Full-Body Strengthen & Tone

Hi. I'm Jamie Isaac, and welcome to this workout. So in Pilates, we will often find that we're not using weights, or if we are, they're gonna be very light. So, it can be great if we're working towards an athletic pursuit or just to challenge ourselves in a different way to use some heavier weights and maybe experiment a little with some of those movements as well. So in this workout, I'm gonna be using 10 pound weights, and I want you to think about the weight that works for you. So find a way that you can move safely and still perform every repetition with quality in mind. Okay. So let's begin down on the mat.

So just bring yourself to the mat onto your back, and we begin with a kind of traditional pilates exercise, but we can bring this into any movement modality. It's just a great one for connecting with the core. And getting the blood circulating around the body. So I'd like you to bring your chin to chest, your nose to your navel, float your legs up to either tabletop or straight. And if you wanna lower them away a little, you can do, but stay strong here.

Stay connected here. And let's pump our arms up and down. Just breathing in fully. Breathe in out fully. And, again, and breathe it out.

So really vigorous arm movements, but moving from the back of your shoulder. So you're really keeping your abs, drawing in and up. Your seat switched on. Everything's strong. Everything connected.

Like we say, invite the whole body to every exercise. Let's do 2 more. Law set. Breathe it in. Breathe it all the way out. And then hug your knees into your body, lower your head back a little rock from side to side, and then we're gonna come up to stand in again where we're gonna do another exercise that keeps the the blood flow in and the circulation pumping.

So Just take your arms by your side. Bend your knees. Jump your legs back and squat them back in. Stand tall. And again, stand in tour. 2 more.

And then just for fun, let's add some push ups with that. We Jamie back down, up, squad it in. 3 more. 2 more. Last one, and then stand up nice and tall. Just shake that out.

We should be feeling nice and warm. So bring ourselves back down to the mat. Now, this next section is gonna be focused on the core. But remember, like, every exercise is a core exercise. We want it switched on for everything we do.

So this will get it nice and primed and ready to support us through the rest of the workout. So lower yourselves gently. Onto your backs. For the fun app series. This would get us nice and toasty from the inside out.

So bring your chin to chest. Notice the navel hug one leg in, stretch the other leg out. And let's change and change. Keep the core switched on. Whole body on reaching your legs as you hug the knees in.

One more on each. Hug your legs in for double leg stretch. So from here, Stretch your legs out, stretch your arms out, sweep your arms around, hug the legs in. Keep it strong. Scooping your abs in and up as you reach your legs and arms away.

Last one. And then legs up to the ceiling for scissors. Both hands to one ankle, stretch the other leg away. Give that two paws. And then change and change.

So as well as, you know, firing up your core, We're also getting a really good dynamic hamstring stretch here, which is great. That's it. Keep working. Keep connected to your center, to your core. One more on each side, and then legs up, hands go behind the back of your head now and bring your chin up towards your chest. Let's lower the legs away.

And bring them up. We're doing 4 more of these. Press your thighs together. 2 more. Last one.

Now, Benjanes for Chris Cross, opposite elbow to opposite knee and reach and change. And, again, really stretch over. Try and get your armpit towards your knee. Last one on each side. And then come back to the center, lower your head down.

Just move your head from side to side for a moment, and then we're rock backwards and forwards again. Until we come all the way up to seek and to turn over onto all fours. Okay. From here, Just start with a little bird dog. So curl your toes under. I want you to stretch one arm as you reach the other leg away.

And change and reach. So really stretching. If you find that hard to balance, then just do the legs or just do the arms. You can always build up towards moving both at the same time. Try and get them to land. Simultaneously, let's reach and in one more on this side.

And then, yep, we're gonna turn the heat up on this again. Get everything involved, surround your back, lift your knees up off. Let's see if we can balance here 5 on each side as we reach. And in and reach. Bring in.

Fill your whole course switching on, as well as all the limbs. Working strong as well. Let's go to 2 more. Hold really strong now. So your abs are really pulling in, reaching from fingertip to toe.

And then rest back down onto all fours. Okay. From here. Same movement that we started with before with the where the bird dog were reaching out, but now, bending your elbow, bringing your knee in, and really hugged him in nice and strong. Let's do 5. 3 more, 2, and 1.

Change sides. Nice and controlled as you change, so we don't ever ever lose that connection to our center. So we're training ourselves always to be looking for efficient and quality movement. Two more and then bring that in. Alright. Everything back to the mat again. Okay.

