Class #1409

Creative Reformer Flow

55 min - Class
329 likes

Description

Tom McCook teaches a creative Reformer workout that works on bringing you back into your body. It is a full body session with some emphasis on the hips, shoulders, and spine. Enjoy exercises like Pull Ups on the Long Box, a Standing Series, and much more.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box, Pilates Pole

About This Video

Jan 26, 2014
(Log In to track)

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Hi everybody. I'm Tom McCook. I'm here with Lisa and Jennifer. Great to be back here at Calodney's anytime. And um, today we're going to do a reformer class. It's a flow. It's a full body of session with some focus on the hips and the shoulders and the spine. I hope you enjoy it and follow along with us. So we're going to start standing inside the reformer with no springs for first standing cat stretch facing the moving cart and they're going to put their hands on the plot on the cart itself. Just curl down and put your hands on the cart. You can bend your knees a little bit in the beginning if you like.

And just as you inhale, extend the card away and let the spine straight and let the pelvis roll over the top of the legs. On the exhale, just roll the pelvis back over the legs, lift your waistline and come in in the beginning. Just do it really easeful. It's fine to let the knees bend. You just got to let the spine warm up, let the pelvis roll over the legs at the spine straightened and on the exhale at the head and tail come towards one another. As you widen and lower the shoulders. Sorry, my hands are cold. Inhale and extend out and exhale to round up and as you beginning, just get a sense of having equal pressure into both feet. Keep your breath fluid. We're just beginning not working too hard.

You just focusing on alignment and smooth fluid motion. That's it. Yeah, there you go. Now do two more, but when you go out, bend your knees and deepen your hip crease and see if you can extend your thoracic a little bit more. That's it. Then as you exhale, let the spine in, legs length at the legs lengthen as you round. Fill your low glutes and inner thighs so you get a little deeper into the curl. Do that three more times. Inhale, deep hip crease, thoracic extension. Exhale round as you widen and lower the shoulder blades. Beautiful.

Two more. Has Your extending focus more on the upper back. When you're rounding, focus more on the lower back. There you go. And that gets fluid all the way through. One more. That's it. And then exhale, round, rounded back up. Beautiful.

You guys. Then gently step out. We'll get ready for legwork. Okay. And we'll set up for three springs, two reds and a blue. If you liked your head rest up, you're welcome to put it up and come on down on your back. When you're ready, we're going to start on your heels with your heels in line with your sit bones. That's your arms. Be Long.

Just take a few breaths before we start just to acclimate to being in this relationship with gravity. Look in front of the body, falling to the back of the body and let your belly draw in on the exhale. Just connected, being in a good alignment. And on the next inhale, draw the legs long as you reach into the bar and an exhale. Stall the cart right as you start to bend. Stall the cart now. Pull yourself in from the back chain. Feel like your feet belonged to your pelvis and there you go. Inhale out.

Then exhale, draw yourself back and still feel there's a momentary stall on the belly and the back of the legs so you feel the whole leg. And exhale, draw yourself in. Think of working from the top back of your leg to start. Finish through the front of your thighs. That's it. [inaudible] so you're working on leg alignment, aligning your spine and this coming a little more into your body. Let's do two more.

That's it. Imagine your top of your thighs straightened before your knees. One more, and then as you come in on the next one, just slide down onto the balls of the feet, feet in line with your sit bones. Heels will stay a little higher than the toes throughout the movement. And inhale again. Draw the legs long and exhale. Pull yourself in.

You notice it might be a little harder to feel the top of the legs when you're on the balls of your feet. So have the focus be high, upper inner thighs, low glutes, keeping your ankle alignment all the way through. There you go. [inaudible] front of your shoulders, stay relaxed. You have a little bit of tone in the middle of your upper back just to keep that good posture. That's it. And one more as we can. We're going to go right into v position. Bring the heels together, but keep the knees just like armpit with not too wide. And again, inhale, draw along. And think of again, straightening your upper inner thighs before the knees stall the carriage, right as you start to bend and draw yourself back in. That's it.

Feel that connection to your hamstrings as you come in. There we go. Ice and fluid. Two more. Imagine if you were a skier. As you bending to come in, you're stalling it a little bit so you're, you're not just doing all the work through the front of the thighs. Beautiful work. One more. And then as you come in, come wide on your heels in second position.

Knees lined up right over your toes and a little bit of turnout. And as you inhale, draw the legs long and on the exhale against stall. Then pull yourself in and feel your tail drop a little more into the mat as you come in so you get a deeper hip crease. That's it. There you go. Equal per impression in both feet. Imagine the right as you're starting to bend your legs to top of your thighs are spiraling out a little bit more and your sit bones are widening.

