Energizing Reformer

Hi, today we're going to play on the jump board and do a little interval training. So, what I have, is I have my jump board set up and set up with this blue spring, a light spring. And the box is obviously on the reformer, so walk right up against the foot bar with your legs and round down and place the hands just on top of the box. Inhale. And as you exhale, deepen into your rounded spine working specifically to round around the lower spine rather than accentuate the curve of the upper spine and then as you inhale again, let the tailbone life, draw the abdominals away from the spine, you'll have to cause the jump board's right there, and inhale.

So, I'm actually touching the jump board. And then exhale, lift off the jump board first with the abdominals and then resist the in-movement of the box. Inhale as the tailbone lifts up, we create an undulation action through the spine, drawing in and up through the abdominals, and exhale curl the spine, rounding all the way back in and really again, resisting the spring, so, not allowing the springs to carry the box to you. And inhale, reach out, tailbone lifts, spine lengthens down. And exhale, feeling the equality of weight on both feet.

Feel both thighs pressing evenly into the bar to create opposition for the moving box, the movement of the box. Stay at the stopper, take both hands over to the left and same thing, keep the pelvis squared, keep the legs still, but reach out and across to the left. Stretch out the right side of the spine. Exhale, push the box away energetically with your arms as you round and bring the carriage back in. And inhale, lifting the pelvis, reaching out, feel the spine getting longer.

And exhale, legs press against the reformer, equality of weight on both feet, feel that the pelvis doesn't shift from side to side and one more time like that, reaching out and over. And exhale as we curl back in. From there, take both hands to the opposite side of the box and then we go here, so, there's no perfect place for the hands on the box. Just make sure it's a place that suits you where you can feel that your shoulders aren't getting squished or crunched as we round again, stabilizing, making sure that the pelvis is facing forward and inhale, reach out. And exhale, pull back in.

And last time, lifting the pelvis, letting the pelvis rotate in an anterior or forward direction. Exhale, round through the spine, bring the box all the way back in. Take the hands to either side of the box again and then one more time and through center, you should feel as though you have a bit more mobility in your spine. And exhale, round the spine to bring the box back. Once you come to the stopper, let the hands come off the box roll all the way back up again.

Put your hands on just the front side of the jump board and round backwards. Make sure you've got something holding you or the reformer still might slide with you. And then come all the way back up to standing. Come around to sit on the box. I'm still going to keep that blue spring, although you may want to work a little heavier.

It's up to you. A red spring would also be appropriate. Taking a hold of the straps just above the hardware. Squaring the body on the box, take the arms and press back, lifting the spine tall, and then as the arms reach forward, start to undulate backwards with your spine, with your pelvis so we take the spine into the box. Hold, trying to keep the feet flat, pull the feet up against the edge of the box and then roll the spine back up.

Once the shoulders come into alignment over the pelvis, lift the spine, send the arms back and lift the eyes. Reach the arms forward, articulate the spine down, reaching out, feet stay steady. If your feet want to lift, and then roll up, you could certainly put something underneath them to just give you feedback against the headrest. And then lift the spine, press the arms back. One more time like that.

Inhale and exhale. Holding there. We're going to hold at the bottom. We're going to do five little curls here, so, holding through the waist, feeling that you're working to press the low back in and you're rounding your spine, but you're not really moving the reformer much. In fact, try not to move the reformer at all as you just work deeper into that curl.

Last two. Last time. Come all the way up. Press back with the arms, lift the spine. Take the arms out in front of you, inhale.

As you exhale, bend the elbow closest to me, push out with the opposite arm. That arm won't have tension on the strap, but we're going to try to make a straight line across the upper arms. So rotate and reach and center. Lift and rotate, feeling the abdominals working. Most specifically, focusing on the rotation around the obliques, the sense of lifting up as you spiral across.

Last time to each side, exhale. And inhale center. And exhale and inhale center. From center, start to articulate the spine back down again. Pause to hold.

Rotate to the left. Five very small lifts on the left. Up and down. Again, trying to increase the flexion of the spine without moving the box around much. And three.

