Wunda Chair Workout

(claps) Hi everyone. I'm here for a Wunda Chair class. I'm feeling in the mood to workout, so it's kind of an up-level class. I'm on a Gratz chair. We'll start with leg pumps, seated leg pumps.

If you're on a balance body chair, either the combo chair, or the low chair, or a peak chair, set your springs the way that you want for your leg pumps because all the chairs are different, as we know. The Gratz chair, what I have here, is I have one on the low and the other one on the high. Those are the springs that I have, a high and a low. Let's start together with a standing roll down, so just have your feet apart, sits bone's width apart. Just take a deep breath in (inhales), and then here we go.

Just starting at the top of the head, and letting your shoulders round forward, letting the weight of your head help you round in, lengthen down, shifting your weight forward a little bit on your feet, so that you're not directly back and rocking out your knees. Just take a nice, deep inhale, and use the exhale to really work from those lower abdominal muscles, right in, you could even follow the line of your inner thighs, up into the lower abdominals, and right up along the spine. Let's do two more together, nice breath in (inhales), and then exhaling, so the top of the head, shoulders, and the spine feel right away. This shape in our Wunda Chair workout will happen a few times. You'll be seeing the full pike, doing the pike with the rotation and twist.

Okay, and exhale again, pulling yourself up. Keep that weight shifted forward, all the way through. Guys, we'll take one more. Feel a little taller here, breathing in (inhales), and exhale (exhales). Abdominals lift, arms nice and loose from the shoulders (exhales) full bodies, we're about to start with our leg pumps.

Inhale, exhale, and roll yourself up. Once you get to the top, let's just go ahead and have a seat on the chair, and we will do Pilates V position to begin. I like to start with the pedal down, so go ahead and push your pedal all the way down so that you can establish first really where you are, up on your sit bones, you've got a nice, tall spine. I'm gonna change it a little bit today. Instead of working in a vertical sitting position, let's just do a soft flexion, and I'm thinking mainly about the lumbar spine, closing the knees a little, so you might identify that shape of the outside of the body here as stomach massage on the reformer.

Inhale when the springs are open, here we go, exhale, pull up, and lower. Why I want the rounded spine here today is to see if you can get and keep a connection of your deep abdominals with those high hamstrings and your low glutes. Exhale up, inhale down, pull, and push, pull, and push, pull, and push, last one, and then hold. Change your feet to the Prehensile position, rounding arches of your feet. Try to cup the heel down and the toes over, and again, contract into the abs, inhale, springs are open, and exhale, pull up.

(inhales) Pull up (exhales). The pushing down comes from the back of the legs, pulling up from those abdominals. If you can get that relation, push and pull, push and pull (breathing heavily). Great chance to get the stretch and the C curve of your lumbar spine (breathes heavily). Last two.

Knees are together. Then push down and hold down. Let's change the feet to the heels. Really take a moment to find the equal place on your heel, reconnect into lumbar flexion, inhale, the springs are long, and exhale, pull up. Pull up, just release your arms now from the chair.

You don't really have to hold on (exhales). (breathes heavily) Four more (breathes heavily). One last position. Let's go to the balls of the feet with high heels, knees together, ankles together. If your bunion joints can stand it, put those together, flexing the lower back.

Make sure pinky toes is on your pedal, so you're not changing your ankle. Inhale here, here we go, pulling up, pulling up; you really wanna try to get the springs completely closed at the top (breathes heavily). You'll feel that all the way in. (breathes heavily) Two more, nine, and 10. Place your hands back on the chair, feet back out into Pilates V, and then I want everybody just to stand up and stretch your legs, and dive your head down, look into yourself, meaning look right at the length of your legs, right up into your belly, your abdomen, and then shift your weight a little bit off of your legs.

You're not leaning. Try a little pre tendon stretch. Externally rotate your upper arms, legs are tight together, inhale when the springs are open, and here you go, you have to lean back a little, and pull those hips up, and pull your hips up; guys, let's go for five. (breathes heavily) Five, okay. Have a seat.

Control your pedal up. All right, I'm gonna do a couple exercises for the abdominal muscles again, on top. I'm just gonna turn my chair, so you can see more of a profile. Feel free just to get cozy down in your chair. Tuck your knees in.

