Jump Board Flow

Hi everyone, this is Amy, and I have Lizanne with me today. We're going to do a jump board workout, getting sweaty, getting going. What you'll need, probably, just a set of two, three, one-pound hand weights, it's really up to you. And we're going to get started on three red springs for some basic footwork like leg presses, getting centered, getting aligned. And I want to us start with the carriage all the way extended.

Take a quick peek up into your, looking at your toes, and they're right up at, the big toe's at the top of the board. Your hip width parallel, you've got a little adduction going with the inner thighs, you've got balance in the outer line. We're going to do 10 basic extensions. And we're exhaling. So using these beginning leg presses to get centered.

Really feeling that level sacrum, level pelvis. Even press through each leg. Your shoulders are pressed lightly back in the mat. Your arms are slightly pressed. Not too much ab squeeze.

We don't need to grip in there, just enough. Last two. And we'll do a pretty swift transition out here, just heels go in for Pilates V. And one. And I want us to squeeze the heels together quite firmly and think about pulling the back line of the legs up.

So it's not a grip of the glutes, so much as high hamstring, as it meets the glute. So really pulling that back line up. (exhales) And eight, hey the sun's coming out! Nine, or burning the clouds! And 10, hold. Let's walk out to the second position, toes in the corners. So we have the wide jump boards, we can go for more turnout.

Be careful not to tuck that sacrum. Nice and balanced. Reaching the knees out over those second toes, so really stretch and pull the inner thighs in. So I'm actually trying to work, not really my quadriceps so much as the inner thighs. And together, while I'm bringing the back line of the leg up into the butt.

And eight. And nine. And let's stay out on 10. Walk your feet back in. Let's, just for a little variety, do toes-in, and 10 repetitions.

One, and press. Two, and press. Three, so the change in the angle of that femur rotation, trying to get as much around that hip joint as possible. And six. Both legs straightening at the same time.

And eight. Nine. Now let's come back to parallel right here, right in line with our pelvis, and we're gonna roll through our feet. We'll do four cycles each way. Let's come into a plie hopefully all the way to the stopper.

Roll up under the forced arch, releve, as you push back, hopefully keeping the heels the same height. Lower the heels. Plie. Articulate through those feet. So these basic movements to warm up, but you can start feeding this idea right here.

Spread the metatarsal joints. Try to widen the base of the foot. Alright, we're going to stay with straight legs, reverse the pattern. So heels go up, high heels to come in, lower the heels and push back. Heels up.

Plie. Heels down. Heels real strong onto the jump board. So that feeds, again, right up that back line of the body. Last one.

And we're going to do the same foot rolling in Pilates V. Here we go, plie. And roll. Now we're going to keep our heels touching. We probably could releve and pull the heels apart, but I really want to keep that inner line connected.

Use the back of the legs. Pull up. So we're going to reverse our pattern four times. Two, heels down, and press. Let's keep a little upper body going.

Meaning, chest open, your upper back slightly engaged, your arms are pressed. One more here. Good, and then second position. Same thing, so four times through plie. Roll up, and press.

And plie, roll through the feet, and press. So we want to make accurate rotation, from hip, knee, ankle. So easy to do more from the knee and the foot than the hip. Alright, reverse. And stand.

Lift, plie, heels down, straighten, two more. And last time. And all the way. Okay, we won't do the turn in there, it's a little funky. But we are going to do something...

I think our calves will really (chuckles) wake up. This is all about feet and articulation of feet. Lots of that. So without moving our carriage too much toward the jump board. Start to prance.

And I really want to, it's the foot peeling off the jump board. When one foot lands on it, contract the glute on that leg. So you're really toned, you're keeping your thigh, your femur, into the socket. We're gonna go a little faster, okay? So think, feet.

Feet, feet, feet, feet. We're gonna keep going and march a little higher. Knees up, knees up. (exhaling strongly) And four. Three.

