Wall Exercises

Hi, my name is Brad Howard. And what we're going to do today is the wall, the walls and exercise that we used to do with Romana, Chris and Alsco, and many times we do it at the very end of our workout as an ending is so Tetsuo. What you're going to do is you're going to stand about one foot length anywhere between one foot width and one foot length away, but I always recommend to do about one foot length. When you're first starting, great, your back is going to be flat against the wall. You're going to lift up through the crown of the head, and so I want you to imagine there's a string attached to the crown of the head. There's two more strings that are going to be at your occipital processes. Here is the bones that are right by the ears, and then there's two more, two more strings at your temples, and you're going to hang from those five strings like a marionette puppet.

Let your body just hang from there. Then you're going to have a nice long neck. You're gonna have a nice, relaxed jaw, nice broad collarbone. Shoulders back and drop down. Arms are going to be heavy. Imagine that they're full of lead. Then from there, you're going to lift up through your sternum, but you're going to drop through your rib cage. You're going to wrap through the ribs. You're going to zipper up to the core, but make sure that the pelvis is very heavy.

Imagine there's a weight attached to your tailbone and it's just dropped down to the floor. There's two more weights that are attached to your sits bones and they're just dropped to the floor. Then from there, I want you to pull your knee caps up. I want you to lift from your sits bones nice and up. I want you to pull up through your inner thighs and then I'm going to have you pull down through your heels, press down through the first metatarsal, and then you're going to press down to the fifth metatarsal as well. So you have some opposition, something pulling upward, but also something pulling downward back, nice and flat.

But you want to honor your natural curves. So there's going to be a curve here where he's away from the wall with his cervical spine and there might even be a slight curve at his lumbar spine here. All right, maintain this position. I want you to lift your arms up, inhale and then open the arms within your peripheral vision and exhale all the way down. And again, inhale, lifting the arms up. Great, and as you open the arms, make sure the arms don't get too far back beyond your body because of the arms go too far back. The rib cage is going to splay forward all the way down. One more time. Inhale, lift the arms up and exhale.

Open the arms within your peripheral vision where you can keep the rib cage closed, reversing circle around, arms up, and then arms are going to come straight down by your sides. Exhale, and again, inhale, lifting up and XL arms are going to come straight down. One more time. Inhale, lifting up and XL pressing down. All right, you're going to peel away from the wall. You're going to drop your chin to your chest. Then you're going to start to walk down the wall, one vertebrae at a time, trying not to skip any section of the back.

So when I'm doing this peel off of the wall, I think in the rollback bar in the Cadillac where I tried to roll down one vertebrae at a time into the mat. It's the same thing here. Nice and broad. Open through the collarbone, through the back of the back. Arms are heavy, full of lead, dead weight. Then from there you're going to make small pendulum swings. Circle the arms one circle to circle three, circle four, circle five and hold their head heavy.

But pulling in and up from that rounded point, they're heavy, nice loose arms. Make them dead weight. Then you're going to reverse the circles. I always imagine that my arms are hanging so long that my fingernails are actually scraping the floor as I circled five hold there now. Nice dead arms, broad, upper back, nice heavy, relaxed head. Start to peel back up against the wall, one vertebrae at a time.

Try Not to skip one section of the back. Heavy relaxed arms. There we go and head it will be the last thing to come up. Now from here you're going to lift and you're going to open the legs to parallel hip with distance. Now try to keep your back still against the wall. Lifting up. You're going to walk feed a little bit away from the wall, maybe a little bit more because I'm gonna have these squad down and when you squat, I want to make sure that the knee never comes forward of the ankle. You're going to simultaneously squat down and lift your arms up to shoulder level as you inhale for the breathing and hold there for three, making sure that the hips don't go low. Go.

Don't go below the knees and now arms are going to come down. As you rise up, pressing your heels down, head up, sits bones up and again. Inhale, lifting the arms up as you slide down the wall and Xcel hold there two, three. Then rising up one vertebrae at a time and again, lowering down arms are going to come up. Hold their energy through the fingertips, pressing down on two tabletops, lifting up through the crown of the head. Now press the arms down as you press your heels down. Lift up through your sitz bones. Lift up through the core, exhaling all the way up. Now Start to walk your feet back into the wall and once again, you're going to be anywhere between one foot width to one foot length distance away from the wall. As you get more advanced, you're going to start to bring your feet closer into the wall. Once again, lift up the crown of the head, lift up through the hospital processes.

Lift up through the temples five string, pulling you up, letting your head hang heavy like a marionette puppet. Then from there, long neck, but relaxed jaw. Open the collarbone. Nice and broad. Shoulders back, dropped in down. Arms heavy, full of led. Think that your arms are like what? Sandbags. Then from there you're going to lift up to your sternum, but you're going to drop through your rib cage.

You're going to wrap to the ribs, close the French doors. Then from there, you're going to zipper up through the core, but you're going to keep your pelvis very dropped in long. Tailbone dropped, sits, bones dropped, but lift underneath the muscles of the sitz bones. Pull up through your knee caps, wrap to your seat. Then from there you're going to press down through the heels, press down to the first Mediterranean souls, press down through the fifth metatarsal as well, so you're distributing the weight equally on your feet. And then from there you're going to try not to shift your body right or left.

You're going to press your arms back into the wall. You're going to open the collarbone pressure, head back into the wall, press your pelvis into the wall and without shifting right or left, try to bring your right foot against the wall, but don't move right or left. So it's a lot about going narrow about getting control, trying to be as thin as possible. Then from there, try not to shift right or left. Bring the right foot down and then bring the left leg up. But just go up and down. Don't go right or left.

Then bring the foot down without transferring weight. Just think of up and down, not side to side. Move in, bringing the right foot back. Then from there, bring the right foot down and then without transferring weight, you're going to bring the left foot back so you can really feel this in your abdominals. One more time. Don't transfer weight zipper up. Bring the right foot back, hold there. I want you to press your foot against the wall. I want you to press your hands into the wall. I want you to a chest expand.

Open up the collarbone and keep wrapping through your ribs. Press your head against the wall. You're going to press so much into the wall that in one piece you're going to step away from the wall. Very good. Then from there we're going to lift up through the crown of the head. Lift up to the [inaudible] processes. Lift up to the temple.

Imagine you're hanging from five string like a marionette puppet. You're going to keep your jaw nice and relaxed. Nice, long neck, open collarbone, shoulders back, dropped heavy and down. Arms heavy, full of lead. Lifting up through your sternum by dropping through your rib cage, narrowing wrapping to the rib cage. Imagine you're getting fitted for a Tux. Then from there, zipper up your core imagining, imagining your zippering up tight jeans.

Then from their belly button back, think of your belly button going to the lowest part of your waistline like you're going to hang a picture up on a diagonal. Now wrapped through the seat. Then from there, you're going to drop your sits bones, drop your tailbone, but the muscles underneath the sits bones, you're going to pull up word. You're going to pull it up through your inner thighs. You're going to pull up to your knee caps. You're going to press down through your heels.

Press down through your first metatarsal is the bones that are are right below the big toe joint. You're going to press down through the fifth metatarsal Magine that your feet are tripods. You're going to distribute that weight equally on both tripods. Then from there, distributed the weight, right foot, left foot, lengthen. Find your length. Keep this position as you walk out of here and you are done for today.