Class #949

Upper Body Strengthening

55 min - Class
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Description

Bring out your light hand weights for this class. Amy will use the weights as an assist to the shoulder girdle muscles, to get a little bit more arm work, and sometimes to add challenge to the balance of a particular exercise. You'll practice a variety of exercises not always taught in the Mat Work such as the Rowing Series and a Side Lying Leg series that includes some great hip opening exercises.
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights

About This Video

Feb 13, 2013
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Take a look down at your feet and let's get the outside edge of our feet parallel and little space between and add duct a little bit. So you have that feeling of your upper inner thighs pulling toward your midline, that length up through your front of your thighs without really tucking the tail under. So your tail can be just relaxed, their stomach up and in. Shoulders set down and we're not too mechanical feeling. We're going to take a nice breath in and just reach your arms up. And if your shoulders go up, that's okay. Exhale, set them back down. Inhale, think about the length of the lower back, the waist, so abdominals on the sides in front of you. A couple more and exhale and lower. And one more. Inhale, hold your arms up right there. Set your shoulders. And I've done this before.

Um, it's a round back. I'm going to slowly do one. You're rounding your arms, you're going to do a little swing round and come back up. Here we go. So the knees are bending parallel tracking right out over your toes. You can look at your abdominals when you're upside down like that and only swing. What I want us to feel with this is actually a release of arms rather than such a formed arm position. Yeah, really swingy and there's a slight bounce in the knees. There we go.

And how I'm going to exhale and so right away putting a teeny bit of balance work in because we're changing our eyes. Couple more swing. Actually I'm going to have us keep going for more after this one. Think about your tummy a little more now. Navel to spine. Navel to spine. That's right. And that'll wake us up. Huh? Down.

And then that's our last one. And just lower your arms. Okay, go ahead. Now taking that same feeling of bending the knees, just do a little bend and stretch. And as we've been the knees, we want the pelvis to aim straight down. So yeah, there's some mirrors profile if you wanted to check yourself out at all, but you're wanting to, instead of bending lean, your hips forward is really just sit straight down as if you're going to sit in a chair. Right. And if your ankles are tight or your calf muscles, maybe short, you won't have a deep bend. We're all different. So just taking your bend and two more, right. And last one I'm going to have you stay right there. Reach your arms forward and open and down and forward and open and out.

Forward, open and down. Last one, just the arms and then we'll put it together with our knee bend. So when we bend the knees, the arms are going to come forward. Open. Lower the arms, straighten the legs, coordination and open and lower. Tracking those knees straight out over your toes. It looks pretty good. And forward. Open. Keep the knees going.

Reverse the arms so they'll raise up to shoulder level. Come straight ahead and lower. Lift the arms, palms face down, palms face in and lower. Sync your shoulders, arms forward and down. Think of a little more openness in your chest. Forward and down. Okay. Same thing with feet in our little Polonius. V on a bloody Zvi. Uh, just stand for a second and feel a little work around the outside of your thighs.

Wrapping into the back of your thighs and let's just start just the knees again. We'll add the arms into so the knees, if you look down, you should see that they track out over your second toe. Really in your pelvis. Go straight down again. You want to crease those hip joints, right you guys. Okay, now let's add the arms so we have arms forward, arms out, excuse me, and arms down and forward. Arms out and down. Open.

You can think every time we come up to a standing position that the legs zipped together. Good and your tummy zips in. Okay, we'll reverse the arms. They'll go out to the shoulder level straight in front of us. Press straight down and shoulder level straight ahead and lower. Zip Up, down, open and center. One more arms out to shoulder level and open and lower.

Okay. Same thing with the feet apart and the feet apart. If you look down your heels, put them about the width of the outside of your pelvis. All right? In your toes, not to turned out. You should have felt relative ease here and just in standing. Check it out by bending a few times. Good. So again, our sits bones are going to point straight down when we bend. Good, makes it easier to do the action. If you tuck your tail under, it's going to inhibit your hip joint motion, so we want to ease in there and try to have all 10 toes evenly on the mat.

Okay, so adding those arms coming forward. First we have front hold the legs open, stand up, lower the arms and stretch and you can go low with that knee bend if you'd like. Just try to maintain the uprightness of your pelvis and zipped in with your tummy. There we are four times arms the other way and we lift open and lower. Pull up through the abdominals and reach forward.

Zip Up and two more and we'll open the arms forward and zip up and open forward and zip hold right there and just lean a little bit from knee to knee. Some of us have tender knees so you don't want to lunge too deeply or too far over. All I want us to work with right now is the idea of transferring weight from one side across to the other. So when you stay right where you are, so one knee will be bent the opposite leg straight. There we go. So you may need to space your feet a little more. Good. Okay. And then shift.

