Pilates Arc on the Reformer

Welcome to Polonius anytime. My name is Lisa Hubbard, I'm here with Christie and Kristin to do a a reformer workout that incorporates the arch, the foam mark. If you do not have an arc, Christie is going to demonstrate the warmup and Kristen will demonstrate it on the arc. So we're going to begin with a little chest lift. Go ahead and place your hands behind your head, Kristen, and you're going to roll your spine into the ark and open your chest over the barrel. This is a great tool to open up the chest and take an inhale here and then you're gonna lift your head and chest, but you're going to kind of think of a hinge ing upward a little bit higher. Inhale and then exhale to lower the spine all the way down. And now I have all of the springs on Xcel come up.

The feet are just resting on the foot bar and she's going to lengthen her spine, opening the chest over the box, keeping her hands interlace cradling her head, exhaling up. Good. Inhale, hold. Shoulders down the back. Xcel in print. Roll that articulating the mid back, upper back and head is last good. Keeping the ribs connected. Let's do four more. Exhale on the inhale on the pause, and then exhale, lengthen back. Think about stretching as you lower and exhale up. Lifting, holding there in that position. And if you're on the mat, keep a neutral spine or a neutral pelvis. Exhale to lower. Good. Open the chest over the barrel. Last three, lifting up.

Good. Inhale, hold. And then Xcel reach all the way back. Beautiful and keeping those ribs connected. Nice job. Last two. Exhale. Come up. Handing forward. Shoulders down the back. Just broad, open. Reach out in a way as you lower. One more time. We're going to stay up on the last one coming up. Exhale, open your chest a little bit more. Rotate towards the right, keep your hips still. Exhale. Inhale, center, and rotate to the opposite.

Opposite Direction. We're gonna stay up rotating. Good and good. Reach over and in and exhale. Make it fluid. So I want to have you just not pause in the center, but just turn along the axis. Inhale. And if you're on the mat, you want to stabilize your pelvis and anchor the left hip down as you rotate to the right and vice versa. And two more going to the right and to the left. Good energy through the crown of the head.

And last time two sets go last one to the left hold center. Inhale, and then lower your spine all the way down. Good. Get that beautiful opposition. Lengthen the abdominal, stretching them out. We're going to go into something called the neck pulled, but we're going to modify it. Um, Kristen's gonna keep her knees bent. You'll follow Christie. If you're not on the arc, you're going to inhale, look forward pausing here, space in the neck, and you're going to curve forward diving your head towards your knees.

Roll to a nice perpendicular spine. Open your chest, hinge back a couple inches, hold and then tuck your tail under and lengthen all the way down in printing. Beautiful again. Inhale forward looking good. Don't pull on the neck. Good. And then go. Keep a beautiful c curve and die for the nose to the knees. Roll Up. Starting from the base of the spine out through the crown of the head, hinge back, good. And then deeply scoop in printing, and then open your chest.

We'll do five, three more. Curl forward. Inhale, tighten across, diving up and overhead down towards your knees. Start from the base, roll up, roll up, open your chest, keep those ribs intact, and then come back into a hinge. And then lower down. Good. Last two, and coming forward and roll. Dive down. Good. Roll it up on that. Inhale, hinge back. Very nice Christy, and reaching the knees away as you lengthen your upper spine away. Good. One more time. And inhale, look forward.

Curve down towards your knees. Enjoy the stretch. Good. Articulate up into the open position. Chest. Good, tall, sternum lifted and exhale and lower all the way back. Good. Go ahead and stretch your arms overhead. That is it for your warmup. Just go ahead and circle your arms around a couple of times. Good.

Good. Now we're going to go into the foot work. Uh, if you do not have the arc, you can still do the footwork, um, supine in a chest lift position. So you just take your feet to the foot bar and then you do the foot work with into a chest lift position. So Kristen is going to take her hands behind the head. This is an abdominal challenge, so we're going to lower back a little bit, but keep our sternum lifted. Let's start in a parallel position on the heels. So a little bit lower here. I have three red spring on, so that's kind of medium to heavy. So she's going to Xcel, extend the legs all the way out, and then you're going to come inhale to bed.

