.

Inhale, exhale to flex. And then lift. Keep the feet flat, 'cause what you're trying to do is also gain mobility in the ankle, right? So let the ankles open. You don't wanna flex those feet back.

And then back up, and again. Now I say that, but for example, if you're somebody that has weak shins, maybe I'll allow you to do that if I was your teacher, and then come back up, or even for myself. But I like that opening there because I'm in a flat shoe all the time. And then back up. Now roll yourself back and hold.

Arms out in front, palms face down. Rotate the right palm up. And then take the arm to the back corner of the mat. Bring the arm forward. Palm faces down, left palm up, over to the other side, inhale.

Exhale back to center. Sit up tall. Exhale, breathe, you flex. We're gonna go to the other side. Now left palm up, rotate, and back, right palm up.

All of these little gestures just delay you in this position a little bit longer. And then sit up. One more set. Exhale to flex. Right palm up.

Follow your hand with your eyes. And be really careful how far back that shoulder goes. Honor your body. Try to do 80% of the things that you can do in class. And then push yourself at about 20%.

And that's about it. And you'll make that progress. We're gonna roll all the way down. I'm gonna roll all the way down. Hands go overhead.

I am gonna roll all the way up with my knees bent. So arms come up, head and shoulders come up. And I'm gonna grab my hamstrings to pull myself up, reach my arms up. It is perfectly okay to use parts of your body to assist you. Arms back.

Inhale up. Chin to chest and flex. I got it on my own there. And then flex yourself all the way back down. Let's do four more for six.

Arms up, chin to chest. You're just using just your fingertips just to get you past that sticky spot. And that sticky spot could just be the shape of your bottom and the arch of your lower back. Two more. And lower.

And then last one, arms up, and flex. And reach and pause. Let's roll all the way back down again. Roll all the way down. Take your right leg to tabletop and pause.

Let's point the left toe. So the left toe is on the mat. The right leg is a tabletop. And the arms are down by your side. Lower the right toe as you lift the left leg off the floor.

Now what's really helpful, if you take your thumbs to your ribcage and your forefinger to your hips, see if you can keep that same distance as you switch. And what that's gonna tell you is that your pelvis is staying stable and you're using your hips instead of using your back. So we're just strong in the hips. And then once you feel comfortable there, release the hips, release the ribs. Arms pressed down, reciprocal faster, add a breath.

Inhale, inhale. Exhale, exhale. Inhale, inhale. Exhale, exhale. Let's do two more sets.

Last set. Legs both tabletop. Arms out to a T, palms face up. Supine spine twist. Legs go to the right, eyes stay towards the ceiling.

They're glued together. That left shoulder is down and I'm holding here. Come back. We'll do the other side. Now this is tricky because you'll see that the legs will shift or sometimes you get scared.

So then you're using your neck and shoulders 'cause you don't wanna twist too much. Stay on the conservative side when twisting through your spine. Your lumbar spine isn't meant for that much degree of rotation. So if you're taking your lumbar spine that far, you wanna take your ribs with you so there's a nice synchronicity through the back. Now we're gonna take it to the right side and hold.

From here, send your legs to a diagonal, that away from your left shoulder. Bend your knees, come back through center. And let's go to the other side. I'm pressing my back of my head into the mat, which is creating a nice base of support for my shoulders. Inhale.

Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. So we're gonna go one more to each side. And then we'll pause in the middle for the rollover.

But I'm gonna do a prep first. So come back to the center. Arms by your side, legs will go up, or knees will extend more. So you're at about a 60-degree angle versus a 90-degree angle. From here with your legs glued together, some just nice, gentle, little reverse curls.

Now I've said it before in class, if you've taken my classes or have been throughout this five-day journey. But your neck is not responsible for your rear end, okay? It's only responsible for your head. So I need you to keep that head nice and steady, arms pressing. There's no reason not to press the arms down.

You'll work your triceps if you do that. One more, and then reach. Now legs straight and perpendicular to the ceiling, and we're gonna roll over. If you cannot roll over or you're using too much of your head, you go back to the little prep that we did. Legs go up and over, you pause here, you open the legs about shoulder-width apart and flex your ankles.

Roll yourself down and then bring your legs together and hold. This is the second piece to this. So I'm gonna show you what the third piece will be here. So up and over, flex open, or open flex, and then back together. One more time for three total.

Open. If you have the flexibility and wanna do so, you could touch your toes to the back of the mat on the floor, only if you have that flexibility. The rule is if you stop breathing because you can't have your legs back there and everything's just kind of closed up here, that's a fight or flight. So you wanna continue to breathe. So don't do anything that's gonna make you hold your breath.