As you go out your sit bones are narrowing and the thighs are spiraling in slightly and that's the bone rhythms of your pelvis and femurs. Now the next one from the long leg position, roll your legs in into internal rotation and bending. Come in at the bottom, go into external. That's in do three like that. Initiate the movement from the top of the legs, nice and fluid and one more [inaudible] and at the inside go out and internal and this next one, press out in internal and then come in and external. There you go. Warming up your hip joints in your pelvis. One more. Awesome.

Now I'm going to take off one blue for you guys. You're down to two reds. We're going to go into bridging, so I'd like you to take your head rest down if it's up. Now we're going to keep your feet come up onto your heels. Now let's just do a couple of bridges where you just do a pelvic curl and you don't really lift, so when the exhale, curl the tail towards the knees and imprint the lower back into the mat and then inhale back down. Just do that two times. Imagine you're hollowing the belly to curl the tail. That's it.

Now the next one, pl up and feel the work is the bottom of your glutes, your inner thighs. When your belly is, you peel up into a bridge at the top of the bridge. Take a breath now starting from your breastbone, soften and sequence down through the spine. Let the tail be the last thing down. That's it. Nice and fluid. Get that sense of full hip extension each time with the ribs thing integrated in the front. That's it. We'll do two more before we add something to it. Now those hamstrings. We're talking, here we go.

That's in peel through, and one more. Now the top of the next one. Stay up. Exhale, curl up. Don't worry if your legs fully straightened, but from the bottom of your glutes. Slowly pull the pelvis out, keeping the pelvis the same height. Draw yourself back in from the back of the legs. Do that for five.

See if you can soften around your neck, the front of your shoulders and your feet. That's it. There you go. Two more and one more as you come in. Come all the way in. Then sequence down through the spine. Now we're going to do a little interesting variation. I'm just going to show you what your legs are going to do. So when you're in the bridge, your legs and your pelvis are gonna do that and your feet.

So when you're in the bridge, think of you're holding the hip extension from your hips. The back's going to want to arch a little bit. When you rotate, it will extend out in rotation like that. We'll do three on each sides to take a breath and exhale. Peel up. Now rotate to your right, let the feet rotate, let everything rotate, but still hold on from your hips and then extend out and draw yourself in for three. Feel like it's coming from low, low glutes and hamstrings. One more. That's it.

As you come in, rotate to your second side, feel the work low, low glutes, hamstrings, press out and then pull yourself in. Excellent. One more as you came in, come back to center and sequence down through the spine. Now we're going to do one more set, which is a little more interesting. So in the second set, when you're rotated, the top leg is to reach out over the bar and you're going to feel way more work on the down hamstring. Just take it really slow. Just do three on each side. So take a breath and exhale, curl up again, rotate on the inhale to your right, extend your left leg straight out and now pull the right leg long and then pull yourself back in. Two more. Feel it low.

One more. That's it. Back to the center. Both feet on the bar, rotate to your second side on the exhale. Extend the right leg. Now from low glute hamstring, pull long. That's it. Back of the shoulders. You're anchored. One more as you came in, back to the bar, and then sequence down through the spine.

Very nice. You guys are, you gonna put the straps on your feet, so that's gonna feel good after all that hamstring work. So feed in the straps now and the first thing you'll do is you'll just do a few hamstring arcs so you can press the legs out to a low 45 find neutral in the pelvis. And just as you inhale that the legs come up as far as you can without the pelvis becoming unweighted. Then exhale, reach it away. Imagine as you're pulling the legs down, that the pelvic bones are narrowing and the lower belly is drawing away from the inner thighs. That's it. Nice deep hip crease.

Now we're gonna make it a little more interesting. So come up to 90 now imagine your thighs are not going to move at all. And I want you to bend your lower leg about an eighth of the way just to there. Now from there, pull the whole leg down from the hip joint and towards the bottom, straighten and then come back up. That's it. Then you'll come up with straight legs, so you'll do that little eighth bend and then hinge from the hips and then length and a feel like you're lengthening from your low glute hamstring, abdomen relationships. You really developing that clear hip extender, abdomen relationship.

This is great for a hyperextended knees and just a good strengthening exercise for your back of your legs. Thank you to Karen clippings or for this one. That's it. Two more you guys who we make it a little different smell. You're getting both ends of the hamstring when you do that and the glutes.

Now as you come up to 90 just to open your feet hip joint with apart and that's do the same thing, but see if it can be even in both legs, even in the pelvis as you pull and then pull down. That's it. Nice and smooth little band. Feel that abdomen or relationship and then extend just three more ice and fluid. There you go. Beautiful. Find that balance. Low belly hip extensors. One more. Cool.

