Quick Standing Workout

Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining us. And by us I mean Erin and Nicole and myself, Kristi Cooper. We are gonna do a short quick upright workout. Let's go.

So we have a band and I think that's all you'll need. We're not gonna go to the floor. I don't even think I'm gonna need my hair band. So we're gonna stand tall. And if there were in intention, mine is gonna be to just move us through the whole body in a short amount of time.

You can create your own. Rock your feet forward or rock your body forward and then shift back onto the heels not so far that you have to come and catch yourself but just feel yourself, feel your feet, feel the ground for which we stand on and rise up from. Let the arms be heavy, the bones be heavy. And they don't have to be anything in particular. Just turn a little bit to show you how little I'm actually doing.

It's just where do I wanna be if I wanna feel centered. And we'll do a couple more for the sake of noticing that I can be taller without a whole lot of effort. But I can also feel rooted without a whole lot of holding. Can you? From here we'll do the roll down.

I love to do. It's an inhale. Stay in the middle or what you feel is middle. Exhale and even as your energy goes up from the ground that you're rooted to. Exhale, roll down.

You can bend your knees. You just kind of wanna let go here. I'm making this real simple because there's no reason to make it hard. Inhale and exhale for the ground as you then rise up from it eventually straightening your legs and then once you get there, might as well turn your arms out and let's get even taller. Inhale as the arms come up.

Exhale, I like to push away but it's just up to you. And then roll down again. Just take it there. Bend when you need to. You don't have to bend.

Just letting go. I'd definitely bend at the bottom intentionally here. Exhale, straighten the legs and right away drawing yourself all the way back up. Finding vertical. Turn the arm bands out.

Pick up some energy. And so keep the energy but stay tall almost resisting against what you just gave yourself. Roll down one more time. Stay down there for a moment. And then if your fingertips or hands hit the floor, great, but let your head hang as best you can.

Bend the knee significantly even if you don't have to. Feel the ribcage maybe on the thighs without straightening your legs, exhale and imagine pulling your ribcage off the thighs for that little bit of abdominal contraction. Inhale, you'll feel it more. Exhale now and just straighten your legs to the extent that you can. I'm not lifting up yet.

Let your head hang. Notice what you have to let go of. And I'm saying that because I just know that if I can be easier at the start or the more ease I start with, the more efficiency I'm going to have and in a short workout we're gonna need that. So I bent again and then I'm gonna straighten as best I can. I'm noticing differences on each leg.

That's cool. Heavy head. Bend if you need to but we're rolling back up to the top, exhale. Then leave your arms down for just a second once you get there. And there's a sense I wanna try to create of almost pushing the back of your legs into something.

Not just thrust anything forward but just an energy of you're not just going up but there's a sense of being supported by your back. It's just an idea. Let's go up one more time. When we go down, we'll actually pick up the band. Exhale, press away, stay tall, roll down staying connected to the back of your body.

Find a pretty wide grip on the band wider than your own shoulders and just pick it up to roll yourself back up. (exhaling) Good. Alright ... Right now, we don't need to wrap I don't think if it bothers you. Ours are quite long though, they're six feet long or five feet long, but you wanna have some resistance on your band so you place it in the middle of your palm and then what I'll do just to show you.

It's not lose. There's some tension. And then we're gonna be using it against our legs as a means for not just working our arms but also growing up against it. That'll happen in a minute. Throughout, you don't have to be pulling hard on it unless we really go there but for now I don't think we will.

I just wanna heat us up. And it's gonna be with some leg work. So your feet are about six distance apart. Rock your weight forward again. So you know what that is.

You could almost slip a credit card underneath it. That's not where we're gonna go yet. We will. Shift it back where you could almost lift your toes and just a tiny bit more onto your feet. The movement is gonna be here.

There's more weight in your heels is what I mean to say. There's some pull to the side but not a lot. So Nicole, shift your hips more backwards. Yeah, you could sit there all day. You could push into your heels and pretend you're coming up but you don't.

