Pelvic Stability Reformer

I'm North Tomlinson and I'm glad to be here at politely theater anytime today from Chicago, Illinois, where I teach at Saran Palani studio. And joining me today is my esteemed colleague, Alana fost, who will be working with me and presenting to you a great program. If you've done pilates before, if you've done it forever or if this is your first time, this class will be appropriate for you. We'll give you some different variations in terms of level and spring changes so that you can enjoy the workout and feel like it feels good for your body. For your workout today, you'll basically just need your reformer.

I'm gonna bring in a mat and a ball that's probably back here somewhere, just as prompts for you to stabilize a little bit more. But for the most part, if you have your former year set to go and we're going to get started here, I'm going to ask a lot until I down traditional position. I'm going to come behind the reformer, get her all set up. So we're going to take this pad, we're going to place it right on her pelvis. This'll be known further in the workout as a landing pad. We're gonna use the pad as a reference for a pelvis. We want to make sure that our pelvis sits nice and heavy.

Let's start you with two red springs and a yellow on your form. In the end, I'm going to have the feet in parallel. Pretty much on the front of the heels. Don't concentrate too much on the feet, whether your Dorsey flex or plantar flex. Just be in a natural position just to get started. When I think about the arms really reaching long down the carriage and the scapula sliding down towards the waistline.

Take a deep breath in on your first excalation. Feel like your pelvis just is very heavy. They are on your landing pad or in your carriage. If you don't have a landing pad, take another breath in on your second exhalation. Feel like your ribs just knit together while at the same time preserving this space, the natural space between your back and the mat.

We're going to start with a very small bridge. We'll do three of them. Each one will get a little bit higher level, needs to muscles a little bit more. Take a breath in Atlanta. As you exhale, think about your obliques working evenly so that your pelvis starts to curl up off of your landing pad very evenly. You want to think about sending the five ones up and over the horizon. Hold right there. Take a breath in.

We're going to articulate the spine down bone by bone, one vertebrae at a time. As you can see, London's very flexible. Sometimes she has some issues with stability. So here comes the ball here so she can think about a little bit more of a inner thighs working to stabilize that pelvis and focus a little bit more on the pelvic floor in the hamstrings. Take a breath in. On the exhale you gonna feel like your pelvis peels off of the your landing parrot pad and sending your thighs across the horizon there.

Take a breath on the exhale, articulating the spine down all the way and we'll do one more time. So we the last bridge, sort of visual, warm up. Inhale, prepare, exhaling, articulating up. Good. Using your ball to help you engage your pelvic floor and your thighs. Take a breath in at the top. Exhale as you articulate all the way down. Let's hold onto the ball.

Let's think about the pelvis sitting very heavy on your pad. We're going to take the heels of your feet off of the foot bar so that you hadn't sort of a shelf position. We want to pay particular attention here that the hip flexors are not overly active. Another reason for the pat to be here so the weight can sit really heavy. We'll go into just the thought of practice pendulum here, thinking about the pelvis moving without the legs initiating the movement.

As you inhale, start to turn your pelvis in the direction of the folks watching this. You're going to think about your pelvis being the same now as it was when it was on the landing pad in a very neutral position. As you exhale or recruit the obliques to help you stabilize and return your pelvis to that landing position. Now as you inhale, turn your pelvis away from the folks watching this. Again, you want to think about the headlights of your hip bones shining straight forward as you exhale are returned back to your landing pad. Let's take that twice more in healing as you turn towards the folks at home. Exhale as you turn towards me using the obliques to help you initiate that in lift, that initial left. Exhaling to return.

One more time in healing. Again, neutral pelvis on the side, neutral pelvis and the center neutral pelvis on the side, neutral pelvis and the center. Go ahead and take both feet to the foot bar. We'll take the ball out and again, take a breath. Let's do an extra breath here and we'll exhale to really settle down to tell us there. Now you're going to reduce your two red springs to one yellow. This first sequence, I know a lot of times, uh, with politeness anytime and we were both guilty of this, just sitting and watching and trying to get some ideas.

