Full-Body Mobility

Hi there. Welcome back, Leah here. And today, we're gonna be doing a short full body mobility class. We're gonna just focus on a lot of really good, feel good music, movement, just mobilizing the hip joint and the shoulders and the spine and the pelvis, and some really fun movement. We'll plug in some traditional Pilates exercises in there, but I just want you to follow along and just enjoy the movement as much as you possibly can. So ready, let's get started. So I want you to start with one leg over the other.

Just gonna start with some simple breath, and then I'm gonna carry you right into our first set of movements here. So hands on the knees, just finding your body, your position here, Closing your eyes if you'd like and breathe in with me, and breathe out. And breathe in. And as you breathe, just preparing in your mind, that this class is all about mobility, just increasing our range of motion, just enjoying and appreciating how our joints move. And breathe in, and breathe out.

We're gonna start our class today by taking our right leg out Wanna take it out to the side. If you wanna slide a little bit further up to the front of your mat, like I am, it's gonna make it a little bit easier for your heel to slide on whatever, surface that you're on. In this position, I want you we're just gonna start with a little bit of lengthening out the muscles and the thighs here. So sitting up as straight as you can. I just want you to inhale.

And exhale slide the leg out. So inhale. Now again, just because this is our warm up, your body might not be quite ready to hold this position on your own. So I want you to think about just keeping your fan fingertips gently down on the mat. Just to sort of feel that little bit of that support if you need it.

Let's go 2 more inhale and exhale. Last one inhale and exhale. I want you to sweep that leg in, and let's go to the other side. Reaching that left leg out. Finding the position in your spine, inhale, and exhale. And as you're doing that, you're keeping the external rotation in your thigh, And just starting to feel that mobilization in the hip joint and the knee joint.

You can see I'm just moving my hand around wherever it feels comfortable, and this is exactly what I want you to do. Exhale. And inhale and exhale. So let's bring that leg back in. Let's see if that right leg back out. So reaching here. So we're gonna draw the leg in, and as we reach out, we're gonna slide the hand out.

So we have this nice extension here. So inhale, bringing the spine straight up, then exhale. Reach it out. And inhale. And exhale reach it out.

2 more inhale and exhale reach. 1 more inhale. And exhale. So now I want you to sweep the arm around and bring it in. So flex that foot, sweep the arm around. Just keep your fingertips grazing on the floor in front of you, and bring it in.

And reach. So now you're getting this beautiful mobility in your spine. So I'm not really too concerned with, like, lateral flexion, extension or flexion of my spine, I'm just sort of letting it move naturally here, inhale, and exhale. And if you notice I'm also letting the opposite come up a little bit just naturally with the movement and bring it in, and let's do the other side because she's hard to feel that right hip is a lot warmer and a lot more mobile. So now we're gonna we're gonna do that same sort of series on the other side, so you're gonna bring the knee in. And then reach out and inhale and exhale.

And I really like just sort of letting my gaze follow the movement here and inhale and exhale. Last one inhale, and exhale hold here and reach around and bring it in. Keep that foot flexed. Reach it around and bring it in. So you're getting this nice stretch and this mobility through your spine, you're just feeling that wonderful movement, that natural response of your pelvis and your thigh as you move your torso around. 2 more. I could probably do this the whole time, and it would feel great, but we are gonna do some more variety and reach around and coming up here.

So we'll go back to the right leg. So we're switching back and forth here. So you're gonna hold it here. Now just to bring a little bit more connection with the torso, bringing the arms out to the side. I want you to bring the palms up.

I wanted to reach to the side. Now this arm is gonna stay straight up. These fingertips are gonna go down. You're gonna reach here. You're gonna reach up keeping that l shape of your arms.

They're gonna sweep the front arm, thread it through, come to this position here. So that's gonna be our movement. Then you're gonna sweep it back up to the l shape. So we're just gonna reverse it down and up. Let's try that again. So side tilt over nice l shape. Bring the arm.

Excuse me. Keep the l shape and go up. Then thread the arm through, and find the stretch. Threat it back up. To the l shape and tip and up. Let's try it again. So over and then lift the sternum up and thread through.

Bring it back through. And lift, and tip, and up one more time. This is for reach, And l shape, keep the chest up, thread it through, and reach. Bring it up. To the l and tip and uphold this here.