Butt should be right at the front end here. Press down onto your shins. (exhales) Get into that groove. Get into that C curve. Let's do the hundred, here we go.

Stretch it out, and (exhales) three, four, five, and. (exhales) You wanna be close enough, where your sit bone's at that edge of the chair, that you actually have to recruit the base of yourself to hold yourself up. You'll know what I mean. You don't wanna let the butt just drag down. (exhales) Reach for the legs.

Keep the collar bones back and the shoulder blades on your back. (exhales) Two more cycles. (exhales) Last cycle; see if you can get your legs a little bit lower, and then everybody just hold. Find your stretches, out your legs, out your arms, up the top of your head. (exhales).

Double leg stretch, just five times. Inhale, go back out to that long body shape, circle your arms, and pull the thighs in. Stretch as long as you can, and exhale, squeeze in, keeping your upper body in that same place. (exhales) Stretch. In, one more time.

Lengthen and in. All the way up. (sighs) That's so hard to do and talk at the same time. Let's do some back extension for some swan. Moving my chair back in the diagonal.

I'm dropping one spring off, the low one, so that'll just keep me on three, one spring on the high side. We're doing swan (metal clattering) with some arm pumps. Choose your spring for yourself. Come onto your stomach. Get long.

Externally rotate your shoulders, grab the legs together, take a breath in when the springs are open, (inhales) and exhale (exhales). Start to pull yourself up, and up, and up, and inhale as you lower down. Make adjustments if you need. Exhale, rotate the shoulders, that nice smile across your collar bone, look straight out, and inhaling down (inhales). Three more times; exhale (exhales) and inhaling down (inhales).

Last two (exhales). Inhaling down (inhales). Last time here. There we go. Lower halfway.

(inhales) Now, start to pump. (exhales) Before you straighten your elbows, do a little extra abdominal check. Bend, little check, and press. Bend, little check, and press, just to ensure that you're really working from your inside and then out. Three, four, and one more, and there.

Bring yourself up and give yourself a slight little break, and stretch your back. We're gonna come back down and add a little bit more of the dive. We put these two together. You may have to have a little bit more forward on your pubic bone. Lift that pedal just enough, so you can hold your elbows in a flexion, and then start to work those hamstrings and glutes, and raise up; don't worry about how high you go initially.

Let's do three. Body up. Legs up. Body up. My hands are slipping; legs up.

I can do it. Body up. Legs up, and a little beat, beat, beat, that's all, and then finish your exercise. Come on up. Once again, just stretch, take a few breaths, sorta find that lumbar flexion again.

Easy shoulders (exhales). All right, everyone stand on up, and let's keep moving. I wanna us to add the low spring again. We need a tiny bit more support for the next series of exercise. I'm taking that opposite side down on low again.

All right, so we got three and one. Let's come on up. Guys, were' going into the... Let's go to the pike, full pike. I'm gonna just turn this to the side.

Pick the hand position that works for you. I'm gonna step on. Really where I want you to concentrate first before we get going into pulling up that pedal is your relationship forward and back. For me, right today, at this moment, we'll see what happens, my shoulders are relatively above my arms, not back here, not too far forward, dive that head. You an go parallel, or you can do a Pilates V.

I'm gonna do my Pilates stance right now. Trust yourself to start getting that head to drop. I know a lot of us know the work fairly well, and we're out here with our head. Just start trusting yourself. You all have it; we all have it.

Drop it down. Here we go. Inhale when the springs are open (inhale). You do have to press into those arms, and push down, and pull up, so there's a push and a pull of the head. Lower.

Again (exhales), pull. Can we get those springs to close? Inhale and lower (inhales), (exhale) and pull. Follow the line of your legs up into your pelvis. Pull your legs into your pelvis, and down.

Two more, pull way up, follow the line of your legs, trust that you got it, hold, (exhales) and down. One more. (exhales) Release. (sighs) Lovely. Turn toward me.

Take your outside foot. We're going into a little twist. The outside foot is the one that's on the pedal, heel is near the back end. Take your inside foot, and cross your ankle over the other ankle, so it looks like the twist from the reformer. I wanna try that here, so place your hands, stretch your legs, and get that nice scoop in and up of your abdominals, and before we pike, take this outside arm, and give yourself a stretch.

