Improve your Splits

Hi, I'm Cara Reeser. I'm here with Lauryl and Jen. We're gonna do a challenging mid-level Reformer class. Focus, you guys, is on the hips. Lateral posterior hips.

We're gonna try to really get awesome in executing some of the split series at the end. So they have a green Thera-Band in their hand. They're gonna start, they're gonna wrap the Thera-Band around the backs of their legs, they're in parallel, arches on the bar, cross the band in the front. So what I'm doing here is I want you guys to use your side hips to push out. And then I'm also gonna ask you to do a little bit of external rotation, your arms, a little baby bird wing like this, as you come up into a shoulder bridge.

You're gonna curl the tail, don't move the machine, push out on the band, pull out on the band, and come up to a bridge. That looks great. They do have their head rest down here. Take a deep breath in, push out with your legs a little more, and exhale roll down. Nice.

So keeping your legs super active, notice that your feet need to stay in the center of the arch. Try not to supinate. Come up again. Fold the legs out. Chin off your throat, Lauryl.

Pull back with your arms, bend your elbows a little more and then pull out and pull that band out with your legs. That's right. Take one more deep breath, good, and exhale down. Alright, so let your arms soften a little bit. We're gonna move into footwork, you're gonna keep pulling out on the band.

Heels together, toes apart. So we're doing Pilates footwork with a little more emphasis on this lateral leg. Inhale press out, exhale in. Great, inhale push out, and exhale in. Good so lengthen your chins away.

I'm gonna go ahead and bring your head rests up. At home you could've picked your head rest up there. But we're just gonna give them that better position. Inhaling, exhale, two more in this position. Great, try not to grab your toes, but lift them a little so you're in the ball of the foot.

Good, now keep that tension on the band chained to your arches, great. Inhale press, exhale in. We're gonna do about six. So out, and in, good. Keep pulling, now I love how active the arms can stay here Jen so you can keep that little bit of external rotation here as well, that's gonna get that backside of your arms turned on.

You feel that Lauryl? Oh yes, she says, good. One more, good. Push out on the band a little bit, pop up to your heels for the transition, yes and here we go, out, and in. Now as you're pushing and pulling here you're feeling that lateral, that outside leg.

Also direct your sits bones now, really moving from the sits bones, heels, to the heels. And that just helped your pelvis get a little bit more on the level. Perfect. Two more, nice. Keep it.

It's a lot of work, awesome. And drop down to your toes. Last thing with the band, bring the elbows tighter in, and push out. So we're kind of turning on lower with those heels, kind of turning on areas of the body that we sometimes forget to have involved when we start our protocols. So we're turning that back side of the body on a little bit more.

Two more, big breaths. Lower and lift. Bend your knees, and come in. Let your legs relax, just open your knees for a second and let that release. I know, I know.

Drop the band off to the side. We're gonna go into the hundred. Go ahead and grab your handles, I want you to stretch your legs out over the bar, keep the bar up for right now. And straighten your arms straight up. Wrap that scapula around your ribcage, make fists around the dowel rods, so you have nice strong arms, and go ahead and pull down, lift your head and keep your legs pressing down for a second.

So start pumping and press those legs down. Exhale. Press your legs down so the back side of your legs are working. And exhale. A little less turn-out, Lauryl, and a little more press.

Good now keep the backsides of your legs working and float your legs one inch off that bar. You've got three more deep breaths, and exhale. And straighten your elbows, exhale, good last one, exhale, now stay with me. Put your arms straight down on the mat, put your legs back down on the bar, head down, and come into a straight leg bridge. Lift up.

Keep pressing through your arms, take a deep breath and lift your left leg up to the ceiling, don't drop your pelvis. And back down, that's gorgeous. Keep lengthening through the crown, and other leg. And back down, and roll or put your spine down, nice you guys, lift your arms, and bring your knees into your chest, great. Drop your head rest, drop your foot bar, I'm gonna bring you down to two springs, and we're gonna go for Short Spine.