Let's do it with the legs apart. Still in that second phase. Roll yourself down and then the legs come perpendicular. Open, flex, roll over. I am using my hands.

Don't be afraid to use your hands. And then back. One more time, up and over. And now the legs are gonna go down to a diagonal. Once they go down to a diagonal, this makes it harder.

Now you can roll over and then you can touch, flex. It'll give you just a teeny bit of momentum. Now you're doing leg circles essentially and rolling over at the same time, and then open. One more time. And I did warm up my back with all the preps.

It feels really good. We're gonna reverse. Legs open. Legs together, and then roll. Circle, open, flex, and over.

Yes, I'm saying yes to myself 'cause my back is really loosened up throughout the five-day series, which is really nice. And then feet down, roll now, pause. Let's go ahead and take your hands behind your back and just hold it here for a little bit of support, and breathe. And that way you can kind of settle in here for a moment. And if you're somebody that's into shoulder stance, you could do that as well.

And then breathe here for just a moment. The shoulder stance requires glute firing. So make sure that the glutes are nice and fired. As you reach to the sky, let the blood rush down your legs, relieve a little anxiety, and then the legs go overhead. And then as we come up, I am gonna bend my knees to roll myself all the way up and stretch forward.

And then if you can reach for your feet, that's great because you can pedal your feet. If you can't reach for your feet, reach wherever you can. But maybe do a little flexion and extension of the ankle. Feels really good here. And then sitting up nice and tall.

We're gonna take it on to our sides. I'm gonna rotate towards you. And most of the time, I do sideline on my side all the way or on my knees. For this class, we're gonna do it on the forearm. So by going onto the forearm, what you're doing is you're shortening yourself here.

So the range of motion's gonna be a little bit shorter with your leg than it would be if you were lying all the way down. So the only thing here though is you wanna make sure that you're not hanging into this shoulder. This shoulder needs to be fired and engaged. It's a great way to work that oblique on the underside and your lat. Your lat attaches there into the armpit, okay?

All right, from here, I'm gonna keep my bottom knee bend for support. You'll see that my shin's in line with the mat. And I'm gonna take my free hand and place it behind my head just enough to line up my head, but I'm gonna release it. That's a really great way to set up the head. Now we're just gonna lift that top leg up, up and down.

So you can see this is my range of motion here. It's pretty short. But I'm really working right here at the side of my hip, which I love, is working that side. Yeah. Two more.

Last one. Hold. Circles, circles, circles. Now this is actually a little bit easier to keep balance versus lying all the way down on my side 'cause I could really hold myself steady here. It's like a big kickstand.

Reverse. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, hold. Take your free arm that was behind your head or on the floor and reach it overhead, just like that. Now take that arm and bring it to the knee as you rotate slightly. So drop the hip and go into your oblique, and then extend the leg out and reach it away.

Your choice, whether you wanna rest it each time. I'm gonna keep it hovered. Exhale breath, and then inhale. What's also nice about doing this on your forearm is you can feel the support here. So it's a little bit of an assist.

And because I have that leg forward, it's not cheating. It's actually allowing me to have a little bit more mobility in that hip, which I like. Now, pulses will go in for three. You go one, oblique, two, and then now because I pulse, I'll give myself a bigger stretch, reach away. And we'll do it again.

Exhale one, exhale two, exhale three, stretch and reach. So we've got short, short, short, long and out. Two more. And out. Last one.

And reach. Hold, now onto the forearms on the mat. So now forearms down, knee under the hip. Now this isn't that comfortable for everyone. So you adjust onto your hands if you need to.

But make sure that you are out of your shoulders. You see what it's like to collapse into this. You wanna pull those shoulder blades apart. And make sure that your head is lined up. The leg will lift up, one and two.

So hip extension, three. Right knee under the hip, four. Four more. Three, two. Last one, hold it up, bend that knee, flex the ankle, little pulses here.

Eight, seven. Work the glute. Four, three, two, one. Let's take now that leg forward and give it a little stretch. So a little grand finale to that series on that side.

I'm gonna go ahead and turn over. We're gonna do it away on the other side. And you get to see it from the back. So the elbow is bent onto the mat. My left shin is forward on the mat lined up.

The mat is nice as a grid. So if you can just line things up, it'll make you nice and straight. Right leg out. I'm just gonna support my head for a moment, then bring my hand down and lift and lower. Something we didn't cover on the other side is you can have a flexed ankle, which you'll feel a little bit more here or pointed, or a relaxed foot.

