Chris Freytag

GOLD Mat Pilates 6

Chris Freytag
Duration:   33  mins

Description

Join us for this Get Healthy U TV workout, exclusive to those with GOLD membership! Chris Freytag will lead you through this Mat Pilates 6 workout using light dumbbells and a mat. We will apply the Pilates principles through a series of exercises that are graceful yet effective; intense yet low impact. This fitness Pilates style class will teach you how to engage your mid section properly and strengthen your core.

Level: All Levels
Equipment: Mat, light dumbbells (3 lbs)
Instructor: Chris Freytag

THIS EVENT IS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR GHUTV GOLD MEMBERS

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Hey, hey, get healthy U TV squad. I'm Chris Fry Tag and I have the lovely Tara puts with me today. Hey girl, how are you? How are you? I am great.

We are doing Matt Pilates number six today. I know so exciting. We are not standing up, we are on the mat for the whole time. There are not a lot of modifications, a couple of things maybe side plank on your knee, but you can modify in any way you want at home and just remember that Pilates is a method. I remember going through my certification for Pilates.

This was two decades ago and really thinking like holy bananas. I didn't really understand how my whole core works. You guys hear me say this in every Matt Pilates workout, but your core is all about the front, the sides and the back of your body. So you have a crunching muscle right here. We call this our Rectus Abdominus.

We use that muscle a lot, but you also have a muscle called the transverse Abdominus. It wraps around you like this belt. We wear these belts to hold our microphone. I want you to think like you just clicked a belt on and it holds your organs in it flattens your abs and it keeps you from having back pain as you get older. And then you have these obliques that help you twist.

You have 24 vertebrae in the back of your body. Seven in your neck. Those are the cervical vertebrae, 12 in your mid back. Those are your thoracic vertebrae and five lumbar. We wanna articulate and move through all those.

So Pilates is a method. Today, we're gonna be talking about how to really learn to pull in that transverse. We're gonna move methodically and really roll through our vertebrae to get space between those vertebrae. We're gonna pull those abs in. It's going to be awesome.

I always say P Pilates is graceful but powerful. Um Joseph Pilates himself said it's not what you see on the outside of the body. It's what you see, feel on the inside of the body. So your abs will be on fire in a different way. We're not gonna be dripping in sweat.

We're gonna be really though, feeling those fatigue muscles. So let's go ahead and start on our backs today. We're going to come into a position with our heels on the ground. Whoops. And we're gonna move our microphones and we're just gonna bend our feet and we're gonna do what we call hip rolls.

So we're gonna pull up, think somebody has a string. You're just gonna articulate, inhale exhale, pull up so you roll up one vertebrate at a time all the way to the top of your bridge. Inhale, exhale, start at the mid back and roll back down. Now I am sure that Tara has more articulation than me because she's a dancer in how I help prepare and roll up and really blow out through your mouth. Inhale through your nose.

Exhale, blow out through a straw. It's like blowing out through a straw. You should hear yourself. Breathe in Pilates, inhale, exhale, roll up, up, up, up, up, get to the top, get to the top. Pull those knees together.

Inhale, prepare, exhale, roll down. We're gonna do one more. Here we go. Inhale, exhale, get to the top, hold it at the top, hold your bridge at the top. This is warming up our core.

Pull your belly to your spine, pull your knees together. So your in inner thighs are engaging. You pull up through your pelvic floor, pull that belly to your spine. So you're tightening your belt. Inhale.

Prepare, exhale, roll down, excellent and breathe. Take your knees to your chest and slightly roll your tailbone off the mat. Oh, that feels good. Do you feel that little stretch in your low back? Feels so good.

Sometimes just these silly little moves are the ones that really help warm our bodies up and go ahead and roll side to side over your spine. Just roll side to side in hell. And exhale. I love it and go ahead and come to the center. Roll up to seated.

We're gonna start with our half roll back. It's a Pilates beginner exercise. So we're gonna roll halfway back. We're pretending like we're holding a beach ball. We're gonna roll.

So we just put the low back on the mat and roll back out up. Scooping out those apps. Inhale, prepare, exhale, roll in house, exhale, roll up. Now you're pulling those low abs in, in house. Aha.

