Finding Your Balance

Hi. Thank you for joining me today. My name is Stephanie Herman and I would like to help you find your balance today and a, it's going to be like a magic trick and I'm going to teach you all these little things, very simple to help you with your balance. Something that would be good for you to do every day if you want, or if not three times a week, or even if you did it once a week, even if you do it once a month, even if you didn't once a year, they'd be great. But it's really important that you understand the simplicity of how you can find your balance. And so why don't we start now. Before you do anything, this is what I want you to do.

You're going to stand on one leg, but not yet, and you're just going to lift your leg and you're just going to, not yet. You're going to see count how many seconds it takes you to stop wobbling. Then you're going to stand on your other leg and try to feel or count how many seconds it takes before you stop wobbling. Okay? You Ready? Okay, let's do it. So when you're ready, just stand on one leg and balance and count how many seconds is going to take you to stop wobbling. Okay. When you're ready, breathe and regroup. I always like to breathe when I regroup. Then let's try the other side and see how long it takes you to stop balancing. Good.

Now say out loud how many seconds it took you with right leg and how many seconds on the left. And did you find that one leg was easier than the other? So usually we have a slight change from one side to the other. So we want to strengthen the side that has difficulty, but we'll strengthen both. So the muscles that you need to help you balance is for today, the inner thigh muscle.

Now what we're going to talk about today is the sartorious. The sartorius muscle connects the insertion rate in the knee here and it comes all way up to the ILIAC spine and put your hand on the inside of your knee for the tactile feeling and just move it all the way up to where the insertion is. And do it about eight times. And as you do it, why don't you to get into feeling what does that muscle feel like? As I sort of contract it as I do it and breathe of course. So, oh and then after a while, the more you do it, the more you'll go, oh okay. I'm starting to feel that muscle now.

That muscle a very important muscle. One more time. Find that muscle now and own it. You feel the difference between one side to the other. So as you on that one side, I want you to press the big toe down and as you press the big toe down, it almost helps you find it a little bit better. Can you feel that good? So inner thigh sartorious big toe down.

You found it. Good job. Let's do the other side so we're not crooked. Okay. So place your hand here. Bring it up and start guy [inaudible] sort of feel it or you know, maybe I don't feel it as much as the other. It's all the things that you're kind of going through feeling, which is good. It's important cause you're getting in touch with yourself, your body, and the more you're in tune with your body, the more you can control it.

Breathe as you do it. And sometimes one lake might take more times doing this too. You get the feeling of your own again. Okay. Once you sorta feel like you've got it, press the big toe down and kind of go, Oh wow, yeah, I get it. Or No, I don't. I got to work on it. Which is why it's really good to do every day. Try it again.

Bring in all the way back up. Breathe, put it down and you start to feel it. Now put your hands on both and bring it up and press the big toe down on both as like, do you feel the inner thigh working good and roll up and breathe and find the inner thigh. So now you start to feel like you're standing on your leg, but there's more muscle groups are going to have to find one more time and find it now just as curiosity. Stand on one leg and see if your balance is maybe a little bit better. And then look for the sartorious inner thigh. Big Toe down and stand on the other leg.

So inch by inch we're going to build good balance. Okay, now the Gluteus Maximus, right back here. As you bow gently. Now when you bow, don't break in the waist to bow, but kind of hinge at the hips. Just a little, just a little release. Put your hands underneath your glutes as you come up. Can you feel it? Connect like it's squeezing.

Bow Down and come up and feel the muscles. So I think of it as eyes. You Open your eyes as you go down and you shut your eyes and the muscles contract. Good. You can breeze out as you drop down a little bit and breathing. But don't, don't worry about breathing.

Just please breathe that analytical bit and connect you starting to wake up the muscles of the hamstring, but a connection. Good. So hamstring bled a connection. And then put your hands on the Gluteus maximus. There's like right here, they're tight or try to tighten it. And think of your gluteus Maximus as your eyes, cause you've opened them and then you've closed them. But think you're putting your eyes cross together so you're bringing it into the center line. So just bring it into the center line.

And if that's too complicated today, don't do it. Just think of the tightening the glutes, bow a little bit. Feel the hamstring, but a connection. Connect the glutes, tighten and calm together into the center line. Good. Four more times. Hamstring that a connection. Connect glutes come together if you can.

