Hi everybody. We are here today to do a little bit of a work with the theraband. So the theraband is one of my favorite pieces of apparatus or prop because it's so accessible. You can experiment with different tensions and different supports and it's fun. So we've set the band up on the center of the Mat long ways and we're actually going to sit on one end of it so that there's a little bit left at the top for you to be able to hold onto.
So that's going to sort of give you some inspiration of how we want our spine to move. And we'll continue in our own time for about six breeding in at the top, finding the support of the arms, giving the neck permission to release a little if it was overworking, deepening and rolling down. And just allowing this first exercise to have a bit of an exploratory feel about it in hailing. Imagine that as you inhale the band widens two and then rolling down. And I think one more might do it breeding out as we call forward breeding into the back, finding that openness, feel the support for your head as well on the band and then roll it down.
And so we'll allow the band to rest on the mat. Interlace your hands, place them behind the head and we'll go for some regular chest lifting here. So just breathing out as you curl forward, but we'll arc the arms through and hold onto the backs of the thighs and then just go a little into that chest lift and arch the arms back behind the head. Imagine that the band is still there and we'll roll out spine, back down onto the floor, inhaling at the bottom so that we can exhale. And curl forward and as the arms arch to hold onto the thighs and then go back to that awareness of the loop that we'd created when we did have the band there and see if you can conjure up this image of connection from the back of the body all the way around and then feel the way the front of the body unfurls just as the band did. And we'll just do one more here. Breathing out as we curl forward, looping the hands forward onto the thighs. Curling a little further holding here and just taking the legs up and let's see if we can find a sitting position from here. So pushing the legs forward, rolling like a wheel and finding our seated position. Great.
So you're going to work against that. Okay. So we'll roll down just for a little partial roll down. So once you feel the back of your pelvis or your sacred rest down, we'll hold and then we're going to pull the band, work against it with your hips and roll back up again. And the range that you move here is completely up to you. Make it comfortable. We're still warming up.
So finding that work and feeling the way the band deepens this work rather than just makes it harder. It's there to support and to draw your attention to how your body works. Inhale through the nose into the back of your body and then exhale, rolling back. You and the band working together as a team. Inhaling into the back of the body and into the armpits as well. And then rolling through and the neck. This one will be our last one.
Breathing in through the nose, growing tall. Exhale rolling down, and then allow the legs to float up. And let's just take hold of the band, place your feet back down onto the ground and find a tension with the band that feels comfortable for you. You don't want to feel like you're working really hard, you just want to feed into the shoulder muscles so that we can to arch the arms overhead and still feel that you have an energy into your body. Your ribs aren't floating up.
And we're going to do two more here. Breathing out, rolling up, pressing through the legs, pressing through the arms, melting down, down, down into the mat, arms arking through. And one more time up we go. Feeling that sun shining on your chest, breathing in and rolling back down onto the ground. Now we're going to see if we can still find that hamstring work when our legs are in the air. So to give us a little bit of help, we'll put the band over the shins. We don't need too much tension here with the band. So make it work for you. You want to have your hands pretty close to the floor and we're just going to actually press the knees all the way together as well.
So we're going to roll onto our left hip, pressing the right shin up into the band a little bit more than we might normally coming back through center. And then going over to the right or onto our right hip. Pressing the left Shin into the band will continue for three more to each side and feel the way the upper body and the legs work together to create this rotation. Inhaling onto the right hip. Exhaling. Feel yourself settle back. Inhaling onto the left hip, right shin pressing up and then settling back more to each side. He going over onto the right and back.
Notice the challenge to the shoulders on either side. We've got quite a long band here too, so we can really play with how much we're working into the tension right now. Coming back into the center, we're going to take the hands just up. Come up into a little chest lift. Keep those legs active as though the band is still there.
Find a tension that works for you as the hands come to the floor and deep in your legs in further and further for the double leg stretch. So the arms go overhead and then everything comes back to center. Inhale, shoot it out and then exhale. Draw it in. Breathing out. Feel the way the band helps you. Curl it a little deeper and drawer it in.
Notice how one side of the band stretches and it's kind of in symmetry with the part of the leg, that stretching as well. So inner thigh and outer thigh. Final one here and give you a leg. One more stretch before we change sides. Changing the leg so that the left leg is being supported by the band.
