Advanced Cadillac

Hello, my name is Kathy Corey and today we are going to be doing a workout on the Cadillac. Um, thank you Christie for coming and playing with me on the Cadillac. We'd have you lie down and these are going to be bent and for this workout we are going to be using the trapeze. We're also going to be using a lighter spring on the wood bar on the uh, open end I heavy spring, uh, and it was heavier and long spring with the straps. Um, and we'll also be using a heavier spring on the tower end as well so that you have everything ready and set up for your workout. All right, Christie, we're going to start. So I'm going to have you place your feet here and I'd like the legs nice and straight. The heels are together, they chose lightly apart and we're going to hold on to the bar from that position. The arms are straight when you take an inhale and as you exhale, just relax into the shoulders. The next thing also is to take another breath and then press from the pubic bone into, to the tailbone. So we have an elongated space from the top of the pubic bone into the naval.

So we're in a nice neutral pelvis position from there and take a breath and it is called breathing. We're going to begin to inhale. Take a long exhalation as we roll the body all the way up, forming that long plank position from the shoulders all the way through the hips. From there, take another inhale and as we exhale and beautiful articulation of the spine, one vertebra at a time, rolling all the way down, we're going to do one more of those. Take a nice breath and come up lengthening all the way through the spine and at the top of the movement. Take another breath and articulate the spine down one vertebra at a time. Closing the ribs in and getting that long stretch through the the core all the way down to the pelvis. We're going to do this again, adding an arm movement this time, so now we're going to once again, begin the movement with the breath and use a full breath to come all the way up from here.

I'm going to take the and keep the arms straight and reached them down towards the hips without moving the hip position. Then bend the elbows and have the arms come, hover along the body. And once they reach the sternum, they go straight back up. And again, we reach it down. We're going to bend and stretch it along. Beautiful and come back up one more time. We reach it long now, making sure that the hips do not move.

Total stope the stabilization of the pelvis. Let's reverse it. Varying it down, opening through the chest and coming along toward the toes till the arms are straight. Rotation through the shoulder girdle. Keep breathing a full breath with each of the movements, all the way through. And just one more time. Opening the shoulders and keeping the ribs. Close the hip, sir. Stable and come back up. Take a nice breath and action sale, closing the ribs, articulating the spine, coming down a vertebral vertebra all the way down, all the way through and taking nice deep breath.

That's really lovely. But I would like to now to do a variation for really stretching the spine. So the first thing we are going to do is we're going to cross one leg over the other and then change the hands in the center and whatever leg is on top, you're going to put that arm on top as well. Try and hold the bar in the center, uh, in front of good. Hold the bar in the center so the hands are really crossed over one over the other length in the spine. And then bring the bar down lightly.

Now stabilize that and don't move that position. Begin to roll the spine up one vertebra at a time, keeping that pelvis level and stable in that position. Take a breath. Now keeping the hips high, you're going to turn without dropping that front hip over to this side. It feels really good, doesn't it? Now from here and keeping the hips lifted, we're going to come down just under the rib cage, under the rib cage. Beautiful.

And stretch away from that hip and then rural yourself and come right back up, right back up. Good. And come back into the center. Now from this position, we're going to turn to the opposite sides. And you're gonna roll it. Oh over twisting yourself. Get very nice and Lincoln and come down one vertebra at a time. Really stretching the hips and the ribcage.

Beautiful. Roll it back up. One Vertebra at a time. Beautiful. Come into the center. Hips are high and stable and now down the center of the spine and release the arms up. Now we have to do the other side. So we're going to s that is a, it's a really, really, it just feels so good and it um, doesn't really have a name yet, so I'm calling it breathing with a twist, but someone called it, um, a fish out of water cause it kind of flops around like that. And from here we open the arms first, use your breath and roll the spine up one vertebra at a time.