There we go. As you get to the bottom and lengthen out, bring the heels together. We're going to go right into frog, so as you inhale, draw in, exhale to lengthen. That's it. And imagine your body's pulling away from your feet to lengthen the legs. That's it. Nice and fluid. Do One more before we take it into breaststroke. So in breaststroke, you'll inhale in on the exhale, your reach out together. Then open a little wider than shoulder width, then in towards the shoulders and bring the heels together. That's it.

And then reach out even to see if he can find that even effort, even motion of the legs. That's it. And just two more ice sinned fluid before we switched directions and one that's it. Now as you bend in, reverse, reach out and zip the legs together. Feel like you're trying to touch me over here. You're trying to really reach away and then zip the legs together so you feel that opposition through your middle. That's it. I had one more.

Has You come to the center? Come into parallel and we're going to go right into short spine. So on the inhale, let the legs come up and exhale. Let the tail chase your feet as the legs go back. That's it. As you inhale and bend the knees into frog, let the pelvis rotate a little more over your ribcage. Keep the arms heavy.

Now sequenced down upper spine, mid back, low back. As you get the tail down, draw the heels down and get your sick. I'm all the way down. Then press the legs long and we'll do three more. Nice and smooth. Move with your breath. That's it. Think of space, length in alignment, sense of lift in the body, easy in the neck, long open, chest and shoulders. Two more. Here we go. Beautiful you guys. That's it.

As you're coming down and feel the breastbone is moving away from the chin, try the heels down and get the tail all the way down. Deep Hip crease and then slide the legs long. One more ass one. That's it. And then bend sequence down long, heavy arms. Feel your way, especially through the back of the waistline.

And now slide legs long again, or we're going to take that into the hundreds. So go into small v with the feet. Take your shoulders in, slide your fingers towards the bar and lift your hands about six inches off of the carriage. Take an inhale on the exhale. Roll your head forward. Imagine you're pushing a ball with your head towards your belly. Inhale for five beats through the nose. Exhale for five through the mouth. Feel your shoulders widening and lowering and on the exhale phase, feel the belly drawing away from the inner thighs.

Imagine you're holding your head up from your abdomen. Legs are long, breath is smooth. That's it. Smooth fluid breathing. See if you can target the back and the sides of the ribcage with the breath. That's it. Three more sets of breaths. You guys nice and smooth and two more. Feel the inner border of your arms are strong in tones.

One more set as you bend to come down, sequence down, bend your knees and slide your hands into the straps. Very nice, and we're going to take that into coordination. So for coordination, just actually do a couple arms circles for so suffrage. Draw your shoulders down in, imprint the back lower part of your rib cage, and on the exhale just draw your arms down towards the Mat. Open to the side and circled to the start and just do three in that direction. Just to warm up your shoulder girdle a little bit more. Yeah, that's it. One more that direction. As you get to the top, reverse, feel the connection on the underside of your shoulders down into your core and your inner thighs.

One more now at the bottom. Keep the arms at the bottom. Just bend the elbows, keeping them a tight to your body. Preparing for coordination. Inhale to prepare. Exhale, curl up with everybody's slide the arms and legs long. Inhale Open. Close the legs. Exhale, bend the knees. Inhale, bend the arms. Do four more at your own pace. Feel that opposition of the belly lifting is the legs lengthening.

You're standing into the arms from the underside of your shoulders. That's it. The leg movement is, you guys are doing beautiful. It's just about bar with are a little wider. That's it. And two more. Yeah, that's it. And one more.

Very nice and sequence down and help yourself up. We're going to come on in, turn around the other way and put on one red spring. We're going to do it rolling rowing back series, but we'll do a couple of prep exercises with one red. The bar actually could be, I think it should be okay. We'll see how it goes. So we'll start with your legs a little bit bent with your heels on the, on the cart and then take hold of your straps. We're just going to do a little prep roll down about halfway. So I like you to do is grow tall. On the inhale, on the exhale, narrow the sit bones and hollow deli to roll back about halfway.

Take your breath right there. Draw the belly away from your inner thighs and curl back up. Shoulders stay nice and low. Do that two more times. Grow Tall, activate the underside and curl. Take a breath and then peel back up. If you feel the work is low and the shoulders can stay low and wide, one more. That's it.

And Curl it right back up. Now the next one, go back and hold it, and you're going to turn your hands this way. In the straps, we're gonna do a little postier Dell press. It's a curl back about halfway. Now on the exhale, as you hollow your belly, press out to the side of the field like you're reaching from the bottom of the shoulder blades. Then inhale forward. Just let the arm movement be a pulse. We'll do that for five and feel that reaches from the bottom of the scapula out to go back. That's it. Two more. Inhale, arms forward. Exhale, curl all the way up and we're going to go right into rowing back. So start with round back so you can start with your legs straight.