It is worthwhile taking the time to stretch the band out all the way because then it's less likely to flick on you so it does go into point and flex the ankle. Just getting a little bit of blood flow here, really thinking about the ankle itself rather than just the toes. Two more. This also gives you time to adjust your band as necessary and let's go across the body. Notice how I'm creating that pool with one arm and with the other and it's actually giving access to this beautiful smooth movement through the hip. Two more circles in this direction around last one around and hold and we'll go the other way out to the side, across and up.
The someone like me who gets quite tight through my hips, I find this to be a real relief one more and holding at the top, giving your leg a little bit more of a stretch here, bending both knees so that you can come up into your chest lift. This time we're going to take the arms in line with the head straightening both legs ready for the scissors. So switch and switch. And if you actually pull on the bench just enough, it's gonna feed into your shoulders and actually support your curl. So it's still going to really work the curl.
Now as you do your bicep curls, hopefully you can feel some access into your deep belly. Of course you can still bend the knees as necessary through the roller when we hit the top rolling up. Now if it's available to you, we're going to take the band off the legs here. If not, you can keep the band where it is. Create that tension out into the band and roll down. So this allows us to take our arms overhead, which feels really good. Breathing in, exhale, curling forward because our arms are where they are.
We can hook the band around our legs, sit tall, bending the knees as necessary for our three bicep kilz swoops, not a row. The bicep curl, three arms are straight and we'll roll it down.
Take the hands or the band around the legs sitting tall. We'll do our biceps. One more time. One and two and three and rolling down. Very nice. Good. Taking that breath in. As we curl up, feel the shortening of the band.
Use the stretch of the band to inspire the stretch in your body. Growing tall and rotate and sitting tall and rotate and sitting toe. Very nice. Let's go for two to each side. This is where I like to really start to think about my legs, so it's very easy to be distracted just by the upper part of the body. But how can I use the reach of my legs to create that rebound effect back into my lower abdominals coming through the center. Bring the legs close and let's roll down.
Take the band just to one hand for a moment as we fold our legs up to tables, hop, hold onto the bandwidth. Each side just with the band under the legs and we'll try the rollover. So it's a small connection into the band here to remind our shoulders that they're here to help straightening the legs and rolling up and over into our roll over position. Let's separate the legs, flex the feet and roll it down using the arms and feeling the stretch in the band coinciding with the stretch and our abs. Circling our legs, legs together and up and over we go again. Separating the legs, flexing the feet and rolling on down, reaching through the legs, finding that circle. You guys are going to continue for two more so I can have a look at how beautifully you're doing. Great. Finding that openness.
I would recommend crossing the straps here, but then let the legs belong on the floor. Perfect. We want the band to be not too, too strong because we are going to be using the arms in this. So adjust. We're going to curl up and as you scoop your legs up, we're actually gonna pull the band out to the sides and up towards our Ese. If you can straighten your arms, that actually helps us even more. And then as you roll down, allow the arms to drift down. Well done. That looked fantastic.
And now if we can the crescendo rolling up.
So we'll take a breath in and as you exhale just dropping your body further and further and further into the mat because we don't really spend much time finding neutral in a prone position. Now that way ready? We're just going to start to peel out upper body only up and it's just a small amount of pool with the band with arms straight, not very much finding that lift. And then as we exhale coming on down. Good. I'm going to watch a couple of these funds, taking a breath in and then as you exhale, peel and just finding the way the band helps us identify that connection in our shoulders to support the openness through our chest. And then we'll roll it back through. Good.
And when you come down to the bottom, don't be afraid to allow the shoulders to release a little and again, roll it up. We're still um, prioritizing the upper back, but we're just feeling the way we can make this a whole body movement with the shoulders connected and then roll it down. And how about we just do the one more and roll it up. Beautiful. Allow the legs to be nice and heavy and let's just create a little pool with the band a touch more. And we're going to pump the arms up and down for 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one and rolling down. So from, he will bend the knees, let the feet come up, see if you can hook the band to the Shin or to the ankles around. If you've got short arms, it can be tricky. I've got long arms, so this stuff comes fairly easy to me across the band and that's going to make the likelihood of the band slipping much less. Great.
Almost like you're working into the yeah, and then bend the elbows to come on through. Nice job. Let's do two more here and rolling up. Finding that stretch. We always think about strength in this, which is important, but sometimes you have to let those abdominals lengthen. Ah, Nice. Bend knee elbows, roll it down. That was beautiful. And we do one more. Inhale, roll it up.
Lengthen the abdominals so they're still on there like a drum skin. I send tight and we're gonna rolling. Roll it down. Looking forward for as long as you can. Great job. Go ahead and find a little child's pose. And now if we did have a band to stretch, it would be the back of our body.