It's a great exercise to really get that opening and stretch and now you're going to twist so that we were coming around good. And we roll it down, stretching away, getting that hip and beautiful back up. And you'll be finding that one side doesn't work the same as the other. And we want to really work towards symmetry in the body. So we're going to get that to stretch even more as we come through the movement and come down.

This is great if you've been sitting at your desk all day or traveling, it's a wonderful exercise to kelp, wring out that spine, come back up and into the center. Hips are now level and we're going to roll down one vertebrae at a time, releasing the arms as we go. And I always like to finish these exercises with one just straight up and down the spine. So you're going to once again hold the ends and have the feet in that, the elongated position with the heels together. Toes lightly churned out and rural the spine up one vertebrae at a time.

Take a nice breath, full breath here, and then roll yourself down and get that long stretch through the center of this spine. Beautiful. Thank you Christie. That looks great. It's a really nice, fun new exercise. I'm really very, very happy with that. Let's take the trapeze down for the moment. Thank you. And have you lie back down. Cool for the airplane. So again, I like to do the variations.

I like to do the exercise and the variations of the exercise. I find that the body really benefits from um, the, the change of positions through the movements. So the first way we're going to do is with the feet and the in the parallel position, we placed the arms lightly around the poles and we want to make sure that we're not grabbing the poles and pulling the body towards the, um, uh, the arms towards us. But really thinking about pressing away to open the chest and give us that support and stability through the upper body. The first thing we're going to do is just have the toes down and now just bring the knees up lightly and then press down. Very nice.

So I want to see that you can do this without tucking the pelvis under, but maintaining that alignment all the way through the torso, all the way through the core. Okay, now let's get to work. So the first thing we're going to do is bring the roll up, bring the knees over the shoulders. So run right here in this position. We now elongate the spine all the way up to a straight position. Once we get into this position, we maintain our plank position and we don't change anything, but we let the body lower, lower, lower. Now roll the spine down, one vertebra at a time and stretch one more of these. Roll over, then roll up. Beautiful.

And now once the body is in this design, we maintain it as we stretch and bring the legs all the way down. Beautiful and roll down one vertebra at a time. Now let's roll the spine up. One Vertebrae at a time and now let the Cadillac do its work. Maintain your alignment, comes straight up. Then bring the knees over the eyes, round the back and roll down very slowly. Beautiful. One Vertebra at a time. One more of these. Take it up. Great Christie and lift, lift, lift, lift the Cadillac, do its work for you. The heavier spring makes it easier.

Christy's on a nice light spring, making sure she's doing all the work here. The Cadillac is not really assisting as much as it could. Then next we're going to do um, with the legs. Cross. So cross one leg over the other and slightly open from the hips and the same thing. Roll the knees over the eyes. Roll it up. Come Straight and down. Soon as you touch, come back up. Beautiful. Bring the knees over the eyes, round the back more and more and more and more. And Roll it down.

One Vertebra at a time and one more time, or knees over the eyes and roll and length and upward and stretch it down and roll up. Come up and knees and last time roll it and stretch out and place the feet flat. Now let's take the exercise to another level. And this is going to be one leg at a time. So one leg comes up and the foot goes on the bar.

There you go. Now that leg stays where it is. Okay, placing the foot on the bar and let's begin. Let's roll over so that the knee goes over the eye. Roll it. Try and keep the bar level good.

Lift and come down one vertebra at, I'm going down straight, straight. Good. And now one vertebra at a time. One more of those. Roll anchor, beautiful and lift. Now in one long piece, go out, out, out, out, out, and roll down one vertebra at a time. Great. And then the reverse come up, reverse, reverse up, lift, lift, lift, lift. Beautiful. And Roll yourself down. And one more time.

Try to keep that bar level coming from your hips. Equal weight on both sides. There it is, and roll it down. And unfortunately you do have another leg to do. So this leg comes over. There you go. And that's what goes on. Now remember, the goal is to keep this bar level all the way through the movement. It's tough. Pressing more into this hip. There you are.