From here, I'd like us to come down onto our forearms into a plank position. So bring your arms down. We're just gonna hold this hold this nice and strong. If this is too much for you, come to your needs by all accounts, but otherwise just hold strong here in your plank. And now if you wanna join me to turn this up, let's see how we can do this.

Bring our knee towards our arms. We get out. And out. So you got your core working really strong here as well as the rest of the body as well. Two more. Let's go. Last one.

Lower to your knees and just take our hips back towards our seat and take a stretch here. They'll move from side to side, and then we're gonna turn over onto our backs. Get those glutes firing up now. So on our backs, arms by your side, let's have your heels level with your sit bones I want you now just to bridge your hips up. So it's a lot of activation here and pressing down through your heels as you push up And let's just lower down vertebra by vertebra.

We'll do a couple like this just to get ourselves set, make sure that we're firing from the right part of the body. Pressing your hips high. I know normally in Pilates, we might go for like a a long straight spine, but here, I want you to push your hips high and then come in all the way down. K. We're going up now one more time. Press it up.

Hold. Bring your arms up as well. Now, really feel the energy through your heels. You gotta push the ground away. Push your hips up. We're gonna pulse for ten times. Just gonna pulse up and pulse up and 3. Ready to fill this back body switching on. 4, 55 more press.

Unless you're pressing up, your shoulders are pressing down. Two more. And one, push that up. Arms come down. Lower down. Slow and controlled.

Just hugging these in for a moment, and then we're gonna roll to one side because now we're gonna get hold of our weights. So take just one weight for now into a seated position. I want you to feel find yourself in a position where your hands are supporting and your feet, once again, hit distance apart so you can push up into a a reverse tabletop. I'm gonna take the weight and just place that on my hips here. You can do this without the weight if you prefer. So stay safe. Pressing up and then just push your hips up, lower down, and up.

So really working our glutes here. Work in our hamstrings, just work in the back of the body, but also the shoulders, the core, everything involved. Let's do 3 more. Press And 2. And last one, press up and hold.

Hold it. And then come down with control. Okay. Onto our backs now. Take the same weight with you. And I want you to place it down just above your shoulder. Now, once again, think safety with this one.

So if it feels better to do this without the weight, Get a sense of the exercise and do so. Cause this is gonna be one of our more challenging exercises. Press your hips up. Press your other arm down. And then here it goes. We're gonna bring one leg up to the ceiling.

We'll lower that leg away as it comes up, reach, and touch. And again, so working glutes, but working everything. One more on this side. Lower your leg down. Come all the way down.

Carefully replace the weight to the other side. Arm presses down. Let's push our hips up. Same exercise, other leg. Reach your toe up, lengthen it away.

And then reaching up and touch. And again, and reach and lower. And 3, 2 more to go. To keep your hips up. Lower that down.

Lower your body down vertebra by vertebra. Great work. Okay. Take this weight to the side. Turn over onto all fours. Alright. So from here, we're in this quadruped position.

I want us to bring our heels up behind us. So, Just bend your knee and have your foot like you got a boot on. And we're just gonna kick our heel towards the ceiling and do that ten times. We pulse up for 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 5 more. Keep your hips nice and even. And change sides. If you do it right, you'll feel it. If you're rotating your hips, it won't feel so intense.

So make sure we do the quality of movement here. Once again, Just pushing our heel up, up, up. Good. 5 more. And bring that down. Fantastic.

Let's lower ourselves onto our tummies now. Still focusing on our glutes, forehead on the hands, knees apart, heels together, and just press your heels to the ceiling Right. We were doing in that quadruped position, but this time with both legs together, let's go up for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and hold. It's post 10 times. 4, 3, 2, 1, and just lower your legs down. Have a little wriggle here with your hips.

Just loosen off your glutes again. Fantastic. And then press your seat back to your heels again for a rest position. Take a breath here. Take 2 breaths if you need. And then when you're ready, we're gonna turn on to our sides. So, this is another way of working the glutes, but a little more into the outer hip. Okay. So, it's like a forearm side bend position.

So, your elbow just under your shoulder and then press the knees into the mat and lift your hips up. So we're already working here. We're now gonna straighten this leg out. Press this leg back behind you. So it's working that really reaching the heel away and then we're just gonna pulse it up.

Here we go for 5 4, 3, 2, and 1. Bring that down. Let's change sides. Alright. So swing into the other side. Once again, elbow under the shoulder, so we're nice and stable.

