Functional Connections Mat

Hello, familiar. Welcome back. This exercise series is called functional connections using what you already know to get a better flow. Are you ready? Let's go. So what we're gonna do to start off is just get in touch with our body and just feel what's going on. So let's start with just nodding the head forward.

Bring the 10 chin into the chest. Bring the 10 into the chest. Right. The chin into the chest head nodding forward. And back. Breathing, still bracing at the abs one more in both directions this way.

And then we're gonna take our head neutral air to the shoulder. It really let that stretch there. Still bringing the belly button in and back. What we're doing here is addressing the fascia. So we are moving the love that surrounds our bodies so we can move better.

So this is what this is all about. So nodding the head one more in each direction. And then we're gonna bring the head to neutral. Head is neutral. Go ahead and take your ear to the shoulder here and roll the head around. It will semi circle.

Now the back, make it a full circle. We're gonna go about three in this direction. Pause here, reverse those circles. One more because it feels good this way. And stop it and bring that head to neutral.

You feel amazing. Right? Alright. Bring those feet together a little bit about the same size of your your hips and bring the arms up fingertips are up to the ceiling. Palms are facing inward. Go ahead and take that right arm down and then stretch to the side If you need a wider stance, go ahead and open the feet a little bit wider. So you can really get a stretch to the side of the body.

Careful not to lock the knees out, and then bring that puppy right back up to the center. Let that left arm drop down and stretch the right side, open up the right side of our body. That's one of our facial nets. And then we're gonna bring that hat up and over. Now, I would love for you to give me a little goalpost, bring those elbows towards each other towards the back, let the head relax back to extend. Chest is open and wide.

Collarbones are wide, and then bring it right back up to the top. Give me that goalpost, so there was cacti cactus, again, and reach, stretch. Open up the front of that body to open up the fascia there in that front fascia net. Last one, best one. Let's go.

Take it back, and then bring it back up. Let the arms come down to the side. Where you are right now, we're gonna do a torso twist. So my arms are gonna come out laterally to the side like a tee, and I want you to twist from your waistline. So as you twist, your hands will find your hips, and the head will follow. So think about looking in direction that you're going.

Come back through center, fingertips are reaching long, keeping energy through the fingertips, Other side start twisting at the torso, hands, find the hips, look in the direction that you're going. Coming back through center, arms come back to that tee nice and long. And I would love for you to take your hands back up to the ceiling, palms facing in, bring the feet close, and now we're gonna do a roll down to some little forward fold. So reach up and out of the hips, pull the belly button back. Let your hands find the floor or maybe they find your thighs or your shins and take a little stretch here.

Like I said, maybe your hands reach the floor. Maybe they don't. Tight hamstrings, bend the knees a little bit. It's a little bit. Alright. If you're finding this here, take a second to stretch and I want you to just let your head relax.

So we'll take a little second here in silence. Breathing deeply in and out. Last big breath. If your hands are at the floor, where you go ahead walk your hands out just a little bit further than your feet, and I want you to find balance on the balls of your feet heels come up. So think a little kitten heel or a plie.

So I want you to pedal through the feet lifting and lowering the left and right heel. Keep the hips reaching up to the ceiling. Think elephant on the reformer or the mat. The top of your body is steady and your body or the legs are moving from the hips. One more petal and then bring both feet flat to the floor. Here, I would love for you to be able to bend the knees or plie. So the knees bend bottom lowers, hand stay where they are.

Press your heels and big toe into the floor and straighten up there. And bend at the knees. And then straighten extra credit. If you get to the bottom and you want to lift those heels off before you can. And then lower them down. One more.

And then lower both heels straighten. The legs hips stay where they are. Last one, put your body forward. Just a little bit hands around the floor. And I want you to bring both heels up, keep both heels up at the highest point where they can stay.

The hips stay where they are and I want you to bend the knees. He'll stay up straight. Hills are up, belly button back. You're still pulling that belly button up towards the ceiling back towards your spine. Two more finding that balance, strong arms.

You never know how strong you are until you try. Get in there. Alright. Straight in the legs and then lower down Find the low balance, bend the knees, and then I want you to press the heels into the floor and then find the elevator up. Turning on that posterior chain, nice and long and tall heads the last thing to come up Now we'll turn to the side for our chair pose. So here my feet and my hips are about the same width.

