Reformer on the Mat

Hi Guys. We're here for a mat workout. I want you to grab your hand weights. We've got one in two pounds and let's begin. Nice short class full of your elbows. You can stand near the front of your mat if you wish. Let's go ahead and cross one foot over the other. And before we sit down, press your elbows down towards your feet and lift your stomach up as if it's coming up through your arms.

Take a nice breath and without sticking the hips back too much, go ahead and sit yourself down and lie back on your back. So we've got our hand weights. We'll be doing a little bit of reformer, uh, sequencing in with some mat exercise today. Let's start with some pelvic curl. You can have your palms face up or down. Up is kind of Nice so that you don't have to push down on those hand weights. Open up your collarbones, take a deep breath into your mid back and exhale as we take our pelvic curl rolling through the spine. Open up through your collar bone.

Stand strong on your feet and engage those high hamstrings right there by your low seat to open up the front of your hip joint a little bit more. And then as we roll down, start at your throat and work through your upper back and massage those big muscles right along your spine. Come down just a level pelvis today and just lighten your feet and put them down. Inhale two more times. Exhale as we curl, keep those collarbones nice and wide. You can actually press on the back of your shoulders slightly. Take a breath, just recognize a long body from head through your spine, your spine curling down, long through your lower back. And again at neutral pelvis is light in your feet.

They really on that neutral pelvis position. Inhale, anchor the feet and exhale, roll back up again. And this time I want us to stay in the bridge position. Lift your arms up, palms face down and then let's add just three arcs of the arms. You guys, so arms all the way back, overhead control, how your lower the weights. But I do want you to stretch through your shoulders. And then arch your arms back down all the way touching the mat, keeping that bridge position consistent. Inhale, exhale. Again, overhead, full breath to come back down with the arms.

And one more time. Work your inner thigh slightly to keep those legs parallel. Inhale and exhale and down. And one more. Archana the arms overhead. Inhale. Exhale, hold the arms. And to give really nice, slow, longest roll down your spine. Articulating feels some stretch in that upper thoracic.

Moving down through mid, lower back, pelvis, tailbone the Springer feet together. Breathing in right where we are. We're going to come up for a chest lift. So just RQ in the arms and add the raising up of the chest and lower all the way. Let's take the arms back fully and again. Want to take a full breath in and out? Yeah, in and out to more. Connect your eyes to where your head is moving so the head doesn't move too quickly.

One more. [inaudible] bring those legs up to tabletop. Extend your legs to the 100 position. Let's go for it. And here we go. In four, five and exhale five in. In. So working with a little extra weight at the very end of our arm and our hand.

The weight is way out there. So you want to source the muscles more proximal to your torso, which of course shoulders, lats, deep abdominals, had Dr legs a lot so that your knees are just a little bit flexed. Three, four, five. We're just at the tips of the shoulder blades. Okay, deep, deep, deep. One more breath in for five and exhale, reach through your knuckles, retreats, read, Tuck your knees in, and then bring your arms all the way back overhead stretching through your shoulders. You can actually just relax your legs. You don't have to be quite tabletop.

So let's go into a coordination pattern. So the reaching in and out as I call it. So we'll come back up to the 100 the hands reached through the legs. So whoops, excuse me, let's do that again. Sorry guys, that was me. So they can't reach their legs. If you go to the a hundred go to the a hundred Amy, open the leg.

Now we reached through. Really reach close your hundred and then just come down to the prepper Terry position. We go again, exhale and one and two and three. We bring it down and press and press and close. Let's take it two more times and open and you can really press your legs wide. You'll feel your outer hips anyway.

Press close and prepare to hold. Okay, the starfish. So let's come up to a hundred again. Press yourself through pause here externally, rotate your legs and bring your palms to face in without arching your back. Open the arms and legs simultaneously on the inhale and close as you exhale. Four more. So you want to go pretty but not to sacrifice your spinal position.

Squeeze it in. Last you last one and in and fold and pause. Take both arms out to the t position. You're not resting on the floor. Bring your arms in towards you. Palms face down. Two more arms circles like we would have on the, on the reformer [inaudible] and up. Remaining nice and wide in your back and then bring your arms up. Three, the reverse position down. Externally rotate.

