Back Body Strengthening

Hello. So for this reformer class, you're gonna need a few props to have available, a magic circle, a theraband that's fairly long, your reformer box, a towel or two to support your head depending on how much your back is flex. So we want to support your spine and then a folding chair or a small stool. So gather those things up nearby and we'll get started. All right, we're going to start with the hip, uh, extension exercise. So she's gonna use the footboard. Didn't mention that as a prophet, you need to have a foot board. And if you don't have a foot board, you can simply do the foot and leg work on the bar and lean on the bar. So I want you to extend the arms. Yeah, good.

So the weight is on the knee and she's just pressing back and drawing the carriage back in. And here's a few important pointers. The important thing is the standing leg. You want to really bend and fold at the hip. So it's a lunge kind of positioning here. And then resist the carriage of Bring Your Pelvis Upright when you come in.

So really reach for your arms so that the upper back actually gets a little lengthening here. Good. So kind of push away. Push. Yes, you feel that. So you get your back, engage good, and then bring the knee in and the knee comes in and you really lift the pelvis up. Let's do two more. So reaching back and push with those arms and lift the chest just a little bit. That's it. And then bring it in and bring your spine all the way up. One more time and nice bending in the hip and the standing leg and then pushing away. Lifting up. Beautiful. Five to six times is great.

And she has, we have on one red spring does not need to be heavy but enough for you to get nice resistance of a stretch. Good. And reaching through the arms so you get a nice lift of the chest. Nice one and coming in and lift the pelvis up. Good. And again, press through the heel, feeling that connection to the sit bone here and then lifting up and again, reaching even stretch your fingers. I was kind of Nice to push into that so that you get that upper back to lift. Very nice. And then bring it in and pressing back.

And again, we want to really sync this hip on the standing leg side and come back up if we get good flection on the side and helps keep the pelvis a little bit level here and then that lift very good and come back up. Excellent. Okay, so now we're going to change the weight you can change too. I'm probably three red springs would be good. Three medium kind of springs and lying down. Now I chose to do the footboard because I want you to be able to uh, when you straighten your legs to really open up the front of your hips to a zero degrees. So pause here. So go ahead and straighten your legs.

So what I want to do is walk your feet down so we're not a pie on the board. You're actually going to be in a lower position, which is lower than the foot bar. And the idea here is to try to keep this nice and open and connected. And if your lower ribs aren't on the carriage, then you need to put more towels under your head. So here's the cuing. The first thing you're going to do is just bend your knees, soften a little bit, and I'll pause now. Not In your hips though. See if you can keep the hips yet.

Now straighten your legs. So just so tiny little band of your knee. That's it. And then straighten the leg. So you should be feeling right the back of your legs here. That's it. And then push away small little Ben like a softening and push away and press. When you push away, feel the big toe ball and the heel pushing like the board is being pushed away.

So you get a stretch in opening in the front of the grind and push away. Great. Now you're going to come in resisting the carriage all the way in as much as you can. Now there's going to be restriction in your ankles. So stop before your heels come up and then press through the tripod of your feet as you push away and feel that opening of your hip. And again, Ben, to just wear your heels wanna lift and press into the heels and really open those hips. Great. And again, just resisting the coming in and pressing, really monitoring your big toe ball, a little toe ball contact, good resistance of the carriage, pressing in about 10 repetitions. Excellent. And again, bending and press away. You're doing a great job, Mandy. Good.

I'm gonna do two more bending and push away. So that's a parallel position. And then she's going to bring the carriage all the way in and take a wider position, but at the same height of where your feet are. So your heels will be up slightly. Bring your heels a little turned out and that's it. Now push away and get those heels down and then pause for a second and really, really adjust your feet so that you feel that when you press into that board, you're opening up in the front of the hip there. Good.

And then bending to your heels want to come up and then push through the heel to the sit bone and open the front of the groin there. That's it. Nice, good. And bending. And press into it. Finding that length of the quadriceps, the front of the hip here. Go ahead and press into the heel. Big Toe Ball. Yep. Good. The breathing is nice. She's, you can inhale or exhale on the way out.

Let's try an inhale. When you push out. Let's try that. So change your breath and inhale as you push away and open up and exhale as you come in and resist. Good. And inhale and press and open up through the front of the groin here and exhale. Good. And again, and inhaling and exhaling. Good.

And two more. Reaching out. Inhaling, good and exhaling. And again, inhaling and exhaling. Very good. Now you'll have to get your theraband. All right. Let's bring your feet back up high now on the, on the board here and line up your knees. So they are in line with the center of your hips, you know, to take the band and we're gonna keep your foot down.

We're going to tie you up to take the band and tie it around your thighs. And I want it kind of mid sigh and it can be tight. The stronger the band, the better. Very good. And tie it so it won't come loose, but that you can untie the knots easily. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to place the right foot now on the board and we're going to lift the left knee. And what you want to do is two things. You're going to want to pull your knee into the end and most importantly, push the band down on the right leg. So she's going to push down on the band and extend. Good.

And push down. That's a tends to roll, so don't worry about that. And then knee coming in. Good. Now Watch your heel. You kind of pivoted it out a little bit. Go ahead and press down into the band. Straighten that knee. Very good. Resist as you come in. And again, pushing out, pressing the band. A little pull on the bandwidth, the other knee just a little bit. Yeah. To create that kind of contrast of the flection of the one hip and the extension of the other leg. Press down onto that set. Good.

And again, and coming in and how I want you to change your breathing. So pause for a second, breathe out, don't move. And now inhale, push out. Inhale. So you're standing up on the inhale, opening the hip again and exhale coming in. Good. And again, inhale as you push out, extending the hip. Beautiful. Exhale. Come in. And to keep, uh, the idea of the heel and the big toe ball and the little toe ball, tripod from and that knee going right over the second toe. Good. And we're gonna do one more and we're going to switch sides. Good.

