Theraband Strength Mat

Hi everyone Amy Haven here at Pilates anytime. I'm so happy to be here with you. Look at this, can we be any more fortunate? It's quite incredible out today, some dolphins back there for us. I have a thera band class. You ready? So I have a medium resistance.

We're just gonna get started. Thera band, get in your body. I guess I would also sprinkle in, let's be present. Present at every moment. Right? Just bring in the presence of right now. So with that, take your arms out, take a giant breath in.

Let's take this space up inside your body. So what happens there? You breathe. You breathe in space. You fill up the spaces. You can let your arms wiggle and drift.

I'm just trying to get that space from my rib cage and pelvis a little more generous there. And then just lower the arms down. We'll take it again. Just take a breath. Present in your movement present in your mindset.

You're here to move and feel your body and be with me, and I'm so so grateful. So we'll get down in the mat. That's it. Find yourself down and we're gonna go ahead and just roll down, get on your back, do a little bit of warm up and then get that theraband going. Okay? So separate your feet, sit bones with the part. I want you to take your arms away from you.

Don't have them so close today. Just let your arms be a little more away from you. Palms face up, recognize how much space you have side here by your arms and your ribs, you get to breathe into that space. So here we go. Couple more breaths. As you're centering and getting present here, check out your landmarks.

So I'm gonna ask you to think about your scapula very evenly weighted. Your entire back evenly weighted left to right, your pelvic halves very even. The center of your skull, your feet, That's that presence, that beautiful mind body that Pilates is so brilliant at offering. And of course, your last couple of ribs on your back, rib eleven twelve very important to have those on the mat, right? So we don't lift those ribs, pulling us up into an arch. We wanna spread our back wide.

With that one more breath in, Two pelvic tilts, just feel the change of level to posterior tilt. Alright. That's it. And inhale back out to level. Exhale, posterior tilt. And then inhale to level.

We'll just go right back into that with articulation. So taking that pelvic tilt, I love to ask my feet to push down the articulation, the segmental movement. Sometimes you have to reassess once you get up there. Not too much in the ribs, take a breath. If I was inside my spine, and this is definitely how I think about things, I'm a big theraband in there.

I love their bend in mat class because I like to put that elasticity, that lengthening tension, that positive tension in my spinal movement. Right? So when we roll up, if it was hooked to the wall out there by my knees, and the wall was pulling me that direction. That's fun. And I've got the other piece of the band through my skull. That's cool to me. Take a breath. Right? So it's positive tension. Tension isn't always negative. That's resistance.

Can that wall pull you forward? Can you separate any more space between your segments and two more here? I'm in a grateful mindset too because as my all of our bodies continue to change, right, as we're going through life. And things feel different to me than they did even a year ago. It's so wonderful we'd just be present with what we have right now.

That's the blessing of a practice, whether it's Pilates or yoga, dancing, math, painting, You present where you are right now. And right now, we're gonna stand on our bridge. That's a fun image. Take a breath. Wait shift to one foot just enough to lift the other leg to a ninety ninety.

And just step down without altering your bridge. If you alter it, just adjust, take the other leg up. We're gonna do eight of those. Alright. So we're trying to keep that bridge steady. Strong.

Be present every moment. What does a foot feel like to stand on? What does it feel like to keep equal weight on the back? Four more. Use your mind.

Principal of concentration. Last one on this side, last one coming on the other side, feeling strong, take a breath. Now we get a roll down. Use that there band image, if it worked for you. Come on wall.

Help me separate a little more space between my shortening spine. We'll take a breath at the bottom. Now just bring one leg up towards your chest. The other two your chest, not tabletop, hug your shin bones, pick up your head, curling to a small shape. Just curling to a small shape.

Just bring your body to the shape or position of the 100 and just be there. We're not going to do it. Sometimes this is all I do in my hundred these days and you know what? It's just fine. Come back in One leg on the mat, active hamstring stretch on one leg. I love to flex my foot and my ankle and feel the effort of reaching the hip to the other end of the mat.

My thigh is actively pressing against my hands, and just a quick swap on the other side. Stay present. Check your landmarks. I felt my ribs losing their landmarks, so I had to drop in. Alright. And then one more time knees in. And everybody, you can place your hands behind your legs, rock yourself up.

Now we get our trusty Therabend. Okay? So what I wanna start with is around the feet. I have my feet separated, and I personally like to have my hands low to my feet, gives me quite a bit of resistance. If you don't want that much resistance or tension, just slide your hand back. Alright? But for certain exercises, it's nice to have those hands down kind of low. Alright. There we are. GPS yourself, you're on your butt bones.

