Improving Balance

Okay, so welcome back. I'm Adrian and this is Juliana and she's going to be demonstrating some more exercises today. Today we're going to be working more on some balance exercises as well as some leg exercises you're going to need. As you can see where the ball over here, we're going to need a ball. That's a pretty big ball, but that's what the plot is small. And then also a towel would be great too because we're going to do a little work with supporting the back of your neck. Okay, so lying on a soft surface, like applaud these mat or what we have is our tall table. I'm going to have her lie down and we're going to get right into it today.

So keeping up the energy and the flow, I'm going to get my towel. Doesn't have to be a big towel. If it's a big towel, that's okay. We can fold it and enough to support the back of your head because she's going to go into her hundreds or more. So she's going to go into a breathing exercise. So what I'll have you do is put this on the back of your head. You want to support the base of the skull and think of your neck being really long so you're not crunching the head or lifting the shoulders, but you're just loading the neck length and out to rise up.

Good. And then I'll have her lower back down. So I'll just have her warm up with a few of those ones. Again, stretch the back of your neck. Take a nice deep breath in this time as she comes up, she's going to exhale using those core or powerhouse muscles to come up and come back down. And one more good. The head should just kind of be resting in that towel and rest. Okay, so still holding that towel. She's now going to have her legs into her chest. So in what we call a tabletop position.

Now she'll take that nice deep breath in, start to rise up, hold the position and continue breathing. So she's going to take a nice inhale for four or five counts in a full exhale for five, four, three, two, one in four, five and out. Four, five, three more into five. Let your head just kind of hang in that towel more, filling up the lungs, filling up the back with air, and then exhale. Good. Getting that power house engaged, getting strong. One more time. And I want to have her lower everything back down.

She can place one foot down at a time and let go the towel. Now if you feel like you have enough strength in your neck, we're going to, I'm going to have her demonstrate the full hundreds. So this is where the arms get involved. You're going to be moving the arms up and down at the same time. Breathing with your head up and your knees in.

So let's start with your knees into your chest. Take your arms above your hips, even if it's one arm burring that arm up. And then if you can lift your head and you feel okay there, you're not feeling strain on your neck, you're going to begin moving the arm or arm up and down. Breathing in, breathing out full five counts in five and a long, five 22 let's do 54 50530254204 five Edmund, I'll have her arrest. So slowly progressing every day you'll be working on your hundreds, getting stronger in those support muscles at powerhouse to be able to hold yourself up to work to the point where you can do a full hundred of those. Okay, so now let's bring one leg in.

You've done this in the first video where you did a leg stretch. Well, this time we're going to add a circle to it. So chest is open, neck is long, and she's going to try to extend that leg up. The other leg can be bent or it can be straight a. Let's start with it bent because that gives you more support for your back. Ideally, the leg that's extended up is as long as it can go, you'll feel a stretch. You're not pushing with your arms and she's going to try circling the leg without moving the hip. Just five circles.

What she's trying to do or what we're working on is getting those hip muscles strong, getting some flexibility in the hip flexor. Three, five times, four ad re. First thing, five times. You don't want to make these too big, so don't go too far outside of your shoulders. Stay more in the shoulders. Five times four add, bend that knee and she's ready for the other side, for the left leg comes in. She'll take that leg up. Good. Stabilizing those hips, keeping that those core muscles are powerhouse engaged so you you're not wobbling around the matter. Hips are moving and she's gonna. Once again, circle five times. This helps loosen up the hip flexor muscles. Two, three, four, five and then reversing one. Try not to hold with your arms. Try to stay soft in your neck and shoulders.

Three, four, last one, and it's good way to get the lake moving. Good. All right, so here is where we're going to add the ball so I'm going to grab that still in the same position. So what I'm going to have her is actually she's going to keep both feet down and she's going to take one leg and put it on top of here. I think we have enough room here. Actually I'm going to have you move back a little just cause we're on top of a table. Don't want to lose the ball but if you're on the floor on a mat you could do that too and you'd have a little more room. So her leg is up here.

I'm going to probably move it just a little bit so her heels resting more on here. And you're going to use this leg to lift this hip so you might have to move this foot a little closer or a little bit further back forward. I think that's good. How does that feel? You want to feel comfortable where you have support that when you push this leg up that both hips lift off the mat. I want you just go a little bit off the mat to start and then slowly bring that down.

This is a great exercise to get those legs and bottom muscles working and a little bit up and to get some stability in that region. Great. And again, you can always do this on your stronger leg. You may only have one leg that's really functioning that you want to keep it strong. Okay. And no more than six to 10 I think that's about five.