Now we're gonna bring this hand down I'm gonna bend that right knee in, and you're gonna come into this kind of side knees in, I don't even know what to call this, but you're just gonna come into this position, and then you're gonna rotate the leg back out, push through the heel, and reach. Bring that right arm in with that right knee in. Keep the left hand down. Feel that nice folding forward, that bending forward, and reach and out. Bring it in.

All the way and check the body in. Reach. And out. So you'll feel that hip is going inwardly rotated here. Everything comes in, and then the extra external rotation reach out one more time. Reach across, tuck everything in, and external, bring it out come up to the top. And now as we transition, you can feel that beautiful mobility in the hip joint.

You should feel a little bit more free in the torso as well. And we'll revisit that side bending on this side. So I'd be very precise in the exact movement that we've done the other side. We're gonna just side tilt it here over. You're gonna keep the l as you come up. You're gonna thread the front arm through and hinge forward.

Threat it back through to the l, and tip and up and reach and up. Thread and forward. Thread and up and tip. And honestly, if you have a little bit different variation, and then I'm doing, that's totally fine. It's just all about getting that nice, movement. Obviously, we're focusing more at hinging at the hip as we move.

And at one more and tip sternum leads up threading through reach. Soothel and tip. And, then we're gonna get through. We're gonna thread through, or we're gonna come through, pulling in, and reach out and draw it in rotation of the hip, bring it in. And shoot the leg out and reach.

So really focus on the contrast of internally rotating here. Everything closed here then opening everything back up here. Let's go 2 more and reach and open their last one and in everything in and reach and open. Come all the way up, and that should feel so nice. So let's go ahead and turn to the side of our mat.

And bring your legs in front of you. So we're gonna visit our spine stretch and our saw here. So with some of our traditional Pilates exercises, and we're gonna work on undulating and moving through the spine, which feel really good. So arms are gonna be straight in front of you. Let's do a good old classic spine stretch to get us going. Take your breath in.

Exhale down. Reaching forward, feeling that stretch, breath at the bottom, and exhale up. One more, exhale articulating down, Once you get to the bottom, you feel the hinge at the hip as you go forward breath in and exhale. Okay. Here we go. Mobilizing a little bit more, a little bit more freely, a little bit more fully.

You're gonna reach forward. You're gonna come up. You're gonna circle the arms. They're gonna come forward and go right down. So I want you to be a little less concerned with your absolute precision.

And then once you that marriage would bring the arms forward and articulating at the same time. And rolling up arms pick up. And back for it. And rolling up? Arms pick up.

And let's go one more time just filling up beautiful rhythm as you continue this movement, filling that flowing through the spine. And down. Now hold here. If you can grab behind your feet, great. If you need to grab on your shins, that's fine too. I want you to grab wherever you can, and I want you to be contrast. Use your arms to anchor you and to feel that pressing up.

So from here, you're gonna curve the spine, and you're gonna reach back out. Excel curve. So now the impetus of this is coming from the middle back. As you feel your middle back open and you go into that beautiful curve, you mobilize that spine there. One more time. Reach and extend forward.

Bring the arms out to the side. Holding it there. Rotate toward me. Rotate toward me. Grab the back foot with the backhand and reach reach.

Reach, rotating, feeling that rotation deeper. Keep the opposite hip down. Reach it there. Hold it there. Now sit up and reach to the sides.

This is a little bit of a variation of the saw. You're gonna reach through to the other side. You're gonna come up. You're gonna grab that foot again and fill a deeper rotation there. And hinge up and thread through and thread through and hinge and rotate.

And up, and thread. And up, grab the foot, hinge and rotate one more time, up and thread, and up and hinge and rotate feeling that mobility through the spine as you rotate, come up classic saw here, come back to the center, and down. Let's go ahead and grab the other side. Fill the rotation. Now just challenge yourself by rotating the torso a little bit more anchoring that bottom hip. Feeling that reach and come up and saw through thread through for the saw.

Right here's your position and come up and hinge and then deepen that rotation of the spine up and thread. And up and rotate using the arm to anchor you on that foot to fill that rotation up I'm going a little slower on this side and reach and rotate and one more and up and reach and rotate sitting up, and we'll go into a series of classic saw. So come back to the center and come toward me. Inhale. And exhale and inhale and center. Inhale. Now hinge, reach forward, and inhale and center. Again, inhale and reaching and inhale and center last one over and hinge and up and center. Keep that nice lift.

