Upper Body Cadillac

Hello. I am Jennifer Golden Zuman and I am very happy to be back here at Palazzos anytime again. Today I'm going to do some exercises on the Cadillac. We're going to do a bit of monkey business today. We're going to focus on how we utilize the upper body for overall body health, and I'm going to throw a couple of concepts in there as well while we're working. But first I'm going to show you what we're going to use so you can get everything prepared if you're going to do it. Along with me, I've got my trapeze bar set up with the sling beneath.

We've got the fuzzy straps aren't as well, and I'm also going to use this breathing sling, which is a wonderful item here that you can use with pretty much the rollback bar slings. If you don't have one of these, you can snag a foot strap off your reformer or any other kind of sling will work. We're gonna use some arm springs. I'll just put 'em away as I described. And then we're also gonna use the rollback bar. So I'm going to clear this stuff out of the way. We're going to get up on top and we're going to start right away thinking about what it's like for humans to climb.

So the first thing we're going to think about is the squat, but we're going to combine the squat with a little bit of an upper body feeling to it. Looking at the broad musculature and connective tissue that connects the arms through the front and through the back of the body, down into the legs. We're going to focus on the idea of climbing, but I want to suggest that within that idea of climbing is as much leg activity as arm activity. Essentially climbing is crawling upwards, so we're going to begin with our legs and feet and ankles to get a little bit of sense of spring. So you can hold on to the verticals here just so you can lower yourself down into a comfortable squat.

Don't lean back too far and do lift your heels when you feel they need to if you feel they need to. And we're going to rock forward a little bit into the ball of the foot, spreading the pads of the toe balls, bed. And then without bringing the knees back too far, we're going to lower the hinge of the ankle. And let's just rock that a few times. If it's not comfortable for your knees, just do it as low as you can or please some pads were rolled up. Towel behind your knees to protect them from bending too far.

After a few of these, we're going to stand up straight up, not going to roll up. We're not going to fold back up and it's gonna go straight up. And then we're gonna go straight back down. And then we're going to go straight up again and straight back down. And I want you to give your arms a bit of this job.

So start to your arms to be involved. So you're balancing the leg straightening with the arm, pulling, beginning to activate the whole body. To do this together, we're going to take this one step further. Now we're going to hold on to the top. And this time when you dropped down, I want you to imagine it's a combination of a stand up and a pull up.

We'll do a few more of these up here, working evenly with the arms and legs. Now this won't do it for you. You have to decide to find a balance between your arms and legs. And then we're going to take one leg off as we squat and Paul up and switch legs. Okay, let's do one more of these to each side.

Yeah, and then we're going to turn it just a little bit. We'll do three to one side. Your hands will come to the corner instead. Deep Squat and lift yourself. [inaudible] three will be good. And then switch sides. One, two, three. Good. Shove your heart rate up a little bit. Now surprisingly, arm work gets your heart rate up faster than running or a lot of other leg activities.

Now we're going to hang off the side and get a little bit of links in the body, so lower yourself down slowly and if you feel it's acceptable, you'll bring your legs down. We're going to bring up one leg and as it comes down, a little extension other leg and see if we can do both when we do both. Avoid going this way. Pull your knees in towards your chest. One more set, one leg, other like and both. And step back up. Oh, well I'm already working. Hopefully you're already working to now we're going to let ourselves hang a little bit more, but we're going to work with the trapeze bar.

I really enjoyed doing this using the fuzzies because it gives me a chance to spiral the arms a little bit. So you're going to bring your hands through, grab on and pull so your hand gets more solid in there. Okay. And then we'll bring your feet up to the top of the trapeze and lower yourself down. Now if you're tall, your bottom might touch the floor and then you'll have to hold on up top. And we're going to just glide the scapula up and down, sliding the tissue along your back and then glide press with your legs to lift and then lower back down. Glide and press and lower back down. One more glide and Elongate the spine and then lower back down and step down.

Okay. Alright, we're going to turn the other way now and we're going to do a little bit of hip extensions and hold ourselves up with the upper body. So start by putting your right leg back into your sleigh. Okay. Hold on firmly with your hands. Bend your front knee and we're basically going to find a little rocking motion.