Right, thank you. Thank you, you could but you don't have to. It's not hurting your knees, you're not thrusting the knees way forward. It shouldn't hurt your calves a lot. If it does, you could elevate your heels a little.

Alright, from there you come back up. Press the band into your legs and use it to work the upper back. Inhale and come up. So now, it's up to you. 15 minutes you're gonna have to do something on your own here.

This band isn't gonna do it for us completely, right? So for me, I think of the air as a solid. So in other words, I'm not pulling to the side a lot with the band, but I am thinking of pushing up against the air. And down not just waiting for the legs to arrive. Let's go a little quicker.

Let's go five, push up, press four. You can lean forward a little. Some of you will have to more than even I do. And (exhales) One more time after this one. Down, hold it against your legs.

Reach the arms down further not further back. Down further. Check to make sure you haven't rolled your shoulders then as you press, lift up to the toes. And down, you can lighten up on the band there a little. I know.

I wasn't prepared either. Rise up. And down, this is that place where you just let yourself wobble. Who's gonna be perfect on that first one? Catch it and then start thinking what little do I have to do to engage everything I can to rise up, to work the arms, to work the back?

It's not so much about the feet and legs right now. And down. Just a few more because you'll get more opportunity. How much do you want your arms to work? How much length to the spine do you want?

And then when you go down, leave your heels just barely off the ground. I'm gonna even say they can touch, okay. So we're going forward again. So there's just a little more weight on the forefoot now. So for Nicole, with your long femurs you're gonna have to hinge forward, well, actually both of you compared to me.

These two are gonna have to lean more forward. And again, your heels can touch just take some of the weight out. Push back here, we got it, down. And push. It's just proportions, right?

So if I told you you wanna work your glutes, your back and your arms, what would you do? Even if I told you something different. Figure it out. That's the best kind of teaching there is sometimes. And press.

Oh nice, Nicole, you don't have to go that low but if you want to, it's cool. Press and ... I sort of think of the band sometimes almost as my abs. The tighter the band gets, the more I think tall through the abs. Resistance even.

Do one more now for coming up. And then keep the resistance through the arms, the proud body, lower the heels, touch down really firmly, touch down, keep the arms, rise up. It's like your arms are against a wall and I encourage you to think of a stretch to your chest, down. Whew, do you hear the cracking and the popping? Are you rolling in and out?

That's alright. Aim for straight at the middle. More arms if you can if it's easy. You could even go into some extension of the upper back a little bit if you wanted to. Yes, no one said 15 minutes was gonna be easy.

Again. Okay. And down. Swivel so the heels touch each other. And the feet, mine are a little far apart, I'm gonna bring them in a little.

That's good, that's good. Pizza-slice shape. That's a cue that stuck for me. I don't know why. Someone said it and I think pizza, right, same thing.

Ever so slightly hinge forward from the ankle so you're off your heels. Again we bend. I mean they're basically down, right? One and ... Just heating up.

(exhaling) Do four more. If it's not enough ... Don't make me tell you. Just pull harder. Grab a little closer but keep the shape if this is it, right?

Stay there, rise at five. One and down. Two, feels almost like military. Three, and four and five and down. Step your feet a little wider, heels are out.

From here, same thing. Slightly different at one point. We sit, hold it there. Can you go any lower? But keep the toes able to lift.

So that's where ... Yeah, you can even hinge more I think. You got long quads, you might have to. Or bones, I should say. And up, you know what to do.

Wrap more and more and more and more but this time look up. So we're getting some of that extension. Bend low, low, low. Come up and wrap and bend. Is it too easy?

No. Okay, good. I mean, sort of because I'm one little edition. Okay, so we'll do a couple more here. Keep going.

Good thing to watch for, of course, when you get up right before you extend or arch what's meant to be your upper back, squeeze your glutes kind of strong so that you can't do that. Then reach the arms down to lift your upper back. You should be able to breathe and talk and sing. Well, if you can sing. One more.

