Mat on the Reformer

Hello. Hey, see you. Ready for a reformer. Okay. Um, we all have our reformer list, and even if we don't have a specific list that we learned from a school, you start to teach and you have your favorite list. Yeah, a few modifications. So I remember something that Cathy Grant told me, well, I think she told the whole group of people, not me specifically, but she said this, it's not enough to know what you're doing. You have to know what's coming next. So that means in a way, you're fully present. She didn't mean that you should be pre-planning, but you have to be fully present in the moment and ready to anticipate the next transition. Now that's a great thing. However, there's the other side of that. When you're going around in your house, getting ready in the morning and suddenly you're in your car and you go, did I actually turn off the a flat iron? Is it still on? And then you have to run in. So sometimes it's good to change things up just a little bit.

And what I like to do for my clients, especially since I have people that come in and come out, is I like to throw in the little surprises with choreography that you already know. So what we're going to do was we're going to do a reformer workout with Matt pieces in it. And it won't be exactly the way you do it on mat because you are on a reformer. Does that make sense? Okay. So we're going to start with a little warm up first. So I'm gonna stand sideways and then I'm going to look at both of you.

So if you just, um, bend over and if one of you would step forward in front of the other. Yeah. So Lee, you don't need to sit on the reformer back there. Alright, so we're going to round her body in it's long round spine. Think of the tailbone coming down through your legs. Put your hand on the back of your neck. Feel that it's long. And we're going to prepare our spine for some reformer work.

So if we just think below the ribs, I'd like you to take your tailbone and move it backward and then bring it forward. You're going to press your hands into your knees so that you're really in a nice bent position. And tailbone back and tailbone front. Keep going. Tailbone, back and tailbone. Front and tailbone back. Good. And Front and back.

And Front and back. Good and front. Now keep the tailbone pulled between your legs. Bend a little more, Amy. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So we're thinking about if this was the knee stretch, this would be the round back. Now pressing down, I want you to pull your sternum forward. Chest out. Yeah. So chest is the most important thing, not the neck and chest rounds and chest out.

Scapula together. Yeah. More chest, more chest, more chest, more stern and more sternum. Good and ran round. And again, neck, sternum, that's it. And scapula and wrap around field the Scapula. Sliding over your rib cage and one more up, up, up and then round. Now can we do this in concert? So tailbone now, good sternum out in front, good. Tailbone under and sternum round.

Now I need you to play some more band. Good. Open those arms up. Now this is an adaptation from Eric Franklin spine dance and I really want you to press and close the chain of your arms and tailbone out. Sternum out. Good. So that would be knee stretch that we're going to do arch back and tailbone under and sternum around one more and tailbone out, sternum out. Excellent. And articulate through the spine and come back to the round position and then stand up. But feel a little bit warmed up.

Now for me, I need to do something to get myself ready for the reformer. So let's lay our a self down on the reformer. And for those of you at home, I'm going to give some suggestions for springs. But as most of you know, reformers are different. Spring weights are different, so bar settings are even different. Feel free to make adjustments. So let's roll all the way down for footwork. And what I'd like you to do is put your legs together, ankles, knees and thighs together.

Very good and stretch all the way out onto the machine and stay there. I want you to pull your toes up. Good. Keep your heels up. And if you were standing on the floor, would you be, would you really stand back there or would you stand up here? You're standing on the floor and you're on in what we call Relevate. That's where you should be here. Yeah.

See that little there now from that position with g heels up a little bit. Now wrap your toes around the bar. Pull your toes up and toes around the bar. Wrap and grab the bar toes up, wrap and grab. Make sure the little toe, all five toes are doing the work and grab the bar and hold. Now press the heel under and band and we're ready for prehensile position.

Here we go. And reach out on an inhale and exhale and en and out and in. Feel the weight of your shoulders sinking into the surface of the math. Feel the neck lengthening as you move. Feel the breath going in and fully exhale. As you're doing this, I would like you to focus on the hip joint and you've all seen the hip joint.

Anatomically it is a ball and a socket and I would like you to think of initiating the movement back from the ball in the hip and the hip and the hip and one more hip and the hip and stay right there from here. Thinking of the hip joint being stable, stretch your knee to the ceiling up and from here I want you to press your heel to the ceiling and your toes and your heels and your toes and your heels and your toes and then the heels bend the knees. Place the heel on the bar. There we go. And inhale back and exhale n again going right to the hip joint and in for instance, if I said, straighten your knee, bend your knee, straighten your knee, bend your knee. Now go to your hip and you show your hip joint and your hip joint.

I notice both of you sort to slow down and the movement becomes a little more precise. This is really working your cell ass muscle. Your hip joint is closer to your core than your knee is, and two more and in and reach out and come in. Chin up a little at Amy. That's girl. And from here, length in the knees up, feeder flexed. Now we're going to turn out so that you're in a Pilati the you'll notice that your knees are turned out and so I'd like you to bring your big toes together and then turn out. However, what I really want you to feel is that the ball in the hip is what is rolling now and rolling the puts you a little bit more down onto a neutral pelvis. Good and turn out.