Excellent. All right, let's change P. Yup. And so again, when you place your foot, be really mindful that you've got your big toe ball, a little toe ball and heel and the knee over that second toe. Here we go. Push onto the bands you're pushing down on the band. And we're trying to really straighten the knee and open that hip and pull that band in your knee, into the chest there. And again, press heel, big toe ball. Really feel a long length in your quadricep. Yes. And he resisting and coming in. Good and again, and press pull a little bit with that right knee towards your chest just a little bit. Yeah. Good. You want to have the resistance into the band with the flection of the knee, but not so much that your pelvis will tell.

So not asking for flection of the lower back, but just increased tone of the core. Can you feel that when you do that? Yeah, very good. And I believe that's really an action of the SOA as coming up with the abdominal muscles. Good. Let's change the breathing. So again, you're gonna inhale now as you go up. Inhale, open up the thigh, inhale and exhale. Good. And inhale and XL. Go ahead. We'll do two more like that and inhale and exhale, and last one, and in hell great. And exhale. Great. Let's take the band away and we're going to come to a parallel position. Great. All right, so let's push out again.

Now this time I want your feet to come back down on the board once again, like we did the beginning so that we get this nice opening and we want to lengthen those quadriceps out. All right. So you're going to simply do as just a little heel lifts. You're going to lift your heels up. That's it. And down. Good. And down. Up and down. Good. So you're gonna to get your weight on that big toe ball and the second toe, that's it. And down. Good.

And lift and down and lift. Very good. And lift and lifts. You keep the strength of the leg. You keep that Patella pulled up and you're working through the ankle. Feeling your weight on the big toe ball cut. Okay. And then place your heels down.

And I want you to push your heels into the board and flex your feet so firmly. Press the heels into the board, pull back those toes, yes. And then go through the big toe ball and toes to come down. Great. And then you're going to stand on one leg. So let's lift the right leg up, right? Good. And let's do some lifts of the heel. Just easy up in a little bit faster and up and press. Good.

Empress. Very good press. Make sure your heel touches every time. Good. Good. Heel touch is very good with the big toe ball and second toe. Excellent. Two more reach. Great. And then switch feet. All right. And ready and lift and up and up. Keep that quad nice and lengthened up. Very good. Up, up. You're doing fine, Huh? Hold on. This leg up. Ah, why?

It's really important to do individual legs. That's good. Keep going. We've got a couple more. Excellent. All right, one more. Good. And now place your foot down and then go ahead and give yourself a nice collection again. So put press those heels. It's a good little calf stretch. They're very good. And then toe ball toes. Nice. And then bend the knees and come in. Okay.

We're going to do a little wider position up high on the bar on the board. And if you're doing it in the bar, make sure your heels are on the, on the bar, not your toes on the bar, but your heels. There you go. Now push away a little bit. All right, so your heels are flat, arms are down by your side. Uh, and if you feel that your arms are hanging off the edge of your a reformer, just go ahead and place your hands on your pelvis. If you want, you can just hold it there. And what I'd like you to do is keep the carriage where it is and see if you can just float your pelvis up off the carriage, you using your legs. That's it. Very good.

And then come back down and try not to move the carriage you feel how the carriage moved. Yeah. So you tried to lift without moving the carrots. There you go. Excellent. And come back down. So just keep repeating that. If the carriage is moving when you're lifting your pelvis, it's because you're pushing your feet on the board using your knees and your quadriceps. And what we want to do is use the hip extensors to lift the pelvis is great. Can you feel that? Yeah. Very nice. And then lift God.

So it's not really a tilt either. Now if your back is really arched cause you're very tight in the lower back, you certainly can curl your tail a little bit. Cause we're trying ideally want to have, is that pelvis in a nice level position flat across this way, not the pubic bone. Lower than the top of your pelvis. Good. We'll do two more of those. Okay, good.

And coming back down. Very good. And then bring the carriage in. So what you can do is roll onto your side, reach across to the shoulder. Rest, get your feet onto the floor if he can, and push yourself up. Excellent. All right. So now we're going to do with something a little unusual. We're gonna go down to one a red spring, and I want you to get a stool or a chair.

We have a folding chair here and we're going to place the stool and the chair inside of the reformer here on either side of the ropes. Where am I? Here? Okay, very good. Alright. And she's going to sit here and if it's not too much of a stretch, but a good stretch, I want your feet on the outside of the frame, you should be able to do that. And we're just gonna simply keeping the back nice and long. You're going to hinge at the hip and reach for the shoulder rest. That's it. And if that's too far, you can obviously move your chair in or you can grab the metal pegs if you like.

Yeah, whichever is, yeah. Great. So the idea here is that the whole spine is going to come upright and you want to keep your weight on the back of your sit bones. Now as you come forward, you're rolling towards the front of your sit bones and towards the pubic bone. But I want to keep the back in one long position, so no arching. So you have to move your pelvis, right. The pelvis goes from a forward tilt because you're flexing in the hip too.

Hip Extension, which means the whole bowl of your pelvis is going to lift up, especially from the front, right? So that you don't overwork your back. Your back is working. But we want the front to work and you'll probably, I'm, what I'm hoping is that you're gonna feel it in your gluteals here, the external rotators and the glutes of the legs. Very good. And you want to do about 10 of these and say my idea with your breathing and just exhale as you come up. That's it. Which helps with the abdominals. And then inhaling as you lean oh word good. And exhale coming up and your feet are really nice and planted on the floor. Right? Can you feel that good. And we'll do a few more. That's it.

So feel your whole tripod of your foot on the floor. Press into the floor and lift the body up. Yeah, that was even better. I think being a little more active in your legs is key. Good. And we'll do two more and again, press your feet into the floor. Start lifting your pelvis up from the front so that you get back on those sit bones to be upright. Right. One more excellent.

