Full-Body Experience

So we just got these new tower reformer combos and I'm gonna play on them a little bit. It's my first time. I'm excited. I'm going to try and be a little creative and see what we can find out that's fun to do. So that seems interesting to you. Come along. I am going to work from the back to start. I have two blue springs to the top of the tower and I'm just gonna start with some cat stretches. Heavy spring here. So look after yourself. Begin by pressing the spring down as you press the spring down, feel that your spine is lifting longer, taller.

Don't let the spring foot pull you around and then draw the head down into the center of the chest. Begin to roll down through your spine. At some point you will not be able to go down any further. That's the point where we're going to start elongating. I have to hold the bar with my hands wrapped around so I don't run into the risers of the reformer in here. [inaudible] as we exhale, we start moving the pelvis first. I'm pushing down on my spring. Does I lift and contract through my waist.

It's a really nice against that heavy spring sense of opposition, a two way stretch. I lift, yeah, all the way. Backed up to straight and then I work the bar back up. Inhale and exhale, pressing the [inaudible] bar down. Continuing forward with this spine, lifting up through the abdominals, diving forward. And then at the last minute, tipping the tailbone up and stretching the spine out.

Long in here and exhale, heels press down, bar pushes down and we pull up through the middle of the spine, through the middle of the body. Let me go all the way back to the top and then and in here and remember to feel that you're getting taller as you're moving your springs and then round and as you go forward, think about the space between the bottom of the ribs and the top of the pelvis and try to eat long gate through that space. Don't go too low or hyperextend through the rims and then bring the pelvis back through. Rolling the spine up, pushing down on the bar, stacking this spy and bending the elbows. One more time. Inhale and exhale. As we press the bar down, I'm gonna make a change at the bottom. Rolling the spine down, finding the long flat back hold here. Bend the elbows, bring the bar just underneath the face. Tip The tailbone up just a little bit more in.

Stretch the arms back out as you bend the elbows. Think of stretching the bar or pulling the bar apart. Really feel that nice attention to the upper back. Press out two more. Inhale, pull and press and inhale, pull, and let's press down onto the bar. Extend the spine slightly, reach back to a straight body, straight in arms, and then curl the tail under, right as you get into that bike position. Keep pushing the springs down. Look after yourself here. This is a balancing exercise. We're going to pike up onto the toes, lifting the heels and Dow and inhale, draw the pelvis forward towards the bar. Exhale, lift the heels and down. Nice, controlled, easy, strong movement.

Lift and down. Two more times. Exhaling to lift up and down. And one more time. Excellent to lift up and down. Inhale as the heels touch and Xcel to work your way back through your spine, making sure the pelvis is right over the feet so you're not leaning back. As you begin to stack your spine over the top of your feet and finally bend the arms and lift the bar and it's going to leave that bar there.

So attached to my reformer, I have one blue spring. It's a little tricky to get on, but we can do it. So grab your roll-up Bar, sit on your reformer and I, my moved my springs down just a little bit there on the top, on the top choice of those notches instead of on the very top. So here I want us to let the springs pull our spine forward. We're going to gently round over the size and then lift the spine in yellow here. And then as we exhale we will feel the reformer moving underneath us.

It's a very interesting sensation to me. Rounding down, trawling away from the springs. Again, the springs are fairly heavy here in healing to Potts. Exhale round into yourself. Roll Baca lifts the spine and then allow the springs to pull the spine forward. And for me, that creates a really nice stretch in my back. Lift the backtalk in here. Exhale, curl the tail under.

Press the legs together in here. Exhale, draw down and into the center of the body. Curl the spine up, reaching forward and lifting the back from a straight back. Let the reformer pull back towards the foot bar. And one more time. Inhale to lift and exhale to tuck under. We're going to stay at the bottom here and in here.

XO, a very small curl, a v, a miniature curl and drag back down. Now here as I go into this really small range of motion, my carriage is moving a little bit, but I'm attempting to not move it at all or in my mind I'm trying to move my body without moving my carriage and we'll do two more. Exhale. Yeah, and in here, and exhale and inhale. Pausing here, take a breath, exhale, lift. The left foot underneath the bar. And inhale, place that leg down, trying to stabilize the carriage. Exhale, lift the right leg and inhale to lower down. Exhale. It's surprisingly challenging to keep the reformer steady and down. Exhale to lift and down.

