Total Body Cadillac

Hi, today we're going to work on the Cadillac to a lot of opening and stretching. So if that's something that sounds good to you, here we go. We're going to go short. It's going to be about 30 minutes. And in an attempt to maximize the time that we do have, I've already got my Cadillac set up with what I need or want. So what I have a one leg spring hooked up into this center.

If you don't have a center hook, just hook it up to one or the other of the two sides and then position yourself so that you're lined up with this spring. I also have taken away my roll down bar and or rollout bar and I've um, attached handles. So I'm ready to move into my arm work as soon as it's time. Okay. So from there I'm going to start at the, this end with the push through barn. I have it attached to one spring. I'm personally using a blue spring. Um, but you could also use a red or two blues if that felt better to you. So let's just start here. Standing on our feet, reaching the arms down next to the size of the body.

I always like to just close my eyes for a moment. This be present in my body for a moment before I start moving or even teaching or guiding us to move. Let's take the arms overhead and as you reach your arms overhead, elongate through your spine and lift the chest up just a little bit, and then let the arms reach out. Press wide with them so that it feels expansive and allow them to just come down to the sides of the body. We're gonna do that one more time. Just being present in the moment.

Reach the arms out to the side, lift, look up at your hands, and then reach the arms away. I'm not creating a lot of force with my arms at this moment. In fact, I'm, I'm gonna work on today, not creating a lot of force in anything but just trying to be as light in my body is. I know how to be. So taking the push through bar on your hands, standing with your arms slightly in front of you. I have my pushy bar lined up with the vertical poles of the Cadillac. We're gonna inhale long and tall. As you exhale, allow your head to go down towards your chest so you'll begin going forward in flection. As your spine goes into flection, your arms will go into flection as well, and then begin to Ilan gait the body.

I lift into spinal extension. Pressing forward on that push to bar is low. You're pushing it over your head. From there, draw the tailbone under rolls through the spine. Just start sliding that bar back underneath you as you reach yourself back up. Right inhale to prepare. Exhale, the head reaches down.

We go through spinal flection and start to guide the shoulders into shoulder flection. Reach the spines or lifting through the tailbone. That just feels, it's just a natural movement. You do start that when that feels natural to you, curl and are pulling the bar back towards the body. We'll do that a few more times and now try as you reach out. Not to shift backward in your hips, but instead just to go down and then just start elongating out and forward. Reach out through your spine, Xcel to draw and draw and uh, and now reach out. Keep the bar fairly low here so you still have a little bit of pressure down where the, haven't let my springs go all the way.

We're going to take the right leg behind us. I'm going to reach the right leg up and now we're going to draw and bringing that knee up towards the bar and then reach back. Feeling that long line being created. Inhale, excellent dry, pulling the bar towards the knee and the knee towards the bar and reach out. Elongating and draw in last time and reach out from the extension of this spine. Step the leg back underneath. You reorganize. Find your balance.

Leslie goes behind. Inhale, exhale. We flow. We lift the left leg first. Yes, Meredith. That's true. And now Xcel curl. So the knee comes up towards the bar. The bar is being pulled down to the knee. We're drawing backward through the waist and then begin to Ilan gay going into spinal, an hip Excentia reaching out, finding a long line in here and curl the spine, lifting the knee up towards the bar. The bar pulls down towards the knee, so a lot of deep flection there. And then you reach out supporting the spinal extension. One more time.

Exhale, curl and inhale to reach. And then placing the foot back down onto the floor. Reach all the way. Yeah, and roll yourself back in. Carefully. Allow the bar to come back up. Come around and lie down on the Mat. I'm going to stick with that blue spring, but it's going to be tough. So if you, um, need a little more spring, feel free to do that. Now setting the arms, I'm just a little bit behind my bar with my shoulders and my legs are pressed together so that as I curl up, which is happening now, my arms are coming up vertically from my shoulder joints. Inhale here, exhale, hollowing. We lift up into the mini curl and inhale down. Annex a hollow and reach around trying to maintain a neutral position in the pelvis. Inhale to come down. Exhale, curl and inhale down. Exhale, curl drawing in with trying not to lead that with the head so the head doesn't go through the arms. It stays just behind the arms.

You just keep your gaze going forward like you're drawing. Just following the wall upwards as you lift and following the wall down. Where this you lower one more. Curling up and down. Holding here, just lifting into flection. We're going to just float flow, the Nisa and [inaudible]. So how light can you be in your body?

Just feel that the anchor so wrapped around the midsection of the body and down, but everywhere else it's just floating in space. Two more. Inhale down. Exhale, draw in and lift. Inhale down. Exhale, draw in and lift. Placing your feedback down. Rotate so that the right hand comes just a little bit in and towards the center of the bar. Left hand behind your head.