Now let's begin. Knee rolls over the eye. We're rolling. There it is. Lift it up and stretch and take it down. Beautiful. Rural the spine, down one vertebra at a time.

And again, that's really one of the reasons Christy, that I like to do these exercises in this way, is that we all have a dominant side and we all tend to work their dominant side a little bit harder. This shows us how much we need to work in balance to get the body to work more harmoniously. Rivers up, let it carry you. Bring the knee over the eyes and the roll all the way down. Beautiful. Want just one more and I promise we can go on to something more, even more fun. I was going to say, not quite as difficult but probably not true.

So and all the way down. And so that is doing the airplane with a single leg. So, and again, the idea is to pay attention to both sides of the body and the equal weight until you're in a hold onto the bar and take the legs off and just release it. Beautiful. We're going to go onto the tower and for the no spring monkey, you're going to sit up and place your ankles over the edge and then hold onto the bar. How I have you sitting like this is I kind of judge where you're going to be by, um, starting at this position. We may need to move you forward or back as the case may be, but this is where I like to people to start.

Now you're going to place both feet on the in, onto the bar, bending the knees and bend the knees in and round your back. Beautiful. From this position, your feet can be um, uh, together or I like to do it again with the slow, this small Joe foot so the, the toes are slightly apart. The knees will also be slightly apart if you do it toes, ankles, and knees together. It's more challenging from there and round the back and stretch the body down and stretch to the front. Beautiful. From this position, pull in on the abdominals, bend the knees.

And from here, using your core strength, extend your legs straight up. Beautiful. Use your breath. So we're going to take an inhale and make it smooth and press it out on your exhale. Very nice. And again, pull it in on that inhalation. Exhale and reach out high. Very, very nice. Let's do two more of those and take it in and prs for rs through.

This is the transference through the core working the extremities. So we want to make sure that we're not just using arms and legs, but we actually can transfer that movement all the way through from up into the down position. Exhale, use your exhale. Use Your exhale to take it out. And that's come up one more time. Inhale, use that. Exhale. Use the power to extend the legs up nice and high and lift. Beautiful. From here, we're going to take both legs down and we're still going to hold onto the bar.

Now I want one leg to go on the pole. Very nice with toe, lightly on the outside, very good. And the other leg is going to go onto the bar. So this is a single leg and we're going to add a twist with it. So from this leg it should be straight. Yes.

So your supporting leg is straight. You're on the bar and you're going to press this leg through. Very nice. From there, bend the leg in so the knee is on onto the chest and try and keep as much contact there as possible. And then this is an extension of the leg all the way up. Very nice it back in and press and stretch down and stretch through.

And again, bend in and from those abdominals, the leg extends all the way up. Now from here we're going to take this arm and we're going to reach, oh all the way over. You're going to twist to me and reach to reach over here. Good. Now from here you're going to lift up, keep the arm right by the ear and you don't twist the torso and reach to the opposite side of the Cadillac all the way down. Beautiful. Back to the ear. And the twist comes from under the rib cage and to the hand. Two more times. Up and turn, reach and stretch and up.

Turn and reach to the hand. One more time. Lift. Beautiful. And from under the rib cage under the rib cage, very nice. And lift and stretch. Change hands. So this hand is going to go here. Now opposite hand reaches past turning.

So we have to turn both ways up, turn from under the ribs and lower to the back. Beautiful. And again, lift, twist, use your breath and reach nice and long, good and up. Turn and reach it back and lifted. Twist from under the rib. K try not to fall back. Use Your abdominals. And one more time up, twist it, turn it and reach it and come up and turn and stretch nice and long and bring the hand onto the bar. Lift it very, very tall.

Pull the knee into the chest, stretch down and through. Beautiful and bend in place the foot down other leg. So you see we're doing things that work first. I'm in a parallel position and working in a linear position. But then I like to add lots of rotation and twisting for the spine. You know, this is, it's a beautiful exercise and it really works well.

