Class #2265

Introducing Side Bending

40 min - Class
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In Part 3 of Benjamin Degenhardt's progressive Mat series, the movements will start to feel like second nature. He adds on from the previous classes to introduce Side Bending and Planks. Even though the workouts are becoming more challenging, Benjamin still manages to keep a smile on your face with his playful personality!
What You'll Need: Mat

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Aug 31, 2015
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Welcome back. My name is Benjamin Degenhart. I'm here with a group of math students and we're in our third lesson of trying to decode some of the traditional plottings Maddix assizes. So again, we're going to build on everything that we've worked on so far, adding a new exercises. Um, in this lesson we'll, we'll start to introduce the idea of sight bending the spine of direction that we haven't focused on much yet, as well as more weightbearing activity into our shoulder girdle and arms, which if you think of it as really the first joints that we ever bear weight in and nobody right before we walk, we learn how to crawl on our shoulders, right? So getting some of that mobility and strength back in our shoulders will be the focus of this lesson. We'll recap everything that we've done so far. See if the body has picked up the lessons. We'll start with a standing warm up, heels together, toes apart, remembering your military stance and very active motion through the legs to find a good, strong connection into the midline of your body, which is the one that separates you into a left and right half. So just feel your heels pressing down and into one another and your inner thighs spiraling forward.

Your hip starting to become more active and the crown of your head reaching up towards the ceiling, away from your feet pressing down. Take your hands behind your head. Press your head back into your hands to give yourself traction through your neck and upper back. Feel like you're pulling your head up towards the ceiling. And take one deep breath in. Almost feel your ribs wide as much as your arms are wide. And then exhale, relax the front of your rib cage down.

Gently bring your chin over your chest and round yourself halfway down towards the ground, keeping your lower back stacked on top of your hips. With the inhale, lift yourself all the way back up, elbows wide, and exhale. Chin over. Chest Rolling back down. So this time we're not using a fist between Shin and chest, but try to have that same sensation of the back of your neck lengthening out. Inhale, lift yourself back up one more time. Exhale, rounding down and forward. So what might look on the outside like your slouching forward is actually very actively lifted by pressing the head back into the hands even as you come down.

Inhale, lift yourself all the way back up when the add a Siteman to this, you take a deep breath in on the XR bender over to your right side like you. Try to touch your right elbow towards your right knee. Take a moment. The first moment you get stuck. Pull the elbows apart. Give me one more deep breath. Open the left side of your rib cage and pull your left elbow up towards the ceiling just a little bit more as you exhale. Nice. You guys. Inhale, come back through center. We'll do the same thing again.

Try to stay as upright as possible like you, between two panes of glass XL. Route over to your left side. Keep your left heel nice and heavy as you've bend over to the side. Again, try to move through each segment of your spine a little bit. Fanning the right side rib cage open. Give me one more breath here and then with the XL if to start back up, we'll take one more each way. Inhale, lift yourself up and out of your waist.

Exhale over to the right side. If you want to intensify the stretch that you arms, reach away from one another. So now your right arm pulls down and your left arm pull straight up towards the ceiling. One extra breath open the left side of your rib cage and the next egg float back to center. Head on top of a super long spine. We'll take one more. Inhale, lift yourself up. Heels heavy XL round over to your left chicken with your ribs.

Did they arch forward? Can you NRG the ribs? Stretch your arms away from each other. Almost feel like you live holding a weight with your left hand hands. It pulls you down the same time your right hand is pulling up towards the ceiling and then lift yourself back to center. Deep Inhale. Exhale. Lift yourself up onto your toes on this one.

Let's challenge the balance of your feet holding you here and your military stance. Can You keep your heels together even as they lift? Spread all 10 toes into the ground. Did your ribcage start to arch your bottom, sticking back, your chest, sticking forward? Can you NRG your ribs and then slowly float the heels back down? We'll do that one more time. We'll just lift yourself up onto your toes.

Heels float off the ground, but only as far as you can. Keep the heels together, which means not as high as possible, as high as you can. Keep that connection slowly lower the heels back down. Let's challenged that even more on an inhale, lift yourself up and again, the direction of breath was pretty much optional. Here you start bending your knees as if you're trying to sit down on your heels without sticking your bottom back or leaning forward. Press the ground away. Come back up to standing. You get a few more chances at this, I'm not going to count it for you.

You don't have to stay with each other either. Just explore this a few more times. You sit down and you stand back up and you sit down a little deeper and you stand up a little bit taller and as always, none of this is taking your breath away. Take it down and lift it back up. I recommend looking straight out in front of you because if you look down, chances are that that is where you end up.