It's a full body exercise. Press our hips up. Hold that position. Stretch our top leg out. 5 pulses up towards the ceiling.

Here we go for 5432 and one. Great. And then set yourself up. Just cross your legs for a moment. Just rock from side to side. You feel a nice stretch into your hips.

You can even walk your hands forward and just take a little stretch there just to release the hips, release the seat, ready for our next set of exercises. So we're moving now onto our arms. So let's bring ourselves into all fours again. And move this weight just away for the moment. And then from here, let's push back into our downward dog position.

Once again, it's an opportunity to sneak in a little stretch if it feels good to you. And from here, we're gonna do a little yogi push ups. So we're just gonna press up reach forward into here. And then from this one, we're gonna do commando push up, which is coming down onto our forearms. And then climbing back up, rock back into that down dog, yogi push up, forward into our plank, commando push up. Starting to get the the theme to this combination, pressing back, get that stretch in there, yogi push up, forward into our plank, forearms.

Rocking back. Yogi push up. Coming forward, commando push up. So combining these like this makes it a little more interesting. A little more challenging as well with the choreography. So if it feels better for you, then you're, I forgot my yoga push up there.

Don't forget any of them. So if you feel like you need to Just do each one individually. Into the plank. Commando push up. Back for the last down dog. Last yogi push up.

One more plank. You got this. And then back into that down dog for a really nice stretch. Fantastic. Okay. From here, carrying on with the arms, we're gonna pick up the weights now and go to a standing position. So I want you to pick both your weights up.

Stand nice and tall. Nice and strong base. So feet just a little wider than your hips. Bicep curl. Let me just curl them in for 10. That's 9. So the whole body switched on.

This isn't just arms. It's just the core. It says the legs. It's all those glutes we just fired up as well. We can really work and make sure that the quality of our curls are good. We're not rocking our body and we're not throwing momentum into this.

Control up. Control down 2 more. That's great. Bring them down by your sides. Now for this one, Keep that same width of the feet, soft into the knees, and a straight long back, but strong, soft, but strong. From here, tricep press. So, almost think like you're doing a row. So we draw our arms back, but from here, we're gonna straighten our arms for 10.

And as you straighten them, really press them back. Press your seat down. Press your head forward. Let's go 5 more. Here we go.

Two more. Last one, press it up and then bring them down, stand up, nice, and tall. And it come down onto my knees for overhead press. I like to do this kneeling because the focus is on the arms. When we do it standing, there's always that opportunity to sneak in a little bit of cheating. This way, it keeps the lower body nice and strong.

Good strong bass. Bring your arms up in front of you. We're gonna do this press like this with the elbows in, and then they go wide. And up, down in. That's one. Up and bring it in.

Reach and press. Keep working. That's 5. Just five more to do. Reach up. Bring it in. Elbows out.

3 more. Whole body strong. So even your your glutes are switched on. Your core is on. Last ones.

Here it is. Hang in there. You got this. Bring them in. Bring the weights in. And lower them to the floor. Just shake your arms out for a moment.

It's fantastic with the arm work. So we're moving on from the arms now onto all fours. We're gonna work with a little bit of rowing So we're in a quadruped position. Here, we're gonna do 10 on each side. Stay strong once again. Call is on as we pull for 1.

1. 22. You keep counting. Keep the car switched on. Keep the abs in and up. And the arms, of course, work and keep the quality of movement.

It's absolutely key. We don't want to train ourselves doing this incorrectly because the muscles have memory. We wanna give them the memory of good movement. So if you feel the quality going, you can always reduce the weight or not use weights at all. I'd say one more on each side.

That's 10 more or less. Fantastic. Okay. And then kneeling again just with one weight here. One hand on your hip. Bring your hand across the body. And I want you to imagine you're pulling a sword out of a scabbard. Okay.

We're gonna pull that out. Reach it up. And again, you can let the body rotate a little with this one. 2 more. So the elbow leads, the arm follows.

Okay. Let's do the other side. Hand on hit. Saw it in the scabbard, elbow, arm, and reverse. One more time and then bring that all the way. Back down. Fantastic work. Okay. Onto our next body part. So, from here, we're gonna move on to our legs. So, I want us to go back up to standing.

Carefully pick up both your weights. We're gonna return to squats. Now, with these squats, I wanna incorporate the overhead press as well. So this is gonna be really challenging, so keep safety in mind. Here we go.

