Lower Body Focused Mat

Hi, everybody. It's Amy. We're here for a lower body focused class. Have your squishy ball. Abs, hips, legs, and that's pretty much it. We're gonna get started. So come on down.

Have fun. You'll feel yourself in specific parts. And it's nice to just do a lower body focused class, I think, now and again. Yeah. So let's just spread our hands, feel your shoulders press back, get your feet in line, heels, in line with sitting bones, three breaths to start. So just feeling elongation from the top of the head out your tailbone. It's always nice to feel some centering before we start.

I love to feel that I'm pulling both of my pelvis halves down into the floor evenly, the sacrum evenly, the back of the shoulders lightly. And, of course, the rib cage down even on right side, left side. One more breath in. Let's start now as we exhale a pelvic curl. We're gonna go all the way through that.

So sinking through the lower back, and articulating through your spine, love to feel the knees reaching forward. And all through this class, we're gonna stay quite focused on the glutes and the power of the backside and the hip area. Okay. So really focus to lift your pelvis from there. Breathe in at the top, exhale that start from the sternum and articulate down. You're still in lengthening through the segments.

Between your vertebrae all the way down. We breathe in and exhaling again. So we'll do 3 and we'll stay up on the third one. Feel your feet help. The feet are important.

Press them down into the floor as you're endeavoring to come higher in the bridge position. It's not the ribs. It's the pelvis. You take that breath in and rolling down. Keep searching for length in your back.

It might come from lengthening through your upper spine and all the way down. Okay, guys. One more time. Breathe. Take it up. Beat your knees forward. Okay.

I want us to scoot our heels in toward our pelvis. Just a quick scoot Addduct your leg so you feel that ball for feedback and then increase the lift of your pelvis. So it's like that. We adduct. We lift. We adduct, we lift.

It's small in terms of range, but deep in terms of connection, contract, and lift. Contract and lift 4 more like that. You're not coming out of the bridge. You're kinda trying to sneak a little higher in between 2 more and adduct and lift, we roll out of the bridge. Keep working your legs, and I like to say as much as you want. Because some of you like to really go.

Some of us kinda hold back a little. Do what you need and want right now. Do it another time and go for more if you want. Or less and come back up. We're another pelvic curl.

Okay. We know where our pelvic calves are, right and left. We're gonna move the right hip ASIS up toward the ceiling, center, the left toward the ceiling, and center. You've seen me do this kind of thing often, I think, and stay on the left, but now we roll down the saw the spine on the right side of the spine. Whatever pelvic cap is lower to the floor, roll down on that side of the spine, at the bottom, level your pelvis. So we go up the center, so I'm gonna rotate my right hip higher, left hip lower, go down your spine on the side that's lower to the mat.

You should feel the oblique muscle start kicking in, ready up the middle, and I'll take my left ASAS higher. Knee still reaching forward and roll down the right side. Try to cork screw yourself into your center. That's really what this is is a preparation for cork group. We're not doing it. We won't do any rollovers here.

Rotate. Okay? So I'm gonna take that 4 more times, but a little quicker. Read in and out. Up.

Rotate. Roll down. And center. Roll up the center. Rotate the pelvis. Roll down the side of your back.

One more each direction. Rotate. How are your ad doctors feeling? Yeah. Hopefully. Add doctors and obliques. They're cousins. And our big family of muscles, I think, twist and roll down.

Okay. We get to go back up again. Roll up the center Now that right ASIS or pelvic half, you're gonna bump it to the ceiling 8 bumps. Bump. Now it's not the rib bump. It's the hips and press. So it's the glutes pressing the hip up, 7, and 8 for the left for 8.

Contract your glute to press your hip, press your foot into the floor, how you're feeling, 7 and 8. Now we're gonna alternate, right, Left, right, and left, and right. Yep. Lots of movement. Now double double singles or single single and a double on the right.

Left, right, double on the left. So that pattern stays right. Left to and a single and a single twice. We have 4 more of that pattern. Oh my goodness. And reach.

Ribs stay in. Hips are moving. Lift that hip. Press. Press. We're really dancing with the hips. Left, right, and then double.

Now come to the center, everybody, big ones. Lift. Go all the way down. Lift all the way down. I'm not articulating now. Just press up.

Only 4 more there, up, which is a lot. 3, 2, Stay up there. Reach your arms back overhead. You know what's coming. We get to start focusing on the abdominals.

But I want you to slowly roll your spine down. Stretch your arms as much as you can. Let's get long abs, everybody. Okay? Yeah.