This is one of those that you really want to do along with it so that you can actually feel it all right because it looks very simple, but lots of work and I'm sure you'll agree to that. All right, so this will be a lot of focus on the east centric phase of this exercise with one yellow spring. As you inhale, you're going to extend away from the football and this first one don't go very far. Think about activating your transverse abdominals and your beliefs to sort of slurp the carriage back in. Inhale, as you go a little bit further, as you exhale, slowly coming in, trying to have so much control that you don't crash like you did on the first one. Not that though. As you exhale, come all the way in. We'll do two more. Inhale, take it a little bit further. Exhaling, notice that a lot is keeping a nice, neutral pelvis neutral spine, which is the point here. Inhaling as you lengthen away, exhale as you return. Now we'll take the left leg to collect closest to the people at home and we'll hold that in neutral there and that neutral shelf inhale as you lengthen out. Exhale as you come in and notice that now that she's lifted the leg, the pelvis has not changed at all. We're still in that neutral stance, neutral position there. Exhale as you slurp the carriage all the way in.

Inhaling as you open away, exhale as you return. Now working in opposition. In terms of energy-wise, we're going to sustain the lag and shelf. The opposite arm comes into play. We'll inhale, continue to slip the carriage open, exhale as you pull and once these two levers are sort of lengthened and lifted here, we're going to start to move through different planes and now moving back and forth through the sagittal plane. We are going to add in the frontal plane, so alon is going to take her to limbs, her lagging and our opposite arm. Open away from the midline as she moves through the sagittal plane and then exhale, return. Be careful not to go too far. You want to focus on keeping control to working egocentrically as you open lane.

Then exhale and to return one more time and yelling went away. Exhale to come in. You're going to flow in changing arms, so to be same arm, same leg. Yes. Inhale as you open away from the midline. Exhale as you return all the while working on this yellow spring, she's working hard. They're a transverse abdominis to slurp the carriage in. She's working very hard through the obliques there to keep herself from feeling like she's going to tilt off or for landing pad. You're holding right there.

Well go ahead and do one more and come all the way in. Go ahead and lower the arm. Lower the leg. So now with this neutral pelvis we'll add in spinal flection, so no more neutral spine, but still maintaining neutral pelvis. I'm going to ask you to take your hands into laced in behind your, the occiput of your head. We're going to have her bring the elbow slightly forward so she can always see them with her peripheral vision.

Along is going to think about our head and our arms is this heavy lever that our obliques and our intercostals and erectus abdominals have to pull forward. Take a deep breath in. As you exhale, draw the ribs down, bring the head and shoulders forward. She's got a nice frame here, so just visualize that there's a string on each elbow and imaginary string coming from the ceiling, keeping the support here and she starting to tremble a little bit so it looks like we're working pretty deeply here for her to sustain this and ask her to do a little bit more. We're going to ask you now to inhale as you lengthen without losing that flection that you've achieved. Keeping a neutral neutral pelvis slur the carriage back in. Nicely done. Inhale as you extend, exhale to slurp. Then one more time, beautifully done, and she's doing it with sort of a semi smile at the same time.

Now I'm going to take it through that same lever changes there. Go ahead and pull all the way and I want to take the right leg off. Inhale as you open away and exhale as you slept. The carriage in good. Inhaling away and then exhaling one more time.

Now that you're sort of getting the idea, we kind of know what's coming next, right? That office at hand, it's Brung it up. Start to work a little bit more through the sagittal plane. Now open away and exhale as you return to the mid line. Do that twice more. Being very careful to keep your hip, knee and ankle in the same line. There'll be this urgency or the intuition to sort of twist open and we want to make sure that you stay in the same line.

Now this arm blows down and we switched to the other arm. That's it that you got it right. Inhale as you open away, it can be confusing, right? Exhale as you come in, we're going to make sure we keep the integrity of the flection here. Keeps singeing the ribs. Really getting the intercostals to fire here. Exhale and just like a lot of almost dead. Sometimes you get out there a little too far, you're not quite sure you can come back, so you're gonna limit your arrange emotion. Beautifully done.

