Fletcher Reformer Flow

Hi, I'm Jen as a fino and this is a Fletcher [inaudible] reformer movement session that I've designed based on my journey and climb back from a postnatal hood, which I assume that stage is going to last for the rest of my life. In any case, a lot of this work has to do with bringing both halves of the body back onto midline, a lot of connection through spinal articulation and a many different hemispheres of the body working as one. So let's start with some breath breathing in, reaching up [inaudible] [inaudible] just take a few plea A's, [inaudible] bending the knee, hip and ankle as one and just feeling the inner thigh connection and the length of the spine. Before we take the next one to place the hips down onto the carriage, we're going to lift the arm up and as you rotate the spine to this side, let's rock the pelvis back to start to get some flection. As we come back to center, lift the arm in place and we'll inhale up and tilt the pelvis [inaudible] and up and play springing the focus along with us. And the idea with our breath is to try to keep the breath driving the movement as we go from side to side. Then we're going to take our hands to the knees and lift the chest and come into some extension chest on the ceiling and reach the knees and around.

So let's inhale and exhale Lyft [inaudible] just trying to get some mobility through each joint, feeling the head and tail move together before we start to isolate. Okay. And find some support coming back into the contraction will lift the foot bar arm up and over in a draw the knees in and all the way under. And I should say that I'm starting on two springs and I'm on a grots reformer. So if you're on a balanced body, probably two reds with suffice. So we're going to bring the arms up or we're going to contract as far over as we can, finding space around the neck and pulse forward.

And I'm really having to work the muscles of my legs to keep them lifted and not dropping to the floor. And from here, rolling down, hopefully to place myself perfectly into the shoulder or us and we'll bring the legs out from under the bar. We'll extend up to the ceiling or in a flex and point, we're just establishing a 90 degree angle at the hips, trying to feel the back of the rib cage imprinting and also nice strong base of the pelvis. And as we flex, we'll place the heels onto the bar, hopefully without looking just a few leg and footwork variations on the heels to start breathing in and out. Okay. I'm trying to open the hips, open the joints and keep the ankles nice and aligned. Yes.

And trying to breathe for the full length of the movement. [inaudible] do one more [inaudible] we're going to add some pulses. [inaudible] these pulses are happening in the mid range of the machine and we're trying to feel that we're just pumping up the legs, getting some good work in the backs of the legs. Let's do four more [inaudible] [inaudible] come all the way in to touch and then we'll take a full breath to go back to Stan. And from here we're going to come into some marching, so I'm going to bring my right leg up, hopefully trying not to move the carriage and exhale, pull lace it back onto the bar. Inhale, lift and exhale. Place practicing the technique, the skill of keeping the pelvis stable as we move through a single leg balance, which is a hard thing if you really pay attention. Let's bring the right leg up and now we're going to come in with the leg and table Top, pressing out. Inhale and exhale.

So I'm looking to feel that I have a nice equal balance through the back of my pelvis and that my knee is coming along with me in space. Then I'm finding the carriage all the way home folding deep in the hip each time. [inaudible] we're going for three more, so we're really going to get some good single leg work here. [inaudible] last one and we're going to add some pulses. Here we go. [inaudible] he lots of control through the back of the leg. Two more sets all the way in to touch. Full breath brings us all the way back.

We're going to extend the leg to the ceiling, point the foot and go into some small leg circles. Cross midline, around and up. [inaudible] if there's one thing that I try never to have an ego about, it's a leg circle. Let's reverse so I don't care how big my circles are, as long as they feel like I'm really working my hip and finding the boundaries of movement and that I can keep my pelvis stable. Reach. Let's flex. Place the heel to the bar. Inhale, lift the arms and bring the heel up. As you exhale and bending in on the opposite side.