I'm gonna bend the knees and send my hips back, like I'm sitting in a chair, bringing my arms forward, three of our arms forward, and it's like we're sitting there. I want you to feel like the the muscles are wrapping around the thighs and hold this here. We're holding for three. Two, one, come back up to a standing position. Can we do that again? Awesome. So now the arms and the seat will go back at the same time. So bend the knees, hips hinge, and then the hands come up, holding that chair pose because we sit and stand and get up and move, and this is a very important move. For living, yes, and then we bring it back up.

Last one, best one. Bring the arms up, hips back, hold this position. While we're holding this position, we're gonna go into some squats. So we're here already. Stay here. Not big squats.

Little squat. Little dip in the knee. Let's do anywhere from five to eight of those. And while you're doing this, your your belly button is still pulling back, your powerhouse is still engaged. Good. Good. Good.

Power. Oh my gosh. One more. Yes, Sabrina, bring it back together. Shake it off if your legs are like, what just happened? Can we come back to that? Let's go back into that chair, send the hips back, arms come back.

Now where we are, we're gonna let the hands Go to the floor, send your legs back. One leg, two leg. Can we hold the plank here? If we can hold the plank here, great. Maybe you need to modify to a forearm plank not a high plank or maybe to the knees, but wherever you are, hold this here. For three, two, one, walk the hands back to the feet.

Think Pilates push up her inchworm. Take a little stretch here. Walk right on back out. Four. Not letting the hips rock. Hold that plank.

Three, two, one. Let's walk it back. Hips pike up. Hands walk back to the seat. Hold the stretch. Last one.

Last one. Yeah. We'll see. Let's take it out. Four three two one holding that plank. We're holding that lovely plank. We got it. You look great.

Are you ready to put your knees on the mat? You are bring both knees to the mat and press back into a child's pose real quick. Nice. We love a plank. Now come back into your quadruped position. Again, you're always gonna check that knee, the hip, the wrist, the elbow, and the shoulder. When we're here, you've seen me do this before at other workouts. I want you to brace the abs and pull the abs up towards the ceiling tops of the feet are flat to the floor, press the hands into the mat.

If you need a little bit more information, we say turn the triceps sports one another so you can feel more. So collar bones are wide. Turn the triceps towards each other for more contact more torsion in your shoulders. Yes. Holding that box for three. Two, one. Relax.

It's a lot, but it's a little. Right? Alright. Let's do it again. Alright. Box. Hold it here. Tighten everything. Brace everything.

Pull everything together. Show me those triceps. They wanna say hi to each other. Awesome. Option to stay here, or option to release one of your hands.

Wherever you are, pick a hand in the end, this is gonna be my left hand. I'm gonna release forward. Keeping that balance, keeping the box. And change hands. And change again.

Last one on this side, hold it. Looks easy, but it feels like something else doesn't it. Now, because you're so awesome, we're gonna go into a pushup. What? Yes. Where we are right here, keep the hands where they are. Send both legs back. Maybe you pick your favorite plank up to you.

So push ups. You can give me a full push up if you're really, really strong like that. Otherwise, give me some little elbow bands. Boom. Boom. Elbow biz. This is a push up esque and then pike up and give yourself a little stretch there. I love it and then bend the knees and come to your belly. Coming all the way down to the floor.

So here, my elbows are close to my body, tops of my feet are flat to the mat, and I want you to turn on your your back body so you're nice and tight in the bum. So where we are here, we're gonna do some reaches. So I'm gonna reach both of my hands out forward. And when I reach the hands out forward, I'm balancing the top of my body so that my torso is up extending from the back, and I lower. Again, brace the abs, pull the glutes together, and then pull the top of your body up for your back extension.

Let's do two more. And wrist. Go ahead and bring those hands close to you. My fingertips are wide on the mat. Now, my torso is up.

I'm gonna lower it down just a little bit more to me more in line with my my shoulders and the mat. Now the bottom part of my body is going to move. My gaze is 45 degrees in front of me, so my neck is nice and long. I'm gonna lift both of my legs up from the hips, squeezing my glutes, toes are pointed. Long legs reaching away from the body, lower.

How's that feel? Let's do it again. Up, up, squeezing everything. If your legs are shaking, then you're joining me in the shaky committee. We're shaking and baking. Good. Let's do two more We're supposed to do like four or five ish. So if you did the extra ones, you know, we all need it.

It's all good. Squeee, squeeze squeeze. Are your legs getting heavier? Yeah. Mine too. Let's hold it there.

Hold it. Three, two, one, take a rest now. Family. Let's put the arms back out long. You know what's gonna happen here, don't you? Alright.

