Class #978

Full-Body Tower

45 min - Class
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Description

A full body level 1/2 workout utilizing both the Mat as well as the Tower. The first half of class prepares your body well with Mat exercises. As class progresses, you will incorporate the Tower practicing exercises like Roll Back, Side Leg Springs, Parakeet and more.
What You'll Need: Tower

About This Video

Feb 21, 2013
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Transcript

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Okay. So you're going to go ahead and lie down. Maybe start just a little bit further. There you go. All right, very good. All right, so we're going to start off with the hundred. We're going to bring our knees into our chest, hug them in, and just feel your back nice and flat. So go ahead and hug in your knees, Briana. Very good. And just feel nice and connected with your powerhouse and your back flat on the Mat. Use your stomach to lift your head and shoulders curling up. Lengthen your arms by your side, about five inches up off the mat and now extend the legs at a 45 degree angle trying to wrap and squeeze and we're going to pump the arms. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale. I'm going to turn those out. Awesome. And in house, you're going to engage the outer thighs and the inner thighs as well.

Good and in with the air. And exhale, scoop in your belly. That's it. Good in with the year. Always a little more juice out of there and exhale and just fairly pool away from me. How's that? Does that feel better? Good, nice. And in with the year two, three, four, five, exhale. This is our warmup. I'm going to have you pull your head a little more into your stomach so it feels a little better on your neck. Good and exhaling.

Really feel your stomach. Press your lower back down and one more and exhale and hug your knees into your chest and relax for a second. Straighten your legs on the Mat and I'm going to slip this strap over your feet. They're going to be together in a [inaudible] stance. That's toes two to three inches apart and heels together. Good, smaller than a ballet first for some of us dancers and arms up and reach back.

Good. Now, arms up to the ceiling. Bring your head through your arms and roll up one bone at a time as you reach for your feet. Good and reach, stretch forward. Good. Same as before. Rolling back so you can stretch forward as you want, as long as your belly doesn't lie on your thighs and reaching back with the arms, arms up head, and then roll up one bone at a time. Scooping in good reach and pulling back with your stomach. Make sure your thighs are wrapping and squeezing your seat.

You lengthen your legs away from your body and we're reaching back. Let's pick up the tempo now. Arms head and roll up for the next five and roll it back. Lower back, middle back, upper back in. Reach, reaching arms up, head and rolling up. Good and rolling back. Watch those guys. Make sure those knees aren't rolling in and talking to each other and arms up head and roll it up. Scoop and stretch and rolling it down.

Wrap those size. Squeeze and stretch it back in. Two more arms. Head roll it. Stretch and lengthen those legs away from your lower back. As you stretch down, give me one more, really warming up that powerhouse head and pull it in and up. Reach and rolling it down. Sending your tailbone towards your heels. Really roll that lower back. Great job. Hug the right knee into your chest.

We're going to keep that left foot under the strap and now straighten your right leg up to the ceiling. Good. Put your hands behind your thigh and stretch that leg towards you as much as you can. Try to keep your shoulders open and pressing down. See if your ribs can drop down. Now we're going to make sure that right leg is turned out and the hips are straight across. So let's lengthen that right hip on a little more way. Good, good and reach this one a little more. That's it. And now harms by your side and you're going to do a circle.

We're going to cross up to your nose, shoulder around and pull it up and cross around and up, trying to get as high as you can and you can make the circles big as you can. Not move your hip bones. You're going to keep the hips square on the map to cross the round up last time. Cross around, hold, reverse that circle down. Cross as high up as you can down cross and up. You can open a little bit.

Make sure your left hip is not coming with you. Two more scooping in your belly. Nice long leg reaching to the ceiling and hug that knee in. And now slip the right foot under that strap. Bend the left knee in, hug it, straighten the left leg up to the ceiling and give yourself a good stretch and then try to reach that left hip away from you. Make sure it's square and even with that right hip and the knee is slightly turned out, toe slightly turned out facing. Looking more at your left shoulder, arms by your side. For these circles we start up as high to your nose. You can cross your left shoulder around and lift and cross around and trying to pull up from your stomach and the back of your thigh up one more and hold reverse down. Cross around up. Oh Man, I'm rounding up.

Reach longer through that thigh. There we go. Two more reaching it out and one more time around and up and hugging that knee. Good both legs long on the Mat. You can put them under the strap for now. Head up looking at your belly and roll up to a seated position. One bone at a time. Then lift your bottom, put your hands by your side, lifted up to your heels. And now take your up, slip your feet out of the strap and put your hands on those paint gulls and keeping your feet on the mat. One on each hand for me mean each ankle.