Feel a good stretch in your pictorials and arms up collarbone remains wide and a one more. And then we'll take her [inaudible] to a rollover. You guys and the roll over. I'm gonna let you choose. You could take your arms all the way overhead if you feel ready. And if your shoulders are ready to have that much flection to them, you could take them out to a tee or just classically down by your hips. I'm going to take my legs vertical.

Go ahead and take your legs vertical or a little bit below. Here we go. Inhale, prepare and we go overhead. Exhaling pelvis to the ceiling. Now Flex your feet, open the leg. Touch your toes down to the mat. If you can breathe in. Start to unroll your spine. Remain nice and wide and the chest. We're only doing one direction today. Keep them moving.

[inaudible] bun over, toes down, legs apart. As you breathe in, exhale, unroll. You can press your hands down on the mat a little bit with those hand weights. One more over. Tuck the toes down and open.

And then as we unroll you guys, everybody just keep your legs up to the ceiling. 90 degrees flection, and now raise your arms up. I couldn't keep our arms as elevated like does and feel the hand weights, the weight of the weights. Just slide into your shoulders and then the shoulder blade should get a little heavier on the mat. Left leg comes down, flex that foot. Let's take our single leg circle with the right side. Cross around and lift just three times.

[inaudible] cross around, lift, hold other way. Make sure when your leg crosses your midline, you feel a little oblique on the opposite waist. Pause and just switch legs. Flex the bottom foot though. Point the top one cross. Feel your obliques kick in and get that relationship of ad ductors.

Two obliques, three other way. [inaudible] shoulder blades are in one position. On the mat there's three, and then lower your leg. Let's roll up for the ball. Okay, let's hold on. Hold on. Here we go. Inhale, take it back. Hips up and balance. Roll back, lift your hips up, pull yourself in closer as you can.

Inhale. Nice. Quiet. Roll three more. Okay. Inhale into your mid back. See if that posts here, your diaphragm last one and then roll all the way back down. Okay, so if we take her knees up, bend your knees. I'm sorry. Feet on the mat and all the way wide, right on the edges of your mat. Take your arms out to a tee. You have the advantage of the floor.

I've got my arms covered because obviously I'm up on this high mat, but nice and expanded across your chest. Take a deep breath. I'm going to arch my right arm. Please do the same arm and lift archicad up and tap it or reach it toward that left thigh. Feel those obliques on that left side and then open back out. Other opposite side.

So it's a really large arc that you're doing and back down. And our pelvis doesn't come with us. We're really rotating from thoracic and shoulders. Take it four more times. Up and over. Left and center. Up and over.

Tap the right. Okay. Last time to the left and who? The right. Good and center. Bring the knees together and up to the ceiling with the legs. Keep your arms open externally. Rotate your thighs. Okay, let's do some changes of the thighs while walking down.

So eight changes while walking the legs toward the 45 angle. Here we go. Five, six, seven, eight and up. Three, four. Same thing. One more time with the arms on the floor, keeping your back steady on the mat. And three, four arms come up to the ceiling like they were for single leg circle. Keep the shoulder blades in the same position on the mat up. Four, five, six, one more set. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. And up to three, four and five. Six and seven and eight fold the knees, bend the elbows, put your hands behind your head for a second and open those elbows.

Feel a nice expansion across your chest has come up for crisscross. So chest lift first, take one leg extended and we already warmed up for that. Nice big rotation. So you've got that twist and slowly change. I'm just going to take him slow. Keep those elbows wide and slow. Twist for more. Nicest slows. We use that straight leg, booty squeeze.

And last one a year and last one here. Pause. Double leg stretch hands by your ankles. Inhale, stretch it out. Wait, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, stretch. A little more. Circle close. Just two more milk that stretch. Get along, body and a circle. Last one. [inaudible]. Hands behind your thighs. Rocket up. Good. Move your hips back, you guys.

It's going to some rowing from the mat work. So rowing, if as if we were facing back knuckles together, elbows lifted. Take a breath in as we flex back so round, once you to exhale as you press your arms open. Inhale, pull your arms back a little bit. Exhale and we're going to add something new here. Put your knuckles on the Mat and really push your knuckles down. And as you do so, lift your belly in and up and you could almost lift your seat up off the mat.

