Foam Roller and Magic Circle

Come on up and turn your, you're a foam roller this way horizontally and we're going to go over the back of it. Uh, sacrum will be right on top. Have your ring nearby. It's like a circus. All these prompts together. Last a foam roller class I taught. It's been a couple, uh, on Friday. Anyway, it's been a couple months. I think we did this is are series and really we can do walking anything that might be from the leg spring series on the Cadillac. You can do here some spine corrector, stuff you can do here.

It's actually pretty functional and it's nice cause we're not quite high as high as we would be on the spine corrector to six inches. But a good chance to also work those abs without having to do so many forward flections. So these intercostal muscles in your obliques and your ribs really work to contain those. Okay. Is that kind of seatbelt image that you're working on? Are Core corset and the pubic bone and hips should be then nice level plain in there. All right. Find your ring. Get ready. This is punky.

We're going to put it at the ankles and approached the frog exercise. If you were doing legs springs or reform or frog can be the mat as well. It's not pretty getting adjusted. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to roll off a roller. Okay. All right, so feeder flexed sacrum is on whatever you need to do with your hands. You might want to hold lightly. You don't even need to hold on. All right. Let's take an inhale. As we extend our legs out or on a diagonal, press the ring enough so that you don't drop it. Inhale as you bring it back in.

I need to adjust and keep going. Exhale, so think of leading through and with the heel bones, but at the same time this is really sunken in. That means your abs. Inhale, bring it in. Exhale, engage through the glutes, right from the Sitz bone stretch. Inhale, coming in, trying to keep that ring steady. Exhale. Oh, thank you. Parallel legs, thanks. Which may make it a lot different of a sensory experience. Do more. How are you doing guys? Looks good to me. Waking anything else up. New Sensation. New Layer. Yup.

I see someone Kinda and stretch. Okay. Hold your legs out there. Relax the feet now just hold. So that's a fairly significant amount of abdominal work, I think. And what we're going to do with this is I'm going to try to have this go a little lower than this. Back up to 90 degrees. In fact, let's start at 90 that's probably going to be a safer way to go. So as the legs are folding 90 degrees at your hip, really increase stretch of your sacrum and your tailbones your really long.

Here we go. Lowering the legs to a place you feel you're strong, not straining in your back and your apps. And on the exhale from the low abs, bring the legs back up. Regular Mat work. This might be straight leg, lower lift with the spurs, the legs. Good Steve. Stretching out parallel still with the legs and coming up.

Leaving your sacrum on that roller three more times. Let's inhale away. Strips those hips open here. Opening the hip joints. Exhaling up anyone experiencing the lower they go, the more they have to fight with the upper abs. Besides me really having to hold that solid and exhale one more.

Sure. And let's bend her knees and take the ring away. Okay. Just set it off to the side. I'm going to have, I need to move my roller just a little bit. A little bit. Okay. So if we do take our legs back up to the ceiling in parallel all the way together, just look at the legs. You can keep the feet soft. Uh, on the Blake Springs, the way I teach the counting or the rhythm, I do eight steps down, eight steps back up. Um, so what, by the time we get down, meaning where you just were, we established the, the kind of plank line and back up to 90. I like the inhale. Inhale, exhale, exhale, rhythm. Okay. Doesn't matter to me. What leg you start with. Here we go. Sure.

Five, six, seven, eight, back up two and three and four and five. Six sacred on the roller. End Down to reach out. Reach out. Six and seven and eight and up to three, four and five, six, seven and little solar Barbara. So each of these is a step. That's the rhythm. There we go. Add up and two and three and four. Five and six. We've got three more sets than one.

Sure. Inner thigh should be brushing. What if we had sand paper up there? We'd hear the ch Ch. One more set down. Sure, sure. And up and five and six and seven and together, bend your knees, rest, place your feet on the mat just for a minute and kind of press your hips a little higher for a stretch out. My bums off the roller.

We're going to go into scissor. So again, hips down, ankles and knees, knees together. Inhale, exhale up. We come. Legs to the ceiling. Now I'm going to have this approach to this in a turnout. Subtle turnout with the femurs today. Squeeze your rear end a tiny bit, lower your right leg toward the floor, but not all the way. Same lowering angle that you just walked to. Okay, now the other leg kind of just let it do its thing. Or if you want to increase the hamstring stretch, you can, but I don't want you to go to a maximum stretch. They're right there.