Take it down and that will be so sad right at the beginning of glass. Take a couple of more lower and lift and last one is your deepest one. Whatever that means for you right now, push the ground away and then slowly lower the heels back down that your arms come down by your sides and that'll conclude our standing warmup for today. Find your way to the ground. Lay down on your back with your feet towards the middle, head away from you.

Good. Excellent. Using all the techniques we've been working on so far to get down elegantly, efficiently, so that we don't waste too much energy here and we can leave it off for the actual exercises. Lie on down. Reach your arms over your head. We are going into our hundred. I want to give you some more options because we've done it so many times. You might want some more modifications for this, we charms over your head, away from your toes.

Think again that you're trying to stretch your body apart between fingertips. Intels lift your arms up and forward, but keep your legs on the ground. Bring Your Chin over your chest length now through the back of your neck. Make space for your breath and pass this time. Don't lift your legs. Just intend to lift your legs. Can you stretch your feet so far away from you?

That may be 0.5 pounds of weight lift out of the ground, but your legs don't actually come off mat. Does that use the same muscles for you even though you're not putting the mechanical strain on your spine? So that's an option for you, right there really is the legs down. Release your head, stretch your arms over your head, and we do the same thing again. Arms up and four and over your chest. Stretch forward through your fingertips and I'm just giving you these options because we're going to hold the pumps a little bit longer next time around. So again, see if you can let your feet get lighter.

Try to lift your right leg just an inch off the ground. Nice. Keep the hips evenly weighted into the floor. Keep your breath flowing. Lower the legs, lower the head, reach your arms over your head. Of course we'll do the other side too, just to see what that's like. Again, these are all options. In a perfect world we'll live both legs, up, arms up and forward. Chin over Jassen legs. Reach away from you. Back of the neck, lung, back of your low back, long left leg lifts out of your waist for three, four, two, four, one leg down, head down, arms over your head. Good.

So now you have all these options. Two legs lifting legs just intending to lift or one at a time, a hundred pounds on top of that. Arms up and forward. Chin over chest. Good luck. Lift it on up. Take a deep breath in and start pumping those arms. Breathing in and breathing. Ouch. Breathing in and breathing. Ouch. Over the count of five pumps, can you finish the inhale so that your fought over the count of five?

Can you finish your exhale so that you're empty? Good. Deep breath in and deep breath. [inaudible] if your legs start to get too heavy or spy no longer accomplishes being long against the mat, try to find a different approach to your legs. You have all these options now breathing in and breathing out. Good. And if that is no problem, can you pump your arms a little higher and a little stronger?

So I actually see your shoulders move and not just your manicure, reading it and breathing. Ouch. Let's do one more deep breath. Strongest set of ten nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Done. Ah, warmed up. Check. Come up to a seated position. Let's half roll down. Hold on behind your thighs with your feet hip distance apart. You know this one, your pros, elad, you already know whether you need your arms or not, so those are both available to you. If you use your hands, use it to lift your chest up for a second. Your feet flat on the ground for this one, and then roll yourself halfway back.

Curl the hips under. Think of hollowing out the front of you and puffing out the back of you in the second you feet start to lift. You may have gone a little too far, so just come up a little that you feet be heavy and then work on rounding out your spy. Good. Lift yourself all the way back up. You get two more of these. This is the warmup for your spine. This is your waking up of the spine. Do it again. Roll yourself down. Each segment of your spine moves a little. There's plenty of them, not just one.

Deep breath in and lift yourself all the way back up. Let's just do one more. Sit up super tall in between each one to give yourself space for your breath and roll it right back down. Pause, ed. The most challenging point, but don't hold your breath. Let your arms let go of the legs. See if you can challenge yourself to stay here on your inhale.

Can you just raise your arms up a little bit of keeping yourself in this tough spot except press the arms down. Do that twice. More deep breath in. Try Smile works better than a frown. Exit for as the arms down. One more time or so. I'm told. Inhale lifted up. Exhale, arms come down and stay rolling yourself all the way back onto your mat. Come on down with control. Roll your spine back. Once your head is down, stretch your arms over your head. Oh, thank heavens that is over. Stretch your legs out in a way from you.

Remember our roll over prep and are little circles. We're going to add a little something into that. Your arms come down by your sides close to your body, palms facing down. Push the mat away with your arms so you already feel your chest open a little bit and let your rib cage drop into the mat. First step, lift your leg straight up to the ceiling. Hold them there for a second. It's like the ceiling is resting on your toes.

Hold your hips steady and then lower the legs back down. We'll just do that one more time and test. If you could potentially take this a little further, lift your legs right back up to 90 like it's nothing. Stay without tilting your legs too close towards you. Can you unweight your hips just like a millimeter off the ground so I can slide a piece of paper under your seats.

