Cadillac Stretches

Hi everyone. I am going to do a series of stretches here on the Cadillac. I'm using the long strapped fuzzies, the a trapeze swing situation and uh, we'll, we'll stretch. It's really for our legs and our hips and I'll be doing some kneeling work. So if you do have uh, uncomfortable knees or you don't like kneeling directly, you know, just here you might want to put some extra padding underneath or uh, part of them can be done or some of them can be done standing, uh, on the using a bench, your leg up on a bench, things like that. So it's an abbreviation of some other versions of the ballet stretches or the ladder barrel perhaps.

But what's nice about what I'm using some of the fuzzy work for is a little bit of preparation in a way for some of the pull up or pull over the top kind of exercises also in meaning feeling a little bit of this in the upper body. So I'm, I'll be, you'll be seeing me do some bent elbow to rotation and extension this way with the arms and using some pulling down on the strap to get some of the leverage. I guess you can pay leopard to rotate and rhythm and, and feedback. All right, so without further ado, I'm going to slip my hands through, hold up on the strap right at the top where the fuzzy uh, and meats, and then it's Kinda size it up here. I'm going to start with my right ankle up in the strap. I want to sit back and get a place where I'm underneath things.

Hopefully you'll know, I think right where to go. I don't want this foot in the fuzzy dif are the strap to fall out so I'm too far backward. This foot's not gonna feel secure in here, but I don't want to be so close that I can't get up to two. You'll see what I mean. Now, depending on your you, your body, you may want to, you can be where I am or you can tuck that foot underneath on the balls of the feet. If you don't have toes that love to bend like this, this won't feel good, but it's good to try to stretch them this weight too, and it might avoid a cramp in your calf. This you could cramp in your calf. So I don't know. Those are just things that show up today. I'm going to try it.

I think like this. Okay. Nope, I'm not. When I go back here, so feeling some c curve, I'm going to round my tail. I want to extend my arms, reach toward the trapeze and I'm trying to actually press my arms in toward the center. So the little bit of work in my chest. Now I'm going to start to reach my arms toward my leg. Pull up off that foot, bend the elbows, there's my little pull up, a little bit rotate. Now I had said these were leg stretches, but for me they are my hamstrings. Getting a stretch, my hip flexors, but my chest and my biceps are really also getting a stretch. So I'm going to contract my back glute. I'm not going to just hang in here, Ugh, unsupported. I want to be in muscle and support my joints. As I'm stretching, I want to go back. I would have pull the fuzzies together, pull the abdominals back, rebuild the elbows and sit with control.

Three on each side. All right. Eventually the elbows won't need to Ben, but to get your body weight up, open, the arms reach. I'm trying to send my chest right through the swing or the trapeze out the window re and then lift and come back in and sit with control. And one more time. So feel some see curves of energy in the arms and then pull the arms toward each other. Pull up, rotate and extend. So my arms can go further behind. I just don't want to thrust my chest.

I'm going to stretch my chest muscles. I want to stretch my legs and I'm going to come into center. Okay, so I'm going to face away from you first. Keep this leg in the fuzzy or in that trap. Excuse me, and you'll need to move this strap now that's up on the frame so it's more in line with you in the middle of you and we'll re we switch it in a minute. So I'm facing the window just so you can see the alignment here. I don't want to be starting leaned out.

I really want to be right underneath this strap and once again I'm going to press through the ball of that foot. All right, now I'm pulling down on this strap. I'm a now gonna lean toward my long leg, use a little bit of arm support and backwards and a shoulder work to pull myself to center three times and over. Certainly could lay that foot flat and pull. So I'm really never giving my whole body weight to the stretch and pull. Now I'm going to bend the opposite way and I want to trust this strap and I want to get on my knee a little bit better and lean, lean, lean, lean.

I'm really thinking more about the hip then aside bend, so I'm trying to emphasize the hip coming to the side up and one more time. Three on each. Okay. Now I'm going to try to, you can sell from there, but I'm leaning toward the window. This foot matters, especially the heel. If I were on the reformer doing down stretch, I'd be pushing this heel back against the shoulder block. So I'm to do that. Now as I pull down on the strap and I press my pelvis forward, it is a lot like down, stretch on the reformer and then return three times and prs connect to the heel going back and last time and press to three and I'm going back the other way when to soften and foot and now I'm pulling back and coming up and a c curving through my spine. It's a really interesting sensation all around my hamstring, my inner thighs.

Okay. And Center. Now I'm going to do those two with the other leg. Nope. Yes I will. So I'm going to turn this strap back to where it was and put my left leg up. Okay. Relatively the same. So here we go. All right, so the c curve pull back. All right, arms starts straight. Get under it a little bit more. All right, now pull the fuzzies toward each other.

