Athletic & Powerful Reformer

Hey everyone, we're back, E-dog, P-dog. Ready for a powerful Reformer? You ready to rock? I am. Sweet. Let's go. (hands clap)

Alright, so I want you guys to set yourself up for footwork. We're going into that momentarily but we're gonna start kneeling with our feet up against the shoulder blocks for a quick just, little bit of moment to check in on our system. And then we'll start usin' those springs. So come all the way up to high kneeling. Just notice your knee position.

Make sure that your feet are up against the shoulder blocks, that the knees are stacked underneath those hips. Give a slight drop of the tail and a lift of the abdominals in and up. Relax the arms down by the sides, lift through the top of the crown of the head, and allow the arms to be an extension of the spine as you inhale up, (breathes in) and exhale, open the chest, bend the elbows (breathes out), and draw the arms down to your side. Good, do that again, inhale up (breathes in), and open those elbows, expand the chest slightly, and draw the arms back down. Good, one more of those as you inhale, just feel how the shoulders feel right now, and open that chest and draw the arms down by your sides.

From here take a nice inhale again. Exhale, nod the chin up and over around that imaginary tennis ball and come down. Put the hands on the platform in front of you. From here you want to think about good relationship from your shoulders to your wrist. Slightly push outward through your pinky fingers to find that nice shoulder stability, and exhale into a little bit of a cat, so drop the tail, round the spine to the ceiling, and hollow the belly out.

Head follows and then inhale back into that flat back and slightly into a little bit of extension. Just mobilizing the spine here, seeing what you're working with as we get into a deeper more powerful Reformer class here momentarily. And lengthening through, exhale heavy through the tail, let that spine react to that, and then inhale, coming through into slight extension. One more please, and exhale heavy through the tail. Let that cervical spine react, and then come back into a flat back position.

When you're there, before you move, can you stretch further through the top of the crown of the head and reach further through the back of the tail? Then lift your right foot up, bring the heel towards the tush, and let's take a little tail wag. Wag the tail out to the side, look to it, and wag the tail across the middle line and look to it. Good, so you're pivoting around that knee, and really getting a little bit of lateral flexion here, along with some cervical rotation. So just side bending with a bit of rotation as well.

And two more, and last one here, out and across, and then seeing what's happening on the other side. Of course each side's gonna be different so lift the left set of toes up, wag up to start, look out, and then wag across the midline of the body. Each side feels a little bit different and that's fine. Notice what you might be feeling, check in on your system because this is your workout. It's time for you to see some areas that you may need lubricate a little bit more with your mobilization, or perhaps stabilize a bit more.

Good, last one, and across the midline. Put that foot back down from here, take an inhale, exhale, round the spine, drop the tail, come into that cat again. Now lighten up the pressure onto the palms of the hands and roll yourself all the way back up. Arms come up to the T position, palms of the hands face up. Did you lose that heaviness of the tail?

Can you drop it a little bit further and lift the abs in? And let's take it a spinal twist to the left. Exhale to the left (breathes out), and center inhale, exhale to the right (breathes out), and center, and notice your hips. Can you keep them facing forward, and keep this purely coming from the spine? (breathes out) And center, and two more, and rotate, and center, last one (breathes out). And center, relax your arms down by your sides.

Again, give your springs a check, make sure you're ready for your footwork. Lift the foot bar up and into your footwork position. And go ahead and lie down on your back. If your headrest is down, that's fine, or if you'd like it up, do what feels good to you. Lying down onto your back, in a nice neutral pelvis position bring the heels up onto your footbar, about hip distance apart, chest is nice and open, fingers are reaching long towards the springs.

And you inhale to prepare, exhale, press the carriage out (breathes out), and down, and again, out and down. Full extension here, but watch the hyperextension of the knees. Good, and six more, six, connect the breath into the body, five, and four, and three, good, two, just letting those legs start to wake up here, and one. Come down to the stopper, slide onto the balls of the feet. Now, keep the heels not in a super high heel, and also not down towards the springs.

You want to find that halfway in between point, activating the calf, pressure in between the big toe and the toe next to it as you exhale, press away, and inhale down, again, noticing that breath. Don't let the breath be an afterthought. Really put it in as a part of these repetitions. Finding that core activation that's necessary, as we move through daily life. Good, and five more, and press out, and down, and four, riding the springs in both directions, three, (breathes out), two, and one.