Now that's it. Now grow tall. Activate your inseams. As you inhale, draw the hands in towards the breastbone. Exhale. Feel the lift from the pelvic floor and curl back about halfway. Inhale, open the arms to the side. Hold it there. Now start to press back from the arms, from the back of the shoulders. Exhale forward. Bend from your abdomen. Reach back. Now circle the arms up and forward and then roll up through the spine in a fluid fashion. Draw in on the inhale. Exhale from the bottom. Lifting curl open to the side. Start to press back, fill your belly forward. Ben, lift, keeping the chest open and circle forward. Beautiful.

Two more fill. You're creating space length and strength. Curl Open. Start the press forward. Bend, lift, and circle. Beautiful. One more time. Grow Tall. Draw in, lift and curl open. Start Your press at the forward bend. Follow. That's it.

Lift and circle. Beautiful you guys. Then we're going to take it directly into flat back versions, so for flat backs even keep your elbows the same width as your shoulders and just retract your shoulders just slightly so you feel like you're connected to your mid back. Inhale there, grow tall. Press your legs down and hinge back with a flat back. Inhale, lift the spine and reach straight up. That's it. Exhale forward. Bend. Now reach the arms low along the cart. Pull them straight back. Now this time staying in the forward bend. Bend at the elbows.

Bring the of your hand to your sacrum. Now press back so you'll be, you'll be like, so press back and then open. And as you open stack the spine. It's kind of hard to see that when I'm behind you, Huh? And it can go to flat. Back on the exhale. Hinge now lift in reach at the same time to spine in the arms. Come up together. That's it. Forward bend. Press back with the arms low. Bend at the elbow, the back of the hands. Come to the sacrum. Now reach straight back. Open the arms and stack the spine at the same time. Beautiful.

Two more times on the exhale. Hinge, active inner thighs. Lift and reach. Forward fold. Press back. Heavy. Long arms bend at the elbow. Now reach back from the bottom of your shoulders. Open as you open the arms and stack one more time. A lot of words in that one. And held the bend. Exhale, hinge, lift and reach.

Forward bend. Press back. Heavy. Long arms bend at the elbows. Pull back, belly en, arms open and stack. Beautiful. Now we're going to go into a kneeling rotational exercise. What I'd like you to do is come to a kneeling position. Like if you're gonna do chest expansion and we'll keep it on one red and take your straps and cross them and hold them in the opposite hand.

We'll see how the strap goes. I think you're going to have to be a little behind the, um, yeah, I think you're going to have to be back a little bit. So have your knees about halfway back in the cart. Now the motion is, you're going to be, you'll be like, so, so you're gonna pull from the right is the left arm straightened specific. You can keep your pelvis square to the blocks. That's us. You'll be like this. Take your hands this way and on the exhale, pull your elbow in close and turn to your right.

That's it in health center and alternate and feel that your shoulder blade is drawing in towards the spine and the hip that you're turning towards is pressing forward. So the hips not going with you. That's it. How's that weight feel? You guys good? All good. There you go. No one ever says it's easy. That's it. Cool. There you go. Now see, you didn't get that feeling. Show the blade and waistline follows that sense your inner thighs. That's it.

Nice and fluid. Okay, two more. Each side, feel like you're turning into yourself and you have this nice access from the top of your head down through the base of your pelvis. You're spiraling around that one more each side. Okay, that's it. Last one. Very nice. Now from there we're going to take it into a lunging expansion, so step your right foot and put it on the headrest there.

You're going to have to think of the goal and this one is to keep your hips level and your back hip extended. So with your back hip extended, you want to find your glute on the left side and you can have your arms that arranged where it's, you're just going to have a little bit of pull so you can feel it. The stability is the hard part of the exercise. On the exhale, just reach your arms down to pull back. Yeah. In how far that's it and really feel how your legs and pelvis have to work a lot more in this position than if you were kneeling or sitting on the box. So modifications would be sitting on the box or just regular Neely.

That's it to more everybody. Here we go. And one more. Now we're going to do a little variation sweat I'd like you to do is add a little thoracic extension to it. So when you pull, when the arms get to your side, lift from behind your breastbone and go up to pull. That's it. Then release forward to neutral. Do that for three Paul, and then feel the lift. That's it. Still feel that connection to the back of your left leg.

You're going to probably feel a bigger stretch in your hip flexors and quad on that left side. Very nice. Then we'll switch your legs after you complete that one. Beautiful. That's exhausting, Huh? Easy for me to say over here. Not really. Get your ride hip extended.

You'll notice the difference is left to right and really get that sense of activating your right glute. And on the exhale, stand down in the arms and draw back and do that for five. Connected with your breath. Feel the lift through your pelvic floor and low belly, right as you start to pull. That's it. And two more. And one heavy, long arms toned, aligned body.