Let's press all the way out and pull in. We've got eight presses here. [inaudible] trying not to have a beginning or an end to the movement, but really feeling that they flow from start to finish from press to pull the last one and pulse [inaudible] [inaudible] one more set. Come all the way into touch and we'll take a full breath to press out, extending the left leg to the ceiling, pointing the foot, crossing midline and around and [inaudible] keeping that carriage still as the goal for all of this work. And let's reverse [inaudible] [inaudible] last one. We're going to flex. Reached down to the bar. Inhale, reach the arms up and exhale, bend the knees all the way in and let's go ahead and point those feet because they need it. Let's bend the knees, extend up.

We're going to take the legs just a little bit wider than hip width, distance apart and inhale externally rotate and then exhale, go all the way past parallel to internal rotation, which I don't have a lot of, but I promise you I'm working those muscles. We're inhaling and exhaling and I'm just trying to feel like I could find the back of my hip socket. The little bit more depth through both ranges. One more and back to internal and then from here, come parallel. Bring the legs together. We're going to flex just the toes back in.

Place the balls of the feet on the bar. So we're in a high heel position. We're going to go into a pure form of stretch and then a little bit work pattern. So we bring the right leg up. We're going to deep, deep in the hip fold as much as you can. Certainly if you need to lower your heel to get your ankle over your need, go for it. We're crossing that right ankle over the left knee. Hips are stable on both sides of the body are long and we're going to pulse the knee open. Yes.

You know I'm trying not to hike up the opposite side as I pulsed the leg, but really trying to work the outer thigh to open my knee and from here I press out and for the first one just feel the stretch between your hip and your knee, like pulling an elastic from one side to the other as we come in, resist the urge to let that knee snap back into you, but instead feel the outer thigh stretch. It's an inhale and an exhale. Yes. The challenge with my calf and my ankle is to keep my foot in a nice supported Relevate or heel lifted position. One more here. Now we're going to add a variation. So we'll press out.

We're to bring the top leg to a parallel posse toe beside the knee and then extend the leg out over the bar as we come all the way in. So the pattern goes lift on one turnout, cross the ankle, bend on to come back out. Parallel on three, shoot the leg over the bar on four it goes. Inhale up, turn out and stretch [inaudible] pause. Say and reach a little faster. [inaudible] be specific with each shape and stable on the supporting like two more times.

[inaudible] [inaudible] and reached to stay. Now from here, stabilize your pelvis. Let's extend the left leg out to meet the right and flex and point and flex and point just the toes and place the balls of the feet back onto the bar. We'll extend the left leg up, turn out and find the knee over the or the ankle over the knee and pulse the leg open. [inaudible] so it is a tight position. It's certainly make your concessions for how to get into the position safely and we're not pushing the end range of the stretch unless it feels supported.

Last one, and here we go. Pressing out. Let's take a full breath just to find the opening of the hip, the rotation of that thigh bone and then come all the way in and we press back. Inhale and exhale is a really common to have more weight on the bent knee hip. So we really are trying to stabilize through that standing leg to keep a sense of equally weighting the pelvis. Also, not looking to talk, but really keep the lumbar spine long. The base of the pelvis waited. So let's come up, we'll come back into a parallel posse and then we'll shoot the leg out over the bar. So reviewing the steps, it's up on one turnout, stretch onto posse on three reach over and four lift.

Turn out in bed. [inaudible] up and [inaudible] [inaudible] two more times. [inaudible] and reach to the bar. Now. From here, keep extending your legs. Reach your right to meet your left. Take a full breath. Let's come into an upper contraction. Reach those legs over the bar, two counts into council.

Pull the knees in and lower back down. Good, and we're going to rock up to take the foot bar all the way down and forward. Then we'll come back down. So I'm taking the hands into the leather straps. We're going into coordination patterns. The first one is with open-close and the second one is scissors. They're going to put a little tension on these straps here, shoulder blades down, and I have a full breath to extend the legs as low as I can.

As we reach the arms out. [inaudible] trying to find this nice canoe position. I'm going to open and close the legs one time. [inaudible] bend the knees only and then lower the arms. Now I find that when we go into this lowering down, we just need to be aware that the carriage stays still until the arms move on the way down. So let's try that again. A full rep to come up open-close two times.