There you go, round your back as round as you can and pull your waistband so your balance is a little further back. And then see if you can bounce with your feet just off the mat. So you want to make sure that the lower back does not push forward and hold you good. And we're going to roll all the way back. We're going to rock back and exhale, roll all the way up in balance without that lower back going forward. And inhale, roll back. Exhale, Chin on the Chessie and tie your time. Inhale, roll back and exhale up. Good. And inhale massage in your spine back.

And exhale, lift. And two more. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, roll up in balance. And one more time. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, roll up. Hold and rest on your feet. Now you're gonna put your hands behind you and you're gonna lift your bottoms back. And we're going to lie down onto your mat. Again. Bring your right knee into your chest, put your right hand on your ankle and your all the way down to your ankle and the left hand up to knee. Good. Lift up your head and look at your stomach. And then lift the left leg up to a 45 degree angle with the mat. Okay.

And use your abdominals to really pull that knee all the way to your chest, almost into your ear. Good. And now switch pulling in your left and right and left. Good and writes, you're really scooping in the stomach. It's what's pulling in your leg. Your quads can pull it in all day long. We're doing your stomach to bring in that knee all the way to your ear.

Try not to let it fan out to the side. Make sure hips getting a good stretch. See how that one wants to go out to the side. Make It, don't let it [inaudible] and there and last at right and left. Grab both ankles. And now we're going to reach your legs forward as your arms go up and use your stomach to pull it all in together. Good in how? Reach. Exhale. Circle back to your ankles in how reached turning out your legs.

Squeeze in your seat. Exhale, pull it in in how reach scoop in the belly and exhale. And two more. Inhale Long. Exhale. Last one. Scoop your belly and then reach your arms as long as you can state as long as you can, and then pool it in. Rest your head for a second. Good. And now extend both legs up to the ceiling. Okay. Lift your head up and crawl up the right leg as high as you can go.

Good bringing the leg wheel to you and lower the left leg so it just hovers off the mat. It's trapping, it's squeezing your seat. Good. The legs are light as a feather. We're going to switch left and right. We're going to pick up the speed because we're going to have light legs and flying through the air. So it's right, left, right, left, right, left. There you go. Right, left one more set. Right and left. And then both legs up and hands go. One over the other behind the head. Keep it up.

Looking at your stomach and lower the legs down and pull them up and squeezing your bottom two and up. And that stomachs disappearing as you go down. Not Rising up in the oven and out and squeezing up. Give me one more. Down and up. And now bend the right knee into your chest and twist to it. Hold two, three and switch left and your right leg and go down a little bit more.

Good and switch right knee and God and switch. Come all the way up to that knee. Brianne, all the way up. There you go. And switch. One more set of stay here. Pull back your right elbow until it's on the mat. Right elbow. Pull back that other one. There you go. Switch. Coming up to the left. Pull back your back elbow.

Pull it back to twist more and more and more and more. And Hug your knees into your chest. Good. Sit Up and we're gonna put a heel in the middle of each block. Good. Sitting up tall like your spine statute, one vertebra on top of the other perfect posture. Arms up at shoulder height, pulling in your belly, lift off your seat and exhale as you roll into yourself, curling into yourself. Good. Going forward, we're going to flex your feet so you get a really nice stretch and then rolling up one bone at a time. Good pulling in and exhale. Go down.

Make sure hip bone stay right over your sit bones, but try to get the crown of your head down to the mat. Nice and inhaling up and exhale down. Exhale, flex those feet. Good. Try to touch the crown of your head down to the mat. Inhaling up, we're going to get one more time. The goal is to get the crown of your head down to that, but between your thighs, not actually between your knees or your calf.

So really close into you're trying to get the crown of your head down and rolling back up. Good. All right. Bring your legs together and pull your belly in as if you're going to roll to your waistband, down to the mat. Goods, your weights kind of back. Start sliding your knees up towards the ceiling. Good. Open the knees and place your hand. Bring your ankles up to your hands and your hands are gonna be on top of your ankles. Grab them. Voila. Good knees.

A little narrower and toes just off the mat. There you go. Scooping in, you're going to balance. We're always talking about our box, keeping it nice and square toes a little lower for me. There we go. And we're going to extend just the right leg. There you go. And bring it down. And just the left leg and down and the right scoop in.