If you were on the mat, your ribs would be where they need to be. We'll take a breath. Contractor to me roll off your sitting bones to your sacrum. We are all different. My sacrum, I have a little more to go.

I'm about there now. I wanna pause, recognize where I am, deepen the contraction and round up, let the strap or the there been help me, we'll do four. Inhale. My elbows are a little bit bent. When I roll back, I'm trying to also lengthen up through the top of my back and spine, trying really hard not to shove my mid back back or the back of my chest wall back, Let the change come at the lower spine. Take a breath.

Let the band start. There we go. And carry it through. Inhale tall, exhale roll off the sitting bones. Maybe there's a little more openness across the chest.

So notice when you go farther back, your arms will straighten just let it happen. Now my legs particularly get a little straighter the farther I go back. That's okay. That's how I work my movement. If your stay really bent, that's fine. What we're working on is spinal movement. Right?

So we roll off the tailbone and sit bones and go back onto the sacrum. Where's there she is? There she going. Inhale. And then coming forward. Now as you sit tall, I want you now to straighten your arms, lift them here, look forward, get strong in your back.

Rotate your arm bones and row your elbows toward you, and then, rotate. So I'm just taking a little swivel from my upper arm bone elbow wrist and hand. And then return. So we're connecting this upper body now, this shoulder girdle to the back in your sitting position. We're also getting a secondary benefit. Can anyone guess?

It's our grip. It's our grip. Use your hands. They're so important. You present with that, right? The pinky finger matters. Really use that side of your hand.

One or two more. We can exhale. In fact, we'll do one more and add a little spice to that. So bend and lift, can you take this and hold your arms steady and give a little request to your upper back and your thoracic spine, your sternum spine, Sometimes I call it my chest spine. What if you had a collarbone on your back and you could expand that too? Take that and then relax that good. One more little sitting thing.

We're gonna need to make this change. Make a fist with your thera band. Take a breath. Roll yourself back. That was I was getting too zealous and come back on your sacrum.

Let's do some bicep curls. Okay? So get into a nice place where you could be for eight or 10 bicep curls. Take a breath. My arm bones are about the height of my shoulders and then now I wanna pull my stomach in a little more before I pull that band. So we're really stabilized in the spine design. The shape, let's do four, four more. Fine, and three.

Oh, I love a good thera band pull. And one, and there. Come all the way back up. Okay. Let's check this out. Straight legs. Alright. We're ready to roll all the way back down.

So off those sitting bones. Now use the band stretch your feet into it. Try to stretch it in opposition of the direction we're rolling back. Take a full long breath, lift your head, look toward your band. Ask the band to help you.

Come on, man. Pull me up. Here we go. I'm gonna keep going forward. Crown him head toward feet. Inhaling sitting tall, rolling back. Even though these are a challenging exercise for me, they always have been, I'm learning a lot about my body all the time, come on up and It's so important for me to try to maintain mobility in my lower back even if it's not the most exciting exercise like this one for me.

If I don't practice it, it's going to get less and less It's gonna get stiffer, right? Mister Pilardi's newest stuff, when in doubt roll. When in doubt roll, even if there's some sticky spots. We wanna try to lubricate those sticky spots. Okay y'all. Take one foot out. Cross your band. I wanna make sure you've got the band around the top of your foot with a little kind of hoodie. I call it a hoodie at the top, and then roll yourself down.

We're gonna get into some feet now. Alright. Get into the feet. So, stabilize your pelvis, get your landmarks of your scapula and your ribs. Now if you feel like it, put bend the elbows like you did the rowing and put them down here, flex your ankle, Very slowly intentionally roll through the foot to point your toes. Peel your toes and come back to flex. I like the band crossed because it does keep the band on the foot a little bit more effectively.

Than if it's just separated pieces, you can look at your alignment really watch your precision. Another principle. Alright. Stay present. Can you really roll evenly through You're not overusing your pinky toe side or your big toe side. Three more. And flex to come back. Last two, I could do this all day. It feels so good for my body.

I love it. And one more there. And now go come into flexion of your ankle and just bend your knee. So you got that hip, knee, ankle. I love those moments and just be there. Be present here. You haven't been you haven't dropped your heel.

Right? If I were balancing a yoga block on my foot, I've done that before, that's a moment. Now could you straighten your knee and keep the block on your foot? Or a pad or a pillow or something. Right? So you have to decipher which joints are moving. It's your hip and your knee while your ankle is maintaining flexion. Just one more.