Tighten that belt, inhale, exhale. Let's go inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, half rollbacks. Let's go. Inhale, exhale. We're not worried about timing our intervals.

Today, we're not worried about repetitions. We're thinking all about how we are engaging through that core. Slightly. Pull those abs and keep going. Tara, I want you to think it's like zipping up a pair of jeans that just came out of the dryer.

We've all, have you ever put your jeans in the dryer? And you're like, oh no, the jeans went in the dryer and you're just pulling that zip up and you just kind of tighten it up. That's what we're doing. Pilates is not what you can see, it's what you can't see. So you should just feel those muscles engaged.

Let's do two more. Inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale one more. Inhale, exhale. Put that lumber on the ground, inhale, exhale, adding on a half roll back. We've got some lightweights today, Terry and I have three pound weights.

See what you think we're gonna inhale into that half, roll back. Exhale, oblique open right there. Oh my gosh, oblique twist, inhale, come back up, exhale. So just freely inhale and exhale. You lay back and you open i in helm and exit and just that three pounds pulling you.

I can feel that I was gonna say if this is too much of a challenge, could easily do this without weights as well. Absolutely could do it without weights. And we were kind of shocked at how much we felt the three pound weights we were considering five pound weights. And we were like, oh boy, that's a lot. Keep going Tara, because when you get to this position, that weight is pulling you out and I can feel my back, I can back extensors working.

I can feel my abs working. Here we go. What side are you on? I'm going to the, my left, right, right there. Come on team.

Are you still going at home in hell and exhale? You should be heating up from the inside out one more on each side. Let's go. You got it and it's not fast. It's methodical.

Excellent. We're gonna put both weights into our right hand so you could take a little heavier weight or just do what we're doing and we're gonna come down to the floor. Now we're gonna articulate through that entire spine, opposite leg, opposite hand. So, right hand is bent, left leg is bent, inhale, exhale, sit up and extend, engage that quad, engage that core inhale and exhale. Roll back down, bend and extend and Ben and stand.

You got it now because I'm talking so much. It's hard for me to do the Pilates breathing. But listen to Tara, she's got that breath going. You inhale and you exhale through a straw. You wanna be kind of forceful and pull that pelvic floor in and engage those abs.

We're building fire in the belly right there. Holy bananas. I'm feeling it. Yes, it was good. Intentional.

Awesome. And one more and other side sometimes it's nice not to have a timer not to be. I love it. Worried about repetitions. OK?

So here we go. You got your left hand and your right leg, point your toes whenever you can think about it. Inhale, exhale, extend now try to use that quad, engage it and inhale and exhale. Roll down and notice how I just put, we put our hands out for counterbalance automatically. Just kind of what, what happens, right?

Because you've only got weight on one side of the body. Now you can bend this supporting me if you need to that leg on the floor. Beautiful. You're a dancer. You can probably lift your extended leg a little higher than me.

Tara. Yeah, it's hard for me to lift that a lot. One more. Come on team and release. Beautiful.

How are you doing? Doing great. Are you feeling it? Yes. One thing to make sure when you are extending that leg though, that you're trying to get out of your hip flexor and using your quad like you were talking about.

So we don't want to use the hips. We wanna use those apps. Now in how prepare exhale, pull those abs in, we call this a slight imprint. You're gonna inhale and on the exhale, you're taking the C curve out of that low back. So I want you to think that natural C curve you're pressing it down.

So there's no longer a space back there. You're not pulling it down to the ground super forcefully, but you're just releasing and making sure you release that space. We call it an imprint in. Help prepare exhale, imprint your spine. Abs are tight.

Now, let's take our right knee up off the ground and let's take our left knee up off the ground and we're in what we call a table top. This is an open kinetic chain and this can be hard. So as a uh modification, you could put one or 2 ft down if you wanted to inhale, prepare exhale, roll up, get that chin to the chest, belly to the spine and get your shoulder blades off and around. So for a lot of people as you're looking at Tara and I this is where you are, it is really hard for you to use that mid back and do this and this takes practice. So if you're down here, that is fine.

But if you can do this, inhale, exhale, get up. Oh, baby. Do you feel those abs? You, you've been sitting there. Yep, I do right.