They'll go ahead and place your hands behind your head and then lower the head or the lack down. So now we have to do the other side. Unlike we did in the practice run. The practice run was just that. So you're ready, have a little bit left to you. Take a deep breath in. Exhale, draw the ribs down, head and shoulders up. Now the new leg comes to be. We inhale, lengthen away, and exhale. Once you start to get tired, be very careful not to start to push out with the lag and huffy and Willem with the lag. One of the reasons that we inhale here initially, we think of this as a lengthening move and then really work concentratedly to pull back in. Now we're adding the opposite arm, arms and legs moving through the sagittal plane in healing away from the midline. Xcel be very careful.

Sometimes it's hard as part is a lengthening and not losing the flection there. Good, good job with the head here in healing as you open away. Exhale, and now we move to same arm, same leg. Inhale or opening a wave in the mid line. Exhale, still keeping the integrity of the flection through the spine and keeping the neutral pelvis there. Beautiful job and you're maintaining the strings. Their scapula still pulled apart. Looks wonderful. Exhaling and place their hands behind their head and lower the lens or head and shoulders down. Nice job. Bring your arms by your side.

How's he learning to doing it on your age? All right, I stopped. All right, so we move on. Now I'm going to ask you to bring to red springs, added to the yellow. We're going to keep the pat in the sort of preparation phase. With this, we had you doing an articulating bridge. We're going to move to a more of a neutral bridge now, so when you think about really utilizing the obliques to help stabilize the pelvis versus articulating or using them for rotation, we're going to use them for rotation and a little while, a little while later, take a deep breath. Then as you exhale, think about even evenly lifting your pelvis up off of your landing. Pat there. Now activate the hamstring so that you feel like you're still pulling towards the foot bar. Activate your gluteal so that you maximize support.

Now take a breath in and this position. Exhale, float your pelvis down in the same way that a helicopter would approach. It's a landing pad so that your Cox at your tailbone lands evenly. Inhale, we'll do it again. Exhale. Think about the imaginary ball being between your legs. Elevate the pelvis floating up.

Take a breath in at the top and exhale, ashe or down. Good. One more time. This next time will last time. We will stay up and then we'll add in our flow. Coming on up. The last piece, we focused a little bit of movement through the frontal plane, so a fit. Spend a little bit more focused on the sagittal plane. This time we're going to ask Ilana to go ahead and next work.

Before you do that, let's go ahead and take it and extensions with both legs so we get a feel for it. Ready? Inhale, extend away. That's it. And then exhale as you against slurp, the carriage in recruiting the glue. Luteal is a little bit more, take a little more distance out on the inhale. Exhaling as you come in. Once again you, when I'm looking about the hip bones shining lights straight up, now we'll bring the one leg into shell just like you did when the pelvis was flat on the pad. So we want to have that same look of neutrality here, but lagging shell and make sure the hip, knee, and ankle are in the same alignment. Now as you inhale, ain't going away, but as you exhale, had that sense of slurping the carriage in good two more times here. Beautiful work again, the obliques working really hard so that the pelvis doesn't tilt out to one side. Now we'll add extension of this leg, right, working through the sagittal plane, drawing the knee over your hip. Good inhale as you lengthen away. Exhale to come in. Beautiful job.

Inhaling and same pattern, same thing. We'll bring the opposite arm up. Yes. Here we are maintaining neutral. Now the arm and the leg length and away. Exhale as we draw in, good focus a little bit on the obliques, the side of the leg. There's a reaching and lengthening, focusing on the glutes and hamstring of the working leg. And has been and has been the case. We will lower the arm.

Good, and we'll bring the same arm, same leg. We're going to give you a lot of break here. She needs to come down for just a second. Tough work and it's okay to take a rake and any time you're ready, let's do this. Finish the sequence or bring the leg into shelf and we'll switch arms.

Beautifully done. All right. As you inhale, lengthen the leg away from the body. That's your inhale. Exhale as you should. Alert the carriage in that little more obliques. Inhale as you open away. Exhale to draw again. Last one. Inhale, good lord of the arm. Lower the leg and come down. Take a breather in hill and an XL. Close the carriage.

Here comes the new leg in Shell, and once again, you want to sort of have that picture of the pelvis being very neutral like it did a few minutes ago when it's just sitting heavy on the pad. That ankle stays right in line with the knee. Good. One more time and let's bring the right arm up and we start to move away. We'll go right into it without any extra repetitions there. Good. Inhale as you lengthen away. Good.