You go to two straight legs momentarily and then uh, there we go. Does anyone feel these muscles working a little in their thighs? It could. You could start to feel a little firework up and over, up, over. So one week, what's going on in the up? I'm thinking about my abdominals a lot so that there's a lift. My low back is lifting, trying to stretch up.

It's going to help support the knee joint as a lunge. Additional weight to that side. There we go. You guys are doing a good job of keeping your pelvis straight ahead. Let's do eight more one. Can you rotate your thighs a little more? Three, four. That's right.

And four and three and two and one beautiful straighten. And then you could just toe heel in all the way to parallel. Okay, so with feed all the way together, let's all go this way first. So you'll take that foot out and just set the toad and lunch. Now you're in a parallel lunge so that your knee is facing straight ahead rather than out to the side. Okay?

Push off that leg and stand next to the other leg. Alternate sides brush. You want to land your toes, your knees, your hip, all in alignment. Push off that leg in the hip and come back. Brush land, push off. Center brush.

Can't really do a big brush because we're on sticky mats and carpet, but it's really a lift. Roll. Push off center lift, roll through, push off. That push off is really important. I want you to think it comes from the side of the hip down the line of your leg to your toes. Last one did this side push senator last one to your right side. Okay, let's add the same thing with the legs turned out.

So I'm just going to take my arms like this and give a little bit of a left. I'm pressing elbow and hand together. Feeling some work in the shoulders. Let's try the same thing. So brush, you have to land, knee over your toes. Chest up. There we go. Push off that leg. Nn Brush land.

Push off close. So this light press of the arms here together helps for me to give you a sense of anchoring a little bit in my torso. [inaudible] transferring that. Wait, three more to go. Guys. Press transfer, push and last when this side. Good. Last one did this side up and center. Okay. Lower your arms. Come to a smaller V, shift your weight more onto the front of your feet. Real light, heels and rise up. And we're going to stay up there for a second. What?

I want you to think, he'll stay touching. Heels touching. Okay. So yeah. So as your heels are touching, just notice what you may feel. Hopefully work in the upper inner leg behind in the behind and the rear leg way up there. So lower your heels, lift your heels ten one and rise up to keep those heels touching. Three good. Push into the floor. Zip Up. Five, press six and seven. Eight. Very nice you guys. Two more. Nine and 10 okay.

Lower and shake your legs out. Good. Okay, let's come on down to the floor on your mat and let's start right away with our hand weights and you can have your feet facing each other. Feet down, knees bent. Take a nice deep inhale and as we exhale, start to roll your hips back and I'm want us just to roll back so that your hands will end up right in the center. Top of your thighs. Hold right there. Take your breath in. Exhale deep in the curl of your belly and your spine. Roll your hands up and over your shins, down to your feet, sitting up tall. Breathing in. Do five of those. Exhale.

So it's a rolling of the hips under hands, right to the top of the center. Thighs. Hold. Inhale deep in the contraction. Pull in. So why I have hand weights tonight. You'll get a little more Oren work. Let's go again. But sometimes having weight in the hands will help your shoulders stay lower in certain exercises to connect in those shoulder girdle.

Pull down muscles. Here we go. In and up with the core [inaudible] sitting tall. Two last repetitions here. Rounding back your hands. Just trace over the knees to the thighs. Breathe. Exhale. Up and over. It's the c curve here. Last one, starting tall and exhale contract roll back. Now we're going to hold the c curve.

10 very tiny little contractions. Think of going up an inch down an inch and we exhale. One, exhale up to this. It'd be a place to check your shoulders. Can they go lower? Can you navel to spine a little deeper fi exhale, six like you're putting your belly button on the mat, not just inside your body to the mat. And Nine, save this when all the way up. 10 up and over. Deep in your seat curve and a rolling up to sitting tall. Same thing.

One more time. Inhale, roll the hips. 10 little contractions. Here we go, Ando, and just look right out over your knees. Exhale. Three good. And eight and nine. How are we doing? Last one up, up, Paul, and round over. Restack to sitting and last roll down and we'll stay down there. Exhale, round. Lower your arms all the way by your hips. Now I need to adjust myself, so go ahead and bring your hips closer to your feet or feet closer to your hips. Palm Street, face down for just a second. Oh, I'm actually, I'm gonna Change it.

Palms up. That way you don't have to crush your thumb. You're just resting the weights in your hand. So let's do some articulation to bridge. Now breathe into prepare. Here we go. Exhale, roll up. So I've got a little space between my feet rolling across the spine and you're right on up onto the tips of the shoulder blades, tracking those knees parallel.