Two and one and... Oh my goodness. Okay, Pilates V, same thing. So just a little press. And press, so...

Feet, yup. Feet. And feet a little faster... (snapping rhythm) Good, and then when you're landing, that knee doesn't bend. So yep.

We're going to go a little bit faster for ten, nine, eight, seven. Try to pull the thigh up. Four, three, two, one. Okay, one last position is second. So we're out there a little wider, and this is interesting.

So as you start to peel one foot off the jump board, that standing leg is strong underneath you. The tendency might be to shift and swing the hips out, or hike the hips, so none of that. That leg is solid. Do that a little slow-ish a couple times. Now with these wide jump boards, the legs are wider than usual.

So if you feel like you want to bring your feet in a little bit? I'm going to bring mine a little narrower. Peel the feet, peel the feet. Let's count down, ten, nine, eight, seven, six. Land on a straight leg.

Last two, and then a little faster, pick up the knee. And two, and three, and four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and 10 and rest. Okay, so come in and hold this position, you feel the stretch in the calves? Okay, then shake the feet out. Alright, let's come up and change some spring tension.

No feet down, let's just leave one red spring, roll back down. Okay, and bring yourselves a little further away from the shoulder rest so that we can put our hands behind, legs together, extend, and then we're on a chest lift. Look up again to see those toes and nice parallel legs, squeeze together, level pelvis. And let's start some easy jumps, Lizanne. Just easy, feet don't have to go too far off the board.

So the hands supporting the head and the neck, but mostly, of course, is this helping hold up the weight of the head. I've got my elbows in my peripheral vision, so my shoulder blades can wrap my ribcage. (exhaling loudly) Nine, let's keep going with the jumps, we're going to do a little skiing with the legs. So the feet can point one way, and then the other. But the upper body stays centered.

(exhales loudly) And jump. I love how we both just started jumping higher. We didn't even have to be reminded to do it. It just makes sense. Now, can we get up off the shoulder blades a little, more abdominal strength.

(exhales strongly) Okay, that was 10, I'm gonna go for 10 more. And one. And knees are real close together as I twist through the waist to swivel those legs. Lift up off those shoulder blades. Take four.

And we're really jumping right in the center of the jump board. Let's go, last one, we can land in the middle, and then straighten the legs, lower the head down, and just rest for a minute. Breathe in. Pick up one knee, really doesn't matter, because we're gonna do both sides. Hands sweep behind the skull again.

Let's do single-leg jumps, so push. And push. Now we're in a pretty light weight, one red. Let's connect to really pushing us out to a straight leg there. (exhales strongly) And by having the head up, we can see how we land and track.

Hip, knee, ankle, nice and parallel. Very strong. (exhales strongly) Nice, Lizanne. Four. Three, articulating those feet.

Two. And one, let's land in the middle. Take the head back, rest for a moment. (exhales strongly) Straighten the legs. I want us to have us do a couple more sets of the abs.

So hands behind head. Let's go ahead and start the small jumps. Barely leaving the board. So if we took our torso and rotate ever so slightly to the right. Let's do four.

Three. Two. And one, other side four times. So, as if we're like in crisscross mat, you know that. Two.

Elbows wide, three. We're gonna go back over to the right for two. (exhales strongly) One. And two, up and over left. And one.

Let's do the twos again. (exhales strongly) And two, not resting back on those shoulder blades. One. So we're gonna do singles each side. We're gonna reach the arms, this time, up and over the body.

And reach up, so that we don't lay back on those shoulders, up. And up. And legs are zipped together here. (exhales strongly) If at any time your head, of course, and your neck, get a little to excessively involved here, just put that down. This is a lot, we're taking four.

Three. Two and last one, let's land in the middle, and we can rest our head down. Lovely. Okay, I'd like to come up, and add a little more spring now. So why don't we add blue with the red.

