12MIN Abs, Arms, & Back Pilates Mat Workout | Day 4/7-Day Pilates Challenge | no equipment

Welcome to day four. We're gonna work on our core, arms and back today and we will start in a tabletop position, bringing the hands underneath the shoulders, knees underneath the hips and then flip your fingers to point towards your knees to start with a gentle wrist stretch, leaning forward and back. Being really careful here, so not overstretching anything, moving mindfully and feeling the stretch in the palms, the wrists, the forearms even and then bring your hands back underneath your shoulders. Reach the right arm all the way up, inhale and with the exhale, thread the arm underneath you and walk your left fingertips to the right corner of your mat. Stretching the spine into shoulders here, right ear is resting in the mat and try to keep your hips squared, maybe drawing the left hip back even more. Bring your left palm back underneath your shoulder and lift up for a counter stretch, reaching the right arm up and place the palm down and then we reach the left arm up, inhale and exhale, threading it through, coming onto your left shoulder and walking the right fingertips to the left corner of your mat, drawing the right hip back and breathing into the stretch and we place the right palm back and reach the left arm up, counter stretching and then back into a tabletop position. Inhaling, drop your belly, arching the spine, exhale, press your into the mat, rounding, moving with your breath, so inhaling we arch and exhaling we round. Let's do a few more cat and cows and we're coming back into a neutral spine, so neither arching nor rounding the back, reach your right leg back, left arm forward and then we're gonna tap the toes and fingertips down and lifting back up, inhale we tap, exhale we lift, finding length from the fingertips all the way down into the toes, keeping the hips squared, so trying not to open through the right hip and keeping that belly button drawing in, so that we're not arching excessively in the spine. We have our last five, four, three, two, one, keeping it lifted and now moving arm and leg out to the side and back to center, so sliding it out and back, as if we want to find that surface again that we're sliding on, keeping arm and leg really lifted, so don't let them drop and moving it out to the side and back, the core has to stabilize us here so much, so you should really start to feel it working. We have 10 more seconds and we'll lower it down back into our tabletop position and let's do again a few more cat cows, just to neutralize the spine again, so arching and rounding, moving with your breath and we'll return to our neutral spine and extend the left leg back now and the right arm forward, finding our balancing tabletop and then tap fingertips and toes all the way down and lift it back up, remembering to keep those hips squared and the belly button drawing in, so we don't want to arch super much in the lower spine here, we want to try our best to keep it neutral. We have 10 more seconds and let's keep arm and leg lifted, moving it out to the side and back to center, so sliding it out, opening and back to center, core is working, keep it stable, keep it moving here, inhale through your nose, exhale through your nose. We have our last 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and bring hand and knee down, walk your hands forward, coming into a puppy pose, melting either the forehead or your chest down into the mat and trying to keep your hips on top of the knees or a bit forward, so we don't want to bring the hips back to the heels, we want to keep them lifted and stacked over the knees or maybe even more forward. From there we're sliding all the way forward onto our belly for some spinal strengthening, bring your arms all the way forward into a wide v-shape, forehead comes down, tops of the feet melting into the mat and with the next inhale we lift the arms all the way up and lowering them down, so we find that v-shape in the arms and we lift and lower, keeping the legs grounded down into the mat, inhale we lift up, exhale we lower. Now let's change the shape of the arms and bring them into a w-shape, so bending your elbows and with the next inhale we lift head and chest, squeeze your shoulders and arms back and lowering it down, so we find that lift and lower now with the arms drawing back, as if you want to bring your shoulder blades to touch, elbows draw back. Finding your breath again, inhale we lift, exhale we lower, keeping the legs grounded down into the mat, only the upper body is lifting up. Last five seconds of these and now we'll do a combination, so we're going to bring the arms back wide into that v-shape and then we lift them up, keep it lifted, draw your elbows back and extend the arms, so we move from that v into the w, keeping head and chest up, only the arms are moving and try to stay here, we're really toning and strengthening our spine, we only have 10 more seconds, you can do this, breathe and move with me and release, well done, these are so tough, so this was really really good, we're not completely done though yet, bring your arms forward again, parallel to your shoulders and then float the right palm and the left foot up and switch left arm and right leg up, so opposite arm, opposite leg lifting up and switch, head stays down, only the arms and legs are moving, this is by the way one of the best exercises if you're suffering from scoliosis or also back pain, it really helps to even out the sides and strengthen the body and I want you to stay with it, we only have 20 more seconds, breathe through your nose and keep lifting and squeezing arms and legs up, almost there we have our little finale now, lifting everything up, so arms and legs and pedaling it out, so finding our swimmer here, moving it up and down, we only have our last eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two and one, release, so so so good, okay, let's make our way back up, we will take a quick break, you deserve it, so make your way onto your shins, hips onto your heels and then reaching your arms up, bending one elbow, putting your hand onto that elbow and reaching it down, stretching into your shoulder, try to lift your chest, breathing through your nose and from there switching sides, so bending the other elbow, stretching it down and again try to hug your ribs in, so no arch in the spine, chest is lifted and releasing it, let's come back onto our fourth and from there we're making our way into our plank pose, so step your feet back, make sure shoulders are on top of your wrist and then we're gonna tap opposite shoulders, so bring your fingertips to your opposite shoulder, trying as much as we can to keep the upper body still, it's still gonna rock a little bit from left to right, but we want to minimize that rocking and try as much as we can to stay really stable and tapping it from left to right, last five, four, three, two, one, let's roll it onto our left side, reach the right arm up and then over to the right, reaching the left arm up, moving from our side plank from left to right, rolling onto the outer blades of your feet and lifting your gaze, so look up to your top arm, we are almost done, we have one last thing, come back into your plank pose and we're just gonna hold it here for one minute, having a one minute plank hold which I promise you is one of the best things to strengthen your whole body, it strengthens the arms, shoulders, core, back, legs, everything, make sure here that you're high on your tiptoes, engage your quads so the legs are working and if you can then try to do this next to a mirror or maybe film yourself at some point, so you can really make sure you have the right form here, sometimes we feel like we are doing it correctly and then we see ourselves and we're like oh my god what am I doing, so yeah I can really recommend that and now stay with me, I hope you're still in it, we do this together, we have 15 more seconds, press into your palms, keep protracting your shoulder blades, so press them away, we have only our last five, four, three, two and one, lower your knees down, hips to your heels, well done, so so so good, let's stretch it out, sliding forward, coming into your puppy pose, bringing either your chest or your forehead down, stretching into your arms, shoulders, the neck and pressing into your palms, lifting yourself back up, we're done for today, you did so well, day four completed, I'll see you tomorrow for day five.