Keep the carriage still and even press forward with the arms and then let the carriage move on the way down for threes. [inaudible] fours [inaudible] I'm trying to work a little dynamically with my breath to keep my body guessing. Last time, five times bend and lower down and to route round out. Excuse me. Our abdominal work will extend the legs up. Flex the feet, reach the arms to the ceiling. We're gonna curl up and reach past the hips.

Lower your left leg over the foot bar. Curl up a little higher. Pump the arms down. I'm going four three, two and switch for three. Switch for four and switch twos. Slow it down for singles.

[inaudible] eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two and one legs up and bend and lower all the way down. Whew. I said I wasn't going to do hundreds and do coordination instead, but apparently I needed both. So here we go. Rolling up all the way up through this. Fine. Let's just open the knees. Let's take the hands back, a nice extension stretch here and then come back and we'll put, bring the heels on the bar, slightly separated. We're going to go into a little table pelvic press. So lifting the hips, pressing to the ceiling, break at the hips, extend the spine to sit back down. Do that two more times. Lifting up, curl and reach.

Break. 'Em Lower and last one and break and lower down. So I'm going to take one spring off and then let's swivel around to face the opposite direction. We can keep the head rest up for now and actually we'll take the feet down to the side. So let's just go through a little bit of spinal mechanics, including a hinge forward for our next exercise. So keep your hands in the back of your shoulder. Rest, keep the kerogen and just contract back without losing height in your spine. So we're trying to isolate the lower part of the abdominals backwards and then find the connection front to back as we come back to center.

And place some spacers in that lumbar spine supported by the front. So we'll inhale and exhale two more. I know open up the back body in the back of the rib cage. We've really powered up the front body and we want to feel that we have some space to articulate the spine a little more deeply. In a moment from here we're going to pull the shoulder rest towards us and hinge forward.

So our hinge doesn't take me off of my sits bones but rather keeps me connected to the mat and feels like links through the spine. So I want to feel my back long, my head in line and my hips really deeply contract it. And then I'm just going to come back up. So it's a small movement, but lots of coordination to move your spine in. One piece. One more time from here, take your hands to the side and we're going to try the same hinge going backwards. So lean back, lean on the back, high diagonal, and come forward. You know you're in the right zone. If your feet start to get light, but you're too far. If they pop off the floor.

So turn your palms forward, open your chest, lean back, lean back, lean back, find the shaky point and come back to center. And one more time. Now from here, stay in the back hinge. Can you bring your hands to your knees and come into your contraction? Okay. And then back to your hinge. Round the pelvis, the lower spine back. Try not to lose the height and then reach long backwards to the hinge.

So we're trying not to move forward and back, but just change the shape on the same diagonal and then come back up and hopefully that's a good enough prep work to go into our next piece. So we're going to gather the straps and take a simple roll down through the center. Your heels can go on the outside of your shoulder rest and want to get nice and close to the shoulder. Ask themselves and then reach up nice and high on the straps. So we'll start rounded over. And this is just a prep to get our spine moving.

As I start to roll back, I'm going to bring my knees a little closer together as much as I can. Just to open up my back and feel myself rolling down and then I'm going to curl back up, deepening to come back to the top, rounding over, moving a little bit closer and adjust to where you can actually have movement happen. All right, so legs come back together. There we go. Squeezing, deepening, reaching, keeping my chest open and then working against the spring as well as with this spring to do the work to come up. When do you one more time [inaudible] it's just a little warm up for me here. And then I'm going to go ahead and bring my heels onto the headrest. So the arch of my foot is really hugging on the headdress and I just want to make sure that I can move my pelvis back and forth.

I'm going to take the hands into the straps. This is like a rowing series but a little different. So we'll start with the arms forward. We're going to contract back again from the tallest place. You really want to get out of your comfort zone, roll the hips back and draw the backs of the hands towards your chest.