We're gonna do a little preparation. And we're gonna get to High Frog on this for the back of the legs again, okay? So go ahead and get on in to your straps for your Short Spine. This first thing I'm gonna teach comes from Kathy Grant, it's a pre-Short Spine exercise that I absolutely love. You girls have probably done this with me before but you're gonna make sure your head rest is down, put your hands on the strap, both hands together.

And just push the strap so it's not close to your face. Now the goal here is to start lifting your booty but not moving your machine. See how your machine's moving? Keep your machine still by pushing your feet here and curl that bum up a little bit, and exhale back down. So you have a push with the feet, a reach up with the arms and you're gonna feel the back of the legs really pick you up here which is what I want.

Again, so yeah, you feel it? It's from here, it's from here. Keep going, keep going, don't move that machine, and then you can roll down through the spine. That's beautiful. Alright ladies arms down.

Now you're gonna use that same muscle group to get you up in your Short Spine, so I don't want you whipping over. Press out into Frog, inhale, find the backs of your legs, up and over, almost a whip, I almost busted you. Bend your knees and then lengthen your hamstrings really far away from your heels. Pull with your lateral hips, push out. Find your legs here.

Bend your knees, exhale roll down. Okay so I want you girls to listen. Pressure the legs out for a second. So before you use your stomach muscles right now, before you use your trunk, I want you to use the backs of your legs, like you're pushing down on the bar. Find the back of the legs to help you up.

That was nice. Bend your knees, and roll down. We're gonna really need that when we get up to this High Frog, which is where we're going right now. Push out. Up and over.

Keep your breath. Bend your elbows. Hold your sacrum. Get the machine all the way in. Bend your knees.

And press out to High Frog. So you go on the diagonal in my world. Yep, exactly. You okay? Is that heavy, yeah I should take a spring out.

Are you okay? It's heavy on Gratz. Great, good Lauryl. Nice ladies and roll down. That seemed a little heavy, was that heavy?

You okay, okay great. Take the straps off, good. Step off. Go ahead and grab your Long Box, please. We're gonna use just one spring here.

We're gonna start with hamstring pulls. Actually let's go ahead and put the bar up because I think we can flow right through this and not have to take a break. You're gonna loop your straps like Jen's doing, you're gonna lie on your belly, and you're gonna put the straps on your feet. These guys are really good at executing this so they can show you how to do it. Nice Lauryl, she's doing the twisty.

Here we go. So I'm gonna ask you to bring your hands to your forehead. And you're gonna bring your forehead over the bar. So you have a little bit of a flow. I got you darling.

I like it on my feet, 'cause it can slide down your ankle. Hands here at your forehead. So you are using your upper shoulder girdle, your upper back. Lauryl let's take Parallel actually, float your arms, head neck and shoulders off that bar and pull with your hamstrings. Inhale heel to butt, exhale open.

Beautiful, inhale heels to butt and open. So let the front of your hip continue to press into the mat. Exactly Lauryl, feel the difference? 'cause otherwise you're gonna dump in your low back. Open the front of the hip, and exhale. Straighten your legs, drop your straps off, and we're gonna go straight to Swan facing front.

Hands on the bar, you're in position. I'm gonna ask for elbows narrow Lauryl. Go ahead and press out. Follow the wall up, pull the machine in, full Swan. Great and press back out, inhale, that looks great you guys, exhale.

See what would happen if you didn't allow your legs to drop. So keep your back of your leg lively, straighten your knees. Keep your legs up, keep your legs up, 'cause we're about to do Rocking Horse, so we really need the hamstrings to stay at the party. One more time, straighten your knees also Jen, yeah. That's it.

Super duper. Gorgeous guys, keep breathing, smile, have fun. Take the bar down, we're going to Grasshopper. We're doing Long Box two now. So you're gonna come to your pelvis for me on this exercise.

Maybe a different version than you're used to. This is how we did it with Kathy. So you come all the way to your hip bones, yes exactly. You're gonna stay in extension in your upper thoracic spine you're gonna look out. You're gonna pick yourself out with your hamstrings.