Here we go. We're going to extend our right arm and our right leg and bring it back in, inhale and exhale left arm, left leg, bring it back in. So you inhale, exhale in help back to the center. Exhale, inhale, exhale in health, ex health one more each side. Inhale, exhale, pull your belly to your spine.

Keep those shoulder blades off the ground. Inhale and exhale. Now we're gonna go opposite arm to opposite leg. Still have those shoulder blades up. Yep.

Here we go. Inhale opposite arm, opposite leg, bring it in, inhale opposite arm, opposite leg, bring it back in, inhale, opposite arm, opposite leg. Holy bananas. Right point those toes. Inhale, exhale.

You got to pull that belly to the spine. You should be on fire. Now, are you feeling your abs inhale, exhale, breathe out through a straw. Inhale, exhale one more. You got it inhale and exhale.

Stay right here. If you need a break in that head, everybody just put their head down for a second because that is a lot in your mid back. Inhale. Prepare, exhale, lift it back up. Sorry, that was not a very long break.

Here we go double edged stretch. We are going to take our hands and you take them past your head like you're taking a winter cap off and then swim around in hell and extend exhale. Swim. Try to keep those shoulder blades up in house. Exhale.

Swim in how exhale? Swim. Thank you for getting that good breath. Ta I want them to hear it. Inhale.

Exhale, inhale. Keep going. Exhale. I'm just gonna come over here for a second inhale. So she's pulling in right here.

Exhale, you have to forcefully pull those abs and if you are at home imprint, that's fine belly, you feel it. You should be on fire in Pilates. Yes, I'm just gonna scoot back. OK? Inhale, exhale one more, one more.

And you get a break. I already had a break. So poor Tara over there, you need that. But I like the burn because you feel the burn. Ok?

Scissors. Here we go. So if you put your head down a second, let's get it back up feet and table top, inhale and exhale. Prepare imprint lots to think about in Pilates. Inhale, exhale lengthen through the back of the spine, chin to the chest, belly to the spine.

Uh head is up, shoulder blades are up here we go. It's a scissor 123 and center 123 and let's point our toes 123 and center And center option would be to put the all the way down right? And 123 and center 123 and center pull those low abs in. You can feel the fire. Nobody can see it, but you can feel the fire right here and singles.

Here we go. Lower one leg, center, lower other leg, center. Now it's like in hell and exhale. We call it sniff and low holy bananas. Four three.

You got this team. Come on two one and release for a moment if you want and need this little break right here. You are doing something right? OK. You should feel this.

Yes. OK. So legs come all the way down. We're gonna grab those weights one more time for a full body work roll ups. We do follow up body roll ups in every single Pilates workout.

It is probably one of the best exercises for engaging all abdominal muscles. Take those arms overhead just by having these three pound weights. Tara and I were commenting how you really can feel it through your back. Your one long linear line, you're gonna inhale arms up to the sky. Now, on the exhale, I want you to think that you're laying on a piece of velcro, take your chin to your chest, belly to the spine and peel each vertebrae one at a time up and off the mat, come forward, stretch your low back, inhale, start to go back, relax your shoulders away from your ears.

Now, exhale drip each vertebrae one at a time down to the mat, we're gonna go a little faster. That was our warm up. All right, here we go. Inhale arms to the sky. Exhale.

Roll. Peel up and off that matt inhale, go back slightly slowly shoulders away from the ears all the way down to the mat. Arms go behind you gently. Awesome. Inhale arms to the sky.

Exhale, roll. Awesome inhale, start to roll back. Exhale all the way down. So they say in Pilates, Joseph Pilates himself said inhale arms to the sky exhale roll. He said do 5 to 8 of these every single day of your life.

And it is so good for your back, for your core. And again, like I said, Pilates kind of brings the simple stuff to the forefront where you realize if I just did these easy things every day, it could improve my core strength and my flexibility. Are you with me? Yeah, she's over there breathing good. Let's do one more.

I said 5 to 8, inhale up, exhale. He'll stay on the ground in, he'll go back exhale and we're going to prepare for teaser. I do wanna make one comment that I should have made. If you lift your feet off the ground, you might pull into your hip flexors. So in those full body roll ups, we were using our core and not our hips.

You could also take a band around your legs and do your full body roll up with your band and that would help you too if you were a beginner or tuck your feet under the bed or the c couch. Yeah. Ok. Teaser. So, weights are behind us.

