Yoga and Pilates Workout for Beginners & Seniors || 20 minute Mat Exercises

Hi, and welcome to Senior Shape. Got a great video for you today. It is a yoga Pilates fusion. You're gonna feel amazing afterwards. We're gonna spend the whole time on the mat. And right before we get started, I want you to quick tell you about CaliWeights, what I'm wearing on my hands. This video is not sponsored in any way. I actually reached out to the company. I thought this was a great idea. They're little bangle bracelets that are weighted. They come in a pack of four, quarter pound each. So I just have a half a pound on each hand. I love them. And then if you were interested, something like this, there's a link in the description of this video and you guys get 20% off. So anyway, check that out. They're great for everyday wear all day. Maybe you have arthritis and don't want to, you know, deal with the wrist issues. A lot of fun. So I'm gonna be featuring these today during the workout. And let me know what you guys think of this idea. Let's go ahead and get started. Sitting up nice and tall, cross-legged if that's comfortable for you. You can always elevate your hips on a small pillow or a blanket rolled up or yoga block as well. So again, sit up nice and tall. Pull that belly button into the spine. Lengthen your head all the way up. Wind up nice and tall. Let's take a nice deep breath in. Arms are gonna go up. Put your hands together and bring it down to your heart center. Two more times. Big inhale up. Exhale down. One more time. Big inhale up. And exhale down. Let's take both arms up again and take a nice little torso twist. We're gonna drop one hand behind us as we turn to the left. Let's come back up to center and other side. Right arm drops behind us. Exhale. Inhale as we come back up. Exhale, twist. Inhale, rise. Exhale, twist. Inhale, rise. Bring them back down to heart center. You guys stay facing me. I'm gonna turn to the side here. Extending the legs out if that's comfortable for you. If not, you can have a little bend underneath the knees. Sitting up as tall as we can, inhale. As we exhale, I just want you to hinge slightly forward, keeping a nice proud chest. Really warming up, activating, stretching out those legs. Right and back. Keep the feet flexed if you can. And let's come up. Big inhale here again. Exhale, pull that chest forward and we're not rounding the back here. Exhale into that stretch. Let's come all the way up again. Inhale. Exhale. As we exhale, we're gonna come all the way back, nice and slow and controlled onto our elbows. I want you to zip your legs together. Pull that belly button into the spine and reach that chest up out of the shoulders. So I want you to feel a nice stretch here in your shoulders and you should feel it in your core as well. I want you to shift a little bit of your weight to your right elbow. And as we do that, again, pull the belly button in and we're simply gonna reach the left arm out straight in front of us. Immediately, you should feel that in your core. A deep breath in. Exhale. And let's release that elbow down. Other side. Shift the weight to the elbow and then reach that arm up. It doesn't look like much, but I know you're feeling it in the core. Inhale here. Exhale. Release it down. Let's do one more each side. Reach the arm out. Inhale. Exhale, make it nice and long. Reach, reach, reach. Other side. Belly button is pulled in. Big reach here. And put it down. We've got one more. We're gonna try to reach both hands. If it's too difficult, just go back to the one. Here we go. Inhale. Exhale. Pull that belly button in and reach both hands. Hold it here. Nice, proud chest. Give me three, two, and one. Relax it back to those elbows. And let's take it all the way down onto our backs. Legs are gonna go straight up into the air. I'm gonna tuck my hips under here, do a little wiggle to get my lower back onto the floor. You can support your lower back as well by putting your thumbs underneath that tailbone. I want you to try turning your legs out so your heels are together and your knees are out to the side. Core is pulled in. We're gonna slowly circle the legs to the right. Little baby circles. Trying to keep your knees straight. Toes reaching nice and long towards the ceiling. Two more. Let's reverse it. Keep that turn out. And you're breathing. Good, keep it here. For two, and one. Bend the knees, release the hands, and go ahead and hug those knees into the chest. You can do a little rock and roll around here, stretching out that lower back if that feels good to you. Big, deep breath in. As we exhale, we're gonna curl our head, neck, and shoulders up to our knees. So we're in a tight little ball here. Of course, belly button is still pulled into