Athletic Jump Board

Hi I'm Courtney Miller, and I have a really fun workout planned for you today. I'm gonna be using the jump board, and we'll be doing some new variations on the jump board that will really work your lower body. Once we've done that, we're gonna use that heat that we've created to open up the hips and create some length and movement. I hope you have fun. Remember to adjust your springs according to your level or how you're feeling on that day.

Now, my springs are light. I have a one red spring or a single spring on. This is so that I can have a little bit more air time. It's gonna help me to explain a few more tips about form and alignment to you. I encourage you to play with the resistance.

One day you can do this workout on a light spring tension, as light as a blue, and then another day you can amplify by going a little bit heavier with your tension. My suggestion is that you don't jump on anything heavier than two springs. This is so that you can really maintain your form and not feel compression in your hips or your lower back. I'm also using a couple of props today. I'm using the resistance band, and you can decide not to use the band and just sub out something else or not use anything at all.

You're also gonna see my grab the box a little later in class, and the last thing I'm gonna be using is a small ball. Let's get started. I'm gonna take the band wide behind me, so that it's behind my shoulder blades. I prefer to have the headrest up when I jump. Lay down onto your back and place your feet onto the jump board.

So, just get cozy for a moment grabbing a hold of the band. Ideally you have about equal excess of band on both sides. The more you choke up on the band, the heavier the resistance is gonna feel. I'll begin with some bilateral jumps. Pelvis is neutral, abdominals engaged.

Inhale to prepare, heels are heavy. Exhale, press out with the legs and up with the arms. My first set of 10, my head neck and shoulders will be down. My focus right now is squeezing my inner thighs together and landing light. Toe, ball, hell.

Now because I have this extra time out here while I'm floating, I'm feeling more abdominals than I would if I were on a heavier tension. From here I'll lift my head, neck, and shoulders, and continue the jumps. Now I love doing this type of work in abdominal flection 'cause I can see my feet landing onto the board, and I can make any necessary corrections. Two more here, abdominals flattening with each jump, and come all the way in. Separate the feet hip distance apart, press the arms up to the sky.

As you jump, open the arms. As you land, close them. Try to straighten the legs all the way, drawing out through the front of the thighs just as you would with your footwork. I'll do three more here, and then I'll come back up into my abdominal crunch. Be mindful that the ribs don't open when the head is down.

Ready to curl up. Exhale. Squeeze to the center. See if you can get the heels to touch the jump board before you spring off. Last four like this.

Three, maybe you can lift up a little bit higher. You should definitely be feeling your abdominals. That's two and one. Slight change. Take the feet wide and out to the sides.

You'll be bending your elbows for tricep extensions, so keep the elbows narrow. As you jump extend, as you land bend. Keeping the wrists long. Now if you're feeling like there's a lot going on, maybe the coordination is a little bit too much for you today, omit the upper body sequence, and just go with the jumps. Last three and then we'll curl up.

Lifting the head, neck, and shoulders, and pressing up with the arms as you jump. Take this time to deepen those abs. Last four. Drawing up through the front of the thighs and opening the hips, three. Two, can you lift up a little bit higher?

And, one. Coming all the way in. Nicely done. Remove the band from underneath the shoulder blades. This time with the band wide, we're gonna place it around the ball of one foot.

I'm gonna start by placing it underneath the ball of my right foot. Again, ideally you have about equal excess of band on both sides. The more you choke up on the band, the more resistance you're gonna feel in your leg and the more resistance in your upper body. Let's nod the chin, curl up, and practice our single leg jumps. Again using our eye line here to make any necessary corrections.

We want to see the jumping leg in parallel, the knee traveling right over the mid-foot, and a nice articulation through the foot as you jump. Now that we have that, let's add a press with the gesture leg. To increase the challenge, hover the elbows off the carriage. You'll have to work harder to hold your position. Stabilize the hips and pelvis.