Now feel those muscles in your hip joints start to bend your knees. Don't lose the muscles in your hip. Feel them. Feel them, feel them, feel them, feel them, feel them, feel them. Place your feet on the bar. Now press into my hands and an Aimee. You can imagine pressing into a solid space. Now press in this way.

Can you feel the muscles as you externally rotate and your internal rotators? You've got to keep those turned on now, just flop yourself open. Nothing's working. So get back into the working position. Here we go. And reach out and come in and out. And, and as you go out, your pelvic floor narrows. And when you come in, it widens and it narrows and it widens.

And that muscle motion is what we call pelvic floor training. So the more you're aware of it, the more you can concentrate and focus on it. But the good news is even if you don't know it, you're working your pelvic floor and in breathe and into more out and in heels up a little bit out and come all the way in. Now, without any fuss, let's just bring your legs together and come up again onto the ball of your foot. And I want it to be the yes, the place where if you lift your feet up, where would you stand? Because if you're too far back or too far into your toes, it's not functional. And I want to teach [inaudible] to improve functional everyday living.

All right, so let's go back and do a stretch. Straighten your legs from this position and hold on a minute. They'll get too excited. Seat. It's not enough to know what's coming next. Did I know? Sorry. It's not enough to know what you're doing. You've got to know what's coming next. But you gotta listen.

Say you know what's coming next. So right here, I want you to open up this space that's your talus coming forward. You feel that? So it's like two little pincers were here. They'd be pulling that bone up and then press down and the bone relatively goes back and lift up and press down the emphasize the up and down and up and down and up and down. Now our nervous system is wired for us to walk forward. It really wasn't wired to do a moonwalk. Therefore, we really want to work on function.

We lift heels up and lift them up and lift them up and press them under the bar and stay. Press the heels under the bar. Good. Now this is one of Pat's little gifts. Bend your knees and come all the way to the bottom. So come in, come in, come in, come in. Come in. When you're teaching this, it's a little tricky. You're going to go back about four inches and that's relative and people will go back a lot further than you think. Now you're a little ankle bone. Your Talus is going to be a weightlifter, so your knees not going to do this and because your heel is going to go up and down and there's only going to be about four inches of roll.

So the weightlifter lifts you up and that carried should roll back about four inches. And then the weight lifter puts his weight down and lift and lower and lift and lower and lift and lower and lift and lower lift and lower lift and lower. Chin up a little. Now do you feel the difference between 10 and stretch? We do this on the chair and it's called tendon stretch, but we don't get to do it in bilateral symmetry, up and down. And I just felt this is really important. We hike a lot in Colorado.

We need this kind of work. I know that's a lot. So put your heels up, go all the way back and let's finish with a little bit of walking and right foot down and lift and two and lift three and four and five and six and seven and eight and lift, hold and bend and come all the way in. Very nice. And if you ladies will come up and take the bars down and probably you'll want to red springs for your hundred on these, on this particular machine, two red springs and you can go ahead and put your headrest down for me and then find your straps or handles as the case may be in your own particular machine. And then I'd like you to bend your legs to a nice right angle here. And let's just have our, let's just size herself up. Lift, head, neck and shoulders. Come on up and let's just feel that for a minute.

Let me look at everybody and then roll all the way down again. Now from this position, I like to think that my spine is our weightlifters. And so as I lift up right here in my upper thoracic, there's some weightlifters holding up my head. All right. Stretch the legs all the way out to a comfortable 100 length for your body. Here we go. And in Hale three, four, five or fuck if I don't talk, they'll hear. If you're breathing now feel the little finger into the back of your arm, your tricep. Feel it connected to your scapula.

Yeah, two more. Last one, and hold the position. Now be ready, but don't anticipate because you don't know what's coming next. Bend your knees with them on the wood. Bend your arms and come all the way in.

And then you can hang your straps up on the little posts and you're going to want to slide down maybe two inches from your shoulder. Rest is, we're going to do the rollover. We're going to do the mat rollover, and we're on the reformer. I'm going to allow you to hook your hands over the edge. Okay, so like straight up in the air. And we're going to do three in each direction and lift up and over and open and flex. And roll down to three and four and up to three, four and open and roll down three, four together, up to sit bones on the ceiling, open legs and roll. Two, three, stay there. Point. And let's go with the legs open and up and over.

Two, three, four together and roll down. Three, four, open and lift up. Two, three, four and roll to breathe. Ladies. One more. Last one, three, four and together and roll down three and four. Great.

And put your feet back down on the end of the reformer slide back. So that might be something you would want to do if you're class W um, you want to do jackknife or overhead, but you're not ready to, you can put this in there and it'll let them become comfortable with doing a rollover on the machine. So was that okay? Do you like that? All right. So I bet you're really looking forward to coordination. So let's go and arms coming up. Head, neck and shoulders up. And let's do it with our knees slightly open. Okay. So we're going to do this slightly open version, ready and out, legs open, close.

