Control and Stability Tower

I'm Mariska Brelyn from fuse [inaudible] in Washington d c where it's snowing. So I'm extra glad to be here in Santa Barbara Right now. Of course this might air on your screen in June, so that makes no sense. Disregard that completely. I'm here with Amy and Alegra and Meredith and we're going to do a tower workout.

Um, it's going to be very nontraditional. We're going to throw in a lot of fun variations and some shout outs to my mentor Julian Littleford, um, exercises that I did with him and I'll point those out when we get to them. Um, we're starting with some arms springs on there pretty low because we're going to be doing the a hundred and if you've done the a hundred with arm springs, you know, to be nice to yourself and keep them pretty low. We also have, I'm kind of ready to go with the push through bar cause that's gonna be sort of our second thing, which we'll stay with for a while. So ladies, if you'd like to lie down on your back, feet towards me, head towards the tower and then scoot away just a little bit. You don't want to be too, too far away. She gonna reach back for the handles and then press them down to your sides just so you can get a sense of how much tension they have. You don't want them to have too much, but then you don't want them to have too little.

Especially for this first part cause we're going to use a little bit of the counterbalance of the weight of the springs to make this exercise actually a little bit easier. So reach your arms up towards the ceiling. On an exhale, press your arms all the way down towards your side where they will stay. Tilt your pelvis, press into your feet and peel your back away from the mat bone by bone coming into a low shoulder bridge. So Meredith, walk your feet back as Mitch and then lay your spine down from there. As you lay your spine down, I want you to bend your elbows, fingertips to reach up towards the ceiling. Tail bone comes all the way down at the bottom. Again, on an exhale, you press into your hands, peel your back away from the mat, coming into a straight line shoulder bridge from your knees to your shoulders.

Make sure you have your ribs planned, you find a little bit of length through your low back, and then bend your elbows. As you lay your spine down bone by bone. We're doing three more like this. Exhale, pressing into your hands, peeling your back away from the Mat, slowly rolling it up, and then bend your elbows as you're rolling it down. So try to time that so it happens exactly at the same time. And then two more. Press into your hands. Peel your back away from the Mat, coming into that nice straight line, and then bending your elbows, lowering your spine slowly back down. We're going to do that one more time. Press into your hands, peel your back away from the mat and then slowly roll it down.

We're going to do one again to transition. So you're going to stay up on this next one. Press into your hands, peel your back away. Lift up and stay there. Bring your right knee up so you're gonna take your right leg in the shape that it's in. Knee above your hip. Reach your arms away from you slightly as you tap your right leg down towards the floor. With that bent knee, press your arms down, lift your leg back up three more times. Lower it down. Exhale, press to lift.

Reach Away with your leg and your arms and press down and reach away your legs in your arms and press down and then reach away. And then go ahead and we'll switch legs. So your right leg comes down, your left leg comes up. Make sure that your pelvis is square, so your right hip and left hip should be at the same height. Reach your arms up as your leg taps down. Press your arms down as your leg lifts up three more times through. Reach away and exhale to press.

Reach away and Exhale, suppress. Usually it's the upper leg that the hip starts to drop. So really focus on that up leg, staying level on this last one, you lower your foot all the way down to the floor. Press your arms down to the floor, lower your hips down slowly, bone by bone. Bend your elbows. Bring your knees in towards your chest. On an exhale, head and chest lift up. Stretch your arms long by your side, extending your legs out to your point of control for the a hundred so find a little external rotation in your legs. Begin to pump your arms.

Inhale and exhale. So it's everyone tried to bring your risks so they're really straight and that you have a lot of length through your arms length through like look at your apps. You can sync them down towards your spine, maybe a little bit more than they are and then play around with can you lower your legs down and another inter. So without losing the position of your back towards the Mat, maybe you've got one more inch in. You want to take your shoulders down and back. We're just going to hold it there. Pause. Open your legs out, squeeze them back in. Open your legs out, squeeze to come back in, open out, squeeze to come back in. Two more like this. Open out.

Squeeze to come back in. Open out, squeeze to come back in. Bend your knees slowly lower everything down. Reaching your arms up towards the ceiling. Lower your feet down towards the floor. Press your arms all the way down to your sides are going to stay low.