(breathes heavily) Feel yourself stretching through your arms, through your legs, through your eyes. Take a breath and exhale; contract as you set this hand down. Let's go for five. Inhale, prepare, and exhale. Here we go (exhales).

Pull and stretch. I want you to have a lot of energy in the pointing leg foot. Lift and lower. Trying to square the shoulders. Last time.

Pull up and lower. (inhales) Stepping down, just release that pedal. I'm just gonna do it that way (breathes heavily), so you all can see. Outside foot steps right at the back with your heel. Hands.

Inside leg, really stretch it long, point that foot, square your shoulders. Again, let's do the stretch first. Take that arm, and you might feel the difference between your two sides, acknowledge and respect it. (exhales) It's there for a reason. Contract.

Center yourself. Notice all those fine little things that happen. Dive that head. Here we go. Press into the arms, and pull your legs up into your pelvis.

Again, pull up. (exhales) The leg connection is essential here. Connect them together. Last two. (exhales) (inhales) Last one (exhales).

Lower. Step down. Let's just pedal our feet for a minute. (breathes heavily) Breathe. (breathes heavily) Let the head go (inhales) and four (exhales), three, two, and one.

Lower and step. Okay guys, bring that pedal up. Let's go up front, stepping up front, so take one foot onto your pedal. All right, notice we don't have handles. I don't want anybody to put their hands down unless they absolutely need to for balance.

You don't need it. You've got it right in here; you've got it in your body. Transfer weight. Transfer weight. Check where your foot is.

Now, it's up to you where you want your hands. I'm gonna go out to a T. I like to feel the weight of the arms pressing down a little bit. Feel both glute medius muscles sides of your pelvis hug into the pelvis, into those inner thighs, and that brings us right up. Let's go with five of them.

Inhale the springs down. Now, I'm gonna change my arms, guys. Take your arms with you as you go up. (exhales) Press as you go down. Pull them up as you press up.

Press down as you pull down. Two more, press your arms up as you press up. Press down as you lower down. Our last one. Arms stay out into a T.

Press up, come off that pedal, toe to a knee. Hold. Hold. Challenge yourself, if you'd like to. You could stay here or add a little relevé with that heel.

You can do it, guys. You need to find the pedal. Put that foot right on the edge of the chair, see how I'm doing that, so that you're real close to it, start to bend your front knee. Feel for the pedal. Get secure.

Now, as you go down, I want us to come into the mountain climber position. Flex spine. Seal up those glutes, and let's go for 10 with the hands on the knee. (breathes heavily) Six, seven, eight, keep going, nine, and 10. Arms out in front, and one, and two, go a little higher, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and 10.

You go all the way up to come all the way down. Okay, you step back just as you stood on, so you step back. Release. Good balance. Second side.

(inhales) Stay collected. Put this foot up on your pedal. Collecting ourselves, so feel those hip muscles really pull in against your legs, okay, into the inner thighs. Press your pedal down, and then as you go to a stand, you have to shift weight on that front leg, step up. Maybe on this side, everybody, just explore the arms out into a T.

You can feel kind of a continuous. Press down with your arms. It's also maybe a little easier for your balance this way. Let's try that together. Breathe in (inhales); here we go.

Arms stay out. Might actually give you an opportunity to really feel the distal energy side-to-side. Exhale (exhales). Inhale. Keep that back leg taut, right up in your hamstrings and your glutes.

Look out in your horizon line. Last two. (inhales) We've got the Pacific Ocean to look across. Last one; now you're stepping all the way up, stepping up, toe to the knee, (exhales). If you'd like a little more challenge, take your heel slightly up off your chair.

Wow, I got really (laughs) in it there. Take the foot, feel the edge of the chair. Stay open with your posture. Feel for your pedal with the ball of that foot. Square those hips as you come down.

Flexion. Place your hands, and we did 10 with the hands here. (exhales) Try to keep your weight back a little bit. (exhales) Five, six, seven, scoop those abs, eight, nine, and 10. Arms out.