Okay, so we've got a change of spring, we added a blue. Let's now, also, pick up our hand weights, and we're gonna add, go back down. So why the hand weights? Well, in my opinion, it gives our body more to do. So if you want to think about burning more calories, that's one thing.

Coordination skills. You know, all that good, good stuff. So we're in second position, and I want us to start with our arms reaching up to the ceiling, and slightly open. And as you're just holding that position just feel how we can organize this, and plug those shoulder blades just right into the back ribs. Not with tension, but just with the muscle work.

And let's just start some jumps in second. So I want us to go again into really articulating those feet. Push. The thigh muscles will contract, we need those muscles... Keep going.

To pull up. So inner thighs pull up. Quads, pull up. IT band pulls up, hamstrings pull up. (exhales strongly) Of course, the abdominals are lengthened up.

There's up energy out the top of the head. And we know that. And land, push, and push. So we're gonna start adding, bringing our heels in, just one touch and land. Touch, land.

Touch, so let's add the arms doing the same thing. They're coming in, they're opening. Coming in, and opening. (rhythmic exhaling) Okay, we're going to add on, and do two heel beats together. So we beat, beat, open.

Beat, beat, open. Beat, beat. beat, beat. (rhythmic exhaling) Gotta be kinda quick to get that. Three more sets.

Two more. Okay, we're gonna try three beats. One, two, three, land. One, two, three, land. One, two, three, land.

One, two, three, land. (exhales strongly) A lot of inner thigh and butt right there, you feel that? Four. Three. Two.

One, let's just go back to singles. Jump. And land, oh my gosh. Okay, so we're gonna keep jumping here. Cross your arms.

Cross your arms and open. Now I've just turned my palms to face my knees. So the arms are crossing, we're gonna add the same thing with the legs. So whatever arm crosses in front, that'll be the same leg you land out. Cross, land.

Cross, and land. Still connect to springing off those feet. (rhythmic exhaling) Palms facing the other way. 10 Nine. Eight.

Make bigger arm gestures if you'd like to. Four. Now we're four. And three. And two.

We're gonna take a little jog in place. So let's just jog. Parallel, elbows are on the mat. (exhales strongly) So now we're back into parallel, changing the load in the hip joint. We'll get back to turn-out in a minute.

But let's add a little more arm stride. So whatever knee is up, the opposite arm. I'm gonna count to 20, here we go, one. Make your jump as big as you like, three. Or as small as you'd like.

(exhales strongly) You can even bend the elbow that's up, and then push. (exhales strongly) And 10 more. (exhales strongly) Get that oxygen going! Lizanne is a runner, so this is really not a big deal for her. (laughing) And seven, I don't think. Eight. Nine, last one.

Let's just give ourselves a rest. (sighs) Invigorating, okay! So I want us to start straight-legged again in a Pilates V. Change the hands for just a moment. Stack the weights up tall and press the palm of your hand on top of the weight, so that you can just feel some tricep work without locking the elbows. So I'm actually gonna unlock my knees and unlock my elbows, and just kind of air out underneath my underarms, exactly.

Now, lift your right leg up. Bend the knee. And let's change legs. (exhales strongly) So these scissors... (exhales strongly) Nice, brisk, beautiful, straight changed legs.

But still think about the feet. That connection. Articulate through the heel, ball of the foot to toes. (exhales strongly) Shoulders are open, you're pressing lightly into the weights. Alright, so right now we're just doing a nice leg in front of us, plain.

Let's change it a little bit, Lizanne. We're going to take our leg out to the side. So I've taken my landing leg a little more into a wider turnout. (bang) Whoopsie daisy, for teacher! Pressing onto the weights. (exhales strongly) Okay.

Four. Three, it's gonna change slightly. Two, you can keep going if you... What I'm going to do is straddle up in the air, up. And, up.

So really gotta push off that standing leg. (rhythmic exhaling) Let's go eight more. One. Two. Try to get that straddle.