We're going to do little arm circles for eight two, three, four, five, seven and eight. Switch for eight two. The train is as real as the beaches. Five, six, seven and eight. Go ahead and let those arms springs go. Bend your knees into your chest. Let's rock yourself up to seated. You can take the arm springs off. We are done with those and we're not going to come back to them and they're going to set up the push through bar. So we have a red spring, reasonably high cause we want to have some support here and you're going to lift the bar up to the red spring and we're going to start seated with your feet up against the Poles. And just depending on what kind of push through bar you have, sometimes you have to make sure your feet kind of stay out of the way because the push zebra runs into them.

So I want you to first reach up towards the push through bar and then find the length through your body so you're not so much trying to fold forward as you're trying to lift up taller. So you're going to lean into it. So you're lifting up top, making sure that your ribs stay back in your body, see if you can get a little bit more lean there. And then on an exhale you're going to draw your abs back, press down with your arms, you're keeping your arms reaching, and then you push through. Now instead of reaching your nose towards your knee, I want you to think Chin towards your Shin so you're getting as much length through your spine as you can. And then you can always bend your knees if you need to to get that length. We're going to draw back slowly, bone by bone zone, almost have to slide your butt under you a little bit to keep your heels attached to the bar. Good. And then you reach up.

See you're finding that length through your spine. But again, it's a reach up, not so much a reach forward. And then again, exhale to round back. Use your shoulders, stay down. So push the bar down. Then push forward. I like thumbs around just cause I'm paranoid that people are going to look, lose some teeth. And then from there you're going to pull back with your shoulder blades, just your shoulder blades, and then push forward. Good. So pull your shoulder blades back and push forward. Nice. Couple more like this.

We've pulled back and pushed forward to more like this. Pull back and push forward. Try to keep your neck long in the front of your neck and the back of your neck. That looks nice. Do two more like this. We pull back a little bit and forward and pull back a little bit and forward.

See if you have more length to reach your body forward. Again, more Chin Titian than nose to knee. Come back a couple of inches and exhale to reach forward. Good. Two more like this. Come back a little bit towards me and then exhale to reach forward. Trying to find a lot of length through your upper back. Last one like this, and exhale to reach forward on this next one, we're gonna go back into the regular push through. So you're going to come back, try to keep your heels attached.

You have to find that Tuck in your pelvis just to slide, almost like your glutes under you, a little bit. Slow the lift up, and then again, reach up without your shoulders lifting up by your ears. One more time. We're going to do the push through. So exhale to round back. Try to keep your heels attached to the Poles. Press Down with your lapse, push forward, Chin to your Shin, and then exhale it slowly. Roll back. Everyone. Pause here. So I want you to slow the ascent of the bar up. So we're going to go up for eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

You end with the lean forward. Enjoy that stretch. And then we're going to come out from there. Turn around so that you can come underneath the bar. So we're going to start with your hands facing forward just like everyone has them. And once your hands to be in a straight line down to your shoulders and you're going to start with your knees, um, up. So tabletop legs, so you can wrap your thumbs around you. We'll make sure you're in a good here.

These are those one of those exercises that are surprisingly way harder than they look like they should be going to exhale. So lift your head and chest up so you're only coming sort of to the base of your shoulder blade. So leg or lower down a tiny little bit. This is your start position from your exhale to lift up a teeny bit higher and lower back down. Exhale to lift a teeny bit higher and lower back down. Exhale to lift. Ever have a chatty class.

Just having to do this for like 20 minutes. Exhale to lift and lower back down. So you really have to keep that pressure into the bar with your lats engaged or else you're going to start, um, getting this a little bit too much into your neck. And if you have neck issues, I don't mind if you bring one hand behind your head. I think that's totally fine. We can do three more like this. Exhale to lift and lower back down.

Exhale to lift and lower back down. Exhale to lift and hold it there. Extend your right leg out and pull it back in. Extend your left leg out and pull it back in when your leg goes out. See if you can find a little external rotation fire into that outer hip Ben to come back in, extend your other leg out and then to come back in one more each side or reach it out and bend it in and reach it out and bend it in. Lower your head and chest all the way down.

You're going to keep your legs where they are. Flip your right hand over and you might want to bring it a little bit more center. Bring your left hand behind your head. I'm going to lift straight up first. Keep your left elbow super wide, then rotate towards the right, which feels I think completely counter intuitive and then we're going to come back to center and then you'll rotate towards the other sides. We're just doing a little tiny rotation from one side to the other. Trying to keep your pelvis square.