You can stay low, or you can start to go a little bit higher. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, and 10; go all the way up. Climb all the way down. Step back. Woops, I violated my own rule.

Step back, and release. Let's go up front, but onto the side. Before we do that, I think I'd like to warm up your hips in a open position, so just stay facing your chair. Get into a squat, where a pretty deep hip lowering. You can put your hands on your knees.

See if you can get those hips pretty low. Rock a little side to side. Often, that exercise of piano lesson is here, in a small pilates V. Today, let's do it with a wide stance. You won't probably get a lot of movement with the pedal.

Maybe today it's more about how low you can get your hips. Hold. Press your heels firm on the floor, and press your legs to stand. Let's do that two more times. (exhales) Trying to get your knees back, head over shoulders, over hips, and press.

One more time. Really open through the inner thighs, pelvis, lowering your hips (exhales), and press. Toe, heel, ish (laughs). Then, going out front to the side, I'll stay facing you. We already stood this way once.

Put your outside foot heel at the back. Same transition, unless you have to hold on. Start challenging yourself not to. Now, check this one out. You've got this external rotation.

You just stretched it out. This guy's parallel, but you have adductors on both legs, of course. Engage them to that mid line. Arms out to a T. Feel the stretch.

Let's go for three of them. Three to five. (exhales) Pull into the center, and pull up the center. Lower. Pull in.

Now I am actually gonna go for five. Include your arms; press down as you pull up. There's a little more source there. One more time. Press down, pull up, and lower.

Stepping down much like you stood on. Change your pedal, or you guys stay where you're at and turn around. Here we go. Outside foot (inhales). Step, get your body weight on that leg.

Climb up. (inhales) Establish it first through external rotation. You're parallel; your adduction. (exhales) Ready, inhale (inhales). Press the legs towards the mid line and press up.

(breathes heavily) Pull together, and press up. (exhales) Energy out, even though you're going up. Last two. (exhales) Last time. In and up.

Let's get off of our legs for a moment or two. We'll do some arm work. (breathes heavily) There. For this, I am gonna turn the pedal, or the chair, just a little bit to the side again, and lower these springs. Let's take that low side off again (laughs).

It should just leave you with one side (metal clattering) on your high side. Good, the spring is changed. We're now on one side on the third spring up. We took the bottom one off. We actually did.

A one-arm push exercise, so I want you to stand perpendicular to your chair, sideways to your chair. Do a nice standing roll down. Inside hand will come on and press the pedal down. You might have to make an adjustment. Then the outside arm, guys, I want you to lift it up, and pull your arm in toward your body, and try to square your shoulders.

Sometimes that shoulder is left a little bit twisted, so square, guide that head. Let's take it up and down five times. Lift. This arm should stay reaching. Four, and five; now, keep your pedal down.

Lift your inside foot, so you're in a little bit of an off stance and little balance there. Take this outside leg into a bend. Lunge down. Try to keep your pedal down. Now, let's go for some triceps on this top arm.

You can keep your hand at your knee. I'm gonna bend my elbow inward and push. In and press. Not letting my elbow poke out. Trying to keep my upper body square.

There's our five. Now, keep your pedal down. Take your outside arm into a twist. Another lunge; we did this in the pike. Reach back with that leg; reach up with this arm; push down with the down arm.

Drop the arm behind. Breathe in. Step your back foot to the middle foot, or second foot, and then slowly roll all the way up. Keep yourself rolling up; let's do the other side. I'll just walk around.

I think I'll square it like this, just for a little variety, perpendicular to your chair. Deep breath in. Exhale, rounding down, hand on the pedal, outside arm continues to come up, feel square, arm pulls in. Upside down with your body. Inhale (breathes heavily).

The up arm stays reaching up, even when you pull down, pulling down on the spring I mean, pull down. Four, (exhales) and five. Inside foot, you lift it, lunge back. Take your outside hand on your knee, so it's the inside arm, I want you to bend your elbow, and press. Externally rotating that upper arm, press.

Three, (exhales) four, and last one. I'm okay that my knee isn't over my ankle. That's okay. You were just doing lunges, where the knee was not over your ankle, so it is fine. Twist.