But when we think about it practically, I mean, how many times are we doing this in our daily life? So we really need this kind of movement in our exercise as well. So let's begin. We stretch out, beautiful and we band in and press up and bend and stretch. Well, using the breath, banded in an exhale to press it up. So first now we're going to reach past the big toe. So this is the arm that comes off and we reached turning to the other hand.

Lifting arm remains right by the ear as we twist the body around. Beautiful. And then lower. And what I'm looking for here again is symmetry so that when you are coming down and reaching to the hand and when you're reaching to your hand, I'm looking, is it even on both sides? Are We? Do we stretch more on one side? Then we do the other. So where do we need more stability?

Where do we need more flexibility? One more time. Use the breath tourney. Reach it around. Good. It is the twist under the rib cage. Beautiful and up. Turn and stretch. Place the hand back. And now we go past the little toe reaching long and left and turn and open.

Very nice and up and turn and reach it. Long past your little finger up and around and fluoresce and stretch it longer are very nice and up. Lift and reach. Just one more time and turn and come back and reach and stretch. Bring the hand into the center and bring the knee into the chest.

Stretch the body lightly over. Get along, stretch. Take a nice deep breath. Bend your knee in is to hold onto the bar, but bring both legs, both feet onto the poles and just one stretch here. Once again, getting a nice long even stretch on both sides of the spine. And now roll yourself in. Keep your arms straight and roll back. Let the bar hold all of the body weight so you're really getting a long stretch and a reach of the spine. From there, push the bar up, roll the spine up and just come all the way up in a nice, long, a aided position for the spine and bring the bar down. Very nice, beautiful Christie.

And now we're going to place one spring on and I'm going to have you lie down and kind of slide yourself down on toward the end of the Cadillac you're in. Just the way you are. Just slide and move down. Beautiful and lie down. Holding onto the bar. Now I'm going to have you place your knees over the air, over the bar. Very good. And your hands. Now down at the end, what I'm looking for is I'm going, um, measure this space from your finger to the end of the Cadillac and hopefully doing the exercise. That position is not going to move. So the first thing we are going to do in this position is a small pelvic curl.

So you're just going to curl this, the spine up good and down. Exhale, curl it up and down. This time you're going to curl and come all the way up. Very nice. From this position we're going to keep the space open from the hip flexors and we can take one leg and lifted high to the ceiling. Extend extended long. Very nice.

Now it's this space from the hip flexors that we're looking at. So as you fold the leg back over, it elongates are there side lift and reach as if someone's pulling it up to the ceiling. Keep that space open and take it all the way over and again, and we'll lift high and come and bend it nicely over. And one more time. Okay.

And reach high and folded to come over from that position. Roll down one vertebra at a time. So don't drop the tailbone, but think about the spring holding you up. So you're really working against that spring, getting a long stretch all the way through your spine. Very nice and not bad. We scooted back a little bit, but nope, it's pretty good.

And the idea here is if in fact the hands have moved back, I means the body's moved back, which means instead of that articulation, we're actually just pushing from our quadriceps to get the movement to come up. Now we're going to cross one leg over the other. So you're going to cross at the knee, beautiful and [inaudible] and that looks fine. And let's go ahead and roll up one vertebra at a time. Very nice. Beautiful. At the top of the movement, we extend the leg and bend it over again as straight down. Okay.

Now extend the opposite leg and fold it over. There you go. And maintain the alignment through the hips, through the shoulders, and roll yourself down one vertebra at a time. Back Up, huh? And if so, when we are doing this, you're going to feel the difference on the different parts of your back so that if in fact we do have a dominant side, which most of us do, we're allowing the less dominant side to lead the movement when we cross changing the alignment from the hip. So it really begins to change the focus of the movement and allow those tighter muscles to stretch, allow the less active activated muscles to activate more throughout the movement.