So rotate and center and rotate and center. We're going to now keep the rotation towards the left, but extend your right leg as you lift so you rotate your right leg reaches and come back in. Rotate right leg reaches, staying to that side and come back in. Rotate right leg reaches and don't forget to try to find that external rotation of that right, like as it's reaching out. Bring it back to parallel to come in. Couple more where you reach out and come back in and reach out and come back. And last one like this, reach out and hold it there. Take your right leg, dip it down an inch lifted, dip it down an inch, lifted up, dip it down, lifted up. Three more down. Exhale up, down. Exhale up. Last one down. Exhale up, come all the way back in through the center. Lower all the way down.

Switch arms. So you're bringing your left arm, right arm behind your head, head and chest. Lift up first you're going to rotate towards your left and then lower back down and then towards your right and lower back down. Your goal here is that your pelvis is staying really quiet. Last one like this. And then we're going to lift up coming towards me and extending your opposite leg. And then back to center. Exhale to lift.

Don't forget to keep those abs pulled in. Elbow stays super wide, so if you can widen it up a little bit. Nice and come back in. Exhale to lift and back in. Exhale to lift and back. In this next one we lift and hold. Lower your leg down a couple of inches. Exhale to lift. Five more. Down and up, down and up.

Two more down. Exhale to lift and down. Exhale to lift. Bend your knee and lower your head and chest down. Leave your legs where they are. Bring both hands back on. You're going to turn them and make sure your legs are shins parallel to the floor and then let your legs go towards the right. Letting your left hip lift off. So if I'm over here and I'm on Amy's legs, I want to make sure that her knees are going to stay on exactly the same plane the entire time. Use your abs to pull your legs back towards the center.

Let's go over towards the other side and exhale to come back to center over towards the right and exhale to center. Let's go over towards the left and exhale to center over towards the right. Extend your legs straight. Keep your shoulders glued to the mat, bend your knees, come back through, center over towards the other side and extend your legs and bend your knees and come back through center one more like that. Each side over towards the right. Reach your legs long. Bend them to come back in, back to center over towards the left. Reached them long and then Ben to come back in. Come back to center.

The shape your legs are in is not going to change. On an exhale. Lift your hips up, take that shape up and over until your shins. Touch the bar harder than it looks and exhaled to roll it back down. So you're trying to maintain the bend of your knees at a tabletop position, so a little bit lower. Exhale, we're taking it up and over. Tap your shins to the bar and lower it back down. Exhale to lift and lower back down where your little fancy on the next one. Exhale to lift.

Amy's like, oh no, lift and hold, and I want you to slide your legs straights. Bend your knees and lower your hips back down and do that again. Exhale, up and over. Everyone's like, oh, joy. Slide your legs straight. Bend your knees and lower them back down. One more like this. Exhale up. Pause. Let's make it take longer.

Slide your leg straight and hold for eight two, three, four, five, six, seven. Bend your knees without lowering your hips. Then lower your hips all the way back down onto the mat. Extend your legs up to 90 degrees externally. Rotate your legs from the hips, tight hamstrings. Put a bend in your knees, not a problem at all. I want you to bend your elbows out wide to the side, keeping your shoulders attached to the mat, and then extend your arms up and overhead, keeping your arms up and overhead. Gonna take that into a rollover.

So exhale your legs up and over, not doing any fancy leg separation or anything, and then slowly roll down bone by bone, making sure that your sacrum sort of last thing down. Keep your shoulder blades glued to the mat, bend your elbows out wide to the side. Keep your shoulder blades glued to the mat, reach your arms up towards the ceiling. Shoulder blades are still glued to the mat. Chin to your chest without lifting your shoulder blades up.

Lower your legs down to about 45 degrees or so. Exhale to roll yourself up into like a mini teaser, so not all the way up because all the way up, it's easier and we're just not about that. Go ahead and lower down to your low back touches. Exhale to lift. So really pulling your abs in. Tilt your pelvis under, lower down a little bit. Nice correction. Exhale to lift. Lower down.

Exhale to lift to more like this. Lower down. Exhale to lift. And last one, lower down. Exhale to lift. Lower down. Lift your legs to 90 degrees. As you lower down shoulder blades. Come down, head comes down. Bend your elbows out wide to the side. Press your arms up and overhead.

Taking it into a rollover. Exhale, legs go up and over. Gorgeous. We're going to try to keep your legs lifted so that they're at the height that they're parallel to the floor. And then slowly lay your spine down bone by bone, so you're coming down. Tailbone is going to come down before your arms do anything. Nice. Control. Bend your elbows out wide to the side. Shoulder blade. Stay attached to the mat. Reach your arms up towards the ceiling.