Nothing moves in our box and down. Real strong stomach and left. Good and down. And now I need you to lower your feet. And actually everyone moved forward about a half a foot cause I'm afraid that you're gonna bump your shovels. She knew it was coming up next and you're going to pull back your weight again and, but it's going to be in up, lifting up your feet so the up, don't get that lower back popped into. There Ya go and bounce. Good. Now both legs go up at the same time and hold them up. If you're too tight.

All what you can grab lower behind the caps and that's great. Good. All right. Try to stay even on those hips and we're gonna roll back and come up and see me again. Roll right back up. Good. And come on back up. There you go. And anyhow, roll back. Takes a few to get it right on where it's not too much good. And three back your toes. Okay.

And two rolling back. No, stubbing them and up. And one more time. When you're up this time I need a little more work on posture. So hold those legs, stomach and, and without arching your lower back. Lift your sternum from your stomach there. That's good. Very good.

Bring your legs together. Hold underneath your thighs and you're going gonna leave your legs there. As you lie down, you're back rolling away from your legs. Good lie down your neck and head and legs are up at a 90 degree angle, but bend your knees in for a moment to give him a little rest. We're going to do corkscrew.

You're going to extend the legs back up and they're going to be in a [inaudible] stance. Stomach stays in as your legs. Go to the right circle as low as you can. Keep your back flat around left and pull them center. And then we reverse left around and center. Really keep your stomach and pull it in even more.

Amble him center and use those obliques. Tearoom that wasteland around center. One more step right around double and center and left reaching long and center. Good. Sit on up. Straight on up and scoot back if you need to, but put your heels right in the middle of the blocks again and we're going to do saw. So we're going to sit up tall with our arms just a little bit in front of us. Good. Hope you guys don't hit each other and we're going to twist to the right.

So everyone's going to twist this way and Xcel reach your pinky to your baby, toe your head, kisses your knee, and now roll up through your spine coming center. Twist your tiny waist and exhale, reach this pinky past that baby toe. Inhaling up and twist, sorry and twist. And this time we're really making sure that the hip stays in place too. Good. And inhaling up tall tui [inaudible] to your left.

And exhale your rib and stomach are scooping in to keep that stretch and inhaling up. And one more set. Twist to your right and exhaling down and stretch and lifting up exos. Speak for me Brooke, and twist your left and exhaling down and inhaling up and relax. Good. Bring your legs together. Flip onto your stomach. So we're going to all be on our side with our heads this way.

Place your hands right underneath your shoulders. Good. And if your back's a little tight, you can bring your hands a couple inches forward in a couple inches out to the side. But your legs want to be like a mermaid tail. They want to squeeze together and they want to laying thin away from your lower back. We're going to pull your stomach in and extent stretch your spine so long. That's like your crown of your head can touch this wall.

You're trying to lengthen so much. Keep the length in your spine as you go into a back. Then lifting up your head, your chest, and then you can start straightening your arms and hold yourself there with your stomach. Look over your right shoulder without moving the shoulders. Look down to your chest around to the left and look forward and look over your left shoulder. Circle down around to your right and look forward and now melt down. Bending the elbows come and down God. All right, one more time.

Squeezing your hips. Lengthen your legs away, stomachs and start coming up. Good and keep lifting up through here. Open those shoulders more. Look left first down around to your right. You go and forward. Watch the hyperextending elbows look right down around to your left.

Look forward and you're going to come down. Don't sink in here first. Lengthen out. There Ya go. Nice. And you're going around your back and sit on your heels. Good. And with reaching your hands away for nice back stretch.

Good. All right. Now we're going to go for single leg kicks. Are you going to go forward onto your stomach? And we're gonna put up on our elbows like a sphinx. You're going to bend your elbows. Good, but now we're going to push out the elbows to the sides and push your knuckles together. Good as if you had a big beach ball right underneath your chest.

Pull the shoulders away from your ears. Good. Push your forearms into the mat. Push your knuckles into each other so that you engage these under our muscles that we all need when we have any strapless type of thing. Good. Now lift up your head a little bit too for me, Brooke. There you go. Good stomach supports your back. Now this is all glute and hamstring work. Squeeze your legs together and lift your legs up as high as you can without taking it in your lower back. Then you're going to bend your right knee by kicking your bottom two times one, two, and then left one, two and right to try to lift that knee up as high as you can.