Good drop al. If you can tighten the hamstrings as you come up better yet, feel the hamstrings tightening and then hamstring buttock, glutes, bring it together. So sometimes with the hamstring, an easy way to find your hamstring is trying to feel like your hamstring is pushing forward to bend your knee. Think about that, just it pushes forward to bend the knee. Now isometrically straighten the knee as you push the hamstring forward and you sort of feel it wakes up. Put your hand on the right hamstring and tighten it. Put your hand on the left hamstring.

Tightknit is one easier to fine? Sometimes my right, right is harder to find than the left. So mentally you've got to go hone in. Let's try to find the right by pushing the hamstring forward and the knee isometrically goes back. Okay, we're good. Let's put it together. Sartorious you feel a sartorious good hamstring. Hamstring bled a connection. Glutes. Own it. Relax. Breathe. Bow. Sartorious hamstring. Hamstring. But a connection.

Glutes come together two more times. Look for the Sartorius. Big Toe down. Hamstring. Glutes together. Good. One more time. Breathe. Sartorius. Hamstring. Hamstring but a connection. Glutes. Big Toe down. Now stand on the right leg.

Hopefully a little better. Stand on the other leg. Good. Okay, now I call this the ABS. Okay. So if I say tap your left Dab, you know you have that sensory feeling that you're tapping it, right?

Tap the other app. You have that sensory feeling. Okay. Now as you're tapping it nicely, cause sometimes we see people tap it hard. It's very, be nice to yourself to have it nicely and feel is it relax is a tight, can I relax it? Can I tighten it? Now hold the tight and now you've learned how to activate the right Ab is the internal oblique. The transverse abdominis muscles is, there's a lot of things going on in there, but okay. The pocket. I was like putting your hands in the pocket and finding the other side of the Ab tap. It first looks for it. Where is it? Relax it. Tighten it. Relax it. Okay.

As you tighten it, can you sort of feel again? One might be stronger than the other, but don't worry about it. The more you send the message there, your telemarketing like, okay, wake up there. The more you find it. Okay. Stay on the, on your right leg. Tap the right app. Can you tighten it?

Good. Relax it. Bow Down. Find the sartorious. It's like building blocks to the right app. Find the sartorious inner thigh muscles too. The right app.

Two more times and sartorious. Good. Now sartorious ab hamstring Campsie but a connection glute balance. That's good. Okay. Magic. Okay. Other side. Sartorious AB hamstring glued big toe down balance. Good.

Both legs. Sartorious, abs, hamstring, glutes. Feel your power. Breathe good. Now the waist, all these muscles around the waist, they're very important for strengthening your balance. So again, tactile. Tap the right side of your waist.

Feel it. Relax a little [inaudible] good. Find it tight. Relaxing. Find a tight, I like to do crossover. Find a tight can you feel it tight. So keep the distance from the hip to the sternum so that it compresses in a way that you can contract. Cause sometimes some people have a slight curvature of the spine or the pelvis is rotated. And what happens is one side ends up being longer than the other.

So by working with that in a compressed good way of contraction, you're actually strengthening in. Get to be stable on both sides. So let's do the other side. Tap. Relax, tight-knit. Relax it. Tight knit, relax. And again, each side will feel different. Tighten it and own it. Breathe. Okay, one more time. Relax it. Tighten it. Own it. Feel this connection. Good. Stand on your right leg. Bow Down. Let's put it together.

Sartorious hamstring bloody connection glues, right? ABS, right waist. Put your hand here. Big Toe down. Balance its belly. Good. Other side, bal. Look for the sartorious ab hamstring, hamstring, but a connection glued big toe down. Hold your waist and balance. Good. Very good. Okay.

Now another exercise that we can do to find the muscles around the waist, the internal obliques. So we're going to take a ball and we're going to lie on our side and I put the ball, not a big ball, kind of a slightly deflated ball in between the thighs. You can rotate back a little bit. This is in a relaxed way. Feel the Ab and the waist bringing your feet on top of each other. Now you can also do with your hands here. It's your choice.

Drop back and feel the ABS, the waist rotating you forward. Then the glute titans two more times. Roll back to relax. Then feel like the internal oblique is bringing it forward so the hips are parallel. Tighten the glutes to stabilize what you've just built.

One more time. Relax. Rotate. Finding your muscles. Tighten the glute. Now the top leg is going to shorten in an ilit lift up shorten to lift. So you see how this compresses as it compresses. Keep the hips parallel. Very important.