Now let's raise the arms up you guys and all the way back. You can turn your palms face up now and just hold that position. Let the weights be resting in your, in your hands. Let's try to roll down from here. Breathe in first. As you exhale, start to sink your upper back. If your shoulders feel limited with this, just raise them up off the F, your arms above the floor. Otherwise keep working.

That articulation I'm going to have you keep your arms back as we roll back up. Inhale and exhale. Sing your tummy. Try to get each vertebrae touch the mat, which is more challenging with the arms back here like this, press up. Breathe in. Exhale, coming down, upper back. Lengthen the arms from the shoulders.

Lengthen the vertebrate one away from each other all the way to level pelvis. Again, an inhale and an exhale. Stand into the feet. Tilt the pelvis that's roll up, keeping those hips nice and lifted. Now alternating. I did this last week in my Thursday class, right leg up to tabletop. Left arm to the ceiling so you're having to lift a little weight from back there. Arm Up, knee up. Set the arm down the foot down.

This challenges are balanced as well. Opposition, exhale, other side and lower. Exhale the arm just to the ceiling. Leg and table. Top. Exhale. Again, trying not to lose the shape of the spine and the bridge position. Let's go down. Four more. Exhale, an one that's right. You have to keep efforting in the the lift of those hips and lower last one, this side, pulling up and lower down. Last one here. Exhale and lower.

Keep your arms back. Let's breathe in. Once again. Roll your spine down, bone by bone, just rushing through those arms and then find your level pelvis. Bend your elbows and just relax your arms down by your sides. Okay, so I'm going to have this walker feet together, so ankle by ankle, knee by knee. I take a breath. Exhale, rolling our head and chest up now into a chest lift. Now you've got the weights. I want you to lift your arms about an inch off the floor, maybe two on the next exhale. Raise your right leg up. Inhale, anchor. Exhale, bring your second leg up.

Inhale, we're going to go into toe dips here. Toe taps for 10 exhale and one to every exhale. Trying to get a little deeper. Sink in the ads. Four and six, counting wrong. Seven, eight, nine. Last one, 10 both. Knees up. Hold there, Brea. Let's roll our chest down. Lower your arm, keep your chest legs up. Inhale again, another chest. Lift this roll up. Now let's take a little uh, investigation here on the 100 if your neck starts to feel uncomfortable because of the weights, put them away. We're going to take her legs to our diagonal and do the 100 here we go. Inhale, three, four, five x sale too.

So it's an ever evolving chest lift. If you want to continue thinking that it's never just a static position. If you feel so in blind, you want to blow, are your legs down for more challenge? That's beautiful guys. Nine to three, four or five, and exhale 10 to four, five and exhale. Hold. Fold your knees in, lower your arms, lower your chest, and just relax your legs for a second. Okay, so from the reformer, I'm going to have us go into an exercise called the arms circles, supine arm circles, knees and tabletop. Anchor those ribs down and start with your arms reaching to the ceiling.

Anchor your shoulder blades. Right now. Your palms are facing your feet and we're just going to do five each direction. Lower your arms by your hips. Now turn your arms so your palms face your hips. Open out to a tee position, and then the arms come in that your shoulder blade.

Stay down on the mat and again, exhale, lower the arms open out to your tee. Notice that you don't need to arch your spine and arms up. Three more. It's about the length effort, the anchor of the ribs, and the work of strengthening the shoulders. Two more guys, trach, rotate open arms in last two an exhale. Inhale and up. Let's go the other way. Five Times as you open, you don't drop the arms all the way to the floor.

Keep control. Squeeze the triceps in toward the lats. Palms down as your arms come up. Inhale a stretch. Exhale triceps in toward your lats. Arms up last three. Breathing [inaudible] and up last to energy through the fingertips and wrists and up and our last one. Oh, hello. Clothes and arms up. Now just follow along.

When you curl up to the 100 we're going to do a little pattern called reaching in and out. So we curl up to the 100 the legs are going to open enough that you reach your hands in between. Reach pretty far, close back to your 100 and then we transitioned by coming down. Four more exhale and we want exhale two, three and we transition and staying up in the chest lifter and those arm and leg motions. Last two. Exhale, curl x reach. Reach a more down.

Last one here and exhale. [inaudible] and beautiful you guys and down. Okay, lower for just a second. Stretch your legs out. Let's try our roll up. Now you can choose to keep holding the weights or let them go. Arms back. Squeeze your legs in together. Here we go. Arms, head and chest.