Now Kristen is off to the left and I'm going to have you move over. Keep going, keep going all the way. Really? Yeah, keep going. Nope more. Okay. Yeah, there we go. It's always good to have that eye. Okay. Ready? Extend out. Exhale. So we're going to keep the feet in the same position the entire time she's working her hamstrings and her quads and the abdominals keep the chest lifted. So we'll do about eight of these. Exhale out. Good. Inhale as you come in. Shoulders relaxed down the back, but still having that energy through the body and let's do three more.

Good. Inhaling, keeping that Dorsey flection in the foot, working the ankles and the fronts of the legs and in good and rest onto the toes. We're going to go on the toe ball of the foot and a slight plantar flection. Knees are tracking. Extend the legs out. You're going to feel this in the calves a little bit and inhale, bend, same thing. You want to keep the heels absolutely still as you bend in and good, great job and out. Are you feeling your abdominals? Yeah. Yes. Good.

That is great. And extend out. Good bully connecting inner thighs are working, lengthening, good. Inhale and out. Let's go. Lengthen all the way out. Last two and then we'll go into our polities v position for eight and heels together. Press the heels together, connect the upper inner thighs. Think from the ankle, the knee, all the way to the pubic bone and bring it in.

Good. And you have a sense of narrowing your pelvis and row using the rotators to get that excellent connection she's got here. She's not just pushing with her feet. She's really engaging the muscles before she extends out. Let's do one more here. Out. Good. And one more time.

And she's gonna come in. We're going to go heels wide, slightly parallel. Maybe just let's go a little. Turned out. I take that back. We're going to go a little turned out. Good. Now if your abdominals are screaming at you, you can always reach your arms forward. Good. That will help keep the arms parallel to the floor as you extend out.

And if you want to continue the challenge, you can take the hands back behind the head. Good. And again, I know she likes the challenge. Christina always does. Give more. Give me more and out. Good. So the abdominals are lengthening. Sternum open, gorgeous. Let's do two more and good. Last one. Give me a little more. Upper back. Good. And in, let's go onto the toes.

Great job. Good. Arms forward today. Right now on this last one. Going out. Good. And in, and it also challenges your, um, your core and your back extensor. So you're gonna keep this 90 degrees lifted. Good. Give me a little more extension there. Perfect. And in, so yeah, feels good. I like a little bit of a hollowing in the lower back, but an but the rest of the spine. Really elongated. Good. Do One more here and out. Good.

Let's take it in toes on the outside of my fingers and we'll do a little calf raise. Going out for lecture heals. Good. So get that beautiful stretch and point. Squeeze. Good and lower. It's important to make sure that the feet are not supinate eating pronating or Supena eating good that you have all five toes on the bar. Lifting up nice and high. Just pausing a little bit and good.

Let's do five more and good lift. It's getting warm in here. Yeah. And get three. Good. Watch that left ankle. Little bit up. Good. Prs it up. Let's do one more here and we'll go straight into your prancing. Hold here and bend one knee alternating up and down.

Good. Great. Kristen. Good. Keeping the body absolutely. Still good. Nice. Lower. Two more last time. Good. Lower left. Great job. And release. Good. That is it for the foot work. We're going to go into our, um, uh, straps.

So let's take, um, the arc off. I will come back to the arc. So I'll set it over to the side here and we're gonna lie down on the back. And I'm going to change the spring to make it either a, a red and blue, or you can use a green, blue, um, male or female. So for Kristin, I will give her a red and a blue.

And we're going to take the straps, place them in between the legs. Good. And we're going to just go into a basic frog. Okay. So we're going to start with the heels together in a slight external rotation. Flex your feet and press the legs out. So you're at that 90 degree angle. You're gonna find, start in the 90 degree for me. One second. Bend your knees.

