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Hi. I’m Christy Cooper, and today’s class is gonna be all about using the band and feeling opposition and getting deeper into the movements. So thank you for joining me. I have a Theraband, Dynaband. You could most likely all the movements I’m going to use, you could use a towel. There’s only 1 or 2 that maybe you’d want the additional resistance, but if you have a band, grab it now.
I have an exceptionally long one here today, but I fold it in half so that I have options. So if I want it lighter, I can lengthen it out. If I want it tighter, I can just wrap it up more. So given that, let’s hold on to the band or a tell just outside your hips or legs, stand tall. Shift your body weight forward and a little bit back. So you start to feel like your head is over your shoulders, your shoulders are over your ribs. Your ribs are over your hips.
Keep going. Hips are over your knees and knees are over your ankles. So there’s a subtle sense of leaning forward, just subtle, very subtle. From here, we’re just gonna lightly pull on the band and that sensation will come up over and over again. It’s never going to be about the band. It’s gonna be about how the band can help you.
So I’m lightly pulling on the band. I’m gonna keep it taut, and we’ll just do a roll down here. So we inhale starting at the top of your spine, meaning crown of your head, exhale rounding over. Feel free to bend your knees. You just kinda wanna Take inventory of your body, bend the knees, everybody, exhales go towards straight legs. I’m doing 2 more of those.
Bend the knees rounding your spine. Go towards straight legs. One more time. Let’s keep them bent this time with a little subtle pull on that band rule yourself back up. Finding your eyes on the horizon. Let’s do that one more time.
We really go, okay. I’m here. I’m committed. The hardest part’s over. Let’s enjoy ourselves from here on out. Inhale. Subtle pull on the band, again, not a lot of work there, just allowing ourselves to draw into the middle round forward, exhaling as you go down. Benjonese, whenever you want, I’m getting almost all the way down.
And then once I’m down, I’ve been significantly taking my spine with it, inhale, exhale straighten, inhale bend, Exhale straighten one more of those. Inhale bend. You can stay bent or go to straight and roll yourself back up. And I’m just gonna mention this. If means anything to you, that’s great. If not, don’t worry about it. But sometimes when you’re pull to the outside a little bit, it allows you to connect to the middle a little bit more.
So that’ll be a recurring theme. Have a seat. And we’re gonna just take the band. I’m unwrapping mine a little bit so that the balls of the feet or or that it’s really covering the surface area of the of the bottom of my foot. So it’s not just over the toes.
It’s not quite in the middle of my foot, but it’s It’s where I can feel the ball of the feet and the band. You don’t want it to roll up on you. And I’m holding quite close. If your band is really tight, you’ll have to just back up and figure that out as we go. So we’re sitting tall right up on our sits bones. And as we exhale, it’s almost like you’re pushing into the band, but It’s also like a it’s a wall and roll the pelvis back.
Maybe to the to the low back hold there. Color bones are wide. Start an exhale and sink the abdominals to come forward. Stay curve. Stay curve. Stay curved. I know the band gets lighter there.
That’s okay. And then straighten your spine, inhale. Exhale is if you were going to straighten your legs, you’re not, but as if you were, you feel that tactile sensation of your feet on the band, roll down to the low back, maybe even to the shoulder blades, inhale, start your exhale, and look at your abs see them naturally sink as you blow out the air. Let it be easy. I’ll go a little quicker. Inhale. I’m sitting up straight. So are you? Exhale those hip bones pull the ways you roll down.
Same landing point. Color bones wide. Inhale. Exhale up. Stay curved. You’ll see when your shoulders are over your hips, that’s where you elongate again and get proud. Let’s go. Exhale down.
Sitting tall? And down. Just sort of, it’s not quite undulating, but just thinking almost about lubricating those facet joints. Let’s do 3 more exhale rollback. Hold at the bottom for an inhale. Start the exhale to come back up.
Those are just all good habits. Sitting tall, 2 to go. Inhale. Start the exhale. My knees, they change a little bit, but it’s just a natural adaptation. It’s I’m not trying to straighten them.
It just happens when I roll back. Last one here. Inhale and exhale up. Oh, let’s just add a little something here while we’re at the top. You can stretch your legs a little bit away from you, and then from your shoulder blades, just bend the elbows and pull back and a little release.
I’m just doing, like, an a rowing, right, back. And bend those elbows. Keep them close to you. Keep yourself tall. Free attention in the neck if possible.