Crown of head, reaching towards fingertips holding there. Now I want you to back up a little, Hailey. There you go. Well, it's shoulders over pelvis. Lift your arms a little higher. That's the form Brie. The next Sylvie rollback. So even though on that roll back, we're rolling backward. Here we go. Okay. [inaudible] I want you to sense the opposition. So as we start taking our spine back, the energy is still going forward through the arms forward through the arms, forward to the arms, bone by bone. And we roll it back three more.

[inaudible] we use those tummies back in. Breathe in rollback. Last two Megan. Sure. Your legs are squeezed in crown of head in the direction of the fingers. Hollow Tommy, let's pull back. The legs are extended in opposition to us. Rolling back and guys, one more and all the way down. Great. Okay. Wonderful. No leg circles tonight. I don't think you're too disappointed there. Let's just put the weights off the side of your mat.

We're going to do a little rollover. And the way we'll approach this tonight, we'll lift the feet up, cross your ankles. I don't care which one on top, just remember because you'll change the ankles when you're over your shoulders. Okay. So again, as we work on this exercise, try not to, uh, fold the hips too much. So really that angle of your femur and your hip stays pretty consistent. And we really take the spine over. Inhale. Here we go. Exhale, roll up and over your shoulder. Change the angles. Take a breath in. Now as we roll down, we're trying to limit the acceleration. In other words, no speeding up. As you roll down your spine, keep that ankle on top.

We breathe in, pick up the hips, ah, roll through the spine, change the beat, breathe in, and we roll it down. Your body rolling at this same tempo. Two more patterns. Inhale, AH, up. Lifting your seat up toward the ceiling. Recrossed the other way. And inhale. Exhale as we roll evenly down the spine, keeping that ankle on top. Here's our last rollover up. Sitz bones, reaching to the ceiling, lots of scoop in the belly chains, those feet, Drake, breath and exhale everybody to roll down all the way and pause. All right, hug your knees in. I'm going to have you roll up to a seated position and you can grab your weights again. Okay, so another couple of things from the reformer. A few of the rowing exercises.

So rowing is a lot of deltoid, shoulder work and depending on the rowing, it can be a rounded back or could be flat back. So let's start with round, but we're, we'll go with the arms is a wrist and thumb is face down. Really? Okay. And the elbows are up, shoulders are down and you've got a good sense even just that you're pulling yourself tall. Alright, we breathe in here. Legs are together. Exhale, see, curve through your lower back. Beautiful. Haley. So you're stabilize the c curve. You want to get pretty far back on your secret more further. Now hold the tummy in. Press your arms out.

Okay, shoulder check. Now as you start to bring your body forward, arms go behind you. I'm going to ask that we all take our fingertips quite low to the mat and try to touch your weights together. Okay, now only the arms you're going to lift them. Go as high as you're comfortable with going the arms and make a journey in a circle from the back to the front, keeping that tummy back in, roll up to sitting vertical to start again. We breathe in. We may accelerate things now. Exhale, stabilize the abdominals. Press out. I'm going to think of moving my arms a little earlier than curling over.

Fingertips low. Now notice the weight on your sits bones. Keep it constant. Lift the arms circle. Pull the ABS further back. Roll up to vertical. Two more. When can you check your shoulders? Always check them out. Set those shoulder blades. Low press, press a little more.

Could you scoop deeper and your tummy? Can you leave those abdominals way back there? Lift the arms. Circle. It's good. Mobilization in those shoulders. Let's take it up in one more time. Sitting Taller there guys, and we round. Yeah, good harass like you're going through thick air, which actually it is today.

And round over. Shoulders down, fingertips low. Lift your arms as you are comfortable with high or low circle. Round over. Roll up to vertical and now take right angles. All right, so you've got a good sense here. Your palms are facing your head. Make a little bicep with your biceps or curl with your biceps.

Now as you're about to lean back with a flat back, squeeze your bottoms. Yeah, squeeze that could protect things a little and I don't think we need to hinge too far back. Although you could see someone going pretty far. You want to avoid rounding though, cause that's around back. The flat is more of a hinge. Your chest is open and up and we're going to return. Let's exhale, lift out of the low back, lean back and exhale coming back in and again, squeeze the bottom. Hold those biceps. Good you guys and center. Let me watch you twice more.

Those ribs are solid. They're not protruding, they're not pushing forward on anybody. Good. Coming up. Last one. It's a lift and a return. Lower your arms. Good. If you need to cross your legs to ease out your hips, feel, feel free to do that. Otherwise stay in the long sit. This is kind of the classical thing. All right, now let's go rowing forward. So pretend you're on the reformer and you just turned around.