the spine. Hold this position. We're gonna extend our right hand and our right leg at the same time, extending them long. Taking them out, and let's pull them in. Inhale, other side. Extend the same arm and leg, and back in. If this is too difficult, just do the arm or just do the leg. Inhale, extend. Exhale, bring it in. Just one more each side. Excellent work. Relax the head, neck, and shoulders. And let's put our feet back on the floor. Palms are resting on the floor as well. Walk the heels a little closer to your bottom. I want you to do a nice little glute bridge here, lifting the hips off the floor, making sure you're not putting an arch into that back. This is a great stretch for our hip flexors and exercise for our glutes and core. Let's relax it down, nice and slow, one vertebrae at a time. Again, let's push it up. Lift those hips nice and high, and release it down. Lift it up, squeeze those glutes. Feel that stretch right here in front of the thighs and hips. Tummy in, roll it down. It should feel like a nice little back massage on the way down. We lift again, squeeze those glutes. Roll it down. We've got two more. Last one. This time we're gonna hold that glute bridge all the way up. Take your arms, reach them all the way up, over the head, and then let's pump them here, back down. Glutes stay lifted the whole time. Lift the arms up, overhead, and down, back at our sides. Inhale, and exhale. Four more. Stay with me. You can always tap your bum down back to the mat, but bring it right back up if you need to. Last one. Let's lower the arms, and then slowly lower the glutes again, one vertebrae at a time. Hug those knees in one more time, releasing those glutes. So good. Let those knees drop down to the side, and we're gonna go ahead and roll over onto our tummy. Couple moves here. Feet are about hip-width apart, and then I want you to place your hands, palms down, right underneath your shoulders. Your elbows are tucked into your sides. Tummy is pulled in, and your pelvis is pressed into the floor. I want you to lift your head, neck, and shoulders using your hands, and push yourself slightly off the floor here into a swan position, keeping the neck in line with the spine. And let's slowly lower down. Again, push it up. You might be feeling this in your triceps, in the back of your arm. And slowly lower down. Only go to your comfort level. I don't want you to put any pinches or tweaks in that lower back. Hold it here. Drop your neck, and roll it over to the side. Good, again, roll it back to center, and maybe to the other side, looking over the other shoulder. We come back to center, and let's slowly roll it down. Beautiful work, that's it for that. Sitting the hips back, let's come into a child's pose, hips on top of the heels, and extend those arms all the way out in front of us. Beautiful stretch in the shoulders, and in that lower back. You can drop your forehead to the mat if that's comfortable for you. Big inhale, and exhale. One more time, inhale, and exhale. Let's rock on up to our hands and knees. So coming on to all fours, wrists are underneath our shoulders, and knees are directly underneath our hips. To loosen up our hips, we're just gonna press them side to side, feeling a really nice stretch in the sides of the hips, and in the glutes. Few more here, maybe press back. Oh, my hip just popped, it's working. Few more, tummy is pulled in, and let's find our way back to center. Core is lifted, belly button into the spine. Shift your weight into your right knee, and let's go ahead and extend that left leg behind us. Keeping that core nice and tight, our gaze is just a foot or two in front of our mat, and if it's comfortable for you, let's go ahead and extend our right arm forward. So opposite hand is opposite leg, holding here, and let's release both down. Other side, shift your weight into your left knee, and let's extend our right leg behind us. Foot is neutral, it's neither pointed nor flexed, and extend the left arm. Tummies are in, find your center of balance here, and let's go ahead and put that back down one more time each side. Extending the left leg and the right arm. Really stretch it long. If I were there, I'd pull on your fingertips and pull on your toes, stretching nice and long. Give me a big inhale. Let's release it on our exhale. Right leg and left arm. Grow one more inch taller in those limbs. Inhale, exhale, release it down. Nice work. From here, let's come into our first downward dog. We're going to curl our toes underneath us. Go ahead and lift those knees, and let's push off, shifting our hips back and trying to straighten your knees. Pushing away from the hands here, our hips come into the air. Pushing our chest back as well. Big inhale. On our