Turn your body to your left head is reaching into the hands and from there we just curl and a man curl. Concentrating on the stillness of the pelvis and curl the positioning of the body with the right ribcage, reaching across towards the left hip and the left rib cage, sliding down and into the body on the left hand side last to lift and a last one, lift. And uh, now holding your down. We're just gonna float the knees and down. Real easy. Exhale, keep the rotation. Keep that positioning float and down. Just one more here. Flow and [inaudible].

Turn your body to center. I'm kind of regretting I didn't give us a break. I'm still not going to, but I'm regretting it anyway. So here we go. We rotate the other direction. Looking where you're going. We curl up from there and putting a lot of energy. You don't need a lot of repetitions to make these feel really, really challenging. And to fit fatigue here.

Last two, lifting up and lifting up, holding your flection, floating your knees one. Keep that Nice, strong position. Easy float through the legs to and away. Easy flow through the legs. Very and Oh, and now we placed the feet down. We returned to the bar, situate the hands so that they are that where they were when you started oral yourself all the way up to lean back on the diagonal. It a little back extension there and then roll yourself all the way back down.

Wow. I don't know about you, but that was pretty tough for me. Tough in a good way, but tough. Okay, so I'm setting up my safety strap about to go into a little legwork. We're just going to do a few repetitions of each today to again maximize our time. So sliding down underneath the barn, placing the feet underneath the bar, starting on the heels of the seat, organizing, finding a neutral position in the pelvis, arms at our sides. Inhale to allow the knees to bend. Now instead of pressing through the front of the legs, feel the pelvis dropped down, the barge is easily lifts.

Inhale to bend. So what I'm speaking of is a different energy than a push. It's a pull the pelvis, dropping down in the legs, responding to that inhale, bend and exhale to press. Inhale, bend, keeping the pelvis heavy all the time. And feel the femur bones just dropping into the hip joints last time and press coming onto the toes. Holding plantar flection in the feet or keeping your feet pointed.

Going to bend the knees without changing the feet. You're going to stretch the legs back up. Pause, flex the feet, point the feet and bend. Exhale, press drawing the abdominals downwards. Inhale, flex, exhale, point and bend. That breath pattern doesn't suit you. My recommendation would just be to breathe. Find a breath that does suit you and focus your breath into your movements.

We're going to do two more bent and stretch. Flex and point. Bend and stretch. Flex and point. Swivel the heels together into the Small v position. He nailed the knees bend.

They'll go a little lower this time. Keep the pelvis, press Tevye and exhale. Press down in the pelvis and up with the legs. Inhale, we bet. Exhale, pelvis presses down. Legs stretch up. Inhale, bend. As your legs are going into the air, pull into the mat with the center of your body. Notice the lightness in the arms, the lightness in the neck.

Last too, and one more. So bend your knees all the way. Let your feet come down for just a second. Take one of your springs away and then choose one of your legs to take back up under the bar. We're gonna go on the heel of the foot. The opposite leg is gonna reach out straight.

I'm going to do two things here in a bend. I've chosen my left leg, so I'm bending my left knee. It's under the bar. As my left leg straightens, I'm gonna bring my right leg up, reach and touch the bar, and then bend and push that leg away and exhale right leg up. Left leg stretches the legs meet together. The pelvis is steady. Inhale, reach down. Exhale, press. Find the bar. Inhale to reach down using the hip extensors on that free moving leg on the way down to help you to stabilize your pelvis. One more time. Reach up, flex through the foot, set it under the bar. Re-Establish your best neutral position.

Bend your left knee and restretch it down along the matter. Bend your opposite knee, the one that was just under the bar. So now the right knee bends, it stretches, and we float that left leg up in touch the bar. Nothing's changing in the hips. Inhale, bend. Exhale, reach, float, press. Inhale, bend. Draw down through the waist.

Lift up using those deep hip flexes to lift that left leg. Last two and press and last one and press slip that foot underneath the bar. Bend both knees, take the feet out, take your arms to the vertical poles and slide out until your arms are straight in to reach up and place the toes back underneath the bar. Reaching down through the pelvis. Strong arms here for the tower. Prep in healing to prepare as you wish. Hale, curl the spine, bending the knees as you go.

So the knees bend the hip extensors work to support the bar, the port, the springs, the back extensors. Work to support and we exhale. Roll the spine down simultaneously, moving the pelvis and straightening the knees at the same time. Drop the hips all the way down. Flex your feet, points your feet, bend your knees and curl your way up towards that bar. And a nice stretch to the spine. Pause and inhale, roll again. So allowing the knees to straighten as that spine unwinds all the way back down.

Pelvis drops, flex point, and Corolla. Pause there. This time, just this time, stretch the legs. Elongate this fine. Just the littlest bit more and slowly, slowly melt the spine away from the resistance of the springs into the mat. Dropping all the way down. Take the feet off the bar, lower the bar down, come out from underneath it. And let's get rid of the spring and get rid of the safety strap.