I'm focused on this like the downward leg, hip extension. Squeeze this buttock. Okay, so inhale as they pass. Exhale. Sure. Inhale as they're up and exhale again, you're still working your abs. Exhale. You don't even need your hands. You can hold them out in space. Sans you. Get creative with the arms.

Kind of fun to let them just kind of express and do some other things now and again. Good. You could hold them in goalpost. Take four more. Sure. Ribs are flat toward the pelvis. We've got that rib hip connection. I like to work with and down. Does that feel okay guys?

Okay, and up and then bend your knees. Rest leg circles will be our next one. So legs up if you're on the trap table. A reformer, same thing. Let's go down. Same lowering. Let's go down in parallel at the bottom. Externally, rotate. Now let your legs separate.

You can go about the width of the roller or farther. If you feel control. Now come up with abduction coming into parallel. All right. Inhale, go down. We'll just do five. Turn out open. There's a big stretch in the adductors, perhaps a little hip releasing for some of us. Three more. Lower down with the arching. Keep those upper intercostals together. Good.

And Arch around. And lift. Inhale, lower. Turn out. Exhale. And one more. You kick in a feet and down. She's so flexible. She just opened it up and open. Now five the other way. Open in a turnout.

Now try to fire those upper, upper hamstrings. Low glutes to squeeze inner thighs to squeeze. Come up. Parallel up the mid line. Turnout Open. That's right. The lower you go, the longer you go. More flat ribs. Flat belly. Good. Parallel at the midline. Heavy sacrum, and three more open.

Turn out and open. [inaudible] one more time. [inaudible] parallel up the middle. And once again, bend your knees. Okay, I'm gonna do one more thing to show Shamal. Uh, some Shaw Schmall so turning out, starting 90 feet are relatively relaxed again, cause the [inaudible] is again about the, the change the legs. Not so much the fetal though. It's nice if they're pointed. Looks good. Come down to your level again where you can feel the work, no stress.

Okay. And we're going to do that percussive rhythm of breathing, changing in, ah, whatever breath works for you. [inaudible] are they long? Can they get longer? Can you reach the opposite wall? Four more sets and three more sets and two more. Good last breath cycle. Come to parallel, finish it and exhale all the way in. That's going to be plenty of that. Place your feet down. We're going to do a stretch for the quad and hip flexor.

So stretch your left leg all the way out. You can rest your heel on the floor. Now what that could do though for some of this is really invite a lot of back bend, you know, and and release your abs. Again, contrast that. Really support your lower back with your belly. Fold your right thigh in. You can hold behind your thigh. It's really about the length of the straight leg from the hip.

Okay. Deep breaths into that stretch. And let's go ahead and change sides. Bring those straight one, stretch the other one out. Good. Please work you guys. Alrighty.

And then let's go ahead and bring that straight leg in just for a moment place. Then the feet on the floor. I'm going to have you get lift your hips up and scooter, take the roller away again, just bring your hips down carefully. I should feel pretty good. Also the release of the tissue, um, around the sacrum. I right. I like that. All right, let's roll to the side. Come on up onto your sitting position. We're going to work our magic circle for a few exercises.

[inaudible] I haven't done this for a long time either, so I'm going to say diamond position with [inaudible] so that we're a little bit more level on her sits bones rather than having our feet crossed. Okay, so have your magic circle off to your right. It's slightly forbidden on diagonal and not that you can put your palm on it on the talk and your arm is straight. But again, not locking the elbow. The elbow should be just a little bit soft. Okay, and let's have the other arm out to the side. So both shoulder blade install, the girdles are active. Let's take a breath. We're going to press down on the ring and hold for three counts. So a little press on this lat and one not happens, two and three and a little release. We'll do five.

It's important to think about the front of the abs also pulling inward two and three and let go. And can you get taller this way as you press down on that, that way, three and release and two more pressing down. One to work. Those shoulders and arms. Good. And last one, pressing down and two and three. I'm shaking and letting go. Okay, we're going to add a little side bend to it.

So I left arm up. Inhale. Now as you're going over to the side bend up, you don't have to push on it. You could if you wanted to, but really think of this as an opening of the rib cage, the bones in the spaces there without taking that opposite hip up. All right, and now let's go ahead and add our rotation. This is usually what I'll have this moon move into the exhale, taking a tour, so forward. I'm going to have this. Let the head hang down, let the arm come down as well, and then retrograde come back to facing forward on your inhale and then we'll come all the way up on the exhale for a total of five repetitions. Arma growing taller through the side. Bend, pause, breathe. We round for him too because we can tract. We really want to open up the back. Now everybody dropped that shoulder. It's a little lifted. That's much different retrograde facing forward.