Then Chin towards your chest. Then lift your head and chest up. Coming up into that mini teaser, lower your legs all the way down to that. So Allegro, lower down to your low back is touched. And Meredith as well. Lift your legs up, lower your legs. Only lift your legs up, lower your legs, only lift your legs up. Couple more like this, lower it down, lifted up last one, lower it down and lifted up, lower everything all the way down.

And then we're going to make your way up from there. Unless you have some compelling reason you want to keep going with that, we could. So, um, we're going to do a couple of, um, parakeet variations. So if you know you are a foot cramping person, um, a couple of little hints, um, that have worked over the years for me is if you keep your heels dropped more than you, you should, um, it's actually easier to not get a foot cramp. Then when you go to that full extension where you have your toes really pointed. So we're going to, um, kind of get into position as I want everyone to end up in sort of the right position. So set up first and then push the bar down to where it's right in between the two holes.

Then you're going to put your feet on it and scoot yourself back a little bit so that it basically just rests in between the two Poles. Reach your arms long by your side. And we're going to start by bending your knees in slowly in towards your chest and then pressing them back straight through. So bend your knees in. So think low abs are doing the work here, and then hamstrings and glutes pressing forward. Couple more like this. I promise you'll fill your hamstrings today with me. Exhale to push through.

I don't know, I kind of like the feel of the burn exercises. It makes you feel alive and press through. Now on this next one, you'll bend your knees in towards your going up to regular parakeets. So you're gonna reach up and then peel your back away from the Mat. One bonus, I'm once your legs are straight, so let your legs go straight first. It's read a little fun variation a lot. Um, Julian Littleford right leg goes straight up towards the ceiling. Externally rotate it.

We're going to actually take this and sort of a single leg circle. So your leg is going to go across, around and up, across, around and across, around and up. Last one, this direction across, around, lift up. Switch directions out around. Lift up, out, around. Lift up. Try to find as much length through the right side of your body here as the left side of your body. Lower your right foot all the way back down. You're going to lay your spine down, bone by bone for a little tiny break. I hope you enjoyed it cause that's all you got. Lift it right back up.

And you can also come to midfoot if holding on with sort of your toes becomes a little bit more onerous. So your left leg up. So we're going across, around, lift up, across, around, lift up again here. This is where your left side is going to start to lose some of its length. So how Amy's giving herself kind of a cue. You can um, do the same thing. I always find myself bring my hands onto my hips. We've switched directions in my mind, not necessarily in yours, but in my mind.

We did. Go ahead and bring your left leg back down and then slowly roll down bone by bone. From there, bend your knees. We're going to push the bar through till your legs are straight. Reach your arms up towards the ceiling. Keep your arms basically in that dimension, away from your chest.

Lift your head and chest up and roll all the way up to seat it. Good. From there, we're going to roll down about halfway down and then bend your knees and a little bit and press them straight. Bend them in a little bit and press them straights. Couple more like this. Bend in a little bit and press straight. Bend in a little bit and press straight.

Now Bend in a little bit and hold it there. Lower your low back down to tap the Mat. Give you the magic kiss. Lift right back, gorgeous. Lower down a little bit and exhale to lift a couple more like this. We lower down a little bit and exhale to lift up and lower down and exhale to lift up. Now let's lower down all the way down.

Reach your arms by your side. We're not quite done. Bend your knees and let your legs lift up, but not all the way straight. So our goal in this position is we're going to find a bend, which is probably not going to be a 90 degree bend, is probably going to be more like, I don't know, 107 degrees or some random number like that that we'll be able to keep the bar in the position that it's in. So arms stretch long by your side, press into your feet and then tilt your pelvis. Peel away from the Mat. So you're coming into sort of a shoulder bridge with bent knees.

I see shaking, I like it. Shaking means you're working. And then from there I want you to drop your hips down a couple of inches. X help to lift. Try to keep the bar where it is down x total through some weird noises coming from these ladies down. Exhale to lift down. Exhale to lift two or three more like this down.