And again, And again, last one, just tapping into all the things, getting us going from here. We’re gonna just remove the band, And we can take it underneath you, just underneath your knees. I’ve refolded mine in half again, and we’ll just lie down for a pelvic curl. So now the band is underneath the thighs. And, again, I’m gonna pick it up. It doesn’t matter if you fold it in half. It’s just that you wanna be able to pick it up just outside your legs, again, the sense of gently pulling the band to the side allows you to tap into the center more easily.
So we go for a pelvic curl. We inhale, start an exhale roll the pelvis off the floor Nothing really going on with the band. It’s just there and a little bit of tension as we get up to that high slant board position. Nice long line. Inhale.
And exhale melting your way back down. Upper back, middle back, lower back, and your hips are down back to the starting position in hail. If you want to float the arms up and lightly pull more, be sure that you don’t throw the shoulders forward to do that. It’s just sort of a nice way to feel other parts of your body, honestly, roll up. I’m not doing anything else with the arms, and they can stay down, honestly, and exhale to come down. All the way. Inhale. And exhale. Now if at any point your hands become overly tense or your neck, just leave the band down.
It’s not, it really isn’t worth it. It’s, it’s meant to help you explore and find new avenues. Stay up here at the top for a moment. Drop your chest down just a little bit more than you think is your high point. Retuck your pelvis or bring pubic bone towards your sternum, your chest, then push into your heels, and tell me if you don’t feel your hamstrings there, and you want to. Right? We’re not gonna be here that long today.
So let’s get it all in. Inhale. And exhale, we get to melt our way back down, upper back, middle back, lower back, release the pelvis. All things you get to explore in your own body, isn’t that fun? Exhale roll up. Check yourself out. Are you as tucked as you can be? You got your glutes involved, your knees are straight ahead.
Inhale and exhale down. And one more time. Up we go. Just pay attention to what are your feet doing? Hopefully, they’re still straight ahead. It’s alright to wobble side to side.
Just notice it really. Back so the shoulders are down. Inhale. And exhale. We roll on down. Okay. We’re gonna pick our knees up. If you can, just take the band out from underneath you, take your legs to tabletop so band and the arms are right above your chest now. Again, it’s a very light pull.
It’s not it just keep it taught. You don’t even have to keep resistance. Just keep it taut so it’s not sagging in the middle. We’re gonna rotate the knees to the front. Keep the knees side by side, try not to move the arms, exhale back to center, other side, inhale rotate to the back.
The idea is that you’re you’re really just gently warming up the spine and center. And noticing the control you have in your body. Again, to the front, inhale. That opposite hip does lift and center. Doing your best not to counterbalance with the arms. Keep those shoulders on the ground.
It’s gonna limit you a little bit today, but that’s alright. We’re alright with that. To the front and center to the back and center. Exact same thing, but put your toes on the ground. They’re quite close to you. And rotate. Now, you’ll be able to go a little further.
So go ahead and enjoy that. Both shoulders are still down. Exhale back to center. Other way. Over and back.
It’s as if your leg is just one leg. So they absolutely glued side by side and center. One more. And center. Okay. For the moment, you get to just set the band down by your side. Bring both knees up and hold on to the to your knees or or close to your shins.
There’s this oppositional energy that’s it’s it sounds like you had the band wrapped around your knees, but instead it’s gonna be your hands. Elbows are to the side. Start to push your knees into your hands, bring your head, neck, and shoulders up, and come to this position where you feel like the whole chain is closed and connected. All we’re gonna do is inhale, let go, but don’t move the body. Excel grab on again, push the shins or knees into the hands. You’re not gonna see movement, except for maybe in the middle of your body sinking to the floor.
Inhale. Nothing falls. Let go. Exhale. Push into the hands again. So inhale. Let go. Exhale. Push in.
In El echo. So the idea is that you’re not gonna move your spine. If you wanna challenge that, you’re gonna do the same thing, but let the thighs go away from you, not straightening the legs, but they the toes would go toward the floor. So you inhale, let those thighs go down, touch if you can, exhale, bring it back up, and hold on and sink the belly. Inhale. It’s like a version of what we call double 8 stretch. Excel. Scoop it and grab on. There’s no cheating when you’re holding on where where you cheat is when you fall down. Inhale.
Let go. If you can lower the size a bit, exhale. Grab on. And, again, inhale. And exhale. I think this is sometimes harder than when we do bigger movements because it’s so focused. Let’s do two more here.
Inhale and exhale. Inhale. Hold on. Go ahead and lower your head, neck, and shoulders. Same idea, but we’ll do one leg at a time. So to get up, you think I’m getting up, so my abs are gonna engage before anything, just a little. We push into our hands, curl the head neck and shoulders up, maybe look straight ahead in me mid thigh.