Try not to do it like that because you're gonna feel it in the back. So very, very important skill to Lyman is number one. It really is. So look for those muscles. Look for it. Four more. Three. He's feel it working two and one and relax. Now if you feel like your level two, cause you've done this every day in the one, something more, try eight first finding it like this in a shortened way for more.

Tighten the glute three. You're doing great, too. Good. And hold it there. Place your hand here and try to lift both legs. And then if you want to be here, it shortens the area so you can find it more. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Okay now before we go to the other side, let's stand up and let's find that that waist opposite hand.

Relax. Own it. Tight-Knit Sartori it's like building box, lego, ab, waist, hamstring, buddy connection. Glue big toe down. And lift. Okay, good. Let's try the other side. Take the ball. Okay. Now the feed needs to be in front, the tailbone behind in line with the arm.

So my motto is find it, feel it, own it, then move it. So I'm going back as I bring it forward and finding it, I'm feeling it, I'm owning it, and then I can move it. Okay, let's just do the find it. Feel it first. Bring it forward. Look for it. If you hear me breathing a lot, it's as a reminder for you to breathe. I used to do my ballet career and I, I never knew that I had it.

I should was supposed to breathe. So I always tell my students, it's very important to breathe. Good, keeps you relaxed, your brain works better to find these muscles. Good. Two more. And look for those muscles. Tighten the glute once you find it, and one more. Good. Now you found it. Hopefully if not tomorrow, you will own it and move it. It's compressing. Looking for those muscles right in here. Internal Oblique and your lats and good breathe out.

And four, three, two, one. Rotate. One time. Good. I like to hold onto the table and get more of a stretch and bring it back on it. And Eight, seven. Breathe out. Six. Five. Make sure your hips are up right on top of each other. Four, three, two. Okay. Level two. Level one. Keep going. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and relax. One more time. Okay, good. One, two, three. If you get the level three, four, five, six, seven, eight and come on up and let's see if you can feel it.

Breathe. Regroup. Okay. Sartorius, hamstring, glute waist, big towel. Balance kind of compresses you. Now careful. One hip might be higher. So if you have a mirror, that's great. If not, feel good. Very good. Now to wake up the inner thigh muscles, I'm going to give you another exercise. Okay. So take your ball, lie with your tailbone in the center.

So I like to rock a little bit back and forth. Breathe till I finally feel what center is. Once I feel what center is with my tailbone, my belly button needs to be in line. My nose needs to be in line. And the base of my head all is in that line. Take the ball, put it in between your inner thighs and squeeze. Squeeze.

Now try if you can to let your abs stay in your waist. You're right, I've left Abdallah. You know where they are? Give yourself a neutral spine. Be Very careful. Some people do a pelvic tilt. So let your abs take you into a neutral spine. Do not let your back take you into the neutral spine. So only let your abs go to wherever you feel.

You can own your abs in a neutral spine once your back takes over. Then using the wing muscle groups. So as you do this, you can also use a ring. I want you to ask yourself, find, did, feel it. So there's a point where you're going to go, okay, I think I feel it. When you start to feel it, then you should start counting. Don't count before. So if you're new, very, very new to this, it could take a hundred times. It could take 200 times. Don't worry about it. Um, you want to wake it up like telemarketing. Hello? Waiter thigh.

Are you there? Okay. Once you find it, do a little pelvic tilt as you own it and roll it down. Owning the inner thigh and roll a little bit more to warm up your spine and really down. Breathe and on the inner thigh. Not, don't over own it. And so your inner thigh and app. And one more time.

Now hold it to the point where you feel the ribs are lower than the belly button. The pelvis is higher, the hips are stable, and this is level to just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. And then roll it down. And again, roll it up. Check your alignment is if I had a marble, it would roll right down here. And then squeeze the glutes. Inner thighs. One, two, three, four. Roll it down. Breathe. Reel it up. Five, one, two, three, four, five. Roll a damn. Breathe.

So on and so forth. You know, and then six. But we'll stop at eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Rule a damn Bree. And again, one more time. Eight one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and [inaudible]. If you happen to get, get a cramp, please feel free to stretch it out. Of course, I know you might not be able to stretch out like this. You could stretch it out like that or you can stretch it out like this. A lot of my clients, sometimes Mike, get the cramp because there might not be warmed up enough to all of a sudden activate the hamstring, but a connection. So really take it easy when you do it.