Can you hold that without holding your breath? Lower the hips. Lower the legs. Oh, exactly. That's what I say when I do that right. You can lower your legs down, so if that's available to you, that little lift of the hips, it's going to complete each of our circles, which is going to be next. Otherwise, just move your hips down. All right, lift your leg straight up to the ceiling if you like. Add a little lift of the hips, just a tiny little bit. Open your legs. Here is why does your man circle the legs away from you? Bring them together, lift them back up. Tiny little lift of the hip. Do that again. Two more times.

Open and low. Press the legs together and lift up. Nice. One more time. This is our next step towards a full rollover lifted back up and then a reverse. Stretch the legs away from you. Open the legs, lift them back up. Maybe tiny little lift of the hip to down, around and back up. Save Your Xcel for that very last moment. This is the one down. Open.

Lift and squeeze your legs together at the top. Lower your legs all the way down. That one's over to shake your legs out for a second. One leg circles are next. This one, you know, press your arms down by your side. Lift your right leg straight up to the ceiling. Remember to flex your left foot.

The one that's on the ground. Remember that the hip is what starts the movement. Lifting him up, take the leg across three times. It's way down, around and up and two down around it. Up. One more over, down around it, up reversing. Start with small circles. Allow them to get bigger over time. Don't overwhelm your body at the first one because this will come back so many times. Right after three, change your legs right down, left up. Bottom leg is flex like you standing on it. Go across the middle.

First three down around an up and two down around it up. Think about the backs of your shoulders. Are they in steady contact with the ground. Reverse after three down, across, up to down, across it, up chicken with that bottom foot. Is that still flexed or the toaster? Pointing back towards you. After three, lower the leg all the way down and shake your legs loose. Reach your arms over your head. We transition into rolling like a ball.

This time we only come up once very slowly. Lift your arms, head, neck, shoulders. Raise your legs, bend your knees up into your chest, grab a hold at the top, find your breath, find your space in your rib cage and then have some fun with it. Know yourself to your shoulders. Lift your bottoms up. Exhale, come back to center. Do it again for more chance. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, lift yourself up. Three more. Make this feel like your half rollbacks are the same. Live the same sensation of sequential articulation. You're back a couple more. Rolling back. Lift yourself all the way up.

One more time. Rolling back. Lift yourself all the way up and stay. Stay right here at the top. Pull just the right knee in towards your chest with both hands on your Shin. Pull the leg towards your stretch, your left leg out in front of you. We're not going to roll back and forth.

You just take the lowering portion to prepare for your one leg stretch. Push your Shin into your hands so you have something to leverage yourself against and then slowly roll yourself down onto your low back. Pull the thigh into your chest. Remember our standing preparation for this. Your left leg is what's important. He is stretching out of your head and then switched to the other side.

Paul switch and Paul switch and Paul switch and Paul that you elbows go out wide. Really use the strength of your arms to cause a little bit of a deeper stretch or the hip, right. This is your squad. Later on, this is your stomach massage. Remember we talked about this last time. You got four, switch four, switch for three and three. Can you make your back longer on the mat? The part of it that's touching. Last set. Pull both knees in. Rest your head down.

Take just one breath here to reset your body. Reset your brains. Give yourself a moment to rejuvenate because then we continue. Lift your head, neck and shoulders up, nose to knees, double leg, stretch arms and legs. Reach forward. Pressing your palms into your thighs. Hollowing out the stomach on an exhale. Bend your knees in. Give yourself a triple rock for three. Remember that two and one hips down, legs out again. Do the same here. Inhale, exhale to come in.

Three and two and one. Three more times. Just that. Inherit each exhale. Come in three and two and one, four, two. Each time you rock. Can you length now that low back and give it a nice massage over your map. One more time. Inhale, reach arms or legs out x or come in three and two and one. Rock yourself up to seated, Huh? And stretch your legs.

I've long in front of you. So good you guys. This is starting to become second nature, isn't it? Not Easy. That's second nature. You don't have to think as hard anymore. So next up is our spine stretch and we're going to take that our open leg rockers. So think of your spine stretch as a preparation for it. All right, this one we've done, your fingertips are down between your legs. You use your fingers and your arms to lift your spine up.

So really press your fingers down to lift yourself up nice and tall. Almost push yourself a little bit back on your hips so that as you round your spine, you really have to draw your abdominals in. Release your head down, slide your fingers between your heels and stretch your head down right between your knees. And that would be the finished product. You go as far as you can towards that. Inhale, lift yourself back up. Exhale to round down. Remember that your breath and movement are linked in here, lifts you up because your ribcage has to lift up to give you more space for your inhale. Exhale, round down to squeeze your lungs empty.