Good. Now if you can go higher, go for it. Go as high as you can. Try to keep the ball is going to want to move. So that's the, that's the nice thing about this as it gets you a good sense of balance as well. Right? When you come down, don't just come down. I want you to articulate from the upper back to the middle back. So you're kind of rolling down and that's plenty. So what she'll do is switch legs.

So now she's going to start little working her way up about five little ones and then maybe three big ones. When you come down, try to keep your hips from goo swaying side to side too. That was three. Four, yes. And now go ahead and go as high as you can. Keep both hips even lower. Lower Lauer and lift. Stretch your arms. Open your chest. Lower Lauer Blur. Have you do one more? I feel your bottom working here and your thighs, but add rest. All right, let's have you bend your knees.

We'll take a break from the ball for a moment. And what we'll have you do is lie on your side for what's called clam exercises. And this particular exercise can lie on her arm or lie out law or you can even put a Palo to rest on that. So whatever's comfortable for you. But what you always want to keep in mind is that powerhouse or your alignment, your centering. So shoulders should be as close to on top of each other as possible.

And hips on top of hip. So hip and shoulders are nice and lined in one straight position. So your back is long and as flat as it can be or long rather. All right, so your knees are bed. One arm can be down on the mat for support.

If that's too much, you can do it without their arm. Just think about your range because the idea is to keep those hips right on top of each other, keeping her heels together. I'm going to have her lift her right knee yet and lower back down. That's why we call it a clam because it's opening and closing. But the idea here is to think about resistance.

So she's pushing up and then she's school using those muscles to come back down. So she's working on her inner outer thighs and her bottom muscle. And there is Tommy involved here too. So there is core strength and going on cause you feel your abdominals have to support you as you're moving. Four five. I'll have her do eight of these tomorrow. One more and then she's going to rest. Okay.

So now I'm going to have her turn to the other side just to be even. Okay. So while Marlin one more side so she'll turn off. Yeah. So same thing for now on the other side. So again, getting your hips on top of each other, shoulders on top of each other. Let me have you hop your hips backwards a little bit. So they're lined hip to shoulder.

So that framework is their shoulders on top of shoulders, hip on top of hips, and you're not too far forward of the hips are too far behind. Pulling up knees on top of a knee, heel on top of heel. She's going to take her left knee lift and squeeze to come down. Lift and squeeze to come down. Keep going. As you move, think of lifting that naval up so you're pulling your stomach up so you keep those muscles engaged in your powerhouse for five, six, very good. Two left, seven Walmart.

And so it's really nice. Rest is her hips. Didn't fall back or for well, she did that the whole time. She kept her hips, her ride on top of each other. And that's the, that's the goal. Good. So once again, lie back onto your back. I'm going to once again, the ball. This time, she's going to put both legs on top of here. So she'll do that same pelvic lift, but now both feet are up on top. So if you're doing this on top of a table, you should have somebody watching it.

But really if you're on the floor it's a little easier cause if the ball starts to move away, okay, take your time, start small and progress a little bit bigger. So you're gonna start with little curls. So she squeezes you, comes up a little bit. So she puts pressure on her feet, lift her hips and slowly brings that up back down. Good and up and lower. Very good. Okay. Now when you feel like you've warmed up enough, you're going to go as high as you can. Stretching the legs long, pushing down into these heels, stretching arms and now rolling from the upper back to the middle. Spy to the lower [inaudible] about four more high as you can.

This gets really strong muscles. Watch that your hip stay level good. Adding that strength as well as that control as well as the length and the muscle had last time up and lower, lower, lower arrest. Okay. She's going to bring the ball in to be able to take her feet off. And then what I'll have her do next is now we're going to get into the balanced part of the exercises which are going to be standing.

So let's go ahead and move to standing. Okay, so now we are over here at a wall. You want to find a place where you have something to grow up because these are balancing exercises. So when you're doing them, the idea is to safety is number one. You want to make sure that you're not going to fall because we're going to be doing some things that are going to test your balance. So what I have her in is what we call plenty stance. Heels together, toes apart, or it's often called a first position if you are ever a dancer. Okay. Heels together to the park and she wants to think of staying really tall, pulling her navel up, but also thinking of squeezing her bottom and zipping up those inner thighs and getting the shoulder weight actually more towards the hips, slightly forward.

Good. And then what I'll have her do is hold onto the wall or just at least have some sense of where that wall is for support. And we're going to start with some healed rises. So she's going to rise up onto the toes as high as she can and lower slowly back down. Exactly. Lifting and slowly lowering too careful not to fall back and stay on top of the hips.