Just the hip and the elbow and out. Open, close. Just the hip and the elbow. Now a little extra thing I have. Just watch for a minute, Lee as well. You can do it with us and out. Open-Close just the hip. Can you give me a little more upper body with the elbow? Maybe it's just a little more effort out. Open close Ben.

Come on. Work at girls and out. Open close and Ben and come in and roll down. Excellent. Put your hands, put your straps on the posts and you want to come and put your bar in the um, leg and foot position. Yes, yes, but in footwork position, but you don't know what's coming next. So roll all the way down. [inaudible] um, I think two reds will be just fine. About what? Same thing that you would use probably for the 100. So put your feet on the bar.

He'll sir up. Now this can be done. Heels up or heels flat. So if you're introducing this to a beginner, you might, this would stabilize the ankle joint, but you girls have been around the ranch for a while. So we're going to ask you to keep your ankles up so all the way back. Good. And stay in that position. Now you have a nice close chain. Take your right leg lifted straight up in the air.

We're going to do single leg circles across, around an up two and up, three and up, four and up. Don't rock your hips and up and around and reverse the hips. Stay still. So your standing leg that's on the bar is going to help you stabilize. If you use that close chain and around and lift.

Now put the foot down on the bar. If I lost count, I'm sorry, and bend and come all the way in. Center yourself once and then go all the way out again. And get ready for the opposite leg and across, around and up. Two and up. Three and up. Four and up five and reverse out around up two and up three and up.

Four and up and five and up and down and come all the way in. Come up and take your bar down. So roll back down again and put your hands in your straps. Put your leg straight up in the air. Okay. Lift head, neck and shoulders up. Now we are going to do arm pumps, but we're not doing quote the one hundreds. All right, so from here I want you to bend into the signal leg stretch position. Okay?

And we're going to change our legs on the two counts. So we're going to be going pump two three for pump two, three, four, everybody got it. Ready and pump. Two, three for pump, two, three for pump, two, three, four pump to another set. And one, two, three opened up the hip joint and four makes eight sets come all the way in. Now as you do your double legs, your hands can come up slightly to counterbalance. Inhale and curl in and you can make a little curl. Think rolling in a ball and out and come on.

Curl from the center and en and all the way out. I just love doing this to people and curl and all the way in and lift and curl and come all the way in and roll back down again. So you can hang your up for a moment. And let's make an equipment change. We're going to come to sit sitting. We're going to have one spring. Yeah, one spring.

And again at home, if you're watching, remember that springs have different weights. So when I say one spring, I have four springs that are all the same weight, more like, um, I think the grots machines are that way. So you, you're gonna have to feel this one out. So I'd like you to sit back up against the carriage stops, open your leg up as if you were going to be as if you were on the mat doing the spine stretch and puts you right about there. And what you're going to do is take your handles are your straps or your handles. If you have handles and you're going to reach out. Now from here you're going to do the spine stretch and as your spine goes forward, that's what moves the [inaudible] machine. And then roll all the way back up as you're doing this, trying to round your elbows so that we don't have hyper extended elbows and come all the way up. I'd really rather see what Amy's doing.

I'd rather see it over rounded than hyper extended and round. Good. And then come up. And we're going to do this one more time because I want you to feel the connection when we do rowing front, round and round. Good. And then come all the way up. Bring your legs together, bring your arms in.

And now we're ready for rowing front. Now remember when we do rowing front, you want to beat right on those sit bones. So for most of you it's gonna feel a little bit like you're leaning front and press out and touch and lift and in and out and touch. Watch those elbows and aim and reach out and touch and lift and come in. Now remember your spine stretch round all the way down. Good on a full breath. Stretch all the way out.

Now roll up as if you were doing spine stretch. Roll up where your scapula going there, going together and lift and come all the way around and round down and Polish the top of the machine as you reach out. Good. Roll Up. Good Scapula, neck, sternum, and lift. And let's do one more and round, round, round. Reach all the way out.

Feel your spine stretch as you unwind and then lift up and come all the way around. Cross your legs for hug. Don't you feel like embracing who you are, but that that sounds very soft and kind. Bring your fingers together. Notice the Scapula on your back there, pulling apart. And as you bring the scapula together, that's what opens your hands. So I never tell people I want the hands here, I want them there. I want you to feel your scapula. So let the Scapula push your fingers together. Let your scapula pull your hands open as you come together.

Feel like your sternum is above your circle. So you may need to lower your Hansley. That's it. And inhale. Good. And exhale. And one more. Inhale and exhale. Great. And let's turn around for rowing back. So this is the pattern that we're going to do. We're going to imagine that we're doing a roll down.

So our hands are here and we're going to do for a, let's do three where you just simply roll down as if you were going to go down on your mat. But I'm not going to do that because the bar is there. Then we will do the rowing pattern, right? We will do two of those. So four rolled on them. We'll switch legs. Then we'll do the other side. All right, so here we go. And rolling down. One, two, rolling up. One, two. Just feel rolled down that this might be how you begin people for Rowing series and the roll down is what pulls the straps and roll up and roll down two and up.