This is fun. Just enjoy it. You rock a few times and on the next one you're going to hold yourself up and switch legs. That's the trick. And we'll do about four here. Yeah, deepening the breath. Hold yourself up. One more rep to each side. Yeah, make the breath complete. We want to give as much attention to the inhale as we do to the exhale.

It's tempting to say, I want to tighten my abs. I want to use everything so we exhale hard, but we need to inhale and strengthen our diaphragm so we can exhale efficiently as well. All right. Now we're going to go ahead on to setting up the breathing slang on this side. I'm just going to flip these guys out of the way. [inaudible] okay, now is the time that I get to introduce you to my favorite muscle, my favorite muscle. You don't need to remember the name, but if called serratus posterior inferior.

Now I don't care if you know the name, but I do care if you know where it is. It is similar to what we're gonna do with this harness. It's along the back this way and it draws the ribs towards the spine on the exhale, which prevents us from collapsing the ribs on this side of the exhale. So we breathe in, feel harness of it, and as we exhale, it slides towards the midline. Now, it doesn't do that all by itself, but what it does is stimulate the broad fashion of the back to remember to cinch at this direction and not just this direction. This is a wonderful reminder from now on, I'm going to call that muscle SPI.

That's what I call it. That's his nickname around my parts. So you're going to put this around your back and they're just going to have a seat. What's nice is this gives us some support through that mid spine. All right, and it gives you a sense of this back harness. So the first thing we're going to do is pelvic curls.

We want to avoid collapsing in the thoracic spine when we try to roll, and that's what this will do for us. It's supports and allow yourself to be lifted and then we all will exhale and roll the pelvis back. Inhale here and then exhale, roll forward. Allow yourself to be lifted by the sling and again, gives us a good opportunity to isolate the low back and the low belly. For any of you that have ever had children and have gone through pregnancy, this is a wonderful way to get out of that tilt that likes to stay with your pelvis for the next number of decades afterwards.

No, after the rollback, we're going to do a hinge back. We're going to bring your hands behind your head and feel the elbow spiral upwards, lifting you up now. Just lean back and then find a balance of being lifted and resisting. If it's possible to do this with your legs straight, go right ahead. [inaudible] lean back and resist and be lifted.

Breathe in and breathe out. We're working the abdominals in a very long way here. One more time. Now we're going to put that together so we're going to hinge back and then we're going to curl and then we're going to lift back up and be lifted by the sprays, hinge, curl, lift and be lifted one more time. Developing some control of these muscles allows us to have better control of the rib cage without having to compress them in the front. Now we're going to twist, twist, and lean and then resist as you come back up. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale and one more good. Now to get out of here safely, you have to let it go slack a little bit, so I recommend sitting up first and then taking it off. Otherwise it'll smack you on the back of your head and that will be fun. Going to take off the breathing slang and I'm going to trade it out with the rollback bar. All right. We've replaced the breathing slang with the roll back bar. So we're going to have a seat and we're just going to start with a couple of straight rollbacks because I just love these. So I like to inhale on the initiation.

Inhale as you slide the hamstrings, slide the sitting bones into the hamstring and then exhale, unfurl the spine back down to the mat. Inhale to inflate the upper spine and lift and then exhale to roll back forward. Stretch all the way up the angle of the springs and keep in tune with that SPI harness that you have built in for yourself so you don't collapse as you come up. Inhale and exhale. Okay, inhale and exhale. We'll do one more of these [inaudible].

We're going to move into a sternum lift, so we're going to pull the bar towards the chest. This is echoing the exercises that we just did with the sling, but we've developed our own internal support for them. This time we'll do one more of these. Good, and now we're going to hold with one hand in the center. The other arm is going to go right underneath. As we roll back, allow that arm to sweep and allow your head to follow. Inhale, slide the leg over to the other, open it back up and sweep back up. I really like at the end to keep drawing back above the pubic bone, but lifting up towards the springs towards the angle of the springs.

