Diaphragm-Focused Cadillac

Hi there. Leah Stewart here. And today, I'm going to be giving you a short class on the Cadillac all about breathing, exploring various positions of the body, just to kinda get deeper into the breathing, into the rib cage, and I hope that this feels really good and invigorating for you. For our setup here, we're gonna do the entire class with our push through bar and one spring loaded from the top. And that's all you're gonna need, so very, very simple so we can get through this short to class together. So go ahead and begin by lying supine on your back.

You can have your shoulders fairly directly under your wrist. It doesn't have to be perfect. And I just want you to settle your pelvis down into the mat and settle your chest and your shoulders down. We're gonna lift the arms up toward the ceiling with an inhale and allow the shoulder blades to draw apart, and then exhale through the mouth, press them down. Inhale. For the class, we primarily will be breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Inhale.

Now I want you to focus on keeping your neck nice and calm, keeping your jaw relaxed as you breathe out, especially let's go 3 more. And it's important when you breathe that, of course, you get as much air in as your inhale, but I want you to really focus on releasing all the air out of the lungs as you exhale. 2 more. Last one. Ben the elbows on the inhale. Make sure you have a good grip on your push through bar, and reach the arms overhead.

Now feel how this opens up your rib cage nice and wide feel the front of the rib cage nice and open and expanded. So you feel that inhale, then as you bend the elbows and exhale, you feel a little narrow of the rib cage and let all the air come out. And inhale, Exhale. Inhale? Try not to lift the elevator toward the ears, but really allow the opening to happen in the rib cage, and then exhale. Two more.

Last one? Bring your feet together. We're gonna carry on with that, and you're gonna slide your legs out with an inhale. So now you're feeling a little bit more length. And then exhale draw them in.

Just three like this, and then we're gonna move the body position a little bit as we continue this pattern. Exhale drawing in. So just focusing on getting as much air in grabbing all that oxygen as you breathe in then exhale. We're gonna slide back, and I want you to find a position that feels comfortable for you to arc your upper back over the edge of the bed there on the Cadillac. So from here, we're gonna extend the arms overhead and I want you to feel how now you can get the rib cage even wider as you do your inhale. Then as you egg tail, you're gonna lift the head neck and chest up, and you're just gonna come to this height here. So breathe all the air out.

So you're keeping that nice curve. Inhale, rolling down. Big breath. Feel that expansion of the rib cage. And then exhale, just to there, 3 more, and inhale feel like you can get even more air in as you have that beautiful extension and exhale. Two more. Last one.

And exhale. You're gonna roll that that you're gonna meet at the top with another inhale and breathe. So arms overhead here as we're sitting upright. Two more breath here. And just feel like you're trying to open the rib cage out to the side as wide as you can, and then let it soften and close as you exhale. One more time.

Now this time, Excel roll down. And inhale. We did 4 breath at the top of that one. We're gonna do 4 breath at the top of this one. Exhale. Excuse me. 3 breath. Inhale.

Excel. Inhale. Exhale. Last one, inhale. Exale, rolling down. Trying to get a little bit further, a little bit more inhale here.

And exhale rolling up. We'll do two breaths at the top. Inhale. Exale. Inhale. Exhale down.

Big inhale. Feel the length of the spine there. Last one. Inhale. And then exhale, roll down.

And finish with this lovely, beautiful inhale here. Now If you're comfortable with the head and neck, bring your hands together. I want you to hold on with your backhand, and I want you to inhale, bring the arm out, And I want you to hang here as best as you can if you feel comfortable. Now focusing on that rib cage, I want you to choose deep, 3 deep breath here. Reaching the arm out, feeling the front of the rib cage open and exhale.

Last one. Slowly come back inhale. We'll give the head the neck a little break as we exhale, come up. Collect yourself here. Inhale.

You should feel like you're sitting up a little bit straighter. You should feel like your rib cage can move and open a little bit more as we increase the sequence. Now grabbing on with your front hand, rotate over to the back, and let that arm go out to the side and breathe in. Has your abdominals are nice and stretched here, inhale, let the mat support you? Last one. Exhale. Inhale here. Find that nice high arc and exhale.

Slowly. Just come back. Inhale. And we won't go into the arc here. We'll just start to roll down. You can take your hand down if you like.

Glide your hips underneath. Now keeping your spring, just where it is top loaded, I want you to walk your legs up and over your push through bar. So you can slide yourself down a little bit more, and I'd like your hips to be underneath the bar as best as you can. And I want you to hang here. And now what we're gonna do is we're gonna inhale swing the hips toward me and then exhale come back to the center. So what I want you to do is direct your breath into your lower back as you use the rotation to kind of help expand and stretch, inhale, and exhale.