Inhale and exhale coming up. Lift both sides and three more. Inhale, we lift and tall. Exhale, side bend, Brie, hold and contract round four. We're drop that shoulder blade and retrograde. Inhale and exhale all the way up. We've got one more here and Arma guys are looking good. Exhale, sink that opposite hip. That's it. Stretched this down and he'll taller. Exhale and around is if you've got that big ball right here that you're encompassing. Wrapping around it. Easy neck and shoulder.

Inhale side bend and exhale all the way over. Now as a transition to the other side, take your magic circle in a and I've got my thumb on the inside of it. Fingers on the outside. Try to pull out, well not try, pull out and just notice. Is that difficult? You don't have to answer. I often do the rhetorical questions.

Try to keep pulling out and raise it a little higher. Breathing in level. Our Chin ring our ribs in. For those of us who are [inaudible], this is an easy window. Oh, pop him forward. Okay, we're going to do our percussive rhythm of breathing. Trying a little pulse of pulling this out. Here we go. Yeah. Shoulder blades, down level.

Sure. Four and three. Can you sit up taller, good neck check. Good. And last one and then just keep it in your left hand and here we go. Alright, good. Pressing down those three count. Press. Breathe in first, pressing down through the lat and hold two, three inhale, release. So keep going. Often what could happen, although we're doing, you're pretty really very good job of it is a rib translation could show up if you push too hard with the hand. So it's really the hand is fairly light.

This is the strength to push the ring prs to growing tall or three. Just two more easy. Neck one, two and three looks good you guys. Last one and one, two and three. Release. Arm comes up, side bend and exhale. We lift, we're rounding. This site is also long. I've got my pack in there. Inhale now rotating by contract and those abdominals again, imagine there's a ball in front of you there.

You want your arm to come around at just as much as your trunk is going over the top of it. All right, that's better with our shoulder blade now coming out of it. Inhale, side bend. Exhale, lift both sides to restore vertical and arm up. Shoulder blade drops, spine grows, side bend, grow taller breed. Really visualize a ball or something. Maybe a puppy. Oh over it. Retro Grade. Ah, three more times. Nice.

So some of us are getting nicely, nicely lost in it and rounding over meaning just row, you know, moving fluid fluidly through the movement. One of that principles of [inaudible] that's so important is flow. Fluidity. One more time working spinal mechanics. But Flo dance. Exhale over. We go. Inhale, rounding side and exhale.

Let's come all the way up to rest. All right, we're going to do something else. Sitting vertically using the magic circle. Let me sit this way. You guys can do feet in. Boy, this is, it's really a uh, leg, hamstring strengthening piece, but it's also back extension because we're sitting uh, vertical. So that's going to be a lot of work for some of us. How about left foot on or left? I've got my lower calf on right ankle or lower calf is going to go up on top of it. Okay. This thing is bugging right now. Parallel versus turned out. Why don't we do a little of each?

We're going to out parallel and then we'll work some repetitions and turnout. So, you know, some of us can sit up easily. This doesn't feel too difficult for me in my hip flexors, but some of you might, you're, you're free to put your hands behind you on up, on your fingertips. We just really don't want to get into the, you know, that's not so much effort. All right? So if it feels okay and you want a little more challenge, I'm going to say genie. So we get a little more lad activation as well.

So we're going to press down on the magic circle. Fire the hamstring. Try not to do behind the knee, which would be the hyperextension. So for some of us that have a lot of flexibility, we might want to even just think of soft knee. Probably three of us. Take a breath here. Okay. And we're going to press down. Think Hamstrings, hold for three. One, two, three little release hamstrings, pulling toward the Mat. Two, three, keeping hips level as best we can. One, two, and three.

Couple more with parallel. One. Two. It's kind of hard to move, isn't it? I'm not really getting my ring to move a whole lot, but I want to want to, it's my abs too. Okay. Now take that top leg and externally rotate it. Now you might have to activate a little more lateral hamstring. Here we go. Five times pressing [inaudible].

