Themes and Variations

Hello, I'm Rebecca Rotstein and today we're going to do a reformer class that is more of an intermediate, uh, perhaps a little bit more advanced level if you'd like to make it so. And we're going to start with our reformers on one and a half springs. We're going to start with a handless eves lunch. So I'd like you to make sure for this version, I want your foot to be a little bit further forward, so I want it to be closer to the frame. So even more forward than that. In other words, I want when you straighten your knee, I want there to be no tension.

I don't want you to have to push the carriage back. So you're going to step even further forward to start a little bit more. There we go. Now we're going to equally bend through both the knee as well as the hip. So it's not that we push back and keep that knee straight and it's not that we just lunge forward, so we push equally like scissors.

So let's push the carriage back and you're going to feel the contraction through that glute and you're going to inhale and exhale. So it's almost like a little arch and curl and we'll inhale and exhale. So I want you to feel the stretch to the front thigh and also feel the contractions or the back glute and once more inhale and exhale. Nice. Now this time placed one hand on. Yup. So you place the right hand on the bar and you're going to push back and you're going to lift the other arm and you're going to open to the side.

And this is going to be repeated later at the end of our workout and return and once more. So making sure that your knee is not going too far forward, that you're not completely twisting or going into your secretly up too much. And for myself, because of some joint hypermobility, I really have to do focus on that lumbar spine position and return such a feel really nice and we'll go to the other side. So I tend to incorporate a little bit more of release work at the beginning. Um, because my body needs it, it feels better so that then it's ready to engage whatever I want it to engage. So we step a little bit for the forward again and we remove our hands. The other thing to make sure is that your knee's not too close to your midline so that it's directly in line with your toes.

And that's when I find that it can hurt people's knees. So we start by pushing back and then we equally push through both legs and exhale. So we do a little curl here and inhale, reach and exhale. So wherever your area of restriction is is where you might feel it and inhale and exhale. So place the left hand, so the the side with the knee on the carriage you're going to plus press down and we're gonna open that arm out to the side. Sorry. You notice that I started to pull here and instead we have to think about pushing it away and push a bit further and try not to Torque your sacrum and push. There is going to be some rotation, but you don't want to overdo it and return. Now let's come to the end of the reformer here.

So you're going to come to your edge. Let's keep it on. Let's try it on on one and a half springs. I think we, let's try it on that. We might actually change it and lowered a little bit. We're going to do some spinal articulation. So lift your hands up to the ceiling.

You're going to die forward until your hands touch the carriage. And I already decided we're going to change it to one to one red spring. I couldn't remember. Good choice. So we're going to do two things. First, we're going to push away and go into extension. So we inhale and exhale and curl. So it's a little more of that arch and curl action and inhale, push and exhale.

So we get a great stretch through the back, but we feel the connection through the hips as well. So we start to wake those up and one last time, inhale and exhale. Now keep the spinal curve and this is going to be like the hamstring stretch on the chair. So you're going to push the carriage away and lift up even more in the low belly and rise. So I'm purposely avoiding hitting my body to the foot bar and rise.

And once more I was dangling my head too much and now my head's better in alignment instead of where it was dangling before. Now we're ready to lie down and start some footwork. So let's be on three springs and I always have my head rest up because for my alignment it's required and we'll start off on the balls of the feet and I'm going to have you start in your para, not your, you're not parallel position. Did that make sense? Your unparalleled position. How do you like that? For my new terminology. So we're going to start off in a classical heels lifted and the feet are slightly turned out and we'll push away and return and push and return.

So you may know that I'm not an advocate of abs on this exercise because I feel that we're not trying to cue the abs in this. There's not that much stability that's required. So I want you to just feel the work and the motion that's occurring through your body. Just feel more of an energetic flow and pushed to more and once more. Now let's go on to our arches and continue. So just thinking of this more as a warm up, less thinking, more moving, inhale and really breathing at your own pace.

I'm focusing on where I might notice any excessive, trying to let my throat relax a little bit, which is a challenge for me when I talk and once more. And now let's go onto our heels and push. So you can imagine that your foot is against a platform. So imagine the jump boards there. So be careful if you're veering too much out onto one side of your foot.

Perhaps the outside of your heels and two more. Just feel the joy of the movement and come back in. Now remove your right heel or we're just going to push away on our left and we're going to extend the knee as we come back in and push. And the one of the things I like about this is just the sensation that's translating through my bones and push and I just feel a very direct connection and pause. Now bend that top knee in and push away and return.

