25MIN Full Body Hourglass Pilates Workout | Day 1/7-Day Pilates Challenge | no equipment

Welcome to day one of this 7-day Pilates series. Starting with Pilates has seriously made such a huge difference on my body, which is why I'm so excited to bring this practice to you. And we're starting day one with a full-body hourglass workout. Let's come onto the sit bones and bring the feet wider than the mat, hands are interlaced in front of the chest, and then we drop the knees all the way over to the right, through center and then to the left. So bringing them all the way down, really rotating through the hips here, and starting to warm up the body. Finding your breath, breathing in through your nose, and breathing out through the nose. Now let's also integrate the hands here to really twist. So when you come to the side, bring your fingertips to the outside of your leg and look over your shoulder, twisting the upper body. Back to center, maybe moving back if you started to creep forward, and then lying all the way onto your spine, reaching your arms above your head. Bring your feet hip-distance apart into the mat, and then start to press into your heels to lift your hips all the way up, and lowering them back down. So we'll do some glute bridges here, moving with the breath. Inhale, we lower. And exhale, we lift, really pressing your hips up. And try to press into your heels here, and keep your ribs tucked in, making your hips the highest point when you lift up. Ten more seconds here. Last five, four, three, two, one. Lower your hips all the way down, and then bring your feet to touch, lifting the hips back up, and then we are going to bring the left knee in, reaching your arms to your knee, and lower. And right knee in, arms lift up, lower. Moving from side to side here, and reaching your arms up when you bring the knee in, and then extending them back behind you. Breathe through your nose, inhale in, and exhaling out. Lower your arms by your sides, and keep the left knee in. Extend it all the way to the front, and then slide it to the left, and back to center. So sliding it out to the side, and back to center. As if you want to draw a straight line in front of you. Out to the side, and back. Keeping the leg lifted, it wants to drop. We want to keep it up, press into your right heel, hips up higher. Last five seconds. And bring the left foot down, lift the right knee in, and we'll do the same thing, so extend the leg forward, and then move it out to the side, and back to center. The core really has to stabilize us here, so it's also working a lot. But we want to try and keep those hips lifted, pressing into your left heel, and moving nice and controlled. Keep breathing through your nose, inhale, and exhale. Ten seconds. And we bring the right foot down. Now we're moving the feet as wide as the mat, you can point your toes slightly outwards. Reach your arms above the head, and then lower your hips all the way down. Lift them up, lift your arms up. Inhale, we lower, exhale, we lift. Moving your arms here, together with your hips, inhale, reaching them back behind you, and exhale all the way up. Starting to feel a little bit of burn in our butt cheeks. Ten seconds. Let's keep the hips lifted, reach your arms up, little pulses. So lifting your hips higher and higher, pulsing it out here. We have our last 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Slowly lower your hips all the way down. Let's hug the knees into the chest, and then bringing them into a tabletop position. Arms are resting by your side. We're going to extend the right leg long, bringing it back to center. Extend the left leg, and bend. We extend, and bend. Extend, and bend, moving with your breath. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, and exhale. Lift your head and chest up now, interlacing your hands behind your head, and extend the left leg forward, bring it back in, and then extending it up to the ceiling and lowering it down. So making a bicycle movement here with the left leg. Everything else is staying completely still. Only the left leg is moving. And let's reverse the direction. So extending it forward, bringing it up, bend, and extend. Especially the core here is staying really stable. Nothing changes in our spine. So we try to keep the lower spine imprinted on the mat. And just the leg is moving. Keep the leg extended forward now, and we'll lift and lower the leg. So just lifting and lowering here, keeping the core engaged and working. It's starting to fire up now. Let's do 10 more seconds of these. Keep the left leg extended now, and bring your left elbow to your right knee. So we bend the right knee and extend it in one line with the left. Bend, bring the knee to your elbow, and extend. For our bicycle twists here, only on the right side. Bending, twisting even more, and extend. So good. Let's now make that bicycle shape with the right leg. So the right leg is extending, lowering, and bring it in. The left knee is still and bent, while only the right leg is moving. Try to find a lot of length through that right leg when you extend it, moving nice and precisely. And reversing the direction, so bring it in. Extend, lift it up, and bend. Think of making that movement as graceful and fluid as possible. Keeping the leg extended forward now, we'll lower and lift the leg. Lowering and lifting. Feel your core working. Only 10 more seconds of these. Keep your breath. So good. Let's move into that diagonal bicycle with only the left leg. So right elbow to your left knee, and extending the leg back. Really think of twisting your body to the left. Making our abdominals work. Last 10 seconds. And we'll move into our full bicycle twist now. So moving from right to left, extending the legs long next to each other, and bringing the knee in. Moving from side to side and twisting the upper body even more. 20 more seconds. Breathe through your nose. Inhale, and exhale. 