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Hi, this is Ilaria from Pilates Anytime and today, we’ll do a sit and stand intermediate mat. We’ll really work on the lowering ourselves down on the mat and standing back up. I heard from many of you that that’s sometimes an issue and I totally understand that sometimes we have injuries that don’t allow us to do certain motions. So in that case, we need to take care of the injury first. But otherwise, there are ways we can train and get our body ready to lower ourselves down and standing up in many different ways.
So we’ll go from the simpler ones to the more advanced ones. Just follow me and if you need to stay on the previous progression, feel free to stay there until your body’s ready for the next one. So first thing we can do to make sure we allow our body to go through everything we’re supposed to do is to warm up ankles, knees and hips. If we’re not warmed up, we cannot ask then our joints to bend and stand all the way up all of a sudden. So let’s go into easy ankle circles.
Really easy. Massage it out. We need to get the joints ready. You reverse, you go the other way. And then we can switch the foot, just a few.
And then, other way. When we do the reformer, we do foot torque first, right? We get those joints ready. So also in the mat sometimes, it’s needed. And we’re gonna curl roll and circle the other way.
Perfect. Then, we put the feet closer in. We get into some knee circles. Again, we lubricate the joints, the ankles keep moving, the knees add movement. And then you reverse, you go the other way.
Nice and easy. Perfect. And now we stand up and we do some high march and we try to hit the forearms, right? Also the hips play a very important role. So we need to get also the hips ready to go.
And we go also now to the side. We pick them up. Of course, it will be higher towards the end, but we just need to get everything moving and warm. Now to get back to the ankle, I want you to do almost like a dynamic calf stretch. So we are not hanging in there, but we lengthen and then we bend.
We lengthen and then we bend. We have two different layers of calf muscle. So the soleus here, the gastrocnemius here. We just move through and we get that ankle ready for the most flexion we can get it into. And now we switch, we go the other way, long and then we go bend and extend, bend and extend.
We try to keep that heel down and to really force the angle in the biggest range of motion possible. Perfect. And now, small split squat. So one leg goes back and very easy. Also, don’t stay too narrow with the stance.
Make sure you have a good and big base of support, so balance is not an issue anymore. We need to work on the muscles now. So from here, small and up, down and up. Really halfway. Two more.
And now we switch. We go to the other side. Nice base and we go down, up, little retroversion, try lifting tall. We want a nice alignment with the side of the body. Two.
And perfect. Now let’s go back to the first side we started with and we go deeper down. So now we go down, the knee touches and up. Two and lift. Three, four, and five.
And now we switch. Over here, same thing. Down and up. Two, reach up to the ceiling. Three, four, and five.
Now stay on this side, we’re gonna add something. You go down, switch the knee and come up. This is a very simple way to go down and up, right? So we go down, knee switch, and up and again, lower, switch, lift. Any phase of this movement is an exercise, right?
So if you think about that and you keep your muscles ready to push, also these movements that are everyday movement are easier and simpler to execute. Now from here, we’ll change something. We go even lower down. We really get down to sit on the floor. And as we go through the mat, we’ll use all these options.
So from here, I go down, sit back. Now the hips are pushing me forward and I can come up. You can keep your hands here or on the hips, whatever you prefer. Knee, sit, knee and up. Knee, sit, use your hips and thighs and come up.
Down, sit back, push it forward and lift. Other side. Go down on the knee, swing your foot, sit behind your ankle. Come forward, straighten your shin and up. Down and sit.
Forward and up. Down, lift. Again, if this is too much, just go back to the previous progression, okay? We’ll lower the hips down later on if we’re not ready yet. And last one, down.
Sit, forward and up. Now we lower ourselves down for the hundred. Now we know how. Kneel, hips, all the way down, and stretch. Let’s do one breathing, you inhale and exhale.
Now inhale up with your arms, scoop, lift the legs and pump. And exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale. Find your midline, pelvic floor, hips, shoulders reaching away from the ears, vigorous pumping. Really want to bring the heart rate higher and get everything ready. We want the blood to pump from the tip of the toes to the top of the head.