Go ahead and start coming up, your body dives down a little bit. Bend your knees, straighten them and clap 'em down as you lift back up. Beautiful, so don't go down until your legs make you go down. So she lifts her legs and therefore her chest goes down. Bend and straighten, and clap clap clap clap clap.

So it's a real sea-saw. Eyes up one more time the legs lift, that takes you down. Yes Jen much better, bend your knees, straighten your legs. Clap clap clap. Scoot yourself back so your chest is just off the edge of the box, reach your arms out and let's do swimming.

Go ahead swim forward inhale, exhale. So this is a long endurance of the back of the leg, back of the body, and rest. Now bend your right knee and reach back for your right leg, now push that foot into your hand to lift up and then reach back for the other leg, gorgeous transition ladies. Kick your feet, flex them, dorsiflex. Thank you.

Kick in, and just rock if you want, or just hold the position, big breaths, exhale, gorgeous, and rest. Slowly don't sling shot, gorgeous, come out, and good. Step off, that looks terrific. Wowy! That was right on, good job. Now take your box off, let's go to Stomach Massage.

So you're gonna put your bar back up, you can have three springs, I think that's plenty. Three springs for this is plenty. Okay, good. So I want to do something a little different with Stomach Massage. We'll start with the arms back, and go ahead and put your feet up.

You're gonna take your right leg out and send it through the center. We're gonna do single legs. Send out, and lower and lift. It's too heavy on this machine for one leg. Two springs, I take it back.

Out. Lower and lift, exhale. As you're doing this one leg version, notice where the weight is on your sit bones, can you keep it equal, exhale one more you guys are awesome, this is hard. But it's gonna make the split so much easier. One more still, sorry, I lied, and then switch.

Good, take that leg out. Go out, lower lift, and in, good. It's actually amazingly difficult to hold your leg up when you're sitting. This is really employing the front of her leg, really getting her hip flexor stronger as well. Perfect, last one, you guys go this thing.

Come all the way in, put both feet on, arms forward, we're gonna go for big twist here. Right side inhale, and exhale come in. Left side, gorgeous you guys, really let your eyes follow, keep lengthening out through your spines, and keep your heels equal 'cause that means you're not slipping across the hips. Finish it off whatever that is, and you can take the bar. Straighten your legs and take a hamstring stretch.

In this strength I really like to lengthen my spine, not round it too much, so I really can focus on the back of my legs here. Super, come on up, good. Long stretch series. We won't do all of it and I'm gonna modify a little. So we'll start with long stretch and then we're gonna do a long leg version of long stretch as well.

Why am I doing that, because I wanna know once we have our leg base, when we pick the legs up that we don't completely drop in the pelvis because that means we've let go of our hips, which makes doing something like splits really difficult. So let's go into the long stretch, and we'll do two legs, and then we'll do one leg at a time. So you're gonna go out, good, pick up your eyes Lauryl, all the way over the bar. Inhale, nice, you guys are looking so great. Exhale, now take your right leg up and put your right toes on your left heel, straighten both legs, go on out.

Super hard. Keep your hips working towards even. One more, super, switch legs, awesome. I push, that's right Lauryl, I push up against one leg and down against the other, and that way I'm making a sandwich with my muscles on my legs, yes. And rest.

Bend your knees, come down, let's go to down stretch, super. So here we are we've got the back of the leg again. Back of the leg opens the front of the hip. Take it back. Exhale all the way through the sternum, eyes up.

Go for that full extension, inhale. Really straighten your elbows 100%. 100%, 100%, 100%, yeah. One more, super, exhale. Go right up into Elephant, one leg.

Why don't we go up on the shoulder blocks, just for fun. Maybe people aren't trying this one much, take one leg out. Square your hips, go out and in. Exhale, right. You gotta pull with your quads, you gotta pull with 'em.

You gotta pull with the front of your leg, and switch. Super duper you guys. This is really hard but once you get the concept of how much you have to use the legs, not just the arms. And down, step off. That is terrific.