Start with your hands here by your shoulders and I want us for a second to allow the upper arms to reach behind your back. Yeah, it's kind of get a little squeezed between your shoulder blades. That might feel nice if you've been out the computer all day. Oh, lifted chest. Okay, now reconnect things. It's a little exaggerated and we're going to reach the arms forward. Lower the fingertips down the arms. Go all the way up higher. They go, the lower the shoulders should go.

The arms press down to shoulder level back into the chest. It's okay to squeeze the bottom on this one. Reaching forward, lower the arms of fingertips. Just glaze the mat. Now when you raise the arms, make sure those stomach muscles are drawn in lower. Sit Taller and circle last two and we go run and fingertips. Low shoulders, light arms. When you open, sit taller by pressing your arms down through the air, around the shoulders.

Last one, only stretch, fingertips, touch. It's great for the shoulder muscles up. Sit Tall. Sit. Reach. Open around towards your shoulders and rest for a second. Okay, rowing too. Do you remember that one? Some of you know rowing to start with your hands here by your hips. Okay.

And again, I'm going to have you squeeze your bottoms a little bit. Take a breath. This is more of a bending down so you round forward. How deep can you round my contract knows abdominals. Second, you slide your arms out, reaching past your ankles if you can. Now you've got to roll up your spine, but the arms come with you. This is kind of intense with the weights and the hands.

You come all the way back up to that vertical. Sit Open down by your hips. Inhale, bending down first. So flection shoulder check. As you stretch your arms forward, your belly should be going back and opposition. All right, so the arms are near the shoulders as you articulate up in a flat back. That didn't really make sense. I think you know what I meant. It's a reaching out this way. Sorry, you guys into flat. Back to come up.

Alright, two more time. Correct. Reach. Yeah. So start at your tail re good Sabrina. Reach it back your Chester. It's coming up. The arms come up by your ears. Now when you lower your arms, squeeze your bottom. Sit Taller, taller, taller, taller. One more round trip. Exhale, belly back.

Slide the arm. I'm going to see your tail go way back first. The chest up second. There we go. Hey, like up, up, up, arms and lower. All of the way down. Good. Okay. Let's all fold their legs in. Okay. I'm gonna sit facing, you know, you can face still face each other. That's fine. So is your legs are folded.

Try for a second to press your knees toward the floor. Weights are just going to be here. So as you try to press your knees down to the floor, do you feel what muscles in your area maybe here activate. So there's a little bit of Ba that goes on to try to press the knees lower. Okay, so connect to that.

Put the weights right here in your fingertips by your forehead. And this is the salute. All right? But I want us to slightly lean the torso forward to press the knees down, shoulder check. Sternum is up. Exhale, hands reach forward. Inhale, hands to the forehead again. Exhale, reach forward. Each time the hands leave the head, the knee should press down, press the stomach, lifts up the arms, press out, chest a little more.

Up. Three more guys. Exhale, press you see a little more knees down if you can last time. Beautiful stretch and hands in. And then just hold your hands here. If you can, try to change the legs. Not Try. Change the legs. Okay. Get acclimated. Arms out to the sides. We're going into the hug a tree.

So with hug a treat, generally the elbow has a different, a little lift to it. Yeah, but if you lift your elbows, sometimes the shoulders are lift and we're always saying shoulders down. So how to feel the shoulders drop. But your elbows up. Good summer. It's like there's a little breath of air underneath the armpit that lifts the upper arm up, right? And it feels good to exhale. And here we go. Press your knees down. Open. Exhale, press the knees down. Can you do a total of six of these?

So here's four, three [inaudible] and I suggest you squeeze your tummy back and lean forward a little bit. Everyone. Three more. Exhale, God, shoulder check. Press the knees, pull the stomach last time and exhale. Feel like you're building some arm strength or your arms getting tired. Let's let them rest for a sec. Yeah, tilt your head opposite shoulder should stretch down other side. So having a, sometimes having a different type of mat class, a little more specific. When we get into the bigger weight bearing exercises, we've got some strength that we've built up with there. Um, now let's just put these off to the side. Rolling like a ball. Elbow, elbow feed up. And now we could hold the weights, but that maybe be too dangerous. We can hit our head.

So what we're trying to do is keep the elbows touching the knees. All right, roll back, look into your stomach area. Breathe in, roll up. Try to bring your chest towards your thighs so you stay closed. Excellent. Inhale, roll back. Exhale. And a total of six challenging to not bounce that pelvis Barela roll through. That's right. Inhale, roll hips up and chest forward.

Last time. Roll it back. Lift. Hold this, hold the calves, stretch your legs out for your opening rocker. Just hold yourself for a second there. What I want is to feel. Now we've done a lot of arm work and stuff, so pull those shoulders down. Feel the strength there to lift your chest up.

