Hi, welcome to Balanced Body Podcast.
I'm Jennifer Gianni from Fusion Pilates of Asheville, North Carolina.
And today we're going to be looking at exercises for pregnancy.
This is my friend Claudia, and she's in her second trimester, and she's going to be demonstrating
these exercises.
So first, we're going to do the Hovering Knee Series, really focusing on the transverse
abdominis, so the deep seatbelt muscle.
And in pregnancy and labor, this is the abdominal that we really want to concentrate on.
We want to know the feeling of when it fires.
It's there to support the pregnant body throughout.
And then at labor, this is going to be your pushing muscle.
So the TA is the muscle that's going to be pulling into the uterus and across to help
to push the baby out.
And then probably the best thing is that after the baby's delivered, if you have a really
strong, smart, deep abdominal and core structure, this is really going to help your body bounce
back after delivery.
All right, so let's get started.
Claudia is going to go on to all fours, hands and knees, wrist right under the shoulders
and knees under the hips.
Now we want to really work on finding her neutral spine and neutral pelvis in this position.
And here, once she finds the neutral spine and neutral pelvis, she's focusing on hugging
her kittens up into her spine.
So take a deep inhale and on exhale, just pull the kittens up into the spine.
So she's tightening that seatbelt muscle.
Good, go ahead and curl your toes under.
Take another deep inhale.
Now on her next exhale, I want her to tighten the seatbelt and then float the knees up.
Hold here, inhale, elongate, and then on the next exhale, I want her to tighten that seatbelt
even more to float the knees down to the floor.
Let's try that one more time.
Curl the toes under, inhale, broadening through the collarbone and upper back.
Exhale, tighten the seatbelt, smoothly picking the knees up.
Inhale, more lengthen the spine through the breath.
Exhale, hug the baby deeper and deeper into the front of the spine to slowly decelerate
the knees down.
Sit back into child's pose, rest.
Good, and just direct the breath into the back side ribs, into the lower back, and exhale,
soften.
All right, so with that breath, what we're looking for is on the first part of the exhale
to really find that muscle action, to hug the skeleton, protect it, second to last part
of the exhale, then the movement of the knees come up, right, really smooth and fluid.
And then the coming down, your eccentric, your letting go action, really, really important
to keep that same breath quality and to deepen that seatbelt muscle even more as the knees
come down to the floor.
I sometimes like to think, and I sometimes cue my clients, that their knees are made
of glass, so they have to gently set the knees down, so really fighting against gravity.
So now let's look at another sequence where she does that same first part, then we take
a second breath and go into a down dog position, curl the toes under.
So really broadening here, take a deep inhale, on exhale, tighten the seatbelt muscle and
just float the knees a little bit up off the floor.
Hold here, inhale, on the exhale, tighten the seatbelt muscle and then allow the hips
to go up and back, pressing down into the heels.
Now soften your knees just a little bit, really press into the thumb first finger and broaden
through your upper back and collar bone, good.
Now on her inhale, I want her to shift forward, finding the floating knee position, exhale,
hug the baby into the spine and slowly, slowly lower the knees down, very good, sit back
into child's pose, great.
And again, just direct the breath into your back body, deep inhales and exhales, softening
here.
Now Claudia is in her second trimester, this next version, I rarely do this next version
with my third trimester, so with the first and second, it's good and sometimes people
will bring their knees down on this plank position that we're about to come into, so
you can always have that as an option for your first, second trimester.
So come back up onto all fours, again, she's going to do that same floating knees, so take
a deep inhale, good, exhale, she's up there, and then on her next exhale, she's going
to lengthen the legs one at a time, the legs can be together or a little bit apart.
Now she really wants to hug the kittens up into her spine, I want a little bit of bottom
gluteals, good, and then bend one knee and float it, you can walk your foot back in,
and the other foot back in, float the knees, and then on your exhale, deep in the seatbelt
muscle to slowly lower the knees down, good, rest back into child's pose.
So we're going to try that one more time, that was great, I want you to separate your
hands just a little bit more so you get a little bit more length in your chest, come
on up again, give the little bit more separation.
A lot of times, you know, regular clients, pregnant clients have a tendency to bring
their arms too close in these poses, so you want to make sure they're not doing that,
so they get enough opening in the front back of their body.
Curl your toes under, take a deep inhale, lengthen shoulders away from the ears, on
the exhale, hug the baby and slowly float the knees up, good, you can walk one leg out,
and then the other leg out, take a deep exhale, open the front of the hips, and really hug
the baby into the spine.
Good, on your next exhale, walk one foot in, bend the knee, and the other foot in, bend
the knee, open up your upper back, slowly float down, and sit back into child's pose,
round your back.
All right, so you have three different combinations that you can focus in on really queuing the
deep abdominals.
Now, you can do this whole thing without even lifting the knees off the mat, you can
just cue your client to keep hugging the kittens into the front of the spine or deepening the
seatbelt muscle, and try to just find a lightness of the kneecaps up off the floor so you don't
actually have to have them lift up, but you want them to really have that feeling of that
support beneath the belly button, that kind of flattening on the front of the pelvis.
Thanks for joining us, and we hope to see you next time.
Good work, Gladiath.