Let's pick up where we left off. You're gonna inhale your arms to the sky. Now, you're going to bend your knees. So they're slightly bent and you're gonna roll up to a long spine with your elbows next to your ears. Here we go.

Roll up elbows next to the ears. Ok. Nice long spine. Now, hinge. Just a little hinge.

Oh, boy. When you hinge you feel those abs kick in and then roll, keep your elbows next to your ears and roll all the way down. All right. Let's get that breath. You inhale arms to the sky.

Exhale, roll elbows next to the ears in Hal hinge. Exel. Roll beautiful inhale, arms up. Exhale. Roll in Hal hinge.

Excel. Ro. Beautiful inhale. Arms up, exhale, inhale, exhale. Oh my gosh.

Hello. Abs. Yes. In hell. Arms to the sky.

In health. Oh, keeping that nice long spine. And then you start to articulate and bring it down. Inhale arms up. You could do this without weights.

Exhale, starting to fire up. That's for sure. We've got it. How you doing? Good.

That, that little hinge. That thing's sneaky. Right, right here. You hinge with that long spine, abs tight, abs tight. You're not bending your back now, bend your back and go.

Let's do one more teaser. Just for the heck of it. I'm on fire in how my abs are on fire. Exhale, inhale. Excel.

Oh, my goodness. Huh. I love that little, um, the hinge because then it really makes you think about your low abs before you roll back down. You're right about that. Ok.

Rolling like a ball. Let's just get all the kinks out, take, take those feet up off the ground, roll back, roll up. Try not to hug your, uh, knees too tight. You just roll back and then find that point of balance. Hello?

Abs right there. Hello. Abs. Roll back and uh right there. Roll back and up.

Oh my goodness. We've got one more in us. Here we go. Row back and up and release. How are we doing?

Good. I almost put my feet down on the room. Are you good? Ok. We're just gonna come forward, we're gonna do something called saw and then we're gonna move on.

OK. So we're gonna open up now again, dancers you might be able to, you know, really do a big, uh, what do you call this? Straddle? Straddle? Thank you.

Um If you're like me, I'm not, you know, as, as flexible wherever you put your feet is fine. Now, instead of this, let's lift, you just have to use all those back extensors to get up here and it's just such good practice for us. I need to do this more. OK? We're gonna inhale and twist exhale, saw off your toe.

Inhale stack back up to center exhale, center it up, inhale, twist exhale saw oh, this one's so hard for me. Inhale. Stack up in a twist exhale. Center inhale exhale in health exhale inhale. I hope you're getting your breath at home.

Exhale. Now, inhale through your nose and blow out through a straw right there. Inhale, exhale in house. Exhale good. Keep it going.

Really work for those abs. Come on and strong. Now, keep going. It's that little point in that mid back just below your bra line where you are lifting up and stay lifted right there. Do you feel that you have to work those back extensors so intensely?

One more each side, let's go and stay lifted. Pull those abs in breathe and how exhale and release. Ok? And then go back to the and then again, OK, here we go on to your knees. Birddog.

I always, you guys hear me say in most, in most workouts, I always say when in doubt, do bird dog, if you don't wanna do the plank or whatever we're doing in any workout. So birddog is opposite hand to opposite leg. You're balancing a plate on your back, reach your fingertips away from your toes, inhale to switch exhale extent in how to switch exhale extend. Now, something you have to think about is not sagging through that low back. So you have to lift, you gotta pull that belly in like that belt.

Like you're tightening that pair of jeans, you gotta think about that. All right. So you inhale to switch exhale, extend inhale to switch exhale. Now we're just going to add our weight. So we're gonna put a weight in our right hand.

That's up to you. You don't have to and we're gonna go elbow to knee, staying on one side. So we're gonna inhale to prepare. Exhale, extend inhale, exhale in health, ex health in health XL, inhale, exhale. Who can't really talk during plays?

That's a hard one. You really, when I teach a Pilates class, nobody is, is chit chatting. We, I always know when people get serious because they stop their chit chat and they breathe. I'm talking about a, a live class, you know. Well, you really need that mind body connection to really think about what you really mean.

Other side. Ok. Yeah, you can't just talk to your girlfriends during this class. No. All right.