And now we'll add thoracic extension for three. So from behind the breast mound, pull the your sides and then go up to pull back a little bit more. That's it. Two more. Feel how you get a little more into your lower trap. And one more. Okay. Very nice you guys. Beautiful work.

From there you can put your straps on the polls. We're going to put the bar down and put the long box on. I can get the bar for you guys if you want to grab your box. Yeah, we're going to do pullups. Who Knew? So we're going to go with one Ballou and pull ups. We're going to use the risers. So you're gonna lie facing the risers on the box. Like, if you were to pull straps, there you go. And then when you're ready, just take hold of the rails and walk yourself forward and take hold of the risers with your palms facing in with your hands about shoulder level.

That's it. There you go. Now the first thing, just get a sense of um, anchoring front of your hip bones and your pubic bone. And as you do that, also activate your upper inner thighs. And just as the exhale, turn on your lower belly without tucking your pelvis. Now keeping that, just let the, show the blades slide up. Let the shoulder blades telescope towards the hand and now glide them back down.

See if you can find your middle back muscles. So let 'em telescope up and then glide them down. That's it. Two that, three more times. And as you're telescoping them down, the head's going forward. Find your lower belly too. That's now the next one. Set them down, keeping them down. Pull the elbows wide to pull yourself forward.

And then these, as they come back to straight arms, then release the shoulders after the arm. Straighten, glide them down again. Pull elbows wide. That's it. Staying aware of your posture guys. You're doing great. Draw down and then pull wide one more. That's it. Now as you complete the one you're on, just let your head hang and just stretch your head down for a moment and take a breath or two. There you go.

Cause we still have single arm to do that. Come back to a straight line one more time and put your right hand on your lower back. That's enough. See if you can telescope the shoulder blade up on their left side, collide it down, then pull the elbow wide to pull yourself forward. We're going to do that for three. See how low you can get the support. Feel it in your inner thighs, your low belly.

That's it. And one more. Excellent. Way Harder that way, Huh? Yeah. We'll take the second side. It's good to do this cause you expose an equities left to right and it's a lot harder to keep the body stable. That's it. Feel that like the shoulder blade is sliding in the staying close to the rib cage. That's it. Feel the down. And then the glide.

Excellent. One more. Awesome you guys. As you complete the one you're on, walk yourself back in and then help yourself up. We're going to go into breaststroke facing the other way, so you're gonna come off. We're going to put on one red. We'll see how that works. That way it works for you guys. I find that if it's too light, you don't get any support.

So the way you'd get on, you take the straps and you can slide them along the box and help yourself onto your belly. There you go. Now think of the first thing. Just let your arms release back by your side with your palm facing the floor. That's a notice. Feel your body alignment. Fill your inner thighs, your low belly, and on the XL. I just want you to bend your arms and bring your hands to your shoulders and inhale to release them back with.

Feel like what you're focusing on more than your arms is your mid back and your low belly. That's it. Now the next one on the same exhale, bend the arms and slide them all the way overhead. Huh? In Hell. Back to the start. Do that two more times. Really feel that you're activating low in your body to get that support. That's it. One more before we add extension and again, slide.

Okay, that's it. Now on the last three, you're going to extend, once you reach your arms overhead, you'll open to the side. Once they become below your shoulders, extend the upper back. That's it. There you go. Beautiful. Feel the work nice and low so you're supported low so you can get the spine to move. That's it. Beautiful. One more. And lift. Beautiful and rest. Nice work.

You guys. Gently help yourself off of there. Now we're ready for a little short box. Guys are doing great. Now for short box, we'll go with three springs just so the cart won't move. We just going to do a basic short box set. Okay.

What's that? What's that? You're going to face me. Oh, there you go. There you go. So the first, the first set, you can put your um, your heels right up against the wood and bend your legs a little bit and you're just going to cross your arms in front. So think of this just as a counter for your lower back. So grow tall on the inhale, on the exhale, narrow the sit bones and hollow back to curl back. Holding that inhale. Just lift the elbows. Exhale, reach your head towards your elbows and curl over your belly.

Then roll back up to the star. That's it. And again, on the exhale, feel the lift and then curl. Inhale, elbows, lift. Shoulders stayed low. Exhale, head follows the elbows and curl over your center, cro tall. Just two more. Feel that sense of lift and activation of the mid line lift with a short exhale, curl up and over your center. And one more. That's it. And Curl. Inhale to lift. Exhale, curl. Beautiful. Now we're gonna go right into flat back.

Can I have a present for you in Santa Barbara? So for flat back, you can just practice taking your arms up. But when you go up, think of your arms as externally rotating and you show the blades moving out towards your armpits. Now grow really tall. On the exhale. Activate the underside of your glutes and lean with a flat back. Inhale, grow tall to come up. That's it. Exhale, feel the length and then lean. That's it. In help to lift two more times. Exhale to lean. Inhale up. If you're watching, these guys are very strong. You don't need to lean that far. One more time.