Okay, so we're going to go next into hip work. We should all be set up if you're not set up with your spraying in the center, do so. Now if again, you don't have a center option, either the front or the back will do and just line yourself up with your spring. So taking the top leg and placing it into the straw, I'm just gonna lie down on my bottom arm. Use the opposite arm against the bar as an anchor and look for a long straight line. Taking the leg now to the front, we reach out. It means external rotation drops through the hip joint as we reach it behind.

So gorgeous stretch. Inhale to go forward. Reach. Feel the stability of the pelvis. Feel the alignment of the spine. Nothing changes except that leg, that free moving leg. Reach forward. Lift up, press back down two more. Reach forward, lift up long through the body, long through the spine. Last one. And so using as you hit this critical upward juncture, this is where we really have to pay attention to the stillness in the pelvis is the leg drops behind us going to go the other way.

So we reached back feeling for how far can we go without any shifting of the spine, bringing the leg in front, pull from the very top of the leg with connection of the hamstrings that they hit. Let the leg stay low as it reaches back. Feel the rotation through the hip joint. As you reach around to the front and three more press slide back. Rotate through and two more. Press back, rotate through and last time here.

Enjoy that fluid hip movement. Bring the legs back together, bend the top knee and slip the strap just over the ankle and then keeping the knee low. Let the leg drop into the strap. Then just start to explore backwards. Now I am letting my hip travel backwards. Now just looking for a stretch and for me, this is a really fantastic stretch.

I'm just heavy in the strap and I'm leaning backwards into it. I'm going to come back to center, retrieve the strap, turn onto your other side, line up with the spring. All right. Again, so my arm isn't just relaxing here. I'm actually pushing on the bar when I'm pushing on the bar.

As a result of the shoulder blade, pulling down and forward. Inhale to bring the leg forward, rotate through the hip joint, bring the leg behind, working through those deep hips, external rotators, bringing the leg forward, lift, reaching back, wowing their head to just rest on the [inaudible]. Sometimes I like to just check in with my head and my arm position to make sure that I haven't set my arm in front of my spine, in which case my head would then be in front of my spine. So we want the head resting floating just over the spine, just right on top so that everything is in alignment. Last time here, reach, explore the stretch and down. And now we take it to the back. We reach back, we lift up, we drop the leg forward and pull from the top of the hip to bring the legs together.

They brushed together and center and then we explore through that back ring, backward range of motion and back and reach, ah, [inaudible] and forward. Last too, reaching o away as well as backwards as a nice thing to focus on away as well as backwards. And then bring the legs together. Ben, that knee slipped the strap, so it's just resting on your ankle. Well, lower the sigh, close to the body, then start to bring the Phi behind the body. And only then am I letting my pelvis start to change. So again, I'm just letting my head be held by the springs. I'm rolling back into it using my hand on the bar in front of me to give myself a little traction so that can reach back and open up through the front of the hip on that side. [inaudible] coming back to center. Take your foot out of the strap, come up and take the strap. You take the spring off.

So taking a hold of your handles, um, you can organize yourself as far or as close to the Cadillac as you need to be. Knowing that the further away you get, the more challenging this is. Feel that your spine is aligned and lifted, and then as you exhale, reach it down towards the floor and reach your arms behind you in here to take the arms forward. XL reached down, really milk these, we're not going to do a lot of repetitions, so as the arms are reaching down towards the floor, feel the energy in the body reaching upwards. It's not that you're going into back extension, but it almost feels like you want to almost feels like you want to create that energy. And now I want to so bad. So we're going to, so we're going to take the arms, take the arms and then press the arms down and he elongate the body. Come back to neutral, keeping the arms where they are and bring the arms forward.

One more like that. Reach the arms down for us. The body is still neutral, then press down through the arms. Lift just the chest. It's not a huge backwards lean. It's very small but can be intense. I feel it intensely. Come back and center switch hands and turn yourself around. Oh well I like measure myself against that little center hook to see if I even, I hope I am. So now just from the ankle joint.

So from an upright position, you won't have tension on your springs, but if you lean straight from your ankle joints, keeping the spinal line, that's where we get spring tension. We're going to just do a few circles so the arms come forward, they reach out. Keep them straight and narrow. Feel the rotation in the as the arms. Reach around to your sides and press back through. Inhale, we lift taking the arms just near the years. Feel that powerful upper back work that's available to you there.

Try as your arms are reaching from the up position to the out position, not to allow the Scapula to slide together so that the scapula stays broad on the back, but simply does a natural rotation. The bones naturally rotate without having to move in words or outwards. This is our last way and now we take that in reverse. Reach out. You'll feel here as your arms reach into that circular action that the rotation and the Scapula is in the reverse direction. Inhale, open. Exhale through the stretch.