Take both hands to your right knee and let the other leg go down. Then again, without dropping back, just switch sides. So you gotta hold that position and do it again. Let’s go. I’m I’m inhaling briefly as I switch legs and exhale to deepen.
And and and, eventually, you’ll end up straightening those legs out one at a time, just like so. Just showing you. But honestly, I really like these smaller, deeper movements, even for the most advanced person, That’ll do both knees in. Let your head go down. You could take it side to side.
Holding on behind the thighs now. Go ahead and you could let your feet come apart. It’s up to you, really. And same idea, curl up finding that oppositional resistance and start a little rocking action. And that that this is surprisingly hard for some of us because what really has to happen is you have to start where you stay.
In other words, your thighs don’t get to come in and yank back out. They stay right where they were, and that means you have to keep some connection through the abdominals and spine. How about one more will stay up? Okay. Taking your band now.
We’re gonna go into what’s called the spine stretch. Again, you can go if your band is long, just wrap up where you need to to put tension on it. I’m gonna I think I’m gonna be alright with this long band if I just fold it in half and hold. And it it’ll be a little wider than your own shoulders. Your feet now are gonna go, on just go on our heels.
We’ll do a bent knee today. A little bit wider than your mat. Alright. A lot of words coming up now. Arms are extended straight ahead of you. And, again, there’s a subtle sideways pull so that you can use it to almost elevate your whole body. From here, we inhale.
As you exhale, you’re gonna round your spine forward just like we did in the beginning, and that band just goes forward. It doesn’t go down. It goes forward. You’re rounding your spine. You’re reaching The pelvis didn’t move much.
It just stayed where it was and the spine moved. Hold that, broaden your back, exhale, and come back up to seated. Yeah? Inhale. Exhale. Same idea. You can hold the band with your whole hand if you want.
I sometimes like to lighten up my fingers so I don’t grip too tight. It’s like you’re diving right through it. Now as if someone had you by the waist you inhale and exhale, bring it back up. K? Again, it’s gonna get more fun.
Just one more tip on this is try not to drop the knees out to the side. Keep them pointed up. Let’s go over. And pull yourself back up. It’s like you’re unfurling your spine.
Now then adding on the good stuff. Let’s get some back extension going. We inhale. Same start. Exhale rounding forward, toes and knees to the sky.
When you get as far as you can, now you get to move your pelvis. It’s like you’re sticking your bum out. As you elongate your spine on the diagonal and the arms match your spine on the diagonal. So they raised up Hopefully, right alongside your ears. That was an inhale.
Don’t worry about the breath. Just keep breathing. And then you exhale re round and start rolling back up from the tailbone, low back, middle back, upper back, and you’re back to the start. Now if your arm’s getting real tired, just put the band down, or grabbing a little closer, but not super close. Just maybe off the shoulders.
Here we go. Exhale forward. That straight line of the band is reaching, reaching, reaching, stretch your spine. That’s the name of the exercise. Now as if the tailbone had a whole lot to do with this, it starts the elongation. You raise the arms alongside the ears.
You’re on a diagonal. Right? Can you lean into that diagonal more? Yes. I know you can. Excel. Reround the parts kind of like a giveaway. Enjoy that little rebound and come back to the starting position. I inhale.
Exhaled band is still taught not a lot of tension, but it is taught. Then you can press your heels into the ground. If that helps, go for it. Go into a long line of the spine. Arms right about yours.
Hang out here. If you looked to one side towards the screen, See if you can get your upper arm behind your eyes. It’s not necessarily gonna happen today, but it it it will and then reroute. To come back up. We’re gonna do 2 more like that and then make it really fun. You’re gonna get an arm workout and the upper back workout. Never mind all the rest. Excel.
Let’s go. Inhale, extend your spine. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Now, like, someone pulled you by the wrist.
Or the spine or your head even. Let’s get longer, reround, and roll up. Alright. Here we go. Adding on, exhale forward. Same start. Go. Go. Go. Go.
You can straighten your legs, by the way. If you’re super flexible, go ahead. Just hold back at the abs, meaning pull back. Inhale, lift up, lengthen, lengthen, lengthen. Okay. Hold it there. You’re gonna use those shoulder blades now to pull the arms back 10. 9. Maybe you think of pressing the chest forward a little. 5 to go. It’s so small, and boy, you feel it. When you’re there.
I don’t need to tell you. And hold it. Get longer, longer, longer. And I mean, the spine Excel re round. Oh, you wanna hang out there for a second? Go ahead and roll up when you are ready. Do you feel the upper back in between those rhomboids?