You can send maybe the arch of the foot out. And then there's just an overall great feeling on that thigh. Now circles. Eight, seven, six, four, three, two, reverse. Same thing.

Four, three, two, hold. Reach that arm over your head. We're gonna go into your oblique. So the elbow's gonna come to the knee. You're gonna drop that hip back a bit.

You can even push the elbow into the thigh and then reach away. And you always wanna do that gently, obviously. Exhale. And I can really feel the shortening of that oblique, and now the elongating, and now the shortening. Good, we'll go three more.

Two, and then don't forget, we're gonna add some pulses. So stay with me. Reach it out, and we'll go pulse. We'll go one, two, three. Stretch it out.

And again, stretch it out. Two more sets. One, two, three, stretch it out. Last one, one, two, three, stretch it all the way out and turn back to your forearms now. So we're gonna go ahead and place a forearms down.

And then your leg is back. Now remember to set up your shoulders. So if you need to retract and collapse and then pull up with that sternum, and then the right leg up and down. One, and two, three. Let's just go to eight.

If I set a number goal, then I stick with it. But if I just start moving, then I don't stick with it. Last one, hold it up. Flex, flex the ankle. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one.

And forward. (exhales) And stretch. That felt really good. Shoulders back. Nice to do something on the forearms.

I don't think we've done forearm stuff this series. So this is a great way to work another part of your shoulder. And then we'll go now onto the belly. So onto your belly here. And then we're gonna go into the breast stroke.

So the hips are gonna press into the mat, legs together. Feet are pressing down. Quads are strong. You'll know that you're in good position here because you can actually hover up here, sort of, right? But you can actually hover and just try that.

Just collapse everything down. But when you push your pubic bone down and press into the feet, it starts to elevate the upper body almost like a little anchor. Elbows are down, forearms are down, hands are by your ears, nose is at a hover. First, squeeze a shoulder blades together and bring those arms into a hover and hold. Shoot the arms forward like you're diving into a shallow pool.

Hold. Turn your palms out. Bring the hands to the hips, extend. You ready? Elbows bend, you hover, you reach forward, you bring your arms back.

Here we go. Exhale into the water, inhale out of the water. Exhale into the water, and then up, and continue and reach. Last one because guess what, I'm gonna reverse that. Not that you would in the water.

Don't try it, you might drown. You guys ready? So now, elbows here, arms back, arms forward, and then bend. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

Two more. Oh yeah. One more. And rest. Child's pose.

Butt to the heels. Arms out in front. Forehead drops to the floor. And then you go ahead and sit all the way up. We're gonna have a seat again.

So on my bottom here, I'm gonna go into a little stretch and a little leg pull front. Leg pull back, excuse me. It's a hard one. And so you might notice that mine is a bit modified for my hip. But if you've got the mobility there, then you go for it.

Ready? Arms up. Arms come back. Hands come to the back of the mat. By the way, this is a great way to figure out where your hands should go.

My hands go here. My heels are together. My toes are apart. I'm gonna lift my hips up. I'm gonna lower my hips just to a hover and then exhale to lift up again.

Your gaze is where the ceiling and the wall meet. I mean if you have really tall ceilings, try to find a comfortable spot. Two more. Last one. And then lower yourself back down.

Maybe give yourself a little stretch. I'm gonna show you the modification for me. I'm gonna keep my knee bent. Just because I like to challenge myself, I will try the full one here in a second, but baby steps. Reach the arms up, bring the arms back.

I'm gonna lift, hold. From here, I'm gonna bring my right knee in three times. One and out, two, three. Other side. Inhale, exhale, one, and two, last one, three, and lower and stretch.

And just because I can't stand it, I'm gonna try the full one. Let's see what I can do today. Reach those arms up. Bring those arms back. Now I'm gonna try a long leg.

But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna alternate them. So I'm gonna lift my hips up and hold. Ready, one and lower. Two, three, four. One more on each side.

Six. And then lower myself down and stretch. Yay me. Point and flex. Point and flex.

Flipping it around. Now the leg pull front. For some of you, this might be called something different depending on what Pilates you've learned in the past. But we'll stay here with that term, leg pull front. And I'm gonna explain to you why it's called leg pull front.

So what we're gonna do is find the perfect plank. Hands are underneath the shoulders, knees are underneath the hips. You're gonna take one leg back. If you start in that position, hook a foot and then hook the other. You're in plank.

It's a much easier way to find plank than getting up on plank and then trying to find that adjustment. By the way, this could be done on your forearms if you want to. I'm gonna do it on my hands. Knees underneath the hips again. Let's find your plank.