And when they are you roll yourself back up. We'll just do one more. Keep the feet flex to really stretch to the backs of your legs into the nerve endings and your heel. You round down and down and down until there's no more down. And then you come up. Inhale, lift. All right, so the shape you just ended up in will be your open leg rocker as well. So we're going to put that shape together with rolling like a ball and then it's a new exercise, but you've really already done it. I see some fear in your eyes.

You'll be fine. You'll be fine if this work doesn't lie to you. You're prepared at this point, right? So let's see. And if not, then you can blame it on me. I'll take the blame. Stretch your arms out long in front of you. For this one, we're going to roll us out halfway down, so think half rollback with straight legs. You'll roll yourself down. It's like your belly button is trying to touch the mat behind the back of your belt. Once you feel like you're there, stay. Keep that even curve through your spine. Slide your feet in towards you.

Keep them feed light enough on the mat so you can hold on to your calves, maybe your ankles, but again, without slouching down you keep that lift through your chest. Can you stay there and extend your legs up and what's the straightest you can get them. It's not necessarily straight, just the straightest. You can get them right. Then you bend your knees back in, slide your feet out along the mat and lift yourself back up to seated. Just a little maneuver we do in between. Before we do the actual exercise. Let's try that a couple more times and you can go at your own timing here.

You Roll yourself back from head to tail. You stay the longest curve possible. You'll let your feet be light enough to slide them in towards you. You grab them and you're passing, you're rolling like a bar position, right? And then you grab your legs and stretch them out as far as you can, which second time around might be a little straighter. Just saying, bend your knees in, set your arms and legs forward and sit yourself back up. All right. If you're pretty far back on your mattress, walk yourself forward till you heels a at the front edge because you want enough real estate behind you on your mat to roll your spine back and forth for the next one. And that's especially true for me.

So it's your arms out in front of you. Roll yourself back to that same spot. Just the transition might be the exercise for you, right? So feel free to stay here if rolling like a bars and exercise that doesn't feel great for you. You get great benefit right here, right now. Make sure that you're breathing. If you are and you love rolling like a ball, roll like a ball, keep the safe. You're in rollback. Lift yourself back up. Find your balance. Try that again. Roll yourself back.

Lift yourself all the way back up. Try to keep your legs at the level of straightness that you set yourself up and try again. Rolling back, lifting up. So if they're fully bend, they're fully bend. Just keeping that way. Rolling back and lifting up. You're extending the leavers of your legs, creating a bigger curve. Try a couple more. Rolling back, lifting up if things start to shake uncontrollably. Maybe you gripping too hard somewhere. Yes. All right. Try it one more time.

Can you soften behind the knees ever so slightly? Yes. Oh, and can you then lift yourself back up, lift and hole at the top. Soften your knees back in. Slide your feet out in front of you. Stretch your arms forward and away from you. Flex your feet and then open your arms out to the side. Here's the saw at last. If you need to stagger with your neighbor, go ahead and do that again.

Try to hug your shoulder blades together. I didn't fully break that down last time, but what often happens in the size that we start twisting it and the arms take over and our spine doesn't twist as much anymore. So try to keep your shoulder blades together so that you're not stealing the twist from Europe cage. Bring Your Chin over your chest, round forward, XLE air and lift yourself back through center. Take it the other way. Twist and round down. Lift yourself back up. Nice. If you need something else to think about here, flex your feet a little stronger as you reach good.

Rounding down or lift back up, flow through three more times. Just keep holding this toll back as well. What happens if you flex your feet really strongly and push the heels out of your body is that it keeps your hips in one place so that that doesn't steal the twist from your spine either. Right? One more time. We try to use the body in such a way that there's as little room for error as possible. Once you're back to center to stay there, try to find some ease in this position. It's not easy to hold your arms out here, right?

We don't do that a lot in our everyday life. Turn your palms to face forward. Hug your shoulder blades together and just start to press your arms back as far as you possibly can. Flex your feet a little stronger and give your heart a little bit of a lift. Take a deep inhale here and XL at your heavy arm. Sink down. All right, why did I have your arms held out here?

Because next up our backbends and your arms will be here again. All right, so bring your heads to the center. Feed the opposite way. Lay down on your stomach, bring your arms out to the side with your palms facing down. So again, you might have to rearrange yourself on your mat with your neighbors. You might have your hands on someone's behind. That's justice, that's fine to make your forehead, your hairline. Touch the mat of that's available to you so that the back of your neck is nice and long. It has a little bit of that Schindler chest kind of feeling, but again, it's not a compression, right? It's a lengthening of the back of your neck.

Stretch your arms sole far away from each other. It feels like you could start hugging those shoulder blades towards the middle, not aggressively just for support and for an opening of your chest. Heels together, toes apart. Find your military stance here. If it serves you, press the hips down, stretch you feed one way your head the other, and then you arms left and ride. You stretch north, south, east, West. So much so that things start to float off the ground because there is no more forward for the head. There's no more back for the fee. There's no more left and right for your hands. Everything floats up.