One more exhale to lift and down. Exhale to lift and down. Pausing here, don't round up it. Instead start to lift through the chest, bringing the back on a long diagonal. And from here we're gonna oh the bar into the chest and push forward the nice heavy spring. Pull the bar into the chest. Keep the spine straight and reach for three more. Pulling in.

So this thinking about being really light on the top of that moving reformer last too, and reach out last time. Resist moving backwards from there. Roll the spine down into the reformer. Again. Pause when you're just in a neutral pelvis in trunk flection. Rotate towards the left hand side.

We curl the body up on that side and then we curl back down. We lift, rounding and rotating and down. Feel that as you're lifting, you're trying to slide those a ribs, the ribs that you're turning towards in towards the spine as the opposite ribs rotate across over the top of them and on last time excelling to lift. Okay, in healing to come down. Pause there. Keep the spine still and lift the leg FY.

Breeding the leg in from right underneath the ribs for stabilizing the reformer. Three rotating. Here's number two and last time again, I'm trying not to move the reformer around. I know I've lost it a little bit when I start feeling the reformer slide around underneath me. It's almost like exercising in a boat, trying not to tip it over. Pause at the top. Find your long flat back and pull and push. So we pull both sets of springs right, cause we've got spring on the reformer too.

And then decelerate this springs and pull. Bringing the bar right up to the chest and press and lift right up to the chest. Press last time, pulling in, reaching forward. Inhale here. Exhale, curl back into reformer. Pause in your neutral pelvic position and rotate to the opposite direction. Curl the spine. Now trying to keep the reformer fairly steady.

This is where it will move just a little bit and that's fine, but I'm not just swinging around with it. Trying to stay very controlled, very steady. We'll do two more and one more. Come down, find your position and now just the leg pulls in and we hold everything else steady and pull in. And uh, keeping the shoulders away from the gears.

The springs do a little bit of Nice traction for the arms in my mind. Last too. Okay. And down. One more time. Pulling in, lowering down. Find your center, roll the spine back into that flat back position.

And last five poles with the arms one and press to feeling that reformer just lightly moving underneath. And three and for, if you get dizzy very easily, this might not be the thing for you. And Five, take the arms forward. Inhale, exhale, curl down, rotate to the left, roll up the left side of the spine. Stay in a rounded back. Let the springs pull you forward over your legs. Rotate to the right, coming down the right side of the spine. And Center. Go to the [inaudible], reach around up that side of the spine and the springs. Pull the reformer forward.

Just don't let them pull the shoulders out of alignment and then rotate to the left and roll back on that side. Find Center. Let's do one more to each side. Inhale, exhale. Curling up in around reaching over the size and rivers down around over the size. We're going to go down through the center and we'll do the same thing in reverse. So we curl down, we rotate, right, rural up the right side of the spine. Find Center, rotate right, roll down the right side of the spine or rotate left and find. Roll up that side and find centers.

Stretching the spine forward over the legs. Carefully stepped down to side of the reformer. Hold your reformer with your hands so it doesn't slide out from underneath you and release the bar and then carefully bring the carriage in. So there's a lot more in a manage when you're using both pieces of equipment. At the same time, I'm setting myself up for some foot work. I have three reds in a blue spring on my reformer.

Okay. Lying all the way down with the heels on the foot bar, arms heavy or straight next to the side. I feel a sense of reaching forward with the arms as you press back with filet. Take a minute here. Create Elongation. Find all of your pieces, the knees just over the ankles, the tailbone anchored onto the reformer, the ribs heavy on the mat. And then Ben. Inhale and stretch and pull and reach.

So as we know, we're never working in any one direction. There's always a drag and then a stretch. I like to think about the contraction, the most important contraction happening on the down and rather than the straightening of the legs being a push, more of it being an elongation of the legs of the body and of course of the spring. So we'll come four more times here, keeping that body nice and centered. Three, two and one. Ben didn't come back in. Come down onto the toes, press out, find your highest lift with a good ankle alignment so you're not rolling out or locking the ankle. And then keep the feet still as you can bend and stretch and pull and reach out heavy through the ribs.

Everyone should allow check in with your arms and your shoulders. Sometimes we get a little lazy up there. Let's keep this as a full body experience. Checking in with the neck, with the activity in the arms. It's not that I want you to push or force with your arms.

Just be aware that they're energized eyes. We're gonna do three more. Stretch and drag and stretch and drag and last time reaching out and drawing back in from the bottom. Bring the heels together, keep the toes apart, and we reach out. Stretch and pull back. Rib Kids softens or rests specifically the bottom side of the ribs. The back bottom ribs rests against the reformer all the time.