Everybody narrow your legs a little so you're inside the frame of your mat. Okay, let's do five or six rolls here. Same concept. Roll back, smooth over the spine. Exhale, find the shoulder strength. Pull it down as you lift your chest. Inhale, roll back up. Drop the shoulders, lift the chest. That's right. We're trying to get through those stickier segments of the lumbar spine.

[inaudible] easy toes. Roll up, slide shoulders. Lift the chest. Last two roll. Exhale to find that relationship. Shoulders down, chest up, and your last one. Guys, take it down. Exhale up, hold. Check into your teaser. Bring your feet together. Reach your hands towards your toes. Bam. Just like that. Leave your legs there. Okay, you guys, you can either walk down or just reach and roll. We're going to go right up to teaser one. Here we go. Arms reach Rola.

Ed, we're just going to hold reaching to the angles there tonight. Two more. Roll it back. Go ahead. Spine Long. Exhale up and reach. Last one. And Roll. Stretch your spine. Curl your spine. Reach. I actually am gonna go teaser too, cause you're doing well.

So just the legs go down an inch or two up an inch or two down an inch or two. I'm going to go choose her three. I can't help myself. So as you roll down your legs, go out, roll your spine, arms long with your legs. Never touch down. Find the strength. Here we go. Roll Up. Reach to your toes. Two more. I know. Flowing, breath, stretch. Exhale, curl, reach. Last one. And we were all at back.

You guys are doing so good. That's why I just had to hold and now we can arrest. Okay, open your knees. Good. Drop your chest down. Just stretch it out for a second. Good you guys. So let's not use the wait through the sideline section. So face me, I want you to come onto your left elbow and come up on that elbow. We're going to do slight change of angle of the forearm. So instead of having the forum straight forward, let it go on a slight diagonal.

Okay? Yeah, and just see if, if, if you feel a little different connection in the side of your back right there and then your legs are stacked. Take a breath. We're going to go right into clam right there. One just eight times and two, three. So you're establishing a good foundation of stabilization on this arm. Five. Your bottom waist has lifted away from the Mat.

Seven [inaudible] and eight. Okay, plenty. Take your top leg behind, bottom leg straight. And I want us just to press up and hold for a second. So I've pushed up, I've used the bent leg, I've used that foot to push the hip up. Okay. And let's lower back down. Maybe the hand on the hip will feel good. Use Your foot to help push your hips up, right?

But there's still a lot of work going on on the under side, this side and the obliques. Three more. Push up, lower down. Exhale, belly push up. It could have sounded strange there. Belly in. Push your hips up. Hold now, take your arm overhead. Enjoy a stretch. Could you lift your obliques a little more? Could you press through your elbow? Could the foot help? Lift, lift, lift. And we're going to come all the way down. Okay, now re bend the knees and I'm going to take ourselves down to ease out the neck.

A little more clam and hip work. So I want you to lift your feet up. Your knees are together, your hips are still on top of each other. You've just taken the lower part of your leg and lifted. Let's go into a clam from here and close. Eight more clams and two. So by keeping your feet a little higher, just might feel a little more work in your hip area. Good, you guys. I see more range of motion though. Actually that's it.

Six, seven [inaudible]. They're going to hold this last one, eight for just a second. Could you squeeze your bottom a little more to open that hip a tiny bit more? Okay. Close the leg. Now take that top leg and reach it back. Bottomley forward. So you're in a scissor, you're balanced on your side and you're in a little scissor position.

So this is some coordination. Come back in, knees together, feet up, right. Clam, scissor, return, knees together. Feed up. Three more patterns. Knee, scissor and in tumor patterns. Clam. We got it. Stretch more or an in. Are we doing feel on your hips? I feel it feels good. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Tell me and tell me in the ass. Right. And less rest all the way down. Okay guys, one last, uh, yeah, one last section here.

So we aren't going to hover the legs. This is, I just think of a man like a water animal with a fin. So from your knee to your feet, here's where you're going to bend the hip. Stay Open here. So we don't want to hit flex or bend at the hip joint. So I'm going to put my hand down at the advantage of holding like this. But, so you want to think of, yeah, the thighs stay elevated.

Bend your knees. And if you were a dolphin you'd be moving fin back and then moving it forward. Yeah. Bend your knees, swim it back and reach it forward and curled the toes. Good summary. So when you take your legs behind you like that, can anyone feel their hamstrings contracting? Yeah. You want to feel that basic? Keep going. It's the same exercise as something like this.