Think of this leg reaching out a little bit more versus up and now let's switch arms and bring up and the legs. Arms lengthen away. Good. Now get the obliques to fire but a little bit more so the pelvis stays neutral. Your pelvis just looks like it's floating across in space and exhaling in beautifully. Float the arm and like the out foot goes to the foot bar. Excellent work my friend. Hi, no of wreck. Let's now revisit the yellow spring.

Worked for the pelvis was in neutral and instead of just being inflection, well now work. Use the old, utilize the obliques to focus a little bit more on rotation so now you can see by the carriage moving at this spring that it's really, really light. Again, she's got a lot of work to do in her transverse abdominis. We're going to take the hands behind the oxy plate. We're going to create that same frame that you had before. Take a breath in. It's preparation. As you exhale, draw the ribs down. Head and shoulders come up. Good. Let's just practice rotation.

Think about a couple of things. Again, want to feel like the imaginary strings are on the elbows, pulling the scapula apart. We'll take a breath in. As we exhale. We'll rotate towards the folks working out there at home there and notice again, the shoulder girdle looks the same year as it did in the center. Now take a breath in as you exhale, completely rural. Rotate around to the other side. Thinking about the access that exists here in the middle of the body.

Take a breath in and we bring the right side around the access to whole beautiful and we're going to hold the rotation. Now while rotate it, we inhale, move the carriage away, we exhale to slurp it back in, deepening the work, the area and the obliques here. Paying careful attention that we don't start to sink into the shoulder pads or the side we're turning toward in healing agile length in a way and an exhale as you pull in. Similarly as we did before. We'll take the right leg off to the, we're turning towards the, like that first one in healing. Thinking about the cross section of work here, because if you had on a Miss America banner that it would extend from this armpit to the top of this hip as your line of energy as your line of work. Exhale as you come in, beautifully lower the leg and we switched.

Now same side here, shifts a little bit from the external obliques to a little bit more emphasis on the internal obliques. Can you feel a little bit of difference there? Yolana yeah. In terms of the emphasis, I can tell her that, look, yes. Inhale coming on. Go ahead and lower the foot to the flip by. We'll turn through the center and then with intention we'll lengthen and lower the torso down. Beautiful.

And of course we've got to do that on the other side, so we'll go right to it before you know, while it's still hot, take a breath in, up your frame. Exhale as you come forward. Let's rotate three times just like we did before. So we'll go to this side first, take a breath in. On the exhale, we were rotating with our shifting the pelvis. Notice that as she does his rotation, her pelvis is still from there on her landing pad. Inhale, exhale, rotating across. Good. Making sure not to lead with the head in healing. Exhale, turning, turning, turning, turning, keeping the strings attached there we inhale agilely to no way.

Got Exhaling and again, pay careful attention not to sink into the side of that. You're turning towards the shoulder. Pat Ahead. Elvis stays nice and neutral there. Not a lot of work in the hamstrings. Again, focusing on the transversus to help slurp the carriage and so we'll take this leg away this time so that you're having that cross line, the diagonal line of energy, thinking about the inhale, lengthening, maintaining the flection. Exhale, just slurp in one more time. And finally the new leg there. Same arm, same leg or same side in healing. Exhaling to draw and good deepening the flection.

Almost the same sensation that you had had inside bending some time, but not the same range of motion. They're more of a static attraction, turn through the center. Inhale and exhale, lengthen and lower all the way down. Nicely done, my friend. All right, I think well deserved short spine stretch would be next and that would be good for you. Go ahead and lift your pelvis. We'll take this out for short spine stretch.

We'll do two red springs and we'll give you these wonderful loops here. Go ahead and Lincoln and it's like going to be first step in and press all the way out. So we'll take a couple of things as has been our theme so far today. A lot of work in neutral and we'll continue that. So we'll do a traditional short spine stretch first and then we'll talk about sort of a neutral variation of it. We'll let the head rest down and then we'll move your shoulder pads off the shoulder pads quite a bit. All right, so we'll start with the neutral pelvis.

