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Hi, I’m Delia, and today we’re gonna be working with the Balanced Body EXO Chair. I have it already set up for you here, but I’m just gonna walk through it real quick so you know how to set up yours at home. I have the springs on the Cactus on 2-2, which means two springs, two up from the bottom, and then I have the Slastix in my hand, and we’ll just be using the red slastic today, so if you have them all nearby, just get rid of all of them but the red one. And this is not a split-pedal chair, so you don’t have to worry about any of that either. Let’s start standing warming up, holding Slastix in your hands, no handles, by the way, arms by your side, take a deep inhale breath.
Let’s start with an arm reach, arms towards the ceiling, opening up the front body, taking your arms towards flexion, and then bringing those arms back down. Let’s find a breath. Inhale through the nose and exhale to release. Make sure you have a little slack on your slastic rope so that way when we move on to hold a little bit of resistance there it’s not too tight on the shoulders. Let’s do this one more time.
As you reach the arms up, I’m just gonna turn side for you. As I bring the arms down, I’m just gonna put a little bit of pressure on the slastic so that I can open up my chest, and then the arms will come forward into that reach and up, and again, taking it back, opening up the chest. You don’t need much to get that shoulder blade to connect. One more time. Arms will come down. I’m just gonna pull the arms back and do a little movement with the cervical spine, and then maybe down and up into flexion, and then up towards extension, still holding that tension on the slastic, and then release.
From here, let’s do your little retraction-protraction. So the arms will come out in front. You can see there’s a little slack here. I’m gonna pull the shoulder blades together and then pull them apart. So I’m moving from retraction to protraction.
I’m gonna turn all the way around so you can see my shoulder blades, retraction, shoulder blades together, protraction. And what you wanna do is keep your arms in neutral in front of your shoulder, so they’re right out in front like you’re about to do a pushup. One more time, and then go ahead and release. Last thing here before we do a little roll-down is to lift those shoulders up and then lower those shoulders down. Up towards your ears, and then down towards your mid back, back pockets of your back.
So you wanna bring them down and away. Think about more of the shoulder blade elevating and depressing and not your shoulders lifting and then dropping. Lastly, let’s do a little roll-down, my favorite, nod the chin. Flex forward bringing the slastic down toward the floor, giving yourself a little stretch here, doing whatever you need to release a little bit of tension. We will not be on the mat today.
All of our work will be on the chair, so you wanna make sure that you’re nice and limber here. One more time, inhale breath, lifting through the arches of the feet, inner thighs fire, and then stacking yourself up one vertebra at a time. So time to sit on the chair for some footwork. I’m gonna have a seat. We are gonna be holding onto the Slastix.
My heels are gonna go on to the pedals. And how you find out, you’re figure out if you’re in the good spot seated, which usually is hard to do on the move, let’s go ahead and press the pedal all the way to the floor. We’re gonna start with our heels anyway, so the heels are on. When you go to lift the knee to its perpendicular to the hip, you should form a 90-degree angle there. So it should be comfortable, as though you’re doing a squat off the floor.
How much movement you want forward to the foot is up to you, but about a 90-degree angle is just about right. Let’s take the arms out in front. Again, you want a little bit of slack on the slastic. Arms out in front and legs pump up and down. So as you’re pressing the legs up and down, you wanna make sure that your back is nice and stable.
So unlike footwork on the Reformer where you have a nice comfortable place to rest your back, feels nice and safe, you really have to find your tall posture here. So ears over the shoulders, shoulders over the ribs, and ribs over the hips. Let’s add a little arm movement. So as the legs come down, you’re gonna bring your arms up towards the ceiling and then bring the arms forward at the shoulders. Inhale, the arms rise, the legs come down, and then you lower.
So now you’re incorporating the upper half of the body. So then blood flow happens, and your heart rate goes up just a bit. But the other thing that happens is you’re throwing yourself off balance here. So you gotta work just a teeny bit harder, pulling that pelvic floor up and release down. One more time, inhale breath, and then exhale breath here.
I’m gonna switch to the balls of the feet. One thing we didn’t discuss is the distance of the feet away from each other. That doesn’t matter to me. So you could be hip distance apart, or you can be completely abducted together, you decide. So my toes are wrapped like a perched bird.