From here we're gonna take the band into one hand. The opposite hand is gonna go behind the head, and we'll transition to straight leg scissor jumps. Now, really work that isometric contraction of the bicep that's holding the resistance band. Just because we've got a lot of excitement here, a lot of things going on, doesn't mean that you're gonna sacrifice your form, so articulate through that foot, land light. Now, I have my non-working hand behind my head to support my neck and shoulders.

You could opt to bring it to a hover or even have it down onto the carriage. Let's change into external rotation and practice just a few jumps here. So, I'm landing with my jumping foot in line with my hip. Hips are level. The tendency will be to lean towards the jumping leg with your body, opening the gesture leg wide and then using your inner thighs to draw the leg together.

Try to meet in center, so you've got that resistance of the band, working that adductor on your gesture leg. We'll do two more here and then add a crisscross. Last two, toe, ball, heel, and one, here's your crisscross. Cross, cross, land. Inner thighs, inner thighs, land.

Cross, squeeze, four. Three. Think about the upper inner thighs hugging. Two. And, one.

Now before we go into the other side we have an abdominal challenge. Move away from the shoulder blocks a little bit and take the band into both hands, reaching the arms long. Nod the chin to the chest, exhale, flex, and lift. Stay scooped. As you jump, you'll bend the knees in, and come in for a soft landing.

You'll have to lift up nice and high to get the band past the feet. Exhale when you jump, four more. Three. Two. And, one.

And, come all the way into land. Don't worry, we're gonna be giving that another try in just a few moments. Let's go into the single leg, opposite leg. Take the band around the arch of the foot, closer to the toes. You want one hand in each end of the band, nod your chin towards your chest, flex up, make your bicep position.

Let's just practice the jumps. Remember to increase the challenge, the elbows will hover. Landing toe, ball, heel, keeping your eyes on your foot. Now that you know we can add the press, press when you jump. The challenge is the high level coordination, but also staying level through your pelvis throughout this movement.

Last three like this. And, two. Get ready for your straight leg scissor. Both straps in one hand, straight leg up, jump pull. So, using your hip extensors to press down into the band as the opposite leg sweeps up.

Five. Four. Three, strong bicep position. Two. And, one.

Single leg externally rotated. Practice just the jumps first, landing with the foot in line with your sit bone on that side. Open the leg wide and work the adductors to squeeze to the midline. See if you can meet in the center in line with your pubic bone. Two more and then we'll add our crisscross.

So, here we go. We cross under and over to land. Squeeze, squeeze, and land. Inner thighs, inner thighs, land. Four.

Three. Two. And, one. Nicely done. Let's have a second go at our abdominal challenge.

Take the arms up, shoulders down the back. This is one of those series that the more you do it, the better you get. So, second time will be the charm. Reach through the arms, feet are on, inhale in preparation, exhale, tuck the knees to the chest, land light. Tuck and scoop.

Four more. Three. Two. And, one. How did you do?

This time we'll take the band from underneath the thighs and open it up. Right around the thighs crisscross the band, and you want a lot of tension here, so I choke up quite narrow. This exercise will be working my outer thighs. Just as we did with before, nod the chin, flex up. Now of course if you prefer to keep the head down that's okay with me.

Two things will happen when I jump. One is I'll be opening my legs out to the side like a star, and two, I'll be externally rotating out my arms. Let's put them together with the jump. And, in. Notice my elbows are hovering off the carriage.

To modify, put them down. It's gonna help you with stability. It's also gonna help facilitate a higher crunch. We'll do five more here. Five.

Four. Three. Two. One. For the next series, we'll try to squeeze the legs out three times before landing.

If you have a heavier resistance on, you might not get three squeezes in. You might get two. That's okay. Nod your chin towards your chest, exhale, flex up. Arms and legs out, legs squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, land.

Out, out, out, land. Land. Press, press, press, land. Three more. Two.