Exhale back. Inhale up. Beautiful. Now we're going to take it into rotation. Just practice this a few times. When you turn, imagine your shoulder blade on the side. Turning towards me is moving forward and the other one's moving back. Just try that a few times that you're connected to the bottom of your shoulder blades, but the pelvis isn't turning with you so you can feel it.

You're swiveling from your serratus mid back, and obliques. There you go. Now from their inhale, grow tall. Exhale, turn and lean. Inhale, lift, center, Acen. On the next exhale, turn and lean. Inhale up. That's it. And again, exhale, turn and lean. Huh? That's it. One more.

And turn and lean. Beautiful and up and refs. Nice work. I'll take the sticks for you. Very nice. Now from there we're gonna take the boxes off and set up for knee stretch series. So for knee stretch series, we'll do two red springs on Middle Bar. There we go. And you'll come to a kneeling position.

We're going to start with a round back. So have your toes tucked under your hips, a little behind your knees. And as you round your back, imagine your back ribs sliding up your back. And now imagine your inner ankle bones drawing towards one another so they're really toned in the shoulders, widening and lowering. Now feel like your belly is pulling away from the, from the bar.

Inhale to send the knees back. Xcel hollow the belly to come in. Inhale out. And you can even drop your gaze a little bit more. There you go. Just go to that range where you can hold that lower back shape. That's it. Beautiful. Feel a little more in that so you can hold that. There you go. Beautiful two.

Now from the round back position from your pelvis, transition the flat back by allowing the pelvis to roll over the top of your legs. Now let the show the weights come in a little bit. Inhale the slide the legs out. Exhale an accent on the end for 10 that's it. See if you can maintain that stable pelvic position all the way through. Beautiful. That's it.

Smooth fluid breathing all the way through. That's great. Three more and one more [inaudible]. Awesome. Now let's put it in high bar and we're going to do a heavy set for your butt or the back of your legs. Technical term. So step off for a sec. This is going to be standing, um, single leg.

So what I want you to do is you're going to bend your standing leg and straighten fully and focus on the lower back. Not Changing in, drive it back a little quicker than maybe you're used to. So we're going to do that for eight. That's, and you can pick whichever side you want to start with. There you go. It's all good. Now first bend your knee a little bit. Now stand into the bar from the bottom of your shoulder blades, and this knee will be in the air a little bit. There you go. Now on the exhale from your lower glutes, straighten the leg. Inhale.

Then that's it. Not really feel that you're working from very low, low gluten hamstring opposed to changing the lower back. That's it. There you go. Three more. Everybody. That's nice. Fluid motion. There you go. One more. Excellent. And we'll switch sides that gets rid of the frown. Yup.

Puts the smile back there. There you go. So have a little bit of a hinge weightbear into your standing leg, shoulder blades, your low and wide. And on the exhale, fully extend. So it's hip extensors and quads. So at that end range, pull up on the front of your thigh to, that's it. There you go. Three more. Nice and smooth. Excellent. And one more and bring it all the way in. That's working. Huh?

You know, and I, I learned that recently from Karen Cliff pitcher too. Or is that we gotta we gotta work heavier for these bigger muscles and it's, it just feels right to feels right. So now we're going to go into the long stretch. So let's do it. We just are a red and a blue and we'll put it on middle bar with your head rest up. There you are.

So come to standing on there on the machine and then have your arms lined up in a good position with your thumbs on the same side as your. And as you step into a plank, turn on your low glutes and widen and lower the shoulder blades on the exhale. Reach the bar away, inhaled the, draw yourself back in and see if he can maintain that connection to your low belly, your upper inner thighs and low glutes. That's it. Nice and smooth. Just two more. There we go.

One more. As you come in, we're going to go right into the up stretch. So put your heels halfway up on the shoulder blocks and you can bring the car at all the way in and lift up into a pike. Now in the Pike, look back at your abdomen and widen and lower your shoulder blades and let your, that's it. Let the back of the neck completely go. As you inhale without the arms moving back in space, slide your legs back and arrive in a plank. That's an outcome, although in with the hips low over the bar, still exhaling. Drop your head and round back up to that starting place.

Inhale the slide the legs out. Exhale, draw in, energy out your legs. That's it. And do two more nice and smooth. And one more beautiful. Gently step off with the machine we're going to set up for standing. So we're going to go into standing. So we need to have the foot bar down and we're going to move the gear out to second gear because we're in first gear right now and it's better for the REIVault bar. So you can take the steel bar forward and we'll have it with, um, we'll do it with just one green spring. Here you go.