Oh two two more times the left leg going over to the right, moving into a half moon shape. [inaudible] and one more of these. No, moving to the other side. Now as we continue with this, I want to suggest the importance of allowing free movement through the abdomen. One of the most remarkable things about all these PyLadies exercises is that every exercise massage is the visceral massage is origins. It's it's all a stomach massage, stomach massage, and every exercise and what we're learning about the nervous system and neuroscience as that, we do have our body mechanics.

We have the receptors that tell us where to move and what to do. But what we also have is internal sensors that give us more of a sensory relationship and there are many, many of those in within this Oregon bag. So what we do in [inaudible] is really that body, mind relationship. For the next one, we're going to spiral a little bit. We're going to put your feet underneath the strap.

So we're going to start with the twist and we're going to three times saw back. And on that last one we're going to rotate all the way onto your hip and lift up through the waist and reach and then let the springs lift you. And let's go to the other side. One, two, and on three we roll on to the hip. Yeah.

And we hover. This shoulder is getting pulled by the bar. This shoulder is reaching out. You're splitting at your midline. We'll do one more set of these to each side. Two and three maybe reach through the hand. Yeah, one, two. And as you go, turn your hand like you're going to catch a ball. Good. All right. Now, the reason I told you about that abdominal massage idea is because it's really important to wake up and find the elasticity of the elastic recoil in your abdomen. So we're just going to put the hands on the bar here.

We're going to do a little sequence that I call the abdominal massage sequence. The idea is we cannot squeeze the abdominals. As we inhale, we inflate everything and as we exhale we let the elasticity return it and try not to collapse through the rib cage. So starting with the legs bent in a comfortable shelf position, we're going to inhale in, roll to the right, find the moment of resilient return to exhale and pull you back so we're not really muscling it. Inhale, we're tuning into our, as we exhale our elasticity. If you go too far, the Yoyo won't come back up. We want to find your body's resilient range. One more of these to each side. Inhale, the shoulders do very little.

The arms are just stabilizing you. Complete inhale and complete. Exhale. Now we're just going to take the right leg away from the midline in. Roll it back into the socket again. We're looking for our resilient range. When were these to each side?

She'd be like a windshield wiper. Not coming closer or further away, but just opening up, staying on the windshield. Now the legs will come up straight. We're going to repeat that same idea, but this time we're going to let the pelvis rotate. Okay. The leg that is up stays up and the pelvis rotates away. One more of these to each side.

Yeah, and then bring both knees back in. We're going to inhale as we roll to the right and as we exhale we're going to reach out, so the top legs and across the bottom legs going to stretch and then gather it all back in. Now it's tempting here to really go for a stretch. I know, but I want you to only go as far as the web will still return you. If you picture that you're wearing some tights or something, you stretch into it, but you don't want to break them. And last one good. And now we're going to take the bar once again, but we're going to put our knees around the bar. [inaudible] press out so your arms are straight.

Okay. Solid activity with your grip against the bar. And just a few times we're going to inhale at the legs, come in and exhale. Press down. [inaudible] make it a stomach massage.

And then we're going to continue into the roll up. So we roll up and follow the angle of the springs and then we'll roll the spine back down. Bringing the feet to the floor. Now I'm not too concerned where you're breathing in and out. I'm mostly concerned that you are breathing in and out. So whichever pattern feels more organic for your body, makes sure the breath is complete.

And with each inhale you're completely filling the upper part of the lung as well as the lower and that you're exhaling thoroughly. Now we're going to do with the Ferris wheel, so we're going to come up and lift the hips to come down and bounce right back the way you came. Roll Up. So we get to go from flection to extension in mid air. Okay. Now we're going to have some fun with it. So as we roll up, we're going to come down and just hang out here for a moment. We're going to do smell jumps.

Want you to find the springiness of the feet two more and bring the knees in and roll back down. Now in order to come out of here, when you do hold the middle, bring your legs up, take them open, roll the spine all the way down. Okay. And then released with one hand, we're going to turn around. I'm sweating. It's really hot.