We're only doing three positions in footwork. You're gonna externally rotate from your hips, make a teeny tiny pizza slice with your feet. This is not a New York slice, small slice here. Again, not super high through the heels, and away you go, exhale, press squeeze at the top. Find the knees tracking about in line with the shoulders here, they're not super wide.

Inhale down, exhale press and squeeze. And have you lost the connection of the breath? If you have, pull it back into your body now, good. Five more, press away, squeeze, good, and four, this is part of our warm up, three, good, two, and one, bring the carriage back down. We're gonna transition springs.

So come up to sitting and pull yourself into what you like to set yourself up for the hundreds. So, I'm gonna go a yellow, or excuse me, a red and a blue here, and lie back down onto your back. From here, your shoulders want to be slightly away from the shoulder blocks, so that the head, neck, and shoulders have room to move. Pick up those loops into the hands back behind you. We'll start with the straight arm today.

So reach the fingertips straight up to the ceiling. Good, take the knees into that tabletop position that feels good to you, exhale, press through the palms of the hands, lift the head, neck, and shoulders, externally rotate through the hips today, and hold here for a moment, take a nice sip of air in, and here we go (breathing out rhythmically). We're on four (breathing out rhythmically), three more sets, cleaning out that breath, and last two (breathing out rhythmically), and last one, hold, reach further forward through your fingers, bring the feet together, bend the knees, and lower the body back down. Good, put those pegs back down onto their pegs, or your loops back down on the pegs, pardon me. Come on up and we're gonna set you onto one red spring, while we're here, and we're also going to move that footbar again out of the way, transitioning a short box onto the Reformer.

So, we're coming into a short box position, and we're gonna set you up for some forearm planking. So coming down onto the forearms, shoulders are stacked above the wrists. You can have the palms of the hands facing towards one another, some people feel it feels good to close up the chain and make fists. The toes come on to this platform, the balls of the feet are tucked in, and from here, we're gonna extend all the way out into plank. Making sure you have a nice, strong plank position here, that you're not risking the lower back.

You may feel the need to tip the pubic bone in towards the navel. Hold that body position and just bend at your knees. Inhale to bend, exhale press (breathes out), and bend and press, two more, and then we switch to a lifting of that right leg. Hold out, lift the right leg up, and here we go. Four in, press out, and three.

Have you lost something through your shoulders? Fix it, if you need to. Last one, reach, put that right set of toes down, lift the left foot, here we go. Bend in, reach out, nice and strong through the top of the crown of the head. Good, one more time, you got this, and reach.

Left set of toes comes down, hold, if you want a break, you can take it here. We're not going to. Externally rotate through the hips, pizza slice. Here we go, bend those knees, press it out, a little bit of a frog here, and press, two more, press away, and one, press away. Lift the right leg, here we go.

And for four, reach, and three, good, two, and one. Switch back, find that pizza slice, lift that leg up, and we go for four. Reach out, and three, woo! You should be getting nice and warm (laughs), two, and one, back to that V position. Lower the knees down, now take your left set of toes, bring your right knee up onto the box, hands go forward, come out, push in to the hands to lift up and take a stretch. (breathes out) Giving yourself a little break from that crescendo.

And bring the carriage back down in, switch your legs, press out, and hip stretch. Lifting that chest, feel how pushing through the fingers can get you that sense of opposition and that lifting through the chest. And breathe (breathes out), good. Carriage comes back in. Now we're switching to a long box position.

So moving yourself to a long box, you'll wanna drop your headrest down here, and you'll want to drop yourself to a lighter spring. I'll take a blue. Come and have a seat. Your sits bones are gonna be quite close to the end, because, as you can imagine, there's a nice big surface area back behind you, and we're gonna roll down onto it. So lift up those loops with your hands.

Sit up nice and tall, and then exhale, lightly tip off the sitting bones, don't collapse on that lower back, and begin to roll down to where you get to that lower back on the carriage. Then lift the legs into tabletop. From here, neck is nice and free. We're gonna take some lateral raises. So just opening the arms out to the T, activating the tops of the shoulders (breathes out).