Exhale to lift down. Exhale to lift. I should just let them keep going and say that I have a video of Skype recorded video of Julian little for teaching me this so I get to do it anytime I want to like hang out with him virtually down. Exhale, lift two more times like this down. Exhale, lift. Unless you want to keep going. Last one down, exhale to lift. Let your legs go straight, it will feel wonderful. And then layers find down slowly, bone by bone. Last one is just fun for a stretch. So bend your knees. Fun might not be the word. Go ahead and press your legs all the way straight and then roll yourself up.

Really however you want to get there. I like Amy's little assist that she gives herself and then reached forward and just hold onto the bar and reach forward into a hamstring stretch. Hamstrings might be a theme today cause I'm going to come back with another hamstring exercise. I have this theory that everyone overworks their quad, so I like to throw him strings in a lot. So we're going to come out of that, but we're going to stay with the push through bar for one last little series of exercises. So we're gonna do a little cat variation and this is actually, um, something away that one of my teachers who's a room monitoring teacher, um, teaches me how to do push our new end cap, which I kind of like. So we're gonna come to kneeling. You're gonna start with your elbows bent. So you want to be pretty close and not too close then.

And then you always want to find, you can collect yourself. They're going to pull your ribs in length and your low back, pull your abs in. We're gonna start by pressing your arms straight. Remember, the tough part of this exercise is that your butt gets to stay where it is and does not get to come towards me. Drop your Chin towards your chest round forward. So you're pulling yourself in, rounding for rounding forward, rounding forward.

And then you're going to go out to your, in kind of your straight line position. Now slight variation from what you might be used to depending on your, your teacher. Um, I want you to pull the bar back and think I'm down. Stretch on the reformer. So you're going to pull the bar back and send your chest through your arms, lifting up. So pull back more and you're going to take your ribs with you as you lift up.

And then you press yourself back into that position. Tuck your chin towards your chest and you're gonna round. And that last little bit is the tough part, I think. Bend your elbows at the top. Press your arms straight, Chin towards your chest, round over surrounding rounding, rounding. Try not to let your hips drift forward, which they sometimes want to do.

And then from there you're going to pull back, send your chest through your arms, think reformer. It's very similar. And then for us, yourself back out and then dry your abs in. Tilt your pelvis and round yourself back up. We'll just do one more of those. So press down, chin to your chest, round forward, and then extend. And then you'll pull back and lift your sternum. Like take your ribs with you. So I think that's a lot to people's trouble.

Sometimes with extension as they forget their ribs and they leave them where they were and lift everything else. But you want to take your ribs up, we'll round it all the way back up and you'll take that spring off. We are done with that. We're going to actually bottom load the push through bar now. So, um, if you have a spring load, you just set it up how it normally sets up. For this one, I'd give yourself a little bit of space. So sometimes I knew he'd come in and we'd take it super low, but I would lift it up to, let's see on this one, I'd maybe go to like number, the third hook or strappy section and then we're gonna bottom load it. So we have a red sprang.

You can use the blue spring if you're feeling really generous to yourself, you can use the yellow spring. So we're going to come line down. It's kind of a little bit, you're going to actually turn the other way. Yep. So your feet are towards the bar. And first lay down. You're just going to get yourself situated, reach both feet onto the bar and push the bar up. And you want to be not quite as far out as you would be for parakeet, but your legs are slightly forward of your hips.

So everyone looks good where they are. You're going to lift your head and chest up, reaching your arms forward. So think double leg stretch. Basically what it is, you're going to bend your knees in, press your legs straight, reach your arms overhead, circle your arms, bend your knees. I'm sorry. So reach out and then circle your arms. Bend your knees. Good. We'll reach out, circle your arms, bend your knees.

A couple more like this. Reach it out, circle around in bend, reach it out, circle around and bend. Reach it out. Circle around and Bendon. Um, they're all doing great job of keeping their head in exactly the same position which I want. And then circle around in bed. Now extend your legs all the way straight. Lower your head down. We're going to press into your feet and we're just going to do a little hip lifts. So hip lift off and then lower down, but not quite all the way. So your squeeze your glutes to lift lower back down.

Squeeze your glutes to lift. Lower back down, squeeze in, lift, lower back down. Couple more. Squeeze and lift and lower back down and squeeze and lift and lower back down. Squeeze and lift and hold. And then slowly lower back down. Release your left leg so your right leg is going to stay on. Your left leg is just going to reach out and it can just lay down.

Bring your right hand behind your head. Elbows super wide. Bring your left arm up towards the ceiling. So once we lift, we're going to stay up. Exhale to lift. I want you to touch the inside of your right leg with your left arm. Keep your head lifted, rotate so that your left arm goes out towards the left. Bend your right knee.