We're just going to start with inhale, exhale extent. All right. Inhale. But an exhale and try not to se in that low back. Balance that plate on your back and trying to find that focal point out farther in front of you than down like at your knee.

I love that. Just maybe look a foot in front of you. Yep. Right there. Holy bananas.

Huh? Yep. Really? Bring it in. Come on team.

You got this two more one and release am I kicking you? No, just my weight. Ok. Here we go. Clam shells.

If you have a, a booty band at home, you could add a booty band to your clam shell because it's really good for hip mobility. So we're gonna be right here. Don't sink into that, uh, shoulder like this, but lift up, you're nice and strong and we're just gonna open, feet are on top of each other and close and pull in and close. So we're taking that leg in that um hip socket opening and closing. If you have tight sore hips, clam shells and hip circles are so important, we're gonna do both right now.

So just to open up now, think about pulling in your abs. Like I said, Joseph Lati said, it's not what you can see, it's what you can't see. It's that intense pulling in. Let's do one more on this side and then switch sides. So this is probably the easiest thing we're doing for this 30 minutes.

But this is more of a therapeutic thing. Get nice and strong through your shoulder. Here we go and open and close. Abs are tight and open and close. Like we said, at a booty band, if you, but what you're doing is you're rotating that hip socket.

So you're taking that leg in the hip socket opening and closing it. And for those of us who get tight hips, I gotta remember to do this every day just get on the ground and do a clam shell at any point two more on this leg. And then we're gonna go to hip circles, which is gonna put us on our back. So we're just gonna flip it around here and we're gonna lay down. Now, I want you to think like your leg is the spatula in a bowl of batter.

I'm kind of hungry and you're just scooping the sides of the bowl of batter. So you're gonna take that leg to the sky. You're gonna place your hands on your abs because your hips and your abs are not gonna move. Think about your hips like headlights and they're just shining at the sky. They're not gonna move.

You're gonna point your toe and you're gonna draw a circle on the ceiling. Inhale, exhale around, inhale, exhale around. So you're lubricating that hip joint. You're scooping the sides of the bowl. Inhale, exhale.

The circle is probably about the size of a big mixing bowl. I'm talking all about baking. It's a good visual though. Think about it. Right.

Yeah. Think about like the size of a pizza. That's what you're doing. So, inhale, exhale circle around, inhale, exhale. You are not moving through your hips.

Your abs put your hands there, inhale, exhale one more, inhale, exhale other direction, inhale, exhale, scoop the sides of the bowl, inhale, exhale, scoop, inhale, exhale. I wanna remind you to sniff, blow, sniff, blow, sniff, blow and each time you blow, you pull those abs in just a little tighter and the other leg release, if your quad starts shaking, that's pretty normal too. Foot to the sky. Here we go. Keep those hands on your abs.

Hips are not gonna move. You got a plate right here on your abs. Inhale, exhale, scoop, inhale, exhale, scoop hit mobility. My friends work on those abs. Pull them in.

Come on. Oh, right there and right there and other direction. Here we go in health. Exhale circle in health exhale circle. Let's go point that toe length in that leg.

You've got this inhale, exhale and good. We're gonna do a few more bicycles. Then we'll flip back over into those planks. Are you ready? Inhale?

Prepare, exhale, lengthen. I'm sorry. Exhale, lift one leg up and then the other leg up. Now you're nice and secure. You're slightly imprinting your spine.

Inhale, prepare, exhale lengthen through the back of your neck. Chin to your chest, belly to your spine. Get those should the blades off the ground. So you're working for this Pilates C curve. If at any point you get too tired, you put those shoulder blades back down.

But the thoracic spine working here we go. 12 and 12, point your toes. 12 and 12. Let's go. Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale.

Let's go and inhale and exhale. Come on. Team in house singles. Are you ready? Here we go.

And it's one and two. Now add a twist if you'd like and you twist, twist, twist, twist. Holy cow, twist, twist. Come on. Team pull those abs in and you twist, twist, you've got it.

Twist, twist. Let's go in hell and exhale. I'll count you 876. Pull them in. Come on 54321.

And if you need to lay down you, you were doing it right. Yeah. Wow. Uh knees to chest roll up, come back over. We are coming into a side crunch.