Two more. Last one. Lower your legs down, reach back with the arms and we go inhale, exhale over, pull back, and open. Roll up and stretch. Pull and reach.
Two more. Up and over. And pull and lengthen. And you go over, move forward if you need a little extra room. Stretch, roll all the way back, pick up your legs and you go overhead.
You touch back with your feet, spread, roll down. And again, together, you lift. Behind your head. Shoulder width apart. Roll down, control.
And again, up. You touch, open. And now roll down, touch the legs together. Reverse, you go shoulder width, behind your head. Roll down.
Two to go. Lift, touch and roll. Last one. Lift, touch and roll down. Now keep your right leg to you and bend that knee.
I want us to stretch the hips out a little bit more because we need that range of motion to execute the up and down. So from here, keep the knee into your chest, cross it over and twist. If you want, you can also extend your leg. We’re gonna do very big circles today. Back to the spine on your back, open the knee out.
If you want to extend the leg, you limber it out a little bit. And now you bring the leg right in front of your nose, align your body, big stretch. And now from here, I want you to cross as big as you can. Feel free to lift the hip down. Around and up.
Two more. Cross, lengthen and up to the nose. Last one, circle and up. Now reverse. If it doesn’t come to you as much, don’t worry.
The moving and the doing the circle big out to the sides is more important than bringing the leg up to the nose. And one more, open, across, and good, little extra stretch. Bend it in and switch. So knee in. Cross the knee over.
Exhale. Extend the leg. We did it on the other side. Come back. Knee into your chest.
Open the knee out to the side. Lengthen it up. And then up right in front of you. Lift and now big circle. Lengthen, cross.
Down and around. And again, over and around. Last one in this direction. And up, reverse. Open across and back.
Open across and nose. Last one. And perfect. Give yourself a little stretch. Bend it in.
And now you come up to get into rolling like a ball. So three nice and simple. Make sure you have a little bit of room in front of you because then we start getting up from the dynamic action of rolling like a ball. So from here, scoop, lift up, round and you go rock back for three. Come up and balance.
And again, roll back. Come up and hold. One more like this. Roll back. Come up and hold.
Now on the next repetition, we’re going to lower the knee and come up with your hips just kneeling. So you go, prepare your leg, lift your hips. And again, switch, other leg. Prepare the other shin. Lift.
One more set. Rock and lift. The rocking helps a lot to get this motion into our body, and lift. Now there is something else I want you to try. I want us to try to come up only crossing the ankles.
And for that reason, if you have a race mat like the one I wanna have, you can go through this progression of lowering the feet down on the ground. So we get to the very edge for rolling like a ball. You scoot, you rock back, cross your feet and see if you can lift. And again, cross, switch the crossing and hover up a little bit. And again, back and hop.
And again, back and up. Perfect. Now we go back down in the middle of the mat for the abdominal series. We do four sets with a pointed foot and four with a flexed foot. So one, one, two, two, reach with a point.
And now flex, reach with a heel. Heel, lengthen, lengthen, three, four. Now both legs in, you go. Point and in. Reach and in three, four, now like foot or push with the heels.
And in. Pull the stomach in as you push. And in, reach. And in, last one. Lengthen and straight.
One, two, three, four, no hands and heels. One, two, three, four, double straight. And you go lower and up, down, up, three, four. And now flex and point. Flex, keep your shoulders up.
Three and four. Crisscross. Point, point and a flex. Reach, reach, reach and reach all the way up for spine stretch forward. Lengthen up the arms, inhale.
Head down, curl and roll up. Again, in with the air. (inhales) And go over, exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale. And roll up. Again, tall. Scoot back, grab your toes, flex the ankles and pull back.
Reach forward again. Roll all the way up. Scoot back, pick up your legs. Open leg rocker, three simple. You go.
Come up and hold. Roll back and lift. And again, back and up. Now on the next one, we’ll repeat the crossing of the leg and we lift the hips up that way. Two sets.
You go back. Go down. Push up, hold for a second. Back, other side. And you go lift, up, down.
Again, back and up. Last one. Back and up. Now let’s try the crossing without using the step. So from here, you go, you lift.