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Keep your legs in that diagonal shape in front of you, reaching the arms forward. You also have the option here to bend your knees, but if you can, then extend them. And we'll start to pump the palms down. So doing our Pilates 100. Pumping the palms down towards the mat, keeping head and chest lifted. And breathing in for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Breathing out, 2, 3, 4, 5. Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Exhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Keep going. 15 more seconds. Keep pumping the palms down. Keep feeling the core burning. And make that movement with your palms really strong. So putting a lot of force into your hands. Keep the breath. We only have 3 more seconds. And release. Hug your knees into your chest. Really, really good job. These are tough. You can extend your arms and legs long, giving yourself a quick full body stretch, releasing the core. And then we're going to roll onto our right side, bringing the shins parallel to the mat. So stacking them on top of each other. You can rest your head onto your right palm. Then try to have a little bit of lift from your waist. So maybe you can even have a little bit of space there between your waist and the mat. And make sure that the left hip is stacked directly on top of the right. And we start to lift and lower the left shin, keeping it parallel to the floor. Starting to work into our outer glute muscle. Making the movement really slow and precise. So you can really make sure that you're not opening through your hip here. Keep the hips on top of each other. Last 5 seconds and then we're going to add on. So the next time you lift your knee, extend your toes forward. Bend the knee again and lower it down. So we lift, extend, bend and lower. Making sure that you extend the leg so much that you bring the toe in one line with your hip. Lifting and extending, bending and lowering. And we still want to try to keep that engagement from the waist. So finding that slight lift from your waist away from the mat. So that we're not collapsing onto the side body here. Which helps us to activate that outer glute muscle even more. By keeping that activation and stability in the upper body. Let's bring the knee up one more time, extending the leg. And from there we're just lowering and lifting the leg. Maybe you can even touch the floor with your toes. Lower and lift. Feeling that outer booty muscle work. Lowering and lifting, keep your breath. And now staying lifted, finding little pulses. So pulsing the leg up. Only 5 more seconds. We're rounding and shaping that booty. And let's lower it down. Now extending both legs long. Bring them to the corner of your mat, so slightly in front of you. And we lift and lower the left leg. Trying to initiate the movement from your heel. So it's the heel driving your leg up. And lowering it down. With all these movements, I want you to prioritize the form. So moving really slow and precisely. To make sure we're doing it correctly. And to really engage those muscles and create that burn. So moving with as much control as possible. And let's keep the leg lifted and find little pulses. Again, coming from the heel. Pulsing it up. We only have 10 more seconds of these. Feel the burn, feel how your booty is being shaped and toned. Last 3, 2 and 1. Now draw the leg back. And then point your toes and bring the leg forward. We flex and bring the leg back. Point and slide it forward. So finding this movement, forward and back. Integrating the ankle, flexing when we move back. And pointing when we come forward. Try to not drop your leg, keep it lifted. And keep everything really stable in your upper body here. So only the leg is moving. And we have our final pulses to the back. So pulsing it to the right corner of your space. For the last 15 seconds. Almost there. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. Slowly lower the leg down. Well done. Let's move to the other side now. So switching it out. And making sure again when we lie down that we bring those shins in one line with the mat. So that they are parallel and the hips are stacked exactly on top of each other. Resting your head on your palm and finding that lift of your waist away from the mat. Maybe even finding a little bit of space there. And let's start to float that shin all the way up and lowering it down. Keeping it parallel to the floor and lifting and lowering making sure the hip is not opening it's staying stacked on top of the other hip. And remember we're moving slow and with lots of control here. And let's add on. So when you lift the knee, extend the leg forward bend and lower. We lift it up extending, bending and lowering it. Trying to bring the toes as an extension of your hip to bring them all the way forward. You are by the way more than welcome to add ankle weights to all of these exercises that will for sure elevate and increase the burn even more. Especially if you repeat this class