Now alternating turnout and push and alternating in parallel. Push and in turn out and push and turn in and push and in turn out. Push last time, parallel and turnout push. And let's switch feet. So we start with the right foot, up, left knee in the air, push away and return. So one knee is always bent for this first part while the others extended.

Then push and return and push and return and push and return last time and push and return. Now bend that left knee in and let's push away and return turnout and push and in turn in push turnout and push. When I say turn in, it's really returning to parallel and in and push and return last time and push and relax. Now place your left foot there and I want you to push just five small pulsing, one, two, three, four, five switch feet for anybody who has ever had some trouble walking downstairs, three are clients that do that, four and five and relax. This is a great exercise because it works at East centric portion of that's of the quads. It's important for climbing down the stairs. Now go onto the balls of the feet in parallel.

We're going to do some point in flex, so we're going to lower the heels and lift and lower and lift. Lower and lift two more. Lower and lift. Now it gets interesting. Remove your right foot and place it underneath the bar and you're going to do single leg point and flex. Push and lower and push. So you'll feel the direct connection through that left hip all the way to the left side of your trunk.

Two and one switch feet and your cats might start to fatigue a little bit and push and lower and push and lower four, three, two one and feel the stretch on both calves. Bend both knees and just stay here for a moment. Few that stretch as you're not having to work any musculature, but the joint angles are allowing you to get a deeper stretch than if you were and bend the knees come all the way in. So we're going to do a little sleeper variation here. We're going to start by changing the spring tensions that will just be on two reds or two springs.

You can keep your head rest here or lower it down. Whatever's best for you. I personally like to rest my head. Actually. You know what? I take that back. I'm going to lower the headrest. It's going to give us a greater range to work in. So straighten that bottom knee. And now for my version of sleeper, I like to do it with the heel in line with the sit bone.

Meaning that your heel is not going to be touching the bar when you have no spring tension on. So we're going to push ourselves away and stay there for a moment. Find the connection through your heels so that you activate through that lateral line. Take a deep breath in and exhale, letting the knee bend. And now here's the secret. Don't let the knee dip. That means you're not using your rotators. Or if you start to roll back and push away and finding that lift through the waistline. And if you're, if you're somebody who has a little bit broader hips, you're gonna find that you may have to lift even a little bit more because the distance between your, uh, of your waistline is far less than the distance between your, your hips, pelvis, and again, push away. Now here's where we're going to add in the variation.

Place your hand on your shoulder risks, just to give you a little bit of assistance and we're going to float up and lowering down. Bend the knee in. So that's our sequence. We push away. And so we grow arking up and lowering ourselves down. So it increases the tension here on the hip and it works the obliques and rising up and lowering down. And last time, thinking of that arking rising up. Now look down, look straight ahead, look down, straight ahead, look down, straight ahead. And we start to work those neck flexors and return in. Ooh, let's try the other side. Okay. So once again, we start off with our bottom knees straight. I like this just as it because it gives better feedback and it also works to adductors, inner thighs. And that top foot is heel inline with the sit bones.

And we have most of the bowl of, or most of the way through the second toe. And we push away and stay here for a second. And let's help ourselves organize our bodies, pushing through that heel. We're gonna feel the connection into the glute. Find the lifted the waistline, breathe in, exhale slowly letting the knee bend and maintaining that space between the hips and the armpit. And once again, push away and bend. So that you feel the work going on through the outer hip and last time, push away and stay. Now, place your hand on the shoulder rest and float the head up and lowering down and make sure that you're not joining your chin forward up.

So if you have a forward head like myself, you want to make sure that you start to feel the deep front neck flexors working and now bend the knee to come in. And now here's our sequence. We push away, we float the head to rise up. We lower the head and we bend the knee and we push away. We float the head to rise. Feel that arking sensation. Lower the head. Bend the knee one more time. Push out Arkin through the crown of the head that it has nowhere to go, but float up and now stay rotate to look down.

Look straight ahead, rotate to look down straight ahead. Once more down, straight ahead. You've got a good glute connection now and bend your knee and lower the head to return. All right, so we're still on two springs. We're going to roll onto our backs. Lift your head rest again, like if you can find your head rest and then we're going to find our straps and place our feet in them. So again, on two springs, feet in the straps, hands by the sides, focus on the weight here through your pelvis so that you can find that heavy sacrum or I should say the heavy tailbone so that you are not flattening your back and letting your tail curl start by pushing away.