Go ahead and extend the legs out. Let's start in parallel, right, check in and make sure that you're not overextended here. You want to still have that nice space between the bag and the map. We don't want to be overextended. Take a breath in this preparation and watch the extension at the knees. My dancer here likes to hyper extend. As you exhale, folding at the hips.

Now start to think about your pelvis as you did when it was on the landing pad. Start to recruit the obliques right away, the rectus abdominis. And we're going try to get all the way to the bumper. Even though the tailbone comes up just a little bit and got the support of the abdominals would curl up just like we did. Embridge leading with the pelvis here. Beautiful.

Making sure that you're on the shoulders and not by the neck. X tonally rotating here, heels together. And now we'll bend the knees into a diamond. We're gonna leave the feet where they are and just like the bridge earlier, we're going to articulate one vertebra at a time, coming down, keeping the heels where they are in space, going until you just can't anymore the amount to make sure the abdominals are firmly on. We're gonna engage the hamstrings. Bring your heel towards your bum and for some of you it'll mean that right here.

You'll need to continue to articulate the spine down and then extend the legs. Want to make sure the pelvis is neutral again before we extend? Inhale is preparation. Start in parallel for me. Continue to fall old fold until you can. One, two, three curling up. Go ahead and hold here. Now we said before, we want to make sure that you on your shoulders and out on the back of your neck. So if Ilana really is on her shoulders, she's going to be able now to elevate our arms up. Yes, without waving turned to external rotation. The engineer's interior diamond pull the belly in there so that pelvis still stays steady. Now once again, we leave the heels where they are.

We articulate the spine down, continuing to reach the arms up here, come those imaginary strings again, reaching and pulling towards the ceiling. Activate the hamstrings along with the abdominals, heels towards your bom, and then curling the pelvis down in, extending out. And this last one, we're going to leave the arms where they are. Turned back to parallel and start with the arms up, drawing into the obliques a little bit more, folding at the hips a little bit more now exhale and curling the pelvis up. Coming to stand on the shoulders. Nice job turned to external rotation. Create your diamond and again, pay attention. Pull the abdominals in, keeping the tailbone up, heels pressed together, articulating down. You're done. Such a fantastic job here.

All the way down pelvis, become steady, hamstrings, abdominals, heels towards the gluteals and then extend, pressing and lengthening away. All right, let's come back to our theme of the neutral pelvis, even though the spine might be flexing, so hands by your side. We'll start the same way in parallel. We're going to check in with our dance or friends and making sure that the joints aren't hydrate extended. Here, take a breath and then exhale as you fold at the hips. Start to recruit your obliques right away as you exhale, articulating the spine out. So now we'll think about the pelvis thing, where it is in space. Go ahead and bend your knees to about a 90 degree angle. Yes, heels locked together. You can always do this in parallel.

So now what we'll do is we'll hinge at the hips, so we'll make sure the ABS are firmly engaged. We'll press the heels of the feet and here we are with the pelvis suspended in space much like it was earlier when we were in bridge here, except the feet are in the stress. Now she's going to engage her obliques for lots of stability and they want to think about once again the pelvis floating down to his landing pad very evenly without the ankle strapping. Yes. And then extend the legs out right away. Very good. First time out. Oh, holding at the hips. Good. Articulating the spine up as you normally way and we want to make sure again that Alana's on our shoulders, not the back of her neck. So Yep, you're exactly right. If I get out of the way, you can float your hands up.

Good. Now firmly, lots of Ab recruitment here. Are the legs away as if you were sitting in a chair suspended in space. Take a breath in and then exhale the pelvis and the legs float down. It's one unit with a little bit of help from your friend here coming on down slowly. Nice landing there. Careful not to over reflects.

Good and we're going to try this last one with the arms up. We'll give it a shot. Lots of help here for you if you need it. Take a breath and prepare soft joints here and folding. Good. Exhale as you articulate up. Good pelvis stays neutral.

Go ahead and come to 90 degree angle at the knees. All right, press towards my hand here so that you have a lot to work. Yeah, lots of strength. This looks good. Now take a breath. Deep breath in. If you can just flow on down as if effort less and barely at the soft landing and pushed all the way out. Beautiful. Go ahead and bring your hands by your side and just take a nice deep breath and then we'll take your feet out of the straps. Good job my friend. I think it's time to move forward to since standing or what do you think? Alright, let's do star on a red and a blue.