Right foot, left foot. I'm gonna prep you here. Just shift the weight forward and back on the feet. Try really hard not to lift the bottom up or drop the bottom down, and stay in that long line. The ankles do mobilize in this exercise.

So get ready here and drop the knees down. We're gonna do that again. Come up. Inhale breath, leg comes back. I always inhale breath.

Inhale breath, prepare, and then back and hold. Now let's take the right foot up to hip height. Shift that left heel back, shift forward, and then leg pull back down to the mat. Inhale, exhale, pull, and then alternate. Now if this is like tapping your head and rubbing your belly, eliminate the ankle.

Just lift and lower. And we'll do one more on each side. Last one. And then release back down. Side view now.

So I mean natural progression would be a side plank. So this is what we're doing. So I'm gonna take my legs and make them perpendicular, or my feet and make them perpendicular. I'm gonna do one prep. And if you were in the other classes, the series, we did this one.

So you'll be all ready to go. Forearm on the knee. And we're gonna lift up and find your modified plank. This is just one repetition I'm doing. Check me out, pay attention.

And then I'm gonna lower back down. Now I'm going to go into the side. So all the way up. So I'm gonna go ahead and lift all the way up. Here's a straight line.

Then I'm gonna flex. Then I'm gonna come back to the straight line. But instead of dropping my knee, I'm gonna drop my hip. So I'm not bending again. But you can bend.

I'm gonna lift back up all the way straight line, hip lifts, straight line, and then I lower. Two more. Ready? Up. Squeeze those in your thighs together for little support.

The hip lifts. The only time this is a really big challenge besides strength is if your feet are slipping, which they were kind of doing here a little bit. It's a little hot over here. We'll do it again. Inhale up.

Exhale all the way here. And then lower. I'm just gonna turn so you can see the backside. All right, here's your one prep just so we could be nice and consistent. Forearm on the knee.

And then we're gonna lift up into that side, pay attention, and then lower down. And then here we go. We're gonna go all the way up, flex, straight, lower the hip. And again, side plank, flexion, side plank, lower. Two more.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Last one. Up. Flex.

Now I'm not gonna let you rest though. I'm gonna let you turn. Now we're gonna go into little cardio hit. So let's bring the right knee in and then the left. Right, left.

If you'd like, place both knees down and just take one leg in at a time. We're gonna go eight, seven, six, and four, three, two. Knees down, lower to the mat. Push up for a huge stretch and hold this as long as you'd like. Opening up that front body, dropping those shoulders back, hold.

And then we're gonna go ahead and take it back into your child's pose. Let's curl the toes under. Lift up into a pike. Now hopefully with some of the mobility exercises that we did earlier that you can feel the heels drop down a little bit lower. Most people struggle in this position because your heels don't go down, 'cause they're tight.

And so you end up putting that body weight at your shoulders. So a lot of down dog or just a pike position like this is really dependent on ankle flexibility as well. And then drive those heels down for a nice little stretch one more time. And let's walk the feet forward to the hands. Pause here for one moment, and then roll yourself all the way up.

We are going to cool down, work out just like we started. And so we're gonna bring our feet forward. And let's check to see about the mobility in all of our joints. You should have a little bit more energy, a little bit more movement through the arms, the ankles, knees, and hips. You should feel those glutes fire for you now to support your hips.

And you should feel a lot better. One more time. Reach it forward. And then here I am gonna swing my arms again because I just feel like this just releases a ton of energy, right? Just swinging.

I also can kind of reflect on the last five days and all of the workouts. And hopefully you can, too. One more time. And then I am gonna do a little stretch for the arm. So let's just take one arm forward and let's hook that arm for a stretch in the shoulder.

And then let's take that arm back and grab onto the elbow. Ah, and stretch that tricep out. And then we'll do the other side. A little hook there and a little stretch up here. And I'm gonna turn around for the next stretch.

So we're bringing the arms behind. Let's grab onto one wrist. And then look over to that side of the shoulder where you're pulling the wrist gently down. And then just take your neck and flexion over to the other side, little pop-pop, and back to the middle. And then we'll take the left wrist down for a stretch.

I get to enjoy the view for a second. And then the left shoulder, and then down, and then over to the other side. And then one last, it'll reach to the sky, take a huge deep inhale breath, and then arms back down by your side. Thank you so much for joining me for this five-day challenge. It has done really well for my body this week.

I've gained a lot more flexibility and mobility. And I hope you have, too, and that you just really enjoyed the series and had a really good time. Thank you so much.