Start your back. Then lift your chin away from your chest. What's the highest you can come without? Wrinkling up your lower backs. Hold it there. Keep your inner thighs hugging in towards that midline that separates you into a left and right half and then come all the way back down. Very good you guys. Let's do that again. Remember, it's not about the height, it's about the length you create first, right, so feed one way.

Had the other arms left and right, maximum wingspan, and then see where that takes you. The second you lose the length you've taken yourself too far. Find length first and then add a little bit of lift. Stretch your hard one, way your toes the other. Take a little sips of air to keep yourself afloat. God, you guys are the lower all the way back down. This is a ton of work. All the muscles in the back of your body or working at once.

It's really your hundred flipped onto the stomach. If you think of it right, your hip, stay down. Everything else lifts so much. Work in such a small outcome, right dude? One more time. Stretch your arms away from each other. Chest forward feedback. Hover off the ground. Remember the string for later. When we do our planks, you're gonna need it right? Every single muscle in the back of your body firing up, low, lower back down, and just sit yourself back on your heels.

Give yourself a quick little counter stretches to release the back. So bend your knees, feet flat or tucked under, whichever serves you best. Flat is always preferred, but if your ankles don't allow for that, you know what to do. You have an option push through your hips and almost round your spine in such a way that it feels like you're lifting your stomach away from your thighs. Excellent. And then return right back to your stomach. This time with your hands on top of one another and your head on top of your hands so you make a pillow for yourself.

I'm going to do a single leg kick a little differently from the more traditional form. We're giving our torso arrest here. See if you can let your shoulders be relaxed away from your ears so you find a nice long neck on either side. Glad your low back is super long again. By pressing your hipbones down, you make sure of that. You tail on as tractioning. One way your ribs are lifting up against the other way.

Now lift both legs two inches off the ground. Good. Did that anger your lower back, lower your legs back down. Think just like in the hundreds that you're not lifting the legs up. You stretch them out of your hips first so you reach them so far behind you that they eventually start floating up and once your knees are clear, the ground you pass, can you kick your right heel to use seed without bringing that knee down to the floor again? Kick it ones kicking twice. Stretch the leg back. Knees still miles away from the ground. Try the other side.

Kick one kick to stretch it back again. Kick one kick to reach it back. Kick one kick to reach it back. Isn't this fun? Kick one kick to reach it back. Are your hip bone starting to peel away from the ground? Well, they shouldn't try to keep them down. Kay Kay stretchered back. Here's the outcome of this. You get a good little thigh stretch here. One more time. Right and left kick, kick and left side kick.

Kick stretchered back. Good. I hear a lot of loud exhales, right? That probably meant that you're holding your breath somewhere along the way. Sit back over your heels. We're want to try it again in a second. In the proper form where your chest is lifted up against that little lift through the lower back, push through the hands of sit your hips back far, right. So we often think of this as a hamstring exercise or something that turns the backs of our legs.

Almost want you to focus on the stretch that you get through the front of your hips and thighs, which is very welcome at this point or which is what we need for those more expressive backbends that are in your near future. Come right back onto your stomach this time. Bring your elbows underneath your shoulders and then there's options for your hand positioning. You can keep your hands straight in front of you so your forms are parallel. Make sure that the pinky finger side of your fist is pressing down and then you lift your dominant wall away from the ground with your hips as close to the ground as possible. Because again, I want your legs to be ever so slightly off the mat.

Stretch them back and lift them up. If this is not available to you, you can always return to hand on hand for head on top or I try the same exact exercise here. Kick your right into your seat. One, two. So which one to switch? One, two, switch. One to try to look forward instead of down. So your chin pulls away from the chest, you find your back. Then spine again, kick right kick left, four more and three and two. Very good. Last one. Switch both feedback and then from here, turn your head to your right. Lower your left ear to the mat. Take your hands to your lower back, one on top of the other. Cross your thumbs. All right, let your elbows just sink towards the Mat.

This will become our double air kick in a second. But first see if you can widen your upper back by letting your elbows drop and perhaps your hands can wiggle up a little bit higher on your back as well. Not aggressively, but enough to give you a new stretch. Maybe new sensation, something that hasn't opened up yet. Next, I'm after your chest opening quite immensely. We're going to use the same movement, but this time with both legs, press your hips down. Lift both legs up. Kick both ear through your seat. Once, twice. Stretch your feet up and back. Stretch your hands towards your heels and lift your chest forward and up against that. Like you couldn't lift your whole body off the mat.