And, one. And, come all the way in. Awesome. You should be feeling your upper body just as much as your lower body right now, and you should also be feeling strong in your core. Taking the band straight over your head like we did earlier, nodding the chin towards the chest, exhale curling up.

This time we'll be pressing out with one leg. The carriage won't move as we switch legs. Switch, switch. Switch, switch. Now it's still important that you articulate through that landing foot.

We'll add a press out with the band with each switch. Five. Four. Three. Two.

And, one. From here I want you to keep tension out in the band as we switch legs quickly for a count of 10. 10, like you're running. Nine. Eight, knees to chest.

Seven, curl up higher. Six, keep pressing out with the band, four more. Three. Two. And, one.

And, come all the way in to rest. Nicely done. You can put the band down and come over to one side, so roll onto your favorite side for some side jumping. Now make sure your head, neck, and shoulders are supported in a way that works for you. For this particular exercise I'll place the headrest down, and I'll use my upper body to support my neck.

You could also use a cushion here or a yoga block. Before you begin, find your alignment. Your hips and shoulders are in line with each other, a little lift from the obliques underneath, stay tight through the front body throughout. Top hand is gonna be onto the carriage or onto the shoulder block to steady you. Just press out with both legs for a moment, squeezing your inner thighs together, finding that place of strength.

From here bend your knees and exhale, jump with both legs. So, in order to jump with both legs I have to fire into my inner thighs. Specifically, I'm feeling my inner thighs on my lower leg. Now, let's take this challenge up just a little bit higher, adding a scissor split when you jump. Now, can you split those legs without shifting or changing position in the pelvis?

That's the challenge. Four more. Three. Two. And, one.

Let's change the scissor. Top leg forward, bottom leg back. Two more. And, one. Jumping with the top leg only, find a nice flow to begin.

Remember toe, ball, heel, press. Once we have a rhythm, add a circle with your top leg up and around and land, up and around and land, up and around and land. If you're gonna draw a big circle you'll need a lot of time out here, so the heavier the resistance, the smaller your circle will be. Let's reverse our circles now. Back and around, land.

Up and around, land. Three more here. Three. Two. And, one.

Nicely done. Jumping with the bottom leg, top leg will be over top of the jump board, looks like this. Now, while you're out here what I'd like you to try to do is lift your bottom leg up to meet your top, and what you're lifting from is your inner thigh, not your toes, okay? So, see if you can get that squeeze to happen in the inner thighs. Four more.

Three. Two. And, one. Perfect. From a side lying position, let's go into four point kneeling.

So, pivot turn so you're facing with your back towards your jump board. You can either take your hands onto your shoulder blocks or if you prefer, your hands can go onto your headrest. I want you to play with both 'cause you might find one that you like a lot more. Now you already feel this side a lot, I know, but we're gonna keep going, so inhale as you prepare. Your stabilizing knee is right underneath your hip.

Find your best four point kneeling position and press out to jump. Now, don't be in a rush to do anything too fancy just yet. Again, at that point where you're just floating out there in outer space, you need to find that muscle contraction to stabilize your shape. Don't forget that it's through precision of movement that we see all of those awesome Pilates benefits, right? So, precision is so important.

Now on the next one, we'll do a hip extension when we jump. Now this extension comes from the glute and not the low back, so draw up and in through your low belly. Often in a jump board class, we tend to fatigue the front of our body, and maybe we forget a little bit about the back of our body. Well, in this series you definitely feel the back body. Last two like this.

And, one. Coming in for a slight change. The change is gonna be in the upper body, and that's gonna rotate the pelvis, so almost in an arabesque position with the hips and pelvis. I'll be looking back over my shoulder, and this will help me again with a little bit of form and alignment, so I can see, and I can self-correct. I'm externally rotated, my pelvis is rotated, so is my shoulder.