Now rowing, roll down to reach out and hold. Now round your spine between your hands and then there's a point at which you pull, becomes natural and functional and small. Circle hands, all in fee. Give it a little bit rest and then roll up. And again, roll back to chest, arms out, go through your arms with your spine and then pull it back. Lift up and watch those elbows, Lee, and come all the way up. And from here, Ben, both legs in good and then just stretch out crosstube. We're in the opposite direction for roll downs and roll down and roll up.

Make sure your strap is not pulling you back. Your tailbone is heading toward your heels and back. That's a nice roll. I like that. Down and up. And let's get together on this one and everybody down. Good and everybody up. Excellent. Now here we go.

Two of the rowing series and pull back. Arms open out chess goes through arms pull back, circle up and you can around and rest if you want. And then roll up, gather yourself and tailbone starts back, arms out attached to the Scapula, round forward and pull and lift up and over and then roll all the way back up. And it's time to find our lone box, our long boxes calling to us. Please use me.

Okay, so when I want, when I placed the bar for any of my long box theories, I liked the bar to be the same level as the box. Yes. So let's see, maybe you had to take the box. Maybe you've had to do this first. Yeah, that, that looks, that looks good to me. That's probably too low. Now this is a series I find challenging, but it's also nice for older ladies. So when I'm getting on this, I like to have them because some of some of my people really have coordination and balance problems. So this is nice because these bars locked down and here I'm going to check my knee, makes sure my thigh is supported and also that's I, I'd like to have my arms at the same level as our, my hands, the same level as my shoulder joint.

So we're going to do a couple of these first. Okay. So you want to bring some of your ladies forward because their chest will be uncomfortable if they're laying on the box. So straighten your arms. Good. Check your chest as she, I think you need to come forward. Come forward. So your chest is actually off the box. Okay.

And I think your chest needs to come off the box a little bit. Trust me. This will be uncomfortable for many of our clients. So here we go and press out and come in. So as you're pressing out, feel like your scapula is the engine. So as the machine is moving, if you didn't have scapula moving, the machine wouldn't be able to go anywhere. Is that really clear?

[inaudible] okay, now stretch all the way out. Stay there for a moment. Think about your sternum. You're going to lift your sternum up into a swan. Inhale. And then I'm going to look at elbows and I'm going to go, what is that? What? What? What? What? What? What is that there? Now lift up. Now straighten your elbow. And for those of you at home, if you straighten your elbow, you can just use this like an old, remember those old clothesline and used to prop them up? Yeah, there's the clothesline. Have to do anything. So if you bend this, you have to pull there. And I know while I'm talking, you're going, is she ever going to stop talking and roll all the way down? Good.

So let's do this again. Inhale and come up. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Up Scapula and press all the way down so the scapula are going to broaden. And as you come up, inhale, inhale, inhale, good and exhale and come down and then bend your elbows. And we're going to do some tree teaser work. So step off the box in a nice play. Okay.

And you can have the bar up probably for this teaser because, well, yeah, you could have the bar up. All right, so find your position for the teaser in the middle of the box without, without the straps. So many of your clients come in and they're afraid to do the teaser on this machine because they're up. And so everything looks different and your eyes starts to organize. So you may have a wonderful teaser on the floor and then you bring them up here and they go, why is the teacher's head right? Right, right there in front of me. Why is she not up there? And then the machine moves back and forth.

So a trick I have is make them do the teaser on the box until they become comfortable with that space. Then we add the straps. All right, so come up and make a teaser with your legs bent or with your legs bent. Come up, come up, come up. Your legs are bent. Just come up like we did on the floor this morning. Oh yes. Yeah. See what I found out is everybody pulls out a pushes out with their feet. Now just roll halfway down until you're at the tip of your scapula.

[inaudible] yes. And roll back up again. Are you really using your spine to do this or have you been thrusting with your straps and roll back down again? Good. And roll back up. Good. Wait, wait, no, wait in my hands. Come on. Roll Up. Like okay. Roll Up. There you go. And that's what we're trying to find. And then roll back down.

Now let's find the straps. [inaudible] everybody okay? Do you need me to help you? You got it. [inaudible] okay, so let's start and tabletop and come up to a teaser. Lifting up the hood and rolling down. That's fine. And Leg Straight and rolling up. Up. Up, up.

Good. And that's fine. And down. So I think what you just learned is I've got to work on my spine. Right and rolling all the way up. Good. Hold that position and circle one and two and three and four and reverse one and two and three and four and then roll back down. And if you can, I think I'll take your straps. I'll be nice.

I'm not always nice but hoping you, we'll take these here. Very good. Keep your heads up so they're not dropped over the edge. Wow. Lift your head, neck and shoulders up. [inaudible] isn't this the same space you occupy on the mat when you're doing some of the abdominal series? Of course it is.

Lift your leg straight up in the air. Good. And we're going to do the scissors and you can use your hands. Here we go and one and two and three and four, five and six and seven and lovely ladies and come up. I'd like to point out to the audience how nice these hips, hips are opening. That's important.