Push up. Good. Okay. A little bit more. Good. Okay. 90 degree. Now she's going to press the heels together, connect her inner thighs and extend the legs out so you're not pushing with the feet. Inhale, you're gonna draw it in. Feel like there's a magnet pulling you inward and then press your heels. So I shouldn't feel her pushing into my hands. She is activating her inner thighs and her deep pelvic floor muscles nicely here. Bend it in. Keep your feats flexed. Good.

She's not falling in. She's resisting. In exhale, press the heels together. Don't push into my hand. That's a girl and fully extending the knees and inhale, lifting the pelvic floor as you bend, resisting the springs inward. This, that's great. And no pushing into my hands so you can tell when somebody is pushing with their feet, you can feel them pushing against your body. Press her heels together. That's it. Keep going all the way. Nice. Let's do five more in heel. Ben, if you're doing this correctly, you be glistening right now.

And then legs inhale, Ben. Good. It's a small turnout position. You're activating your rotator muscles, external rotators, your pelvic floor, deep inner thigh work. Good. And last to inhale here, press the heels together. No pushing. Press your feels good. So it's like you're squishing something in between your legs. Good.

Nice. Last time. Inhale, bend. Okay. And out. Last one. All the way. Beautiful. Takes a lot of concentration and extent. So you're working your hamstrings. Take your legs up for me. Point. So we're going to start at that 90 degree. She's gonna wrap around, lower the legs, delay the feet, exhale down. So she's moving from her hips.

Separate your legs. Open the legs out. Get that gorgeous stretch. Take the legs up to 90 no double bounces, which she didn't do. She knows better. Very good and out and around. Gorgeous. Out Together. So don't let your heels, DoubleClick good and lower and rotate. Open out to the side. Take it up. Beautiful.

Down and open. Go ahead and open here. Stretch out. Take it all the way up. This should feel nice all the way to the ceiling and lower. Good. Good with the hip work here. Keeping the pelvis in neutral out to the side, up together and last to lowering the leg.

Accidentally rotating, reaching out. Up and around. Take it all the way to 90 and then lower last one. Exhale, lower, delaying the feet, working the hips, stretching, getting that beautiful elongation in the inner thighs. And now we're going to reverse the direction. We're going to go out and then engage the inner thigh. Delay the feet, take the legs together, keep them glued together until you go to the 90 re open and around. Try to keep it equal and lift up and symmetrical rather and take it back to the center. Good. And again, let's go to eight. We'll go eight times.

Delaying the feet. Reach, keeping the abdominals long. Shoulders relaxed and open. Great job. And again, up, separating the legs and around. Good. Her separate and around. Good. And last two up.

Connecting the inner thighs. Squeeze those inner thighs together. Good. Nice. And last one. Open the legs. Out and around and now we're going to go up for the openings. We'll point the feet to open the legs apart. Go ahead, go wider if you can. That's it. Lower your tailbone. Good. And then flex your feet to take the legs to come in. Let's just go yes, straight legs.

We're going to just do the basics and point fundamentals open. Good. Flex and bring it together. It feels good to get that stretch, but you really want to go ahead, open and maintain that neutral position. Pubic bone down a little bit. And Flex. Good up and open. Keeping it all on the same plane as you go. Open and out. Good. Nice. So also open. Good.

And then as she brings the legs together, she's going to think about her heels pulling towards me. Drawing in towards me. Good. Pubic bone. Boom. Yeah. So you have to use it back. Extensors. Lengthen and the abdominals together and go out. Good and flex. Very nice. Very nice. Two more of those. And Open.

Nice. Deep breath. And exhale last time. Kristen. Good work pointing. Good. So we're working the fetus. Well, we're warming up those ankles. Good. Is that our last one? Good. Bend your knees and good. We'll take the feet out one at a time. Good. Nice hand. Good. Great. Okay. Come to s standing for me.

We're going to take it to one red for a hamstring stretch. So let's do, come on to, um, onto the reformer with your heels partway up. I think I'll give, I think I'm going to add a yellow. So I have a red and a yellow. So come to standing on the reformer standing [inaudible] and heel slightly up. Good. We're going to go into a, an up stretch position. So she's going to go into a plank. Pause there.

