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Hi, I’m Meredith, and today we’re going to do a brisk and brief advanced class on the exo chair. So let’s get started. Standing on your feet, let your arms come so that they’re just against the size of your thighs. Feel the weight of your body over your feet. Then take your arms out to the side.
As you lift your arms overhead, allow your upper spine to go with you. So we’re gathering energy here. Reach out to the side. As the arms come down the sides of the thighs, we’re gonna take the chin to the chest. We’re just checking in here.
And by that I mean we’re all checking into our own body, articulating down towards the floor where we will pause and inhale. Exhale, push the floor away, roll through your spine coming all the way up to standing. And as you stand, take the arms out and up and overhead and out and down. And the chin drops to the chest and the spine goes down. Rounding.
Lifting up through the center of the body is a good idea here to support that downward motion of the spine. And lift back up. I always like to think of making sure my weight is even over my feet. Coming up to standing. We’re just gonna repeat that one more time.
So all the way up, opening the chest, reaching up overhead, taking the arms out wide, stretching side to side with the arms. Starting simple ’cause it’s gonna get a little bit more difficult pretty quick. And head goes down and the spine goes down. And inhale and lifting the body up. And take the arms overhead, lifting the chest and out to the side and all the way down.
Okay, so for our warmup, oh, for sitting, spring sitting I have two springs on the second hook from the bottom. Everybody likes to choose their own spring tension. So you’ll work with what suits you. But that’s where I’m gonna try to stick to today. We’re gonna sit right at the very front edge of the chair.
I know you can just see my back but you’ll see where I’m going in a second. Roll back. Lift your knees. Take your hands to your knees. Use your arms to deepen into that upper body.
Curl and reach. Legs and arms. Arms circle. Hands come to knees. And we inhale. We call this a double leg stretch and around.
And inhale, expand and contract and reach and around. Feel as the arms come back to the knees they push the air through space, they’re active. And as they come to the knees, we push down onto the knees every single time curling up into that shape. And four and around and three and around. Nice quick warmup for the abdominals too and around.
And one. And take the hands to the right knee. Stretch the left leg out straight and changed one and one. Feel the legs just pass one another by. Keep the arms actively pressing down on the knees, almost pulling out wide.
Keeping the height of the curl, the stability in the trunk. And we’ll do five, five, stability in the pelvis. Three, get nice and warm. 2, 2, 1, 1. Both knees into the chest.
Take the hands behind the head. Rotate to the left knee and to the right. The leg that’s not bent is reaching out straight. Criss cross, stay lifted up off the shoulder blade so there is no ground to rest in underneath that chair. So it encourages us.
Encourages us to keep the heights of the trunk. And four, wide elbows. Head heavy. 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1 please. Both sneeze and hands on your knees.
Press your knees into your hands. Roll up. Put your feet down. Stand on your feet. Come around to the chair.
Sit down. Sometimes if this spring’s really heavy, we’ll get sliding on the chair. So if you need to get something to sit on, you should. I think I’ll be fine. We’re starting on the heels of the feet.
Arms up in front. One hand touching the other hand or one hand on top of the other arm. And we press quickly. So the legs are pumping, the spine is lifting. I always like to think of down direction in the legs, up direction in the spine.
But mostly we’re focusing on the stability in the spine. Last two and one. Come onto your toes. This might feel a little light for some of you. You could make it heavier and lift and press.
(breaths deeply) Nice and even through the feet. Pressing the legs down, lifting the spine up and reach. Holding the spine still you can press your arms into one another. You can pull your shoulder blades down on your back. Last time.
Bring the heels together at the bottom. Knees are open. And we press from here, working into that external rotation. Keep pushing down on the pedal. As you lift your knees up feel as your knees are coming towards your body.
They’re lifting from the center of the body. We’ll do 5, 4, 3, 2, and one. Take the heels to the outside of the bar, bring the backup tall and we go wide. Press. Feel the inner thighs squeezing towards one another as we press up and down with the legs.
Your range of motion is determined by your ability to maintain that upright and consistent orientation of the spine. Lift the knees, step your feet down. Take the arms down. Stand up, turn around. Push the pedal down.
Take your hands to the front or to the far away corners I guess that would be the back corner of the chair. Orient your hands a little bit or your shoulders a little bit back of your hands. We’re gonna do some calf raises here. So we’ll take the heels down and lift from the center of the body and down. So getting a little foot mobility there and down and up and down and up.
And four, three. Keep the tuck of the pelvis. Think of pressing the pelvis forward as the heels go down. Last one. Alternate your feet one knee bends, one knee drops.
And five, stay focused on the center of your body. And four, try keep the arms where they are. And two and two and one and on. Both feet together on the chair. Shift your shoulders right over the top of your hands and drop your head.