I’m gonna find that 90-degree angle to start, but this time I’m gonna have my arms overhead. You want them in your peripheral vision and a little bit of slack. Start moving through the legs, pressing down. Let’s talk about the feet for a moment. So you don’t want your ankles completely locked out.
You want about a quarter-inch soft ankle. That’s where most ankles are the weakest, and that’s where you wanna strengthen them. So if you didn’t feel the heels on this resistance, then you’ll start to feel this now. And by the way, all resistance is a suggestion and what works for me. So if this doesn’t work for you, then go ahead and take a pause and change the resistance for yourself.
Now, from here, as the legs come down, I’m gonna bring the slastic behind my back, try to miss my bun here, and then bring it up towards the ceiling and then back. What I wanna do is not create too much of a stretch in the shoulder, but more of a lat pull movement. Inhale and exhale back. (exhales loudly) And I am bringing my arms a little bit further than what I’d prefer, but I didn’t think about the bun in my hair, so we’re just going to improvise here. One more time and then back, and then towards the front. One more position here with both feet on, we’ll go into your V, your Pilates V, just a little kiss of the heels together, not too much of an open there opening.
And your knees should be about, they’ll be about the width of your pedal, actually. You’re gonna take the slastic behind your back and place it up against a comfortable part of your spine. This is my pretend wall, so hopefully with a little bit of tension here in my arms, it’s gonna give me a really good posture. So I’m just gonna press down and then lift back up. By this time, I feel my quads burning, and mainly because I am resisting that resistance coming up, so my quads are firing.
There’s not a lot of play here with the slastic to move with it behind your back, but if you’d like, you can pull the arms out and back and work a little bit of your arm and your back muscles here. And also it’s neurological, so a little neurological work, trying to move those arms and legs at the same time. Last one, and then release. I am gonna do single leg here, but I’m gonna have to change the resistance to be able to do it. So if you don’t have to, you stay where you are.
I’m gonna take one of the springs completely off and move one spring up. So now I have 1-3 on the back of the Cactus there. Placing my heels back on, I’m gonna do single leg heels. The free leg is going to be wrapped, or this is gonna be wrapped around the free legs. I’m gonna take my right foot to the slastic, and I’m gonna hold with one hand, and I could set up here with my knee right above my ankle, just like I did when I had both legs on.
Now don’t pull too high with that leg, just a nice comfortable stretch. You can even keep your knees soft. And this is in lieu of placing that leg on a ball if you wanted or on a box. So my hand is down for support, and I’m just gonna press with one leg, lower and lift, nice and tall with the spine. Now my other arm gets a little workout, too.
I’ve got my bicep working, shoulders are back and down. The chair is a great place to check your posture, totally. Inhale, exhale, now, I’m gonna press the leg down, hold the tension, and then just do a little abduction with that hip. What that’s doing is throwing me off a bit. So I’ve got a little bit of a grip here with my palm and using it to keep my spine nice and tall.
Just two more, one more, and then release. Let’s try the other side. The right heel is on. And then I’m gonna place my foot inside, my left foot inside the strap. I’m now holding on with my left arm, and my right hand is going to be on the chair.
Press up and down one, and exhale two. So again, nice and tall with the spine, arm pressing. So now you can see a different perspective of me holding the strap. You don’t wanna put tension into the shoulders just to keep that leg up, but you’re trying to figure out your objective. My objective here is to fire through the quad and the abdominals while pressing and moving through my other leg.
And so I don’t wanna put tension into my shoulders just to be able to keep my leg up. So make sure it’s only as high as you can maintain that. Now bring your right foot down, and then little abduction to the side, inner thigh, again, holding on wherever you’d like onto the chair. I’ve now moved my arm to the outside there to give me a little bit more of assist. Two more, last one, and then release that tension.
That concludes the footwork for today on the chair. I’m going to take the slastic and just place it on the chair for now, but we’re gonna use it after the next series of exercises. So I’m gonna place the slastic on the top hooks. As you know, there’s two on the bottom, one towards the back on the bottom, and there’s two towards the front. This one goes on top, but I want it out of my way for now, so I’m gonna hook it around the back.