It's the same muscle group. This is so much easier. What I'm doing cause I'm not having a challenge in my balance sideline. We're challenging our balance and alignment. Heck of a lot harder. Probably just one more cause we still have all this on the other side and let's stretch and lower. Okay, come on up. Good. Alright. So on our elbow, kind of a little subtle clam position, elbow.

And then the forum angled out here tonight. Just a soft fist is fine. Find the hips on top of each other and a gentle clam and close. Exhale. Open. Close. Yeah. So our hips are right up on top of each other. Chest is open. Five lift your bottom waist a little more and six and our seven.

That's right. And eight. Okay. Now the keep the last one up. Squeeze a little more in your, in your rear step that top foot behind the other. Slide the bottom leg out. All right, so it's the back foot that's going to help but we still have to use a lot of power from this side shoulder in through the abdominals to push the hips up. Nice you guys and down with control. Four more push and does that feel good in your hips?

Like you're getting some good glute recruitment. Okay good. I only got two yeses so I'll take it more and, and one more time. We're going to hold it. Hold it keeps squeezing. Good summer. Take that arm over. Now we've got a lot going on. Push to the elbow, lift the obliques, lift the hips and push the back foot.

Push with the bottom foot, that's it. Up, up, up and lets all the way down. Good. Okay. Second set of clam. Let's go down. Say that neck, turn those feet up. Hips and knees are stack and clam for eight, seven and six. Still addressing those abdominals so they're still drawn in five. Good. And six and seven.

Here we go. Eight all the way up and down. Here's what the choreography gets a little funny. So bottom, a top leg goes back, bottom leg comes forward. The ideas. Yeah, stay balanced on that hip. Both legs are stretching evenly. Give a good squeeze here. Now as you come back in, it's that clam with the feet up. Yes. Open. Cool. Stretch into the scissor.

Close Clam, feet up and open and scissor. God, you guys close last two. Oh, could you stir rush further from the top leg back. That's the one I want us to emphasize. Exactly. Close and open. Stir wretched out. Squeeze it more Lincoln. Zip Up.

Good and and okay. Yeah. Yeah. Good Hubbard. Oh, you probably could be hovered, but good. Thank you. No, we're resting. Yeah. Good question. Oh Wow. While we could. Yeah. To be continued. Yeah. No, it could be, cause then it's really always looking for them. I'm always looking for that extra edge. Let's make it harder. None really. That would be intense.

Seriously to be continued. I'll work on that. Okay, so hover your legs. Bottom waist has a slight lift. This is a lot of work just here. No fruit. I'm kind of forgetting to remind us. It'd be long. The feel length again there. Yeah. And if the arm helps us, fine. You'll probably want to down here for the balancing work.

So it's swimming with your Finn Bend. Stir. I sip up those abs. So you're bending the knees. Try to bring your heels toward your bottom. Keep going, but yet the thighs on this one can be hovered a little exactly. And stretch. And again, bending in you long gating out and bending in any long getting out.

Let's shoot for two more here guys. Bend and extend and bend. Nice work and extend. So what I'd like us to do, keep those legs up and long. Roll right over to your tummy. Stack your hands on the out and your forehead on your hands. Keep those thighs up. Squeeze that bottom.

You can go into a little external rotation. Let's go with some heel beats and inhale. Exhale. Good. Little faster. Beat, beat, beat, beat. Four, three, two, one rest. That's plenty. [inaudible] come on up into a child's pose or shell pose. Cat Back. Any will work.

All right, we're gonna find our way back up to standing for few more arm exercises from standing. So find those weights. You can face me if you'd like. I think we should actually, and what I'll have us do is the whole set here standing in our small Polonius v. So these are only one pound weights that we're working with and they were fine for me down there standing when we work with arm weights that the challenge can be not having the alignment shift that or leaning back when you lift your arms up. So that's why I'm Kinda cuing to stay light on your heels, your weight slightly forward. Hold your weights like this. Okay. And Zip up your tummy. You're going to do little circles. So we go round, round, round. The higher the arms we're looking to go up above the head. The more the ribs might push out. So you've got to, yeah, work the tummy.

Go the other way with the arms. One. Two, we'll go to 10, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine again, 10 up and one and a two and a three, four and five ribs back and seven and eight. Nine and reverse center one, four and five. Good. Seven, eight. Let's go one more time going. Chest Open. Very beautiful. Open chest on these seven, eight, nine and a 10 and a one and a two and a foreign circle and circle and seven and eight. Nine and a 10. Good hold like this. This is called the zip up, right up to the chin, right on down to the legs. 10 Times. Exhale, zip.

So you can still get quite a bit of abdominal awareness and work going just with this. Sink your shoulders to raise the weights. You feel the inner thigh connection a little more. Let's do our second set of five on a heel. Lift up. No.