One green will be perfect for this. And then you're going to have your steel bar out of the way. So you guys can face each other. Are you standing up on the platform like so. There you go. And now you're going to have your foot that's on the platform to the back end in parallel and your other foot will be forward in a better 45 degree turnout.

Now this feel when you're up there that you can turn your pelvis without turning your back leg. You can turn your pelvis over your, your um, carriage leg. Can you sense that? But what you want to feel is on the, on the, on the, on the platform side, you're pressing the thigh back into the hamstrings. The push out is from here. And what you're going to do is as you turn your pelvis, you're going to bend and press out. Just try that a few times before we add the arms to that and it really feel like it's coming from here. This one green.

There you go. That makes it a little more palatable. That's, and now exhale into it and feel like you're taking your energy down into your legs. Feel the presses from here. There you go. And you're looking to keep your knee tracking right over the foot of the bending leg. And now we're going to add to that offering arms. As you reach out from the palms up, reach into offering arms up overhead and then come up and end. That's it. Really feel the scapula connection and the hip connection. There you go. Three more. That's it. Beautiful.

Keep the energy nice and low in your body and one more. That's it. As you come in, you're going to take this foot and slide it to the front and the other one's going to slide back right on the edge of the car. Now this, this exercise, the knee that's on the platform is not going to move laterally. It's just going to bend. So the movement will look like this. And so the push out is from your glute on the cart side. That's it.

And it really feel like you're pushing out from your abductors on the card side and that bending knee is tracking straight ahead. That gets right in there, Huh? There you go. That's it. There you go. Do that for four more. Excellent. Nice and smooth. Feel how you keep your pelvis, level your breath smooth and two more and one from there. Have your feet beyond the same plane, right on the edge of the cart with the cart side foot. Now this time you're going to push out about a foot. Do a [inaudible].

Now without straightening the legs more. Push out more from your outer hips. Then keeping the carts still straighten the legs and then in, there you go. So push out about a foot with straight legs, ple a, press out more. Lengthen up the straight from your hip strength. And then do that for three more. Nice and smooth out about a foot ple, a press out more.

Lengthen up and n and two more. That's it. And up and in. And one more. Last one. There you go. On lengthen, write up. Beautiful work. We'll gently step off. We're going to take that into front splits as a stretch variation.

So we'll just put the bar in a middle bar and you guys are going to come to a standing position and if this feels too high, you can go to low bar. Also come to a standing position where you'll have one heel against the shoulder block and one foot on the bar. That's it. There. You got to let yourself lunch all the way forward, keeping the hips low. That's it. Now with your low, think of it doesn't matter if your front leg straightens. What matters more is that you keep your legs, your pelvis low, and your back leg strong on the exhale. Just slowly straighten your front leg to the degree that you can keep your body alignment in hell back in. That's it.

Exhale out, keeping the body, the hips aligned both legs. Active shoulders are low. There you go. Let's do three more on that side. Very fluid and one more. Pull up on the thigh muscles as the leg lengthens. Now as you come in, drop your back knee to the mat and then toning your back glute. Open your chest, turn on your back list. You get a nice hip flexor stretch and then you're going to take your same side arm as the back leg overhead. How's that on your knee? Is that okay? Yeah, there you go. Now side bend away from your back leg, but find that back loop. There you go. And just take two or three deep breaths. Their neck is long. Shoulders are soft.

One more breath. Beautiful. We slowly released and come out and we'll switch sides. Nice job, Huh? No, we're working. Oh, you gotta do the other leg? Yeah. Oh, oh, I did that all on one side. Hey. Yeah. Who Knew?

[inaudible] let's take the other side. Sorry, I was a little ahead of myself there staff, right? Yup. First. Yeah, exactly. So now you're going to have the back leg back. Now the front leg is turned out a little bit. Now just practice letting the pelvis rotate towards the moving cart side and see if you can notice. You can do that, but you can keep pressing into your back femur head and you can push it back. That's it. Now the next one, Xcel out, but push from the back leg. There we go. You guys are probably thinking, what's this guy doing?

How can we just do one side and again, fresh out [inaudible] have your knees tracking right over the foot. Keep your energy down. Imagine you're going down into the ground, down into the cart to move the car. That's it. Now add your offering arms. That's how it feels coming from a low place. Low shoulder blades, long through the neck. Two more and one beautiful. As you come in, slide your your platform side foot forward. You're moving cart side back. Staying in parallel with both feet. This time, this time you're inside knee towards me, it's going to stay tracking over the foot as you extend out through that long leg. Fill your galoot on the cart side.

Feels like a hip hinge at the top of your thigh on the straight leg side. That's it. There you go. Imagine you're drawing your Asi. This is the front of your hips up a little bit as you go into it. There you go. Three more. That's it.