The tailbone rests against the reformer all the time. And in doing that, you might find that it creates just a little bit of space in the lower back, which is fine. Let me stretch and pull in and for bringing it back. Three feel that as you bend your knees, try to leave your head back there where it was in space. And two, there's always a sense of lengthening. One more time, come all the way back in. Pause. Take the heels out to the outside of the bar in yellow there and stretch and then, and reach and the pool. So I think here about pressing in with my thigh bones, creating an inner thigh activity all the time. [inaudible] working in the springs. As I said, in both directions. We'll do four, three and last time you didn't bring the toes right back to the center of the bar.

Press the carriage out all the way. Okay. And then do a full lowering of the heels, full stretch, and then arising up onto the toes and then down and lifting up. Drag your heels under the bar and float them up. Feel that that movement can be connected to the entire backside of the leg, maybe, perhaps even into the entire backside of the body. So the heels are directly related to the spine. As the heels drop, the head could reach oppositionally.

And maybe by doing that we could create length in our body, create a longer waist, a longer spine. We'll do five more. I feel as though I might be taller after this. We'll see last two and one from the top. We've been one knee, the opposite heel reaches and pulls. End Lift. We'll go fairly quickly today. Up and down, creating a rhythmic movement with the fee. Still consider involving the whole back of the leg all the way through the glutes. As one foot drops, the spine can continue to length.

And so we just keep those ideas in mind and we'll switch three more times on each side. Two to three, three pause and take a stretch. Keep that heel reaching under the bar, but then the knees, so the stretch changes, moves higher up the calf combines quite a lot. And then switch, dropping the opposite heel underneath the bar and then keep the overreaching under the knee vans and then come back to both legs. Straight. Bend both knees and come in. Roll to your side. Help yourself up with your hands.

We're going to go and retrieve our legs. Springs. Okay, so I've got yellow springs here, which are plenty heavy, trust me, and two, three, four, five down, so just slightly above where the roll-down bar would hang. Again, you have to just be a little careful as you're getting on and off the reformer. I have one spring attached to the reformer, which is also plenty. You may want to blue and to hold both springs in one hand while I lower myself down onto the carriage.

Okay, give yourself a little bit of space between your shoulders and the shoulder blocks. You'll want it and then take one strap in each hand and press out with your feet a little bit just so that you can get those springs in your hands just up over the shoulders. Prepare yourself for a good challenge. This is definitely one lift, one leg, lift the other leg. And inhale as you exhale, press your ribs into the mat and press the reformer out from underneath you, curling yourself. Pause there. Start resisting the springs as the arms lift back up and place the head back down. Inhale, exhale, lift and press the reform or will move underneath you.

Inhale and resist. Bringing the arms back. We're just gonna do one more cause I think that's enough. Lifting press pause. Now. Inhale, stretch the legs out and exhale. Pull the knees. It being on this reformer that moves a little bit underneath us is a little bit like being on a boat as I mentioned before.

So try to feel that you're light on the carriage pause here. Kick the legs up, take the legs away, keep reaching through your springs and lift. Press away. Then lift one more. Keeping the Kirra bend, lift river set bend. Push out. Bring the legs up, bend, push out.

Bring the legs up. I'm going just over my foot bar last time. Lift up, bend the knees, lift the arms, place the feet down and rest. We're going to bring the feet into the straps now, so push out first when you have to do a little pelvic lifts or take both straps in both hands. When in each. Lift the pelvis to bring the foot in and then lift the pelvis to bring the other foot in. So now you've got your feet in your [inaudible] pelvis. No longer needs to lift it all, bringing the arms down to the sides and again, we just change the feeling what it feels like to do our hip work.

It's bad. Halfway difference between the hip work on the Cadillac and the hip work on the reformer. So a lot of control here is what we're looking for. We press and then the spring on the reformer is going to pull you back in. So we resist that and press, I'm going slow because it helps me to stay in control.

And then just one more, wrap the hips, press out, pause, press down more with the legs, open the legs about foot bar distance apart, reach all the way up and together, rotating in the hips as you go. Press down, try to go just past the foot bar or just in line with it. Reach, reach around and come together. So working by laterally with separate springs feels a little different on a moving reformer. I find it fun. Press down and challenging and around. So I push down as far as I can, wait until the reformer steadies underneath me and then start moving again.