I'm going to bend or to help me pull myself up. Extend the stretch forward again, I'm not just hanging in it. I'm going to open up the chest. And some of you know about my left knee cause I talk about it. Sometimes I like to hyperextend it and overdo it.

So I'm going to put a little bend in that knee cause I don't want to overstretch. I'm going to emphasize actually my right hip flexors, quads, and chest more than my left hamstrings. Pull my support back and lower up. So it's actually a great way for hyper extended knee people like myself to support the knee in a stretch. So again, I'm not getting all of my body weight to that knee joint. Uh, won't be happy later. Like tomorrow. I'm going to actually tuck that toe right now. Hmm. Support and extend. So I've just flexed my front foot.

That's another way out for me to support myself. All right, now I'm going to come facing you. Move the strap [inaudible] in the center. Okay, no tuck my back foot and I want to try to be straight. It's hard without somebody watching. All right?

Now leaning toward the straight leg and using the arms, a little pooling to lift myself right up over my center. Three on eight. So there's two. So again, I'm keeping my, my, a swing foot here, flexed, helping me to engage my quadricep to support my knee today. Woo. And there now, if I lean away and I try to trust body here in holding and during the lean, my hip to the side, the funky one, and lean to the side, okay? Trying to stay square, but it's not going to be perfectly square with the hips. Now if I replant my back foot, press my heel back.

I'm coming toward you and I'm pressing through my pelvis and my hip flexors. But more importantly, it's that back heel, reaching back and pulling up in my spine, not compressing down in my lumbar. I'm trying to get length in my quadriceps. Okay, last time. Now I'm going to have a soft on my back foot and pull away and up contract into a c curve per way and pull back. Okay, so it's similar but I'm going to keep that foot in. Last little series here from this and then a nice yummy final.

So it is going to be a hip flexor or a hip extension stretch again. And I want to just kind of squat down pretty low on this ankle and enjoy stretching my arms forward toward the frame. But let my chest drop for me. This is nice to get my triceps stretched, my last stretched and try to square the hips maybe a little more here. Now you can stay there or try to reach up toward the top of the frame, even it out and pull back once again three times.

So there's a forward and up. Can I touch almost with my left side, which they hit back and last time. Oh, most with my left side, I got it. Okay. And then the other side, so come all the way down the dying swan. Swan Lake. All right. So I am still trying to extend the knee and go strong from the hip, support my lumbar spine, open through the chest and want to use my mid back also to help me come forward and up and rich. Yeah, forward and up.

I got him and down last one. Forward and up and down. Okay. So the next piece here, we'll be lying on our back. And it really isn't so much an exercise as a just being in a position or being in a, an experience here. It's the half hanging. Now what I wanna draw attention to and, and uh, I can see now my on my frame here aren't quite even, that makes a different. So, uh, I didn't catch it. That's okay.

When I did my stretchers there. That's all right. I didn't get hurt, but it probably wasn't the most balanced stretch series. That's okay. So when you do it with the teacher, you know live and they have you or you're doing it yourself there, make sure you know, kind of have those even it matters. All right. That's all right. Ah, nothing's perfect care. So, uh, they're pretty well even now. Okay, well they are. So I'm going to put my feet in one at a time. Loop it around. You need a good hook, meaning you need a good secure feeling. Now for what I'm going to do, I'm not going to wind them any more than that. One of my other classes I did three times and I did that.

I'm hanging back over the table right now. I'm just satisfied with this. What you're looking to do is really let go and you might notice yourself wanting to make a shape, forget the shape and just be yourself hanging here. Okay? So it's a bit of a decompression of attraction if you want to use that word. I like decompression because it's taking pressure out of my ankles, my knees, hips, low back.

Now I'm not that far off the table. If I wanted to feel more and to give that a go, I am going to maybe go one or twist there that feels, I'm getting a little more of what I was hoping to feel let go. So this is half hanging and that might be it. Or You could do some swinging if it was more of an active um, stretch series that I gave you and maybe another time, there will be all kinds of fun things can happen from here. Walking backward, coming up, holding the strap, swinging through, uh, it can go on and get very playful. I think you probably need a teacher to lead you through those rather than do them on your own unless you know them pretty well.

Just let yourself be like a puppet here. Okay. So these stretches are very helpful for those of us who tend to be very leg quad dominant and I am so those, those quad stretches are fantastic. Those five searches are great hamstrings if you've been running a lot, hiking a lot, uh, or just a variation for your normal stretch theories. Okay. And if you're watching and you've never done those, and you have access to a Cadillac with your teacher, ask the teacher, Hey, can you do those fuzzy stretches? Maybe see what they can do for you? And, uh, that's, you feel something new. And they're very similar to things on the reformer, but slightly different up here on the Cadillac. And then as you see, I just got outta just unwound, unwound.

And I like to just end with just letting your spine touch level ground. Take a nice deep inhale or two and you've stretched in the fuzzies. I'll see you next time. Thanks guys.