So we did the top. We did the bottom. Now we're gonna do them together. So that nice long extension of the arms and about the shape of a y head is looking forward. I'm gonna reach my arms up and legs up at the same time.

Are you ready? Let's go brace the abs three two one. Hold it up. Three, two, one rest. You got two more like that. Okay. We're going up for three, two, one, bring it up. Hold it. Brace those abs, nice long neck, toes are reaching, and three, two, one, lower. Yes, y'all.

This is getting me too. And last one, best one, arms and legs reach up. Holding, three, two option to go Superman. Superwoman. Wonder. I don't know. Anyway, let's go here and lower everything down. Press back into a child's pose and take a rest.

How are we feeling? We feeling good? Alright. If you're feeling great, it's time for you to sweep your legs forward. We're gonna go into a little forward fold.

Lex sweep forward long in front of me, tallest posture. If you need to move some meat around, do so. Alright. I'm going to flex at the ankles, find my tallest spine, reach the arms up and over for my forward fold. Maybe my hands go to my thighs, maybe they go to my calves, maybe they go on my toesies up to you. Make sure that the head is reaching forward and the hips are reaching back to find that oppositional stretch. Maybe your elbows bend to find more stretch.

Okay to use a towel or a strap here if you need a little more stretch there. Wonderful. And then come out of that forward fold. Go ahead and bend the knees. Tows are gonna touch than that.

These are bent. I'm gonna have a little c curve right here to find a v sit, so my hands are gonna go in front of me. I have my palms up up to you. Right leg is up. Left leg is up.

There's my v sit holding it. This is okay. If you want to go teaser land, totally okay to holding that there. While we're holding it there, here's a transition. If you want it, reach the arms up, as you twist your body over to the side. Hi. Okay. We're over here to the side.

I'm stacking my hips like we did it, for anything that we're doing side lying. So I have my arm here nice and straight my front hand is gonna be my kickstand. Maybe you need to have your your body lower, so it's up to you. Maybe the hand is in the head. Totally okay. I'm gonna go a little bit higher. So here, I'm gonna flex up the ankle to give me a little a little anchor there and I'm gonna lift this leg to the level of this hip keeping that hip hip stacked.

So here I'm gonna do a little exercise like we did in the eighties, we're gonna lift that leg up and lower it down. And as we lift it up, we're resisting it up, and we're reaching it long and away for the the down. You see that? Lift it up. And I am not concerned about how high your leg goes. I'm more concerned about how you stretch and how you strengthen and lengthen that leg because it's gonna help the hip.

Yeah? One more and then rest it. I'm gonna take my hand to my hip and then bend my top knee. Well, actually I'm gonna put it in front of me. For my bicycle. So I'm gonna bring the foot to about the knee level, extend the leg long, make a circle around to the back, kick my seat, and then come back to the front. You see that? Let's try it again. This is a bicycle. We're gonna do one.

The other one was a demo. Two. And three all the way to the seat. When you get to the seat, we're gonna reverse reverse sweep that leg behind you. Bring it forward.

Send it back. Yes. One more and reach, settle that foot down. I'm gonna swing my legs over to the other side and come up for my forward fold again. Forward folding.

Same rules apply. Holding that stretch. And when you're ready to come out of that stretch, we're going to go back to that v sit or that teaser s motion that we've done placing my hands to the side. Palms are up. Table top with one leg.

Table top with the other leg holding it there. For three, two, one, up, reach up and over to find the side lying position that you love. So here we are again. We've done this already. You know what to do.

Stack those legs. Anchor that bottom foot by bending that the ankle, point that top toe and lift and lower that top leg. If I didn't say a number, let's say a number now, five to 10. But whatever you do, If you do five on one leg, do five on the other, okay, and so forth. Reaching long in a way.

And even though we're reaching that leg long, we're still pulling up from the oblique. So that oblique is still reaching away from the mat, right? Want that torso nice and taut. I'll do two more. Reach reach reach reach reach reach the leg up and long away from the body and give a little pause.

Take that leg and trace it up to the knee. Knee comes forward, extend that leg, circle around for your bicycle kick the seat, up and around. We're gonna be doing about three or four of these. Don't hold it to my head. Hold it to my heart. And kick the seat other side other way other direction.

And you might find that your leg is like, why are we doing this? Because we know what's good for our legs. I'll do one more. One more. And I'm taking it all the way and stretch it out. Alright y'all. We're gonna swing it back the other way. Showing it is swinging.