We’re gonna do some abdominal work and using the top of the chair as your mat. Now I understand that some of you might be taller than me, so you might have to make some adjustments. But what I’ll do is you see the back of me here, and then I get the view. So I’m gonna be putting the hands to the front of the chair, hook my fingers, and then rock back onto the surface of the mat, and my legs are up. Now, you know you’re in a good spot if you could actually hold your head and drop your shoulders back, and it feels comfortable, and so make sure that you’re in that comfortable position here.
If this doesn’t work for you, grab a mat and follow me on the floor. So shoulders back, I’m gonna open up the chest. What’s great about this is I can, hello. I can come from flexion, past neutral, I mean from extension past neutral to flexion, which is really nice. If you don’t have a lot of mobility, this gives you a little bit extra.
So just a little ab curl here. Inhale to open, exhale, nod the chin to chest, and flex up. Let’s go for three more, (exhales loudly) and two, (exhales loudly), last one, and then you’re gonna take it right up to the top, and you’re gonna pause. Let’s grab the hamstrings and then pull yourself up to a seated position here so that you know how to get out of it if you need to. But I’m gonna come back down, hands back to the front of the chair.
I’m gonna roll myself back. It also gives you a little bit of a break. Hands are behind the head. We’re gonna go into single-leg stretch. Left leg goes out, right leg goes out, left goes out.
So this looks very similar to on the mat. Three, two, one, knees come in. Rest your head and shoulders back. Take a deep inhale breath here. Go ahead and flex up.
Now, from here, extend your legs long, double-leg stretch, and then bend your knees without using your arms. But to make this a little bit more challenging, as your legs come up, lower your head and shoulders back, and then pull your knees in as your head and shoulders come up, still gain a little bit of that mobility. Now, be careful that lifting your legs doesn’t set you off the chair. So you wanna be, make sure that you’re nice and balanced here, two more. (exhales loudly) Last one, (exhales loudly) and hold. Let’s grab the hamstrings for just a moment.
Pull yourself up. Maybe use those hands as part of your hip flexor. Now, extend both legs to the ceiling, grabbing onto the right calf. Let’s stay up here. Now, what’s nice about the chair here is you could drop that hip a little lower and really get a nice stretch of the hip flexor.
Pump the right leg, pump, pump, and switch, pump, pump. So you’re not limited to the mat if you want a little extra stretch on that opposite side. Chin to chest, you’re flexed, you’re not tense. One more to each side, (exhales loudly) both knees to chest. And then rock yourself all the way up.
And then that concludes your ab series on top of the chair here. We’re gonna move on and now go back to using the slastic with the chair. So if you remember, I hooked around the back, and I have one on 3, three up from the bottom, just one red spring. We’re gonna do cat kneeling on the chair, and I’m gonna show you how it works with the slastic. So I’m just gonna unhook one, and I’m actually gonna get into it just like this.
Now, I’m shorter, and so I’ve figured out a way to make the slastic a little bit tighter on my calf. If you can see on the chair, there’s a little bit of a lip here. So when I get on the chair kneeling, I’m gonna take the slastic around the lip here, because if I don’t do that, then it’s going to be, and I’ll show you, it’s just gonna be loose and serve me no purpose. So I’m taking it around and hooking it around the back. Now, if you are familiar with working on the chair, you know that even though this is helping me stay up, it’s not 100{32c02201c4e0b91ecf15bfd3deecd875caca8b9615db42cfd45ce3d8de8d0829}, so don’t count on it.
All it is is a little bit of an assist and some awareness to that back body. I’m kneeling where I think I should be on this chair. I’m gonna reach my arms up, take a deep inhale breath, and let’s just be relaxed on the first one. Let’s just see if we can grab onto the pedal and then press the pedal down in flexion and find extension. Now, I feel pretty good here.
So what I’m gonna do is roll myself up, come back to kneeling, and then just start over and be a little bit more aware of my hips. So arms reach up. To make the cat really challenging, you wanna keep your hips over your knees as much as possible as you dive forward. If you feel a little bit like you’re tipping forward, just set your bottom back. It’ll hold you up a little bit.