Open your back a little bit. Good. Now bring your right foot up to the bar. Good. Now she's going to go into her runners lunch, getting it. Uh, go ahead. Come into a lunch. Lower your hips down here. Put No, no, no. Ah, sorry. Lift your chest. Good runner's lunge. Reach the heel out. Open the back of the knee. So she's getting a hip flexor. Stretch. Good. Now go ahead and glide the carriage out.

Extending your front leg, lowering the heel. Good squaring off the hips. Nice. Give me a little back. Extension. Lengthening through the crown of the head. This is beautiful. And now we come in. Inhale, lift your chest, Kristen. Good. Nice. And keeping the Shin at a 90 degree angle, which she's doing nicely.

Take a breath in and then extend out. Lengthening the leg, lighting the carriage out. Good. So we want to keep the hips square. We're not pushing the carriage out and going into a crazy split position. We're really effectively getting the, the calf and the hamstring and you might want to feel like anterior tilting your pelvis. So lifting, flipping the tailbone up a little bit and getting that back as flat as possible.

Bend it in Krista, and take your leg down and we will switch. So we're going to move through. Set up is part of the go in to your uh, yeah, plank and then lift. Set up as part of the exercise. Beautiful. Open your sternum, your chest. Push that bar. Uh, that carriage away. Nice. Inhaling. Okay.

Exhale. Good. Nice position here. And then extend the leg out, gliding the carriage heel reaches under. Get that anterior tilt in the back and those back extensors working. Get that beautiful stretch in the hamstring. Good. Kristen, you feeling that? Okay, good. And then bend in. Good. Lift your chest.

Good. Take a breath in. Extend the leg out. Good, good. Reaching that heel under. Good, and then flattening the back. Great work. Bend your knee, take the foot back. Find your plank position. Good. Now inhale here. We're going to move directly into a elephant.

Lift your hips up. Good. Now she's going to lower her heels down. Okay, we're going to do the elephant in a flat back position. We're going to work the back extensors. Very nice, Kristen. We're going to stretch the back of the calves and hamstring keeping the ribs engaged, which she's doing amazingly well. Spiraling your arms around so you get into that upward rotation, holding that position. She's going to float the legs out, holding everything still. Ex exhale and bring the knees, the carriage back in. Exhale, bring it in so the abdominals are pulling the carriage in. Inhale, initiate with an exhalation here and getting that back. Nice and flat.

Inhale out and exhale n and she's doing a great job keeping her head align with the spine. She's not pushing into my hands. Good. And if you'd like an extra challenge, you can lift your toes up off the carriage. Good. And two more. Inhale here and draw it all the way into the stopper with control. And one more time. Inhale floated away and bring it all the way in. Now we're gonna move into Arabesque. We'll do five on each side.

Take the leg out to the side, and then we're going to square the hips. And I want you to score the shoulders, lower this hip and bring your head towards your thigh. Point your toe softly. Inhale away, and then bring it in for five length in this hip back. Reach it back. Good. Inhale, and three good too. And she's getting a stretch on that left side. Little bit deeper now.

One more time, Kristen. Good. Now I'm going to have you pull the like up for eight. Go ahead and open it up now. Good. And then reach it up. Square your hips or your shoulders. Sorry, not your hips and I'm confusing or go three. Good. Reach it up for good. This gets your rotators in the glute. Good. Three more.

Reach it up and up and up. Go ahead and take the leg out to the side and then lower all the way down. Good. All right. So we'll reposition the carriage comes all the way in the shoulders. Go back. Good. Take your left leg out to the side and I'll, and around square your shoulders. Get your connections.

Good and ready. Floated out and in. Nice to go ahead and yeah. Nice. Reaching that left hip back or right hip. Back. Excuse me. Here and out. Good. Lower your shoulders down a little more. And last one and now lifting.

And one good. I think we did a little more on this side, so I apologize for that. So the next time you do the class, then you have to do equal amounts on both sides. And good. Take out the light to the side, lower the foot, bend your knees and rest. Great work. Good. Okay, let's do arm work. So we'll do our mark. We're going to take the weight down to one yellow spring. We're going to do Shira. So we're going to start with Shira, uh, nicknamed at that. So we're gonna start with the feet just off the carriage in a sitting position.