Imagining that you're kicking your head with your foot. Again, don't take it in your lower back, right to left to pull that foot in. Pull that left foot. One more set right to left two. All right, and you're going to rest down your legs. I want you to turn and put your left cheek on the mat and you're good and lie down. Place your hands behind your shoulders, Leeds as high up as you can and get a good stretch by lowering down those shoulders. Good. Let me see those mermaid tails. Squeezing your legs together and we're going to lift the legs up again as high as we can and now they're going to do three kicks in, bending. One, two, three and legs go down and you're going to extend the arms as you stretch up. Two, three, switch cheeks, bend the elbows and lifting. Kick one, two, three and stretch down. Left. Good and switched cheeks. I don't.

You can get those thighs up off the mat. Two, three and last time dude. Three. There we go. And steroid edge. And that's enough. Round your back and sit on your heels again for nice back stretch again. Good. I want to do one more exercise and we're going to incorporate the tower.

So flip on over onto your back and we're going to slip your feet under this strap again. This time your legs are gonna be parallel and hip with the part, not silhouette hip, but hipbone apart. Great Fool Pool. Scoot a little more towards there. Flex. Awesome. Good. Roll down your back. All right, so we're going to keep our hands by our sides for the first two. Inhale, lift your head up and look at your scooped in belly. And exhale, roll up off the Mat till you kiss your knees.

Rounding over inhouse. Sit up tall. Using your stomach to sit up. Start with the lower back, middle back, then upper back. And now look down at your belly and roll down, pushing your heels away. Good. And again in with the air. Exhale, roll it up, kissing your knees. Keep the legs hip with the part and inhale, roll up tall. Leave the head last and then roll down.

Good hand over hand behind your head in your can. Bring your elbow so that they kiss each other and you're going to inhale. Lift up your head, looking at your belly. Exhale, kiss your knees rolling up we go. Kiss those knees in. How? Roll up through the lower back, middle back. Finally the head comes up and stay tall a little bit as we go back and then melt through the lower back and roll down. Good again in with the year. Exhale, roll all the way up till you kiss your knees. Good in how?

Roll up through the backtalk and squeezing your Brahm and go back a little bit tall and then roll down. Good. Now let's see how wide you can keep your elbows as you come up. Inhale, roll up. Tried to give him as wide as you can as you've come up. Curl in all the way forward. Inhale, sit up tall. She's going to have you keep your legs hip with flex. Good and roll down, pushing your heels away from your seat. That at one more. Inhale, rolling back. I mean up, back. Exhale all the way forward.

Inhale. Sit Up tall and squeezing your seat. Roll back. Your back. Laying fitting. Very nice. All right, we're all gonna lie down on your left side, on the back edge of your mat. And I'm going to fix your springs and I am going to bring this Fox sports. So we're going to do our side leg series with springs. So lineup all the way to the back edge of your mat.

Good. And you're going to well, oh well you're to put your elbow against this back pole. There you go. And you're gonna put your hand like so. And you get to rest your head down. Voila. And you're going to bring your feet forward to that front. Yes. Good. Hold the spring for a second. Thank you.

I'm gonna put yours in the correct position, which is on this thing. The third one up. Alright. So your feet also are going to go to this box. Good. Now you're gonna bend your knee, your top leg, and put your foot inside that strap. Awesome. All right. Now you're going to straighten your leg and bring your heels together.

Good. How's that knee? Okay, good. So we want the heels together and the feet a little turned out your right arm can. I'm going to bring your shoulder a little more forward for you. There you go. Your right arm can hold onto the front edge of the Mat. And that's going to be your little safety belt there. Okay. You want to pull your ribs in? Rebecca, I'm going to have you move your tailbone until you touch my foot.

It's all the way back. About five inches. There you go. And then bring your feet. Do you want them up here on the box or you prefer I'm on. It's a little too board for you, I think. And we're gonna get, yeah, I think it messes up your angle for you. So bring your feet back with your height. This works better. Is that okay?

And bring this shoulder forward more too. All right, so we're going to lift this leg up to hip height, which is the level of the hip bone. Turn the leg out. And in pilates we don't just tighten, we also lengthen. So I want you to engage the muscles, but try to stretch my spring. I know what's happening here, my dear. You want to use the spring that's behind you, so I'll just do it this way.

Sorry. All right, so we're going to hold it there. Good up at hip level. Really turn them out and stretch that like now the legs not gonna lift higher, lower than this level. You're going to try to keep it at that plane as you kick, as forward as you can, and then take it as far back as you can and forward and back and forward. Don't lift that leg up as you go back. Keep it little lower as you go back rapping in squeezing. There you go.