So let's stand up and let's see if we found all these muscle groups that we're looking for. It's a wicked car. Okay, let's start with both. Sartorious, hamstring, glutes, abs alignment, square waist brief. You feel more powerful? Do you feel they're solid? Solid is rock. Good. Go again. Sartorious breathe, abs, waste alignment, hamstring, glutes coming together. Big Toe down. Good ribs. Stamm on your right leg.

Sartorious AB waist, hamstring glued on it by holding it. Square. Hips balance, big toe down. Let's just say you could do so many different things. See? Okay, look, limit that. Okay, good job. Okay. On the side. Sartorious ab hamstring glued ways square your hips, fix your hair, big toe down. Breathe Dat that that Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh, Duh. Like that. Okay, now we need the rib area, the ribs. So we're going to do an exercise for the ribs.

Place the ball right by your shoulder blade. Let your head go. Long breathe. Feel like your shoulder blades, your scapular is pushing into the ball and the elbows are slightly up. So if you ever see hammocks, the steel beam that holds the hammock is kind of up. Now don't let your head be up, but hold your 15 pound head or 12 pound head so that your neck is long so you can put your hand to the Chin and hear and feel like it's long. Careful not like that.

You want a l e long game like you have sparks coming out of your head, elongating out the shoulder blade and I want you to feel, do you feel like you're holding 12 pounds or 15 pounds? Let the neck relax. Breathe. Now the red muscles right in here are going to come together. As you rib muscles come together with the shoulders into the ball, you're going to be activating the upper rectus abdominis muscles. Breathe out an eight.

Keep reminding yourself as my head heavy is my head heavy. Is My neck long, my activating my ribs, my shoulders down. I know there's so much to think about it. Good. Now let's hold it to the high point and just contract in here. Go as you breathe out, let's try 16 two, three, four, five, six. Keep the shoulder blades in the back. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Relaxed. Breathe. Sometimes you can stretch it to relax, regroup. Feel the weight of your head. Shoulder blades poke into the ball.

Long neck. Let the ribs start to go in and it's the red, the upper rectus abdominis muscles right here that are contractings that make your head go up. It's not the head going up is like, please do not do this thing. The inception starts with the rib contraction and eight breathe down the way up. Seven, six, long neck, shoulders down. Five. Good. Four three, two, hold it up and pull 1615 look for those muscles. 1211, ten nine.

Breathe at seven six, five, four, three, two. And slowly look at your knees as your head rotates and you can slowly grab the knees to help you. Rock up sells feet together to stretch it out, Bri. Okay, let's put it together. Simple tools. Okay. Put your hands on your ribs. Breathe big into the diaphragm and just feel first what's happening to the ribs. Do they expand naturally and do they go in naturally?

So you're filling the whole cavity with oxygen and as you breathe out, you can sort of start to feel the muscles can track. But don't let the shoulders contract for it. Just isolate from here. Breathe and feel it happening. Now own it in as if you're holding a straw in between the ribs and you're just holding it. And of course you're breathing. Okay? Put your hand on your right. Waist is said tight. Breathe.

Look for the sartorious app. Glute hamstring ribs. Very good. It's getting better. Okay. Other side sartorious add. Now there could be days that are not good.

Trust me as a former principal ballerina. I've had some days performing that they weren't as good and it's okay. It's life. Okay. Ribs in, abs in ways, hamstring but a connection. Good. Find your balance. Big Toe down on it. Good job. Okay, one more thing and then we'll be for the day. Okay.

The arms, the pacs, this the serratus anterior, Serratus, the tensor fa, the the terrorist major, the terrorist mine. All these armpit muscles, I call it. So that it's simple, but there's so many muscles in here, the scapular. So a simple way for you to find it is take your peaky in fourth finger, press it into your hand as you press it in. Can you almost feel like your armpits are getting tight? You can try one and feel it. Relax tight, relax tight. Try the other side. Relax tight, relax tight.

Try both precedent and you can almost feel it. Good. Now if you screw your arm into the socket and you kind of like rotate it so the break of the elbow is facing forward, and then press the fingers in and let your fingers gently drop. You've kind of screwed your arm into the socket and you've activated the muscles. Can you feel stronger? Good. All right, let's put it all together. Sartorious inner thigh, ab waist glued, hamstring arm. Stand on the right leg. Square your hips.

Big Toe down. Balance. Breathe. Change. Sartorious AB hamstring glued waste. Alright. Hip, square, big toe down. Good. That was great. Good job.

I have another video that we're going to put all these exercises to music, so once you feel comfortable with this, you can try that. Thank you very much for joining me today. Good job.