Turn your head the other way. Come back down and kick twice. One, two feet back, hands, back, chest lifts. Forward and up in direct opposition. Turn your head to the right kick twice. Stretch your feedback and up. Hands back and up. Lift the chest. And one more time. Are you Cassin feet cramping up there? Yeah. All right, that might happen. So try to still reach your legs back, but don't grip through the toes and kick twice. Last one. Alright.

And stretch your feedbacks, but your hands back. Lift your chest forward and up. Even if just a millimeter. Perfect. Release everything down. Sit back over your heels. Ah, very tricky little exercise, right? A lot of us get very tight in the front of our hips and very weak in the back of our hips, right? This is just the remedy. How are you doing over there? Okay, with your feet. All right, good. Roll yourself all the way up. Let's move on.

I'm going to come into a four legged position from here, so stay up on your knees. Take your hands down right underneath your shoulders. The same options apply here, so if having your feet flat and feel grateful, you can tuck your toes under. In this one when I go through a couple of cat stretches here, remember we were going to introduce some hand weight bearing exercises here, as well as some more spinal articulation. So both of those things apply here. You're on six points of contact feet, knees enhance. Start to round your spine up towards the ceiling like an angry cat.

You release your head down a drops, you release your tail down behind you and you try to just create as much scratch in your back as possible. Use Your hands to stretch your upper back open. Use your stomach to stretch your middle back open and press your feet down to stretch your lower back open. Then start to reverse that shape like a happy cat. You stick your butt back and your chest forward and up and you feel like you're pulling your heart and your seat away from each other. Here maybe you even feel like you're pulling the mat together between knees and hands. Reverse that again, round your spine the other way. Push the your hands and through your knees again.

This is a diagnostic moment. What parts of your spine move really well and which ones are getting a little sticky? Can you give them more breath and attention? Reverse the shape, seed back, chest forward. In our position, ideally your shoulders and hips stay in place. You're just moving through the spine in between those two points. Let's do it one more time round through your spine. This time so much push down through your toes in hands that your knees can lift a millimeter off the ground, so you'd go from six points of contact. Two, four.

Can you hold that position without changing the shape of your spine though, without arching your low back. Lower the knees back down. Reverse the shape of your spine once more, and we'll take our final one. Push down to your hands back. So your feet around your spine. Chin over. Chest. Huh? So much so that the knees start to hover up. Good. Keep the neck nice and long. Your head super heavy.

Lower the knees down. Reverse the shape. One final time. C back, chest forward. Are you ready for your planks? Yes. All right, good. I was worried for a second. Bring yourself into one flat line or from the of your head back into your sits bones. Make yourself super long. Take your hands right underneath your shoulders and then stick one leg out behind you. Let's make make it the right you.

Press your right leg back so you're on your foot. You push the heel back. You push the hip back. You in a one legged plank. Make yourself work already as hard as you need to to hold both legs there. Can you stretch your head forward more? Can you reorganize your shoulders in a way that they could hold you and then just add your other leg and hold that position for a second. Heels together, toes apart of that serves you your military stance.

Wide Base of support in your thighs, spiraling together. Feel your chest, pull through the arms and your neck. Get in line with your spine for three, for two for one lower, one knee down than the other to push into your angry cat around through your spine had drops. Tail drop spine lifts up. Nice round spy like you, half rollback spine. And then reverse the shape like your back bend spine, hips back, chest forward, keeping the shoulders place so that you can pull your chest right through and then round your spine again. This time lift your knees up just a millimeter off the grout. Nice. Lower the knees down so that you have his back and your chest forward for your back. Bend Spine. And then we go into our second plank. Pull your head forward, your back. Stretch your left leg back to star trek the toes under. Push your heel back at the other leg.

Second time your body has been here before. Start to get a little more fascinated with how your hands relayed to the ground. Do you see any arching underneath your fingers underneath the palm of your hand? Are you using all 10 fingers evenly? Are some fingers looking crooked? Just observed. Don't fix. Don't judge right? We don't know what's right.

Find something that's supportive and take one knee back down and the other. Push through your hands. And Sharon's to round your spine like an angry cat again. This time lift your knees up right away. Again, just a millimeter. Hold it for three. Keep rounding your spine. Two and one good.

You guys know where that needs down. Reversed the shape of your spine like a little back bend, hips back, chest forward. And here at last is our final plank. Stretch your head forward, your hips back. Take one leg back behind you, your favorite leg. It doesn't matter which, and then the other. Hold your plank. Press your heels back. Cro your hips ever so slightly under. Not to Tuck but to length, not your lower back.

And maybe pull one more wrinkle out of your shirt there. Can you pull your chest through your arms right at the same time for three, for two for one. Take one knee down than the other. And don't you just want to sit back towards your feet right about now. Why don't you go ahead and do that. So Jacob's back, feet together, knees apart as a position that I like at this point just to give you a low back, a bit more space to stretch. Ah God. Are you guys alive? All right, come on up. Come on up.