Press your pelvis towards your face and without shifting back, lift the pedal up. Push down with your legs. Lift up through the center of your body as you lower the pedal down and lift again. Pulling in from the center of the body, dropping the head down, looking in between the thighs. And roll down and lift.
Stay nice and stable with the hands, with the shoulders over the hands rather is what I was attempting to communicate. Lifting up and down and up and down. One more time. Keep that round shape as you’re coming down, up and down, land. Step the right foot onto the chair.
Stand up bringing the arms out to the side. Think of staying really upright. Keep active through the bottom leg. We’re coming up to the top of the spring tension and back down. Stand in that back leg, coming up single leg.
Work up to the top of the spring tension for today. And down and up and down. Reaching through the arms too and down and one and down. Bring that upper thigh parallel to the ground. Lift the arms over the head and bend and straighten.
(breaths deeply) Two, one. Lower the pedal to the ground. Change sides. I always have to fuss a little bit with how I want my foot on the pedal. Come up to standing.
Press into that forward leg. Come up to the top of the spring. And down. Use that back leg. Stand over it.
Push it towards behind you. And lift and down. Keeping the arms reaching side to side and lift and down. And two, are you squeezing through the back of your back leg. Last one.
Go halfway down. Take your arms up, bend and straighten at 6, 5, 4. Keep the ankle still. Three, two, meaning don’t just push up and down with your foot. Was that one?
I think it was one. Go all the way down. Put your hands down. Turn around. Come into a small V shape with your feet.
Hands just to the outsides of your pelvis. Lift off your arms and bend. Now, know where you can stabilize your shoulders. Pick the pedal up, straighten your arms and bend. Think midback is supporting you.
Straighten and bend. The feeling of coming upright is trying to take the body away from the chair and bend and up and bend and up and bend. Place the pedal down. Stand up. Turn to your side.
The inside leg going to be in the front, the leg that you’re turning to to be more clear. The leg you’ve turned away from is behind. Lean into the outside arm away from the legs. Get close to the chair around your spine and lift the pedal. Push down with your legs.
Lift up through the center of your body. Keep your shoulders squared, lift and down. Work the down just as much as the up is what I like to remind myself. And down and… (breaths deeply) And down.
And… (breaths deeply) Take the pedal down on. Sit down, change sides. So we just swivel the feet, hands on the outside corners of the chair. Lean into the far away arm. Get close to the chair.
Round your spine. Pick the pedal up. Stay squared. So in order to stay squared, it feels like you have to have more of your weight on your back arm than your inside arm. Two and down.
Keep your head dropping down, down, down, down. As the pelvis is coming up. Three. We have two more. (breaths deeply) And last one. (breaths deeply) All the way down.
Don’t lose it on the last one. Meaning work all the time. Especially in a quick class, there’s no time to waste. No time to waste any efforting. Lift the feet off the pedal.
Come around to the back. Remove one of the springs. Lay on the chair. Hands are on the pedal. Legs are reaching long behind you.
You want your pelvis to be right at the forward edge. We’re gonna press back with the arms like we’re pushing the pedal towards the chair and we’re gonna lift the spine and down and lift the spine. Work on the way down to I think reverse, articulate. Don’t look down until you’re going that way. I mean in that orientation.
Last one. Lift up. Making a change. Go down, let the pedal come to the ground. Bend your arms, lift your legs so you’re hooking the pelvis at the front edge of the chair. Lift up as high as you can behind you.
Go down with your legs, straighten your arms. Lift your spine. Go down with your spine. Bend your arms, stabilize the shoulders as you lift up. Almost feels like you’re gonna tip over and down.
Straighten the arms one more time. Lift the spine, lower the spine. Bend your arms. Keep that pedal down as you lift your hips. Lower your hips.
Straighten your arms. Slide back. Bend your elbows. Stand up onto the floor. Standing on your feet.
Take your arms around and up, overhead, lifting up the spine. Arms out to the side and down. As we roll down to just full circle of movement. I always like to finish close to the same way that I started. Just so I can check in.
Roll up, stand up, take the arms out. Interlock your fingers. Turn the palms of the hands up, side bend. You choose whichever direction you wanna go. And stand and side bend and stand.
And take the arms again wide. And once again, bring the chin to the chest and roll down. Heavy head. Let your hands come to the ground and bend your knees. Thought it might be nice to finish a challenging workout with a little bit of nice and stretch and bend and stretch and soften the knees and lift your body coming all the way back up to standing.
And take the arms one more time out to the side and up overhead. Interlock your fingers. Come upright. Side bend. Let your pelvis go the other direction.
So now we’re moving the upper body and the lower body. Come back to center. Take the upper body over. Allow the lower body to respond by leaning in the opposite direction. Come up to standing.
Take the arms around and down and enjoy your day.