I hope you guys are getting that kind of workout too. So now we're going to roll back. We're going to find a hammock in the body. So we're going to roll through the spine and I want you to imagine that you're resting in a hammock so it doesn't require a lot of work in the upper body. It just requires letting your arms create this hammock shape and you're going to inhale slide one leg and exhale, draw it back in.

The real challenge here is not to allow your pelvis to get pulled up. So if you need to adjust that, you can get a little closer in. The bar. Won't be pulling you quite so much. [inaudible] now this is warming us up for what we're about to do. Ideally, there should be no tension in your neck here at all because you're just holding yourself up here. Okay?

Okay. Now I'm gonna move a little bit closer for this next one. As we roll back, we're going to find our landing point. Then the legs are going to slide in. Come through the bar and then press the bar. Bring the legs back in. Now this is a really hard moment.

Your feet come down and then you roll up. Let's do three more of those cool legs. Come in, press and down. Feet come down. Roll it up one more time and roll up. Okay, we're going to switch around now and use the push through bar, so I'm going to take this out of the way. We're going to set up one spring top loaded. The first thing we're going to do here is just a straight push through so the legs are going to go up against the vertical pipes. Okay?

No, I like to do these. I know there's many ways to do these. I like to do these, keeping the arms straight, so we're going to begin with the inhale and roll back through the pelvis and then exhale, press down through the bar, stretch through. Okay, well back control. The bar is it comes back up and then lengthen the spine up towards the springs. [inaudible] two more of these [inaudible].

Okay. Now we're going to do a few push through variations which are going to contribute to our understanding of this new muscle that we've just talked about. We're going to do a kneeling version of the push through now like you to have your feet if you can tucked under, so you're making a solid anchor with your ball of your foot towards the floor. We're going to bend the elbows and pull the bar down. Now we don't want to let go of our SPI sling like that. We want to keep control of it.

And now I want you to imagine that as you get through here and you elongate from sitting bones to Crown [inaudible], that you can feel the front of your spine, not the front of your abdomen, but like you're pulling up the tissue at the front of the spine, behind your Oregon bag. Now we're going to inhale and come up just a few inches and then exhale, pull up behind your organs and to [inaudible]. It's going to restrict how far you go with your arms and then roll the spine back up. Another set of those rolling down. You long eating out. Once you get there, inhale.

Yeah, it's like a little swan. Okay? Within this kneeling, push through and now we're going to go one step further with that. Now we're going to take you to a standing position, kind of. We're going to roll down first theater parallel as you get to the part where you can round the most. You could possibly just really round that up or back, but if you give attention to that SPI, then you can just elongate your spine instead if you to bend your knees here.

That's quite all right. We come up again and down two, three and roll your spine up. Now we're gonna do a single leg, so you're going to bring your right leg in. Okay. As you stretch out, you're gonna reach that leg back, come up and down two. Your foot can be flexed or pointed whatever feels best for you, and then pull your knee in as you come back up without putting that leg down. We're going to do again on the same side.

Okay. One, two, three, and bring it in other leg. Okay. Imagine that your foot is pressing against something. So not only are we stretching out, but we're getting feedback against the palm and the foot. [inaudible] yeah, I always like to finish this series with one more to the center.

Okay. Thinking about the relationship between the hands and the feet and how those two ends work together for movement. Good. From here, we're going to go into some teasers. We're going to lie down. Yeah.

And inhale at the beginning. As you inhale, you inflate the upper back ribs and that provides your initial lift. And then as we exhale, the legs follow to come up. We'll just three arm pumps to begin. Oh, and then roll with control, right back down, barely touch. And then inhale and exhale back up again. Okay.

And Roll. Barely touch and up once more. Now we're going to take the legs to the side and stretch and then gather back. This is another one, our recoil moments. So we're looking for the elastic range that pulls us right back. Again, look for the sensory reception, not just the movement, not just how far can I stretch, how far can I work, but what am I feeling?

Okay in my tissues and lower back down. [inaudible] all right, that should get those abdominals active. Now we're going to come around to the other side here. So here we're going to have a little bit of a set up. We're going to switch out our robot bar and instead put on our handles. Yeah, and if you have the type of machine that has a sliding bar, you're going to want to slide that out of the way and then secure it.