The exercise very much just allows me a little bit more range and comfort really. And one more time bending in and lengthen. So now that we've found that support, we'll see if we can keep it without the band behind the legs so that when we are here, we can still have that lift. Now if we needed to bend the knees, we can do that too. So let's stretch the band a little. So we're finding those external rotators of the shoulders, but then reach out on a diagonal. Keep the external rotation, bring the elbows in, and then allow it to back off. So as we rotate our ribs aren't gonna fling forward or it's going to work the back of the shoulder, stretch it through. That's where I like to find my lift in my waist, Ben.
Bring it in. Good. So keeping that energy through the backs of the shoulders, we're going to flip our hands, palms down and see how we go lifting up. Now this is the tricky bit. So can we take the arms behind us? The great thing about the band is you can slide your hands along the length of it without anybody even noticing. We're going to lift back up again until you find the position that works best for you. So we'll do another three lifted up that we're not just holding a bit of plastic here.
Excellent. Cool. So let's spin around so that you're facing me. We're gonna do a mermaid in a zed sit position. Let's have your Shin to this side of the room and then the band is going to be in front. But before we do that, let's take the hands. You might not be quite as bendy through your hands as me, but it's kind of weird. But, um, let's just give the hands a little bit of stretch and move and we'll reach out in a way and really opening up that palm side. I wanna just do one more. I'm going a little bit more holding of the band coming up one more time.
Allow that bottom elbow to bend a little bit and we're going to bend and straighten two and up three and up. Now peeling your hand up off the mat. Come to upright side bending this way. Let your hand eventually come down. So we creating tension. Bend and straighten. This one feels really good on my ribs.
That opens everything up. And last one. Now use the tension in the band to help create the lift. We'll do one more, so over without dropping that bottom hand and then actively draw it down. Bend and straighten. Good. Find that long line from the crown of the head all the way through to the hips lifting up and one more time going over. Let that hand come down.
Bend and stretch two and last one, calming on up. Take the band behind you. Bring the legs around. I like to put the band so it's under my shoulder blade so it's not too far up here onto the top of the shoulders and the neck. Straight in the top arm as well. All right, let's see if we can push out into a side plank now. So taking it on up and when we do our twist, we're just going to reach straight back so it's not to the feet, just reaching back, rotating the upper body and then bringing it back through.
And I like to feel how when the band lengthens, I can get more lift through my undecided waist. And then keeping that, find that lift. Take the band behind you, adjust your hand position. I just you a leg position. Let's say you can take your top foot in front and we're going to sweep ourselves up and over into that twist band behind. That's it. And then we're going to feed it through. We're not reaching for the feet, just going straight back and then up and again to more rotation. I've lost my hair tie and up. Last one, stretch at three and burring it up. Hold. Try this. Put your hand down, pivot your feet.
So here we are in our little quad repair. We going to find that length through our body and reach the leg that's um, furthest away from me. Out to the side. Yep, exactly. And back in. Now as we do this movement, we want to move from the hip rather than from the foot. So feeling as though the whole leg sweeps out. Excellent. And then back in. So the Shin and the knee are actually aligned with one another. Good.
We have three more like this. Press it out and in and see if you can on these last two, think about how that supporting leg is also having to work great. And now circles for six around you. Choose your direction. But thinking about that supporting leg, three good and four. Nice.
Let's bring ourselves up. Keep the band around the legs, make sure you've got some room behind you holding onto your ankles. Okay, let's see if we can extend the leg furthest away from me. So I've got some support into the band. Good. And in now with this version of the open leg Brocker we can still do it with bent knees as we need to up and in.
Now the challenge is can we do the open leg rocker without holding onto the legs? So taking it out, reaching the arms parallel. You don't have to do this version, but let's give it a go rocket
How much lift can you get? Reached down through the arms folding at the hips. Roll it back down. Lower the legs to 45 one more fold. Role lift magic. There was a band between your hands.
Could you pull that apart as well as using the band around your legs? Fold. Roll it down. Lay the buddy back through. Bend the knees and sit herself up. We're so close to the end. Let's come up to standing.
Now this time, touch the toes down. Send your body weight into that foot nice and even, and then transfer your weight over so that your foot peels off just before it lifts. Elongate. Find the lift and tap to tap three touch. Lay The foot down other side over. Find that connection into the band instead of the connection to the floor
Take the foot down. Last one over. Find the long line. Lift that leg,
He can think about whatever you want this time. Link down, enjoying this gift of movement that we have breathing in and as we roll up.
Thanks guys.
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