I hope so. If they do not get enough work, typically. Alright. Heading into what’s called the saw. It says different version because we’re using the band, but we’re gonna go a little wider on the feet. So I’m there’s my mat, and I’m in a natural view for me. You can bend your knees if you want to.
Alright then. I might I’m gonna open mine up because I know what’s coming, but it also means I’m gonna have to wrap to make it so it’s that the position of my arms too. And then that way, if I need to lighten it up, I can. So it goes like this. We are sitting as tall as we can with those arms right by our ears. We are going to rotate towards the front.
We’re gonna hinge forward. So it’s pretty flat hinge forward. If you can get that arm to the ground, doop, but that’s the general it’s right in the middle, this lower arm, then come back up in the rotation and center. That’s it. We rotate hinge aiming this lower the arm that’s going down. And by the arm, I mean the whole body, really, it goes toward the middle of the mat, sit up, and center.
Let’s go a little quicker. We wrote it. We lean. We lift up, and we come center. Rotate. We lean. We come up and center. Keep going, but keep an awareness that you’re staying on both sit bones equally. It’s not easy to do.
So I’m gonna give you one more each way to think about it. Rotate hinge up center. Okay. And as if that wasn’t enough, let’s hang out. You might need to unwrap your hand a little. We’re gonna rotate hinge, take the top arm now, look at it, and reach it. Pull it back. The bottom arm’s not moving. It’s alright if a man comes down in front of your face. Bring it back, sit up, and center, rotate to the front here, hinge, if you can get to the ground too, but I’m not really expecting that.
I’m just wanted to be anchored. Then you reach that top arm. Look back. Look back. Take your chest with it a little bit, meaning rotate. Then it comes back to taut and up in rotation and center. We twist.
We lean forward. We pull that top arm and back to sit up and center. Where’s the rhythm rhythm in that? I’m not sure, but it’s pull back lift up, sit up, and center up. 1 more, turn. Lead. Pull top arm. Back, sit up, center, last one, turn, lean forward, pull the top, sit up and center.
Yes. We’re getting there. Feel that upper body. Let’s do something else. Let’s get on our legs.
So I’m gonna turn to face you, you face me. Let’s wrap that band around. We’re gonna be on our elbow. Okay. So in my case, let’s go left side, and you’ll put the band around your top leg or your right leg. This one’s gonna be really about feeling, like, into it, reaching into it very similar to the very first exercise we did. So as we come down, I’m just holding both ends together.
Come down to our elbows. The bottom knee is bent to about 90 degrees, and I’m comfortably on the side of my hip. What’s gonna happen is I want to, actually, we’ll go all the way down. School all the way down today. You’ve you’re holding the top band, and then here, set it set your, knuckles on the ground.
And then reach into the band. Just I mean, if if all you did was that and get this long waistline, that’s good, but now we’ll just lift a little and down and up. And down. Up. You turn that palm up on the ground, really open up those shoulders. We’ll do five more here.
It’s one and to just for fun, we’re gonna kick the leg forward. It’s not really a big kick, but it I mean, it’s it’s don’t don’t fling it. Just try to keep resistance on the band. You’re not gonna be able to, but try that’s the idea of reaching into it and then take it behind you for a bit of a stretch. We’ll just do 5 years too.
And back, keeping the leg level, so it’s not going up and down. It’s just getting the sensation. Last two? All of this can be done without a band. Right? So it’s just that idea of can I have something to make my mind go right? I can still be reaching that way, even though the work is up here. Alright. Bend it. Come on up.
And you just move the band for a moment. If it’s available to you, cross the lake over, oh, hello. If that’s not available to you, you could take stretch out the top leg in front of you too, but if you can bend it, and we’re just gonna hug the knee in trying to get the hips down a little bit. If it’s too much, come off it. In fact, let’s all come off it a little and go down again.
And maybe one more. And down. And then from here, you can rotate towards it. So you hug the knee in other do what you need to. Hug it in. Hand goes down behind you to help you. Get a little rotational stretch.
This is the time where you mentally psych up to do the other side. Ready? Let’s do it. Bang goes around the foot. I kinda get myself set up in a way that I I know I’m gonna be on the side of that hip, but then, yeah, we’re gonna go all the way down. So Find your way there. Pull the band as much as you want.
The straight leg is just right off your hips. So it’s not front, not behind theoretically. If you need more pull, do or less, and then knuckles to the ground, and we reach into the bands of lift 10. 9. 8.