That's a lot of lot of concentration. Okay. Now, leg circles. I need to adjust the band a little bit. So with leg circles, you've everybody, if you want to, this is nice. Slide your hands out on your band pieces.

Make a fist. Use that grip again and pull your hands to the floor. If that does not work, don't do it. But let's go with circles. Big. Can you stretch your band? Let that synovial fluid really lubricate your hip joint The band is there for us to reach into, and four, and five. Other direction, please, and out, around and up.

Check your landmarks. Come back to presence. And four. And five. Okay.

Now undo your hands from the floor. Grip up high again. We get to do eight or 10 more ankle, I call them pumps faster. Start with flex. Let's do eight. Okay. Ready.

So it's really articulate point flex. Articulate point flex quickly four, with the precision, five, just six, just seven, and eight, and that is enough. You can take the band away. Just wiggle your band and wiggle your hands. Okay. Rock yourself up.

Let's get it set up on the other side. You get one more little mini roll back to get back there anyway, level that band, cross it across roll yourself back. Other state leg stays long on the mat. First, grip, grasp, bend, landmark check, presence. Here we go.

Slowly. Point and flex. So we wanna use those all those delicate, but important muscles of the feet, articulate these joints We've got a stable hip, a stable knee, a lot of articulation, right? A lot of movement. A couple more. Are you still grasping?

Yes. Pinky fingers got some hold on your band there, everybody. Okay? Now hold your ankle stable, flex your knee and your hip, and I want you really just let's hold here. You're balancing something on that foot. Now as you extend the knee, the ankle shouldn't change, just the hip and the knee change, and bend extend. And I am asking my body to stay long under mat, one more time, and then the leg circles come.

Okay, leg circles. We slide our hand out, make a fist, put those fists on the ground, choke up if you want more to work with there, and then over the body down. Out around and up. Over, down. With the band, you may have a little more ability, right, to move bigger. This is where the band provides both assistance and resistance. Great little tool, reversing.

Use your strong hands. Use the strong back of shoulders to hold your hands down. Three. Trying to make it smooth. Four. And that leg's getting a little while and five. Okay. Last one, those fast ankle pumps.

You gotta grip up high, elbows down. Ready. One. Two. It just changes it. We'll love it. We don't always work in the same rhythm.

That's why I like to change that rhythm sometimes. Six, seven, and control those different. Okay. And then relax. Good, everybody. So just take that down, take your feet up, shake your feet, shake your hands, and then we're gonna move into some sideline work with the band on our foot, so hips, right? So around your foot. On your elbow today, which requires some nice shoulder stabilization.

Okay. Present. Checking in and then pure lateral leg lifting. Choke up if you want a little more to stretch into. Some of you know what I'm gonna say, we try not to drop our bottom waistline and five. Maybe just six of these. Okay? We could go to 10, but we're not gonna just six.

So I want you to move your leg a little bit forward externally rotate up and down. Now it's nice here. The hip joint has more range usually. So pick your leg up. I'm using my arm a little bit. It's not like I'm bicep curling first but there's a little bicep curl happening, but I'm using my grip, using my hips, and six. That's enough.

We're gonna do six little circles in each direction. Two, three, and four. Good, and five. And six for the other direction. One, and two. Try to be stable in that upper body, four, and five, and six, and then just take it down.

Keep your band on your foot, although we don't really need it for the first part, but want you to come down all the way on your elbow. And then Get into that position that you know clam takes place from right here, flex your ankles. I want you to lift your heels up. Now as you press the thigh open, you may or may not be utilizing the band. That's okay. I just wanted to get your hip moving here. And also letting your bottom waistline stretch on your mat.

So there's four and five, one more, for your six. And now bring your legs down, lift the bent leg up and just stretch your leg back and into bend. So we know our hip extension, one of my favorite things. And three, if you want more to work with, choke up, four. That's better for me. And five last one and six stretch.

Everybody stretch and stretch and then relax. Take that away. Let's get one. It seems to wanna stay on my foot. One book opener. So I wanted to get into a sideline bottom arm along, top arm on it, and just enjoyed taking up space here.

We have all of that on the other side. Oh, man. Just give your ribs a stretch. What if that's right? That's the most important breath right today right here right now. This one. Okay. Other side. So we'll come up.

Take that around the foot. There's a little stickiness happening on my hands. Alright. On our elbow, laying long six reps parallel. Stabilize. Get integrated.