exhale, we're gonna bend our knees, knees returning to the mat, but we're gonna hover here in a little bear position. This is a great modified plank. Hold for three, two, and one. Lower those knees, uncurl the toes, and sit back in child's pose. All right, that felt good. We're gonna do that one again. Big inhale. As we exhale, come back into all fours. Curl those toes under. Push through the palms into the mat. Lift your hips, straighten your knees, and let's push back, trying to get our heels pushed into the floor, chest is in between the shoulders. Inhale. On our exhale, shifting back forward, drop the knees towards the mat, and holding them there for three, two, one. Drop the knees, and back into child's pose. Third time is a charm. Back to all fours. Curl the toes, and we push it up. Shift those hips back. Inhale. Exhale. Tummy comes into the spine. Hovering those knees if you can. Hold for three, two, one. Gently lower, uncurl the toes, and sit back. Nice deep breaths, keep breathing. And relax into the mat. On your next inhale, let's come up to a sitting position. We're gonna extend our legs out in front of us. Again, elevate your hips if you need to. We're gonna glue the inside of our legs together and feet are flexed. Reach your palms face down, your arms towards me. The spine is nice and tall, lengthening. Roll those shoulders down and back. Good, take your right arm, and we're gonna twist behind us. Doing a nice torso twist, and bring that arm back to center. Other side, left arm reaches behind us, back to center. Inhale. Exhale. Reach and twist, and come back. Inhale. Exhale. Reach and twist. One more time, each side. Inhale. Exhale. Keep that nice tall posture, and back to center. Relax the arms down. We're gonna open up our feet, just to about mat distance apart, a couple feet. Again, keep that nice tall spine. The string is lifting you from the top of your head. Arms are going to go out, feet are flexed, palms are down. We're gonna twist again, all the way over to the side, and then I want you to reach to the outside of that pinky toe, keeping a nice straight spine. We come back up and twist back to center. Other side, we twist first, and then we lean over, reaching to the outside of that pinky toe, and come back up. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. And exhale. Good, again, we twist it over. Each time we do this, guys, you should be getting a little bit lower, lengthening that spine, feeling the stretch in those legs. Feels so good, we're all gonna be an inch taller. We're almost done. Big twist. Again, try not to round the spine here, but growing taller as we reach back up. And then twist open, relax the arms down, nice job. We're gonna come into a butterfly. I want you to keep the heels quite a bit distance from your bottom here, so not usually as tucked in here. Holding onto your ankles, again, sitting up nice and tall, we inhale. As we exhale, we're gonna lower that chest. Again, only as far as you can go is keeping a nice, straight or neutral spine. So I don't want this, no rounding of the spine. Chest is forward. Let's come up. Again, inhale. Exhale. Chest forward. This is so great, again, for loosening the hips, stretching the inner thighs, stretching the glutes. And let's come up. Let's come back into a cross-legged position. Left arm goes up, reach it nice and tall. Bend that elbow, patting yourself on the back. Let's take our right arm. We're gonna reach it all the way around, and we're gonna try to have our fingers meet here in the back of our back. Feeling a great tricep stretch in the one arm and a shoulder stretch in the other. This is also great for your posture. Hold that stretch here, inhale. And exhale. Let's release those arms down. Right arm comes up, reach it nice and tall first. Bend that elbow, walk the fingers down the middle of the spine. Left arm comes back and around here, trying to reach the other fingertips behind your back. It's okay if they don't. I have one side that does and one side that doesn't. Open up the chest. Think about pressing those elbows out to the side. Inhale. And let's release it on that exhale. Arm down to the side. Let's take this arm up, big reach. And then we're coming all the way over to the side. And let's reverse it. Reach that left arm up nice and high first. And then big side bend over here. Feels so good. Let's end with a nice deep breath. Big inhale. All the way up. And let's come back. Heart center, nice and tall. I think we just grew a couple of inches. Thank you for joining me in this quick workout. Hope you loved it. I know I did and feel better. It's a great one to do anytime you don't feel like working out but need a little bit of something. Thanks for joining me today. We'll see you next time.