Inhale down to the hips, exhale wide, inhale down, exhale wide. Now let's go right arm up, left are out, bit of asymmetry, and you can look to the arm that goes out, if you'd like to, change your visual affect for your head and your neck, alternating, and four more here, four, preparing for what's to come, three, and I think you're gonna like what's to come. Two, and one, now bring the arms back down, take an inhale, exhale, let's bring you back up to sitting for just a moment. Great, so here we go, exhale all the way back down. Bring the legs into tabletop, and we're gonna take a big circle all the way back above the head.

Arms begin to lift, legs begin to lengthen, and you take a nice big teaser. Good, and then bend those knees, and the arms come down back to your lower back, arms go wide above the head, and lift the arms, and lift to teaser. Do that on an exhale or an inhale, whatever feels good to you, bend those knees, lower back, we're gonna do forty-three more, and lift and reach, just two more, you got this. Here we go, and lower, and arms go wide and above the head, and if you see sweat dripping off of me, it's real, it's not fake, I promise. This might be Pilates Anytime, you might think that that ocean behind me is fake, but I'm telling you right now, the sweat and the ocean is real.

And lift up and find that teaser position. Good, go ahead and bend the knees, put the feet back down on the headrest. Take your loops, put them back onto your pegs, and we're gonna transition the box off of the carriage. So, taking your box off, we'll move it, and we're on a blue spring, we wanna stay there. We also want to keep the headrest down.

So we're gonna lie on our left side, work the right leg. Okay, so, stay on that blue spring. Safely get yourself onto your carriage, cradle your neck into your bottom hand, and then pick up your loop, and put your top foot into it. Sole of the foot, the bottom knee is tucked up towards you. From here we're gonna go into some leg extensions.

So reach that leg forward, and then press straight back. Just coming neutral to the hip, no further. Inhale takes you forward, and exhale pressing back. Notice what's happening on this anterior lateral line. Have you lost connection with it?

Can you bring you bring that back into play? And press it back, that's important, right? So that you're not just sinking into that side. Everything's part of the equation in these exercises. Last three, press it back, good, and two, super, and last one, press it back.

Now hold back here, I want you to flex your foot into dorsal flexion, externally rotate the hip. Now bend the knee, take a nice big external rotation, and reach the leg high. So inhale to bend, and exhale to reach up, good. And reach, feel that nice delicious hip opening here. And press and reach, and just know that the external rotation of your hip is gonna be different, depending on what your body structure looks like.

Two more, and then we're gonna alternate between these two exercises, last one. So coming back, swing the leg forward, inhale with control, exhale, press it back, and then we externally rotate, and reach, good, three more sets. Draw forward, press back, feel the hamstring and the gluteal here working. Good, two more, draw forward and back, externally rotate, and reach, last set here, and then, of course, what happens on one side, has to happen on the other side. So we later, rinse, and repeat.

So take that foot out of the loop, and I'm gonna say pardon me flipping away from you now, but we do the same thing, so, Lying down on to your right side, supporting that neck with your right arm, and bending your bottom knee, and bringing your top foot into the loop, and from here we begin with the leg extension. Inhale, draw the leg forward, and exhale, coming straight back to neutral, and again, put that hand underneath, if you can see my fingers waving at you, that's a good thing. That's my anterior lateral line working (breathes out). Inhale forward, exhale press back. Watch the hyperextension of the back of the knee here.

Two more times, draw forward and back. Last one, draw forward and back. Now hold here, externally rotate at the hip and reach it up, and externally rotate, feel that nice hip opener here, and bend and reach. Have you lost that lateral line on the inside? I feel like I did a little bit, so I'm just checking in on myself, keeping myself honest.

Last three, good, and two, and one. Here we go, alternating, we do four sets of these. So one set is one extension and one external rotation. So you've got three more sets. Draw forward and press back, externally rotate and reach.

Good, two more sets, that's forward and back and externally rotate and reach. Last one here, forward and back, externally rotate and reach, nicely done. So go ahead and give that a rest. Take the loop off of that foot, put it back down onto your peg for just a moment, and turn on to your back, because you're going to need that loop yet again. The headrest is down because we're going into some spinal articulation here, and we're gonna do that unilaterally today.

So take your loop into your right hand, push out and put it over your right foot. Now, before we go, I want you to keep that nice open chest, you're gonna cross one ankle over the opposite knee. I do apologize, I'm gonna have us switch springs here, so take your foot back out of that loop, because this would be absolutely not the greatest of things if I did this to you, so let's take a moment, come up to the sitting position. I could tell right away, and put on one spring. So we're going one red here, so a little bit of a heavier weight.