And coming up, right. Excellent. Very nice. Okay. And then bring the carriage back to the home position here. Good. And now we're going to turn it around so you have to come up and flip the chair around. Or if you have a stool, you don't have to actually flip it around. But we have to because this is a folding chair that has a back to it and it just turn it around. So then are you gonna sit facing the risers? And this is for the upper back. Now if you have a folding chair, it's actually nice because the folding chairs going to hit you in the back here and when you can use it to kind of brace into it a little bit, cause I'm looking for an upper back extension.

So you're going to reach behind with the thumbs down to the shoulder rests here. Very good, good. And then you'll allow the carriage to go backward. It's kind of pulling you back as you're lifting the sternum up. Good. And then you bring your body back, pulling against the resistance to come back, right upright and back again. And if you can, you want to really lengthen the arms. There you go. Nice lift and Exhale, bring yourself back upright. So this is good also for connecting the abdominals in the front and we're getting a nice open of the chest. And a good shoulder stretch here.

It's nice and Yummy. Good. Let's do a few more. Yes. Nice. And she's doing a great job not allowing the lumbar spine to arch with that. It's just in the upper chest. Good. Let's do two more reaching back. Good. Good. We'll do one more.

Nice breathing in here. If you inhale, it kind of helps lift the chest up and then exhale back to center. All right, let's bring the carriage back. And just for a counter pose, just reach your arms forward and you can just round your back, rest a little bit on the, the, the risers and let your back just kinda relax. Okay. And when you're ready, come up. And we're ready to do a little bit of a short box series. So you'll need your box. Get rid of your stool. And we do have to take the jump board out.

So we'll loosen that up. Sorry, I didn't know she was just putting all the springs on so the carriage doesn't move. Alright. And we'll use our strap and we're going to your it. Okay. And we're going to use the magic circle just to hold hold as a, as a prop this way. And if you don't have a magic circle, you can simply just hold your hands this way or you can hold a stick. All right? Now, depending on how tall you are, if you're very tall person, you're going to, your feet are going to be on the wood like Mandy's are.

If you're a little shorter, you can actually move the box forward, cause it at the beginning. At this level, you want to have contact with your feet. You don't want your feet up floating in space just yet until you get a little stronger. All right? So we're going to do it with a straight lean back. And so the lean back is not cutting yourself in half this way. The lean back starts once again at the hip joint like you just did on the chair. So the pelvis has to come back good. And then you come sitting up.

So was you were sitting in the chair there on the reformer and you were sitting upright pulling the carriage. It's the same feeling. See how she's hinging from the hip and not extending in the back. So the whole spine staying nice and long and she's rolling back the front of the pelvis. That's good. It's moving away from the thighs. So you want to create again, this opening of the grain here that's set without arching the back. Good. Very nice.

And she's breathing out right there you go. And then inhaling to come sitting up. So again, do as many as you can. Keep your good form without breaking in the middle, right? We're talking if you can do 10, that's plenty. Okay, very good. And let's try a side position. So we're going to sit facing that way. Yeah.

And I like you to, um, so it depends on your hip or your needs. So you can do this position with this foot down and your strap will hold you. But I want you to have contact and you're just going to come down if you can on your elbow. So too far. And if that's too far, that's a bit far. And let's get the head rest up. There you go. So I want the yeah, the body to be long, not side bent over and the hip stat. Now if that's too far for you, you can come up onto your hands.

So can show that, come up onto the sand. You'll be a little bit taller this way. All right, so come down onto the arm and we're gonna place this hand behind the head. Go ahead. And we want to stay connected in to the rib cage and that hips gotta stay forward. All right, now what you're going to do is let go of the left arm. Just reach towards the floor, see if you can let go and hold, hold, breathe, breathe. Excellent. Keep the length and place your arm back on the breast. Good.

Let's try it again. That's tough. If this position, uh, you could just keep your arm there. If this is already a lot of work for yourself and all I want you to do is see if you can unweight your, your arm support. So again, let go and reach to the floor. That's it. And hold. Keeping the head in alignment with the hips. This is great. And then place it back down. I'm going to make her do two more though. All right. Cause she's strong and go again.

But even if you can just hold one time and you can count to three with your breath and then rest. That's great. One more time so you can hold and count one, two, three. If you can count to five, that's even better. And one repetition would be fine until you build up to doing maybe three to five. Like she's doing five. Okay, let's do the other side. Very nice. Okay, great. So down on the elbow.

And here's the thing to always check is the pelvis because it tends to fall back. So you want to stack it on top and you've got this like can you move this way? So you're on the wood. There you go. Good. You want me to stay on the wound? Stay on the wood. I think you were on the other side. Were you? Or did you get off at the end? Okay. It's all right.

I mean if you can sustain a holding your leg up, that's a little more advanced, so that's fine. Okay. So it's up to you what you feel, but if you could need to keep your leg down, that's great. And then can we have that alignment here? All right, let go and reach to the floor. That's what she needs to strap. There you go. Hold two, three and place the arm back and again and arm down. Keep breathing. One, two, three and place the arm back and again. And she did five. So we're going to do five to three and come back and let go.

Keep breathing. Two, three and come back. And last one, hold two, three and come back. Excellent work. Come on up. Alright, now we're going to do something. Um, a little tricky if you're a reformer depending on what reformer you're working on in this, uh, style of reform reformer, the balanced body reformer, this will work. I'm going to put the box on the, um, foot rest. If that doesn't work, then we'll just do the foot rest without the box. But we'll need to move this a little bit away here. So you want to move your carriage if you can.

That works for your reformer a slightly away. And we're going to do one red spring and we just take the box. So at rest on here. Now there's a little safety precaution here, okay? As you want to make sure the box doesn't fall off the bar there. All right, so you're going to kneel on the carriage and you're going to place your forearms like this on the box. And what we're going to do with the feet now is you actually going to cross your ankles so you're not going to get to use your legs, but separate your knees so they're under your hips.