One more push down, let the reformer be still or work the reformer into its still position, and then you can keep it still as you reach out and then it has to start moving again as the legs come around together. We're going to reverse that. So open press separately in down, stretching the springs on the reformer. Find that low shape, that low position, and then lift up, tailbone heavy. Separate the legs, press down, bring the legs together and lift Baca. Three more open. It's a great challenge for the hip extensors.

Want to really challenge the whole backside of the leg here last too, down around and together. And lift. One more time. Open down around in together and lift. Bring the carriage and lift the hips up. Take both feet out, and then I'll allow the carriage to come in. Take the springs in both hands and help yourself up.

I'm going to stand up, so I'm never going to just drop my springs at all. I'll come back. Let the springs rest there. Okay. Coming all the way back down onto the reformer. We're going to do the semi-circle.

So putting those feet onto the foot bar, press out and glide the body forward. Toes on the bar, heels together, toes apart. I'm still on one red spring. It's in the middle. Inhale here. Excellent. As you start from the throat or from the breastbone, and start articulating down through the spine. Reach all the way down, tailbone, pressing back into the springs and bring the reformer in and then rolling through the spine. Take the legs, three quarters of the way out. Articulate through the spine, lowering the spine down and bend the knees to come in.

Roll the spine. [inaudible]. Press the reformer, roll the spine down, and then let's do that in reverse. So stay low on the spring. As you press out, stay there, curl the body at. Press up, then the knees and bring the reformer in and round the spine and the portions of the exercise where the spine is moving through articulation. We were looking to keep the reformer nice and still press out.

Articulate the spine. Yeah, and bend one more time round all the way for us. The spy. Now the carriage. Ja Roll the spy Nana then din. And then take your hands off of the shoulder blocks. Reach them around towards the frame, see if you go walk yourself into your foot and then press the pelvis up nice and high.

We're using this as a stretch so the knees are gonna reach out over the feed. Be careful with this movement. If your knees don't like it, don't do it. But if you're feeling good here, really lift the pelvis up. I mean using my arms to pull the reformer closer in and then let the hands go. Bring the hands back. Slide the reformer back underneath. Yeah. [inaudible] roll to your side and help yourself up.

So we're going to set up for some arm work [inaudible] because they were gonna take the pushy bar down. Remove the blue springs. I'm just going to let them stay there cause I'm not gonna use them again. Remove the yellow arm springs as well and hook them to this side of the tower. I'm going just approximately in line with my own shoulders. So I'm one, two, three notches down.

Taking the bar off. Lots of spring changing on the tower. That's Super Fun. I'm putting the handles on. Okay. Taking the handles in your hands, standing land, looking straight ahead. Reach down into the springs to create some spring tension. And then we're going to [inaudible] press back with the arms down and back and down and forward, down and back and down and forward, down and back.

So notice I'm always thinking about the down. That's important. We want to feel the back of the body working. The shoulder depressor is working this time. As we pull back on the arms, we're gonna float the heels up balance and bring the arms in front of you. As you lower your heels down and press back on the springs, lift the heels balance. Think about where the weight is distributed through your foot feet and try to make that nice. And even throughout the Pinky toe side of the foot, the big toe side of the foot, the ankle comes up nice and straight and down.

We'll just do two more lifting. And now last time I'm creating just a little bit more core challenge, if you will, by adding that balance. And turn yourself around. Bring the arms out into the hug a tree position. Find a position in which you feel nice and comfortable with your springs. I'm going to bring the arms across the front of the body. Ooh, these springs are heavy and open.

I'm going to step right back into that box, which I might have to move. I don't know. You bring the arms across. No, I'm good. This is a good challenge and it's actually really nice to have the box air as an anchor against the weight of this spring cause these springs are wanting to push my body back and I'm having to continue to really fight to stay in my position, which I enjoy. Just one more here, bringing the arms across, pause, rotate the palms down. Here is where it gets tricky. Just be careful, right? And I'm just, I stood in front of the box cause it happened to be here and then I am enjoying the challenge. But you could also, if your box is there, move it out of the way and come a little closer to the Cadillac. If this felt too challenging, too scary to anything and exhaling across. We'll do two more. Inhale up open. [inaudible].

Exhale a cross. You Kneel, Huh? Open XL across. And now we create the reverse. We in the aisle open, lift the arms up, keep the weight of the body forward into those springs and then press the arms down. Open, rotating in the shoulders, bringing the arms around enough and press the arms down and open around in, up and press down. Two more. Inhale. Exhale through the stretch and down. Last time. Inhale.