And forward and back. Let's all sit. There we go. We're going to do one more now. Forward and length in that right hip for me. Rebecca. There Ya go and back, back, back. Good legs together. Now we're going to kick it up to our ear and you're not going to have tension, so you're going to kick it up as high as you can, and then you're going to pull it down by turning out that leg and wrapping and squeezing. Be using those inner thighs. Good. And up and down. Good.

And three more. Pushing it up and pull in your belly and stretch that spring as long as you can when you're going down. That's it. Love it. Gonna do one more. Okay. Damn. Let's stay down here. Sorry. Brianna's chip. Do One and turn it a little bit and nothing in your box moves your shoulders and your hips. Just that leg circles. Five little circles down here. One, two, three, four, five, reverse two, three, four, five. Nice job. Good.

We're gonna bend that knee and take that spring off. Good. Put it behind you and we're going to roll onto our other side and you get the other spring on for you guys. Feeling the right muscles on those sorta Kinda [inaudible]. The outer thigh, inner thigh. You guys were making it look really easy.

We're going to put your elbow that, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Bring your hips back a little bit. Good. All right. And we're going to put this, bend the top leg. Good. And put it on there. Nice. Hold the front of the Mat. The back one. Yes, but it's on the wrong hook. So sorry.

How was the tension with it on that Hook was fine. Okay, so the left hand now is reaching forward and we're going to lift up that top leg at hip level. Good. And just be really conscious of not using the knee because when we have the spring on it, it's very easy to do that. Still reach that left hip a little longer for me. There we go. And we're going to, I'm on this side, Brianna, you have to bring your shoulder forward so it's more underneath this one.

There you go. Good. And we're gonna kick forward and then reach back long as you go back. Stretch and forward scooping in as you go forward and hamstring and glute as you go back. Good. And forward and back. Good. And three and turn the knee up a little more to the ceiling.

Good at two oh one in the stomach and reaching long through that leg. And last one forward. Beautiful Temple. Ladies and back and now legs together. Use that outer thigh and as you push up to the ceiling and then squeeze and lengthen with the inner thighs, you come down and pushing up and squeeze. Don't forget about your upper body either push up and your upper body is pulling in and lengthening your spine out the crown of your head as you go down and up and squeeze with the glutes and your inner thighs and last time up and scoop in and lengthen that. There we go.

Stay there with a nice length and five little circles. Circle one, two, three, four, five and reverse. One, two powerhouses engaged. And Dan, nice job. Bend that knee. Go ahead and take off the strap. Good. Put this strap behind you and now go ahead and lie on your back. Good. And I'm going to set up your tower for the push teaser. Push through.

So we're doing on this one. The highest one up Harry. Oh, that was a close call. Yeah. Thank you Rebecca. All right, so we're going to pull this one down. So this is our teaser, so it wants to barely pass over your forehead. So go ahead and give it a little try. Just to start off. So Brandon, I had skipped back a little bit. Uh, maybe come forward just one more inch now. That's pretty good. Okay. And how'd you do? I didn't test it. Yeah, that's pretty good. Alright, so always want to improve our posture.

So our ribs first anchor down, of course, our waistbands glue to the mat with our stomach. But then open those collarbones, open those shoulders, start bending your elbows, trying to get the triceps down to the mat and pause triceps down. You can do it. There you go. And pause with the um, right over your shoe, your forehead. This should be somewhat of a stretch. Rebecca, open your elbows down to the mat. If you can open, open, open. There you go. Sink your ribs down even more.

That's it. And then reach behind you for a nice stretch. Good. And now bend your elbows, pulling it back. I get extra springs out of the way and keep your shoulders down. Is the arm straightened nice. And now bring your head up and look at your belly.

And we're just going to sit up, not a complete teaser. So roll up, warming up that stomach more and just knowing what it's supposed to do. Use your belly to keep lifting up even your sternum. Good. That's a beautiful position. And now roll down. You always want to lay, lengthen your legs away in the opposite position. They don't. Don't allow them to just come with you and bend your elbows and stretch back. Always trying to get a good stretch in the upper back.