Good. I'm just checking Siri, pushing her ribbon. Good for now. Try to hold. Yeah. And even though the walls there, just take your time. It was kinda hover next to it and then come back down. And the idea here too is to make sure that once you go up that you're not rolling the ankles, that you're really going straight up and straight down. Straight up and straight down. Now let's count to three on the app. One, two, three. Hi Ed. One, two, three, low. One, two, three, lift.

Squeeze your seat. One, two, three down. Careful not to fall back. That's it. And a good thing here too is to kind of just find a focal point in front of you and just keep your focus while you're going up and down so that you can integrate the mind to body motion. I lower addressed. Okay, so now let's stay in that position. You're going to take your still holding the wall. You're going to take, since it's your right foot that's on the outside, you're going to slide the foot forward and then slide the foot back and grow tall.

Have you just do three of those where the foot just slides forward and slides back forward. Try not to rock from side to side. That's the idea is as the foot comes back you think of lifting up. Okay, last one. Good. So now that you kind of got the feeling of where your foot is going, we want to take that foot and put it in front of the other foot and put weight on it. Good. Now you shift your weight back and move the foot behind you and back so your feet are still kind of turned out. And then shift forward and shift back.

And now let's go into a more parallel position where one foot is kind of forward and the other foot is that, but not right behind the other foot. You want to kind of keep it out to the side, kind of like a walking position. So one foot would be to this side of the other and then you're going to shift forward. Yeah, the heel can kind of lift and shift back. So it's called, we call it criss crossing forward and back. Uh, Walmart forward and back. Good.

Now let's come back to your center. So heels together, toes apart. And then once again, you'll hold the wall. You're gonna slide your foot forward. And now what I'd like you to try to do is lift that leg and hold. And the tendency here is to kind of fall backwards or to lose, to only be able to come here. So the idea is to get the leg as high as you can. And I come back down.

And then less so just holding the leg up. There is a balancing. It's also a strength in exercises. Also a stretch exercise. Good. That's it. Whole and lower. And maybe one more. So I would say maybe five to six of these and lower.

Now let's work to the side. So you go out to the side first to warm up the hit and you're letting it know what you're about to do. You kind of try to think of your hip staying straight forward so you're not twisting shoulders or straight forward. And then you're gonna take that side leg I've lifted and Lord I lift and lower and lift and lower. Lift your waist. Lower. Good. Two more. Lift. Lower. One more lift.

I bring the leg all the way back. Good. So yes, the wall is there. But try to think of the wall as just a support and not total support. So it's, it's there to catch you if you need it, but you're not using it to the whole time. You're trying to stay as soft as you can with your hand on the wall. Take your leg behind you. This one you can lean into.

Lift your back so you're still tall. You do little kicks up for 10 counts. 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two wildberry but leg back. Good. Good. Let's do, um, staying in that position. Actually, let's go more parallel. Slightly turned up but more apart with the feet. Keep your hand on the wall and then you're gonna lift your knee towards your chest and try to hold and not roll on the ankles and bring the foot back down. Let's do 10 of those lift. And as laid comes down, think of growing taller in the waist and your spine too.

Three. So eventually we're working towards getting away from the wall and standing independently. Four, I don't remember what we're on now. Seven. Yeah. Eight. Nine. Good job. One more. And she's ready to turn around for the other side. Good.

Okay. So get your position. Heels together, toes apart. Good. And she's going to start by taking the heels and lifting up, just like she did on the other side and lowering 10 times. I'm going to come over here and just kind of push on her a little bit cause she leaning back. I'd like her shoulders to be more forward over her hips too and lengthening through the waist. Three try to go as high up onto the balls of the toes as you can and have loads.

You can't have three counts up. One, two, three, up. One, two, three, down. One, two, three, up. One, two, three. Down. Two more. Lift. One, two, three, down. One, two, three. Lift. One, two, three, rest. Good. Taking that left foot, she's going to slide it forward. Slide it back, slide it forward. As she slides the foot back.

I want her to think of lifting the weights and growing taller in the back. So she's Kinda getting a sense of that feeling of balancing on her right foot right now. Add hold. Now she's going to go into a crisscross as you're going to take that run front foot, put weight on it, the back foot can lift. Shift the weight back, move the left foot back, move it forward, move it back, move it forward. That's it. So let's do that. Good. Tumar back forward, back, getting that spatial awareness forward and finishing back and finishing up the side. Very good.