Let's go into parallel. Let's lift the feet up and exhale lower, so various simple just leg arcs up and lowering. Notice where you might have any excess tension that could be released and lowering down and once more rising up. Let's just do a set of circles and lowering down around and up, down, around and up. So I'm just focusing on the length. I'm not focusing abdominals, I'm just focusing on reaching out through my heels and allowing my thighs to just stir in their sockets. And of course there's going to be a little bit of abdominal engagement.

Absolutely, but it's not super bearing down and reverse. Now again, the amount of stability that somebody has is going to determine how much muscular engagement is required. All right? But since we're a little bit more advanced here, we're not gonna require that much excessive work. And because we've trained our bodies, let's do one more. Sorry. We trained our bodies as to how much is needed and how much that minimal amount is. Now Bend your knees and push away for frog.

Push one bend and to bend, and three. So it's really just about the fluid movement in the joints for, I think I lost count, but that's okay. Let's just do five and now bend your knees. I want you to place your feet into a tabletop position here. I want you to start to curl up through your, your low back without moving the carriage and lower your tail.

So it's almost as if our feet are against the wall, but our wall moves a little bit and we're trying not to let it and lower back down. And two more and lower back down. And last one. Now see if you could straighten one knee, bend it, straighten one other knee. If you have a third option, let me know going and last time and lower the tail. Now grab your ropes, separate your feet, bend your knees here and notice that deep adductor stretch and you get a little bit in the capsule as well. I'm gonna show you my other favorite. Push out. Grab your ropes and give yourself some support by placing your hands here.

And then you can feel a stretch through the anterior, the front part of your thigh. And now give yourself a little bit of support as you push through your feet to return up. All right, place your hands in the straps. Now that same thing we did with our feet in this job. So we're doing with our hands on the straps. So there's a little bit of tension here.

And now we're going to exhale little pelvic tilt x, a little pelvic tilt. Okay, so now here's where the cheating goes on and I'm going to pick on my lovely dear Mary here. You're not going to allow your knees to come in toward your face. So I want you to have your knees still face up toward the ceiling. Exactly. It's a lot harder and lift and Lord. So in other words, what I don't want is your knees moving. If anything, they just rise. Two more and last one. So it's total lower, lower abdominal area.

And relax. Let your elbows bend, straighten them right again. Straighten your knees. Now lower your niece. We're going to do frog here. Bend your knees and push out. One Xcel, two XL, three XL four. Find that low belly lift. So here's where you're going to have to find it. Now stay there. Point your toes. And I want you to bend your knees and now watch this.

You're gonna Cross over. Uh Huh. And Bend. Cross over and then and reach. So you'll get a nice it band stretch as well. One more. And relax. Let's do one set of armed circles just to mobilize the shoulder joints.

And after that it feels like a piece of cake circling. We'll just do five total and circle and reverse. But now you have that lower abdominal connection that I think often gets lost because there's so much upper abdominal focus and bend the elbows. Lower the feet for a moment. We're going to bring in the cervical nod and curl. Now it's a little chest. Lift these up into tabletop. Straighten the elbows, pushing down. Feel the connection, reaching out through your fingertips. Inhale, exhale. Drop your chin, soften your [inaudible] chest to rise and stretch. Stretch out through one foot. Stretch out through the other foot.

Stretch out through both feet. Lift and lower and lift and lower. Last time. Lift, then the knees and lower yourselves down. Great. Return your straps into their holders. And let's sit up. We're going to do a little mermaid stretch after that. Um, let's place ourselves in one and a half springs. So again, before we start to work the upper body, I want to release some of the heck muscle and tissue surrounding it. Fascia.

So you're gonna push yourself away. Side Ben, and return up. And actually not I, you can do as you wish. I'm going to put myself on one sprain and push you a little bit better for me and up and once more. And then we're going to add on a variation. So we have our theme and then we have the variations. So the variation is you're going to spiral and rotate and returned to the starting position. And just be careful of for any of you hyper mobile folks that we don't do our party tricks and spiral.

But in doing this we get a lengthening of the tissue of the chest and let's just do one to the other side, just reaching up toward the ceiling and let's move to the other side. So our outside is close to or touching the shoulder rest for me. I'm a little too short. Go figure and side Bend over for our mermaid. And I have to tell you, I may not turn around again because of the, he was just so beautiful. I don't think I really want to see anything else. Oh actually, I'm sorry Mary. I want to see you. And then once more, so I'd been to over and return.