Lie back down ... you're welcome (laughs) and you're welcome, put that right foot back into the loop. Now again, it's really important to make sure we're set up properly here. Notice your chest, has it closed in? Keep that chest nice and open here. Arms are relaxed down by your sides, you're gonna cross your left ankle over your right knee.

Put some pressure down through that left knee, to open the hip, and come into a figure four by bending your right knee, okay? Oh boy, you should be getting a nice, delicious stretch already. Now let's take it into a figure four with a short spine. So you're gonna press out (breathes out), give a little bit of a hinge, with an engage the abdominals, as you roll up, up, up, inhale bend that knee, draw it deep in towards you and exhale roll down bone by bone by bone. We do three each side, so you press out and, by number three, you should be starting to feel really, really nice and juicy through that spine.

And pull the knee in, good, and exhale, you roll and articulate down, good. And one more, you reach, little bit of a hinge, but then get those abs involved. Press through the palms of the hands, and bend the knee, and roll and articulate down, bone by bone by bone, really nicely done. Go ahead and grab on to your other loop. The best transition here is to put your left foot in while your right foot has that loop on it.

And switch legs, so putting that right loop back down onto the peg, and again, crossing right ankle over left knee, check in on your system, is your chest still open? Remember, other side's gonna feel different. Push away through that knee, bend the left knee, and find that hip opener position. And here we go for three, press it out, little hinge, press through those hands, roll up and over (breathes out), good, bend the knee, pull it down and roll with control, and maybe with a smile on your face at this point in time. And reach away and little hinge, up and over, good, bend, and roll it down, good.

Last one, you got this. Reach and little hinge (breathes out) and we go up and over, and bend in, and roll that spine bone by bone by bone, super job. Go ahead and bend that left knee, take your foot out of the loop, put it back onto the peg, and we're moving on. So go ahead and transition yourself up to standing. We're on one spring, one red spring, we'll stay there, and let's bring our footbars up.

Now, I'm gonna have you start by putting your right knee down onto your carriage, mm-hm, and your left foot's gonna come forward. Foot's up against the shoulder block. You'll notice that I have pretty tight calves and achilles, but you want to try and go for this heel reaching into that shoulder block, hands are down. Taking a nice stretch through the front of that hip to start, opening it up, and then from here, taking that same side arm of the hip that's stretching and lifting it, eye gaze goes up, slight back extension, keep the abdominals lifting in, and breathe (breathes out), take a moment (breathes out). Right hand down, lifting out of that hip, taking a stretch to the front, or excuse me, the back of that left leg, draw the toes towards the knees, elbows are straight, chest is lifted, still drawing down in the lats, or the back here.

Good, now coming in, bending that knee, and let's transition that carriage leg. I want you to put the heel up on to the shoulder rest and the toes tucked down, so you're in a bit of a higher lunge position. So you should feel a nice stretch through that carriage hip. From here, with control, we're gonna press up (breathes out), find plank, and land (breathes out), and land. Watch the wrists, translate that load down through the fingers, and three more.

Three, and two, don't take that free leg too high to risk the lower back, good job, excellent, and bring the carriage all the way in, and we go to the other side. So left knee comes down, left sole of the foot up against the shoulder block. Take that hip stretch to get started so bending into the front of the knee, opening up that left hip, same side hip that's stretching the arm lifts, a bit of back extension here breathing, oxygenating the blood, take a moment. Good, hand comes down into your hamstring here drawing the toes to the knees. You might feel like you wanna put a slight more pressure on the inside of the heel, drawing the hip in.

Good, carriage comes back in, reset that back foot, draw the toes a little further forward and the heel comes on. You're coming into a nice big hip stretch here. Take an inhale, here we go, stabilize (breathes in), we come up, and inhale land with control (breathes out), and inhale, exhale you lift. Good, and three more, lift, good, and two. Careful with the hyperextension of the elbows.

I'm definitely guilty of that, and bring the carriage all the way back in. Excellent, staying on the spring that you're at for more stability you might wanna take it up a little bit. And transition to standing on your carriage. From here, heels of the hands go to the wider parts of your footbar. Translating the load here through the wrists here out through the fingertips, and the heels come about halfway up the shoulder rest.