So now she's going to take her left foot shift, keeping the weight on her right foot, keeping her her hip squared off. She's going to try to lift the leg at a lower the leg and lift and lower to getting balanced on that right leg. Three, four, five, six 10 times seven staying tall. Eight nine getting nice strong legs, getting nice, strong balanced sense of balance. Ready to go to the side so the leg is going to move out to the left. Now she's going to take the leg and try to lift as high as you can and bring it down and lift and lower too. And as high as you can.

Three, try to square off your hips a little bit more. Yes, that's very good correction. She fixed her hips cause that left hip wanted him fall back. Eight you go to where you can, it should get harder the more repetitions you do. And that's an now she's ready to shift to the back. So the left foot shows back. She can lean into these and she's going to do 10 10 kicks wearing off the hips.

One, two, three, four, five gets nice, strong. Bottom of six, eight, sorry, nine and 10 both feet together. Let's go a little more parallel and apart for these, she's gonna take her left foot. I lifted up, lifting her knee towards your chest at, bring the foot back down and lifting the knee and lower [inaudible] too. Just kind of hovering against the wall. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, last one and 10. Let me have her turn. So her back is against this wall. But what I like you to do is actually walk your feet a little bit away from the wall while you lean against the wall.

And let's have your feet hip width apart. Move your feet much more forward. Still kind of leaning against the wall. And I want you to let your arms kind of arise as you bend your knees just a little bit. Stop as your arms come down, you're going to come back up to straight legs. Good. And you'll do that. Two more. So she's strengthening those quadrant quadricep muscles to about five of these. Pull your ribs back into the wall. Three, four, one more. And uh, bring both heels together. Take both arms straight up as high as you can.

Now you might just have one arm working here, but that's fine. Yeah, you're gonna circle both arms out. So go ahead and do two arms. If you have the ability you use, it can go as high as you can, as low as you can, all the way down. But don't go too far outside of your peripheral. Try to keep the arms more in the peripheral view and think of lifting through the waist and then a raf in the thighs. Think of that wall and your spine being lifting up against that wall.

Go ahead and let the arms relax and I want you to place your hands against the seal of the window or the, yeah, more of the sales, the face of a window there, and then start to walk your feet backwards. But as you're doing that, think of your back. Staying as close to that wall as you can tell your heels, touch. Once your heels touch. What I like her to do is lift up onto her toes and walk even further back. So her heels touch again. Now at this point is where our backs would come way off the wall. And I want her to try to push her spine into that wall as best she can.

Yes. Good, good. Like earn chin, drop a little so you're not straining. Good. Okay. So now she's got her heel all the way back and she's lifting tall. Now what I'd like you to do is one foot is going to move forward and drop to a flat foot and step away. And then what we're going to do is move back over to a real wall so that we can do some more arm stuff to finish up. So let's head over to the wall. Okay, good. So let's have you stand to face the wall. And w this is, we call it a spider call.

And basically you're gonna take your fingers and crawl at the wall, crawl down. But the idea is to keep the arms straight when you're doing this and as you walk towards the wall, the arms are gonna start to crawl up the wall just like a spider and the toes will end up touching and she's getting some mobility in the shoulders. You may not be able to go this high depending on what your body is capable of doing. A lot of times when we have scar tissue, it's, it's hard to let those arms lift all the way up. So if you've had any breast surgery that can happen with breast cancer and then start to walk down keeping the arm straight or walk out to her fingers or tips of the fingers or just touching, she'll do that about five times. So just getting some stretch in the shoulders, arms and the waist and coming back down.

Good chest open and three more coming up and coming back. Yeah, I'm going to have her add a little bit of balance here as she goes forward. Once she's all the way up, I'm going to have a rise to her toes. Okay. And then lower to a flat foot and start to walk back.

Okay. Finishing with one more forward, you can do start rising to the toes. It's hard because you're against the wall and slowly come back down and walk back. Letting the arms lower. That's happy turnaround facing forward. Good. And let's have you open up both legs and just finish with a stretch down.

Let the arms hang, let your head hang good. Yes, and just kind of let everything relax. And then to come up, I want you to bend your knees, kind of like a squat and start to around to let to a standing position so the legs will start to straighten and to take both arms as high as you can. Inhale, don't fall backwards. Stay on top of those hips. So she's snapped back here. Now that their arms dropped down to the side.

Exhale, bring both feet back together to finish. Okay, so that concludes your lesson for today. And our next progression. The next video you're going to move on to more advanced exercises. That will become a little more challenging. So I want you to stay with this lesson.

If it's at your level and progress when you're ready to move on to the next session.