Hi, welcome to Balanced Bodies podcast series.
My name is Melissa Cacaviz and I'm from Evolve Movement in Raleigh, North Carolina.
This is Chantel Lopez.
She's demonstrating for us today.
We are going to give you a nice challenging variation of footwork that is generally done
on the reformer that you can do at home on your mat.
So if you generally have a mat program that you do at home, this is a nice addition to
kind of kick it up a notch and give yourself an extra challenge.
So come on to your back.
Facing me, we're going to come all the way down here and bring both hands behind your
head.
Now, her hands are behind her head to support her neck, so the neck is going to stay nice
and long.
This is very much a challenge for the abdominals.
If you have any lower back issues, you're going to want to keep the legs higher to the
ceiling or possibly bring the hands underneath the pelvis.
If it feels like too much at any time, stop.
Don't push yourself through anything that feels uncomfortable, okay?
So now, from this position, we're going to bring the knees up to a tabletop position and
we're going to start with the slightly external rotation through the femurs.
The heels are connected, her feet are reaching long with a nice flex through the toes, right?
From here, inhale again, exhale, use the abdominals to curl the chin towards the chest.
So she's got a nice, strong position here, hollowing out the abdominals.
She's going to maintain this through this whole exercise.
So from here, inhale to start and exhale, extend the legs out on the diagonal that's
comfortable for you.
Inhale reach and, good, sorry, exhale, lengthen, inhale in.
She's keeping the tailbone nice and long.
She's stabilizing the pelvis with her abdominals as the legs extend a little bit slower out
and back in.
Good, exhale deep and the neck is long.
She's not compressing the front of the neck here.
She wants to hug that midline by keeping the heels squeezing together throughout the exercise.
Now come in, bring the knees together, stay here and again, exhale, extend.
So now her legs are parallel, taking away the external rotation.
Again, she's hugging that midline, activating the adductors as she extends the leg.
She wants to be very careful not to go too low here to where that she would release the
abdominals and go into her lower back.
Right, exhale, now stay here, flex the feet strongly, again, connect to the inner thigh
and exhale deep in the abdominals, back in opposition, inhale in, exhale, reach.
The scapula is sliding down the back.
She's almost giving herself a little traction through the neck as she does the exercise.
And she's getting warm about now, good, generally you would do 10 in each position, whatever's
best for you.
Now stay here, point the feet and flex the feet, deep in the belly, point the feet and
flex the feet and point the feet and flex the feet last time, point and flex, bend the
knees into the chest and release the body down and just hug your knees into your chest.
So again, very challenging abdominal series, we'll add quite a step up in your mat routine
and again this is taken from the reformer, kind of bringing the reformer to the mat.
Thanks for joining us.