Now let's see what they do with this one and hands behind the head. Double leg, lower lift and down and up and down and ah, two more down and little bit, a little extra lift there. Come on and down and up. Bend your legs to the right angle position. You girls are so lucky because now you get to do crisscross ready and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven a one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and Ben in, Eh, just put your feet on the bar and that's why I kept the bar up.

I just wanted to say something to those of you in the audience. If Lee wouldn't mind again getting into the position and turn here, a lot of people will find, because there's space down there, if you hit the floor, you can't turn. But here you can get a little more turn. Would you like to show everybody how much turn you can get and do four more. Ready and turn, turn, turn. Good point. Taken. Very nice and come off the box and you're going to come around and put your hands.

You're going to face forward. So I decided to put all the box things together so we could get through more pieces. So again, the chest is off, arms are on, and you're going to stretch your arms long. Good. So take an inhale and come up. Listen for a moment you're going to do double single leg kick and it'll be right. Left, right, left, then down left, right, everybody got it ready and right, right and down and left. Left and down and right, right and down and left.

Left and down, and all the way down. Now I'm going to use Amy for a minute. Come all the way up, Amy. Now the thing is, you have to imagine that there's a suspension wire from your sternum. Actually, you could actually think of your lungs and your heart hanging from the ceiling. And then as you beat your leg, the idea is if this is hanging in supporting you, this box is not moving. Yes. [inaudible] notice that. So let's try another set. Ready. Lift up and left. Left, left down, right, right down, left, left.

Are you working girls and down and roll all the way down. Stretch your arms out long. When we do double leg kick, we're going to, and I'm going to tell you what you're going to do, so you have to anticipate this. You're going to beat three times, but keep your legs up on the third time. So take an inhale and B, one, two, hold on. Three on the inhale, lift your chest all the way up and imagine I'm getting ready for rocker. I could do that and then straighten your legs out, but keep your chest up and then roll all the way down. Now we can do it a little faster and beat two, three chest goes up, legs stretch long and we push all the way down and one, two, hold, chest goes up, legs go out and all the way down. Anybody up for a challenge? You up for a challenge.

Okay and one, two, three all the way up. That's very nice. Now can you reach back without the machine rocking and get into the rocker position? [inaudible] I might give you a little help. Can you do that without the machine moving? Although it will move a little bit. Can you get the other leg without falling? Not without volume. Okay. And then reach and you get it and you get it.

It's on your PMA exam and rock and rock and rock and rock and rock. And you only do that to people that you really love and care about and step off the machine. Okay? So sometimes we have, it's not about being perfect, it's only about trying. So we're going to keep the box on, but take the bar down so you may need to lift the box up a little bit. Thanks for, thanks for helping me.

So pulling strap facing back. Okay. Rolls off. Girls off. Yes. Okay. We're going to start, um, put the straps back on. Actually, I'm going to do something I learned from Alan Herdman. So very, very wonderful, important gentlemen in my estimation. Uh, it's number one arms lift above the buttocks. Number two, scapula. Slide down. Number three, chest co's up. Now notice how high the hands are. They're not down here, right? You can't get a swan if your arms don't lift.

And there's a functional reason for that, but we're not going to go into it. Just trust me. All right, so hands around the straps. And first we're going to do four poles just to our hips. All right, so pull back to your hip and come down and back to your hip. Good and calm down. And two more just to hip. Upper body's not really doing much, Li not yet, and down.

And one more up. Now stay right there. Continue to lift your arms as you lift your sternum. Lift your sternum, lift your sternum, lift your sternum, and all the way down. Now let's put it together and all the way back with the arms up with the sternum and exhale and down. And again, inhale and up and all the way down. And the last one, inhale and up and all the way down and put your straps, hang them up. And that's the end of your long box. Aren't you happy? Yes. So normally if I'm teaching a class, I might mix those up, box and box off.

But I thought for both of you being seasoned veterans that you would be able to do this. We're going to do the elephant now. So if you put your bar in the position you like to use, you like it up or down the warm. Sorry. Second one. Second one. Yeah, I like, I like mine down. For those of you at home, it's the bar is closer to the, um, the platform. So let's start with long stretch. So put your head rest up. I think I said elephant, but I want long stretch and get into the plank position. And then as you were in the plank position, let's check those elbows again. Okay. So remember, finger elbow, all the way down into scapula.

From this position, I want you to think of lifting your arms. If you lift your arms, your feet will open. We'll push the machine and lower your arms. So I want you to really think of the scapula attached to the arm. Good. And down and back and forward.

So the sternum goes behind the bar and the sternum comes forward over the bar and step into elephant. Okay. Oh on the elephant. Instead of thinking of the upper back and the Scapula, we're going to think about the tailbone. So you're going to press back with your heels and then you're going to think sit bones together, tailbone going down. So if your tailbone were long, you could think the tailbone goes down and pushes the heels forward and back at elbow, slightly rounded and under and back and under. Let's do one more. Everybody back, everybody that whole bat now nothing but a tailbone. You are nothing but a tailbone. Use your spine to bring you in.

