Hi, everyone. Tutu Mora here with The Y bringing you tools to feel well in
your body, mind and spirit. So, today, we're gonna be working with a pretty classical
Pilates movement called, "The Hundred" and it's very effective way of creating
strength and stability in the core—in your abdominals and in your pelvic floor,
which, you know, all together are responsible for helping keep you upright,
helping you walk, helping you run, helping you bend over and squat down.
So, very important to keep this space active and strong. And so, we're gonna be
building up to that hundred movement and then working with that with some
modifications. So, all you need is a yoga mat or a soft surface on which to lay
down and I'll meet you down on the mat. Okay. So ...
let's just go ahead and lay down, feet hip-distance apart here, and let's
just start as we always do with a couple deep breaths. Let's bring that breath all
the way down into the low belly.
Nice big exhale. And let's take two more here.
Really bringing that breath in all the way down as if you could breathe into
the back of your body. And so, feeling your body needs a little bit more
contact into the mat.
Let's take that one more time here. Nice deep breath in.
Breathing into the back of the body, a nice big exhale here.
And let's take a pelvic curl. So, if you haven't done that with us before, what
we're gonna do is we're just going to lengthen that tailbone and then just
slightly curl that up towards the back of your knees before setting that
back down. So, another helpful cue can be if you visualize those back pants
pockets that you have on your jeans. Basically, you have your weight, right now—
in a neutral pelvis—you have it sort of equally between the bottom and
the top of those back pants pockets. So, when we take a pelvic curl, we're
shifting that weight to the top of the back pants pocket as we take that pelvic curl.
And then, when we uncurl we're shifting that weight back down, equal
distance between the top and the bottom of the pants pockets.
And then, we'll take that one more time, just curling up.
Warming up that lower lumbar spine here. And then, we'll set it back down.
So, the Pilates hundred requires us to put our legs into shelf. So, what that
looks like is basically just making your legs into a tabletop.Ideally, we want to
have a nice 90 degree angle here. However, I want you to see how that feels on
your spine. So, ideally we want to create and keep a stable spine. So, you don't
want to have an arch in the back in order to accommodate that movement, so if
you feel like it doesn't feel good to have your legs in shelf, it doesn't
feel good in your low back, definitely you can either put one leg on the mat
and have your other leg in tabletop, or you can keep them both down on the mat.
So, feel into that and whatever feels good for you. I'm gonna have my legs in
shelf for this movement, but I might do a couple just to show you what it looks
like in those modifications. So, I'm gonna have you bring your hands around to
cradle the back of your head, definitely keeping your head heavy in your hand and
we're just going to take a couple chest lifts here to start.
So, I want you to feel like you're lifting up from what would be your bra strap across
your rib cage here. So, lifting up from that space and letting that sternum
remain heavy, it's gonna be a small movement here and then we're going to
set that back down. So, let's do that a couple times nice and slow, making sure
to keep that spine stable and heavy on the mat. So, we don't want to arch that
lower back in order to accommodate this movement.
And we'll take two more here. Sometimes it helps to give a big exhale before you come up into your
chest lift. Again, lifting and reaching through that bra strap across the rib cage.
Last one.
Resting back down. So, moving into the hundred here, you're going to lift up into your
check lift, bring your arms around to your side and
my modification of this—instead of fluttering here a hundred times, we're just
going to make some circles here with our arms, again, keeping that lift through
that bra strap rib cage, tucking that chin.
And then, we're going to reverse those circles.
You can slowly bring your hands back around to cradle your head.
Rest back down. You can rest your legs down as well and just give yourself a
little break. And we're going to do that again. So, on this next one I'll show you
what it's like to modify this keeping your legs on the mat.
So, we'll lift up into our chest lift, again, same thing: reaching through that bra strap and
rib cage area, versus leading with your neck.
So, find that chest lift.
Sinking that sternum.
Bringing those arms around to the sides.
And finding that slow circular
motion of the arms, which is going to help you challenge the stability of your core here.
And reversing those circles.
And resting back down. So, we'll do this a couple more times.
I'm going to show you this next modification. So, we're going to bring one leg into shelf.
So, find that right angle tabletop here, making sure to keep your pelvis stable. So, even though
you have one leg in the air, we don't want that pelvis to shift.
We want to keep an equal pressure through both sides of that pelvis.
So, finding your hands, cradling the back of your head, lifting up through that bra strap rib cage.
Bringing the hands around.
And we'll do the arm circles here. If you want to play around with doing them slow
versus doing them fast, I kind of like to do them slow, because I can feel how
things want to shift and I can shift in response to that to make sure everything
stays stable and in alignment. And we'll reverse those circles here.
Resting back down. Resting that leg down. And we'll take it to the other leg. Now, it's up to
you if you want to do all of these with your legs in shelf, you want to take them
all on the mat, or do this single leg. But, I'm just showing them all to you so you
can work with what feels good for your body today. So, we'll come up into your
chest lift. Bring those arms around.
And we'll reverse those circles.
Keeping that lift through the rib cage, bra strap area.
And then, you can bring your hands back around resting them back on the mat,
lowering that leg and let's finish with another pelvic curl here just to feel
into that difference. So, again, just lengthening through the
tailbone, finding that little curl. And you'll probably notice that you have a
little bit more articulation. It feels a little bit smoother and a little bit more fluid.
And you can set that right back down.
So, I hope you all enjoyed this little challenge to your stability and I hope
you found it supportive. I'll see you back here next
time on The Y's YouTube channel with more tips to help you stay feeling well
in your body, mind and spirit.