Take it over and [inaudible] and roll it down and right back up and lift. And last one, take it up and over and roll the spine down. One side is hard and we find it all the time. And that's the idea is to get this, give the body the information that needs so that we're working towards cemetery in the Barney too. Oh, so we're working towards alignment. We, I like to finish now keeping the legs in this position so that we're not crossed. This again, a small pelvic curl. So we finish where we started with the spine in alignment. But now because we've activated the muscles differently, we may feel the movement working differently on the different sides of the body. So we want to work asymmetrically with the goal of creating symmetry all the way through the body and all the way up last time, roll it up and roll it down. One Vertebra at a time and release. Very, very nice.

Now I'm going to have you hold the bar with your hands this time and place your feet on the Poles and they can be down. So the heels are on the carriage and the ball of the foot is pressed against the pole. From this position, we're going to do a small pelvic curl, just curling up, good and reach and press down and a small pelvic curl and come down. So a lot of this is about spinal articulation, but now what we want to do here is to free up the hips. So from this lifted position, curl up and hold. Now we're going to take the hip and I want you to think about it like a pendulum. So you're going to come up and rotate as if the top of the hip bone is going to reach to the bar and then beautiful roll down in through and up.

Now we can see that one side again needs a little more stretching than the other. The idea again is to get those hips so that we have an even stretch because if we're working in this position and we don't have an evenness to the hips, it affects everything from the way we sit to the way we walk and the way we stand up, particularly how we are carrying everything. So we're going to come up, take a breath and lift higher, inhale x good and sweep it down at the waistline and come up and lift again, lifting higher, beautiful and sweep as f. The waistline in the back is going to really sweep down beautiful and actually has to come up. Very nice and inhale to come down and actually have to come up and down and now we'll come into the center and for curls up rolling straight.

Beautiful. And uh, very nice. I can see more balance in the hips just from working there. It looks really, really nice. It's so important that we get these exercises from deep within the body working all the way from the bones. So we're working inside to outside and we the bar up. Let's have you kneel and we're going to go into our cat stretch, one of our cats. So we're going to have the, the uh, legs or hip distance apart.

The knees are hip distance apart and we watched the position of the feet so we're not letting the feet roll in or out. Now from this position, I'm going to have you keep the alignment from the pelvis, from the pubic bone to the navel. So you're going to, for the first part of this, not change the lower body position and I'm going to have you rollover, press the bar down. Good and roll down arms are straight and rural and rural. Beautiful. And don't let that the tailbone come out. Alright, now from here, think about the tailbone going to the back, the side of the room, and now open through the chest. Bring the sternum down toward the table and begin to stretch it forward. Beautiful.

So we're getting a little bit of extension tailbone still reaching behind you. From there. Roll back, begin to roll up. And now once again, get the space pew wound to Navel to be straight and come all the way up from this position. One more movement and that is to just take the upper body and do a lift. This the center of the chest, the sternum high and reached to strip.

Beautiful to stretch back. I love this stretch because really it's all of the different articulations of the spine. It really gets us all the way through all the movements, the natural movements that Mr [inaudible] taught about. And once again, this space stays a long gated. Roll yourself over. Let the tailbone go out behind you and stretch the chest as if the sternum is Rory aging along the front of the table. Come back and roll up one vertebra at a time. Beautiful articulation and drop the tailbone down and maintain that alignment.

Come all the way up. Maintain the alignment in the lower back and Jesse opera back, gets that along. Geishas and stretch all the way through and come back just one more time. And it is round anchor, anchor, anchor and now let the tailbone go. They tell them, doesn't go and chill. We have that alignment through the upper back and we pull it back, rounded under dropping the tailbone, opening the space all the way up to the navel and finishing the movement with a nice arched back. [inaudible] lower back is stable. So this is extension, not compression of the spine and come into the center and release all the way through. How are you doing? Good. Good, good Gad. It's, it's hard but it's really, the whole body is working together in harmony and we're really not overstressing one particular set of muscles over the other, which is what part of the philosophy of what we are doing. Now.