We'll start on this side. Grab one weight. Here we go. So same thing about that shoulder. Try not to do this and sink into it but really be strong in that shoulder girdle, bend your knees to begin and we're going to bring it in and out.

You can keep your bottom knee on the mat. Tara, that would be a great modification, right? And lift and lower and I'm on my hip. So if you need a pillow underneath your hip, if it's like, oh, that's too much on the ground, I should say I'm on my butt cheek, but I feel my hip right. So you're on one butt cheek, but you feel that hip.

So put padding underneath there if you need to and crunch it and go and crunch it. So you're using those obliques and crunch it and here we go two more one. Now we go to long levers. Are we ready? Long legs.

Same thing. You can keep your bottom foot down and lift and lower and lift and the lower I'm, I'm on butt cheek. I'm pulling my absence. A big move. Crunching through my core.

Let's go inhale and exhale and inhale. Holy bananas, exhale. I am truly feeling this. Let's go. Come on core strength.

Let's go. Give me three. Yes, you can. Two. Come on one.

So yeah, that one's not, that's not an easy move. OK. Here we go. So roll on to that one butt cheek again. You might feel a little bit of your hip.

Put padding underneath if you need strong through the shoulder arm is up. Here we go, bent knee, bent elbow right there, bent knee, bent elbow right there. You've got it. Exhale. Come on right there.

Right there one more. And then we lengthen through the legs. Holy bananas. Here we go. Come on, pull it in.

Come on. Team exhale. Blow through that straw. Pull your belly to your spine. Crunch those obliques.

Let's go. Twisting muscles. Let's go right here. Come on. Oh, come on, baby.

You got this. We're going eight. Come on. We're going seven, six and five and four and three and 21 other side side plank. So if you are doing Pilates, you want and need a little bit of rest.

Like you feel that intensity of those abs pulling in. We're coming to a side plank again. Bottom knee to the mat, can do your modification. Stay strong in that shoulder. We're going to lift up.

Now, I'm just going to come all the way up in both legs. I'm gonna put my front leg slightly in the uh, top leg slightly in the front. It's up to you. Here we go. Side plank, scoops.

You're gonna reach for something underneath your armpit and then scoop it all the way back up. So you're rotating, rotate, you can lift those hips slightly and pick up and rotate and back up. Come on team and rotate. You got this, let's go and back up, obliques and rotate and core. Come on and back.

Everything about both hips. Everything about Pilates is the entire core and one more on this side. Come on team and beautiful. Oh Go. I feel OK.

Here we go. Same thing, modification. If you'd like top leg comes slightly in front strong through your supporting shoulder and here we go, scoop underneath, reach underneath your armpit all the way back up and reach and up and reach. Thank you for breathing. Tara.

Reach that and reach and two more and one more. Come on team and there it is all right. So to complete this workout, eight push ups, it's not gonna kill us eight Superman push ups. So Superman uses all back extensors. So we're gonna be in a prone position laying on our abdominals.

So we'll come this way. Tara's got you on her knees. Yep. So here we go. All four limbs are extended.

We do Superman. Here it is. Lift and feel all those back extensors spike the toes in the hands. Lift up. That's one.

I love it all the way down. Come on this and two elbows are back. Superman and three breath and Superman and four. Come on. Look at that.

We're halfway. Come on Superman. Five good push ups. Let's go. Superman six with that whole body in one place.

Those abs nice and connected is this 8771 more. Here we go. Here we go. And, and that was easy stretch back, child. Suppose I love it.

Team stretch back. Just drop those glutes to your heels. Woo, I love it. That would reach your fingertips out. Really nice.

You guys, we could have kept going, I think with Pilates though. It's like uh internal fire cat cow right here. You're not necessarily sweating on the outside, but holy bananas, your core is hot. I felt like my body temperature though did rise as I started to engage my core. Yeah, I'm not sweating but I definitely warmed up compared to when I started.

And truly, it's kind of a therapeutic thing. Like I said, I want you to think of Pilates as a method. It's a method instead of just crunch, crunch, crunch, you're really thinking about how the biomechanics work. So I hope you enjoyed it. Pilates is my favorite.

I love joining me for having me have a great one. Check out our other Mat Pilates. This is a good one also just to stack onto a walk or a different workout or whatever it might be. All right, you guys have a great day.

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