Now we're going to do our variation so that as we push away, we rotate toward the ceiling and return and rotate toward the ceiling and return and last time and return. And then we hold the shoulder rest and reach the other arm up toward the ceiling and we lengthen. So it's not a collapsed. I think that's the big mistake that that occurs often in mermaid. It's really a reaching up and you just happened to reach up so much that you arch over. There's no collapse anywhere here. Okay, and relax. Now we're going to go into our rowing series.

So let's lower our foot bar to begin. So it's out of the way and our hair doesn't get caught. So we sit facing the back end of the reformer and let's grab our straps sitting nice and tell to begin, take a deep breath in and exhale, tucking the pelvis under. Start Rolling back and see how far you could possibly go back without your hair getting to caught and start rising. So the farther you go back, the more you're going to have to have that hollowing out to rise up. And actually pause. Let's do that once more. Exhale, keep going and going, going and then come partway up and pause.

Now let's open our arms out to the side so it's a little bit more of an advanced version. You're going to push and then you're going to curl forward or dive forward. Placing your hands behind you, bending your elbows, extend your elbows, reach behind you. Make sure your head doesn't dangle. Circle your arms around and rise up to your starting position. Nice and Tuck the tail under. Start Rolling back.

See how far back you could go. And then start coming up partway. Pause right there at, see if you could tuck your tail a tiny bit more. There you go. Now Open your arms out to the sides, push and then dive forward. Then the elbows and extend the elbows. Touching the hands. If you can, open your arms around to the sides and starting to sit up. And last time, exhale, rolling back.

Pause right there. Open your arms out to the sides. Push and then dive forward and make sure again that that curve even throughout your spine so that you don't see it hunching, so to speak. And then we pushed back through the hands and we start to rise up. Now we'll go into back rowing too so that the elbows will bend as we hinge back. Lift the arms up, open the arms, circle around, diving forward and extend through the elbows and circle around HiRISE starting position. Inhale, exhale.

Now you have your choice. You could open your arms out to the sides here or you could push straight behind you. I personally like to do the first option, bending the elbows, straighten elbows, circling around, rising up. So I'll do that first variation. Again, leaning back or the first option. Lift the arms, open the arms out to the sides. As long as it's not too heavy, then you can flip and dive forward. And now pause. Straighten the elbow three times and Ben, one, two, three. And now circle your arms around to rise. Holding the straps in one hand. Let's turn around to face the other direction.

Let's unwind our straps. Let's remove the hair from our face and place our feet straight out in front of us. So utilizing and taking advantage of the shoulder rest here for a little additional support for our lumbar spines. Hands by your sides. Take a deep breath in. Push forward. Exhale, tap. Inhale, reach. Growing a little bit. Tolerance. We open our arms and again, push and lower and lift and around once more and push and lower funding that lift through the midline. As my feet are touching, that's where the connection comes. Now flex the feet, flex the, uh, at the ankles and drop down again. If you're taking off your pants and around. And again, take off the pants. It's all about just roping today, Huh?

And one more time. So push and around. Now let's cross our feet. So we're going to sit cross legged. We're going to start with hug a tree and we're going to go exhale, opening and exhale. So here's our theme. Now we're going to add in a variation, opening the arms. And because it's a little bit awkward with this, instead of with handles, you're going to grab hold of the outsides here and we're going to do one arm up, one arm in, try it. There we go.

And so it becomes a little bit awkward unfortunately when we have our hands the regular way and again let the air and once more and it gives you a little bit of feedback as to where the weakness lies in your own body and relax. So place your straps back in there holders and let's grab our long boxes. You're going to want your pad as well cause we're going to go into swan and you're going to want to the cushioning for certain on the pubic bone. So we're going to make sure that we're on two springs at a spring if you need to. And I'd like you to have your pad at the edge of the box as we go into the swan.

So step up here on your carriage and place the balls of the feet on the foot bar itself. And then you can pretty easily just lower yourself. So your pubic bone is, is behind, uh, just I should say behind the edge of the box. So arms are out to the sides and we're going to extend our knees, pushing ourselves out. And then you're going no lift and bend the knees, arching back and extend the knees. Finding the lift through the low belly as you lower your chest and lower your arms. And once again, extend through the knees to float and hover. Superman.

Now bend the knees, the arc back, and extend the knees and lower yourself down. Let's do one third time. If your back can handle it and push away and bend the knees. And that helps you lift an arch into your back bend. But you're feeling the connection through your glute so it doesn't go into your lumbar spine.