One elbow down, one hand onto the shoulder block. Inhale to bend, exhale to jump. Shoulders down the back. Now when I come into this position, I honestly feel my stabilizing leg a lot, just as much as my gesture leg, so I'm leaning into that hip and working the stabilizers around my hip on my knee that's on the carriage. Just as before, let's add a lift and don't forget to land.

Up and down. Squeeze. Squeeze. We'll do two more here, and instead of an up let's change to a little back. It's small because again, you're using glutes to extend the hip.

Four more. Three. Two. And, one. And, come all the way in.

Let's repeat the series on the other side, so from this vantage point you'll be able to see the position of my hips and my spine. Now, there's a lot of positions you can get into to support your head. One would be something like this. The other is what I did, and again, don't be shy to grab a prop here. We started with our bilateral jumps, so both feet.

Just for a moment, put your feet on the jump board, squeeze your inner thighs, find your hip, your hips level and your shoulders square, lift up through those ribs and abdominals, and exhale to jump, keeping the feet glued together, as if you had a mermaid's tail. Exhale. We'll do four more here. Toe, ball, heel, press. Three.

Two. And, one. Let's add our scissor. Top leg goes back and they land together. Definitely feeling some obliques here.

Definitely have to anticipate the challenge, so I can stay steady during the scissor. One more. And, let's switch. Front leg forward, bottom leg back. Land together.

Last four. Three. Two. And, one. Bottom leg bends in.

We're ready to do our circles, but let's just find a nice rhythm first. Jump, press, reach. When I jump, especially on my side, I'm focusing on opening through the front of my hips because I'm engaging through my seat, so there's this relationship happening. It's like a tug of war. I'm letting the front body lengthen and open, and the back body draws up and squeezes.

Now that you've found that in your body try your circle. Up and land. The more time you have, the bigger your circle can be. Now, many of your feet and strap exercises could be recreated here. You could do bend and extend, you could do turnout, froggies, so have fun with it.

Let's reverse our circles. Back and around and up. Back and around and up. Stay level through the hips. The leg is circling not because of the foot, but because of high up on the hip, close to your center of gravity.

Three. Two. And, one. Awesome. We have our lower leg jumps.

Top leg stays long and over the jump board. Just find it first. Adding adduction, squeeze when you jump. Try to lift up from the inner thigh. Last five.

Four. Three. Two. And, one. And, come all the way in, and that side is definitely harder because if you remember when we were doing the four-point kneeling, we worked that side to hold us up, so let's see how we do here.

Coming onto the knees. Whatever you chose on the other side I'd like you to recreate it, so if you prefer hands here then keep them here. Otherwise, hands onto the headrest. When I put my hands on the headrest, I have my knuckles angled to the sides, so my thumb's pointing forward. You'll see that this allows me to soften my elbows and gently press against the shoulder blocks for stability, so I don't think that's cheating.

I think you're okay. You can do that too. Abs in, exhale. Just find it. Now notice if you're doing something like this, pulling in with your bottom hip flexor.

Try to keep the four-point kneeling shape, and you're just hovering out here. Hips are square, head in line with shoulders, abdominals drawing in and up. Adding your hip extension, so when you're out, squeeze lift, lower to land. Lift, lower to land. Lift, lower to land.

Four more. Four. Three. Two. And, one.

Good job. Now I'd like you to try to keep your heels down in that series when you land, so your range of motion may be less until you start to build the flexibility in your ankles, and we'll be doing a series a little later that will help with that. Into our rotated glutes, so you'll see now I place my elbow down. I can hold onto the shoulder block or have a palms down position. Whatever helps you feel locked into the shape.

I rotate as I come into the position, so my hips rotate, so do my shoulders. My knee and my toes are pointing towards where the wall and the ceiling meet, and I just jump, exhale, look back. Lots of work in that stabilizing leg. Let's add our lift up and down. Four.

Three. Two. And, one. How about our kick back? Just a little movement, enough to fire into those glutes.