Good you guys. And one more. Very nice. As you come in, level your feet. So they're even with each other. Now we'll do the plea, a variation, so you'll push out about a foot. Small Pa, press out more from your outer hips. Lengthen, keeping the cards still and draw yourself in. And again, out about a foot, small PA, press out and then up and in. Beautiful. Three more. That's a fill the presses from the outer hips and then the lift is from your waistline, your glutes, hamstrings, midline.

That's it. And Oh and we'll do one more. That's it. And then out and up and in beautiful work. Now we'll set up for the split on the other side. So you'll set yourself up in the split where your back foot will be against the shoulder block. Your other foot will be on the bar itself in parallel. There you go. Excuse me.

There you go. That start all the way in with the hips, low in the back, hip extended. Now I really get the sense of keeping the back leg active and then press yourself out evenly and then draw yourself in and be less concerned about straightening the front leg. Think more about keeping your hips level. It's the harder side, huh? And then use your breath, exhale out. Inhale in and let your Chin be dropped the whole time. So the back of your neck is easy. Your shoulders are low. That's it.

Even go out. Just like go out like that for a few times. Really just feel that that's it. Good you guys there? A couple more. There you go. And one more. As you come in with control, drop the back knee to the cart. Bring yourself all the way up and in and find the back gluten open the chest.

You're getting that stretch through your back. Your flexors float the same side arm up as the back leg and side bend towards the front knee and breathe into your side body. Nice long neck. That's it. One more breath and then slowly release. Help yourself up from there. We're going to take all this springs off and push the car to the back end. Similar the way that we started.

We're going to finish with a hip stretch to step inside the cart. You're going to cross your right leg into a pigeon pose on the cart with your hands on the shoulder block. There you go. The back knee will be down. You can even slide the leg long. So we want, he won't be on the floor. It'll be off. And you can straighten that leg. There you go.

That's it. Now just to get a sense of, you can even slide yourself a little more onto the card itself. That's it. A little more forward. Perfecto. So energetically feel like you're kicking down with your front shin and your pelvis is staying square. Just take one more breath there. Now you guys both have your right leg forward.

So I'd like you to put your left hand on the right shoulder block. Now come up with your upper body to extended position. Now put your left hand your right hand on your sacrum and turn to the right and draw back into your right hip. There you go. That's it. And as you exhale, kick down into your forward legs.

You feel your hip rotators being activated. Just one more breath and then slowly release and come on up. We'll take your second side. Huh? That feels kind of good, Huh? Especially after all that hip work you guys did. And this is more accessible than the floor for most people.

That's just get yourself nice and square. That's it. [inaudible] a little adjustment here. Now if you want, you can straighten this leg. That's it. And just a few more breaths there. Traveling Cart. From there, you're going to take your right hand on the left shoulder block.

Bring your left hand to your back of your pelvis and extend up with the upper body a little bit. Now draw back into left hip. As you turn to the left. Take a few breaths there. One more breath, and then gently release. Help yourself up to a standing position and just stand right outside the reformer. When you're ready, we'll just gonna finish standing so you can just sense the work you did. Bring your feet right under your hip joints. You can face this way if you'd like. There we go. And just take your, um, bend your knees a little bit of at the hips and now straight in the legs.

And as you straight and close your eyes, just bring your sense of alignment into your body. Relax the shoulder girdle. Since posture breathing, acknowledge yourself for your hard work. You guys, could it be with you? Thank you everybody.

Comments

Z A
3 people like this.
This was really special. Thank you very much Tom.
1 person likes this.
Just what I needed on a Monday morning. Lovely even calm delivery.
Paola Maruca
As usual my body 'gives thanks' everytime Tom McCook is in the house )))))) LOved the standing variations....
Pele
Absolutely delicious. Love the variations and balance between feel-good flow and work.
1 person likes this.
Really nice work as usual. Thank you Tom loved the extra detail to extension, glut min/med, and the standing work, plus the additional rotation.
1 person likes this.
I appreciated the perfect, seemless cueing! Your voice was extremely soothing yet direct. I am
Looking forward to trying some of the stretch variations! Thank you so much!
I feel inspired! Thank you!
Thank you Tom! Really nice doing pigeon on the reformer. Who would have thought! Your cues are so good!
1 person likes this.
I cant believe it took me this long to do this workout.. it was amazing. I hope in time to be able to cue as well as Tom does. Everything just flows beautifully.
1 person likes this.
I love love love your classes!! You often emphasize fluidity throughout your classes and that is exactly how I feel. Everything just moves so gracefully from one exercise to the next. You're sneaky though because it's challenging at the same time:)
1-10 of 48

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Move With Us

Experience Pilates. Experience life.

Let's Begin