Exhale through this stretch and down Ben both arm so that the hands come just next to each other and take one arm forward and alternate. So going into punching, hold the body stable here as the arms. Pass one another by in space and do five and five. Feel the stability of the shoulders, the stability of the trunk last too, and one one. Then bring yourself upright. Lower the arms down.

I think we'll finish today with just a little bit of back extension. So my idea is to take the handles back off the bar, back on. Remove the springs from here. Come around to the other side. I Bet I'm going to put them on the second hook down. Thought it'll be enough tension. I think before we do that, we might as well do some sides cause that's my favorite and we haven't done any lateral work today. So let's put the box on short ways.

Take the bar down, adjust your spring tension. So the cable is the cable. That's not a cable, that's a carriage. So the carriage stays still on. Sit down on the box, right foot underneath the strap or one foot underneath the strap. Reached down, put your hand down on the head. Rest. Let's go one hand behind the head, the upper hand behind the head. Find your position. Other hand behind the head, finding your straight line and inhales you stretch over the top and exhale as you lift. Finding your straight line in heel as you reach over. Lift. It's a very economical exercise in my mind because with just five, so enough, five well done repetitions is enough last time. And then the second reason that this exercise is so beautiful because it comes with this beautiful stretch. So reaching down, taking the arm overhead if it's not comfortable for you to put your hand down onto the floor, simply rest your elbow, your forum in your elbow on the headdress. When I do a little quarter turn here and then I'm going to help myself up with my hands and turn sides and placing the hand down, finding the hand behind the head.

Don't squeeze your elbow back and push your head forward. Place your Scapula wide on your back so that you have space to let your head rest in your hands. Then take the opposite hand back and we reach over the top and who left and reach over the top and lift. Seeing long through both sides of the body so we don't go over and crunch that lower body. We're just working with control, working within a range that we can manage last time and then reaching down hand on the floor or elbow on the headrest and find your stretch and then perhaps a small quarter turn as you're helping yourself back up towards sitting and walking yourself up. Okay, so here's what I was playing with. It's fun.

Turn the box back. So it's a long ways for a step. Go down. I'm going to choose to use a blue spring. You could certainly go heavier than that, although I don't know why you want to hard knee too. Then we're gonna need this bar again and then we're going to need to get onto the reformance. You'd have to stretch the spring a little bit to get on and be able to manage both parts.

Taking the bar isn't the hands on the outsides of the springs, so if I were to just let my body be in a straight line, the springs would pull up on my arms and give me a little bit of a shoulder stretch, which I enjoy. We're going to press down on the springs and begin to lift the body up. So there's some movement in the reformer there. Not a great deal. And then we're going to con troll are really, so let's do the down press uplift of the spine. On the inhale breath, imagine that you're pooling your reformer towards the foot bar because you are towards the back of the reformer cause you are, it doesn't move a lot. But if you put the intention of pulling as you're moving, you might get more range.

And now we're gonna bend the elbows. So by bending the elbows, we pull the reformer for sure. Just reaching the bar towards the top of my head. From there I'm gonna push down with my arms and Elongate, lift my spine. I'll come up higher and then release down with control.

Ben Knee elbows. Press down with the arms, lift the spine, reach out and down. One more time than the Elba Press Ah, and lower. So just be careful with yourself are you're gonna use one arm to bring yourself up. Let this spring stay there. We'll take the keep the arms just on the frame for a couple of Nice, easy, gentle extensions. Head coming up, shoulders gliding down the back.

Now don't make this one so big. Make this one really upper body focus. Upper back focus, bringing the breastbone just past the edge of the box and down and sliding the shoulder blades down. Lifting the back of the head, drawing in through the abdominal, supporting the lower spine, finding that yummy upper back work and down. And last time reaching out and okay, so let's carefully get down off the box. Remember, you still have a fairly light spring there. We're just going to walk around the end of the reformer and do full circle. So we start with the cat stretch the way or are we finished with the cat stretch the way we started with just on the opposite end of the equipment.

So bringing the hands down onto the box, lifting through the center and now reaching out through the spine. Now this here we can go a little lower. We can go down more into like an elephant shape and then roll the spine back up. Take your time to let the work ripple through the body in the carriage all the way back to the stopper, and then tip the pelvis. Press the box out, drawing the navel up towards the spine and around.

One more. Let the pelvis shift first. The rest of the spine respond and around [inaudible]. When's the carriage comes all the way into the stop? Or you can let go and bring yourself all the way up onto your feet and bring the arms out. Enough, reaching up overhead, lifting the body and bringing in [inaudible] the arms all the way back down. And thanks for playing.