Good, how are you feeling? Let's stretch your quads with thigh stretch and then we're gonna go up into some splits. Thigh stretch, facing out, using your straps. I'm gonna take this bar down just in case you're one of those who needs to stretch back extra far. Elbows straight, super duper.

I'm gonna take you through three regular and then we're gonna do a little sit back on a couple of 'em too. Something that I did with Benjamin Degenhardt that I just love and do it all the time now. So you're gonna tip back, regular regular, exhale home. Just lift the arms slightly as you come up so you don't get bogged down on the strap. Inhale, let your quads stretch, keep pushing your hamstrings into your quads, exactly, now pick up your thorax.

You've got this thing. Good, let's go to the sit back now. Come back, half way, and pause. Now break at the hip and put your butt on your heels. Stick your butt out.

Bring your hips right through to where they were. Holy cow, are you killing me Benjamin? And back up. One more time. Take it out, there you go, stick your booty out, open the front of the hip, use the posterior leg, and up you go, super, isn't that nice?

Alright great, put your straps away and come on up. My goal split for execution today is Gondola. So before we do Gondola I wanna do a little prep on the floor, we'll do front splits, side splits, and then we'll go to Gondola, okay? So Jen come on over to the front here, and then Lauryl why don't you come to the front of your machine too. And I wanna bring you into a wide stance like we do in Gondola.

So this is so once we get up there we know what the heck's going on. So I want you to bend your knees, come all the way down. Drop down quite low. You guys really go low, that's good. Keep your sits bones straight down, and what I want you to notice here is first we're gonna lift up into the ball of that foot and that's gonna deepen the crease of that hip and back down.

And then the other side, so that's passively flexing your hip. So if that's making you tip forward too much you gotta come up a little higher. Right. Great, now come up straight legs for a second. So you're only gonna be as turned out as you can control your knees over your feet.

So we don't wanna be knees forward of that. So now go down again, make sure your trunk is upright, and what's gonna happen is you're gonna push with your right leg, and it's gonna help you deepen the crease of your left. And back, and so we're going straight across. So you feel this makes you wanna turn, so that tells you some truth. So work with that truth, yeah.

Oh hello my hips. And back to center, good job. And up. So we kinda have to know where we are before this machine starts moving under us, because it really ups the ante. So remember the tendency, we're gonna come back to Gondola in a minute.

Let's go ahead and hop up for side splits right now. So you're gonna get on your machine. I'd like the foot on the wood. You can take your other foot out as far as you feel like you can handle. So that's up to your body, that's up to your hips.

Parallel. Arms out. We're on one spring, so that makes it more difficult to bring it back in. So be careful how much you thrust it out. Inhale take it out, keep the knees straight love bug, and exhale all the way in.

Inhale take it out, keep your knees straight, straighten your knees. Exhale all the way in. One more time, good, now pause, hold it out for a second. Engage your legs and feel what that is. And pull it in from your legs, super, nice.

Carefully turn around. On your carriage, you've got this thing. That in itself is an exercise. It's all exercise actually. It's all about improving the way you move through the world.

Here we go, take your arms out. I want your knees straight. I know, we're not aware, that's why I'm here. Alright, straighten 'em. I'm here to bring awareness and joy and love to your legs.

Exhale in, keep your knees straight, one more now hold it out, just feel the out. And then make a choice to really bring that back in. Wowy ladies, perfect. Go ahead and come off, I'm gonna get you some towels because you are sweaty. Dry off, let's keep going.

Who says Pilates doesn't make you sweat? I don't know. Does me. So let's go to front splits before we hit Gondola. Go ahead and put the bar up, you can get rid of that pad I think, and go ahead and stand up.

Let's have the right leg on the top and the back leg left leg. Stand on your machine, right leg up top, other leg back. So here's the thing, we wanna think about our legs here. Pick your trunk up a little bit. Square your hips off as best you can.

What's gonna move the machine is your front leg. I want you to keep your back leg super strong and push that front leg. Let yourself into your splits, that's super. All the way in. Lauryl I want your heel down.