First things first, just get some weight back on the toes. Free up the neck, and just get a nice bit of a stretch. Then, from here, drawing down underneath those armpits as if you're holding on to two two clutch purses or maybe a newspaper under each armpit, and you're gonna come out to a plank position. Inhaling feels good here. From here, you're gonna exhale, bend the elbows, tricep push up, press back out, and then pull it back in.

Good, you go away, out, out, out. And bend, and press, and pull it in. Good, three more. Out, out, out, and bend, and press, pull it in. Now remember, your pushup is contingent upon what you can do, right?

So we're going for functional range of motion here. Good, last two, and bend, and press, pull it in, and last one, you go out, good. Bend those elbows, press away, and pull it all the way back to the stopper. Excellent, take a step down onto the floor. We're still gonna be doing some more full-body integration.

I hope you're sweating, and not a gentle sweat at this point in time, but bring that footbar down away. I'll give you a moment to breathe, staying on that red spring. We're gonna experience a similar shape to what we did with the forearm plank. Now we're taking it back to a high plank. Let's watch the wrists here, so let's set up proper plank tension.

And what I mean by that is I want your hands down on the wider parts of the carriage, spread the fingers, and what I want you to think about here are those clutch purses or the newspaper. I want you to hold them underneath your armpits, connect down with the lats and look at the creases of your thumbs, and see if you can actually make them point a little more forward as if there were laser beams shooting out of them. Now keeping that proper plank tension, that shoulder stability, drop the tail ever so slightly, lift the abdominals in, tuck the toes onto your platform, and come all the way out into that plank position. Good, so now you're nice and stable. Release the right leg up.

We're gonna do a three-point mountain climber. You're gonna come across and bend the knee. And you go out, and you came straight in (breathes out). And out, and you come wide (breathes out). And out, switch legs.

We go across (breathes out), and out, and center. And out and wide (breathes out) and out and switch legs. We go across (breathes out) and out and center. And out and wide. Don't worry, this is your last one, I promise.

We go across (breathes out) and out and center. And out and wide and go ahead and bend those knees, put 'em down, bring the carriage back in, put the toes back onto your footbar, and stretch out into a child's pose. And enjoy that, and breathe (breathes out). So, moving into some arms, let's take you down a notch weight-wise. I'm gonna put on a blue.

Headrest stays down, and we're moving all the way to the very back of the carriage. Sitting up nice and tall, pick up your loops, make sure that you're uncrossed, of course. Again, spine is nice and tall, so we're stacked here, we're not collapsing, right? So really get that lift through the top of the crown of the head. Feel the opposition from the sitting bones, however, I want you to feel like I'm holding onto your ribcage and just lifting your ribs off of your waistline.

Once you're there, you're set. You can exhale, go wide (breathes out). And inhale draw forward. And exhale wide (breathes out). And inhale forward.

Really feel that vertical polarity of the spine, meaning the reaching up through the spine, the rooting down through the tail, and also the horizontal polarity of the arms. Last three, and then we're taking it to an up circle. And two, good. Hold it here, go up to the ears, and reach it forward. Do it again, open up, and lift, draw forward, Looking good, P-Dog.

And open, and lift, and forward. Let's just do one more. We'll go four and lift and four. Reverse for four. Lift, open to the T, draw forward, what did you lose?

Are your inner thighs still squeezing, are your abdominals still working hard, are you still lifted through that spine? And last one here, and lift, and open, and forward. Great, put those pegs down just for a moment. Transitioning up onto your knees with the knees up against the shoulder blocks. Let's regroup for a moment.

We're gonna do some single arm chest expansion, what I like to call the arm swing. Take your right hand, pick up your loop or that tape. From here, as you pull back, you're gonna reach forward with that opposite arm. And look to the arm that pulls back (breathes out), and then look the opposite direction. So you're swinging the arm (breathes out) with control as you're working the lats and the back of that tricep on the arm that is loaded.

Last three, pull it back, and two, exhale (breathes out), and last one here (breathes out). Excellent job. Go ahead and put that loop down, pick up your other loop, reach your arm forward, and we go ahead and pull back, and draw forward, inhale and exhale. Again, think about your range of motion. Make it functional for you, whatever works best for your range through your shoulders.