So I'm in a very much the same shape that I was a moment ago when I was going between the hinns and the hinge and the contraction. Now from here I'm going to start the movement with my pelvis. I'm going to start to rotate my spine and I'm going to open the arms. So I'm on a back, hinged diagonal, and then the pelvis starts the motion back. The background, the hands come back to center. The subtlety is the control, but it's definitely a burner here. So we're reaching through the pelvis, extending the spine, opening the arms on the diagonal, and then finding the contraction to come back to center. Here it is with breath.

[inaudible] [inaudible], [inaudible], [inaudible], none. Let's round up and over and then you can just hug your knees for a moment and we're going to add a leg on to this piece. So let's do it. Let's have fun. So arms are forward. We roll back. [inaudible] find that deep contraction. This time the hips initiate. Your right leg extends, you rotate.

We're pulling that strap down against the leg and working the inner thigh up against the strop. And extending as much as we can and smiling and then contracting to come back to center and it's extension and reach. [inaudible] good track. So lots of internal tension in the body, but hopefully expansion as well. [inaudible] and one more [inaudible] contract. Ooh, that's hard, right? Let's roll around. We'll turn and face back to the front.

We're going to come into a diamond and go into hug a tree p variation. So you've got this straps again and we're just trying to balance the pelvis instead of crossing the ankles. So I'm going to bring my arms up into a hug position. Just start with four hugs forward and really concentrating on this stretch after all of that work for the back. And I like to think of my pelvis lifting up higher than the shoulder rests, so I don't get the urge to rest back against them, especially after that last exercise. All right, so let's add on.

We're going to hug forward. Inhale, it's an exhale to a high release, a chest on the ceiling, a very concentrated back. Ben from here, open the arms, stretch the chest open, and then we're connecting through the abdominals to come back. So a lot of times from the back bend to go forward, it will be a shift without actually shortening the front line in lengthening the backline back to a centered position. So let's try that again and again, finding the subtlety in the control. So we inhale. Exhale, lift back. Ben [inaudible] breathe into your chest and exhale. [inaudible] [inaudible] try not to run out of breath. [inaudible] one more time. [inaudible] [inaudible] and let those straps go. Fantastic.

So now we're ready for some kitty cats. So let's cross the ankles. We'll bring the foot bar back up to a low position and we're going to be on two springs and come forward into our cap position. We are going to go into a exercise called Tucson cat, which is an extension exercise and flection, little different than the knee stretches. So I really work hard on getting the bottoms of my toes to open up so I can get my heels as close to the shoulder rest as possible. And then I'm going to start knees, hip width, and around did spine open hands to really feel the heel of my hands connect to the bar. So we start with the pelvis tilting forward, lifting the tailbone up. So our initiation is a little pelvic tilt.

So I think we'll do that a couple of times. Let's round just the pelvis tail tilts up, sitz bones reached back and we'll round again. It really helps me feel both sides working together. Until now. Let the tilt start to take you into extension and as you extend, reach your chest down to the springs, continue to tilt up hello springs and try to find a nice yawning position. How does just in line with the spine and then as we come back in till the tail downward, rounding upward and find a lift up and off.

It's just yummy if you do it the right way. So we inhale and exhale. If we think about the way that the cats and dogs move, they really don't think too much about it. They just let everything stretch and enjoy it. So try to find that same energy as you go through your motions.

I just have my hands supporting me like a plank and really everything else is driven by my spine. I think we'll do one more. Let's circle the arms back to the shoulder as, let's press the hips open and just take a moment here to open the chest, open the hip flexors, lift and open the throat and come back. So we're going to take this Tucson cat into something I call three 60 cat, which is a little more rounding inflection of the spine and a little shifting right and left hemisphere. Start in the same position and the pelvis is going to shift to the right evenly, hopefully like the carriage of a typewriter.

So more weight is on the right name. Still reaching the left knee down. Start extending the hips, let that carry through to the spine. Draw a semi-circle on the ceiling with your tailbone as you shift your hips to the left and then contract to pull in. And then we'll just reverse it. So hips reach, tailbone reaches up and round to come in. [inaudible].