And then extend the knees reaching forward and lowering yourself all the way down. So let's remove this cushion, but stay where you are. So toss the question aside now, straight your knees, hold onto the edge of the box. Take your feet off the bar. Yep. Come all the way home. Yeah. Take your feet off the bar and pull yourself forward so that you straddle the box coming into a horseback facing other directions. So no, no hands in the straps. Exhale and Tuck the tail and rise up.

[inaudible] inhale, release and Exhale, Tuck the tail. Flex the feet. Yeah. Inhale and last time exhale [inaudible] and hold it. Lift one arm up with the other arm up out to the sides. And relax. Now place your feet on the headrest.

We're still on two springs, so we're going to get good tension and good reference points for our rows here. So you're going to choke up a little and we're going to do some bent elbow rowing and pulling back and pulling back. So really good connection into the lats here. Something that we don't bring in that much into the classical repertoire. Bent Elbow, lat work three and two and one. Pause here.

Look to the right look to center and release. Pull again, look to the left, look to the center and release once more poll, grow taller. As you look to the right look to the center release last time, Paul will look to the left, look to the center and release. Yes, we turn your straps into their holders and now we can finally step off the box he says. So let's return them to where we had them previously. Now we turn your foot bar. So we'll [inaudible] please sit back in it starting position instead of on two springs. I want you to go on the very lightest that you can get. So I'm going onto a single half spring.

We're going to do some reverse knee stretch, holding onto the frames and backing up your knees so that your knees aren't directly in contact. But rather when you shift your weight forward, your thighs will be touching the shoulder rests and we're going to gently move the care to just an inch and return. Exhale in inch and return. So it's not the distance between my arm and my trunk changing. It's not me pulling in laddy through it. It's literally meat's doing a little pelvic curl and release.

So you can see we're having little lower abdominal focus today and once more pull. Now we're going to bring in some threading the needle. So we're going to take our left hand and we're going to lower it down into the well. So you get a nice stretch [inaudible] so get a nice rotation and then do the opposite. Start to rise up and look anything I can for that view and lowering back down. And let's try the other side. So we're getting a nice, a nice stretch in a nice rotational stretch and inhale, pushing up and exhale. Returning once more.

Okay, let's turn around. Let's face the other direction. Let's go onto two springs. And I'd like you to start off here with traditional knee stretch. So sit back and then curve your spine. So we're gonna do a curved spine. We're going to push back. One, two, three, four, five. Let's do a flat back and push. One, two, three, four, five.

Now we'll do our knees off with curved back and pushed. One, two, three, four, five. Lower the knees down, sit back and just stretch for a moment by pushing the carriage out. Feel the stretch in the back and returning. Now we're going to go into a variation of down stretch. So you're going to try down stretch to begin with pushing back and inhale to rise up, feeling that upper thoracic extension and once more push back. And now here's where we make it, like the up stretch. So we start to sit back, curving the back, push out, and then coming in.

There you go. So sit back with the curves back, pushing out and returning home into what would be like the down stretch and once more push and return. Now let's go into up stretch. So we have skipped long stretch, but that's okay. We're going to do a little variation here, but just feel the continuity of the movement. Push back in return in very simple. We go pike, we push and we plant. So I call it the three piece. Pike Push Clink and last time and pike push plank.

Now here we're going to get a great stretch for Arabesque. Shift your weight over to one side and lets do it onto the left foot since that's the one I'm on. And then I don't want to have to move. So your right foot is on the other one. So you're gonna push yourself back. And now as the butt rises, the foot rises. As the butt lowers, the foot lowers once more, lift up and lower. And again lift and lower. Now here's the interesting part.

Lift and rotate your spine as you push out. Yeah, so you get a great stretch on that right side and lift and stretch and lift and stretch. Let's try the second side. So we're now on our right foot and we push the carriage out to begin and we rise and lower. So we lift Zulu and we don't do what I just did and we lower. So the butt lifts, the foot lifts, Libba, lowers the foot, lowers this time, rise up and rotate as you push out and lift and rotate.

As you push out. Once more, lift and rotate. As you push out and relax. Lower yourself down and shake out your wrists. So let's turn face the other direction. If I can get you sweating. That's a really good sign.

So let's grab our straps for a moment. We're still on two springs and I'd like us to do the thigh stretch. Actually we're going to do this. I get to do the thigh stretch, so that means that we're going to have to choke up on our rain. Sorry about that. I had a a moment. So I went to to grow taller and lean back and return to the starting position. And again, leaning back, starting position.