So don't let your ribs flare up. Drop your ribs away from that bar. Good. And let's stay together as we bend and keep your shoulders down as you straighten that bar up, then lift up your head and look at your stomach. And we're going to lift your legs up this time as well. So roll on up. Good into your full teaser. Come on, lift those legs up, up, up, up, and we're going to lower the legs down. Up One. Just the legs down, up too. Good down, up three hold. Hold them up and roll everything down. So you're rolling through the lower back, the middle. Pause once your head's on the mat and then bend the elbows.

How's that head? There we go. And stretch back as you nice and long. Beautiful. Bend the elbows and start straightening your arms. Watch the shoulders you're working on improving those muscles. Good head looks at your feet. Lift them up to back into our teaser. We're going to go into shaving. So before you guys sat up so beautifully, get your sternum up to chest up.

Head up everything in front and now bend your elbows one. There you go. And two and three and straighten and roll down. Now I wasn't liking that alignment on your Brianna, so I'm going to pull you forward quite a bit. There you go. And now bend the elbows and straightened back. Good and bending, keeping your triceps down as low as you can for a nice stretch. Shoulders Open.

Head lifts. Looks at your legs. Everything floats up. And we're going to do a combo here. So we're going to lift up your upper body. Tried to get up their legs, only down up one arms, going to shaving down, up, legs, down, up, arms, legs, down, up. Pull it up to your nose and elbows. Good. And leave it there. Hold everything up and rolled.

Yeah. Nice job. Keep the arms up to the ceiling and, and I'm gonna hold onto it and go ahead and roll up and reach for your, there you go. Reach for your feet. Good. Slide back a few inches. Just a couple. There we go. And we're gonna. You're going to pull it down behind you for reverse. Push through. There you go. Alright, Brooke, put your hands. We're gonna start with our palms. Yes.

On top. Beautiful. Open a little wider for me, Brianna. So they're in line with your shoulders. That's it. Okay. You guys got that? Good. All right. I don't know which way is easier for me to face, but look down into your belly and you want your legs lengthening away from you. As you roll your waistband down to the Mat, imagine that you can get your waistband down. Reach those lights in the opposite, really opening those shoulders and now rolling forward using your stomach.

Bring your head to your knees and then let that bar stretch up as high as it can without hurting you and pull it down. Stomach pulls the waistband down to the mat and curling forward and allowing it to stretch. One more time. Waistband back first, Rebecca. There Ya go. And rolling forward. That's beautiful. And stretching up and coming down.

And now once it's down, we're going to switch our grip so the palm is going to be underneath. Voila. There you go. All right, head still looking at your belly and roll down your waistband as far back as you can go and then curl into yourself when your head towards your knees and opening those collarbones here. That's it. And pressing back. You make sure those legs are still working, their wrap and they're lengthening or not on a holiday when we're coming forward and stretching up in the last time. How's that stretch going? Good. We all need to always open up our shoulders and our chest. Super important and lifting up. All right, bringing it down.

I'll hold it right here. And your, it's up for you Rebecca. And you're going to turn onto your belly and you're gonna press it down. Good. And your arms should be straight and shoulder with, and the bar should be right between the Poles. So we're going to do push through on your stomach. Now legs are relaxed. Um, I should feet are relaxed. Good. Okay. And I want you to put your right facial cheek on the map. There we go.

We're going to keep our head down as long as we can. As we bend the elbows and we're going to pull in our belly to lift up our body and push that bar away into a nice back. Then push it up, up, up, and now keep your arms straight as your head dives to the mat. Die When you need to bend your elbows, switch cheeks, and push away from your strong center, trying to keep your legs together and scoop and keep your head down as long as you can. And that is your belly to lift up your body and push it up and head sinks down first and then bend your elbows when you need to. Write cheeks on the Mat. Now push away. Good again. One more set. Bending, lifting with your stomach.

Really lengthen this chest up to the ceiling and then head dives down and looking the other way and stretch. And we have one more. Start with your legs together, Brooke. And then they'll still separate. Okay. Bending and coming up. Push up with your belly, lift up, up, up. That's it. And had dives down and bend when you need to and look stretched the other way. Good. All right, now we're going to, I'll hold this bar here and you're gonna Round your back and sit on your heels.

So for you, Rebecca, of course you're going to maneuver it yourself. Good. And I'm going to hold it all the way down here when you can. Rebecca, I want you to start with it here for the Shari or push through on shoulders. So ladies, go ahead and lie on your back with your feet towards this bar. This is the good hamstring and glute worker. So we're gonna have our feet on the bar parallel and make sure it's like on the ball of your foot and your legs are straight and long.