Let’s cross. Hover up with your sit and switch. And up, and switch. One more set. Lift, and up.
Last one, hover, and up. Let’s do one more rocking. Hold, lower down. Let’s go into the saw. You lift, twist and you go, reach, reach, reach.
Come up, look back. Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen. And center. In, twist. Exhale, deepen, deepen, deepen, deepen.
Come up, look back, increase. And one more. Reach. Exhale over. Lift up.
Center, inhale up. You go, reach, and lift. Now let’s swing the legs. We go on the stomach and we do our neck rolling swan. So from here, lengthen forward.
You lift, you can stay on your elbows or you can come up more. I like to stay down on my first rep. You open, you go look. Drop down, circle in the ground and center. Reverse, scoop and center.
Now, lift up. Let’s do one more here. You go look. Scoop and up. Reverse.
Now, let’s do the assisted swan first. You keep your hands here, you just dive and up. Dive, up. Dive, up. Now let go.
And lift. And lift and sit back and round right away. Now, before we continue the part on the stomach, I want you to come up and do another little bit of hip like both a kind of strengthening coordination and flexibility. From here, you lift. You grab one wrist and then you side bend and you sit down like mermaid.
And then, you have to use your hips and your core to come back up. Other side, you lift. Go down, sit. It’s a nice stretch. And then, you go and you lift.
One more set. Lengthen, little side bend, and sit. And now hips come forward. Last one, lift. Go down, sit, and up.
Now we go on the stomach again. Plank. Lower yourself down, and reach up. Single leg, kick up, kick, kick. Reach, down.
Lift, kick, kick, lengthen. One more set. And last one. And now double leg kick. Turn the head, lower down, both legs up, you go kick, two, three, open the chest.
Other side. Three, two, one, and open. And again, three, two, one. Stretch up, up, up. Last one, you go three, two, one.
Open, open, open. And sit back on your heels. Wiggle side to side a little bit. Now from here, I want you to tuck your toes and you go back and sit on your heels. Now let’s do this transition from the knees to the heels using the hands, so I help myself, I go down, I even lift the hips.
Then down, help and sit back. Hands and hips forward, hands and sit. Hands and forward. This is another nice coordination to learn to go up and down. Hands and sit.
And now one more with a help. And sit back. Let’s try not to use the hand. We go forward and up. Forward with the hips.
Sit back and squat. Knees, hips go forward. Sit and heels down. Knees, hip forward. Sit, hips down.
Let’s do one more and we add chest expansion. Sit and forward, inhale, pull. Look, look and exhale. And again, pull. Look, look.
Exhale. And now come up, and let’s stand all the way up. Now we turn around. We have to lower ourselves down for neck pull. So let’s practice what we just did so far.
Legs hip width apart, arms forward. We squat down five times and then we go all the way down onto the floor. So here you go. Down and up. Two and up.
Three, four, five. Now this time, we go, go, go, go, go all the way and we straighten the legs for neck pull. Of course, if I’m not ready for that transition, I have tons of previous transition that I can use to go down onto the mat and keep the flow. From here, hands behind the neck. Scoop, roll down, open.
Reach long with the arms. Come up and you go over, two, three and lift. Again, scoop, scoop, scoop. Release back and forward. And over, two, three.
One more time, we roll down and we do jack knife control. And now the legs come up and we go back, lift, roll down. And again, back, up. Roll down. One more.
Back, up. Hands underneath and you go split, split, split. And bicycle. We use the thighs a lot going up and down, to let get some opening and let get some stretch in the front of the thigh. Reverse.
Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen. Reach and reach. Now from here, we lower all the way down and we’re going to side kicks. Align your elbow, shoulder and hip. Also in the side kicks, what we need to keep in mind is this opening.
We want to release the thighs and the hips. So for the front and back, kick forward just a little and reach back a lot. And again, swing and reach. Swing and reach. Two more.
Front, lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, more, more, more, hip stays forward. Last one, swing, and reach back. Leg over let, we just go up and flex. Lengthen and reach. Three, four, and five.