Excellent. And you can step off. Okay. Now I had another little piece, but I just suddenly realized, I don't know if this is, I'm going to have to check this out. Can you sit here? Okay. Um, normally my reformer has a flat platform. It doesn't have this little divot. And then I'm going to take this down. If you put one spring on.

So some of you may not like this with this little divot. Some of you may and I'm going to reach forward from here and I am going to go into a swan from this position and press down. Now I don't really mind the divot because I'm not collapsed on it. I'm sitting up and I'm finding my sit bones and I'm not hyper extending my elbows. So we'll do a couple of those and then we're going to do a saw. Ready.

Now when you size yourself up, you have to make sure the head, your legs are wide enough that the head rest comes between your legs and then round forward. Yeah, round forward, good elbows, elbows, elbows. We're going to put splints on those things. Okay, here we go. And stern them up. That pulls the carriage to you and round as you go down. So you've been pulling your sternum up. Now you're using your back extensors.

You feel the difference and rounding and down and pulling in, in, up, up, up, up. Feel a little more round. See, that's going to open your chest and pressing and all the way up. Good. And rounding down. Yeah. Just for killing sake. Let's all agree as the carriage comes in, we're going to reach with our right arm back and carriage comes in right on back for saw. Look back and round as you come in and then left arm back good and round as you come in. Think more about turning the sternum reach and then as you come in, really feel the round and all the way back and reach and open up right here.

And for those anatomists you'll know it's the coracoid process that we want to open and then slowly let the equipment come to the bottom. Do you feel your sit bones? Yeah. It was interesting. That never had to, had to be aware. Yeah. Yeah. You have to be. You have to be aware. Okay, we're going to do the stomach massage and we're going to do it on two springs probably. Do you have where you all be able to keep from sliding your sweaty enough? Yes. Okay. Now I have a little pet peeve about stomach massage, so I want you to demonstrate, okay, so what I would like her to do is sit on her sit bones. Now, that may mean that when she puts her feet on the bar, she may not be at the front of the machine.

And the reason I'm wanting to do this is I wanted to organize over your sit bones. Okay? And I want the spine to round forward so that the pelvis is basically neutral. And I don't want the sacrum to go into a counter. Nutation all right? So although it's relatively encounter nutation right now. All right, so here we go.

Oh, hello. Um, which bar heights would you like it? Uh, do you like upper? Do you like down lower would be good, but okay. Little lower, little lower. Are you happy there? Okay, you're happy there? Okay. And then the needs are inside. All right. So here we go. Are we ready over there Amy? And straighten the legs back. Heels.

Press down, lift up now Ben from the hip joint and pull your knee to your shoulder and back and press down and lift up and Bannon pole and lengthen your back and out and press down. And as you pull your knees up, you should feel the back lengthening to make space for your knees and down and come up and pull in. Very nice. And then let's sit up and put the arms behind you, your knees, your knees are bent in. I didn't mean to keep you out there. Now again, straighten your elbows. Now if you need to slide forward a bit, you can, but try not to be behind your sit bones. Straighten your elbows. Yeah. Let's see. If you straighten your elbows, you're basically propping yourself up on your bone. If you bend your elbows, then you have to use your back muscles to hold you up.

So let's do four of these and press back. Heels under and lift. Now sternum should lift above the knees and back and press down and up. Now feel like you're sitting up and out of your sit bones and out and press down. Watch that elbow on the left, Amy and up. And Ian. One more time and reach out and press down and lift up and come in and bring your hands out to here. So when we go back, we're going to twist no heels. Let's start with our right arm.

Ready and twist and center. This is where it's hard to stay on the sit bones and center. Turn as much as your rib cage turns, not in somebody else's prescriptive direction and stay. Now here's the fun part and this comes from spine corrector and turn. Good. Now like an airplane, dive down. Just lean over, lean over. Good.

Come back up and send her income in and reach out and like an airplane and up and center and in and reach out. Nice little airplanes, sternum lifts, and come in and reach out and down and lift up and come in. Take your bar down and let's get ready for short spine. Did you like that? I did like that. Just a little variety there. Okay. On short spine, what I'd like to do is there's so many different versions of short spine, but inside of the short spine is a lot of mat work. Okay, so let's put the straps on our feet.

[inaudible] and let's make a frog. Okay? As we make a little frog position here. Your sit bones are open. They just are. Trust me on that and as you come out, the sit bones pulled together. Now we're not talking about four feet, we're just talking about a couple of millimeters and then they come open and the sit bones close. As you're coming in, you could think about, gee, that's pretty much halfway is the seal position, right? So you're working on your seal and you're seeing this specificity of it's not just you. Put your legs up there, make a shape and go for it.

You actually position yourself. You ahead. Now let's take our legs right out and hold them there for a minute. That would be your hundred position. Take your leg straight up. That would be the position you might do. Scissors or double leg, lower lift roll up and over. You do have your head rest down. Yes, roll up and over. That's the rollover we did earlier. Now Bend into your seal from your hip joint and then roll down on the machine, one vertebrae at a time and stop in that position without straightening.