I'm sticky. Alright. Take a forward fold here and we're going to come back into a bridge when we come out of this. So I'm going to just go ahead and take a roll back, roll down all the way down for me, hands at my side, low v y to the hips. And then bend both knees, feet are flat on the floor. Bring your heels as close to your bottom as possible. Maybe a Pilates v, maybe parallel.

Do what's best for your body and make sure that you're pulling that belly button down through the mat to find that powerhouse. So here with the legs, the feet where they are, I'm going to go ahead and just hinge up at the hip hinging up coming straight up wide collarbone squeezing my tuckus and then lifting in lower. You got that. So let's go and put some pepper in. Let's do about eight of these. So lifting lower.

One, two, three, you're gonna feel the burn. Four, Five. She's counting. Sex. Squeeze.

It. That's an eight, right? Okay. Cool. Holding that eight. Come up into your bridge. I'm gonna go parallel for me on this one.

Coming up to my bridge. Keep the bridge. Keep the plank forward. Hands are pressing and you're gonna feel the back of your arms onto the mat. Finding your balance on your pinky toe, big toe in your heel, bend that right knee into your chest.

Here where the knee is, knee to knee, extend that leg out at about a 45 ish degree. If you need a checkpoint, you could checkpoint it right there at the knee so they meet or go a little bit higher. When you're doing this, I want you to keep that leg strong and you're gonna feel it in your glute. That's your leg reach. Bend the knee, lower the hips, take a break. You've got another side y'all.

So let's go ahead and come back up into that bridge where we just were. Now we're gonna have that right foot plant in. Bend that left knee into the chest Try not to lose the height in our hip and extend that leg long again as long as you want to here or take it knee to knee. Need to knee is a little bit harder for me. Let's try on this side.

So we're gonna hold it here, hold the reach, hold it, hold it, and we're gonna bend that knee and lower the hips. We're not done. We're almost there. So now we're gonna take ourselves up into that bridge, hold that bridge, try to find the highest bridge that you have. Now we're going to pedal through our feet so the right heel will lift pressing onto the ball of that right foot and now we're going to switch or transfer that weight to the left side. He'll stays up, ball is in. Now that you know what you're doing, let's go. Pedal the feet, one after the other, left and right, keeping the height of that bridge as much as possible. Keep holding it. Three, two, It's stunning.

What? And then lower everything to the mat. You're amazing. Go ahead and let the legs go long. In front of you, reach the arms behind you, dig the heels in and roll yourself up to a seated position. We're almost there familiar. Figure four stretch.

So pick an ankle, any ankle. I'm gonna bring my left knee towards me and cross my right ankle over the left. Okay. To stay here, Okay to lean back. Okay to thread through. On this one, I'm just gonna pitch my body forward by pressing my hands behind me.

Fingertips are facing the other direction and just take that stretch. And when I'm taking this stretch, I'm letting the leg go out to the side, so it's opening up my hip for that figure four stretch. Option here to come up out of it and go into a lateral stretch. So here my left foot is on the ground. My right knee is up. I'm gonna take my left arm up to the ceiling, moving my hand so I can reach towards the the leg that is in my figure four stretch.

And then come out on that side, other side. And what you're gonna address in here is those deep hip muscles. Maybe you're gonna experience some shaking in there, and then come back out One more each side, make it pretty, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, even more opening up that opposite hip. Other side, last one on this side. Stay tall. You see that leg shake? It isn't really working.

And then come back through center, switch out the legs. Alright y'all. So there's my stretch. I'm finding my tallest posture This feels good to my leg. I like this. And if you can see now, this leg is here, but I can also press that leg forward more towards the floor to find more of a stretch. Okay? So You have an option here.

Same options thread through, lean back a little forward, or lean more forward, or lean more back. So we're ready to go. I'm gonna take my hand to the side, bring my right arm up, and then give myself a little stretch to the same direction that that top leg is going. And then come through center other side. It's a little challenging, but it's good for our hips.

And our back. Yeah. Come through the center, other side, small, but mighty movements that make you stronger. That's what I say. And then come back through. Last one this side.

Reach, keep that height in your chest. Stay long and tall through your torso, and come back to center, uncross those legs. Let the legs come forward. Come back up one more final time for a forward fold. Maybe you're gonna see that you stretch a little bit more than you did last time.

Find yourself a little more more bendy. Two more deep breaths here. Deepening the stretch as you exhale. Stack your spine, roll up to the top. You've done it.

Amazing work. Small but mighty. See you next time.