So there'll be a little open like a v. Very good. All right, so to start with, you just going to push back with your legs until your knees are under no, as too far under your hips. So you're like 90 degrees. Good. And then press. Yeah, there you don't know if it could have control. The shoulders on her hands are firmly on the box. And what you're going to do from here is now move your trunk away from the box. So it's happening in your upper back. And the shoulder. The light's very nice.

And then Propole yourself with your elbows. Pull yourself back in. Very nice. Good. And press back with the arms. Good. So we're working scapular motion here. You should be feeling that and you should be feeling quite a bit of work in the muscles and your armpit. That connecting to your rib cage and the Nice long spine. Excellent. And these shoulder blades are doing a little rotation this way and as she pushes out, it actually rotates and widens in your back.

And then you pull yourself there. I was Kinda like dragging yourself back over the box. Good. Keep going and back. Pushing back. Good and pulling in. And she's doing a great job of keeping her center in alignment and not dropping the spine. So if you get tired and you find that your back starting to bow a little bit, it's time to stop. Okay. And rest. Great.

So now we're going to do a side plank with the box. So just a Neil upright now. So come off the box and I like it in the middle of the carriage. So back up your knees here in the middle of the carriage. There you go. So your feet will be off the end. Now what you're going to do is you're going to place your right arm on the box and you're going to lean onto your elbow just like you weren't. That's it.

Now your weight has to go onto your right knee. Yes, your, your weight has to go on just your right knee. So push out a little bit. So now we're trying to find that nice straight, long plank. There you go. So the weight, as you can see is only on the one day. And then same idea, you push away your trunk, that's it, and pull it towards, and you're working in through this whole area here. Go ahead and you press away. Good. And pull it in. Think of your trunk moving away from your arm.

And not that your arm is pushing you away because the shoulder, we don't want to strain and push into the shoulder. You want your trunk, your rib cage to move away from the box. And you can think of the rib cage also moving slightly upward. Yes, that's better. You feel the difference. So keep going and do with two more here. So the rib cage is going up towards the ceiling a little bit and away from the box as opposed to, I'm just pushing with my arm because it could be a lot of weight on your shoulder and it could be uncomfortable. That's much better. Excellent. And come back. Good. Let's switch to the other side. And again, if that motion is uh, too difficult at this point you could just come into the pose.

So bring the elbow down and now or on your left knee only and find, and then you can just hold that position and you, but you move, it can hold the position breathing, count to five and then come out of the position and then just do it again. So if you find any of the movements we were doing difficult, just go into the pose and don't do the movement and practice holding the shape and get the strength in that position. And then maybe in a couple of weeks you'll start to move. Right. So this, this one can be hard. And again, the rib cage is going up towards the ceiling a little bit and moving away from the arm. Very nice. Good. And again, reaching out. Good.

And then you want to be even, so I haven't been counting for you on this side, so how many more? One more. Two more she wants. Okay. So we'll do two more because you want to make sure you do the same amount on each side. Okay. Very nice. Great. All right. Now we're going to take the box again and we're going to put it in the long position and do a little bit of arm work facing the risers. So, um, because the bar is in this second gear cause we moved it away from the bar, it's got a red spring. So I'm going to stick with the red spring.

If it's too difficult, make the spring a little lighter and if it's too easy, move the bar to make the spring a little tighter or add another spring. All right, so we're going to simply do as a chest expansion. And what I'd like to do because of your hands, so I'd like to do is actually shorten up the stretch. So if you would take your lube and your handle right to the, the head rest like that and you can hold it there and then tighten it. It's a very quick way of adjusting the strap and you also get to um, keep, you pretty much keep them even too. All right.

And what I like is the hand to be flat so that the loop is against your hand so you can spread your fingers this way and bring your hands forward cause you're already starting. That's it, right? And now you're going to inhale as you pull back, inhale and the arms are reaching towards the floor. Very good. And exhale going back. Got, it's a very simple movement. But here's the challenge. The carriage is moving under you and you have to keep the stability of your trunk as the arms are moving and the, the distance, she's got a nice distance between the hand and the arm.

So you're not close together. There's space in your armpit. Yeah. And the arms are straighten up. Think about reaching through that pinkie side of your arm just a little more. So we get this whole line of your arm yet to feel a difference. If you just add a little reach to the pinky. Good. And put that so much better.

I can see your triceps working a little bit more in the back here. Good. So you want to do about 10 to 15 of these. Okay. Really Nice. Good. And the weights. Okay, that's good. All right, now we're going to put one strap down. We'll just drop one and keep one. Okay. And take an opposite hand. Now. Good.

And what you're going to do is you're going to reach across, now turn your body slightly so you see how you're in a little rotation in the rib cage. So your pelvis is staying forward and you're just going to run and now you're going to pull and bend your elbow and look back over your left shoulder and pull that set. So you get that rotation. The other hand can just be on your thigh. So we get that full twist to the rib cage. That's it. And then go back. Resisting the carriage is very important. Okay. And again, lead with the elbow. Turn from the sternum, very nice and back.

So here we're working the diagonal, she's going to pull and you should feel this shoulder blade, that's her left one down to this hip here. Good. And then in the front it would be the right rib and she's pulling the right rib, the front of the right ribs, moving towards the left hip. That's what's working. And the back line is working this way. Very Nice God and breathing. Exhale and pole. And keeping the hand at kind of at breasts level or a little below is easy to keep your shoulder blade down. And again, we want to do about 10 this nice diagonal work here.

Go ahead and come back and we'll do one more. Excellent. Super good. It feels good. Yeah, that's a nice twist. Good. Okay. So start in a little rotation. Your other arms just resting good. And then you start with the elbow. That's it.

So it's the right scapula shoulder blade towards your left hip and the back. Good. And then it reverses actually when you twist the other way. And when she pulls again, it's the left front of the rib cage moving towards the right hip. So we're on this diagonal and then as you go back, it's this diagonal. So we're getting this nice crisscross going on in your trunk. That's it.