Lydia and lower three Mu shoo. Last two end. Nice you guys. Last one. It's up lower and down. Okay. Uh, raise your arms forward. Shoulder level. Bend your elbows. Make those pop by muscles again. Okay. You objective here is to not drop the elbows down. Stretch out. We'll do five.

Lengthen and fold. Lengthen. So I've got a little bit of this. I'm just going to show profile so my butt's not way back there. Think of the ribs in, chest up, four and up and five uphold. Open out to almost out to the your complete sides. Okay. Elbows, our pie.

Five more. We open and squeeze. Resist going out and squeeze. Resist like you really don't want to go open, but the choreography tells you to do that. Open. And in last one, press and in, close and down. Okay. Feet parallel. Squat down. And when you squat again, uh, we, I want you to find a pretty flat back.

And if you feel like you're strong enough to squat pretty low here, you could even go kind of complete horizontal line or you could be up a little higher. Your bum, you can stick out your tail a little. All right. The thing I want you to have good is a really good flat back right there and almost like you're squeezing a little marshmallow between your shoulder blades. Just a little more squeeze here. Okay. This is called the bug, the bug, and it's for the upper back. So here's the shape. Your arms start in and your elbows are really reaching out and we exhale slowly. Guys, lift the elbow, squeeze between your shoulder blades and lower down 10 times.

Exhale up and good and up. Right. There you go. Long neck. Yeah. So we're strengthening right up in that upper back. There you go. Long neck, tummy, and squeeze. Five more to go. Squeeze.

And here we go. We're losing our tempo down. Three more. End Up last. Bogue and lower and roll all the way up. You can roll your shoulders. Yeah. How's that? Huh? Your thought. I know it's, you know, it's weird. It gets the thighs a little bit. Yeah. Okay. Now if you don't mind, put your hands like this. I'm going to mirror you. That's okay. You can mirror me. So one's up above the other little Pilati Zvi.

So I'm going to lunge out on with this foot that I'm shaking toward you in a fairly robust manner. Okay? And that's kind of the idea is to shoot the arms on the diagonal and lunge on that leg. So all that stuff that we did at the beginning of class Kinda has that ready shift and lunge. Now you've got to push off that foot push and bring it back in. Good. Turn the body and lunge. Push.

Bring it back in three more. Let me watch you one. Good. You guys push off that leg last to be really dynamic about that which you are in and deliberate shoe and other side. Change your hands ready. So we're going that way, eh, push lunge and push so it gets your legs going. It challenges your balance. Good. You guys show and in.

So let's go back to the first side. Three more and a one. Woopsy. Well God, it's almost always I get a little off at the end of the hour when they come up to standing. Note to self. Other side. Last three. I like that actually. Yeah. My last one, three and in an arrest. Okay. Roll your shoulders. Put those down. Let's start as we will end as we started. Okay, so all that weighted work, let it go. Here we go.

10 of these one hand up and swing three. So now this wing can be a little bit softer as we're winding down. Looser, no less enjoyable. Still a seeker last too. And your last one. And Voila. Thanks guys. Hold on.

Comments

3 people like this.
Amy!! Fantastic, I used 1kg and 2 kg weights I feel so opened in my chest and getting Pilates workout with a little buffness, all for it! :)) You go on my fav list.
Perfect timing...throwing some resistance into my next session. Great stuff from barre warmup (sans barre) to the clan progression to the weighted lunges. As always Amy...thank you. Keep on keeping on!
1 person likes this.
I really enjoyed that. I have been looking for new ideas for side lying work. Great stuff!
Paola Maruca
1 person likes this.
Loooove it! I adore Amy, she always brings something more to each workout. That is exactly what my body needed today. I love the side hip work. I even added another balance component to the 'fin' exercise by extending my arm to the ceiling....Her cues are impeccable as usual and I always feel like I am in her classes and not in front of a monitor. Thanks Amy, you rock!
3 people like this.
Thank you all so much for your positive feedback and kind words! You need to know that your comments, suggestions, likes and feedback really encourage me as a teacher. I want to keep providing the best classes that I can, and it's with your help that I can do so. Thank YOU!!!
1 person likes this.
Bellissima! First in my favorite class! Thanks!
Grazie Mariolina!!
2 people like this.
Great, innovative class as always, Amy. I didn't have any hand weights available but I managed to make due with a couple of 16 oz. cans of black beans, lol. You're consistently one of my favorites because of your excellent cueing and precision.
Hi Jeff! 16 oz cans of black beans...perfect! Thank you for such kind words and positive feedback for me.....it means the world to me!!
my class stopped after 3 minutes happening more and more
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