Touch your right knee and right elbow towards each other and actually if you can get them to touch, do it. And then you rotate and just good and rotate and twist. Good. And rotate and twist. Good. A couple more. We rotate and back and rotate. And back. Last one like this, rotate and back. Lower everything all the way down. We're going to switch lights. So left leg is on right leg stretches long on the floor.

If you have super tight hip flexors, go ahead and just bend that right knee. Bring your left hand behind your head, right arm reaches up first head and chest lift. Rotate to touch your hand to your inner thigh. And then you'll twist around bending your left knee, touching your knee towards your elbow or trying to get there, trying to get close ish. And then rotate and twist. So you're trying to maintain the stability of your pelvis here.

So you don't want your pelvis to be really rocking side to side. Kind of staying quiet. Good. Let's do four more. So rotate around and twist and keep that left elbow super wide. Rotate around and back. Twice more.

Rotated around and back. And last one like this, we rotate around and come all the way back down. Go ahead and bend your knee, let the strap just catch it. So we're gonna kind of let that be slow. And then scoot forward. So we're actually going to bring your body forward quite a lot. Um, so that we can push the bar up, but you're going to come up to seated. So you come up to seed it and push the bar up. So it's slightly overhead, but I want you to be able to round back from there. So Amy, scoot forward a little bit.

So even a little bit more than that cause random having your legs off. Oh, okay. So exhale to round back. So we're not coming back too far. Just a little bit. Bring your right leg into tabletops and Meredith, you can come back a little bit more than your left leg into tabletop. Okay. And then first we're just going to bicycle your legs. So rightly reaches left leg, reaches trying to keep the rest of your body where it isn't space.

So we're getting a little shoulder work here. Okay. What'd you say? Just a little, you know, I also said you could use a blue or yellow spray. I did say that just for records. Let's go ahead and have both legs bent in. Okay. Lower back down a little bit. You're with your upper body and lift up.

Now Bend your elbows and push upper body lowers down a little bit. Exhale to lift, bend your elbows and push a couple more. He lowered down a little bit and lift, bend your elbows and push just two more unless you used a blue spring at home, in which case five more. After that, lower down a little bit and lift, bend your elbows and press now lower down so that the strap can catch it and it will slowly make your way out of that. Let's go ahead and take this spring off and then you can take the strap off and just hang it up so it's kind of out of the way. And then let's put the roll down bars on like not super high, not like to the very, very top of the um, tower. But you know, pretty high. [inaudible] there's one, I think the third one. Yeah, the third one.

So right underneath where the red spring is for them. Yeah, that's it. Okay. Let's come. Kneeling facing towards the camera side first. So you're on your knees and you want to be not too far away, but you also don't want to be too close. So your, I know that's like, nope, no instruction at all. So you want to be far enough away that you can press your arm down, but not all the way to your hip, but down kind of close ish.

Reach your right arm up towards the ceiling. And here we're going to do not aside bend, I don't like the word side bend, we're gonna do a side reach. So I'm eyeballing for them where the ceiling and the wall come together. That's where I you to have your arm go. So you're going to reach up to go to this side and you're making sure that your ribs stay in and they're doing a great job with that. And then you come back up.

And my challenge I'm going to give to you is try to keep the bar level meaning one side isn't higher than the other and come back up. So we're reaching up and back three more like this, and two more like this. And last one like this. And then we come up and you might want to be nice to yourself and come a little bit more towards me for this next one because you were getting it a little bit heavier. So it's going to be a little bit more supportive. So bring your right hand behind your head. Shoulders down.

Same basic principle where you're gonna bend but not bend. You're gonna reach over. So you're pressing the bar down and then lift your outer leg just up. Yes. So, um, from there you're going to press the bar down a little bit and see if you can just hover your right, like off the mat just a little bit, just a little bit, and then you lower it back down and hover it a little bit up and lower back down just to more, hovered a little bit up and lower back down, hovered a little bit up and lower back down. And then let's not do any more of those because they're so hard. So we'll just turn around and do the other side. So remember again, it's a side reach, not a side bend.

You're keeping your ribs with you head stacked directly over your shoulders. Always keep your Chin in line with your cleavage. If you're wondering where your head should be. So press down, let your left arm lift up. We're going to reach up to go to the side and then come back. Good. So I think we did about six or so in the last side. So reach up and side and back and up inside. And so they're all doing a great job of this, but just make sure that your shoulder is really staying in place so you don't want your shoulder coming up by your ear. And if it is, it might be a little bit too heavy. So you might want to play around with where the spring position is.