it's a really nice way to challenge yourself and to keep progressing. Let's keep the toes pointed forward now lowering the leg down and lifting it up trying to keep your leg exactly in front of your hip. Last 5, 4, 3 2, 1. We keep it lifted we have our little pulses. So pulsing it here making that outer hip burn and release. We'll extend the leg in a diagonal in front of us so towards the corner of your mat and from there we're lifting the top leg and lowering, making that movement come from your heel. So driving your heel up and lowering it down. Last 5 seconds and then we're going to keep the leg lifted for our little pulses. So bring your leg up now and pulse it up moving your heel higher and higher don't let your leg drop. Keep it lifted. So good. Now from here we're going to move the leg back and then point your toes and bring it forward. Flex bring it back, point, move it forward keep it lifted. Don't let it drop even an inch keep it up. Pointing and flexing So good. Trying to keep the upper body really stable Last 5 seconds. We're almost done with this side. We have one more time of our little pulses. Bringing the leg back and then pulse the heel backwards. Again trying to bring it to the back corner of your space and trying to keep it lifted. Only 10 more feel the burn and breathe through it We have 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 Lower it down, releasing that glute So good. Now we're going to make our way into a plank pose. So we're going to finish it off really strong in our plank. Hands underneath the shoulders bring your feet back, coming high onto your tiptoes and then we're going to move into a side plank. Come onto your right palm, lift the left arm up and switch. Left arm down, right arm up So moving from side to side here making that movement slow and controlled and really extending that top arm up towards the ceiling 10 seconds Let's come back to center and we're going to do some toe taps. So tap the left toes down, bringing them back, tapping the right toes down So tapping from side to side keeping the core so engaged here that we can keep the upper body really really stable only the legs are moving. If you have any pain in your wrists here, you can always do these on your forearms as well. So just switching it from the palms onto your forearms. Keep tapping we are almost there. Final 15 seconds. Almost at the end of this workout. We can do it We actually have only one more exercise after this So almost done and the last thing we'll do is slow mountain climbers So bringing the left knee in, step it back right knee in, stepping it back slow and controlled, moving it from the left to the right leg Keep the butt low, so try not to lift your butt up, keeping it in a long line from your head to your hips Okay, we almost made it Don't give up on me now. We only have 10, 9 8, 7, 6 5, 4, 3 2 and 1 You can lower your knees down, bring your hips to your heels Let's take a quick child's pose So good. From here we are just going to stretch a little bit to cool down and we'll start in a side bend Extend your right leg long and bring the left foot to your inner right thigh, flexing the right foot resting the right forearm on the inner side of your leg, reaching the left arm up and over and then place the left palm behind you lift your hips, reach your arm back and come back into your side bend So moving here, flowing a little bit from our side bend into this mini wild thing making the movement really expansive going deeper each time and let's hold it for a moment in the side bend, maybe your top arm finds your foot, it doesn't matter though we want to focus on opening the chest up towards the ceiling so really opening that left shoulder that left side of the chest up towards the ceiling You can relax your head softening your face and coming out of the stretch lifting up, turn your upper body towards the extended leg, pointing the right toes Inhale, reach your arms up and exhale, taking a fold over that leg maybe getting hold of your foot, your ankle, your shin trying to focus on creating length in your spine and breathing deeply into that hamstring stretch Moving to the other side, so now we're going to extend our left leg long, flexing the foot right foot comes to your inner left thigh left arm rests in front of the leg and the right arm sweeps all the way up and over and then place the palm behind you and lift your hips up sweeping the left arm back and lowering down into our side bend maybe you can integrate your breath here inhale to lift, exhale coming into the side bend Let's hold it in the side stretch maybe holding onto your foot with your top arm but again, try to prioritize the opening of the chest it doesn't matter how deep you can go here I want you to really try and open through that right shoulder and chest relaxing your head keep breathing through your nose and lifting back up turning our body towards the extended leg inhale, sweep your arms all the way up exhale, point your toes and fold over the leg again, holding onto your foot your ankle, your shin, whatever you can reach here and as I just said, we don't want to prioritize depth we want to prioritize length so try and lengthen through your spine think of bringing your chest towards your shin and lifting back up let's place our feet as wide as the mat and just wind your legs from side to side we made it through day 1 I'm so proud of you and I will see you tomorrow for day 2 thank you so much, bye bye