And two. And one. Let's come all the way up that side, all the way up until you're sitting tall, unwind and center, exhale to roll back again. Pause. Rotate across in the other direction and small curl up and back, and deepen and back and three out of five, last two, and last time, rolling up that side all the way up, finding the straightness of the back in rotation, rotate back through center, exhale to come down the center of the box again, pause and the lower spine is connected to the box, the shoulder blades are off the box.

Lift the right leg and inhale, and now we chain. Now this is where it's, if you have a heavier spring, it's a little harder to stabilize. Hinging from the hip joints, keeping the body reaching forward and we'll do three and three, two, and two, one, and one legs goes down, the opposite leg goes down and with control, roll all the way back up. Lift the spine all the way up tall. Take the straps with your hands, the handles of the straps, start with your arms straight.

You'll have a loose straps, bend your elbows. So we've got a little tension on the straps, but not a lot. We're going to go into external rotation of the shoulders, sending the elbows forward toward the straps. I hook the straps around my thumbs. And then reach up and back, taking the body into extension.

Bend the elbows, maintain the extension, and rotate the palms back down. Let's do that two more times. Inhale as we rotate externally in the shoulders, exhale as we reach back, stretch, inhale, bend, and exhale, home, and inhale, rotate, exhale, up and back, feels so good. Inhale to bend, and exhale to return, last time, inhale to rotate, exhale reaching up and back, inhale to bend, and exhale to come all the way back down. Bend over and hang up your straps.

Step off the box. Take the box off the reformer and put it nearby. So, we're going to use a heavy weight at first just to do a little bit of footwork before we get started jumping. So I'm going to choose to use three reds and a blue spring or four springs. Coming all the way down onto our back, and then, I find it beneficial here to have a headrest up so I can really see what's going on with my feet.

If you want to keep your headrest down, that's fine too. So, settling the arms down next to the body, placing the feet on the jump board, press out. And then just pause here. So find a position in your body that feels like you're just standing over the top of your feet, so that there's even weight on both feet. In fact, weight the left leg all the way, so much so, that you can just lighten up, almost take the right foot off.

And then, center, and then weight the right foot evenly. You'll feel that one side is easier to do, probably. And then, find center and then settle in to just really feeling stabile on both feet. Inhale, bend the knees, just to the place where the heals want to leave the jump board. Press into your heals and stretch.

Inhale, bend the knees, feel the abdominals draw into the spine as we straighten and inhale, pull, and exhale, press. So just learning where it is in our own bodies, where we can feel the feet very grounded on the jump board. So for me, I'm not able to come all the way in, not even close, and that's okay with me. I just want to know where that is. I want to take that stretch through the achilles.

We'll do two more here. And last one. So, just kind of mimicking what we'll be doing when we're jumping. And then I want us to lift the heals up, bend the knees. Now you'll be able to come all the way in.

Keep the heels still and press out. And pull in, and reach out, and inhale, and press out, and inhale, and press out, just getting nice and warm, keeping the tailbone down, the abdominals drawn in, the arms long and straight. So, I've said before and I'll say it again, there's always an opportunity when you're moving your body, when you're doing Pilates, when you're doing other things with your body too, make it a full body experience. Concentrating on the breath. Last time.

I have an itch on my nose, I'm just scratching it. Okay. And so now we're going to go heals together, swivel the heals together, heals stay lifted as we bend. Push the jump board away. Squeeze all the way through the legs, up through the breast bone, and what I mean by that is imagine that you have a zipper from your heals, running through the pelvis, behind the belly button and coming all the way up underneath the ribs.

You want to feel that line or bring awareness to that line. We're going four more. And in, all the way in here, three, wrap from the hips, all the way in, two, and in, and all the way. From there, swivel the heals back apart. Lower your heals.

Bend your knees just to the point where the heals want to lift then roll through the feet, press out. This is our jumping action. Heals down, knees bend, roll through the feet, except it happens in reverse, right? What happens this way is we press out and then it happens in reverse as we land. Roll through the feet, press out.

We'll do that one more time. Heals down. Bend the knees. Roll through the feet. Press out, so now, bend the knees, roll through the feet, find the heals and press.