Last four. Three. Two. And, one. And, come all the way in to land.

If you need to, take a moment, sit back, stretch, even take a figure four stretch if you feel like you're getting tight in the tush. That's not a bad thing, though. That means you're working there, so I'm gonna leave the tension the same. Again, I encourage you to make this your own. You can adjust the tension throughout the class, and it'll really change how the exercise will feel.

It'll change the muscle emphasis. So, the first series that we're gonna do is place the ball between the ankles, coming back into some bilateral jumps, finding our center again. Now I like to come up into flection. We're already working, so why not work as much as we can? If you'd like to, use the hands behind the thighs, circle the hands around, stay up into that crunch.

Exhale, jump, squeeze the ball. Land, toe, ball, heel. Land light. Land light. Land light.

Three more. See if you can straighten your legs straighter. Two. And, one. Adding a little rotation with the ball up and then land.

Other side. Twist and then land, so you have to squeeze the ball from the upper inner thighs to keep it steady on the ankle. Two more. One more. And, land.

If the ball's not staying in the ankles it might be because you're not squeezing enough. We're moving the ball closer to us now, between the inner thighs. Now once it's squeezed, it is squeezed, so if you look at your ball it's not a circle anymore. It's an oval, and you're gonna want to keep that. Using your hands behind your thighs if you want this as support.

Drop that tailbone down, lift up a little bit higher. Now that you're there, hands behind the head. Let's just practice our jumps again and we're squeezing the whole time here, so there's not a squeeze and release. We're just squeezed. The second part that we layer in is a knees to elbows position, so I am doing this with my arms.

I know, we tell you so much don't narrow your elbows, twist your armpit towards your hip, but this one we are. We're coming small touching and opening. Good. Stretch. Four more.

Three. Two. And, one. And, well done. Very good.

Okay, when you do your oblique rotation, then you're not allowed to bring your elbow in anymore, so that was just for that one. Bring the ball behind one knee and squeeze it, okay? So, keep that connection. Let's practice jumping on one leg and then we'll add a little spice with the other leg, so come on back up if you choose. Of course you could stay down if that's better for you.

Let's just practice here. Maybe a little squeeze when you jump. Now from here we're gonna lower one leg like we're doing a toe tap almost, so I lower, and I toe tap, and maybe I can got even lower than that while keeping my abdominals engaged. Toe tap, curl up a little higher. Five more, pull it up.

Pelvic stability, keep that ball squeezed, use your props with purpose, last two. And, one. Awesome. Now, of course we're gonna do the other side, but before we do, straighten your legs long, press your feet into the jump board. You see how I have the longitudinal arch right on the top?

I'm pressing down. I'm pressing down so much I could almost lift my hips, but I'm not going to. Slide away from the shoulder blocks if you feel jammed in. I like to come quite a lot away. My tailbone's almost to the end.

Place the ball onto the thighs with just the fingertips touching. Don't forget to push down with your legs. Inhale, nod your chin towards your chest, look at the ball, look at your toes. That's where you're going with the ball. Exhale, roll to your toes.

Inhale at the top and exhale, control the down. Let's do it again. Inhale, nod the chin. Exhale, press down, flex, scoop, roll to your toes. Keep going.

And, then take your time as you roll down. Good, two more times. Inhale, nod, exhale, flex. Press into the ball. Roll down.

Feeling one vertebrae at a time. Last time, nod the chin, exhale. Good. You could even lift the arms, lift the ball, and maybe roll down without any help, just your core. Awesome.

Let's do the single leg on the other side, so if you remember, we just practice the jump and a little squeeze. We're up, our abs are engaged, hands are behind the head, that's an option, single leg jumps. Now I love doing the unilateral jumps because for me, and a lot of the clients I see, we have very different ankles and knees and hips from right to left, so this is a chance to start to create a little bit more symmetry or maybe build a little bit more strength in your weaker side. Toe tap down and up. What I'm trying to do is open through the front of my hip on the ball leg as the other leg comes up towards a tabletop position.