And you're gonna take your left spring, your left strap into your right hand. So we're going to inhale, prepare Xcel, bend the elbows and lift your hips, rotating out to the side. Bring it back in. Take your bend your elbow, rotate back and lower your hips back down. So you want to engage your glutes, your quads, lifting your own obliques and then the triceps and then bend and lower and post your deltoid. And inhale. Exhale coming up. Good. Try to keep those hips as square as possible and then a new wind. Good work.

And again, exhale up. Look behind you. Turn good, Nice Kristen. Bend and lower. You don't need a lot of spring here. Let's do three more. So we'll do about eight repetitions and lower. Good. And noticed her arm is crossing over her body, so it's going to the center and then back towards the left side and lifting up abdominals there, supporting her back. Unwind. And one more time and lift, squeezing your booty, rotate out. Good bend and lower.

Great job. We will do the other side. Okay, good. Okay. We're going to lift up. Press your hips forward. Unwind, rotate. Good. And bring it back to the center. Lowering your hips. Squeeze your rotators. Good. Reach the arm back. Bend it and lower your seat. Good and up.

Try to keep your shoulders in line with your hips so that you're not leaning forward or back. Good and up. Rotate. Good. Left. And I think we have about three more. Good. And lift up. Good. Shoulder down. Make sure you don't elevate the shoulder before you move. So depressed the shoulder down the back. Good.

And we'll do one more. Yes. Okay, good. And lift up. Good. Rotate. Spiral back and lower the hips. Great work. Good. Okay, let's take both of, uh, let's do the kneeling. Okay. So we'll do the kneeling triceps. She's gonna take her left hand in the center on the head rest. She's about hip distance with her knees in a neutral position.

She's going to take her hand on the tape and bring her arm back and with control, lower back down towards her shoulder. And exhale, bring it back. Lift. Let's do about six of these and then we'll add on to this and go three. Good and go. Good. Nice. Shoulders are square neck as long initiate with your tricep.

Good. One more time. She gets great height. She's going to keep the height here and just tangent, the elbow bending and then extending up. Good and great job. Reaching out. She has her wrist in a neutral position. Perfectly done. Three. We'll do five of these. Last two.

Dominoes are engaged. One more Kristen and lower the arm and release. We'll go to the other side. Good. Taking the tape. Take it on the outside of the wood. Shoulders down and open. Abdominal is lifted. Supporting the back. Good in your neutral position.

Get a little more arched there. Good and up to good. Delay the hand. Take the arm up. Shoulders broad. Good. Gliding the carriage in and out and I think this is six holding here in how bad for five tricep extension, keeping that elbow on the same plane as you breathe out, you extend. Inhale the bed. Two more. Good. And last one. Good. Lower and release. I'm going to add a little weight and we're going to do the biceps in this position. And then we'll go into a thigh stretch.

So I'm going to add a red. So we have back to red and blue, or excuse me, red and yellow. I'm going to have Kristen give me a posterior tilt and a nice open spine. Lift your arms so the palms face up. Good. Looking out. Pause here. Good. And now hinge back just a little Kristen.

She's going to keep her elbows in the same plane and she's going to go into a bicep curl XL here. Good in Halloway. And in Exhale, be sure that you don't lift your elbows as you draw it in. You keep them on the same plane. Beautifully connected here. And we will do four more and Oh, good. Nice. 32 and one more. Reach the arms and lower.

Good job. Okay, great. Um, let's go into the thigh stretch. So we're gonna take the, this, um, around the strap on the tape. Knees are up against the shoulder rest. You're gonna keep your spine lifted and just give me a poster tilt. So you're going to Tuck your tail under, stretching out the hip flexors and quads, and you're going to hinge back. Tell me how the weight feels here. It looks pretty good. Do you want a little, a little more? A little more? Okay. We're going to give her a red and a blue.