And four, that's right, good. Five. Six. Seven, let's go one more, and land for a second. (exhales strongly) I'm gonna have us come up, whoops! I kicked your reformer, and come back into one red.

Well, here we are, I had to move my reformer back, as you can see, 'cause I'm sliding across the wood floor, and we're back on just one red, okay? So we're going to pick that same thing up where we were jumping in... Whoo, now it's a lot lighter, we've got air time to play with here! It may help us to get a wider straddle. (exhales strongly) But the challenge may be not to just throw the leg out there. You lift it.

You lift precisely, and you control where you put that second leg in the air, exactly. That's going to mean a lot in a moment, because we're gonna play with some helicopter. So helicopter... Let's just slow down for one second and hold. So if we go from a scissor, this leg is gonna go open, that'll be what ends up on the board.

But we know, meanwhile, the other leg is gonna come up and around into the scissor. So let's just reverse it. So it's kinda hard to do without jumping. (laughs) So let's just start an easy jump. Those straddles.

Okay. And just, for experimentation before we count each other down, just start to kind of play with a helicopter land on the opposite foot. Opposite foot. (exhales strongly) I think we've got it, okay. So hope you at home are kinda getting it. We're gonna give a pattern here.

We're gonna land three times and then a helicopter. So just scissors for three, one in parallel. And two. Land three. And then go into your scissor.

I'm not making sense, keep going, I'll get it. My brain has it, my words aren't. Okay. (laughs) Lizanne's doing a great job. Land. Land.

Land, now helicopter all the way around, land. There we go. Land. Land, helicopter all the way around, land. Land.

And land and helicopter. (exhales strongly) So scissors. Scissor. Scissor, now we helicopter open, and there we are, let's do it again! And, we're still scissoring. (exhales strongly) And a helicopter, one more. Scissor.

Scissor. Scissor, helicopter. Now we're gonna keep helicoptering for 10, try to rotate. Nine. Eight.

Boy, requires a very stable body! Stable pelvis and ribs. (rhythmic exhaling) Four. Three, how're we doing? Two. And one.

Alright thank you for continuing on there. I got a little off with my words, okay! Arms up. Let's go a little ski trip. Again. Now we're only on a red spring.

So it's not about the legs as much as it is the abdominals. But what I want us to do is start to bend the elbows down as we bend the knees. (exhales strongly) Legs are nicely connected. (exhales strongly) Think about those feet. And can you jump from your seat? More jump from pulling up the back line of the legs.

(exhales strongly) So I want to have a lifted bum, I don't wanna have a saggy bum, pull it up back there. And up. And up, let's count for 10 more. One. Elbows, two.

Three. Four. Five. Six. (exhales strongly) And eight.

And nine. Let's land in the middle and pause. Okay, let's go ahead and roll up, Lizanne. We can put our weights down. And we're gonna move into some side-line work now, and I'd love for us to put the blue spring on, only.

And I'm gonna lie on my left side, tuck those elbows down. And stand, oh that's great. I can see you nicely. So standing on the jump board, take a moment, look down to your feet and see those there. About the same hip width, parallel, apart.

Now, let's just cheat for a second, Lizanne, and drop our bottom waist to the mat. Probably feels good 'cause we can relax for a second. But I don't want to promote that, especially in a moment, we're gonna jump a little bit, because it could give us that feeling of compressing that right lumbar region. So if we just think about lifting that waist a little, a cue we give all the time, but you might feel it differently here as you're on your jump board. Put your hands, maybe, holding the shoulder pegs in a rest.

And easy knee bend. There's such a light spring there, it's not helping us do it. So we have to slurp ourself towards the board. And extend the knees. So internally, our psoas-a muscles, psoases, really working to help us hip flex.

In a weird side-lying position, okay? So this may be enough for you to play with. I'm gonna advance us a little bit, and of course start to have us jump from two feet. Little, little, little jumps. Itty bitty.