You are gonna flex down as far as you can and then lift your eyes and extend the rest of the way. Exhale breath, you’re gonna roll up, release the pedal. This is the hard part, and you’ll feel a little resistance on the back of your leg to the slastic. Come all the way up and reach your arms back up towards the ceiling. Inhale to nod the chin, dive forward, exhale.
Now I’m trying to also keep my feet as relaxed as possible. You could point your toes. I just don’t want that much resistance on my legs with the slastic there. I just need it as a little bit of an awareness to my back body, exhale breath, and make me feel a little bit more secure up here, and then arms reach up. One more time before we change it up.
So exhale to flex forward, hands to the pedals. Pedals press, maintain flexion, flexion, flexion, flexion. Ah, and then extension feels so good. Roll all the way up. And I’m gonna try to keep those hips over the knees as much as possible.
You can let those shoulders come up to the ears, they could stretch up. Now we’re gonna stay down there and do some little pulses, so flex, press. From here, round your back, and right before you release the pedal where you feel like you’re working the hardest, pause, and then inhale to press back out and exhale and inhale to press. You don’t wanna stay here too long because I’ve got my head below my heart. So we’ll do three more. (exhales loudly) And two, feel that mobility in the thoracic spine.
We’ve warmed that up already with our ab series. Now on this one, I’m gonna roll myself all the way up. Work really hard here, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, and release here. A little bonus exercise at the top, turn your palms up. Let’s do a little spine twist kneeling.
To the right side, rotate as much as you can, like you’ve got two glasses of water in your hands and keep your hips forward, and then come back. Now, if you do move your feet, you will feel the slastic under you move. So it gives you a little proprioceptic feedback, back to center, and then to your right, inhale breath and exhale to the middle, one more. And we are gonna continue with some pulses, and then back. Let’s do three pulses.
Let’s go further, further, further, hold. Left, left, left, center. Take an inhale, inhale, inhale, exhale, one more, and back to center, arms come down. And now you are attached, just in case you forgot, so you’re gonna come down and pull on this so that way you’re not so tight in there. And I actually recommend unhooking for a second to bring yourself back off.
I’m gonna re-hook myself, okay? All right, we’re going into prone, and prone meaning belly work, extension work. Same thing with the slastic, however, I want it around me, and I want it on underneath that lip. And I’m gonna lay down same resistance. So when I go to lay down, you wanna make sure that this is in a pretty comfortable spot on your legs.
Now, if for any reason it doesn’t feel comfortable, it’s too tight, just unhook it and take it off and follow along. Hands are here. Now, what’s great about this is that I can really feel the back of my body, which is awesome. So let me explain that for a second. Let’s put the hearts, the heart, I have one heart, not two, the heart between the thumbs.
And then lift up to where you feel like your head is long and in line with your legs. The immediate reaction were for the legs to fire, which is great because now I feel like I’m working back body, but I’m also working front body. So I got a lot of things going on here. Pause and just do some two-arm presses, one. Elbows come to the ribs, two.
What’s great about these, I love these. I don’t love pushups, but I do like this mobility and movement of my shoulders. This is a really great place to work on that part. One more time, and then let’s just rest, completely rest, like you don’t have tension on the slastic. Upper body is resting.
Let’s take it back up to the float. So everything sort of fires here, and you pause, let’s try one arm. I’m gonna take my right arm back, keep my upper body steady and do four arm presses on the left, one, two, three, four. Bring my right hand down. Now you’ll see where my left arm was placed or my other arm was placed, and you bring it down.
One, exhale two, three, and four. Both hands on the pedals, bring the pedals to the floor and rest. We are not done. We’re gonna continue. So let’s lift back up to that long line and hold. This time I’m going to take my right hand underneath my forehead with the palm facing down.
And if this is too much resistance for you, I recommend taking it down one so it’s on the second one from the top. Let’s start by rotating the upper body. And what happens here normally is the legs start to move. That’s how you know that you’re not rotating at your ribs, you’re rotating at your hips. Let’s rotate at the ribs only.