Last four, good, and three, and last two. We're staying with the same theme but just facing the other direction, so we worked the back line of the body first with those arms. It feels really good to get that openness of the chest. And now we're gonna position ourselves facing the other direction. We're gonna start with the left hand here, so pick up the loop with the left hand, feet are up against the shoulder blocks.

You're gonna start a low kneeling position and we're gonna make this more dynamic. So we're gonna come into an offering, single arm, take it into rotation. Open, close (breathes out), bring it down, inhale, exhale reach, power (breathes out), but controlled power. And bring it back (breathes out), and draw down, two more. And you reach forward, and open, and rotate, and down.

Last one, then we're going into a full arm circle, and open, and you love me, I know (laughs), and down, big arm circle. Here we go, all the way up with that arm, and around. Good, and down, and go again. All the way up with that arm, and around, and down, two more, lift, good. And last one.

This is definitely wonderful on the shoulder if you have this available to you. Good, other side, so put that peg down. We'll start with the single arm offering. So low kneeling, let's make it dynamic. We come up, we offer (breathes out), and rotate, and draw back (breathes out), and down, inhale here, exhale, reach with power, but also with grace, taking that rotation, and down.

You've got two more of these before the big arm circles for four and open, bring it back home, and down. Last one, and reach, tall through that spine, and open, and back, and down. And here we go, big arm circle, all the way up and over, and come down. And again, all the way up and over, and down (breathes out). Last two, you got this, good.

And hip stretch forward if you can a little bit more. And go ahead and give that a rest. Put that peg back down. Alright, it's time for some powerful side work. So what I want you to do is we're gonna start standing but let's change your spring.

We're gonna go to one red spring, little bit heavier, so take off that blue. Let's set you up safely, so let's put one foot on the platform, so let's go right foot platform, And then come up and bring that left foot onto the carriage. Now let's talk. You're already in a pretty precarious position. You don't have a gap pedal.

Put your leg where you feel it works the best for you. Inner thighs should be working here, carriage is in to the stopper. We're gonna take a lateral lunge with a reach down towards the carriage foot. So we go down, and touch, and come back up. And down, and touch, and you can use both hands, or you can use one arm, doesn't matter to me, whatever feels good to you, last two.

Good, and bring it back, and last one, and bring it back home. Now arms come out, rotate the palms of the hands up and open out laterally flex, and bring it back home. Good, controlling that carriage again. If you want more for that inner thigh, you slide that carriage out wider, or that foot out wider on the carriage. Two more times, and we go over, and bring it back, and last one, and bring it back.

Now, pulling that carriage foot in, we're gonna stagger your stance, so I want your platform foot to go forward, and your carriage foot to go back, okay? Arms go forward, nice and strong, from here leave the legs straight, equal pressure through your legs as you press away, finding those outer thighs, and bring it back, controlling in both directions. Again, focusing on your posture here. Are you tall through that spine? Are your abdominals working?

Good, two more, and reach and press, and drag it in, last one (breathes out), and press away, and drag it in. Now from here, hands come onto the hips. You're gonna bend your knees to where you can do, and keep the heels down. The front leg is your tree trunk as you push out through that back leg. Good, and pull it in.

Four more, press and pull, and three, press, and pull, two more, press, and last one. Now, from here back leg is your tree trunk as you push through your front foot and control it in. Notice that you have to slow this cadence down to keep the body stable. Good, you've got two more, and press out (breathes out), and pull in, and last one, pull it in, stand it up, take a step off of your Reformer to transition safely, because of course, lather, rinse, repeat, we have to do the other side. So let's walk all the way around, put the platform foot into the center first, and then the carriage leg safely up and on, and we're gonna start with that nice side lunge.

So here we go, you bend that outside leg, touch down, and come straight back standed up. And go again, touch, and bring it in (breathes out). I think we did about five on the other side, so let's go for five here, two more times, bend and reach, and notice that dynamic nature of the carriage and how you have to really control it. Staying here externally rotate the palms of the hands. We open them laterally, flex, and bring it back, and laterally flex, and bring it back.

Three more, and then we'll take that staggered stance. Good, and two, hope you're still breathing (breathes out), and last one, and bring it back home. Now, walk that foot in. Now remember we're going platform foot forward and carriage leg back. Arms reach forward to start, nice and powerful, feet are straight, equal pressure as you push away.