Point the feet. Draw your legs in. I want you to have that marriage here. Of reaching up open leg rocker position, finding your balance, then I want you to articulate through the spine, bring your feet together and come into that rounding position. So can you mobilize with control here, filling that extension, that balance, and then thread that belly button in, fill the posterior tilt to the pelvis and come into that position of the ball position and reaching up and curving in one more time and reach and up.

Flex your feet. Fill the balance. Lower your feet. Bring your arms up. Take them down and roll forward.

And come up. Circle the arms. We'll do a couple more of these and roll forward. And up and reach down one more time and roll forward. Hinging, reach, and up, up, and up.

For our last sequence, we're gonna transition into a supine position. We're gonna spend some time in the bridge. So set yourself up for a good pelvic curl. We're gonna do 2 basic pelvic curls here. And I want you to really focus on, so preparing with your inhale, feeling if you can get that same depth of mobility and movement through your spine that you did in the spine stretches that we did.

Take your breath in, and then exhale. It's more challenging to do the Sydney's position. However, we're a lot more warm now, and we've experienced that freedom of movement in the spine stretch. So now can we have a little bit more of that controlled freedom in our movement here? Take your breath in. And excel rolling down.

One more than we'll hold at the top and just start to finish this last sequence of our class. So once you're in the bridge at the top, you have that nice hip extension, I want you to lift your heels, bring your feet a little bit further in towards your bottom, and bring the arms up here. So now I want you to open your front, knee, and arm, and bring them all the way out to the side, mobilizing in that hip joint, and then exhale coming back to center. Other side, inhale, inhale, and exhale back to center. Let's do a few more.

Sets just like that. You can feel the challenge that you have in your balance. You can feel the challenge of maintaining your hip extension. You do not wanna let your hips or your pelvis drop. So it's just that beautiful focus on hip extension while you're mobilizing the hip and the a shoulder joint. Inhale.

We're gonna carry on with this. We're gonna rotate and we're gonna open. You're actually gonna let your torso and your pelvis follow. You can rest your hand and your knee on the mat. Then press use those obliques, use the hip extensors to come all the way back. Open.

Rotate. Rotate. Let it come down. Keep the hip up and press. Walk your feet a little bit further in. I'm gonna adjust myself just a little bit here. And open.

Rotate. Rotate. Feel that control, but also that freedom as you rotate. Impress all the way up. Other side, open, rotate, and press up. Take the heels down, pelvis up, breathe in, and roll down.

We're gonna do a couple more sets of that. I feel like maybe you might need to adjust like I do. So let's do it together. Wiggle yourself down, get yourself set up, keep your hands up. Let's go into another series of that.

Take your breath in, and exhale rolling up. And heels up. Bring the foot in. Let's go. In how open toward me. Feel that reach.

Fill that reach. So lift those hips up, press into the hip extension, and up. Again, inhale. Reach, reach, and bring it up. Inhale, reach reach good. So it's, again, that marriage of control and mobility. Inhale.

And bring it up. Hold it there. Heels come down. Walk your feet where you need to. Feel that extension as you roll down.

Take the arms back behind you, articulating in your spine, From here, I want you to extend your legs a little bit wider than your mat and extend your arms out here. We're gonna finish with this last rotation We're gonna take the front arm, and you're gonna thread it through and reach. So you're reaching on this diagonal. You have beautiful extension through the arm, extension through the hip, and this rotation in the spine, and then coming back to the center. We're gonna do the same side. And threading that arm through, filling the movement, the rotation in the spine, the rotation in the shoulder, and the hip joint, and then bring it back through 2 more times this direction, threading it through.

And bringing it back one more time and threading it through. And bringing it back. Holdy here. Come up onto one side. So as you feel that beautiful rotation through your spine and through your body. I just want you to think again of that full body, mobility.

So roll down and find the position here nice and open. Let's go again to the back. So inhale reaching feeling that extension, and then back, and open nice and wide here, threading the arm through, just letting the rotation of all those joints come together and work as 1 to create that line and reach through. Two more all the way. And reach through?

Last one. And reach holding there, filling that expansion of your body, and then slowly fold yourself in roll onto the side. There are so many wonderful ways that you can do full body mobility. You can do it seated, lying down on your side, kneeling, standing. There's so many different movement that you can explore.

So today, this is what I chose for this nice short class, and I hope that anytime you feel like you just need a little bit of freedom in your joints, You just need a little bit of that mobility and that openness that you'll revisit this class, and you'll enjoy this wonderful, short class. Thank you so much for joining me today. Take care.