[inaudible] [inaudible] good. So from here we're going to add a little more umph to [inaudible] and we're going to see if we can lift the knees as we travel through center. And by we, I mean me. So you're Rico, we're rounding over. We're going to shift the hips to the right. Reach back, lifted up. Come in, just a hover to reach back to the left and come in over to the right to the left and come in and stay. And we do have to do at the other direction. So let's go left. Reaching back to the right. Come in and hover to the left and reached back to the right. Come in, around and left. Hello from your abdominals. One more time.

[inaudible] come back to center. That's all I got today. Let's press back. Reach the hips open from here. Engage your abdominals. Lift yourself to vertical contract forward. Let's do that three times and lift up and over. Last one.

[inaudible] and over. Good. Let's walk the knees forward. We're gonna pick ourselves up into an elephant. So this elephant has a flat back to it and we're going to try as best we can to keep the toes lifted and the heels grounded and we're pressing back just to feel the length and folding at the hips to find a nice long stretch both to the spine and to the hamstrings. [inaudible] two more times like this nice and long. Just look for side seam length. Last one and pull in.

So the next version goes into a hole and a lift. So we're taking a full breath. Press out to a place you can sustain. Lift your heels up without moving the carriage with your sitz bones higher. Deepen your hip fold to pull all the way into the stoppers and then lower all the way down through your heels. Full breath. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] let's do it again. Pressing out [inaudible] lift the heels up, pulling in, lowering down. And now we're going to reverse it.

So we rise up on the balls of the feet. Press with the backs of the legs to go out, hopefully to a place where you can lower your heels without letting that carriage move. And then dig the heels under to come in. Here we go again. You can try to go farther each time, but make sure you can use the power of those legs to keep the spring still. Last time all the way in. That was good. Let's take one spring off from here and we're going to walk forward.

Marina go into Ford elephant and I'm being generous with the one spring drop. You can try this on too if you feel the need to challenge yourself more than this is already challenging, so we'll round over. We're going to take flection through the spine now, lifted the toes up and we're just going to press back without losing that flection and then deep in the belly to pull the carriage back in. Keeping the shoulders grounded back at the neck long and for me working on not hyper extending those legs but really pressing from my muscles rather than the joints. Do One more here. Let's tilt the tail extend through the spine. So we come to as much of a flat back position as we can.

My body slightly over the foot bar and I'm going to press the legs back. Once again. Body stays, legs move. Opening the hips as much as I can without moving the pelvis. Folding to increase the stretch. One more.

Now we're going to add on the little variation from the pikes on the chair. So we're going to press the carriage out on a full breath. Hold the carriage, still lift your heels, round your spine, keep the carriage still lower your heels, extend your spine, keeping the carriage still and pull in and press out and lift and round. Extend and keep that care. I'd still in and press out in one more time. [inaudible] [inaudible] and press out to finish and then pull in and we're going to bend the knees.

Go ahead and take the foot bar down and then take a roll up with bent knees to come up to standing. Okay, so we're going to turn and bring the outside foot onto the wood-frame or the step. If you have one on your reformer, if you are on the, you want to align your foot up like it's on an ice skate. So you're not letting your heel fall too far in or outside of the frame. And then we're going to heel toe with care out to a place that feels like it is work to hold the kerogen. So for me, where I'm working with my pelvis, it's a little more narrow than I would have a couple of years ago, but this is where I can find strength versus I'm working into a weakness and I want to stay in strength. So I'm going just going to take the arms down, I'm going to work some side splits into a standing saw. So we'll inhale to press out as far as we can. Think of the heels moving apart and the toes pulling back together.

And of course my challenge is always keeping my side bolts level. So I try to see if I can fire them out up before I press out in fire, my ad doctors to come in. So I'm not just sliding on the springs lifting up through the front and reaching down through the tail end last when reaching out and then let's hold it out. So from here we're going to take the hand that's farthest away from the wood, stabilize the carriage and slice it across the body. Hopefully keeping the pelvis still contract around down. You're going into a standing saw, very hard work to manage.