There we go. I think I was maybe pushing it too high when earlier for you. All right, everyone good? This is my, one of my favorite exercises. Um, so and it was actually named after my aunt because she had a really bad neck and um, so she couldn't do a lot of the completely vertical where all the weights on your neck and shoulders. So He created this exercise so she could still get a good stretch with the weight being on your shoulder blades more so that, so you should never have all the weight up on your neck. You should have still like the meat of your shoulder blades still on the mat when you're doing this. So we're going to slowly bend the knees towards you. Drawing the bar towards you with your stomach, and then you're gonna let the legs lengthen and squeeze your seat and roll up your bottom. Really working that bottom good.

And we're just gonna stay there and we're gonna roll down your rib cage, your lower back, your middle. Really make sure you roll through each lower back vertebra and then bend the knees working from the stomach and push the bar away from your powerhouse. Really lengthening those hip flexors. They should be really stretching and we're going to pull it back and now we'll add a nice stretch. Try not to grip with the toes, the legs length and curl up your bottom. Good. We're going to start with the right leg, right? Like double kicks, one, two, and back down left. Double Kick. One, two, watch any hyperextending knees, right? Two and left two.

And now we're going to roll down your rib cage. Make sure it's your bottom, that squeezing, not your knees or feet and enjoy that stretch. And then bend your knees and push it away. We'll do it one more time. How are your feet doing? Okay. All right. And we're going to bend towards you. That's it. That's a good position there. Squeeze your seat like mad, lifting up. No hyperextension the knees and left goes bursts, left double kick and down, right. Kicking your shoulder of course, and left double kick and right two and then leave the legs there and really roll through the ribs.

Enjoy stretching down each vertebra God. And you're going to bend the knees and push the bar between the Poles again. And then we're going to transition you to lift your head up and look at your belly. Roll your spine up, and then grab onto the bar and put your feet against the polls. Onto the map though, Voila. We're going to keep our arms and legs straight and make it completely a powerhouse exercise. So you're going to look at your belly, roll back, your waistband, and then push that bar up to the ceiling from your stomach. Good.

Really stretch it here and scooping in your ribs and stomach and push it down. Good. And we're going to start pulling back on back from our waistband and then lifting it up to the ceiling. And we'll do one more time scooping in shoulders and ribs. Work together. Beautiful.

Stretch and rolling back and lifting that sternum up and stretch shoulder. Okay, good. All right, let's leave that bar up and I'm going to change it into um, for tower and monkey. So I'm gonna work on this so you guys can just enjoy yourself for a second. I'm going to switch it and add a safety strap. Try to have the safety strap actually more centered. So if I didn't do it, center it good.

And then you're going to spin around like Rebecca and watch your head as you lie down underneath the bar. Good. And now grab back for those two poles and I want you about six inches up off the pulse. And it's super important. Good that you can push the heel of your hand into the bar cause you want to really be able to drop your ribs when you're rolling down. Really be able to get that stretch. Okay, good. So now you're going to take your hands off those poles.

You've put them back there in a second and push up the bar so that you can put your feet up on the bar and your feet will be parallel and on the ball of your foot. Good. And now put your hands back on those pulse. Good. You can put it on the inside or outside. I think outside looks better for you. All right, so now we're going to just straighten your legs and all these little intricacies that I'm about to go through are everything in this exercise. Okay? Bring your hands up just a little higher. So we're going to start off by dropping your sake grim or your tailbone or the triangle bone and get it as flat to the mat as you can't. Straight legs.

No bendings. Just drop that. Drop it down. Can you get it down any lower? Okay, so, so that's the effort. Okay. And now keeping that down, I want you to push the bar up. So just pointing, we're going to work the ankles and flex. So keep that sacrum down. Z point and flex. Everyone's pointing, everyone's flexing. Now we're going to stay on point. And that challenges the ankle a bit. You want to make sure there's weight on the ball of every toe, not just on the baby toe, not just on the pinky toe, not on the big toe, but everything. K No rolling in or out in those ankles. Now keep it on point and your sacrum down.

And how much can you bend your knees into your chest? You're really pressing your lower back, as flat as you can, and straighten your legs. Good. And two more. So I'm going to really stroke. Keep that down. Don't let it curl up. So at the last minute it's curling up. One more time. So if I put, do you want to push me down? Awesome. That's much better. And straighten. All right, so that's my little gift to you there.