Squat down. Up, in elbows up, and press. Bring that in, and we repeat. So we go down, in, out, up, down, in, out, up. Bring it all the way back. 8 more.

Keep going. That's it. Stay strong through the legs, through the arms. Let's go one more after this one. Here we go. All the way down.

Up. Elbows wide. Press up bring them in, bring them down with control now. Remember like we say about muscle memory. Let's make them remember the good quality movement. Now, place our weights to the side. Let's bring a little bit of dynamic movement to this arms out in front and we'll start actually with just a split squat. So, we can go straight down straight up.

Change straight down. Straight up. Change again. Now how do you feel about adding a little jump him with that one. Let's have some fun with it. Okay. Here we go.

Let's go down and change and change. So, It's not just the squat, but the balance work needed as well. You're gonna feel your body working hard for this. It's already worked hard. And now you're asking it to jump. That's great. Stay with me.

2 more on each side. And land. Shake that out. That should feel great in the legs. Alright. From here, glutes and legs. Arms out in front again and just take one foot behind the other, squat down, change sides.

Curtsey squat. Really good for firing up the glutes. Working the legs. But as we said, the whole body's involved. We got the abs in and up.

We got the legs working. We got the upper body holding strong. Let's do 2 more on each side. Goes low as you can. And to the center.

Well done. Let's pick the weights up again. So finish with some for the legs with some calf raises. Simply hold the weights Let them draw your shoulders down, but press against that. Press against gravity. Push up onto your toes.

Lower your heels down. And again, pressing up and down. Let's do 7 more. Pushing up. Stay strong for the whole body. Pressing up.

Lowering down. So as you press up, reach your head all the way up through the ceiling push up, and then slowly reach your heels back down. To the mat. Well done. That should have your legs nicely warm and working. Alright. Let's finish with a little warm down now. Want us just to stretch off all those body parts that we focused on. So, start with a little bit of the arms and we just circle the shoulders around circle them backwards and breathe as you do this.

Let the heart rate come back down. Let's bring them forwards. Now reach while I'm all the way up above you, stretch it up. You're gonna bend and reach behind you. Take the other hand and push against your elbow there.

Just gonna let the tricep take a stretch and you reach down your back as far as you can reach. Feel that stretch. Just hold it. Breathe it. Take it a little deeper each time. Change arms. Reach the other arm up.

Really stretch because that opens the side body as well. And then reaching behind a little pressure from your other arm just to allow that stretch to go deeper. Not over stretching. Just encouraging yourself got a little further each time. That's it. Reaching back. Breathe.

And then take your arms. Shake them out. Bring one arm across the body, bring the other arm in, and just pull that across you. Give your shoulders a little bit of a stretch here, and the arm as well the upper arm. And just pulse that in towards you a few times.

Once again, even though we're stretching and it feels like it's time to relax, don't fall into the trap and letting your body switch off. You wanna stay strong. Connected to your core. So even these stretches are coming from a stable and safe space, right? Let's bring that across, shake that out. And do the other side. Now, if any of these stretches feel good to you, just return to them afterwards. You can do them for a little longer if that helps.

Reach cross. Just pulling that across the body. Pulling that in. One more. Breathe in. Breathe out. And then just shake your arms out. Okay. From here, let's move on to the feet.

So I want you just to step one foot across the other. I want you to bend the front knee. Your arms are gonna reach up and then come all the way down Show you from the side and just reach and take hold of your ankle if you can get there. If you can't get your ankle, just work towards it. Back leg is straight.

Front knee is bent and just pull pull. That's it. Just gradually easing a little closer. And then roll all the way up. We'll change sides. So once again, bend the front knee straight in the back leg Hands reach up, reach down, and then take that back ankle if you can.

And you're gonna find as you pull here that the stretch is actually happening, in the side of the glutes as well as the the side of the leg. Just pull the head down. Just encourage yourself to go a little deeper Enroll all the way up. Stand nice and tall. Feet a little wider than your hips, soft in the knees.

Arms reach out. Just thread the arms through the center. We're gonna press through three times And then inhale up. Big inhale. Take your hands behind your back arch and backwards now.

Jamie and chest come all the way back up to stand tall. Just shake it out a little bit. Just scan through your body, recall all of those parts of the body that we've worked. That's excellent work, everybody. You've worked the entire body should feel strong, strengthened, and toned.