I just want to make sure we're on our pelvis now without lifting off the pelvis. Lift your arms up, circle those arms around. Reach out to stretch your hamstrings up we go again. Inhale, exhale. It's okay. We're changing our breathing. Can you tell an exhale knuckles to the mat.

Inhale, lift your arms. Feel the triceps circle. Pull the stomach back a little bit more. Stretch. Roll on up. Take it again. I like to break some rules now and again, I say breath. Exhale, knuckles down, stomach in. Keep that body designed there. Just float the arms up. Circle all the way around. One more time. So if you need to take another exhale collective, that's okay.

Exhale, press. I want you to just keep your pelvis right in the same position here. Good. Float the arms. Good Elisa, that's right. And exhale all the way around. Roll yourself up, not the rowing to pretend you're on the reform and you've just turned around and now you're facing your foot bar. Serving. Inhale, just three. Kind of just preparing, just reaching your arms straight ahead. Nice and clean. Last one, and an palms face down near the Mat. Take a breath again. Flexing forward.

Keep your hips right where they are. Just like we warmed up and reach. No going into rowing to flip. Reach your hips back, articulating up through the spine. Or I'm screaming. The head pressed down, sitting taller two more times. Okay. Nice deflection reached toward the ankles on dairy. To keep your sits bones are right in the same place. Lift, lift, press last one, and curl stomach back through the Seagram. Lift and open. Hug a tree.

Inhale, circle and exhaling open. So using the weights closing, but also as you open your arms, press your arms back. So pull them closed and press them back. One more. Here we go. And hold. Now keep the arms open. We've done this before recently changed the legs. Knees down, change, knees down. So I'm going to lean forward a little bit.

Try to get those knees down using your rotators in your hips for more lats pressing down to hips, knees open. Last one. That should do it. Okay. Resting your arms. Good. Let's do some Jess expansion. Okay, so come on up onto your knees. Why don't you face me this way from [inaudible] and it'll face you so we can just have our arms right by our sides. Yeah, open up through your chest. We'll do a couple more from the knees and then we'll come up for some standing work. Okay, so chest expansion. Inhaling, press your arms back.

Let's add the head turn. One side, one side center. Remember the arms go down before they go back. Hold. Hold the volume of expansion in your chest. Take a lot of lift in. Inhale hole. I can't do it while I'm talking. They can't growing tall or whole.

Turn and turn and center. Two more patterns down to go back. [inaudible] even though we're filling up the chest, you're also still in filling up the posterior diaphragm. Your low back ribs. That's right. And turn, turn and center and rest. Good. Take your hands to your forehead. Let's do our salute. Just here.

Just a nice easy extension forward and fold five times. So inhaling on the effort of extension of the arms are reaching the arms so that we don't shorten our back muscles. We could get them along. Ah, now taking her hands down, palms face up, big circles all the way up above her head. Flip your arms in, palms face out, two more that way. And then we'll do three. The opposite. Big Lift, ah, there. And then three, the reverse. Keeping your homes face out. It cover the room with your, with your reach. I'm trying to fill up the walls with your reach. Good rib cage.

Breathing into the back, your posterior diaphragm. There we go. And all the way along. Okay, that's enough there. Let's find our way to standing slowly. I'm going to come down here and you guys can either face me or face each other for plea A's and some arm work. They're facing each other. They might use each other's energy to slay. Okay.

Standing up for some [inaudible]. So we've got our small Palladio's v start with your arms reaching out in front of you, Kinda low below shoulder level. And again, press your shoulders down towards your feet. Lift your stomach up. So we've got that really good sense of energy up and down. And then please [inaudible]. I don't want to have a s a drop our weight that would look like that.

We know better. So we're gonna cut support that weight lifted as we lower your heels can slightly come apart, guys, that's fine. And then squeeze in together. Precedent of the floor and rise. Let's do five of them. [inaudible] if you can keep your heels together, try. I'm going to narrow my turnouts slightly.

And if you're at home doing these in your, you can't go this low with the knee bend. You just go as low as you can. So even if you're here, you're doing the work. We're okay. We can go a little bit lower. But again, if you need to stay low, do a small one, that's fine. Add your arms behind you. It's a little different sensation of balance. Here we go. Keep reaching. So we just did our STN kneeling chest expansion. Yeah, it's different here.