Circle, five, four, three, two, one. Reach back with that leg, reverse. One, two, three, four, and five. Just one bicycle. So you go front, bend, go back.
Little thigh stretch here, we’ll do more later, but let’s start elongating over here. And then you lengthen and close. And now you go back, kick, thigh stretch again. And then you go, stretch that leg up a little bit. Lower it down.
On your stomach, forehead on your hands and beats. Open and close. And now we go to the other side. Elbow, shoulder and hip align. Feet forward a little bit.
Raise up the leg and you go swing and reach back. Swing and lengthen. Three, reach, reach, reach. Four, lengthen back. One more.
Kick and reach. Now up and down. Point and flex. Point and reach. Three, four, five.
Now parallel for circles. Circle one, circle two, three. Get that back part of the circle. Reverse so go back up and forward a little. Two, three, four, and five.
Now one bicycle, front, knee to knee. Go back, first little thigh stretch. Lengthen and reverse. You go back, kick your sit. Let’s stretch a little bit.
And then you go and lift. Now on our backs for the three teasers. From here, lengthen your legs and you go up, up, up, up, up, up, up. Roll down. Curl, lift.
Roll down. Come up and stay. And we drop one, two, three. Now here, unfold everything down. Open your arms and you go scoop, lift.
And again, everything unfolds, and scoop up. Let’s do one more, and then we keep the legs up and we go into the seal. Just three from here. Clap three. Back, clap.
And come up. Clap. Roll back, reach back with the feet as you clap. One more. And then back and up.
Now let’s go back to rolling like a ball and we really get to the final and last step of standing up and down, which is without crossing by going through the squat. So grab your ankles, you lift. We do three. You scoop, go back. Come up and lift your hips a little.
And again, roll back. Come up and hover, that little squat. One more. And up. Now you can repeat or you go to the single leg.
Back and hover. And again, back and lift. And again, back and lift. Switch, other side. And up.
And again, back and lift. One more. And lift. Now two legs, we come up. Feet and all the way up.
Now just for fun, we’ve been always standing up and down from a rolling action, which gives us a little momentum. Now I want us to practice a little bit of a different way of lowering yourself down and up independently from Pilates. You are in the living room, you want to get down and not think too much about the action and you’re definitely not doing a rolling like a ball, so let’s see how that can look like. We could go down kneeling, sit down, help yourself with the hands. And then we roll on the sit bones to the other side and we come up this way, and then we go back.
So hand, sit bone, hand and lift. It’s everything we’ve been doing so far just in a different combination. So you go down and lift. And lower and up. One more set.
Circle around and lift, and circle around and up. Now we can stay down on the floor because I want to finish with just a couple of nice and easy stretch for the thighs. So from here, you can grab the back foot. You can stay down here if it’s really tight or if you can, you come up for the rec fem and you try to keep the heel to the glutes as possible. Retroversion.
You hold. Maintain if you need help for balance, please go ahead and hold onto something. When we stretch, we really need to try to keep the stability and the balance in a well place, otherwise, we cannot stretch the muscles as well. Now, lower this down before we switch. Let the foot go out a little bit, go into a little retroversion so we can do a little bit of iliacus and of psoas.
So from here, you can stretch one arm or both. And think about the front splits when we do this, right, the navel is back, the hip is forward, the knee is back and we give a little stretch to the iliacus and a little bit of the front part of the psoas. Then, we release and we switch. We do everything on the other side. So same thing, grab the ankle, heel to sit.
If you can, you come up, and we hold. Get as tall as you can. Top of the head up to the ceiling. Knee full flexion. Retroversion of the pelvis.
Maintain, maintain, maintain. Then, we release this stretch. We lower the foot down, possibly outside the mat so that puts the leg in internal rotation. Ooh, retroversion, stay tall, and you go leaning forward. So here, I always like to think about the hand and the hip forward, the knee and the navel back.
Also creating like a sort of a nest. Push, push, push, push, push. Reach. And then, slowly release. And perfect.
Hope you enjoyed this mat where we are really practicing lots of different ways to get up and down and try it out, work it through. Go step by step and let me know how it goes.