And then exhale. And... (exhales strongly) Keeping in mind, that lower waist, knees not dropping in and knocking in. If anything, the top knee has a little more relationship up to the ceiling than the floor. (exhales strongly) Keep going, let's sneak the bottom knee up to our chest, so we've just now gone into a single-leg jump in parallel. And still articulating the foot.

Still pulling the back of the leg up. The stomach up. (exhales strongly) Feeling okay, and this is a blue spring. I chose lighter so we could really get organized and have enough time for this piece here. We're gonna kick our leg to you now, I'm gonna kick it in front and land.

And kick, you gotta get it back underneath you right away or you'll curl your toes! Don't wanna land on the toes. (exhales strongly) And as you do that leg-kick, hopefully you're not hiking the right hip up into the ribs. The pelvis is still stacked evenly on itself. (exhales strongly) Let's go for two more, Lizanne. Jump.

And jump, now. Keep jumping, then, just a plain jump on the single leg. We're gonna sneak our underneath leg back out and jump on it. So we're doing a side jog. (exhales strongly) These are a little more challenging, I'm feeling my abdominals a lot, are you?

Whoo! Yup. My top hip, I'm actually feeling, my glute med when I land exactly nice. (exhales strongly) Let's take four landings. Three. Two.

Last one. And then you can jump and just finish. Of course the other side. So up we roll, ooh. You're good, I'm just gonna move this.

Okay, so starting with, ooh... Both legs. Straight underneath, you can look at them, make sure you see all your toes. You're lying on your side. You have your bottom waist lifted, not too much, but enough.

Okay, and let's start some hip flexions. Basically trying to do like that wall sit or a plie in parallel. And it's okay, what I had to just do there is look at the jump board and see that my feet aren't too wide apart. It's gotta make some sense. So this top leg, this IT band, and it's working with that TFL to help steady hip-knee alignment.

So I want you to feel some fatigue on this top hip. I'm sure you do, let's go with some little, tiny jumps. Teeny tiny. Using the hands on the shoulder rests, I'm kind of almost leaning forward into them. So that I don't arch my back and roll backward.

Still articulating those feet. Two more, and then we're gonna sneak our bottom knee up to the chest, while we still jump on the standing, outside leg. (exhales strongly) And I'm still trying to get that image that I'm trying to pull the back line of my leg up, from heel up to my back. Off the jump board, which is the floor. (exhales strongly) And a solid toned thigh.

(exhales strongly) Alright, we're gonna kick that leg now, here we go, I'm kicking to the window. Kick. Land. Kick. Let's do 12.

Three. Four. Five, without dropping the knee no internal rotation. Seven. Eight.

Nine. Last three. (exhales strongly) And then we're just gonna go back to two or three just regular jumps here, we're gonna start to sneak that bottom leg out from underneath us, let's land on it now, so side jogging. And jog. It's a little precarious, staying on the side of that pelvis.

(exhales strongly) How's your top glute med? Whoo! Yeah, I'm really connecting to it. Feels great. In that weird way. (laughs) Four. And three, the burn.

Last two. And last one. Okay, let's come off our side. So we have a few more things to do here with jumping. And what I want us to do is add red instead of blue.

Oh my, okay, up on a kneeling position, facing the back of the reformer. I'm gonna reposition my thing. And, probably, it's gonna feel, what I feel is best for me is elbows on the shoulder rest, hands holding the headrest, something like that. But you could certainly hold the pegs or, you know, and then just take a second to... Knees underneath hips, we're gonna look back to the jump board, underneath us here, and put our right foot up on it, not all the way in the top corner, not a fire hydrant, but somewhere kind of midway, and pelvis relatively square, but femur in rotation, at turnout.

And just start some leg presses. And look, first, at the thigh if you need to. This is a significant amount of upper-body support. So you guessed it, we're gonna try to jump in a second. They'll be really small jumps.