Just letting the belly be nice and relaxed. Just hanging on the bar inhale and exhale. Let's do one more set inhale. And exhale. Last one inhale. And exhale. Go ahead and adjust your knees on the bar.

Take your breath in, and now you're gonna start to roll the hips up. With an inhale. Now here, it's a little bit harder to feel that breath here because you're a little bit more close to your rib cage but now I want you to feel you're gonna breathe through the back of the rib cage inhale and then exhale rolling down. Roll all the way. Allow the hips to just soften and relax here, preparing with an inhale.

Then exhale. You're doing the posterior tilt to the pelvis as you roll up. Your knees are going up toward the ceiling. Feel that connection in the front body inhale breathe through the back of the rib cage, and then exhale. So this certainly doesn't feel as open and expansive and as free as the other movements we've been doing, but I still want you to feel how you can keep that deep breath even in a position like this, breathe in and exhale. Inhale through the back, and exhale down.

Reaching those fingertips away from you long neck soft jaw. Last one inhale and exhale. Inhale, and exhale rolling down. So just hang here. Allow yourself just to hang.

You can sort of swing your hips back and forth a little bit just to soften that spine. Take the hands on the bar and slowly take your feet out. Roll yourself up, and now we're gonna do a little bit of a sideline series here. Or sit, excuse me, a side sitting series. So hand's gonna be on the bar pressing it down.

Just this hand out to the side. So very simple here. We're gonna go over to the side. Now, you're gonna grab the push through bar, or you can just grab the pole here with your opposite hand. I want you to look underneath your arm, and I want you to breathe in. So I want you to see that my body rises to the side as I breathe in.

And then it softens as I breathe out. Breath in, And out. One more breath in. And reaching it over and coming back. We're gonna go straight into the next part.

We're gonna go down into rotation. We're gonna hold this position. So now rather than breathing straight to the side, We're gonna breathe more on this back diagonal here. So we're gonna breathe in and out. Breathing in.

Breathing into the back of the rib cage is your focus. All the air out on the exhale one more time, breathe in. Back over to the side and slowly up. Go ahead and bring the bar through gently, and let's turn around and go to the other side. It's pushing the bar through, adjusting yourself where you need to.

Hand out to the side, and over we go. Grabbing onto the pole, looking underneath that arm, trying to keep that opposite hip down as best as you can. Inhale into the side of the rib cage here, letting it open up like it's puffing up like a balloon. And then exhale, let it soften and relax. Inhale.

Inhale. Last one. Reaching out, coming up, and rotating both hands on the bar So redirecting our breath here, again, to the back of the rib cage, filling it, lift, and expand up as you inhale, inhale. Allow your chest to soften as you exhale. Inhale.

Focusing on keeping the opposite down, just letting it go down, let gravity do job there as it anchors it down and inhale. One more. Over to the side. And all the way up. To finish this nice, wonderful breathing class, I simply want you to come on to all to your knees rather.

And I want you to push forward here. And just hanging here I want you to breathe. But every time you exhale, I want you if your forehead isn't down, I want you to inch a little closer, to the mat and let your torso get there, melt down a little bit more and hinge at the hips a little bit more. So let's do 4 to finish. Breath in.

Excel. So, again, breathing nice and wide through the back, through the pelvis, lengthening the spine excel fill your body melts and settle as you let all the air out. Again, breathe in. And exhale? One more. Excel.

Rest your forehead? Feel the nice stretch through the shoulders, the length through the spine, the nice expansion of the rib cage, take a big breath in as you exhale rolling up. Bring the bar all the way up. Once the spring has it, go ahead and take your hands down. Just relaxing those shoulders.

And what you should definitely feel at the end of this short class is you should feel Nice and open in the rib cage. So if we do two breaths here to close the class, I'll face you. You can stay facing where you are. You should feel like you can open the ribs out to the side a little bit to the front, and they just have a little bit more freedom, exhale. So there's almost just this beautiful sense of movement happening in the rib cage inhale. And exhale.

One more time. You can keep your eyes closed or open them. This is such a great little short way to come together in your body. Just focus on some breath, but also we're being a little bit more active in it and adding a little bit of dynamic movement it, which just really, really helps to kind of facilitate the technique of that deep breathing and to get a little bit further into the rib cage, into those muscles, and to an expanding that diaphragm just like we want you to get that deep breath. I hope that you enjoyed this short class.

Thank you for joining me today.