Open your chest. Stretch back with your back leg. Take the arm down. Take a breath. Back foot joins next to the second foot.

You roll all the way up. Let's go in for some reverse chest expansion. Once again, I'm gonna turn my chair. Profile. Sit near the front edge of your seat, or back, I should say.

(breathes heavily) Get comfy. Legs are out. Pilates stance. Start with yourself up in a nice, extended spine. Then we're gonna change this, so I want you to go into some flexion.

(exhales) Press your arms back. Press your arms back, and open that chest. Look down your body. Now curl into your body. Do a flexion here.

Flexion to roll back. (exhales) Flexion to roll forward with your shoulders back, so it's really your spine pulling in. Inhale (inhales). (exhales) Exhale. (exhales) You're dragging those springs together with your abs.

Two more to go. (exhales) Pulling. Last time. (exhales) Pull, pull, and pull. Bring your knees in.

Wiggle your hips a little front because we need it for a teaser position here. Just find your teaser. Now, let's press the pedal. We're gonna do some little elbow pumps. One, two, 10 times, three, four, five, (breathes heavily) nine, hold it 10, and release.

Let's add a little twist to that with our body design, so turn yourself either away from me or toward me, either way. The back hand reaches for the pedal, fingers are facing back. Top arm comes up by your head. Lift those legs again. Now, really take your time.

Twist. Twist. Twist. Again, find where you can reach through your arms, out your legs, out your top of your head. That's an inhale; exhale, bring yourself up.

Stay in your twist. Just two more. Imagine going around yourself. (exhales) One more time; inhale, lean back, and exhale all the way up. Stay integrated.

Lift both arms up. Turn now the other direction; hand goes back. Here we go. Open as you inhale. Exhale, pull the springs up.

Not on a carrot, Jamie; you're on a chair (laughs). Now reach. Exhale. Recognize your differences. Do not judge them; recognize; try to make the change, even if it's mental.

(exhales) It should be mental first, anyway. Mental, mind, body. A couple more exercises to complete this workout. I have to put that low spring back on. It's not gonna be hard.

It's just not gonna be a problem. We're gonna go like this. I've got that last spring on. I have that top on three still, the lower one on the bottom. Let's go for this.

We're going to do frog front, or frog facing away, so have a seat. Put your feet on your pedal, Pilates V. We'll do both the arm portion, the dips, and the leg pumps. Here you go. Establish your setup.

Wrap those arms back. Try to come off the pedal, or off the seat, excuse me, without a whole lot of movement in your pedal. Now, let's work the arms first. We'll go five. (exhales) Elbows are narrow (exhales).

Your chest is expanded. Your heels haven't moved; they haven't dropped your legs. (exhales) Let's do it again with one leg out. Three times. (exhales) You can get your leg higher, guys.

Just go for that leg higher. Last one. Right away change. Hopefully that pedal stays relatively stationary. Leg goes up.

Here we go, bandaid and all. One. Press; you're strong. You've got it, press. Down.

Press. Step that foot on. Now the legs go pumping. It's easy. Push and pull; it's almost like a no-brainer now.

(exhales) Four, three, two, and one. That's all. Have a seat. Just wipe your hands, if they're sweaty. We have on more; it's the tabletop.

This time, your hands do go to the back. You've done all the preparations for this, or most of them. Pilates V. Wrap the arms. Same thing; we're gonna try not to push the pedal on the entry.

Lean back a little bit. Curl your tail towards your calves and heels. Press yourself up. (exhales) You can go a little higher with the hips. Now, the pedal moves.

We push. We pull. We push. Ideally, the pelvis stays up on the table. (breathes heavily) Down.

Lift, and down. Let's try down and lift and down. That's what I've got. Other leg, I'm happy with that. Take it, here we go (laughs).

Down, and lift. Down, and lift. Place your feet. Whoa. Recurl to your seat.

(sighs) Just find a little moment you can put your feet down on the ground. Take a couple deep breaths. In fact, let's just take a side S, rounding down spine stretch. Thanks for playing with me (breathes heavily) in this Wunda Chair workout. I had a couple people ask for this class.

Summer was one of them, so let me know what you think, Summer. Thank you (claps).