Hey guys, what’s up? It’s Stephen Dunn with CORE Therapy and Pilates. Today for Mindful Movement Monday, we have Megan teaching a class. What you need is a foam roller, so get your foam roller out.
Tonight, we’re just going to work on the upper body, some drastic lengthening and rotation. I’m already going to go ahead and get down on our mats. We’re going to take that foam roller, we’re going to lay it across the back, and it’s going to go right about mid back.
So if you’re a woman, you’re probably going to go right along that bra line. We’re going to take our hands and we’re going to interlace our fingers and rest them up underneath supporting the neck. Take a moment and lift with your neck supported.
Let the upper body lengthen over the top of that foam roller, taking some nice deep breaths here. On your next exhale, we’re going to push the center of the shoulder blades down into that foam roller and curl up to look at our belly button.
Then as we inhale, we’re going to keep that neck supported and lengthen out over the top of that foam roller again. We’re going to do this about five times, gently exhaling.
Pressing that mid back into that foam roller as we curl up looking at the belly button again, keeping the neck supported and trying to keep the neck away from doing all of this work. You’re engaging into those lats to help bring you up. We’ll do about one more through the center.
We’re going to go ahead and lengthen over the top of that foam roller again. On the next one we are going to curl up and we’re going to look down at our left hip pocket.
So we’re going to curl up almost like you’re going to go take a look right at the side of your belly. Then we’re going to inhale, lengthen out, centered over the foam roller.
Now exhale, we’re going to curl up looking at the opposite side, trying to gently start working that spine and some different plans. We’ll do about one more on each side.
After we get finished with that, we’re going to take that foam roll and we’re going to get rid of it. So after you come up off of the foam roller, you can let it rest to the side. Then we are going to the next position.
We’re going to get into child’s pose. You can have those feet together, knees apart. We’re going to lay down and stretch open, trying to reach our fingertips down towards the end of the mat.
Once you find a nice comfortable position here, we’re going to take an inhale into the ribs. As we exhale, we’re going to try to walk those fingertips out towards the end of the mat.
A little bit more on your next inhale, nice big breath into the ribs and to the low back. Again exhaling, walking those fingers upset a little bit further on the next inhale.
Let’s take this fingertips and start walking them over to the right hand side of the mat. Now we’re getting really long on that left side body. When you get here, I want you to take a nice deep breath into that left, rip. Exhale, try to walk those fingers, hips a little bit deeper.
Taking one more inhale and exhale in this place. Again, trying to lengthen up through that body. Then we’re going to start walking the fingers, hips, reaching for the end of the mat as we go through the center.
Then we’re going to walk over to the left side of the mat, taking a nice deep breath into that right side. Rip and exhale and walking those fingers heads just slightly deeper. Good, one more inhale and exhale here.
On that exhale, find a release through the rib cage. Find the release through the low back. Then we’re going to start walking ourselves back towards the center. Again, lengthening out during this whole entire process.
When you get back to the center, nice deep breath here, inhale. Exhale. Let’s go one more fingertip out. Then we’re going to slowly roll up out of this position.
When we get up to see that we want to have that spine set nice and tall. We’re going to go on to the hands and knees now. So we’re going to be up onto quadruped head. The next thing we’re going to do is we’re going to go into thread and kneel.
Let’s start by taking that right hand. We’re going to reach underneath the left arm and you can do less if you can make it down to the right shoulder. We’re just going to rest there, finding a little bit of tape rotation, then go as far as you’re comfortable.
As you’ll see, we’ve got people in all different kinds of areas right here. Once we get there, nice and gentle, deep breaths to help release and open up through that body. One more in here, and on the next exhale, we’re going to come back to center.
Now we’re going to pick that left hand. We’re going to thread that left hand underneath, trying to reach away from the body as we go into that rotation. Using that breath, letting the exhales decompress the spine.
We’ll do one more in half, and on the exhale, we will go ahead and come up out of that. Then the next position. We’re going to do one more exercise. We are going to be down on the ground, legs extended out in front of us.
The next exercise we’re going to do applies exercise called saw. Let’s reach both hands up initially. We’re going to take an inhale. On the exhale, we’re going to take that left hand and bring it to the opposite side of the right leg. There we go.
Slight reach forward, as far as you’re comfortable, trying to get that rotation through the rib cage, keeping the pelvis stable in front of us. On your exhale, we’re going to come up through the center and lowering down on the opposite side.
Go ahead and drop those hands to either side. Take an inhale and we are done for the day. Thank you guys so much for watching. We hope you have a great week.
Call 512.215.4227 to learn more!
Ready to start your Pilates journey?
[vertical_spacing height=”10″]
[button_1 text=”Apply%20for%20a%20FREE%20Pilates%20Taster%20Session%20Here%26nbsp%3B%C2%BB” text_size=”26″ text_color=”#ffffff” text_font=”Open Sans;google” text_letter_spacing=”0″ subtext_panel=”N” text_shadow_panel=”Y” text_shadow_vertical=”1″ text_shadow_horizontal=”1″ text_shadow_color=”#333333″ text_shadow_blur=”2″ styling_width=”20″ styling_height=”15″ styling_border_color=”#000000″ styling_border_size=”0″ styling_border_radius=”6″ styling_border_opacity=”100″ styling_gradient_start_color=”#9ecb23″ drop_shadow_panel=”N” inset_shadow_panel=”N” align=”left” href=”/pilates-free-taster/”/]
[vertical_spacing height=”20″]
[blog-social]
- Snowboarding with a Toe Injury: How Physical Therapy Saved My Spring Break - March 31, 2023
- How to do Kegel Exercises Pelvic Floor Exercise for Back Pain - March 28, 2023
- Backpacks for Back Pain: Find the Perfect Fit for Your Comfort and Health - March 14, 2023