As I’m rotating, my left arm’s gonna naturally push towards the floor. So you create this push-pull effect, and then come back to center. We’re gonna do four of these. Inhale to rotate, exhale to the middle, or you can exhale (exhales loudly), and center. One more (exhales loudly), back to center.
Hand down if you don’t need to rest. Let’s just switch, left hand underneath the forehead. Same thing, rotate and then back. And you wanna feel like that left shoulder blade is gliding to the center of your back as the right shoulder blade moves away. So you’ve got this nice push-pull effect.
And the chair is very interesting with resistance. Too much, it’s hard to do the exercise. It no longer helps you. Not enough, it makes the exercise way harder. Place your hands on and then lower, so that if you’re not on the same resistance as me, it’s totally fine.
It doesn’t mean anything. It could mean that we’re just a different length or a different weight at the top of our bodies. So you wanna make sure that you adjust to that. So let’s flex forward and give yourself a little rest, head towards the floor. I’m gonna end here with a little swan.
So lift your eyes, start to lift all the way up, and come to your extension, your swan, and then lower yourself back down to the floor completely. Now, as I was coming up, I was getting that instinctive swan movement with my legs, but I’ve got the resistance there only so far as I can go. But it really helps fire the thigh towards the glute, and then lower back and do it again. Inhale as you lift up, and exhale as you flex down. Let’s try that one more time.
Inhale to lift up, really feel that back body, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. And flex all the way back down. Here’s a safe way to dismount. One arm back, slide yourself back so that thing doesn’t slam up and either hurt you or destroy your very nice piece of equipment. So I’m gonna unhook this, but we are gonna use it again to do some seated side work.
So this time what it’s gonna do is it’s going to hook around the leg and create a little bit of support for the side body. So this is like a side bend, side series, side mermaid. I’m gonna take the other leg and hook it here. But actually before I do that, I’ve gotta hook my other leg. So let me hook the red spring on.
You don’t have to unhook and hook. I’m just making it so it’s a little bit smoother for me while I teach this class. Now, this foot is gonna go under. It can either go under all the way here, or it can go here. Wherever it goes, just make sure that you feel comfortable with your height of your leg and length of your shin, okay?
Now this is just tight enough again underneath here that I just have awareness here. Take your right hand to the pedal as you bring your left arm up and then just stretch side, and then come all the way back up, release the tension, and then do it again. So what you wanna make sure here is you’ve got the right amount of tension, of course. The less tension, actually, the harder this would be. And do it again and reach and stretch, keeping that gesture arm nice and long, and then return.
Let’s do this now with one hand behind the head. So I’m gonna take my left hand behind the head so that it places my head in place with my spine. Now I’m gonna press down, but now as I lift up, I’m gonna lift up just enough to release tension. So you see I’m on this long diagonal. I’ve got an anchored leg, and I can feel that band there get a little bit tighter, and then press the pedal back down.
Let’s do an inhale. Feel the oblique working on both sides. We got internal, external, yes, and again. And lift, inhale breath, exhale breath. One more time. I’m gonna add some rotation. This feels so good on my hips.
One more time and lower. Here we go. So from here, you’ve got tension on the pedal. As the pedal comes up, rotate the torso towards the pedal, and you should feel a long spiral from your hip all the way up towards your shoulder. And then press and do it again. And again, I like rotating with an inhale breath, but you don’t have to, you can exhale.
I like to feel the opening of the ribs with the diaphragm there. And again, inhale breath, exhale breath. Last one, and then release. You’re gonna come all the way back up and just counter-stretch to the other side. So before we turn around, I’m gonna add some leg movement here, some side leg movement.
So I’m gonna take this leg out and put the other one in. Yep, so now it’s on this leg. So now when I go to lie down side, I’ve got resistance on my inside leg. But make sure it feels comfortable on your thigh, because if it’s on the joint of the knee, it’s not gonna be that great. From here, you have a couple of choices.
You can let the pedal just hang all the way down. Remember, though, your head’s gonna be below your heart, or you can come into a little hover. This arm is your supporting arm. The right arm that’s on the pedal, that arm needs to stay slightly forward to the shoulder or you’re gonna hurt your shoulder here. So we’re just gonna lift the top leg up and down, lift and lower.