Now this might be enough to start with, and really pay attention to how your low back feels. We've gotta pull those abdominals up and in. Here we go, let's try 10, Lizanne. Tiny, two. Three.

I can connect to the articulated feet. Five, jump from the buns. Six. Seven. Stomach up.

How's that opposite oblique wall? Whoo! Yeah, last one! Okay, 10 should be sufficient. Okay. (sighs) So left leg up, extend your carriage open, look at that leg, go ahead and square hips and then let the left femur turn out a little bit. About five just leg presses to get it going. Pull those abdominals up.

Find your shoulder support. Use it, three. And just really concentrate on pushing the leg, exactly. Okay, let's go with 10 jumps, here we go. And little.

That opposite abdominal wall, the obliques can help support. (exhales strongly) Five more. One. Two, squeezing those glutes, three. And four.

And five. Okay, and let's rest. So I never had the opportunity to work with Julian Littleford, but I loved what he called the jiggly bits. That's a good one for working the jiggly bits, thank you, Julian. So, we're on our back.

If you have a ponytail, tuck it up. I don't want your hair to get caught in the springs. So just a little food for thought. Table-top legs. We're gonna do some shoulder pressing here.

So let's take the heels of our hands... I'm putting my hand, my thumbs kind of right at the bottom of where the jump is. And then elbows not too wide, so no lazy upper back, but lifted a little, I can see them out of the corners of my eyes. And just an easy extension, let's do 10. And if you wanted to push and let your shoulder blades glide upward to really stretch that fascia on the side of the body, I don't think anything's wrong with that.

Or you could just kind of play it safe, and just do moderate elbow extension. It's a very short range of motion. I actually kind of prefer going a little further, and letting that fascia stretch. It's a nice low abdominal work as well. Okay, then changing the hand position, I'm gonna have us take our hands in narrow.

Fingertips, walk them all the way down the vinyl to where you feel the wood, and then line your hands up. And then same thing, elbows a little on the narrow side now. So it's going to put the upper arm in external rotation. And then if you slowly press, try to connect into your posterior delt of course, and your mid-trapezius on your back. I would say with this, we're not really going into too much elevated shoulders.

And bend. Elbows to the ceiling, they're really reaching up there. Press. Reach the elbows up. Three.

And bend. (exhales strongly) Four. Open up the hands, five. (exhales) And six. Again working out jiggly bits.

Thanks Julian. Maybe he's shining that... Maybe he's the sun that's just bright right there coming in that window, it's weird. Said his name and it's like really bright right here. Two more.

(exhales strongly) I'm not gonna have us jump right there. I think it's a little vulnerable for the neck. I don't feel like that's appropriate, so we're gonna come out of this, and finish with a little side bend and upper back release of a stretch. So come up on our knees. I'm just gonna come right into the middle of the mat.

Wow! (laughs) Okay, arms up to the sides, take a deep breath in. And then release the hand that's closest to the jump board, and just reach up and over toward it. But it's not too much of a collapse side bend. This side is also still lifted. Even weight on the knees.

Okay, so I'm gonna take both arms and reach up in a little diagonal. Upper back bend, so I'm trying to think of little swan. Pull those inner thighs close together, or ish. And then side bend the other way. Really open up that side that's closest to the jump board.

And then a little counter to that, I'm gonna reach my hands together right in front. I'm gonna pull my hips back, my ribs back, and allow the shoulders to go up by the ears. You can tuck the tail as much as you want, or just round the sacrum under. And then let's come up and do the other side. So we'll side bend away from the jump board.

(exhales) Good, feeling even in the legs, and then lift up into the upper back extension. Almost where those hands were pushing against the jump board there. And keep lifting that upper thoracic spine over, into our side bend. And then around front, even with the hands pulled away. Reach the hands forward, pull the abdominals back.

(exhales) And we are all finished, my friend. Thank you so much. Yay, thank you.