Why don't you come to join me and approach from this side here. We'll take your right hand to the middle of the foot bar and then we'll take your right leg sort of in the corner here. We have almost a diagonal footsie now on this side of the foot, you're more pressed into the insertion there. All right, and then we'll get you to step up with a little bit of help from me. Oh, hold on. Here. I want to get you into that side plank position and right away we want to make sure I head in line with the shoulders and we've got the Serita's on. Let's go ahead and reach the fingers towards the shoulder path there.

As has been the theme, a lot of neutral work here and we're going to keep this star neutral here. As you inhale, moving away from the foot bar as you engage the rain is quite a bit right. Remember earlier when were moving the lens through the sagittal plane. We're going to try to do that here. So first we're going to take the left leg to a hover and just reach towards the foot bar and just take another star here.

Inhale as you lengthen away. Good. And then exhale held. Draw towards the foot bar. The next time that you exhale and draw towards the foot bar, you're going to send your legs towards the people that are looking at this asks Helen Ash, come in. Good. Inhale as you lengthen away. That's exactly right. The arm starts to reach in opposition. Beautiful. Good. And I'll let you go. One more time in healing. Excellent.

And exhale. Good. Here's the last one. Go ahead and place your foot back down. Remember how we did same arm, same leg, the other side. So we're going to try that here too. All right, we're gonna take the lead and just whole hover it for this first one. All right. I'm right here with you in. He'll, even though you don't really need me, you feel light as a feather here. Exhale. I'm here even though I know you don't need me. Inhale, lengthen away. Try to kick the leg forward at this time. Exhale, you're ready. Take breaks.

All right, reset, reset. Bring the pip slightly forward. There you go. Exhale. Yup. I think he can do it. One more. You're ready. Inhale. Exhale up and rest. So now that we know what's coming, we can do but don't have to practice quite as much.

We can inhale as you move away from the foot bar. Making sure again that you don't go into extension here, making sure that this radius is active here so they're not hyperextending through the elbow joint. So let's go right for it. We'll take the top leg. Well, hover here in healing as you move away. Be careful not to go into extension. Again, we got this nice long line here, gut and exhale and now as she prepares to kick forward, we're going to make sure that the pelvis still stays neutral here as the leg extends out in a way. Beautiful. And then we can get the arm to work and opposition. Exhale. And I think you don't even need me on this side.

Inhaling and exhale. Beautiful. Let's go to the A. There's I. All right, get the pelvis neutral. Serita's interior. Good. Take a breath. If you're ready, go for it to kick. Yes. Nice job. And exhale. One more time. Great job. [inaudible] go ahead and pray for fit down or turn come down to your knees and then we're prepared to do a little more movement of the spine.

Let's now have a red and a yellow. We'll take you now sort of throw away, not throw away, but we'll put a pause on the neutral and get your spine to move a little bit more. I said your hands on the bar. Have you in a cat position so you really round in your spine. All right, we'll kind of do this in four phases. You will make sure the shoulders, the scapula dry down when to keep this cap position. Just extend from the hips and the knees, a little lengthening out. Good. And then I'm going to take the spine and when is sort of inverted, so you're looking up a little bit of extension there and as you accept from the crown of your head, you know, length and up towards the ceiling here. So number one, we'll inhale, exhale, move in to cap first. Good.

Well exhale as we extend. Well, inhale, invert the spine and then we'll exhale. As you draw all the way up hip, it's coming towards the foot bar. Take a breath in. Exhale, pull into deep flection, good from the head all the way to the tailbone, and then exhale, extend at the hips and the knees. Inhale as we watch the spine go from fluxion into beautiful extension, making sure the cereus both sides are on. Exhale as you zip up. Let's do one more. Take a breath in. Exhale, pull into deflection as you exhale and the way good.

Another breath in and exhale as you pull all the way up and an excellent job. Sit back. Nice. Work around her. Step up and take your bow. All right. Good job. Thanks for joining us. Hope you just workout and do it over and over and get to work deeper and deeper each time. Thanks for joining us.