We’re gonna go to six, three, four, five, and six. Now little leg circles, four in one direction, four in the other direction. You can see that my pedal moves. I’m really working hard here so it doesn’t move. Now I’m gonna take the bottom leg with the resistance and pull up to the top leg, one, two, three, four, two more, five, last one, six, hold.
Now a one-arm press, one, inhale, exhale, two. I’ve got tension on my legs, three, last one, four. Lift it up, up, up, up, up, up, up. Feel your waist working, press it down. I’m having my left arm assist me here.
And inhale breath, and exhale, two more. Keep the feet together, and lower. Last one, and release. Let’s pull up carefully, take your leg out of the slastic, and then we’re gonna turn around, I’m gonna turn around. So now you get to see the whole thing from the back end.
So I’ll sit here, and then I’ll place my leg on the inside. It’ll be on my thigh. Remember, if it’s too tight, you have the option of taking it off this lip here, back here so you can kind of see that. And then my other foot hooks. Let’s start off with a little stretch.
That left arm comes to the pedal, and you stretch up and over, and then you come all the way back up, this is step one. You wanna make sure that that hand is slightly forward to the shoulder and so you don’t hurt that arm. You wanna keep it right in line with the shoulder, the gesture arm, nice and straight for that stretch, and then return. Now we’ve got the hand behind the head, and I’ve got that little bun there. So I’m gonna press my head into my hand.
Elbow is into my peripheral vision. Take my hand down to the pedal. I’m gonna take my biggest stretch here, and I’m pushing again my foot into the floor. If you’re, anyone out there’s a yogi, it’s almost like that warrior position with that back leg. So press here.
Now from here, you’re gonna lift up, slightly release by just catching air and then lower. This is a pretty view, and then lift and lower. And my face is getting some sun, so that feels nice. And then float it up one more time. Inhale breath, and then lift. (exhales loudly) And then you’re gonna go ahead and release.
All right, from here in a little rotation. So I’m gonna rotate my upper body. That pedal’s gonna come up towards me for a nice stretch. And as I rotate back towards these windows, I’m gonna open up the chest and exhale as I flex in rotation, and inhale, or inhale, try both, and release. One more time, and rotate and then back.
Come all the way up, a little counter-stretch, and then the legs switch out. So I’m gonna go ahead and take my right leg out, bring my left leg in. And remember, you want it up at your thigh and not at your, the soft tissue of your knee. Side line here, so making sure that you are in a long line, like if you’re between two panes of glass and you can see the chair in front of you here so you can tell if you’re level and even. This hand goes onto the chair for support.
So give me that tension at the lower leg as you float up here, and then the upper leg up and down. We’ll go to six, three, three more, three, two, one, circle for one. My circles are small, ’cause I’m losing stability. Reverse, one, two, three, and four, hold. Bottom tension one, two, three.
We’re going for six, two, and one, squeeze. You’re gonna lift yourself up. Gimme a one-arm press, four times. One, inhale, exhale, two, three. Last one, four, lift yourself up, side bend, press yourself down, line up.
And again, inhale breath, keep that resistance strong on your bottom leg. Two more, (exhales loudly) last one, and then release. And then all the way back up. So now we’re gonna unhook the slastic because we are not using it for the rest of the class, and just so it’s out of the way and isn’t a trip hazard, I’m just gonna place it down on the floor and change the resistance on the chair. So I’m gonna take the resistance to, I’m gonna take it down, the one that’s on there, down to 2.
So I’m gonna have 2-2 on here. Okay, so two up from the bottom, two resistance springs, and then I’m gonna have a seat on the chair. So we’re back to sitting, and the feet will go onto the chair just like this. I’m gonna press the chair pedal on the weight all the way down, okay? Let the springs adjust there for me.
You got it? Okay. All right, sometimes the chair and the equipment talks to you, so I just wanted to make sure. (laughs) All right, from here, the heels are gonna be together, and the toes are gonna be apart. Hands are forward. We’re gonna press the spring or the pedal all the way to the floor. From here, you’re gonna lift your bottom up, right?