Four more. Reach down and squeeze. Two. And, one. Coming all the way in, very good.

Now instead of doing our teaser-ish movement like we did before, I'll show you another one. Taking the ball underneath the feet and placing the feet on top of the ball, so it's like you're standing on it. Now, in this one the lighter your tension the heavier it is, the more wiggly you're gonna be, so choose wisely. Nod your chin, curl up. So, this may be somewhere where you want to stay.

You're on a space of support that's very wobbly, so you have to stabilize. Maybe you're doing part of your hundred here. Now if you'd like to add on, you're not jumping, you're only pressing out with the legs, up with the arms. You see how my legs are a little wobbly? Exhale, bring it in.

That little bit of wiggle, that challenge, that balance challenge underneath me helps me to activate through deeper stabilizers in my core. And, pull. We'll do three more here, press out straight legs. Now the other reason I like this little modification is when the legs are extended, if I'm pressing down into the ball I'm actually turning off my hip flexors, turning on my hip extensors, and working the flection through my center. Often when we add core work into a jump class we're so dominant in our hip flexors from all that jumping, we don't really feel the core doing what it's supposed to.

This would be a great time to add, again, the hundred if you haven't already. And, come all the way in. Good. Taking the ball and placing it underneath the pelvis, so make sure your headrest is in the down position or there's nothing underneath your head, neck, and shoulders. I also don't like to feel really jammed into the shoulder blocks.

It feels restrictive to me, so I don't want to be right into them, okay? So, I've got a little bit of space. The head will stay down when the pelvis is up, so you're not gonna be doing a flection exercise here. Hands down beside you to begin, feet feel a little bit low, exhale, practice your jumps. Now, if the ball doesn't feel like it's in the right position, it's not.

It should feel like it's gonna stay there. It should feel comfortable, so if it feels a little off, then just go ahead and make your adjustments. My legs are extending long as I jump, therefore I really have to engage my core and compress down and into the ball in order to maintain my alignment. Exhale. Taking the arms up.

Five jumps with the arms up. Toe, ball, heel, push. Now I know you may have done this series before, but we're getting to something, we're building to something more. Exhale, push. Take the arms out to a T, five jumps here.

Now I want you to start to notice, do you see your pulleys behind you? If you don't, maybe jump a little bit bigger. On the next jump, we're gonna catch the pulleys. It looks like that, it's easy. Inhale, legs to the sky, tailbone heavy.

Exhale them down. Now that's how low they're gonna have to go for you to land. Let's to that three more times. And, up. And, up.

Send the legs down. Now, here's where your adrenaline might go a little wild. You have to let go. But, the jump board's right there. Let's do it again, five jumps.

Five. Straighten your legs. Two more. And, one. Take the arms out to the T.

And, jump. Now you want to start to look for those pulleys. Let's catch it on the next one, catch. Awesome. Lift the legs up to the sky.

This time let's split one leg low and switch. Three. Two. One. Could you land just on one foot?

Absolutely, okay? Don't be afraid to take a couple of risks. You can do it. You're strong. Let's just do one more series here, arms to the sky.

Abs are in. This is where I test the water to make sure I've got my stability. Arms go out to a T 'cause I need them wide when I'm gonna catch the pulleys. I start to look for the pulleys out of my peripheral. I'm gonna catch on the next one.

Got 'em. Now from here I can leave my legs up or bend my knees to modify. To increase the challenge, send the legs low, and exhale little pulse, upper body work here, small range. Four. Three.

Two. One. Legs will land lightly onto the jump board. Awesome job. Taking the hips down, rocking the knees if you're experiencing any tension.

You did it. You floated through space. It's taking moon jumps to a whole new level. So, now that we've created a lot of heat in the body, I know that I have, let's do some exercises to open up some of the muscles that we know are usually quite tight. One of the first muscle groups that's really tight on me is my thoracic spine, my middle back.