Now if you want to be a little nicer to yourself, you're gonna walk out a little bit so you can create a little bit more tension. You're going to bring your left hand behind your head, reach up to go to the side, and then extend your leg out. Good. Now press down a little bit into the bar. It's your counterbalance to lift your leg up just a little tiny bit and lower it back down. Lift up a little tiny bit and lower down. I think we did roughly five or so lift up. Everyone's like, I think it was three lift up.

So my least favorite exercise in all the places, anything in this family, anything that resembles a kneeling sidekick, not a fan. Go and lift up. It's very important to do obviously though. And then come on, we're gonna turn around and come lying down on your stomach and take the bar with you. So always remember springs like to close. Try not to have your face or my face or anyone else's face anywhere near them and to hold on to the outside of the buckles and then make sure your arms can be straight. So if you need to scoot back some so that you're not running into anything else that's on there. So let's start by lifting your abs off the mat so it's a lengthening of your low back for most people so that you feel equal pressure in your hip bones and your pubic bone against the mat.

Now I challenge you to do that without squeezing your glutes. Press the bar down, lift your head and chest up. I don't care if the bar goes all the way to the floor or not. It might not. Nice. And everyone's doing a good job of taking their ribs up as they come up. And then you're going to length, then all the way back down.

So again, we're pressing down to lift up. Shoulders are staying down your back. Good. And then reaching away. Good. Let's do two more like this. So oppressed down as you lift and lower back down on this next one, we're going to stay up, so pressed down, so maybe not to the your Max. So maybe about halfway. Imagine that that bar is on a shelf and you're going to keep it on that shelf.

Pull the bar in towards you and then reach it away. But stay on exactly the same plane that you're on. Good. Pull towards you. Okay. And reach away. Pull towards you an reach away and they're all doing a nice job of this.

But make sure that your risks don't break. So I'm literally or figuratively, you want to make sure you don't have wrinkles in your risks, so nice long risks here. Bend it in and press it straight. Let's do two more like this. Again, trying to maintain that level of the bar. Bend in and press straight and bend in and press street released your left hand or right hand and then you're slowly going to make your way up so you can let the bar go anywhere. Take that bar off and we're going to put the purple springs on and I'm going to say put the purple springs on at a generous height for doing magician variations because we are going to be up there for awhile.

You don't want it to be so high that you start to feel it in your back but don't have, it's like super low, like the standard setting. The standard setting is awesome if you want to try it, but we're going to be there a while so you probably don't want it to be super, super, super well you're welcome. Go ahead and lie down on your back. So head towards the tower, feet towards me, and you want to be far enough way that your arms can be straight or almost straight. And when you're pushing into the Poles. So for me, I'm thumbs with fingers because I don't like the pressure that it puts on your thumb joints. So I try to bring thumbs, same side as fingers. Let's go ahead and bring your legs into the Purple Springs straps. And I can say this, I've tried this at home on Grad Springs.

Don't necessarily recommend Grad springs because they're so heavy that it's actually like it's super excruciating. So if you have slightly less heavy than the super super heavy springs, the like purple springs are kind of perfect. So you reach your arms back behind you. Think of it as a pelvic curl first. So legs are reaching straight up. Let's find an external rotation in your legs. Press into your feet as you tuck your pelvis in, Peel your back away to come to a straight line. Gorgeous.

So you want to make sure you're pressing down enough and lifting your hips up enough that you're going to be able to take your legs into an extension of your hip. So from there, press your legs down slightly past your hip. Circle around and up. Good. Press down slightly past your hip. Circle around and lift up. Go down slightly and around and up.

So not far down, but make sure there's nothing moving in your upper body. Your torso is staying exactly where it is and you're just working at going into that hip extension and then coming out of that hip extension. Well, let's switch directions. So go out, push your legs past your hips, and then lift it back up. Reach it out, push down and lifted up. Reach it out, push down and lift it up. A couple more like this. Reach it out. Push down and lifted up. And last one, reach it out. Push down and lifted up. Bend your knees and lower your hips down for a little break.

So this next set is a little bit longer. We're going to take a break in between both sides. I will point out the Julian did not let you take breaks in between sides and he sometimes had 80 year old women doing it. But you know whatever we're going to do, we're going to do our version thing. So legs up towards the ceiling. Same deal.