Before we put hands behind head, just put your arms out where they feel comfortable for right now. And I'd like to offer this. I'm as we bring our legs up toward our chest, let's not do tabletop today just because I want us to not fold up the knee and get the hip flexor so gripped. I want you to bring your size to your chest deepen the engagement of your belly, your stomach, your abs, and try to lift your pelvis a little. Right? It doesn't live much.

We're not going roll over, but I'm trying to unweight my sacrum and get into the lumbar Flexion. Right. And exhale. You can use your hands on the floor a little, but try not to. It's easy to push them down to kinda to help yourself. But what if you didn't alright.

Let's do that. Hold your arms up. Hold your legs towards you. Hold your legs towards you. Hold your legs towards you. Okay?

That sheet, you should really feel where that's coming from. And then lower your feet down. Now a little oblique. Think knees to the right, knees to the left, but we start from here. So I'm gonna aim my knees right. My left bum comes off the mat and then a little swing through the center over to the left.

And a little circle. What I try to do with these for myself is stay within the frame of my mat, so I don't need to go way over here It's not knees side to side. It's knees to shoulder. And and and hold this one. So we did 8 and a hold.

We're gonna repeat 8 and a hold where we're gonna count this as 1. And 2. 3. Think thighs toward chest. Like you could roll into a ball at any moment.

6, 7, and one more holding this one. You're definitely more weighted on that side of your back. Your feet are relaxed. Your abdominals are not relaxed. Good. And then everyone come to center, place your feet down. Oh my goodness. Okay.

Hands behind the head. Let's take some chest lift and add to the leg. So everybody breathe scoop those elbows up, exhaled chest lift, and lower. So I have the hands here. You could certainly just keep your arms by your sides, but this is nice to support our neck.

Feel that funneling energy of ribs toward pelvis and pelvic bone and pubic bone holding here. Now breathe, you're gonna take your legs to your chest again and all the way down. If you can't get your feet all the way, then without arching your back, that's fine. Notice I'm not stopping at 90 degrees. I wanna take this past 90, and I want us to hold elbows toward knees now tuck into a really tiny shape and then unfold it all of the way. We're going to do 4 big contractions.

So take an inhale as we exhale chest and thighs together knees toward elbows, Unfold it all the way. Upper body to lower body, lower body to upper body, and open. Two more. Let that lower back really sink into the mat and open. One more.

Hold it here. Now rotate the knees to the right. Dip your toes down. Bring them up, rotate Nissan left, and dip them down. We're trying not to come out of the chest lift. Hope you're feeling these and 4 more.

Again, think that any time you could actually get yourself up off the ground. Without having to use your hands, right, one more each side. We're not quite ready for that yet, but that's what we have planned. We're gonna open all the way up. Last little bit here, take one hand behind the head, Keep one arm out to the side.

Lift your chest and then rotate toward the side of the body that your arm has bent. As if you could get up off the floor rolling to that side. So use your trunk muscles. Right? Again, you wouldn't even have to do anything with this arm, just four, and then we do 4 on the other side. Kinda nice to use the arm. You could even have it here.

Change is quite a bit what happens in the oblique muscles. And one more there for 4. Okay. Good. Now let's roll on to our side. So just take your ball away. I'm just gonna roll myself up and face you.

Do this real quick. Okay. Everybody. We need to lie on your side. I love to just stretch the arm out and make a pillow. That just feels normal. Bring your knees in front of your hips and get into a nice and a 90 90 on your side.

And then what it just with the ball, just kinda roll it in and hug it to your tummy. I use that as a a little guide to say, Amy, keep pulling your stomach away from the ball instead of push to the ball. Okay? And pelvis is stacked. We lift our upper thigh. We extend our knee. So we've got a beautiful parallel leg.

Take a moment here and unhike this hip. So we want that ceiling waistline nice and long. Okay? We're going up from there down just to hip height. So this is a pretty big lateral hip series. Most of these will be repetitions of 8.

So you can kinda guide yourself there. How about some breath? 4. So I want us to lift high so that it's the glute max and not just your hip flexor. Doing this work.

Okay. Boy, 7 and 8. That's in parallel. Now come to hip level, internally rotate just your femur, not the whole pelvis, just the femur, and 8. I like to think the heel is the leader. Check your abdominals pulling in away from the ball.

Oh, boy. And 4 for more. And will 3 we get to stay up there on the next 2, 7, and 8. Yep. Hold it. Hold it. Little pulse is, of course, for 8 and 7. And for me, I think the pulse is right in the center of the tush. 6, 7, hold it four circles in one direction.

In other direction, 7 and 8. Okay. And then big up and down. 8 7. I mean, we're back in parallel and 4. Lead with the heel. I know you feel that right in the center of the Tushi.