Yeah, man. June three anything different? Two, three. Belly, two, three, two more. Two, three. Last time. Two, three. Don't worry. We're going to stretch your hip flexors out in a minute. Okay. Change sides.

So starting in parallel. Okay, cool. And I kept going. [inaudible] Jeanie, do you remember what side was on top? Put the other one on top. Switch them out. Starting parallel. Soften the knee. Set up vertically. Pull your sternum forward and up. Breathe in. Prepare. Exhale. Press down. One, two, three, little go. Two, three little realm ago. So it's the lift up to press down.

Lift up to press down in the hamstrings. That's good. Barbara breasts down to three and last one in parallel. Boy, turning out and exhale two, three. The tremor of truth is happening on the teacher's leg. You can't see it. Three more and two, three and one, two, three and one, two, three. And release. Okay, we all right?

Never to do that again. Let's move off to the side. So come on up to your knees. And I think most of us in here today are okay with nice new things. Um, I'm gonna face sideways again, you can stay facing forward or side either way. Um, and we've done this in the past. I wanna do something to stretch out the quads in the hip flexors from all that and aside position. Importantly, of course, not to just let the pelvis release and dump and all those.

So we've got that symmetry here. Everybody take your arms in, just reach them forward. This is thigh stretch and you can go back moderately. Um, Steve, move your knees a little closer together there. Okay, so in fact, we'll face this way for a sec. This should be active abduction. So it's not just the inner thighs working, but the hamstrings to support your alignment. All right? So you're going to hinge your weight back toward the, the shins and the tops of the feet. Uh, do whatever you, however far you can go. Don't hurt yourself. This is, this takes some strength. All right.

And then coming forward. I'm actually going to do this with my arms and as I come forward I'm going to do a little arm press. So he, we pressed arms to hips, hinge back as the arms float. Exhale, open the chest three more times. So when you're coming forward, I want you to really get a little more excited about squeezing here and open the chest two more. And we take a look open here a little more Samantha. Yeah, and press stabilize those ribs. No arch. Good and forward. And then we'll do another quadriceps stretch. To take your right foot, you're probably going to have to face in to each other. Take your right foot forward with everybody. Take the left, left leg back.

Just a nice, easy lunge knee over ankle. Try to square the hips so the front hip kind of shifted back a tiny bit. Just hold nice and steady. A back extension through your spine. We'll just do this on each side. Nothing fancy but good. All right. Put a weight in your hands. Step the front foot back, back forward.

Did you kick your roller? Yeah. How stretched can you get from hip through heel, spine extension. You've got that lice, long kind of diagonal shape through your body from head to foot. [inaudible]. All right, now come on to your seat and let's do one more thing with the roll or no ring.

Grab your roller. A rolling exercise. Let's just check in. Gosh. Oh yeah. Okay. I've selfishly not done too many of those exercises today because my tummy is so sore that I'm having a little challenge rolling, so more so than usual.

All right, so if we do a roll up, I'm going to have a start with our legs down. Let's just check in and see where we are holding the roller above your head. I've got my hands nice and wide. It's a good stretch for this shoulders. All right, let's see what happens. Roll Up. Arms head, chest, exhale, reach to the crown of the head following the roller head is up above the shoulders. Big C curve and let's roll back. You can press the edges of the roller a little bit if you'd like to.

Bone by bone. Stretch without Archie. Here we go again. Arms, head and chest, press on that roll or c curve over. Inhale and exhale. Pull it back. Long legs from the hips, long legs, no took. Place that pelvis and then continue to articulate back. Let's go back up again. Uh, rolling back. Good.

We're just going to take this two more times. Arms, head, chest, scooping that low belly in and up. Head above the shoulders. Big Breath. Exhale, roll back. Really Nice. Stretch those. Quad starts, those hip flexors. One last time. Inhale up. Exhale. Seem to belly round. Stretch there.

Now everybody put the roller on your shins and just reach your hands on it. Stretch forward more. Believe it or not, even if you go more in a flat back or kind of a relaxed stretch, forehead on your shins, maybe something like that. Let's take a few more breaths to stretch out. Okay, that's it. Let's come on up to standing. All right. You don't need any prop. I'm gonna do just a tiny bit of balance.

Work up on our feet. And why didn't you go on your floor rather than your mat? Starting with your feet all the way together. Legs all the way together and find a play or what I'm thinking here is a little, yeah, parallel play with Torso upright first. We do this a couple months ago. Also. Now add a hinge of your torso.