Lift up, so this is our landing mechanism. Toes touch, roll through the feet and press out. We'll do that three more times. So, just getting a feel of what that feels like in the lower legs. And last two heals.

Knees, roll through the feet and press out. Last one, heals, bend, roll through the feet and press out. Okay, so come all the way in. Let's see if we can stretch the legs out over the jump board. I'm going to let my knees bend.

Lift the arms up over the shoulders. I'm going to wiggle away from my shoulder box a little bit. Lift the head and chest. Oh, roll through the spine. I don't know if I can do it, I'm stuck.

So, we're going to rock, and swivel. If you could roll up without rocking yourself up, kudos. I couldn't do it today. So, I'm adjusting my springs now. I have a red and a blue.

I'm coming back down to my back and prepare for the first round of jumping. So, starting with the feet parallel to one another, finding stability in the body, bend the knees, find that same stabilized foot position, and here we go, we press, roll through the feet. Each time you come down, I want you to feel that you're rolling through the feet to land on your heals. Every time you jump, feel that you're drawing inwards, navel to spine, three more. Two more.

Last time. Bring the heals together, so now I'm kind of snuck in a little bit. My heals aren't all the way on the jump board. Here we go, same idea. Press, zip, land.

So you have that same idea that we spoke of when we were just doing the leg work of zipping through the heals, all the way up through the breastbone. My feet are getting quite a lot of work here, quite a lot of articulatory work, last four, three, two, one. Swivel the heals back apart again, once again, find the whole foot on the jump board. Lift the right leg to table top. So we're going to do an exchange of legs.

Bend the left knee, keep the heal down. As the left leg presses, the legs will meet, and we'll land on the right. Meet, land left. So, for a moment, the legs are evenly matched in the center. They're reaching out in space and then the landing leg does that rolling action in the foot.

Rechecking with your arms and shoulders, check that there's not tension there. Recheck in with your abdominals. Make sure that you're supporting yourself well there. Just do a couple more here. And last one.

Jump, land on both feet. So, just into a very simple single leg jumping series. We'll do 10 on one leg, switch, and do 10 on the other. Watch that the bent leg just stays nice and stable. Here we go, reach, press.

Press. Feel that the abdominals power the movement or you're supporting. Last four by my count. Which, for those of you who know me, may not be correct. I've already lost it.

That's one by my count. Here's 10. If I count out loud, I'll get it. Eight. Seven, long arms, stomach in.

Five, strong leg. Three. Two. And one. Coming all the way in.

Rolling over to the side, helping yourself up, we're going to remove the blue spring. So, just a red spring now on the reformer. Lie all the way back down. Take the straps in the hands. We'll do a little abdominal series here.

You've got your straps in your hands, you're just a little bit away from the shoulder blocks, lift the legs up to table top. Inhale here. Keeping the legs as they are, we're gonna curl the head and chest up, reaching past the hips. Double leg stretch here and here's how it's gonna go. The legs are going to go out over the jump board, arms reach straight up.

The arms come out to the side as the knees come in. Inhale, as you reach, open and pull, inhale as you reach, separate the arms and pull. It's my version of the double leg stretch, a version of the double leg stretch, with resistance. We'll do four. Around and in.

Try not to let the body waver up and down. Three. Two. And one. Lay the head down, lift the arms up over the shoulders.

Inhale here. Exhale once again, curling the head and chest up, keeping that lift energetic through the arms, take the right leg out over the jump board, and change. Imagine that you have a wall that you could push against with that bending knee. Imagine you have something that you want that's just a little forward of your fingertips that you can't quite reach, but you're constantly trying to reach out and find it. We'll do three.

Three, two, two, one, one. Both knees in. And the body will come down again. So the last things that we're gonna do is a variation on the criss-cross. What I'd like for us to do, starting in tabletop position is lift the head and chest.

So the arms will reach straight up. So now, as you exhale, you're going to take the right leg straight. You're going to take the arms on the inside and the outside of the left leg. We'll go slow for this first bit. Inhale come to center.

Exhale, rotate the opposite direction. Inhale, arms over shoulders, exhale, rotate, arms over shoulders, rotate, three more like that. Up and across. Keep using the abdominals to keep tension out of the neck. Last two to each side.