7 and 8. Good. And then we need to do hip extension. We're gonna utilize the ball and roll that out take that leg that you just worked and stretch it behind you, everybody. And you could just reach your hand at the ball. You don't really have to turn your head. In fact, let's just reach and, you know, take the leg back.

Now I want you to raise your leg up. Let's bias toward a little internal rotation of the femur. Pick up your tummy, and we'll do 8 big lifts again. Harder because you've already worked the muscles, also the angle is different. 4. 4. Stretch your whole body.

Fingers to toes. K. We're gonna stay up on 8. I'm gonna turn it in just a little more. I was coming out of it and little pulses to 3. Good. Right in the center of that tush.

Big muscles can handle a lot of the load. Right? Okay. And then down you go. Now here's a fun move. Pick up your ball in your hand. We're gonna lift that arm.

The other arm's gonna come out from the head and make a little arc. God bless. Coordination, Amy, and the leg goes all the way forward, and you open your torso toward the ceiling. So the leg is doing the rendesham and the upper body is doing the arc. Okay. 4 of those. Oh, coordination, kiddo.

Here we go. Yeah. And it's fine if it's not a perfect arc. You're feeling your hip. Right? I think big arch and one more.

4. And then one more to the extension, and we take one big giant breath in and outstretch yourself as much as you can. Contract and rest. We're gonna come up and stretch that hip. Cross that ankle over your thigh over and just give yourself a hug. Right? And so we know where that was all the way through here.

Good. And you can sink down onto that. Just stretch that out. We'll take 2 breaths without moving. Okay. Are you ready for the other side? Here we go. So you stretch out.

Get long first. You can tuck that bottom arm as your pillow. Knees at 90 balls here. You're pulling in away from your ball, and your top leg comes forward straight parallel. Take a moment first also to unhike the ceiling hip. It's really easy to shorten. That's compression.

We want decompression. Ready for it? 8. It might be useful to press your hand on the ball. If you're starting to feel fatigued in your leg, in your hip, you can press here. But if you think about maybe not using your arms sometimes to gather support. You have to rely on your own hip muscles, right, and your back muscles.

Here we go. Internal rotation lifts. And that changes a lot for me. If I don't use my arm here, I just think, oh, I'll pull in with your stomach. Power the movement with your thighs and your hips. 7, holding up for 8 little pulses. 8, try to internally rotate the femur.

Not the whole pelvis. 6. How you feeling? And 4 little circles and 2 3, and 4. You can climb higher in the circles. Just when you think you're done, you've got 8 more big lifts. And 2, and 3, 4.

You've got it. And 6. I think you can probably feel very specific area. I told you we would. And then it's the extension.

So take that leg behind you, rolling your ball on a diagonal. I always like to say if I, like, I teach this with studio students at at home in my studio, if you were on the ceiling, what would you see? A diagonal line relatively. Okay? So I'm just gonna modify my position just a little just mainly because of the mic pack on my arm. I don't wanna smoosh it. And I wanna lift and lower that leg, reaching this top arm in a diagonal.

Don't forget to pick up your abs, you guys. 4. Slight internal rotation. 5. And by the way, the body position on me and actually feels supportive. So if you feel like you wanna change that, you can stay there. Little pulses. 87.

Try to internally rotate. 4, 3. Okay. Now we do the big arc. So your hand has to grab the bolt And you are going to arc the leg forward, the torso towards the ceiling, the arm behind you, and then arc and diagonal. And arc rotate toward the ceiling, still using those muscles in the hips arc, and ceiling, arc, and I add no. Last one.

Good. And one more. We spent one big breath here, and then we come up and stretch the hip. So I had to wiggle a little bit. That's okay. Stretch your hip. Sink into it.

And then we're getting ready to do some rolling like a ball, but we'll prep for that. Okay? Alright. So we have a little rolling like a ball to squat plan, but we're gonna do a little preparation. And by the way, if the rolling like a ball to squat doesn't isn't in your wheelhouse, you just roll like a ball. Every day's different. Right? And I wanna share this pattern because this was by Philip Beach who was in this room many years ago, blew my mind how hard this was, but so effective for my back. And so I'm gonna share it, and I think it really helps. Course, he wouldn't do it if it didn't.

And same with me. Feed together. Knees open. I'm just holding the ball because I don't want it to roll away, but also we're gonna press it a little bit. Not with the hands, but with the feeling of contraction in the tummy. So here's the deal. V2 Gavin is open.