Now you're gonna squeeze like mad your bottom and we're going to roll up your bottom. Push that bar up with your seat. Good. Get your bottom all the way up over your shoulders. Keep it there and bend your knees down to your chest. Keep your bottom up and now use your bottom to push it back up to the ceiling and keep pushing that bar away from you as you roll it straight legs. As you roll down your upper back street legs and rolled in your upper back.

Push the bars away. The pulls away, rolled in one bone at a time until your tailbone touches. Bend the knees down, but don't roll at that tail bone straight and your legs. Squeeze your seat and try to use your bottom in your stomach. More than pulling on those poles to go all the way up. Use your stomach to pull your knees into your chest.

Use your hamstrings and glutes to push up that bar. Keep pushing the bar away and roll each bone away. Really create space between your spine. Stretch out. Lengthen out, dropping that tailbone. One more time. Bend your knees down, straighten your legs to keep that deal bunker. That's a good correction. Squeezers Eton roll all the way up. One bone at a time. Good. We have. Bend the knees down, straighten the legs up, pushing with the hamstrings and glutes, and then don't forget by pushing that the heels of your hands or your upper back and stretch more. Push with those hands, length each bone away.

Stretch your bottom out as far that way as you can. Nice job. Now Bend your knees and I'm going to challenge you guys to just let that bar come as low as you can, and I want you to pull yourself back. This is awkward, not nothing graceful about it, but pull yourself back and we're going to get your head and shoulders off that back edge of the mat. It doesn't even help when you don't have any. Yeah, I know. Sticky good. Maybe two more inches back. That's enough. Make your feet into a [inaudible] stance. So Brandon, you're going to go even further back, like, and bring your head up helps too. There we go. Hands on this far now. Good. That's pretty good alignment. One more inch, Brianna. Go on that way.

We want this to be like a guillotine chopping off the tailbone right there. So heels together, toes apart. Beautiful. All right. Your goal is to straighten up your legs and get your chest as much as you can on your thighs. So come on up, lift up your head to those toes and now flex the feet lifting of even taller on your spine and point and flex. Keep a polite stands for me. And point and flex. Don't shrink when you're flexing. Grow Taller and point and then bend your knees and meltdown God.

Two more. Come on up and flex. Really stretch and get as close to your legs as you can and point and flex. If I'm giving you any of those just cause you guys look, make it look easy and 0.1 more time. Getting as close as you can, as tall as you can and point and down. And we'll do it just one more time. Curling on up, getting his forward on there as you can and flex and point and flex and point and flex and point and bend and come down. Nice job. Push up the bar a little bit so you can slip your legs out. Good.

And then slide back onto the mat. So you're on the full fully on the mat again. Nice job on hook the bottom spring for me, Rebecca. Awesome. And I'm going to get rid of the safety trap while you guys sit up and we're going to go out last finale, which is kind of like the wall. It should be like the wall.

So you're gonna turn around and face the tower. Thank you. And put your feet like you did with the push through are going to be heels against the Poles. Good. There you go. Yeah. Is it too strong from up there? I think it's just about right. I've tried it both ways, but I think that feels pretty good. What do you think, Rebecca? You're gonna hold on the outside. All right, so you just get to add by pulling your head to your stomach and then rolled down your lower back, your middle back, your upper back, shoulders and head. Good. Really open your chest.

Go ahead and make sure your waistband waistbands down and you're gonna bring your head up as you inhale and exhale, roll up one bone and let the bar do the work. Just feel your stomach support your back. Good. Nice job. Two more melting down. Good. Scooping [inaudible] and inhale head and exhale. Skipping at Hen. Rounding. Nice. And one more time. Pulling back your waistband. First, squeeze your bottom.

So you're pushing your heels always away. Not sit direction. Inhale, head up. Ribs are down. And exhale, rolling up. Wash the shoulders from lifting up by your ears and stretch all the way forward as forward as you can, and then leave the bar there and you are all finished ladies. Nice job. Very good work.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Great class Monica! You have such a gentle but direct cueing approach to get exactly what you need out of each individual client!
Monica Wilson
Thanks Joanne!
I'm curious about Monica's aunt (Shari?) after whom the exercise which I know as Parakeet was named. Who named this exercise after her? Romana?
Joseph Pilates named it after her when she was very young.
Odalis M
is this mat or tower class??
1 person likes this.
Odalis ~ Thank you for your forum post. This is a Tower class, but Monica does a Mat warm up before she starts using the Tower.
Loved the mat work as a warmup...only 17mins or so followed by all my fav tower exercises. Thank you!

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