Keep the chest open. So when we come under load, there's a tendency to want to drop the chest and collapse a little open and expand. Press your arms, use those lats. Use Your triceps again. Inhale, keep lifting inside. Good exhale. Our legs are probably getting tired. Two more exhale. Last time. Press your arms back. Press your arms back, press your arms back. That's all right and left. Good Circle and circle and circle this.

Let it go other way and circle and circle and circle and zipping up the front. But without that too easy, lift your heels. Just a slight lift of your heels. Zip up the mid line and lower five times. Shoulders, low, elbows, high. Good. Using those high inner thighs and squeeze them together. [inaudible] nice ladies last time.

Breathing into your back and let's stay up in this little relevant for bicep curls. BICEP curls. Again, I want you to stay here, little diagonal with the arm and then fold at the elbow. The weights can come up to your shoulders and then control how you lower the weights down and fold and control how you lower the weight. Fold control. Use a little extra effort to fold extra effort to press down one more and then we'll change the place where the bicep curl happens and we're going to go all the way out here. If you want to lower your heels, you can. We're not going to and we're folding just to 45 and then stretch long muscles, long triceps, long biceps.

So I'm trying to think about my elbows covering the room here, reaching, reaching good elbows to the side of the room and in and last time and fold and open and arms to come down. Okay, now let's pivot our feet into parallel. For sure. Everybody bend your knees and hinge yourself just a slight bit forward and put your weights right by your shoulders. Okay, we're going to go into a little punching series, so I want you to take your right arm forward, left arm behind you and the back arm palms face up the front arm, palm face down and just hold and then bring them in. Switch sides and just pause when you get there. Reach your arms long and in. Sometimes the back arm needs that moment of pause.

You can lift the back arm a little and center and reach back. Arm Up. Okay. A little vigor and we'll go punch and in punch and in punch and in punch for more and punch and punch and punch and punch. There we go. And standing tall. One more. We're going to do the bug. Remember the dead bug or the debug? Remember the bug come like this.

They don't know the bug. So you're going to crouch down again from the front. It looks like that. It's been awhile. Okay, so this is really upper back, shoulders, back of shoulder, upper arm war. You're opening your arms away from center, keeping those elbows bent. Now you can go pretty high without doing a shrug to your head. So you want your Scapula to come closer together and then close and elbows. You can maybe think of picking up your elbows. Yeah, that's it. And clothes.

Sternum long and forward and and again, so right in that upper back zone where it kind of gets a little dead zone, a little sleepy for more and left. If you're feeling this in your neck, do a smaller range of movement. Last two and down and last one and lower. Okay. Stand up. Roll your shoulders around. Let's do one more exercise you guys. And I want you to maybe walk forward on your mat a little bit. Take your one foot and step it back. Pretty big. Pretty big step, Ben. Both knees, you've got even weight between your front and your back leg and then the leg that's behind. Let's go into posterior tilt with the pelvis. No, on both sides.

Okay, so you get a good long quad stretch. Take your arms forward and just pause. Three large arm circles. Hold that posterior tilt and circle and open and circle and open. And then one more. Just hold your arms in front. Let's just do one little balance thing for today.

Well we did some Relevate but I'm going to shift my weight. Palms will face back, shift onto your front leg. Just pick up your back leg. It doesn't have to go high or it can, you can also lower your chest pretty low. We've done some chest expansions. You can use those triceps. Okay, good. And come to center. Sit back with the other foot.

Pretty large step bend both knees, you've got even weight and pelvis goes into posterior tilt, those lights, large arm circles. Big and exhale, Kim, we're talking your pelvis there and one more big and exhale and hold here first. Okay, so you're about to transition weight to the front leg. Palms face down, they sweep back, shift onto your front leg. Remember doesn't have to go high. It can energy. Head to head, foot away from foot, and then just come to two feet. You guys take a nice deep breath.

Let's do one standing roll down to finish. So moderate little class. You can add that in before and after. Some other things. Roll yourself all the way up and have a beautiful rest of your day. Thanks ladies.