You likes to fast. Good. All right, so we want to take the speed up just a little bit and reach out and legs up in over rollover from the tailbone and then Ben from the hip joint. Good. And then roll down one vertebrae at a time, one vertebrae at a time, one vertebrae at a time. Good. And reach out. Now if you're watching, sometimes people open their knees wide over the shoulders. Some people like to keep them closer. The elements are still in there. So do what you normally do. You don't have to do it exactly this way.

Can you do it with so they can see you with your legs closer. So we'll do one more. You do y you do narrow and reach out, up and over and bend and then curl down. One, two, three, four that's too wide and okay. All the way out. But we don't want them to think that's the right one. And up and over. Up and over. Up and over, up and over.

And so this would be when it's wide, it's, it's still going to be more like, um, yeah, the seal and roll down. Two, three, four. Good. Rolling and finish. And take the straps off and we're going to do a mermaid. So face me and bar up in the upper position or the lower position. Again, this, this, this is preference and also depends on your equipment. So while we're sitting there, just for a moment, what I'd like you to do is put your hands in front of you. You're at the stove?

Yes. Okay. Are you going to put your hand to the side, to the side of your body and do something over here or do you think you might turn and do something, which means your arm is really here. So this is the angle of scaption. In other words, this is how our arms connect to our scapula. So as we get into our mermaid position, I was taught to have my hand in the center of the bar. I prefer to bring it forward. If any of you still like the center, go ahead and do it. I'm just suggesting you may want to investigate this with your arm up and we're going to go over on an inhale, thinking of the rib opening and then exhaling and the ribs are closing as you go over on an inhale, this lung is expanding and the air is going out.

As you come up and inhale over and exhale up. Inhale over and exhale up. Now we're going to do a small rotation. Inhale over. Rotate just as far as your sternum wants to go. Come back and up and over, and it's the, it's this and this and this.

Now you probably aren't aware of this and over and turn. Now that's your head over. Turn your at. That's it. That's what turns you so the arm doesn't lead you in the head, doesn't lead you and come back and up and forward. What was happening as you rotate your arm was actually helping you feel like you were getting more rotation. So if you go over, I wasn't looking at you, Lisa. Maybe you were. Yeah, you got that a little bit [inaudible] for most of us, it has to be less than we think. Right? Okay. Because our, the lengthening of the muscle is actually, if you go too far, you actually go into a shortening range. Okay.

So now we're going to go over angles. Scaption and over. Good. Now hip Jolene, up and down and up and down. So this is internal, external rotation. Internal notice the carriage is moving. Notice that her body is staying still and come all the way up and go to the other side.

Now a little piece of information. So Lee, you, you've heard me talk about this before, it's kind of hard to do it in movement. So as Amy goes to the side on the simple version of the mermaid, this is opening. What would happen if you imagined your hips going this way to bring you back to vertical? This would still be closing, but there would be counter motion. All right? So that's what I'd like to see on this one. Got that. And reaching over on the inhale and up on the exhale and over on the inhale and up on the exhale. Now you're doing it all with your arm.

You're throwing your arm over and over in the inhale. Come on side the side. No, that's your neck. Come on the side of your rib side of your rib side of your ribs and up and over. Do you see what I mean? Okay, and over, over. Come on. Ribs, ribs, ribs, ribs, ribs. Now pull your hips toward the end of the machine and come up. Now we do the and over.

Now rotate your sternum. Rotate. That's your head. That's your head rotate. Yes, that's yeah, and come back up and in. Sorry, Amy. We're having some corrections over here. Over and rotate elbow and back. Up and in and over and rotate. Boy, am I glad I'm not pounding on me up in and this is hard. You guys are doing great. Over and rotate.

Does that feel differently and, and now over and let's do the hip joint and internal and external. Now this doesn't move. The hip is what you're isolating. Very small ruling of the wheels on the carriage. I've been doing this for years over an in and one more over and then come in and then come all the way up and gee, you've earned a rest. So put two Red Spring Song, make sure your head rest is down and you're going to lay down for pelvic press, bottom lift, whatever you want to call it, feet together on the machine. Good hands down. So let's articulate up a couple of times, rolling up to three, four and down.

Two, three, four and up to now I was taught when you do this and you're articulating up and down, the wheels don't move. You remember that there's actually hard work and keeping the wheels still that now tailbone is up, pulling toward my knees, extend all the way out. And imagine your tailbone pull shoe in so you follow the line of your tailbone. Lift your knees up and Ian and this is so you get to feel like I've gotten to roll the machine. You know, people don't feel if they haven't, the machine hasn't rolled. Have I really done anything? Well let's find out. Bring it all the way in and stop. Now you are not allowed to roll.

Do you understand? You are going to do the leg up in the air and you're going to do the shoulder bridge without moving the machine. And you even have two springs leg up, right leg up and press down and lift up. And two don't move the machine and up. And so the challenge is keeping the machines still. So your left hamstring is really working. Yes.