Good. And you want to do as many as you did on the other side for balance and really think of the sternum, the sternum is, and look behind you too. Yeah, you can add the rotation of your head a little more. Nice. Good. So it's a full spiral of the thoracic and the neck. Good. Opening up. Good. Okay. Even, yeah. Okay. So I have one more here. I'm going to take the straps again. Now this time your palms are going to be down like this. And what I, what I want you to do is you're going to, uh, you're going to try to pull in a diagonal. This arm goes this way.

This is going up that way. So it's a little bit of a pull on a diagonal that way. Good. And then bring it Beza wait. Okay. Okay, good. And then switch and so it was yeah, and straight [inaudible] this way. That's right. Yeah. And the palm is flat this way. Okay.

And come back down. So if your hands are here, you're pulling like that. So not with the thumb down. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. It's a little harder on this side for you to coordinate that. That's it. That's better. Yeah. So keep going. Then as you start with the thumb, the hands are down, palms are down, but as you pull, your palms are going to be facing outward. That's it. Nice. Including this one. You're fine on the other side.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, actually down here it is. This way. The palms. Yeah. You're doing that, right? Okay. Let's try it again. Sorry to confuse you. There you go. So that palm is out and that palm is down. There you go. It's hard with a straighter arm. Yeah, it's okay.

That means you get to practice it. Yeah. So you can, if it's hard, you can bend your elbow slightly, but the challenge is the longer lever, so you don't even have to go that far back. Even you can just separate the arms, you can make a small range and then gradually she's doing a pretty big range with that. All right. That's a hard one. That's very good. Okay. Okay. So now we're gonna sit, uh, facing sideways and we're going to use the magic circle. So I'm going to lengthen the strap back again just to make it less tense in that and have the carriage at the home position. And you're going to hold the ring. Okay. And what we're going to do is we're going to take one loop. Yeah.

And put it on here. If you can, then you have to hold it. Yep. And now you have the circle in front of you with a little bit of space. Now if your legs are um, on the carriage, okay. The heels are on the carriage and that it feels safe to you. Okay. Cause you can move the box back. Let's do that and come on up.

I think it will be easier cause you're come on, I'm gonna move the box to the edge back here. Yeah. Okay. Then you'll have a little more space for your feet. Right? So we've taken the loop and put it on the one end of the circle, but you have to hold it with your hands so it doesn't come off and you come towards the center pole. Is it too heavy? Yup. Okay. Alright. Yeah. So slightly bent elbows if you would. So it's like you're making a circle, a hugging around with your arms. That's it. And here's the thing, you couldn't have watched the circle to. Your chest is going to stay right in the middle and you're going to rotate your entire body to the right. So the circle doesn't go past your chest.

That's, it doesn't go past one red springs. Pretty tough. So you might, if you have never done this before, you might want to try a blue spring at first so that you get the motion, the movement, that's it. Good. And she's doing a great job of keeping that rotation around a central axis here. Great. So make sure that that circle is always staying in front of your chest. Your arms don't keep moving. Good. So we'll do out, let's say about six to that side. So you're probably good. Yeah. All right, let's switch to the other side. So we had to move the box back. [inaudible] right.

Here's your circle. You have to hold on to it. Got It. Okay. So now you get to watch from the back. Good. And now rotation, that's it. So this rib goes forward, the right side and the left rib comes back. So think of your ribs as the serene. So the whole ring is rotating.

As you can see here. This is her ring, this is going forward and this red rings coming back. So make sure that action's happening in that lower part of your rib cage. Very good. We're doing about five or six. Got It. One more. Excellent. Super and come back and rest. Very good. Okay, we're going to do a little mermaid to stretch, uh, a counter pose to this. Okay, you got that? All right.

So I'm going to move the bar back so it's not so far away from, um, oh, could you take the straps off? Yeah. Okay. So we're gonna try a couple of different ways to sit. All right, so depending on your, uh, size of your legs, uh, how tight your hips are. Uh, there's a couple ways we can sit. The traditional way is to sit with one leg bent in the front and the other leg bend in the back. So let's just do the traditional position first. But you might find this a little more difficult, uh, to sit in this position.

Good, good. Right? So she's able to sit fairly, uh, even in this position. But here's the potential. If, if you first of all can't fit in this size with your legs on the carriage, that's going to be a problem in second and wall. This knee, the left knee, because of this position, the lower leg bones rotated out. So the medial side of your knee is a little more exposed so that if you have a tenderness or anything through your knee here, um, you're not actually going to want to sit that way. So what if you were to straighten your leg through here?

Cause through there. Okay. How's that feel to you? It's a stretch to for your hip, but yeah, so which would be good for you. Okay. So here, push out now and do a little mermaid side twist. There you go. So he'll stay here for a second. Okay. Reach arm overhead like we do. Good. And connect here. Good. And now turn your body a little bit that way. There you go. How's that feel now at this hip? Yeah. Good.

So you just want to keep that, there you go. Now come back. Now this may look and then bring it in again. So you can do that a few times. So this is a pretty advance, uh, position to sit in. This is nice though. Good rotation of the ribs and a nice opening. But the it takes the pressure off of the knee and it's actually giving you a really good stretch of your right hip. And of course, good rotation and opening through here.

Good, good. And come up. All right, let's do the other side. And if this none, if either one of these are not an option for you, you can just put the box on the reformer and sit on the box with your legs dangling and just do a side stretch for your trunk. Okay, very good. Good. And so now you're gonna go ahead and push it inside bend. Go ahead and you're gonna let this hip come forward. Yeah, let this turn in. Yeah, it's like parallel. That's it. And overhead. That's it. Nice twist. Good, very nice. And come back. Good. And you don't have to sit down. I mean you're, she's doing this very well. Good. And keep going.

This is going to go forward. Good. And then nice twist. Now if that hip position is too much for you to come back like she's doing, then you could just stop right there and go again. You see? So you can limit that range. Nice. So we get a nice stretch through here or you come all the way down, which getting this nice deep hip. Do One more. That's fantastic. Very nice.