Reach. Center. Reach. Center, last time. Up and across.

Center. Up and across. Center. All the way down. Hang up your straps.

So we'll see what else we can do before we change springs again, helping yourself up. Come up on to your knees. On to your knees. Roll up through the spine. Take a hold of your straps, hold on above the hardware for chest expansion.

So lifting, I still have my red spring on. Arms start just in front of the legs, right in front of the legs, as though you're about to touch the fronts of your thighs. Inhale. As you exhale, press down and reach back. The arms in just behind the legs.

As we're reaching forward and back, let's just allow the hands to graze the legs. As you're doing that, feel that you're trying to reach your arms lower and lower all the time. So making the line across the legs. Reach down towards the knees. Lift up though the spine and we'll do four more.

Pressing back and forward and back, so nice simple movements today, not really anything too complex, my favorite kind. I like the simple moves, the ones that allow you to really lock in and challenge your awareness and challenge your, what Meredith? Challenge your integrity. Hang up the straps. So, we're going to do some pull ups from the risers.

I'm going to keep my red spring. It's not appropriate or, if you need to lighten your spring, as the bottom line, you should do that. You could go to a blue. A red is a good challenge for me, so I'm going to go ahead and challenge myself. I'm going to take my hands on the risers with the palms of my hands facing in and then I want to arrange my spine so my spine's nice and flat.

Then we're going to pull the reformer forward and resist back. So I want you to think about this movement in terms of it not just coming from the hands or the arms, but really, more than anything, starting from the shoulder blades. Starting from the shoulder blades, feeling the shoulder blades slide down the back. Check in with the rest of the body. Is your belly hanging out?

If it is, well, there's only one thing to do. I'm going to do four more. Reach, resist out. So we work to pull, but we work just as hard to resist. Last two.

Resist. One more. In. And back. Take the hands down.

Carefully bring yourself in. Set the hands on the frame of the reformer. Draw the abdominals in, shift forward so that the shoulders are a little bit in front of the hands and then deepen into your rounded spine. Inhale here. And exhale without moving the shoulder position, we draw the knees in underneath the body.

Keep that round position in the spine. Inhale back. And exhale, deepen into the curl. So, in my brain, what I think about, is not just moving from the knees, but literally trying to move from the spine. And back.

And curl. And back, as though the tailbone is sliding underneath coming forward of the abdominals and into the breastbone. Last two. Using your breath, focusing deeply inwards. Last time.

Release. Carefully bring that carriage home. We'll do a little bit more arm work in a minute, but first we're going to do another round of jumping. So let's go back to a red and a blue. Or two reds, or one red, or whatever feels appropriate to you.

I'm using a red and a blue for me. Okay, so, all the way back down onto our backs. Press the carriage away. Reorganize, getting the heals lined up, toes are in a small V shape. Bend and come in.

So we'll start by just opening the legs as we jump, landing back into this first position. Here we go. Inhale and press and land. Try to land and jump lightly, so there's not a lot of excess noise. There's no movement of the reformer.

It doesn't slide along the floor. Last four. Three. Two. One.

Land all the way in. We'll now cross one leg over the other in the air. We'll land back in this position. So preparing, inhale. And now exhale, right leg over left.

Left leg over right. With a small cross and it's not so much the feet that you want to think about, but the upper thighs. Upper thighs. Squeezing together. Six out of 10.

Long arms. Seven, squeezing the inner thighs. Eight. Last two, landing with that good articulation in the feet. And all the way.

Lift the left leg off the jump board. As the right leg jumps, the left leg will reach and bend as the right leg lands. Here we go. We reach, bend. Reach, bend.

Here, the challenge, is to hold the pelvis still. Last four, fully extending through the left. Two. One. Come all the way in.

Maybe take a minute just to find a really solid even small V shape position. Heals on the jump board. Right left lifts up. As the left leg jumps, the right will extend. And here we go.

Press, reach. Two. Three, don't forget the rolling in the foot. The rolling. Last four.

Three. The left leg doesn't go out. It stays right under the body. Come all the way in. Bring the feet right on top of the jump board so you can curl like a prehensile position over the top of the jump board.