And up. (exhales) This time, stay up. Take the arms over head as directly as possible without pain on the shoulders. Then you're gonna go down as directly as possible. I recognize that a lot of us are gonna have to hinge more.

But as directly as possible come up a little, one. You could wiggle your toes, two, good. Three, nothing going on but the arms just holding a little bit of tension in that strap. One more, come all the way up. Take the band a little bit behind you.

That's gonna be really too tight where I'm holding it because my arms are straight. So I'm gonna bring it back. But mine, you may not have to. Come back a little further to the back of the head. You can pull the band as much to the side as you want.

Come back up. And then a little further back still if you can. If you have to bend the elbows, lighten up a little bit. But I do want you supported so we're going back maybe to the shoulder blades. If you're really flexible you can enjoy taking them straight back meaning you might even let go of some of the tension but try not to pop the ribs.

If it's available to you, take your time but go all the way. When you get there, just press it forward and then back and come up. (exhales) And release. And all the way if it works for you or take it to the range. But you can.

I'm hooking it right around my hips so I have something to pull against it, which is plenty. And up and then just all the way in front. And let it come down. Rock the feet together. I had to widen mine earlier so I'm bringing it back in.

And I know what I'm about to do and I don't like these things hitting me in the head so I'm just getting them out of my way. It doesn't matter where exactly you hold it. It's just that you're holding and I even just wrap my fingers in so that I've got some resistance. It's not hanging here but my arms aren't so wide that I'm having to hold them up completely on their own. Maybe one more wrap then or just grabbing it.

Yeah, that's better. Okay, so the feet totally together and from here all we wanna do ... Nothing with the lower body if we can. So we're just gonna reach the spine over. Some of you are very far probably so as we're all going to our right ...

Right, yes, you're pushing that left leg into the ground. Just to send that left side up over and come back. Other side, so you're gonna anchor with the right foot as you go to the left. Trying not to twist and just checking in with yourself. Let's do one more like that just so you can feel for it.

Left foot down as you roll to the right. If you have access to a window or you can see that you're in the middle, you're not letting the arms get ahead of you. That's key. Now, let's lead with the hip. Yep, hips going left.

You're still gonna do the same thing. You're pushing down into the left foot to go to the right but the hips have traveled. Then you push that, set the hips back to the center to lift you up. You got it. Push, lean and then let go.

Roll out a little bit but reach, reach, reach. And up. It's almost like you're swaying in the wind once you get a rhythm going with it. And just sort of lean out. Doing your best to keep both feet down, over.

Things you can think about if you want to is once you're here say, reach those arms further. Just think it. Sometimes that's all it takes. One more per side. That's supposed to feel kind of good.

Last one this way. Come back up. We're going to the right again. Leave the hips basically where they are. And that's not satisfying now but the right hand is pressing down from under that armpit, press down, five.

Reach out as it comes up. Four, but allow action. Three, that's our arms reaching here, two. And one, come back up. You know what's coming next.

Oops, except for the hip part that I just did. Arms straight out, one and reach out, up. It's as if somehow the armpit could initiate it. And it does, three, four, five and up we come. And from there take the arms back one more time.

All the way if you can. Get there somehow. Stay there. All I did was go down. I'm just gonna wrap them again once.

I might have to choke up a little just because I want my arms a little closer to right outside my hips rather than out here. You're gonna want them closer to your body. You with me? Yes. Good, all we're doing is pressing straight down.

No big deal. Hard to even do anything there but we're gonna try to just without changing our ribs, we're gonna just lift. Once you're there can you slightly pull apart to the side walls? And then down. And now do it rather in two parts, rather do it in one.

As you're lifting, pull apart so it's going back on a V-shape. Turn the whole back body. The wrists stay straight. I open my fingers only so that you can hopefully see that my wrists are straight. And down.

Let's go a tiny bit quicker now that you know, but it's a down, out wide action. Down, out wide action. It's as if you're pushing a wall away from you and you need more traction. Not a huge focus on the shoulder blades. They will act as they need to but trying to keep the front of the body pretty still.