So nothing’s gonna happen with the feet yet. You’re just gonna hold yourself up, your shoulders back, and what I really wanna do is just open up the front of the body, but I’m gonna do tricep dips. So just bend your elbows and press. The cheater here is you can use your legs, too, if you want. Inhale, exhale, I don’t like to use the word cheat.
It’s more like an assist or an adjustment. Two more, last one, and then sit. And the reason I also did the tricep dips is because the next exercise, which is called frog front, at least if that’s too hard for you, just go into the tricep dips, or if your body’s just not feeling it today. So now the hands are going to go back. So your fingertips are pointing back, and they can go side.
They work better back for me. I don’t have wide shoulders, so I can bring my shoulders in a little closer, my arms in. Then I’m gonna press the pedal to the floor. And I don’t know how all of you all get into this, but this is how I get into this. So I’m pressing my feet down, and I’m lifting my butt up.
And you can just enjoy this, or you can just do a bottom down, bottom up, just like that to stretch the hip if you want. I’m gonna hold my hips up, and then like a little magician, I’m gonna float my heels towards my bottom, and hopefully my hips don’t drop. So I’m trying to stay wide. So then I’m gonna press from here, one, see if I can do eight, two. Inhale, exhale. (exhales loudly) Now here’s where you can really get a nice butt squeeze.
Four more, four, three, two, and one, and then you can have a seat on the chair. Let’s go into some fun stuff like the pike stuff. So I’m gonna press the feet down and then turn towards you. Now you can do this in any direction you want. You could have your outside leg forward and your inside leg back.
But for sake of some fluid movement we’re doing here in a second and combining some exercises, this is where you need to be for this, okay? So my foot’s forward, my other one is back. My hands are on the chair. So here’s the setup for this. You don’t wanna fall into the chair or feel like your spine is twisted.
You wanna feel like you’re leaning. So my hip’s gonna lean towards the chair but stay pretty square to the chair. So that way I’m already working. 2-2 is enough resistance to pick me up where I’m still working. So if you can’t get up or it’s just too easy, make that adjustment.
The lower the spring load, the harder it’s gonna be to get up. So from here, I’m gonna start to lift my hip towards the diagonal and let my head drop naturally with the movement of my spine. Then I’m gonna drop all the way down with control and then do it again. One of my favorite things to say to clients is with the pedal, don’t sound like an angry horse in a stall, I’m gonna throw you a carrot, and then press it down. So you don’t wanna bang the pedal to the floor.
Maybe that’s just a Montana thing, I don’t know. Let’s do it again, inhale up, and then exhale. So I’m gonna keep it up there, two more, the last one, and then have a seat. Okay, so here’s the transition. We’re gonna do the frog again, heels together, toes apart.
Lift your bottom up, lift the heels up. Let’s just only do four here. Let’s go one, two, three, and four, have a seat, turn around. Hands to the pedal or to the chair. Remember you’re in that long diagonal line, like your hip wants to come to the corner of where the ceiling and the wall meet, one, and I don’t know how many we did on the other side.
Let’s just go to eight here. But then when we transition back, we’re gonna shorten those. Keep going for four, three, two, and one, feet come down, you sit. So let’s just say two, two, okay? So now hips come up and pedal comes up two times.
You go one, you go two, you lift, you turn, you pike up one, you pike up two. You guys can make up whatever numerical variation you want, heels together, hips come up, pedal comes up, one and two, you come down. Turn the feet, rotate, and then lift up one and two. I’m gonna continue until I’m facing you. So heels together, hips come up, pedal rises, and you press one, exhale two, and then lower, turn.
And last one on this side, toes pointing forward. Pull up one, pull up two, and then have a seat. (laughing) And then make your, take your feet off the pedals. We are gonna keep that same resistance. That was a sweaty one. All right, so next up is some pike.
Or actually that’s not true. I lied. We’re gonna do a forward step-up, okay? All right, so here’s the thing with this chair. There are no handles, and it’s kind of a, your upper body’s nice and free up here. So if you feel like you’re not comfortable doing the forward step-up, I’m gonna start with a modification first.
So put the feet or the pedal on the floor. Everyone knows there’s a no-step zone, or you’ll smash your toes, right? And then you’re gonna put your feet on the pedals here, okay? Now pick a leg. I’m gonna go with the right leg for me.