Well, so it doesn't become a guillotine on you while you do this next exercise. So we're getting just an extension work here. Now the key to extension work for getting a good thrust to your upper spine is to get a good activation through the sacrum and the back of the legs. So we're going to use this strap here. Now I really like if you can get the strap to be up really at the upper part of your hamstrings. It gives a nice signal.

So let's see how we're going to get in here. We're just gonna slide on in. We're going to be laying on your belly off the front of your machine. So let's see. Can you put your hands on the floor? And you're going to scoot yourself in. Now you want to place yourself on here. So your front hip bones are at the very edge, so they're on, but all the softer tissue is off. And this gives you some nice feedback.

So when you take a breath in and then you exhale, you should feel the bones stay against the table. But all the softer stuff, lift away from the table. It probably won't lift away from the table, but it shouldn't be your point of contact with the edge. Now the first thing we're going to do is just hang down, let your forehead rest onto your hands and you really might just want to stay here all day. Actually, this might just be the end of your workout, but I'm going to take us a little further. So we're going to lift the legs into the strap.

Please keep them parallel here and Elongate the spine forward. Think less about upwards. Think more about forwards and then back down and again, reach cool and down. And one more time. Okay, good. Now you're going to reach up and hold on to your handles here. Once you get to this sort of hover and actually feels a little bit like being on an open chain when did share.

So we're just going to lift up and now you have to work a bit to press back down. But I don't want you to change the shape of the shoulders. I don't want you to round your shoulders out. Okay, one more of these basic swans. Then we're going to bring one side up and press it down other side up and press it down. One more to each side like this. Let your head turn all the way back.

The connective tissue of your neck is connected all the way down into the tissue, around your lungs and heart. So turning your head stimulates the organs in the chest cavity. Now the opposite arms going to go forward and bring them both back down other side. Bring them both back down. Now this is harder to control than it looks, so don't be surprised if it takes you a while to get to all these. No, bring them forward and Poe down. Forward, rise up, pull down one more. Cool.

And now bend your elbows and then push yourself up. Bend and push one more and press it down to your about level with a table. And we're just going to do pushups here. One, two, three. Good. That'll be the end of that sequence right now. The best way out is forward.

So you're going to wiggle yourself forward till your feet come out. And then just step one foot at a time down to the floor. We're going to make our way now over to the other end of the machine and we're going to do some leg springs. I have the leg springs set up over here because I kind of like to use the push to bar sometimes when I'm doing leg springs, which I'll show you in a bit. So first we're just going to do some straight leg springs lying on your back, putting both feet in.

I'm a big believer of trying to put your feet in at the same time and then press out so your arms are straight. The first one goes by many names, but I'm going to call it dolphin because of where we are. So the inner edge of the foot is going to stay together. The feet will come down, slide out, come up and then bend back in, down, slide out. And because of the exercises we've done previously, you should have a very good sense of control of your torso without having to be rigid through the rib cage, switched directions, reach.

So we've got a very dynamic sense of control, moveable and pliable. Two more times, I'm going to turn it into circles. Now, open, left hips roll through the socket. I like to give a sense of stimulating the socket, so try to explore the hip socket as you roll with each leg and note where and how they feel different switched directions. They will inevitably feel different and that's okay. Each leg just has to do their best. It doesn't have to be like the other two more times. Good. Now we're going to take them off and we're going to turn onto your side.

I have the push through bar with no springs on it. I'm just going to use it to give me some feedback through the upper body, so I'm going to use the front spring. If you prefer the back, that's fine, but for now I'm going to use the front spring. I'm going to rest my lower hand so my head is on it and my other hand is going to be right there at the front corner of the bar. As my leg goes forward, I'm going to bring the bar back. As my leg goes back, I'm going to allow my torso to rotate a bit without losing this torso control.

I've been developing this whole time. So the key is once your body has done it, once we've done a principle in the class, in your workout, it stays. So we worked on rib kids' control. It's here to stay. You're not allowed to let it go just because we're not on that exercise anymore. One more good and we'll take that off your foot and turn to the other side.