Now, because of all the flection work that we did and the jumping, I have a lot of heat, and I know that I've got the opportunity to create some flexibility that I really need. So, come along with me. Take a seat onto your carriage. You need quite a lot of space behind you. The ball is gonna go behind your tailbone and now the ball is your tailbone, so if you reach back, you're gonna need some space behind the ball and the end of the carriage, just as you would if you were sitting tall.

I'd say reach back and make sure there's some space behind your tailbone in the end of the carriage, so you find that space for you. Now the ball should feel like it's gonna stay put, so right about there it's not gonna move. Now, I want to show you what it looks like if I rest all my weight onto the ball. It's nice, but we'll do that after class. What you want to actually do is hollow out the belly, draw your ribs towards your hips, and come into a deeper C curve.

The ball's not helping you in the C curve. The ball is just there as a tactile cue or a reminder to draw your lower back back into it and to draw your navel down and in. Reaching forward and grabbing your straps, let's just do a little upper bodywork before we go into the spinal mobility. Squeezing the inner thighs together, opening the arms to the side. Maybe you can deepen that C curve a little bit more and arms go forward.

Exhale. Now, this series is among some of my favorite series, and I just recently filmed a workshop for Pilates Anytime that has this series in it and a lot of other really cool ones, so once you go through this, if you want to learn new variations, a little different stuff, and a whole bunch of new new stuff, make sure you check out the workshop. On the next one, we're gonna draw the arms straight up, maintaining the C curve position in my spine. Biceps by the ears. Two more like this, great little posterior delt work.

Each time my arms go up, I contract my abdominals more. Now the next time I lift my arms up, I'm gonna come into thoracic extension. Just get my hair out of the way, so you guys can see. So, here I go. Arms go up, chest lifts up, and I go back, back, back, back, back, back, back as far as I want to go back.

In order to come back up, I nod my chin, circle the arms, and come to my C curve position. It should remind you a little bit of the full teaser exercise on the long box, the way you go back into extension and nod your chin first. So, let's do it again, arms first then the chest lifts, biceps by the ears, shoulders by the back, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Nod the chin. And, exhale.

We're gonna do two more. Now, I can tell you for certain 'cause I've done this exercise without doing the jumps first and I've done it after doing jump work, and this heat in your body is allowing you to get a little bit more of that great extension in your spine, so use it. Nod the chin, circle around. Come back up, one more like this. Arms up.

Chest lifts, open, open, open, open, open, and nod the chin. And, come all the way up. Good. Don't forget to find some additional variations in this flow on the workshop. From here, I'm gonna place the ball beside- Oh, excuse me, place the box beside the reformer.

So now I'll be opening up through my hips. I did all that jumping, I want to open. So, come to a standing position on the box. Now, I'm gonna begin standing, facing toward the jump board, so what I'm gonna do is take my outside foot, that's this one, and align it with the front edge of the carriage. Then I'm gonna take my standing foot back behind me onto the shoulder block, toes are curled under.

Now just take a moment to stand tall, hands onto the hips, square the hips. Bend into your front knee and get low into your lunge. Take one hand onto your low belly and your other hand onto your sacrum and see if you can scoop the abdominals. Feel the tailbone dropping down. This is gonna open up through the front of your hip on your back leg.

Now that you have that, let's add the arms. Reach the arms up when you're low, and lower the arms down when you come up. Opening through the front of the hip and resisting to come up. We're gonna do five here, so just take your time. I use my standing leg to rise up, activating through my glutes.

Stretch and stretch and stretch. And, lift. Three more. Out. And, up.

Two more. Out. And, up. And, on the next one we'll stay out, press out, lengthen. Maybe you can lift your chest a little.