Rest of the body is not moving. And 4, 3, 2, and one playing with it. You keep the foot flex, sweep the heel forward at the same height. I know you lost tension on the band there. That’s cool. And then sweep it behind you.
The rest of the body’s not moving. Take it forward and back. Almost letting the leg rest in the band. You get to do 2 more. Starting now, here it comes.
1 and way back. Here’s 2 and way back. Now we’ll sit up. Get rid of the band. The good part, I think.
Cross over if you can, or you can straighten the leg out. And aim to get the hips down as you sit taller, and then we’ll lift off it a little bit. And then sit down. Best you can. I’m not getting all the way down today for some reason. I probably never do.
That’s alright. And then down as you can. This is where I cross over, and I hug my knee in. I take that rotation. I aim for the sits bones to go down.
And I try and enjoy. Right. Now then next, I’m gonna show you this one. Basically, you don’t need to use the band. I like to use the band, although it’s a little tricky getting into. Because of it’s a really nice assist for some really good back extensions. So I’ve I’m gonna fold the band in half just to get me started. And, again, you can just wrap up.
It you’ll you’ll be wrapping anyway just to show you from behind. I’m taking it behind my back, but I’ll have to do this part when I’m lying down in a moment. It’ll be behind my back, and then I’m gonna wrap it in close so it ends up, not necessarily hands touching, but ends up high on my back. Okay. So there’s a lot of words when you’re faced down, but we will be on our bellies doing this part, and then we’ll go into a straight arm. So Keep band in one hand. Lie on your stomach. Swing the band behind you.
And so if my arms are straight, I’m just starting to wrap them in. You can put your forehead on the floor. I’m just gonna keep mine hovering for the sake of the mic. Then and, again, you can have it loose in the middle here. Pull those arms up as high as you can.
Drop your elbows to the ground and turn your face to the front. So you’re all the way down, face front, elbows down if you can. If abdominals are pulled in, your lot your low back is long. From here, you’re gonna pick up the straight legs. So pick up the thighs with the knee straight, kick in three times.
Go one 2, 3. You’re gonna straighten your legs and straighten your arms and look down. Remember that side pull we were doing with the arms? Just a gentle side pull. That happens here too. Turn your face the other way. Bend your knees.
Come down. Take those arms as high as you can. You kick 1. You kick 2. 3. Stretch it out. Light pull on the band. Legs are straight.
Feet are off the ground. And turn. Double a kick. Go a little faster if you can. It’s 1, 2, 3, stretch length, and 1, 2, 3 stretch, lengthen. And one and get those elbows down.
3 and lengthen. Try to control it. Last one, 1, and 2, and 3, and stretch tops of the feet on the ground. Legs are straight. And now just lift the arms as a subtle pull to the side.
1, 2, it’s so small. Chest is down. Head is up. And I will end it on that one. Can let go with one hand.
Just bring the band around. Let it go. Set it somewhere. Settle. You can put your forehead back down. Let your body shimmy side to side.
When you’re ready, bring your hands by your shoulders. Press yourself up. I have my hands by my shoulders to press myself up. Take myself into his child’s pose or rest position. Enjoy that. If this doesn’t work for you, you could be doing this on your back and just hang out there. Otherwise, I wanna do one last thing for our shoulders without the band.
Let’s come to a seated position facing front. You could sit up on a towel or even roll up your mat a little if you wanted to just so it’s easy on the hips. I’m gonna sit in the diamond position or even cross legged would be good, but I’m gonna go diamond position. From here, it’s like you’re holding a tray. Just let your elbows rest right by your side, and they’ll stay there. Right? So it’s gonna be tempting to pushing forward or pull them back, probably more likely. All we’re doing is with this right angle at your elbow, we’re just opening the arms to the side.
Sit. See what you got. Check it out. Like one might go further than the other. One might not. Check it out and come back. K. So they’re not lifting or lowering.
It’s very simple. Don’t even work. Just just make the motion. Take it out. You’re not squeezing your back. You’re you’re staying upright, but that’s that’s about it.
You’re not letting the elbows come away. Just turn in that upper arm bone. Come back. Inhale. Open it out. We’ll add just a bit here.
Then keeping the arms kinda low, they’ll naturally rise. You’re just gonna extend the arms out, out, out, and draw it in. And again, out, out, out. We’re only doing one more of those. Doesn’t it feel kinda good to stretch across your body that way? This time, imagine your chest rising so you’ll actually start to look up and maybe arch your upper back a little and extend, feeling really good about the time you took for yourself, take a deep breath while you’re out here.
And as you exhale, come back to center, give yourself a big hug and go about your day. Enjoy yourself. Thank you for being here with me today.