You're going to press into your feet and peel your back away from the Mat. So your come up to that straight line. Legs are externally rotated. That's happening from the hip joint. Go into hip extension with your right leg, so your right leg goes down slightly below your left leg. From there we're going to lower it down in inch. Lift up, down in inch, lift up, down and up. So it's a squeeze of your glute to move your leg. Go down, lift up five more like this. Down and up.

Two and up three and up four. This is only the first of three sets of things we're doing. Now you're going into little circles, eight each direction. Two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Switch Directions for eight. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, an eight. Now your leg is going to beat and underneath your other leg 50 times because 50 was Julian's favorite number and this exercise was 50 times. You can count on your own, I think right about 20 [inaudible] 33 four five six, seven eight 42 three four five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 leg comes back together.

We'll take a little break. I ever burns, but it's how we know we're alive. I think. Reach your arms back. We have one last thing to do here and then one last thing after that and then we're going to be done. So press your feet down, lift your hips. UPS are coming in to that straight line. Good. You're going to use your hip extensors to press that left leg down so it's below your hip level. Good. And your right leg is kind of just where it is.

So you're 10 times down, up, down, up. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 hips, really quiet. Eight circles each direction. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Switch directions. Two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Little beats, 52, three four five, six, seven, eight, nine ten two two three four five, six, seven, eight, nine ten three two, three. Keep your hips up. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 around for two or were you in three? You're four for keeping me honest. Seven, eight, nine and 10 legs up. Bend your knees lower all the way down. And we will come out of those. I see no reason to keep going with that.

So go ahead and have your legs come out. Take a little stretch, hug your knees in. We're gonna rock a little from side to side, just releasing your low back and then rock yourself up to seated. So these, um, pushed through bars have the pad on them so they're not too uncomfortable to put your feet on. Um, if you don't have that, you might want to take something and like place it over. So most of the time with any exercises, sort of a planking exercise, I would not go to the top of the feet, but on this one it just works out better. So you're going to come, um, to a quadramed position facing towards me and then extend your legs out so that you can bring, just see how long your legs need to, how far you need to be away so that you can put your foot on. So if you can put your phone on, like Amy's got it on where she's got her toes tucked under, that's fine, but you can also drape your foot over whichever works for you. Now squishy masks like this and risks tend to not get along. So in this case, and like basically only in this case I would say grab the outside edge cause it's a little bit more wood and less squish.

So we're going to come into plank from there. So you're going to pike your hips up. So use your abs to lift your legs up, drop your head weight, and then come back into a plank. Good. Most important thing here is that you're not sinking in your low back and you want to make sure that your hands feel Florida Smidgen so they're right underneath your shoulders. So we're lifting it up and reaching it back out. A couple more lifted up and are reaching out to more like this. Lift up and back out.

One more like this lifted up. Come back to that nice straight line plank. And we're going to do eight to 10 pushups. I can't count. So it might be two for you and it might vary on how much of an elbow bend do you want to have. And then when you're done with your number, you're going to come to your knees and press back to child's pose. Since we're on these nice lifted up mats, let's walk your hands over to one side.

So we're going to go your hands over towards the right and you can really use the edge of the mat to pull back on. So you're stretching out the entire left side of your body, which I think feels very nice. Okay. And then we're going to come over to the other side and give yourself a little pulse again with a little stretch through your shoulders and then come back to center. So your head is down, circle your arms back around you, grab hold of your heels and give yourself a little pull and round your low back some. So pulling your abs up. So give yourself a nice stretch through your back. Okay.

And then slowly make your way all the way up. So just swing your legs around so that your legs are facing forward. And I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't leave you with some hamstring stretches. So legs all the way forward. So whenever you want to stretch your hamstrings, the better way to stretch them is with your back, completely flat so that you're tilting your pelvis anteriorly. And that kind of gets into the connections.

So you kind of stick your butt back a little bit. Rib stay in though, and you're just going to lean forward. So you're trying to have that stretch go really kind of high up into where your hamstring insertions are. And then when you feel like you've got no more room to get this stretch there, then you can fold your back so you get a little bit of a stretch in your low back as well. Just let your head weight drop and to always find to have a little bend in your knees. Hm.

And then when you're ready to rejoin the world, slowly make your way up to seated. Give yourself the hand. That was tough. Nice job.