I took off the yellow so we have red, blue, two springs and posterior tilt and then go back. Retreat. Retreat. Church. Good. See how she's not breaking her line? She's keeping it connected. Let's do three more and up. Are you feeling the stretch in the quads? Good. [inaudible] quad stretch here. Nice. Pubic bone up. Good. Keep lifting and three more, right?

One more time. Lower, lower, lower, good. And then coming up with energy and rest. Good. So we got the back of the leg, the front of leg and the arms. Good. Okay. Let's go to the side over on an arc. I will have Christie come back and do a demonstration on the mat for you.

We're going into the side lift on the arc and I have a red and a blue spring. Kristen's foot is parallel in the center of the foot bar. Hips are squared. Shoulders down. Christie's going to demonstrate on the mat. We're going to exhale on the side bend and inhale, lengthen and stretch down. We'll do five. Exhale to come up, keeping the head in line with the spine, the shoulders down, broad, um, collarbone, shoulder blades down and out, ribs connected. And you have that sense of elongation. Great work.

And imagine being in between two planes of glass as you lift. Good and reach. And we'll do one more. And inhale to lengthen. We're going to add on. Exhale, come up and we're gonna rotate the torso. Bring it back to the center and lower all the way down. Exhale, coming up, turning, looking out. Bring it back to the center, keeping your height and then lower. Last two just for these exhale, turning and rotate back to the center.

Lower the body one more time and exhale, bring it back to the center and release. Go ahead and stretch your arm out there, Kristen. Reach over. Good. Give yourself a little stretch. Beautiful. And float the arm down. We'll do the other side. Bringing your foot parallel center of the bar, pushing out heel presses down. The leg is fully extended.

Hips are square, shoulders down, ribs connected. Take an XL, we do five on the side. Bend. Good. Inhale. Make sure that the elbows aren't flaring out so much that they're pinching your shoulders together. You really want to draw down and around with that upward rotation. You get more length out of that Xcel. Three is three honey. Yep, and two more. Reach out one more time. She is not moving the carriage here and one and lower.

Now we add the rotation for four. Lift up, keep your height, turn, unwind and lower. Good, and last three turn good and bring it back down. Last two, gorgeous. Rotate. Turn and down. One more Kristen, and exhale, hold it and release. Great work. Stretch it out. Reach your arm over. Good and bring it in.

Oh, then we're going to go into our back extension. I've lowered the bar and I'm going to turn this around and take this side off so it's very easy. We'll just set it down at the side. We're going to take this right over here. [inaudible] and if you don't have the arc, Chrissy will demonstrate this one. Good. Alright Kristen, I'm going to take you into um, on onto prone, so on. Your stomach heals are going to be together on the, the lower part. So it's going to be on the wood heels together, toes apart in your [inaudible] v and she's going to bend her niche so she'll be on the toes.

Bending in good arms are going to be in at like a high fifth position, so over your head, um, extended, you're going to extend no palms facing in. Extend your legs, lift into your back extension, keep high as you lower the arms down, bring it back up, shoulders down, and then slowly lowering the arms as you bend your, your knees and inhale, coming up. Good. Exhale, arms go down, back up and lower. Good, beautiful and heels pressed together. Lift out of it. Nice back extension. Lower the arms, palms face the body, and then they come back facing one another and then you float down articulating down and up and crowded ahead. Had neck and chest. Get that sense of articulating good arms. Go Down, lift up, great work, and let's do two more. Bending the knees and last to inhale here.

Exhale, arms go down, lift up, reach that sternum forward, and the lower. One more time articulating the head, the neck, the chest. Collarbones broadening. Bring it back up. Beautiful and release. Good, great work. You may bring the carriage in. Good. And we're going to come to a standing position.

We're going to take a big breath. Inhale through the nose, expand your ribs laterally, front and back. Start to roll your chin to your chest. Let's bend the knees softly. Rounding the spine, going all the way down to the floor. Take a big inhale at the bottom. Good. I'm going to give her a little assist and then she's going to XL.

She's going to roll up to a standing position, completing our workout. Great work. Thank you, Kristin. Thank you.