I'm going to have you really think of sticking your tissue back. You can put your hands on your thighs for a second and I do have quite a bit of weight on my heels and my toes and the sternum is up, shoulders are open. There is a flat back going on. Okay. Now can you shift back even more to kind of sink into the hip crease and just reach your arms forward and just hold, I'm just going to check. Go Low. You can go farther I think. Kay. Yeah, and she can, yeah, so you know. Okay. Spine, stretch forward and regular mat.

This is when we come from the curve. We come up into our flat back extension is the same spine shape. It's just we're standing now during the little different work. So you pale, this is your this way. Go Woo. Stick it back there. Yeah. So here's where we want you to crease is right in the hip joints. There you go, Barbara. Yes, that's better. Hang on and do it and I not a yoga person.

I know there's something similar in yoga with this pose. It's not. It's not meant. It's loading your hips. Some balance work. Okay. Now what I want us to do and your thighs is take your right foot and just reach it forward off of the floor. It's parallel. You can put your arms out to t if you'd like to. If your neck is feeling stressed, okay, five times you're going to straighten this.

The standing me just lengthened the knee. Go back into squat. Stick your tail back to [inaudible] back and stretch and bend. Good and stretch and Ben crease. It's a crease in the hip joints. Yes, the knee and up balance on our standing leg. End Down. One more time. Stretch and down. How'd we do?

Pretty good. Now. Step that foot in. Don't stand up yet. We're going to stay loaded over to the other side. Squeeze your buns together. Bring your abs in. Here we go. Stretch and ple a. Go for it guys and stretch please. [inaudible] good. Straighten buns together.

Tailback Barbara. Good work, Steve. One more. That's it. Be Together. Straighten and come all the way up. Oh my God. Okay. Step your feet apart. Do a little stretch for the spine. Upper spine. So have your feet. Yeah, pretty wide. A little wider than hips.

Sink into a squat. Hands on your insides of your knees. You can probably go a little wider Samantha with your feet. Okay. Yeah. Now instead of stabilizing the shoulder blades down, let them glide up for a moment near the ear lobes. I kinda liked that. And then take your right shoulder, reach it forward.

Turn your head to your left and rotate. Take some good deep breaths into the rotation. Still working your abdominals. Still opening out opposing hips. We're not letting that guy close in. Still rotate. Open, open, and then facing center. Let's go to the other side. Drop your left shoulder forward. Good eyes, head, neck. Trying to stretch the musculature.

Upper back between shoulder blades. One more each direction. Are you receiving it? They're kind of sort of. And you know, if you're not, it's okay too, but it's intended for up there and the whole back really last time to the other side. I just got a nice adjustment. Good.

All right. And Center. Now straighten your legs. Just round forward. You can just have your hands lightly. Touch the floor, wait in your fingertips, walk your feet together, toes, heels, toes, heels. We're going to do a standing roll up and as you roll all the way up, just stay vertical in your stance for a moment. And Yeah, I'm going all the way up and I often do some Relevate and parallel again, kind of basic but very functional. I heard from a PT once I tell this story a lot, it's okay to do 30 of these a day or suggested maybe. Would you agree with that going through you RPT or going through PT school last year. PT School. Yeah, for the um, you know, inner, your balance, sense of recovery. If you're going to fall, just changing elevation, you can do it when you brush your teeth on the phone.

Anyway. Here we are in Petty's class doing Relevate as all the way up and all the way down. And I know a lot of us teachers tell our students to do that. I think some do. When you're brushing your teeth. I've got clients come back and say, I was brushing my teeth, doing my relative A's. That's cool and left. Squeeze your legs together and down. Let's do a little arm work with it.

This makes more sense to do. Don't think we'll do 30 we'll probably go for about 15 strengthen our balance. It doesn't have to get fancy to be successful. Yeah, let's go five more times. [inaudible] wheezing, strong. Sure.

Nice work you guys. Two more. We'll do one final standing roll down after those last two. Put the period at the end of the sentence. I say last time and as the arms come down, heels come down. Just take a breath. Exhale, head and chest. Just a nice, easy finish. Great work on the roller and with the ring. Good stability. Hopefully some new connection. Roll yourself up.

Open up the chest, walk through the day, very open and strong. And on your feet. Well, Okey-dokey. Thank you. Thanks guys.