Wow, I'm so different from side to side. And bring it back, and push away, right? I think I said it earlier, but we're not made by Mattel (laughs). Good, two more times, and press, and last time here, press it out, and pull it back. Now hands come onto the hips.

Your tree trunk leg is your platform leg and your moving leg is your carriage leg and you push out five, good, and four, watch the hip to the knee relationship, last two, and last one. From here, carriage leg is tree trunk, and you push it out, and pull it in, and out, and in. Notice which leg might be your tighter leg or your stronger leg. Good, two more, and press, and last one. Excellent job.

Stand it up, safely take a step back off of your Reformer. We're transitioning to a short box again. We've got a couple last things to do to conclude this workout. So let's get a short box on and we'll talk. I'm gonna leave my spring set at one red.

If you want the carriage to be more stable for safety purposes, add more weight. We need the safety strap up. You're gonna be sitting on your left hip. Before you get set, go ahead and load that right foot into your safety strap. Tuck your bottom knee up towards you so that that leg catches.

Now watch this leg. We don't want it rolling back, we want hips stacked. From here, arms come out to the T, nice and strong. You're gonna inhale, take it all the way over, lightly touch the floor if you can, and exhale, bring yourself all the way back up. Good, and go again.

Inhale over, and exhale lift. Two more then we add rotation. Inhale over, and exhale lift, really feeling the power through your lateral line. Last one, inhale, and exhale, you lift. So from here, on this next one we're gonna add rotation.

You go over, inhale. As you lift you take the bottom arm up and reach up, this direction forward. Yes good, you're with me, here we go. Inhale over, and exhale, lift and rotate. Okay, you've got two more.

Here we go, inhale, take it over (breathes out), lifting length, and twist. And last one, inhale, and exhale, lift, and rotate. You can do eight on the other side, yes? Okay, so transition, give yourself a little bit of a mini break. This is your active recovery right now, to move yourself into a proper body position.

And from here, leg is straight, hips are stacked, arms are out. We go over, inhale, take that stretch, exhale, lift, inhale over. It's tempting to crunch here at the top, but I don't want you to. And two more, inhale, exhale, lift. Last one, growing tall through the crown of the head, we do four with rotation.

You got this, just four more, not 40. Lift, and rotate, good, and three (breathes out). Notice how that arm takes you to a different place in your core activation. Last one, and over you go, and lift, and rotate. Good, long box.

And we're gonna finish with some back extension. So I don't know, I think this is a little bit of kind of like pulling straps in reverse, so turn your box to a long box. We're gonna stay on one red spring. Pick up your loops. The best way to get into this is actually to grab onto the front of your box or the box that's closest to the springs, the edge that's closest to the springs.

Extend the legs back behind you, and the chest is slightly forward of the box. Now, leg are involved in this. We don't want the legs just dangling, right? So, keep the legs strong. Notice how you wanna support the lower back by slightly pushing the pubic bone into the box and lengthening the tail, but watch the glutes.

Reach the arms back behind you. Stay stable through the spine to start and just gimme some biceps, pull it in, and back, and pull, and back, and grow tall through the crown of the head as you're doing these. And three more, pull. And then we'll start to add in mobility of the spine, two, and last one here. From here, palms of the hands, or sorry, backs of the hands are gonna go wide.

You're gonna open out and now lift to back extension as you come down. And open, flat back, and extend the spine. And open, flat back, and extend the spine. We've done this with the arms in many different positions today, just different feeling it prone. Last two, open, and lift.

You've got one more, open, and lift, and draw those hands back down onto the edge of your box, transition yourself off to the side, bring the box safely down to the stopper, put your pegs back on, or your loops back onto the pegs, come around. And let's take the spine in the opposite direction that it was just going because it feels good, yes? Okay, arms lift, as an extension of the spine, and exhale you roll down, look at those feet, make sure you have a number 11 as Portia says, down there, waitin' for ya, inhale here at the bottom, exhale, pull the abdominals up and into the spine, roll your spine back up bone by bone by bone. Crown of the head is the last thing to reach to the ceiling. I always love to do this one.

Arms lift, flex lift the wrists, and open your heart center towards the ceiling. And (breathes out) we're all done (hands clapping). Good job!