All right, now that we've stretched that hip out, we're going to do some sideline leg work. Okay. All right, so I'm going to, we're going to do one red spring, so we've got to get a pillow for your head. So line your side. It's always nice to protect the pillow sweats. There you go. Excellent. Nice. Yeah. Okay, so we're going to take this strap. So you're going to see if you can go ahead and take it and we're going to put your leg through it. You're going to all the way through if you can.

Good and good. All right. And you want to do like a side on 90 degree? Yeah, this is fine right here. And you're going to keep your heels together and you're just going to open your knees up and the carriage can move a little bit and down. Great. So the heels are floating. They're good. And keeping the pelvis stacked here. So it's only a leg movement.

So as the knee opens, that's plenty high enough. Think of this pelvis going forward that way. Yeah, and not through the back, but just this hip bone, like put your hand right in the front there, right? Put your hand on the hip bone and you should put a little weight, like put a little pressure in there to see that. Very good. So if you put a little pressure of your hip bone into your hand, as you open and close the leg, you're gonna feel more of the external rotators and the AB doctors. Those are the side of your hip muscles. Really important for stability.

And it gives you a nice tone in that area too. So you want to do about 10 to 15 of days as you keep moving. Good. Great. We do two more. That's our magic number. Yeah. Okay. Now stay open. So this is external rotation.

So now what you gonna do is you're going to switch your knee and you're going to go down and touch the other knee with the foot up, and then you're going to go toe to toe. And then need to knee. That's it. Toe To toe, knee to knee. Good. And just keep this one down. Don't lift it up. Yeah, toe to toe. I mean you have to lift your knee. Yeah. Okay. That's neat. The knee, I call this toe to toe. I need a knee.

You got to lift your knee to go toe to toe. Got It. Okay. You were doing it. You start thinking too much. Go ahead. Yeah, in knee to knee. Toe was up, toe is down. Good. Bring your foot up. That's it. And bring the foot down. Excellent. That's it. Good. And again, about 10 of these, that's a good workout. Okay. You don't have to do 10 again. You want to gradually build up to that.

So we're going to try something here. We're going to keep the knee bend, so come parallel. And this is more like our sidekick. So bring your knee up to the level of your hip and come let the rope take you into little hip flection and then from your foot, press back and actually push into me. That's the feeling that your leg is pushing back this way. Unfortunately you don't have a teacher with you to do that, but that's the feeling. So you let the rope take you here, keep your foot where it is and push back. Push into me. There you go. So we're getting right into, that's good.

And then bring the knee and now you don't have a teacher there and you have to bring back. But imagine you're pressing your foot against something. That's it. Good. Excellent. Which again, she's doing a great job of keeping her pelvis stable. It's not falling forward or back. Good. You will notice though, as the leg goes back, if your hand is still here on the front of your hip bone, that there is an increase of pressure of the front of the hip bone into your, and that needs to happen when you really get the front of your groin here really opened up, which is what we started the class with. Should we do two more? Okay.

Burning good. I think. I hope that's good. Okay, one more. It's a tough series so you can always take a break in between each of these three just to rest. Okay. Excellent. So now we get to do the other side. All right. Even though your other side was on the carriage and it wasn't w quote unquote working those muscles in your hip on the side that was lying down.

We're actually working so that might feel a little more fatigued on this side. What the other side was doing was contracting because it was stabilizing. So even though it didn't have a strap on it and make sure you're in a nice plum line this way. That's it. Very good. All right, so first we open and close the need that got clam position. Very good. And put your hand on the front of that hip bone again so that when you lift the knee you have that little bit of pressure of your pelvis into the hand. That's perfect. Good. And since you know the sequence, you can just kind of move through it forward with that hip bone.

If the left hip sometimes on a lot of us tends to fall back a little bit. So be extra mindful about that pressure of the front of the pelvis into that hand. Very good. All right. Here we go. Knee to knee, toe to toe, need a knee, lift the knee and then toe. So you kind of need down and lift your foot and knee up. There you go. So it's just tipping actually. Yeah. Your foot doesn't even have to if you just tip and tip.

Good drop, good and open. That's it. Nice. There you go. Open. Good. Knee to knee. Toe to toe is a little harder, huh? To stabilize. Yeah. Left hips. Two in general in a lot of our population tends to be the weaker hip so it might be a little harder to control with the left side already. Good though. I remember it's a little more fatigued cause it did work.

Now your right hip is actually working. You probably feel that a little bit, right. All right, here we go. And hip extension and the idea here is to push back. Push on me. So you want to be conscious of feeling the sip bone area good and bring the knee towards your chest. Let the rope take you there. Now press that heel back and push back and make sure your foot is parallel to the floor. That's it. And your knee was fine. It was just the position of your foot.

So the little toe and your knee is fine right here. The little toe side parallel to the floor. Downward. Yeah. And that means is that your lower leg, the lower limb, the Tibia tends to want to externally rotate, which then the toe goes up. So that's it. Good. All these little details push here. That's it. And again, that little pressure of your hand, the pelvis into your hand and press. Very nice. Good.

Excellent. How's this side compared to the other side? Okay. Yeah. This difference. Okay. It is different. Yeah. We have everybody's hips. I notice have a different qualities in terms of their strength and where they're able to move and the coordination. Good. Yeah. It's a little more alignment PR, uh, issue. Yeah. You're ready to finish.

One more. Excellent. And come back and very nice. Alright. So with all that, um, work in the deep rotators, we're gonna sit up and do a little stomach massage, but we're gonna use a ball for your back or you could use the box. So I think we have to move the carriage again out and away and we can use, um, two to three springs. Let's try that. And you can lower your bar if that's too much flection for you as well to give you more distance. Excellent.