You lean forward you press your knees together and you contract your stomach a lot. You lean. You compress. We lean compress. Now if you're interested to squeeze your ball, for sure, go ahead. I'm not with my hands. I'm imagining I'm using my stomach muscles, my upper inner thighs to flatten the ball.

Hope that makes sense. Let's do eight more, everybody. Now, mom and diagonal, but I'm gonna turn this way out. And in. Think that right.

This is a preparation for your rolling like a ball. Compress. The more the front narrows, the more the back will open 2 more. Last one. And then everybody hold hold, hold, hold. Okay. Now this is gonna go underneath our knees.

Put your heels against your ball and the ball against your tush, your hands on your ankles, and find your ball position, or get your ball in your position. And we're gonna roll. It's fine if your feet come to the floor. It's okay if they don't come to the floor. Try not to use your hands for 4.

It's always different. 3. I'm squeezing with my heels to my ball. Oh, boy. Last one. Now take the ball away. Keep rolling. I want you to try to come to a squat and roll back.

Squat and a little stand. If it's not in your wheelhouse today, that's fine. You just keep rolling back one more all the way up and we did it. Okay. My goodness. Now standing Hold your ball. I'm gonna stand in the middle of my mat. We're gonna start doing some stepping out side to side. Okay? Parallel everybody.

Step out to the side with a parallel lunge. Go deep. I really want you to bend that knee over second toe. Push this foot. You're gonna feel your hip. You come back to the center. This way.

We're gonna alternate for 8. Here's 2 or it's 3. I knew how to count 4. The lower you go, the more you get to use your muscles to push yourself up, lateral hip, and max, 4 more. 3.

You wouldn't have to hold the ball, but We're gonna use it in a minute, so why not? Okay. We're going over to the first side 4 in a row, one, up 2, really push and lift. It's not just a pushing foot I'm focusing on now. It's just one that I'm coming up on too. Other side. Right? So over.

Stand up on this down. Pull up to that down. Pull up to that down. Let's repeat it because it's good for us and down and up. Both side of the body helping it get up without your arms, right, and stand.

Dan. And up. Use that floor and up. Last one. It's a nice breather too. Okay. Something's steady. Ish. Ben both knees a little.

One foot, you're gonna tap in front of you. I just took the ball of the foot on the mat right next to you. Go to the side. And right next to you. To the back, lean your body forward a little bit, tap, and then a single leg bounce. Simple.

But after what you just did, your leg's feeling a little pooped, probably. Challenge that strength to get you up. Keep you up. Tap. And tap. And tap. And stand.

Last one this side. And, hold up. Other side, here we go. Tap, knees are bent. Side, Back and stand. All good.

Tap. Totally fine. Side. And back and there. It's fatigue. It's common, natural, back and up.

And front side back. But guess what? We gotta do it again, starting first foot to the back. Bend both knees. 3 rounds side front stand. Tap to the back.

Reach to the side, reach to the front, and stand. Back. Good. And I said 3 rounds when it's 4 and side and front and left. Ready for the second side. Starting to the back, ready, back side.

Front, drive that foot into the floor to stand. That's what I wasn't doing a minute ago. Where's a little wobbly? It's okay. Push down. See.

And down. And side and front push down. There's the connection in back and side and front and stand just when you think you're nearly done with the hand ball in one hand. Stand on the opposite leg. This hand goes anywhere you want.

Parallel leg on the other side. Parallel leg on the one you're on. Bender standing knee lightly put this tap this to the floor, lift your toes of the back foot, come back up to standing. Same leg, 4 in a row. Now you might wobble.

That's completely fine. Push down into the floor use your hips to bring you up. Down. I'm sweaty. So I'm about to lose my ball. And one more time down, lift that back leg, and bring it up other side.

Ready. How far forward you take your ball is up to you. The farther you reach in front of you, the harder it is. Just in case you want that. The back leg lift those toes. Try to be parallel in that back leg.

Standing leg works to bring you up and 2 more and up lower body focus today and all the way up, but we're gonna finish this breathy section with a standing wide. Just take your ball in your hands and wiggle your pelvis. So we're gonna do some lateral side vents. Just stretch your body to the side. And bring yourself up and stretch it to the side and bring it up.

Strat yourself to the side and up inside and up. We're gonna do four more, but just single arm with the ball. Just over and lift, spring your heart rate down a little, end up last one to each side, and we'll come up to the middle. We'll do a standing roll down to the little period. At the end of our sentence, everybody you can just bring yourself in. Take a breath.

How do you feel? I feel nice and powerful. I feel powerful in my body. Is if I could go run or something, that'd be crazy. But a lot of focus on the lower body, abdominals, and how to get up without using your hands, which can be very effective sometimes. See you later.