I want you more in a Warrior 1 position here. Come on out, keep increasing that range in your hips by pulling that up leg hip back, and back in exhale, you've got that thing. Let's take the arms up, let's have a balance moment, and just do one simple super slow, gorgeous, Wow wow wow! That's it! And back in. Super, switch legs. I know so it's like the back of your leg actually that supports that pushing, you know.

It seems surprising. So you're really gonna ground the back heel. And you're gonna really keep that back leg super straight 'cause that's gonna protect your knee. And here we go. Push with that front leg, you draw this hamstring back, you draw the sit bone of the up leg back, and you come back in.

Keep your back leg straight, breathe, take it out, you're gonna feel so good when you're done. I'm a real believer that strong hips keep a happy low back, I really really am. It's not just about the abs. Back in. Take your arms up, take a moment, this is a different moment.

Slowly, press out. Let me have those hamstrings. Oh yeah, baby, oh yeah. 'Cause your leg knows that you're having to balance so it's like whoa, this is a different game. So you gotta respect that.

Step off, excellent. We're gonna go for our Gondola. Apex exercise today. Set your springs, it's usually a two spring exercise but it's up to you. I'm gonna get you poles for balance, I want you both to face into the center here to start.

So bars down, and this is in turnout. This is the position you just did, so stand up. You're gonna have your foot on the mat and turn out and you're gonna go ahead and take your other foot, it actually goes in the middle here, yep, depending on your machine, but all machines are different so you make it something like this stance. Remember when you bend your knees, you want your knees over your toes. If your knees are in, then you gotta change your foot position.

Okay, let's do this thing. Take a plie, it means bend your knees in French. And straighten your out leg three times. And it's gonna move your machine. Is it too heavy on this machine?

Good, three, good. And then press up. So you have to stay elegant, bend again. Other leg pushes you. One, wrap it around, two, and three.

Straighten your legs. Here we go through the sequence. Bend your knees, straighten both legs out, come up with straight legs, bend your knees. Straighten both legs out, pull it up, good, bend your knees, watch that right leg too, yes I know, you're not supposed to be perfect at these things by the way. You're supposed to be struggling.

Otherwise you make me look bad. Push your legs out, bend your knees, I love this part. Draw it under, lift it up. Stretch it out, bend super, under, up, out, bend. Under, and up.

Isn't that terrific? I know, something we should do every day, right? Turn around. Easy does it, it's a different moment. Here we go, same thing.

You get to pick which foot you wanna put on first in my opinion, whatever makes you feel the safest. Whatever makes you feel the safest. Here we go, bend your knees. The out leg first, three times. Press, inhale.

And exhale, now we did this on the floor so remember what you were thinking about, which is how that transfer works, and strengthen your legs back up. Bend your knees, other leg, it pushes away. And it's gotta stay turned out, so she's really having to work her external rotators in her hips, she's doing a great job. Straighten your legs up, and here we go through the sequence, bend your knees. Stretch both legs, pull it in.

There's your side split feeling. Bend your knees. Stretch it. Pull it. Bend your knees.

Stretch it. Pull it. Now reverse it. Legs are straight, Jen this is a great place to check in. Push out, bend, draw your heels back under, that looks great Lauryl, don't grab your toes, let 'em soften, trust your hips, last one, super great, and both feet on the mat.

Great, step off you guys, and just come to the front of your machines. Set your bar down and come around and sit in the front, and let's just finish with a hip opener stretch since we worked so hard there. So we're just gonna sit down on the edge, take your ankle up, pick up your spine. Take a deep breath in and then just bring that elongated spine over your shin. Try to really not round your spine here, take a couple deep breaths.

There you go. It kind of feels different when you stretch 'em when you just worked them, It's cool. And then up you go, and then your other side. Take the ankle, lengthen your spine, good. You look like a movie about someone who just worked out in Pilates really hard with that sweat dripping off your chin, it's great, alright, good.

Big breath, let it go. That's right, stack your spine up, uncross. Excellent, terrific.