And put the foot back on the bar and you get to roll down cause I'm a nice lady occasionally rolling down. So this is an interesting concept of keeping the machines still moving. The body takes control. So we have to do the other side. I haven't forgotten and roll all the way up. Up, up, up, up, up, up and leg up and press down and up and two up, three up and four and up and press down. One, two, three, four. And let's come up for knee strap.

Sure. So hands around the bar, feeder tech Dender. Okay. And I'd like you to bring your hips back as far as you can, but feel the connection again. Scapula, little finger elbows. You know, I'm just going to have a buzzer and I'm going to just bang on it. It's good to yell. Elbows. Alright, here we go.

Now before we begin the move, I want you to articulate in four counts, starting at the s at the tailbone and articulate, one, two, three, four, tailbone down, one, two. You'll see why I'm going to do this. Four and tailbone out. Remember we did this to start class, the spine dance. Yeah. And one, two, three. Now you're going to do four knee stretches and around, back position. Ready, n out, tailbone in and under and out. Tailbone connect and out in an under, an out and whole.

Now tailbone goes out and you make an arch back and you connect your scapula and your elbow in your hand and reach out and n two and in, try not to bang the machine. We charge money for that in our studio and hold. And we also charge money if you don't count, which means I the most monkey. So try this out in arch. So go out in arch now, come in and round, go out and round and in an arch and out an arch in, in round out in round in an arch out in arch, n n round out in round in n r arch.

Good. And let's come. Let's take one spring off and we're going to end with some splits. Now one of the things I like to do about splits is I feel that as the population gets older, I want to bring in as many clients as possible. What I want to do is have them do the whole series. And let's be honest, most of our clients, it's dangerous to have them on top of the equipment cause they could fall.

It's actually can be dangerous for anybody. So we still want to do the splits, we don't want to throw them out. So we're going to get into this position, which most of you know as the lunge and you do it with a little more weight. But this one you're going to do up here, you have to check your foot position. So if I place my mid foot in front of the machine, it's the same in the other and I'm going to press down and I'm gonna think of pressing my hip down and then lifting up. So I'll be stretching the right hip and really supporting with my left hip and I can actually feel my glute Max as I go back. Okay, so we will do six on each side. So get into position lifting up.

Now you could start with the lunch first, but for time sake today we don't need it and reach back. Now I forgot to tell you the knee doesn't move and come up and two and a and three and ah and four and up n five sternum lifts and down and Ah, good. And take yourself off and go to the other side. Six on the other side. Remember foot should match placement that you had on the other side cause you have to watch your clients because sometimes they'll have one foot forward and then they go to the other side. You all, I've seen that. Put your knee forward over your ankle joint and press back and lift up.

And I like to emphasize sitting to lengthen the front of this leg so it's not pushing with my back foot. It's pressing down. Press down and lift up. Let's do two more last count down and up and down and come all the way up. Great. Now I keep the bar up for some of my older clients so you could have the bar up or down. You're going to place your foot here, you're going to be standing your arms here and you're going to press out and come in [inaudible]. Your leg is at an angle, so we don't want it over here when I have it nicely here.

And then we'll do six of these and then we're going to lean out and come up. Now the reason my older clients like it here is they can grab it if they need it. Cool. So see how you do. Hi, I'm set. Ready and press out. And Ian, kind of an interesting group of muscles we don't get to very often. And Ian. And as you're watching from an audience point of view, you want this leg to be straight up and down, out and an and one more out and n.

Now hold that knee quiet so it's not gonna extend lean out and then pull up on the inside of your standing leg and reach out and lift up. Lift up, lift up to stand. Think of it as the way you returned from punching on standing arms on the Cadillac. Got It. Yeah, and out and in. And one more and out. And the reason I stayed on the same size on this one is cause you're actually on the opposite leg. Now come around to the other side.

Is there a secret place? A secret place is I magic zone. Magic zone for you might be here and also because of your size, the bar up may not be your preference. Do you want to take down [inaudible] stay the same. Okay. Okay. All right. And press l you're going to feel something in here. Now, believe it or not, I'd given this exercise to some Olympic level runners I have.

They're actually run for team USA. And she said, I can't find these muscles. I don't know how you're doing it. How are you getting that carriage to move? Well, think about it. If you're a runner and you're always going front and back, you're not using any of the external rotators and the last one out and in. Now lean out. You can see Amy's leg as she leans out here. Good. You're too close. Okay, and that's because of the bar out.

Now you pull up on the standing leg right there and out and in, nicely and out. He has to carry just moving because you're leaning into it, but you're not straightening your knee on your right side and out and hold the position. Come in, hold the position. Come in now. Can you lift your top leg off? Are you standing securely? Lift your leg off. Good. Put it down on the floor. Okay, turn around and face the camera and let's just finish with a warmup. Oops. And arm.

Up and up and up and up. Now this is an inhale saw. Exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale. I feel great. That was a great workout for me in Ale. Exhale. One more. Inhale, exhale. And then bring your feet to the plotty speed. And from here, lift up and round forward to three and lift up and forward to three and up and forward to three and back and up and over. One, two, and back. And over. One, two, three, and that, and over one, two, three.

And thank you. Thank you. Thank you.