Wall Pilates

Welcome back. I see you came back because you want more. Well, more is what we're giving you. Today, or whenever you look at this, we're gonna do a little wall series. Normally, when we do this wall series we're at the end of working through all the apparatus, but you can do this whenever you feel like you need it.

So just remember that. Now, I'm gonna take myself and connect with the wall. So placing as much as my full back as I can onto the wall. If that means sliding yourself down, making room for anything in the posterior, in the back behind you, maybe a small towel or a small ball if you need that. I'm pretty flat back there, so I am on the wall already.

So connecting with the wall, feeling all of my back on the wall as much as possible. Let the arms hang at your side. Let your feet be flat. Maybe correct your stance if you need to, slide those feet out, and find all of the wall that's comfortable for your body. Take a breath here, pull those ribs in.

Feel as much back on the wall as possible. Shoulders rise and fall as you breathe in and out. (Mychele exhales) And then we will start our movements. We'll start by bringing our arms up to shoulder level, still keeping that connection in the shoulders. Pull the shoulders back and feeling all of the wall, holding the arms out in front.

So while you're here, I want you to feel your reach. So fingertips will be reaching through with energy, back pressing into the wall. Open the arms up to the side to a T and feel with that. That's feeling like in your body. Adjust anything that you need to adjust.

Maybe adjust your bottom, and then come back to the center. Holding the arms here, we're gonna do arm circles, three arm circles in each direction. Taking my arms out, three circles. 1, 2, 3. Reverse your circles.

3, 2, 1. Good, take those arms out laterally to the side. Same thing, smaller circles. 3, 2, 1, reverse it. 1, 2, 3.

And bring your arms back to the center. Let them drop to your side. Now the chin will come into the chest, and I want you to roll and peel yourself off of the wall. So peel the top of your head off, the neck, the top of your shoulders, dropping everything towards the floor Letting the arms hang heavy, keeping connected to the wall. That's the key here. Stay connected to the wall.

Holding on to anything that's tension in the back. Let it go. Let whatever is feeling tight, let that energy flow through your body to loosen up what you need to loosen up. Now while you're here, maybe your hands are on the floor, maybe they're on your shin. I want you to just take yourself, maybe hug those elbows if you need to 'cause I have long arms.

So go ahead and hug those elbows and hang heavier here. Slight bend to the knee if you need it. And feel that back opening up. Feel space going between all of your spine. Maybe rock a little left to right.

Sway, staying connected to the wall. And then hold here. Hands will reach to the floor. Push away the floor just a little bit to find an extension in that back. And stretch your neck away from your shoulders.

And then go back into your ragdoll and hang here. Heavy head. Reach away from the shoulders. (Mychele exhales) And again, maybe hold on to those elbows. Twisting at the body, rocking right to left, side to side. (Mychele exhales) Good.

And then bring your hands back to the floor. And rolling up, stacking the spine as you reconnect to the wall. Shoulders and head come in last. Now we go into a squat. Widen your stance just a little bit wider than your hips, and then slide yourself down the wall.

So find your happy place. It's almost as if you're sitting in a chair. Back is fully pressing to the wall. Tailbone is pointing down, holding the squat here. Hold where it's comfortable.

Hands are resting on the knees, the quads, the hips. And hold that pressing your low back into the wall. Again, that tailbone is pointing down. Hold that there. We're gonna hold for about a minute because I just adore you. Hold it there.

(Mychele exhales) Continue breathing. As you challenge yourself, pull those ribs in back towards the wall. And as you're holding this, think about places in your body where you might need to focus. Are you cramping up in a foot? Change that focus on the foot.

Anywhere in the legs, the knees, change the energy through your body to make sure you can stay in the squat. We're almost there, y'all. We got about 15 more seconds to stay here. You're doing amazing, by the way. Hold that squat.

Maybe in these final seconds you holds the arms out and connect there. Hold it, hold it. And we're gonna come out of it. Arms will go down, and then slide yourself back up. Hello. You did that.

It was amazing. Stretch that back out. Now the next exercise that we're gonna do is two by four. We're gonna go through our knees, ankles, feet, and work that out. Our arm will be our anchor point.

So wherever you feel comfortable, place that arm on the wall, your hand on the wall. Other hand will go on your hip. We will start in parallel. So nice tall posture, zipping up through the midline. We start with flat feet, and from the flatfooted position we come up to the balls of our feet.

Yes, hold that there. So that's releve. Then we stand up taller out of that position. We lower the heels. So here I'm bending, releve, straighten, and lower. With my bend, releve, straighten, lower.

One more in this direction. Bend, balls of the feet, get tall, and lower down. Now the next time we do this, we go in the reverse order. So we're gonna start off from flat foot. We go up tall, we bend the knees in midair, we lower down, and then the heels meet the floor.

So again, we're up, knees, lower, and straighten. Take it up. Knees, flat feet, and straighten. Let's do two more. Up, knees, lower, straighten.

Last one. Take it up. Knees, ooh, lower, and straighten. Let's go ahead and pedal through our legs. So just pick up the heels.

Alternate the heels. Alternate the heels, like a little prancing. If you're prancing, we're prancing here. One more prance through each foot, and then we'll just lift and lower really quickly. And then we're out of this.

We lift and lower, really articulating through all of your feet, all the foot, right? The metatarsals, all the things. Through the toes. One more. One more great one, and that's our finisher. Lower down with care, control, all the way down.

Shake those legs out. You did it. That was amazing. A little entrevue to Wall Pilates. Thanks for doing this with me, and I'll see you for the next exercise.