And again, if you don't have a large ball, you can take your a box. It's just that this is a little softer and nicer to, uh, lean into and put the box in the long position. Yeah. Okay. So what I liked you to do is not a, we're going to actually sit upright. We're not going to flex the spine. You're going to lean against the ball. So it's more of a straight back. And I'd like your feet wide here. Yeah.

On the heels. Go, come up on the heels. Yeah. There you go. And open the knees out. Yeah, there you go. So we don't want, we want to be able to have enough space in here. Good. And now just push away through the heels and lean against the ball. Yeah. Good. And then open those knees a little bit as you come in and deep and in the hip. Now you don't have to come all the way to the end range of the carriage obviously because we've moved it out. So you just want to be comfortable.

Don't put any over pressure in your hip joints. It should feel good in your legs. So the nice stretch there. Good. And lean against that. Nice. Yeah. Great. So this prevents your upper back from around eating a little too much. Okay. So now we're going to do is um, bring come in a little bit and whatever's comfortable in your hips, just bring your feet a little closer, but on your heels still on your heels.

I want to challenge you a little bit. Now, it might be a lot of springs for this, but I want you to stay upright and see if you can stand on the right leg and just simply lift the left foot off the bar. Go ahead. And it can be more like your knees coming towards your chest and then come back down. Yeah. So it's not about extending your knee, it's just to lift. Yeah. And try that. That's it. Cut It. Look straight ahead. And as you lift, you see it's working. The quadricep. Can you feel that here? Good. So even if you just unweight your foot, that's it. Back and forth and lean into the ball. Good. Excellent.

Keeping your lower back against the ball. Very good. Nice. Let's do one more side. Good. Okay. And then Kamala, we can go ahead and let's bring your feet down and out to the step. Perfect. All right. Come on up.

Oh, okay. Oh good. I wanted to do like a little, uh, lateral stretch and I think the ball is a little too large. So let's, um, let's go ahead and get our box up here. And I know this one has a loop on it, but, um, go ahead and let's sit again. I don't know if this is any different in the distance. Uh, maybe I can go this way. This has been hard. Let's go this way. Yeah. And just sit once again down. Uh, like you were down here with your feet and we want your right leg up on the top here. Yeah. On the heel.

Yeah. Come up. Yeah. Just make it comfortable. And I want you to stretch the other leg through underneath the bar. Good. And then what I'd like you to do is to kind of move your foot over towards this end of the bar. Right. Just Nice. And does that feel okay on there? Good. And then just hold your hands out to the side. You know, just hold onto the riff for good and then bring your leg back. Can you just slide? Yeah, if you can slide it. I don't know if the, um, that's it. And the idea is to get a stretch in the length across here.

Can you feel that good. And then bring it back. And it gets to work your adductor, but okay. And so don't, Oh, don't over cross it just, yeah. So for those of us who are tighter than Mandy is here, you'll start to feel a little stretch, only go as far as you feel comfortable there and bring it back. Good. And if it's, if it's too much tension in your groin and come back, what you can do is scoot forward a little more and actually lean back more so that your pelvis is actually back a little bit and I'll be careful that the box doesn't tip, but just see how that opens the groin a little bit. So try it there and see if that's any different. Yeah. Okay, good.

That looks better. So I have are purposely back and a little bit of a tilt so you can feel that leaning back. Good. So that the groin is a little softer here and that we're working the AB doctors again in your adductors. Good. All right, let's try the other side. Get to sit bones actually have to be a little away from the box so that you can lean back. Yeah, exactly. Unless you want a repeat sent you to the other side, but okay. So across, there you go. Yeah, I feel most good. So it might be tighter on this side for you. Yeah. Good, good. So again, she's doing a wonderful job of floating her leg up off the edge of the reformer.

So, but if that's too much work for your leg, you could just slide your leg along the edge. And if this is too rough of a surface, you know, you can put something softer on there so you don't mess up your tights. Get little poles in them. Right? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So you want to do as many as you did the other on the other side. Go ahead. [inaudible]. Okay. And coming up.

Okay. Would come up. All right, so we're gonna do a little series once again in the long box position facing the risers. All right, so I'm going to have you sit, uh, on the box, uh, right about here and I'm going to have you hold the ropes and let's see. We'll do, um, cause I want some stability. So we're going to do a red and a blue. Okay. And let's make sure the [inaudible] straps are in a shortened position again.

All right? So we're going to do it right up to the head rest. You just pulled the loop to their headdress and tighten it up. There you go. You take this one. I'll do that. It'll be quicker here. You take that? Yeah, I'll do it. See if you just measure it right to the head rest and then you can tighten quickly. Okay? Okay. So scoot forward a little bit and your palms are going to be up and you're going to slowly roll back.

Now here's a choice we might have to do for some of you. Um, if you have a medium size ball, we can do this modification. Whereas you start to roll back, right? You're gonna lean onto the ball. There you go. How's that? Good. Stop right there. That's good. All right. And now you're going to bring your palms up and just do some bicep curls. Just easy and extend slowly, right? And so if you imagine that your elbows are on a tabletop here so they don't drop down or go up, they stay right at this level.

Go ahead. Nice. And just notice where you're looking with your eyes so that you're not pressuring your Chin down into your throat. Yeah. And that your head's right on top. Go ahead and some a nice curl up the rib cage. Good. Good.

Okay, we're gonna. I'm going to make you do one more good and extend the arms. You're going to stay in this position now. Can you bring your right leg up? Exhale. Bring your right leg up and do you feel comfortable there? Hold it. Good. All right, here we go. Left leg up and into the ball. That's it. Can you do it excel? No, no. Just bring your left leg up. They both had. Yup.

So both up you think, come up onto your toe. [inaudible] Excel and here you go. Got It. Good. Curl into the ball a little more. That's it. So this is a super challenge. There you go. There you go. Got It. Yep. Hold it. It's like our little mini teaser. Good leaning into the ball. That's it. Nice.