We're still not quite done yet. We're going to go into our sideburns, right? We started warming up our spine to the left and to the right a little bit. Ever since we've been working forward and back quite a bit and into rotation, we're now going to go back into site betting. I actually want you to go and face me and stand up tall on Eunice like so. Say modifications apply.

If your feet are starting to cramp uncontrollably or you don't have the mobility through your ankle to have your feet flat, you can tuck your toes under, no problem. All right, take your hands behind your head and let's all do the same direction. You stick your left leg out to the side so that your foot is flexed and the heel is in line with your opposite side need. Since your hands are behind your head, we're going to use that again to press the head back and to give herself a nice little lift. Remember how I said that most of us get short in the front of the hip and weak in the back. Go ahead and push that right hip forward towards me to stand really on top of that knee. All right, we're going to work the spine into two kinds of sight bets. The first one, we're just going to lead the tourists have to the right. Try to keep both sides of your waist parallel to each other as low as you can without that feet, that third, getting any lighter or without your collapsing into your spine, and then come back up from there. Crazy heart. Do that again.

Press your head back into your hands. Reach over to the side. So this is almost like a windshield wiper, not as slinky. All right, you'll lift yourself back up. Sides of the ways, parallel to each other. One more time. Get Taller for every inch you lean over to the side. Get Taller for every inch you come back. Now we're going to add a slinky butt to the other side.

So take your left elbow to your left knee. Pull your right elbow straight up to the ceiling and come back through center windshield wiper to the right. Lift back up, slinky to the left, a bend over and back up having fun. Yet we'll do it five more times. Lean over to the right straight spine. Come back up, slinky to the left, and we turn to center to Mort up and over and back up. Bend to the left and return. Here's your last one, checking with that right hip of yours and see if he can push it forward in case it was sitting back a little. I know it wants to right? Take your last one, bend it over to the side, come back to center and why not take a quick little stretch here.

Since our focus is on side bending here, I want you to turn this leg out so that your foot is right underneath the knee. Take your arm against the front of your leg, reach your right arm up to the ceiling. You take a little side stretch here. It's not a big one, right? You're not bending all the way over. You go up first like you're touching the ceiling. Add a little bend here to open up the right side of your rib cage.

Use this free arm here to push your knee open just a tiny little bit so you get a nice little hip opener for free here. Take a deep breath in. As you exhale, sit your hips just a tiny little bit to the ride to stretch. Open the outside of your right hip as well. And didn't give me one more deep breath and then come all the way back up and then we have to do it all again on the second side. Take that knee in. Hands behind your head. Right leg goes out to the side. This time, flex the heel in line with your left knee. This time it's your left hip arm after push it forward so your hips are level, shoulders level on top. Deep breath in four times, just the windshield wide for you. Take it over to your left, keeping the sides of your waist parallel. Exhale, lift back up. Rarely.

If you need a direction of breath, inhale on the way out and lift yourself back up and make sure that the breath doesn't get into your way. It's there to inflate you on the way out. And then exhale, empty the lungs as you lift yourself up for two and up. Try to keep your elbows as wide as possible the entire time. Lift back up. Here's your last one in isolation over to the left. Lift back up and then we add a little slinky over to the ride. Right elbow down, left elbow up, open it in half. It's out of your ribcage. Here, come back to center. Lean up and out of your waist, over to the left and back up the tig and over or right.

Things are getting incredibly series inheritance. There's a couple of more. Take it up and over to the side and lift back up or right elbow down that elbow up towards the ceiling. Stay wide across the chest. Here's your last one. Up and over. Lift back up, right elbow down, left elbow. Lift it up towards the ceiling. Come back through center and then take your knee back in. Oh, we have our stretch. Don't let me do primary of the stretch, right.

Bring your heel down right underneath your knee. Arm against it. Left arm lifts up towards the ceiling so it's B square to start again. Check in with head left tip. It probably wants to sit back right about now. Press it forward. Touch the ceiling first, right above your head. Then take a tiny little side bend to the right.

Open your hip by bringing your knee back a little bit in space. Maybe that helps you also to bring your right ribcage forward and then let you have sink a little bit towards the left just enough so you feel that stretch, pull all the way down the side of your hip. Does that feel good? That's how we make friends again, right? Tedious or legs the size come all the way back up. And I wish I could say we're down right here, but we have one more thing to do.

All right. A side plank, right? And what do we all do? All of this for, to get a little bit more support in organizing our spine in the sideway plank. All right. Um, and again, that's really the only purpose of the exercise. It's not so much about strength or mobility or showing off, right? Um, a plan is really about challenging your spine to organize itself in a different orientation in space so that out there in real life, um, hopefully your body recognizes that it has that support or you're ready to try. Yes, you are. We're going from a regular plan, one that you've already done so many times. We're going to transition from side to side. Anybody with risk problems here?