Get ready. Here we go. XL raise your thigh. Object to raise it up without dropping your torso and changing that setup in that position. And four, stretch your band. Five and six, bring the leg a little bit forward.

Just a few degrees. I'm in the corner of my mat really, externally rotate. Now the elbow is gonna help. But use your leg primarily. The elbow's just gonna kind of adapt to what's happening with the change of the angle.

And three more. And two more. And the last one. Alright. And then little circles. And two good. Three, four, five, six, reverse.

One. Two, three, and four, and five, and six, and all the way down, bending the knees. So you get to come down on your elbow. There we go. Let your waistline stretch into the mat. Lift your heels, and we just did six little clamps.

And two. Again, the band's not really providing much resistance or assistance. You're just keeping a grip with it. Important. You might feel a little and six. Good. Seven.

We only did six. You got one extra. Let it go. You're gonna take your leg back. I was really loving those plans and two contractor Darier. Three, please use that area. And four, last two, five, and six.

My stretch and stretch and stretch. And then take it away. Book opener, and then we'll come back up to sitting for a wonderful seated position. A series so open. Take that space in.

If it doesn't feel great in your shoulder to have that straight arm open, you can tuck your hand on your shouldered this way. Sometimes that long position is not, what everyone likes or what feels good. Take the arch out of the back. Breathe one more big breath. Okay. So feel how open your chest is.

We're gonna try to keep that. Everybody come back up to sitting. Now, I didn't bring a yoga block into class today. If you need assistance sitting up because they want us to sit kinda diamond here, you could roll your mat up. You could bring a stack of books, you could put a yoga block there and sit yourself up.

It can be a little easier. Let's start with some pure external rotation. So I want you grasp elbows in, set up. I love the thumb out and open. Nice clean. Let's do eight of these.

Easy external rotation of the upper arm. But again, secondarily, what are we doing? We're grasping. We're keeping our wrist level. We're stabilizing that joint with all the strength on the upper arm going on. So it might feel like it's silly detail, but all of it matters.

Right? Everything matters, all the precision. Last one, how many ways can we strengthen ourselves, right? Turn your palms face down, grasp, level wrists. So here we are sitting. Open up through the chest. So I want us to do some easy about four times just pull the band apart.

You can't see my back, but my scapula are staying wide. I know yours are too. Right? So you can pull and keep your scapula wide. Now keeping your scapula wide, bend your elbows.

My band is coming halfway in. I'm not coming all the way to my chest. I'm pulling the band apart. My elbows are facing the side walls and stretch. So this is kinda precise on your wrist angle. So if you're kind of noticing your wrist flexing or extending, see if you could minimize that and keep them flat with your forearm.

Okay? One more hold it in now, lift your sternum, and just start to kinda do the waist whittling. Ron Fletcher used to say that. Whiddle the waist. Inhale exhale.

Inhale exhale. I imagine myself like a cork in a wine bottle, going up and up. It's a beautiful Bordeaux. And last one, and we'll add to it. Rotate. Take your arms forward.

Take them up a little bit and down and in. And center, and out, and in. So we change your rhythm. Forward, arc, up, and down, and in again. You're the cork. Your arms might be the little helpers on the wine bottle extractor, you know what I'm saying, in, again, just last time out, and reach in, and out, and up, and down, bringing into the chest return to center, reach it forward, and then just drop it. Okay.

How are we doing up here? Feeling good. We're gonna come on our knees, everybody. So with the knees first, chest expansion, your hands are already holding it. Many of us do chest expansion with the band in between the thumb and long hands. It's very pretty.

It's a long line and it's lovely. Can I just invite us to grasp today? Just feel the difference. So as you're on your knees, you can take your toes and tuck them like that and put him behind or flat feet. Let you decide what feels best for you. I'm tucking my toes. Bring the band right to your thighs and see how I have my arms positioned like we started in our warm up I'm not directly armed by my side. That could cause our shoulders to lose their setup. See what happened? They came so over here, there's breath here and space.

That's better for most of us. Take a breath. We will exhale today and just press the arms behind, inhale forward. Exhale press the arms behind. Now, nice wrist, nice grasping, But I'm using my hamstrings. I'm pressing my pelvis into the band and my thighs into the band just as much as I'm pulling with my arm bones. One more straight arms pulling back.

Now we will do four more with head turning. I think it's important. Pull back and hold. Feel strong in that hold. Rotate your head.

Really see something. I like to let my eyes register. I see rocks. I see the parking lot. And center and then relax your arms do it again.