And Palms up and just breathe there. Just hold the position. Very nice. Place your right leg down and left leg down and come on up. Ooh, big challenge. Okay, good. Good work. All right, so I'm going to do a little bit of a change in the spring. So we're going to go to, you can do a blue or red, so I'm gonna choose a red for her. And what I want you to do is you're going to pull your elbow so that they're sitting right next to your side here and have your palms up, right?

So make sure you're holding onto the loop. So the elbows are going to stay right where they are and all you're going to do is move your thumbs out to the side and then bring the strap in that way. Good. So this is an external rotation of the shoulder. Good. So the shoulder tips stay, that's it. So it's a very small movement. So if it's too heavy, you keep going.

If it's too heavy, your elbows might come out this way. You might be pulling back this way. And the pivot point is at the elbow. So the humerus, your upper arm bone is externally rotating and you're resisting coming in. So there's no pulling. Yeah, very nice. And so where the work is is on the post area shoulder.

That means the back of this shoulder blade. Very good. Nice. All right. And Morass story, we're going to face the other way with the uh, short box. So we're going to turn the box around. And this one, I do like to use a pole for this, but if you don't have a pole or a stick, you can use, uh, just the straps. It's just that I like to have it as one motion with the pole as opposed to individual hands. But that's uh, that's a choice that we have here. Okay.

So we're sticking to a red spring, which is pretty tough. So let's see here and here. So you might want to change to a blue spring and make sure the lubes are on the inside of your hands so that they don't fall out. And what we're going to do is bring the stick up this way so that the stick is at the forehead. Okay. So you actually have to have your arms on the inside. Yeah. So drop him in. But your hands on the outside of the loops. Yeah.

So I don't want them falling and above your shoulder. There you go. All right. Now lean forward. That's it. Good. So your body's in a, in a plank facing this way. Cause you, you have to, you're going against the resistance here and then you just gonna to extend the stick away. Good. And don't drop your head too much. That's it. So you can choose whatever's comfortable in your shoulder. Do you want this stick to come towards your forehead? Do you want it to go to the crown of your head or do you want it to go to the back of your head?

It's all based on how comfortable you are in range of your shoulder. Okay. Very nice. Good. Yeah, I feel both arms equally good. Great. And then do two more. Excellent. And then bring the stick down and take a little rest. Excellent.

Thank you. Alright, take the rest. I'd like the rest part. All right, come on up. And we're gonna, um, come on to, uh, our hands and knees in a knee stretch position now, but I'm going to challenge you a little bit more. We're starting to get a little more advanced. And again, if that's a difficult position, you'll again, you can just do fewer repetitions or just hold the position and then come out of it. And this is the true with this particular position as well. So go ahead and kneel on the carriage and the hands are going to go on the bar. The Bar may want to come up one notch there, right? Because the little level and the red and a blue, red and blue spring. Great. All right. So when you stretch, position is like being in a quadriped position. So not too far back now.

Not Too much flection in the knee. Good. Very good. All right, so what I'm going to have you do is it's more of a, uh, a knee stretch with a down stretch. She knows these names. So you'll see the movement in a second with a little elbow bending. So go ahead and you're going to push the carriage back with your legs back with a flat back. And then you're gonna extend the hips and then you'll get, so we're gonna come into this position here, which is what we call down stretch. And then push away, push by, and then come into knee stretch. Bend the knees. Excellent. It's just practice that for a second.

So push back in this position and then bring your chest up. Bring the whole body forward. Just easy and push back and bend the knees in. One more time. Press the carriage back. Now open the front of the hips. We've been working on this area and strengthening of the glutes there you go.

And push back. And now it's a little progression. The next time we're going to bend the elbow. So you go out and now bend your elbows and come into the bar and press, press up and then go back. And then again, knee stretch. Good. Push the legs back. You're going to bend the elbows, coming to the bar and now push shop. It doesn't have to be a big band to the elbows at all. Very nice and push back.

Let's try to get a little flow here and the knee stretch one more time and push back up. Stretch with the elbows, bending straight in the arms, push back. That's good. And these stretch, now we get to reverse it. So push back. No straight arms. We're going to come in right now. From here, I want you to bend your elbows and go down, bend and push away. Good. And then come into the knee stretch. There we go. So go out. So not exactly a reverse, but coming with straight arms and then go down, bend the and push away. Very good. And knee stretch. That's it.

One more time. Push away straight arms as you come in and up. And then you bend the elbows and push it away and then bend the knees and come in. Excellent. Helen Challenge. Alright, now you get a cookie. Little reward. Come on out. Uh, it's a good thing you don't have a mic. Okay. No, we're gonna do a nice standing cat stretch.

So we'll put the bar down. One red string is plenty, or maybe a blue and you're just gonna stand here and you get to just curl your back. Place your hand on the box. Now here I want you to send your sit bones behind you and push the box away. Continue to push the box away as you curl your tail down. Sit bones to your heel. Now bring your pelvis forward and up, and then rural. Okay, I'll just do that three times. All right, so from the top of the head and just kind of melt like a candle rolling down.

Reach arms to the box. Nice straight arms. Good. Now from the top of your thighs, go back, sit bones. Go up the wall. You reach a long through the arms. Now keep that length of your waist. Push the box away as your tailbone comes down, your sit bones go down towards your heel, pelvis. Curling the pelvis now has to come up and forward a little bit until you come to the bumper and then roll it up all the way up. Inhale and exhale again, and exhale. Roll through the spine, hands to the box.

Press the thigh bones back. Sit bones. Go up the wall length and through those wastes in the side of your arms. Keep pushing away as you curl the pelvis. Tailbone. Sit bones towards your heel, resisting the box and then rolling up and inhale last time. Exhale, roll it down. Very nice and thigh bones. Go back as you reach to the spine. Lengthen your waist, the side body long arms, and resist the box as you curl coming up.

Roll up and standing tall and rest. Good work. Thank you. Yay.