Lengthen up. Maybe you can take your hand on your thigh, laterally flex, chest open. Maybe you can even reach to that jump board and press back with both legs, walking the hands onto the rails if you have the flexibility, walking yourself all the way back up, and before we do this series on the other side, come to seated position. Let's stretch in a mermaid. So, find your mermaid legs, heavy both hips, shoulders over hips.

Heel of the hand onto the jump board, opposite hand out long. Lift up like a fountain at a Bellagio as you lengthen. Now look up, open the chest. Stretch your arm a little more. Reach your arm to the sky.

Exhale, scoop from the belly as you thread the needle to go under. Inhale as you open up. Again, trying to get that movement through the thoracic spine. Inhale to open. On the next one, thread the needle.

Try to square your shoulders and place both hands onto the jump board. With both hands onto the jump board, soften your elbows, lift your chest up into extension. Nod your chin, roll forward and through. Now the more I push through this outside hand, the bigger the stretch is. Lengthen up, nodding the chin, scooping the belly, pressing through.

Last time here, shoulders down, chin up, chest lifts, and exhale. Press through, slide your stabilizing arm open, lift up, maybe open the chest a little bit more, lengthen to come all the way up, and let's do the box work on the other side, so come around with me. And, hopefully you're feeling like you're able to get a little bit deeper into some of these stretches because of all the awesome work that we did on the jump board. So, standing I have my foot in line with the front edge of the carriage, my back foot is against the shoulder block, and just stand tall for a moment. Hips are square, abs are in, bend into your front knee.

Now check it out. Is your knee going where it's supposed to over your mid foot? Find the hand placement, hand on the low belly, hand on the sacrum. Scoop. This is gonna turn on those glutes, fire into the low belly, and open through the front of the hip.

When your body is low, the arms go up. When the body is up, the arms go low, okay? So, it's in opposition. Reach as you go down. Pulling from your front leg, from your seat, reach up as you go down.

Three more here. Stay strong in those glutes. And, up. Reach, reach, reach. Open.

And, up. This time we stay down. Big stretch. Maybe the chest can open. Come back up.

If you have the flexibility, you can take the hands onto the jump board to increase the stretch. You could also walk the hands onto the frame and come into a deeper stretch, even sliding that foot forward if you want to go towards full splits. Lengthen all the way up. Nicely done. Let's do the mermaid on the other side, so pivot turn, foot goes on, lengthen out through the spine, same springs.

In fact, I haven't changed them the whole class. That's fun. Turn your palm up, go up and over. Lift the chest, look up. From this lifted position nod your chin, scoop.

Hello. And, then come all the way through, so think less about the arm, less about the head, more about ringing out the spine, and come all the way through. Two more like this. Carriage stays pretty stable. And, through.

Reach. Sometimes when I need a really big twist, I grab ahold. Okay. Both hands come on. So, I soften the elbows to lift the chest, lift the heart.

Find the length through the abdominal wall, nod the chin, flex, scoop, press. Inhale up through extension, exhale down through flection. I'm trying to get as much space from my ribs to my thigh as possible. Inhale up and exhale down. Slide the hand through, stretch lengthen, come all the way up, and release the arms down.

That was awesome, guys. So, what we did today was a lot of fun for me. Hopefully it was for you too. What we did on a muscular level is we really worked the whole body. We got a lot of heat going on through the front of the thighs, through the back of the thighs, the inner thighs, and the outer thighs.

We got to work the core throughout the jumps. We didn't use the straps except for that arm series, so it was quite interesting, quite fun to do that. And, then we had a little fun. We took some risks today with our jump catch series. Have fun with that.

Don't be afraid. That board is right there for you. And, then I hope you were able to feel that because of all that heat that you generated through the cardiovascular conditioning from the jump board, that you were able to get a little deeper into your stretches. And, don't stop here. If you want to take some more time to open up inner thighs or another glute stretch, then go for it now.

You've done the work, and now you get the reward. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I will see you guys again soon.