We're coming up articulating through the spine, trying to feel the bend through every bone and unfolding the arm. Let's go to the other side. [inaudible] got a little quivering going on, which means I'm working the right places. Let's go again to the wood and there's a little deviation that happens with everybody. So you do the just the best. You can.

Then get a buddy and tell you how you can do it better and roll all the way up and reach and they were going to press out and pull all the way in and I'm going to let that be my set for today. I'll do it facing the opposite direction, so we'll step on. Sometimes you have to just recognize where you're at today. So turn to face the other direction. Placed the ice gate on the left foot. Open out to a place that feels challenging. Find length. We'll go out for four [inaudible]. This is a much better view for me. I don't know about you and two more [inaudible] last one. [inaudible] now I'm going to find a working position to go out and stay and hopefully show a little more of the articulation. Moving towards the wood first, folding the arm, crossing the body, stabilizing the hips, rounding down and feeling the opposition in the arms and then rolling back up.

Quivering the legs and finding center. Here we go. [inaudible] this will be my last one. [inaudible] press out one more time. Come all the way back together. Heel toe without moving that carriage. Stepping off, turning around and being happy that that part is over. We have one more, so we're going to step down and bring the foot bar back up to, I'm going to use this position that's a little higher for semi-circle with two springs on the outside and you choose your semi-circle position. That works best for you. We're going to wrap the knees over.

I really like this way of getting into the semi-circle because it's a little less labor intensive on the shoulder. So I just kind of perched myself on the edge. I'm going to roll down back to the mat, find the shoulder rest, pushed the thighs into the foot bar and slide the arms back overhead to really find my position. And then I'm working at anchor Mike shoulder blades, my upper thoracic spine. And by anchor I just mean give weight to you, don't mean locked down. So then from here, climb back up. I'm gonna find my narrow turnout and open up those hips and that feels really lovely. I am going to make sure that my hands are hot light and then my shoulder blades are active.

And then as much as I can try to pull that carriage in a little bit more. So I am not working with the staffer, but I'm going to try to stop myself. Let's see what happens. So no press out finding the strength through my hamstrings. And from here just hovering away from the edge of the carriage, we're going to roll down through my upper back and reach the hips through this spring.

So I feel like this is one of the limited places you can really go for full extension. So let's go there. Fold in the hips to come in as close as you can and then curl under, scooping up to the top. So again, pressing out from the hamstrings, keeping the hips high, trying to send the chest down, the thoracic, then the Lumbar, then flip the tail over, fold in the hip. [inaudible] curling up. [inaudible] reaching the knees over, hopefully getting a little more stretched. Let's do that direction one more time. Rolling down through the chest.

[inaudible] reaching the tail through the springs, keeping the sitz bones open. Ride the springs back, stabilized through your legs. Curl up, articulate through your spine, reach up, opening the hips and come all the way in. Here's a last time [inaudible] [inaudible] of course, I'm just working with my range to try to get the mechanics of the spine and the support in the right places. Hopefully closing the carriage a little bit more at some point in the future. Internally, rotate the legs, reach the hands to the bars. I have to wrap the heels as much as I can. Just try to open those hips, seeing a few stars, and then reach back.

Take the feet over the top. This is a nice place just to rest, Kinda hang out and let those hips go. And then we can pull the carriage all the way back over and rest. And I always like to give myself just a moment for my spine to accept the information that I just gave it, which was a lot. So let's reach the arms up. We'll just inhale and exhale. Let the shoulders be heavy. Open the arms out and reach to the ceiling.

[inaudible] and again, reach up and place [inaudible] open and [inaudible]. I mean a re-engage my legs, re-energize them up on the diagonal. Reach my arms back, curling forward, finding my teaser ending, coming all the way up to the top. We'll stand up feeling those knew we energize, but wobbly legs. And let's just finish with four breaths.

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] thank you for moving with me.