So this is a great place to really practice and a challenge. Shoulder Mobility, right? So do that. Keep the arms very straight. Try to explore the place behind your ears without judging the head forward to achieve that. Two more reaching a feel energy from the heels through the body, all the way out through the top of the head. This is our last one. We pressed. Ah, we reach out and to go into the butterfly here.

There we go. Into lateral flection than start the rotation when the rotation can't happen anymore. Start to reach down and forward on that top. Spray up and back on the back. The springs meet in the back, reach back around fine lateral flection and center. Inhale laterally. Flex the spine. Exhale, find your rotation. Then start to move that arm up and down, back on lifts in and up in towards the body.

Rotate back and find center in here. And you can make this really fluid, this movement, right. Once you get the steps, inhale, feel all of the steps happening. But don't pause in that. So we go lateral flex and we go rotation. We change the arms, we changed the arms. We've have rotation, we have lateral flection and we're home lateral flection. Rotation, change the arms, arms rotation, lateral flection and home. Oh, that's truly one of my favorite exercises. I just love it. Coming back to the push you bar setup springs, um, one is plenty for me. I have one blue spring.

Again, spring choices, always our personal preference. So choose for yourself what you like. Okay. Lining the Pushtu bar up with the vertical poles. We're going to finish with a little back extension.

So just starting by feeling the legs, reaching away, feeling the pelvis heavy, lifting the head, starting to slide the arms backwards, and then going up into a reverse articulation of the spine. I'm going to keep this pretty small for now. Pretty small. So just working into the thoracic spine and then really seeing forward. So I lift my head, my eyes go forward. Then I start to slide my arms. I'm endeavoring not to push on the bar to lift my body.

I'm allowing the springs to slide to help me, to remind me to just move my arm bones backwards into my shoulder joints. And from there is where I find my lift. Always keeping the front of the body lightly engaged. Shoulder blades, head spinal articulation, and left. Maybe do that one more time. We're preparing for a bigger movement.

So if you wanna take this one up a little higher, that would be appropriate. I will. So once you find that thoracic, then you can really go wherever you want. Is that right? And I feel like so many of us skip Arthur Assick and go straight into our bigger backups. [inaudible] just that it's a nice place to remind ourselves that that part of the body is so important. Going into prone to, so I'm going to bend my arms, the bar is going back, I lift my head, I lift my head towards the bar, arms straighten, and then I arise. Dropping the head down, allowing the body to sink through the arms, bend the elbows wide, allow the body to articulate forward and straighten the arms in.

Heal the elbows, bent the arms, start to straighten, trying to get my arms all the way straight. I'm lifting my head. And then once they're straight, then I start actively lifting in my spine at the top. My legs are very involved, helping me support myself there. And then I hang forward and Ben Near and reach out. And let's do that two more times. Arms straightening the elbows, head following, head falling, arms going all the way straight. Then the spine follows.

And then the body drops in. The elbow has been wide and reach last time. Inhale, moving with breath. Exhale, inhale and exhale. Making sure you have a firm hold on the bar with one hand. Allow the bar to lifts.

Place your elbows underneath you. Screw your knees underneath you and just sit back into rest position for one moment. Rolling through your spine. Now coming back, Huh? I'm going to end with a cat stretch. So we started with the cat stretch from a standing position.

We'll finish the same way fluidly moving the spine. So I start with my elbows bent. Press the arms down and now they're straight. They're going to stay straight and tell him all the way back up. Right? Again, I roll my spine forward. I'm trying not to shift my pelvis back. From there I eat. Elongate my body, keeping my head above my arms, finding that nice long position in my spine. Pause. Inhale, feel the hips spread. Exhale, feel the pelvis start to come underneath. Feel the abdominals. Work against the pull of the springs.

Work against the pool of the springs, rolling yourself all the way up. Eyes forward and then work the bar up. What I mean by that is don't just let it out, right? You pressed down. I'm going to do two more. We roll the spine forward, find the difference. They're starting to lift the pelvis between flection and extension of the spine holding and then curling, going all the way up and arms working down.

Shoulders down to lift the arms. I'm going to add on at the bottom. Press down. This is our last one. Fully inhabiting your movement, being present, challenging each piece, so finding the straight line from that straight line. Now we can take the whole body down to stretch the shoulders, lift the whole body back up to the straight line. Curl your way back in. I lift the bar.

Cool. The last thing that we're going to do, which I love to do, I find it feels really good for me, is you just gonna take the bar and hang. Just letting gravity travel through this spot. I'm not holding my shoulders in place, just letting my feet barely graze the floor and then lightly lowering down, standing on our feet. Just feel that feeling of being weightless for a moment and then bring the arms down. Yeah, that's all. Thank you.