Yeah. Alright, so you might find that the wooden floor is actually a better support for your hand than the sinky mat underneath your hands. Or feel free to play around with that a little bit. It's sometimes having something to sink into. Might even put more pressure onto your risk. Play around with that, we're going to come into a plank facing each other, so heads towards the middle. Take your hands down right underneath your shoulders.

We're going to enter the plank the same way we did before. Stick your right leg back. Pull your chest through your arms, stretch your heel back and you had against it. You're already engaged. Extend your left leg back behind you as well. Find your position here. Now let's all do the same side where we're going to be ending up facing different ways. Take your right hand, your right hand underneath your chest.

Roll your feet onto the right side. Lift your left arm up towards the ceiling. Nice. Stretch your arms away from each other. Your right heel into the ground, the right heel of the hand, that is your left fingertips up to the ceiling. Hold it for a second. You're on the right side there. You can stay there a little bit longer for one more deep breath.

Come through center and now transition to the other side. Left hand down. Roll your feet onto the left side. Stretch your right arm up and away from your bottom arm. Stay wide across your chest, wide across your upper back. Stay long between your feet and your head.

Transitioned back into a regular plank. Bend one knee in and then the other. And then set yourself back on your heels for a moment of rest because we are going to do it again. Push through your hands that you have SPAC. How did that go for your wrists? A little bit. It is a little better on the wooden floor. Yeah, you wouldn't think that right?

We think of the support of the mat as something that pads us up. Okay. But if you think of it, it actually puts a bigger crease into my wrist, right? If my heel, the heel, my hand is sinking down into that support. So sometimes it just works that way. Right? And if that's true for you, um, then play with that a little bit longer, right? And see if that supports you. The choreography is clear to all of us. Yes. Let's do it one more time.

Onto hands and knees. Felice, hands under shoulders, knees under hips long through the spine, lifted through the chest and lifted in your willpower. Stretch one leg back. Then the other, this is your last one, I promise. Take the right hand down underneath the middle of your chest. Lift your left arm up to the ceiling. You can choose to put your feet on top of one another or leave them apart if you leave them apart. Actually, whichever one you take, press your legs together where they meet for three, for two for one.

Come back to center. Other side. Again, I highly recommend breathing. Stretch your other arm up. If your body chooses to hold its breath, it's telling you something, right? Press the ground away so that you are right. I'm up in a way from its open your chest. Find space through your body for three to one. Return through a regular plank. Hands under shoulders.

Stretch your feet back behind you. Last moment of strength here. Can you make yourself stay here for just one more? Full breath. Lift your hips up. Release the head down. Walk your hands back towards your feet. Ah, so be draped over your thighs. Bend your knees enough so that you are in two flat and two flat feet.

Easy through the head. Spine is hanging down. You've done all the hard work. Can you release your head truly so the back of your neck is no longer holding onto you. Good. Get a nice passive stretch there. Can you then, without losing that, straighten your legs just a tiny bit more. Just a tiny bit more. Keep your head heavy. Roll your spine back up. Keep the weight in your heels so he can pull your heart or away from your heels and find that stretch that our position, heels, heavy chest lifts. Pull your shoulders up and back, and then slide your shoulders down. Take one more deep breath here.

[inaudible] fully hardwork you guys. So Nice. Great job. Everyone.

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Comments

4 people like this.
The Gentleman at the front of the class on the right is a frequent participant in Pilatesanytime mat videos, and has great mat skills.
The Lady with the black top at the back left of our screen is a fine practitioner.
A fine example of a mixed group all working "hard".
One wonders if any of them may be Instructors.
Very skilled co-ordination at articulating and bringing all the exercises together by this very talented Instructor.

3 people like this.
This is a brilliant series.I am an instructor and am learning so much from this.
7 people like this.
I've taught Pilates for 15 years and a class with Ben Degenhardt (live or video) is a breath of fresh air! He reinvigorates the practice for so many of us! He is so present and articulate.
I love this so much! This class is so encouraging for the beginner!
1 person likes this.
This is classic! And why I joined Pilates Anytime.
1 person likes this.
Loved this! Did the standing side bends and kneeling side bends in mat class today! Thanks Benjamin!
2 people like this.
After a long day, I needed this. Thank you!
2 people like this.
Fabulous! I love Benjamin's work.
This is so motivating just before I start my teacher training at BCP next Monday!
Thanks to Pilates Anytime for this great series of progressions which I have learnt so much from!
1 person likes this.
Love this class! Thank you
2 people like this.
What wonderful instruction and guidance. Thank you. A return to basics was definitely in order for this 5 year member.
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