Now if you want to add in the back, then go for it. Leaning back and returning. And that's the hard part, that control to return and lean back and return. So I like to sometimes push down into my feet to return and one last time. So I'm really feeling the connection through my glute so that I don't strain my back. Now hold onto both with one hand, both straps with one hand and lean back just a little bit with one arm and return. And once again, just feel a little bit of that rotational stretch. And try the other side reach and return. And you'll notice that I'm not sinking into the low back and return lower your straps into their holders. We're going to turn around and sit back once more, just like we did before to get a nice stretch through the low back. So curvy, low back alone and returned to the starting position.

Now that mermaid action we did before, we're going to do a kneeling version of it here. So place your hand, uh, you'll place your right hand on the foot bar, your other rights, uh, same springs but the other right hand and take your left foot and place it out on Co. So that's basically just touching the headrest. Now you're going to push yourself out here from your hand and return back in and push yourself out and return back in. And last time, push yourself out. Now feel that connection. Stay there. Push out a little bit more, Mary, there you go.

So that the push happens from your arm. Not so much by me moving the carriage with my quad. So it's from here. And return back in. Let's try the other side. And I push away and I return and I push it away so that it becomes a real shoulders, a dynamic shoulder stabilization exercise. And one last time pushing away and you can look at it as well for an additional stretch if you'd like. And up.

Now we're going to do some standing balance work. So we're going to stay on two springs and we're going to, or you could go a little bit lower and we're going to go into our front splits. I'd like you to place your back foot against the shoulder rest and place your front foot along the foot bar. And I want you to first just push away from that bent knee and return and push away. So I like to do it on two springs just because I have a little bit more support.

Um, my joints can't, can't handle too much of the adductor work. It might be required otherwise and stay there. Now rise, bring your hands behind your head and push back. You don't know, you could straighten all the way or you don't have to and push and back. Now keep that front knee bent so it's more of a lunge and you push.

Bring your arms out to the sides just like we did at the very beginning. You're going to rotate. Take a deep breath in. Now breathe into that back Bra area for the women. Or you can think of breathing between your shoulder blades and feel that expansion and returning to the start. Lift your hands up, lower your hands down. Push out once more, and switch feet.

So now we have our left foot here up against the solar rest and I'm having a lot of trouble getting my foot on. There we go. And we'll push back for the split and up, bending the knee and push straightening the knee out, bending the knee in, and get your balance. Because now we bring our hands behind our head. Now here's the thing to watch out for. See how I'm sinking into my low back here. I want everybody to lift up into the kidney area and we're gonna try and straight in that front knee. The more you inhale, the better it is. And once more. Inhale the push.

Notice the difference that makes and return. Now we're going to lunge a little bit further so we keep that front knee bent. Lift the arms up and out to the side and rotate. Breathe in. Now pushing equally, which mean that front hand and that seems tied back foot. There we go.

And returning to the starting position and lowering the hands down. Let's do one more little split and bring the kerogen. Now let's turn around for the Russian facing back. Let's lift our head rest so that it'll give us a little bit more feedback. I'm going to pull it partway down.

So I'm going to have my front foot against the headrest and the back foot against the foot bar. Now it's a little bit high, but I'm going to lift my chest and I'm going to keep that knee straight. I'm sorry, I'm gonna keep that front knee bent and I'm going to straighten the knee. Push in one, squeezing through that back glute to three. So I get a little VMO action, four, five. Now I bend the front knee and I bend the back knee. So that I lower down a little bit more into my lunch and I feel a great stretch through that back thigh as I'm pushing that back foot against the foot bar and lower your hands, placing both feet now up on the foot bar.

And we're in a little pike here and we're going to push the carriage out. Plank and rise up. And a little pellet is first if you can, and rise up and once more. Now we're going to let the carrots come in and push it out. So it's almost like the leg holes, a little balance control and let the carrots come all the way in. We'll place a second foot onto the headrest here and slowly let yourself fries.

So if you're not used to working in parallel, this is a great exercise for you cause it really works your glutes and we're going to slowly straighten that front knee and let it bend in and straighten and bend. Last time, straighten and bend. Now we lower our back knee, we bend our front knee and we learn. So you push the carriage out just a little bit and you feel that glute Ooh through the side here and rise up just a little bit and lower back down and hold it for a nice isometric hold. [inaudible] and lower the hands all the way down. And we're going to stand up on our reformers and notice how nice and tall we are, even myself.

Lift your arms out to the sides with them all the way up. Touch your hands, lift their shoulders, drop your shoulders and lower your arms.