PILATES TIPS | Seated Side Bend

Transcript

today we're going to be doing just a simple seated side Bend and this exercise is all about creating space for yourself I do this frequently throughout the day I think this is because I have kind of a short waist or a shorter torso and I just assume that everyone must do this throughout the day but then in my unofficial polling of my clients and some friends I notice when I do this and then they follow my lead or if I give it to a client and they do it they're like oh this is so good as if they've never even done it before so it leads me to believe that maybe we're not doing this as much as we could through our lives anytime you get your arms overhead amazing do it multiple times a day because we get so stuck here and like this needs to happen wave it around raise the roof whatever you need to do to get your arms overhead and then add a little side bending to it it's incredible it decompresses these upper thoracic ribs which is going to help decompress the lumbar vertebra it's going to give you better breath capacity it's going to give you better AB capacity it's also just going to in general create more space for all the organs in your digestion and also just create General space in your life so there's a couple of things I want to think about before we get to exercise or the stretch whatever you want to call it it's to sit properly so definitely sit up on top of your sits bones try not to be kind of slouched back sometimes when you sit back on our sit bones and try to lift ourselves up just through our ribs Rock a little on your sits bones they're round so they're kind of like this shape so I want you to rock on top of them so you're really sitting right on top of your sits bones and your pelvic floor then a little bit bring the ribs through the abdominals back and make sure your head is on top of your rib cage rib cage on top of your pelvis then what we're going to be doing is planting through the feet so you feel nice and grounded we'll reach one arm up and then you're going to start to side Bend as you do this left the side that's getting shorter let it soften so let it just melt a little bit as you open the other side and as I do this I'm not pushing my ribs forward or my head forward my arm is actually casting a little Shadow on my face so I don't want my arm to be way back here so we're just going to do this and hold for a little bit we're going to do it a few times on each side you can also choose to kind of like Pat the ribs out so you just tap them out like you're playing a drum there and breathe and then we'll do the other side so we're gonna do that a few times each side a little caveat that if you have any bone loss bone density loss like osteopenia osteoporosis just very cautious I would rather you really maybe just go for the reach and kind of go on a high diagonal rather than go for a side Bend so you're just going to go kind of for a long reach through your arm and kind of you know I'm not worried about keeping my shoulder down when I do this I'm just letting you just like Let Yourself reach and think about the opposite of reaching so it's more diagonal rather than a curve so that's your challenge if you have that going on in your body so let's start let's reach the right arm up breathing in as you exhale let your left side melt and let your right side fan open take a deep breath there maybe you want to sort of brush through the ribs or squeeze them or tap them breathing again inhale come right back to the center over to the other side softening the right side as you open the left side up Fanning those ribs out notice the tendency to want to fall into one hip really ground both sits bones down as you do this and really think okay I've got 12 ribs I'm going these ribs move these are these roots like incrementally getting those ribs to move as you breathe and then come back to Center we're going to do that again reaching the right arm up left the left side soften notice if you start to push your head and your ribs forward keep them back over your pelvis and evenly weighted right on top of the sits bones as you open it up let your left ear soften and your right ear aim towards the ceiling a little bit breathing there come right back and go to the other side breathing into that left side allowing the right side to soften think right you're listening to the ground left ear listening to the ceiling and come all the way back to Center one more time each side breathing there because the first one wakes it up the second one's a good one and the third one is where you really get to create the space inhale here exhale a little bit more reach through the arms especially through that pinky finger like if you could just pull that pinky finger you'll get a little extra stretch across the back a little bit and then come all the way up last one going up and over to left softening the right check in with that sits bone connection rib cage alignment head alignment opening up all of those ribs maybe you get that little pinky finger pull or tap the ribs or squeeze them maybe you scratch them a little bit just to wake up the sideline of your body creating space between your ribs between your ribs and your pelvis and come all the way up do a little shoulder roll take a big breath in and Let It Go and that's it very simple very straightforward a great way to shift your nervous system today so if you're having like a high anxiety day this is a great thing to like did you put paws on and do the side Bend maybe you just do one set maybe you don't do the whole thing but either way you just take that moment to pause and create space for yourself because if you don't create space for yourself and you take that time and make that time no one else is going to do that for you so my challenge for you is to take this exercise and apply it to your day-to-day life what can you do to create more space for your life that little pause are you gonna meditate can you make time to move your body more can you make time to go out to lunch with a friend maybe you just go to a coffee shop and read a book rather than look at your phone I'd love to hear from you so let me know in the comments below what you can do to create space for yourself thank you so much for creating space and being here with me today until next time keep moving