You can turn your head the other way. I liked wonder chair. Brain, turn, windowsill center Right? Let yourself be present. What do you see? The brain likes it? Mountains, center. Turn trees, center and forward one more, pull and hold, lift, breath, turn restaurant, center, turn, dolphin, turn, and center a relax. I do that. I love that.

Be present. Fun. Okay. Open up your band. Now we get to kneel on this, everybody. So I'd like to make sure we've got his even, you know, space and length of the band. I'm a little bit particular that way, but we wanna kneel pretty well in the middle.

So we have evenness, right, gather it up. You know what I'll say? Please grasp, but if you can in your fist and grasp the ends. And then what we're looking for here is a lateral raise, thumb is up, arm is externally rotated. Tucking your toes or placing your feet down. So about midway for me is where I feel the resistance.

If you wanted to go a little higher, you could, this isn't manageable for everyone in your scapular girdle. If you need to choke up and make it more resistant, you can. I'm gonna work with exactly what I have here. So right about halfway up, I catch the resistance tension and I feel safe enough to go a little farther. Really letting my scapula stay wide on my back for the other arm. Here we go. Each arm is different.

And I think scapula down and wide before I do each lift. I have my hamstrings active pressing my hips forward, tailbone down. Right? And let's see four both arms together. It's not easy. Little different generation of strength inside your core body. I like to do a little bend, and open. It's fun in the shadow here. And three, be present.

Be aware. And one more. Okay. Shaving the side of the head. Always a weird name. So I'm gonna bring my elbow forward to you.

My thumb is still hitchhiking, and I wanna start to raise the shape the arm up. Now not so high that your whole shoulder comes with you, Some of you can. I'm not one of those people. My shoulders do not stay organized. That is the truth. I can. It just takes a lot of work.

One more floor. Stay with this one. Now, I wanna lift my ribs to the band, turn and go to the side and reach my ribcage sideways and breathe, and then come out of it lower the arm, so three more. So make it more fluid, lift. And bend, and return, and lower a couple more. Reabs go into the band. And down, last one, are you grasping?

Is the pinky finger playing along that side of the arm other side for four. So just basic lift. It's only not that basic. Scapula stabilizes down. You raise your humerus, your arm bone.

And again, each body is different. Here's your force. Stay there. Breathe your ribs to the side. Side bend. Can your ribs really feel that resistance of the band?

Where the assistance for contact and feedback, length, last two, lift, breathe. Oh, feels so good. And then we're heading down to a quadruped position. Okay? So we'll do have a couple more exercises in this Thera band class today. This direction.

Now the band is interesting. I just want you to fold it up flatten it on your mat, and really we're gonna just put our hands on it. Okay? Just play not just place your hands on your van, get in your quadrupeds and try to pull the band apart You should, you kinda feel some lateral shoulder muscles kick in there. Now I want us to bend our elbows. Camel drinking water was the name I was given to you know, learn this.

Now I don't know if that image works for you. Their tricep exercises, you know. It's a way to get some push up skill. If you're not a fan of doing like a regular push up, with plank position. What I want is to feel pull out on the band.

My elbows are narrow, they're really pointing to my knees. I'm trying to keep that nice long extended spine. Palms are open. Let's take two more. Nicely done, everybody.

Stretch that band. And then your last one and because we have ourself ready for a plank, it's just there for us. We're gonna step back. And you're stepping back. You're gonna hold strong.

Stay present. Couple more breaths. And lower your knees, lower your knees, Open your knees in fact and just sit your hips back. You can let go of the band. You can move it out of your way.

And then just let yourself come down. Maybe this is the camel. I don't know. Just let your head come down and take a few breaths here. The last bit that we get to do is to kinda cool off the shoulders and kind of finish with a seated neck and shoulder roll. So I'm gonna face you one last time.

Sometimes holding the band can get a little we can get fatigued up here. Alright? So fingers on your shoulders. Just some easy circles. Easy circles. Lot of breath. And yep, other way before I love some Theriband work. So it is. It's like, can that be that strength and tension hand on top of the head, you're gonna go this way and just stretch your neck.

Right? It it's a strengthening prop. It's a re we're using resistance, but also controlling and lengthening it so lovely other side. And all the time we're holding it is grip strength, the secondary benefit. Lastly, you're gonna just tuck your chin down to your chest, flip the back of your neck, receive that stretch. As always, my thank you to you for joining me and having some fun with the thera band.

Let me know how it goes, and I will see you very soon. Thanks everybody.