Legos forward and the arm comes back. Finding the connection from the upper and lower body. We've got a very nice, very direct Fastenal connection from the one arm and out through the legs and we're exploring the elasticity of that connection in both the front and in the back body here. One more. Good. Alright. And we'll take that off here. Okay.

Now we're going to do a little bit of a side bend exercise while we're here with the push through bar, we don't want it to be lonely. Going to attach a spring here. We're going to bring the hand to the middle of the bar and you're going to lay off this side. Now, if you feel unstable here, just slide your strap over and put your feet in it. It gives a different dynamic to this exercise, but I want you to have your rib cage off the side. The other arm is going to be down. We're going to come up.

Let the bar lift you when you get here, turn and then look towards the floor. Remember how I mentioned that the tissue of the neck connects down into the rib cage. So imagine that as we do this, we are massaging the lungs and the heart fulfilling Mr [inaudible] request for a whole body fitness exercise, internal and external health. Either side, turn the head, but not so much of the torso. See if you can control the difference two more. And if you find differences on the two sides, just note them. Rather than try to change them, just explore what each side feels like.

All right, we're going to put this down. We're going to go back up again and we're going to do some inversions. If you're sweaty like me, probably going to need something sticky for your hands to be on. All right, I'm ready to hear with my stickies and I set my trap. He's bar back up very close to this end. We're going to do a suspended side plank and push up pull up kind of kind of thing. So we're going to be off the side here.

So you're going to step off the side, Hook your feet up into your trap piece. The hands are going to be pretty narrow here. You got to keep them pretty narrow and you're going to hang down. The first thing we're going to do is just stretch out and do a pull up slowly descend. That is the key with things like pull ups is to work during the e centric moment.

So right here to really get work now can to keep one hand on and drop the other hand down and then come back to the center and do a pull up. If you're up to it other side, bring your feet closer together. And as you let go of one side, you're going to keep going and bring your knee through. And if you're up to it, throw in a pull up, why not? And then the other side, let go first. Keep turning, bring your knee through, back open. Of course, do not attempt this on your own without a spotter if you're not totally confident in your grip. A lot of people don't have a very strong grip when they begin.

But consider how important our grip is to climbing. You're going to climb something. You don't start with your shoulders, you start with your, your grip. So it's just something that needs to be developed. All right, we're going to move this guy out of the way. Now all the way down to the end, we're going to unfold our fuzzies and get ready for a couple more fun upside down, hanging around things we've been building to this moment. Kay, we're gonna do an inside out stretch. And actually what I'm going to do instead of holding on to here is hold on to the fuzzy. So I'm going to put these down for the moment to wait. So the hands will go into the fuzzies.

We're going to step up with one foot and swing over so your feet come to the end and hang down and then pull yourself back through and control your return. Then step up with the other foot. Foot goes up. Climb yourself over. [inaudible] this is one moment that sweating does help you slide your feet well, bring it back through and down. Okay. You can do a few more of those if you're up to it.

And then we're gonna do another suspended twist. So I'm going to set these guys up over here this time. [inaudible] we're going to bring your foot to the same side. Fuzzy. So my right foot is going into the right side, fuzzy and I'm going to hang down, bring my knee in. You're going to, and then open, twist open. [inaudible] no, this time I'm going to reach up and stretch over and put tension into the fuzzy to come down. Okay.

And hating for a moment before going to the other side. Now may take some time to build up doing all these in sequence because it is a lot of strength for the upper body. The forums especially. You have to give those some time to shrinking. [inaudible] twist and open to up and over and control. Yeah, the return. All right, so the last one we're going to do here is another inversion based on a common one that we do the candle, but instead of just doing the candle straight, I want you to think about jackknifing into the candle, so we'll step over into it.

Okay. I'm sure it started to get pretty close. You're going to step one foot up and then fold yourself down into a basket, open in the candle fold and open and fold, and you should sufficiently feel like a monkey at this point and you'll go off and enjoy the rest of your day.