Fingertips on, here’s your modification. You’re gonna lift your hips up, and you’re gonna lower your hips down. That is your modification. If you wanna make your modification harder, you can pedal the back knee here as well, and lower. I am going to risk it, and I’m gonna go all the way up.
And when I say risk it, it’s more like I gotta perform here, so anyway. So I’m gonna take my hands behind my head, interlace the fingers around that bun, and then shift my body back or my heel back for a stretch. I’ll releve, shift my weight forward, and come all the way up to a standing position on the chair. Now, you can keep your foot on the chair also, because if your foot’s on the chair, then it’s a little bit more secure. And then we’re gonna lower ourselves all the way back down.
You could place the chair near a wall, too, if that makes it a little bit easier. Or if you have other pieces of Pilates equipment near, the Cadillac uprights is also a good place to do this ’cause you can hold onto the uprights. So I’m gonna come up, and I’m not gonna release that pedal. So I’m gonna come up. I changed my mind on that. I’m gonna lower myself all the way back down and fully rest the heel.
I’m just doing two more here, inhale, and then exhale to lower, lot of quad work. Drop the heel, last one, shifting that weight forward, lowering myself back down, and then releasing that tension for a stretch, and then switching legs. So again, as a repeat, you can come up, and then you can go down, and you can pedal here with your fingertips on. All right, here we go. Hands behind the head, interlace those fingers.
Drop the heel, stretch, and then float yourself up. And of course you’ll find that one is going to be easier than the other one leg. And then lower, and then inhale, lift, shift the weight forward, exhale back down. Think of your spine being really long and traveling all the way to the bottom of that left inner thigh, come up, inhale breath, and exhale, let’s do one more. Drop the heel, lift and shift, lower and drop, and then keep the foot on the pedal, and then just put the other foot on and stretch here.
And I’m gonna drop my forearms and do a little running in place. Drop into the heels, and we are gonna stay here. So hands go to the sides of the chair. Heels drop for a stretch. We’re gonna pike up, or what some would call the elephant on the chair.
But for this particular exercise, we’re gonna stay in a flat back. So when I say flat back, it means maintain a neutral. Imagine that you have a bunch of glasses on your spine with water in them that you don’t wanna spill. So as you shift the body weight forward, you’re gonna lift until your hips are about the height of your shoulders, and I’m guessing here since I don’t have a mirror. And then lower yourself down, drop your heels back.
This is is a prep, shift forward, lift, and then lower and drop. And again, shift forward, pull it up, hips to the shoulders, and then lower down. I’m gonna stay up on the next one. I’m gonna take it up, hips up, hold. I’m just gonna lower a teeny bet and then lift up eight times, one, two.
You’ve got four more, tailbone to sky, abs in. Two more, one more, and then lower. I forgot to mention that when I squeeze my inner thighs together, it helps me a ton. Dropping those heels down, here’s your last and final exercise. You’re gonna lift your hips, and you’re gonna pause.
Here’s your pushups. You guys ready? How many should I commit to? We’ll do eight. Bend the elbows, press it up, eight. (exhales loudly) We’ve got three more, three. Try to keep that hip in line with the shoulders.
Last one, hold, breathe. Take a deep inhale breath, lower the feet, lower the heels, whew, and stretch. Let’s take one foot out at a time. Remember, you’ve got heavy weight under your feet, so one and two, you don’t wanna destroy the equipment, and take your foot down. And now we’re gonna do a little roll-down here.
Arms up to the sky, take a huge, deep inhale breath. I’m gonna fold forward, roll down, pause for a moment. Maybe have a little baby celebration in my head that I completed that class, that it felt really good, and I felt really strong. And then roll yourself all the way up to standing, taking the arms up to the sky, interlacing those fingers for a big old stretch and extension, and then maybe a quick little stretch of your thighs this time. So we did do a lot of quad work.
You can hold onto the chair for support, and let’s try the other side. Ah, and stretch. Of course, feel free to stretch as long as you’d like. And then one more reach for the sky and arms down. Thank you so much for joining me on the Balanced Body EXO chair.
We’ll see you soon.