I'm going to take this down and we're going to put the um, breathing bar in, in where the trapeze was. Yeah, I'm just pull up hooking that up out of the way for us. I'm going to have you lie down on your back [inaudible] and I like the knees to be directly under the bar so you need to go back just a little bit more. Very nice. We're going to do the hundred and this is just a little fun trick I have. Let's place the both legs over the bar. Now, traditionally we do this with the hands in the straps, but this again is going to show us whether or not we are, have the alignment, um, even through the pelvis.

Because if we don't where we are when we're doing the hundred, we're working into that misalignment as opposed to really getting the body aligned. Alright, so from here, let's have you slide the arms down and lift the upper body. Beautiful. Keeping the space nice and long all the way through the torso. And now just the knees up to table top. Beautiful. You feel secure? Yup. Okay, let's begin. On the five count breath.

Inhale, one, two, three, four, five. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Beautiful. Begin to extend your legs. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five. What we're looking for is that balance group, so when as you see as the legs become a little less stabilize, what has to happen is the activation through the low part of the abdominals to keep the bar still inhale, one, two, three, four, five. Press it down to three, four, five. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five. Exhale, one, two, three, four, and five, and then the legs all the way in. Again, we're just giving the body information so that we're really working as deeply as the work was meant to be done and take that off. Okay, we're going to now put the straps up, taking this down, [inaudible] and I can hang them up. So in this exercise, you're going to lie down and you grab the straps in your hands, lying on your back. When you're in this position, this the spring should be in a fairly straight line.

What I want, uh, you to, and just a little note here is that the heavier springs are a help to you in this exercise. Lighter springs are make it more difficult. We're looking again, stabilization and this is a combination of things from the mat class. We're going to do rollover Jack Knife and teaser. Let's begin. Begin the roll over. So we're going to bring the legs up and one vertebrae at a time.

Bringing the legs parallel to the floor. From that position you press into the arms and stabilize to bring your legs all the way up. It looks absolutely terrific and anchor through the pelvis. Bring the legs back so that they're parallel to the table. Begin to roll down one vertebra at a time, opening from the throat as you come down. Also now begin to push open the arms to the sides. Sorry, open the arms and resides and lift.

And I think maybe I'll make you stay there and now bring the arms to the front roll. The two are so down and bring the legs up and over. And again, we're looking at the height of both arms in the stabilization. Lift your Jack Knife. Beautiful. Bring the legs back, roll the spine down. One Vertebra at a time and I'll stay out of your way.

Ring the legs up and out. Arms out and lift up nice and high. Roll the spine down one more time only and stretch. Good and lift. You're doing great. I know it's not an easy exercise. Rule it back and roll down one vertebra at a time.

Come up, opening the arms, lift high and open the legs. Lower the legs and bring the arms front. Oh, beautiful. Slide back just a little bit. And from here, taking the arms into the front spine. Stretch forward. So we're going to take a long inhalation and exhale and stretch. Fooling down. Beautiful. And come up and stretch. Pressing down and lift up. Stretch, pressing down.

Lift the spine, bring one arm out to the side and around toward the back, other arm out to the side and around to the back. Beautiful. And now one arm front other arm. Front, going into a hinge position. Stretch at nice and long. From there, round the spine. Roll it up, and now lift. Bring the both arms out, lift the chest, and go to an arched position. Let the spring hold you as you lightly stretch around to the back.

Lowering down. Good. There you go. And come back up from their arms to the front spine. Stretch forward. Work to your hand, both arms around. Beautiful. Bring the arms back to the sides. Lift the torso up and arms front and release all the way back.

Release all the way back, right. Come up to center. Round the back. Beautiful. And now roll your spine up and sit up nice and tall. Thank you very much.