And push and push. Finally, push, hold it out there wide. You can lower it so it doesn't go into your neck too much or if it does, take a break. Let's just do side presses for five slow. Four, lift your chest, three.

That was a great idea. Two, (laughs) I feel it. One and that must be it. Alright, bring it around front. Just when you thought it was over, it's not.

Remember our wide stance? We're going straight back up with the arms. Why let them rest too long in this short of a workout? And from here for now let's bend. Nothing happens with the lower body but you keep the frame.

So Nicole, bring your bottom on up. Yeah, you might have to wrap more. That's right. Now, you can pull on them a little but make your waist bend more if you want. There you go, exhale up.

That was great. Same thing. So once you frame the head, nothing really happens there. It's just sort of a nice thing to have that band almost supporting you. We're changing a little bit.

We're going over. From here, you're gonna turn your whole frame toward your thigh. And come back open. And up. So the lower back will round, over.

Keep your head in the middle and rotate. That's it. Open, half the things I say I think are from the health food for yoga. Just need the reminder, right? Reopen, that's such a good stretch for everything it seems.

Maybe not everything. Turn, reopen and up. Keep the arms up. Okay, put them down for a second. Go back up. (laughs) Keep the legs straight.

Here we go for 10. So you're over to one side. Now, this one you wanna be careful. You'll know if you're rotating and it feels bad. You wanna feel it right down the side seam of your left side right now.

And up and over, getting long. So basically equal weight and up. And three and up and four and up, getting taller. Five, or at least thinking it. Six and up, seven and up, eight, two more.

And voila. From there take those arms down. Shake them out. You're gonna still be in a wide stance but not quite as wide as you just were. The one that we did the squat earlier, the wide leg foot stance, I'm just turning so you can see where we're going.

We're going into the ... It's a version of the spine stretch without the stretch. So our feet are slightly turned out. We're gonna take it down to that squat. Use your hands for now so they're there.

Hinge forward so that you are on a diagonal and so that you know you can take your hands off. So there's a sense for me that the top of my head is reaching one way, the tailbone is the other. It doesn't need to be rounded, it doesn't need to be arched, just needs to feel long. Arms off. From there we just rise up.

Again, the band is taut. That's basically it. Bring it down and go again, up. Abs are in. You can really stick the hips out on this one.

In fact, the more you do the more pretty much everything works, but the focus for us right now is gonna be the back. On the next one, we'll stay up there best you can. If it's too much in your arms you can always hold your hands behind your head. From there, just a little bit of tension on the band more than you had and pull back one. Let's do six.

Two, sink lower if you can. Three, four, neck is as long as possible. Five, looking somewhere out on a diagonal. Two, meaning low to the floor. I said six, I think.

So we come down, we stand up. Go ahead and pull back if you want more. A little extension. And we go again. Sit back, arms up.

Six, toes are easy. One, two, it's no so much the pull of the band, three, keep it just nice and taut, four, five and six, stand up. One more subtle change. We'll go down, sit back. This time instead of pulling back, we're gonna rotate keeping the shape.

So just do what you can trying to keep the head framed in the arms. Back to center, stand up. Take it back down, find that diagonal line and then let one arm comes underneath the other, right, we're coming low. And level it back to diagonal and up. Chest is probably more toward the floor then that underarm sweeps everything underneath giving rotation and up just one more time.

Down, rotate. Come on back and stand up. (exhales) Okay, let's just rock our feet together. It's amazing how much you can get in in a short amount of time. Stand tall.

We're gonna get rid of these things and finish up. Inhale, exhale roll down. Maybe notice some differences. You can let those things go at the bottom. Shake out the fingers.

Bend your knees. Go deeper if it feels right to do so. Straighten them to the extent that you want to or will at this point and roll yourself up. Finding again that sense of rooted downward so that you can be lifted above it. Grounded but light.

And then with that let's just take one deep breath together. Take in what you need, let go of what you don't. If you need more, do more. Otherwise, thank you for being here. (clapping) Thank you.