Reach back to take the headrest down. Now depending on what spring you have, this could be extra challenging, medium challenging, or challenging. So, a pelvic crawl. Curling the toes over the top, inhale. We press down into the feet.

Try to keep the reformer still as you roll your spine up, feeling the work in the back of the legs, hold to inhale and then peel all the way down, really trying to maximize the flexion in the lower spine. Inhale as the tailbone drops. Exhale as you flatten, articulating up through the spine. Hold at the top to inhale, creating a nice straight line and exhale as we come back down. Deepening all the way.

We'll do that one more time, inhale. And exhale as we roll up. Up. Up. Up.

And inhale. And long arms, the arms reach out for the jump board, coming all the way down, adding some extension here. Inhale. And exhale, rolling up. Stay lifted at the top and press the reformer away and lift back up.

Try to come all the way into the stop bar. And press the reformer away. I'm not going all the way to straight legs cause I'm trying not to create an arc in my back. I'm just letting them stay a little bit soft. Last two.

Again, try and come all the way in. It's a bit of a challenge, that one. One more. All the way in. Hold there.

Roll down. Down, down, and down. Take the feet onto the outside of the jump board. My hair is stuck, there we go. So again, wrapping the feet right over the top of the jump board.

Feel the inner thighs starting to work or squeeze them towards one another. Inhale. This time, don't roll all the way up, but instead, round just up so that the lower back is lifted up off the reformer. Check in with the stability or the alignment of the pelvis, and now, press out. Feel all the way straight here, but try to really maintain that scoop.

And bend in. And press out, maintaining the scoop. And pull in. And reach out. And pull in.

And reach out. And in, last time. Reach out. And in. And then from there, roll the spine all the way down.

Roll onto your side. Help yourself up. We're going to come back up onto the knees. We're going to leave that red and blue spring. This time, instead of coming right up against the shoulder blocks, let's stay back a little bit.

So, I'm actually hooking my feet over the back end of the reformer. Reach down for your straps, hold your straps in your hands and then find a posterior tilt of the pelvis, lean back a little bit, arms up, and from here, we go into a bicep curl. And exhale and reach. Pulling in, so I want the arms to stay a little higher than right at our sides, so we get a little anterior deltoid work with our bicep work. Here's five, four, three, two, and one.

Coming all the way back, let the straps come down for just a second. I like a nice heavy spring for the next one, so I'm going to add another red spring. I now have two reds and one blue spring. Probably even do three reds if you were feeling ambitious. So again, finding your alignment and then back into the thigh stretch, pressing the pelvis forward and pull back with the arms and reach.

And pull back. And reach. And pull back. And reach. Keeping that long line in the body.

Last four. Last three. Last two. Last time. Take the arms all the way forward again and then lets go into a little thigh stretch while we're here.

We're going to go up against the shoulder blocks. We're going to use that heavy spring. Gonna press back with the arms, rotate the pelvis under, hinge, bring the arms with the body, hinging, hinging, hinging, and lift back up. Find neutral alignment in here. Exhale, tuck the tailbone, look down, keep that line in the body.

Keep the arms next to the body. Hinge, hinge, hinge, press up. Woo, I feel my thighs burning. I don't know about you. One more time.

Rotate, bring the arms with you. Hinge. Hinge. Hinge. Lift up.

And set the straps down. We're going to turn ourselves around. So taking the spring tension back to one spring. I'm going to choose to use a red spring. You could also use a red and a blue.

Red and a blue is probably about as much as you want and then sliding the feet up against the shoulder blocks, pressing the pelvis forward for the down stretch. Press the reformer away. And then lift the spine all the way back into the stopper. And press the reformer away. Feeling the abdominals supporting that forward position of the pelvis, pressing down into the arms and stretching.

Using the idea that I often think about and talk about of trying to stretch the jump board or pull the hands apart, while they're on the jump board, that's an energetic cue. I'm not actually moving my arms apart at all. I'm just trying to or thinking about it. So keeping the back nice and broad. Last two.

Last time. Okay. So, I think we'll keep that spring. We're going to do a little bit of side jumping to get our lateral movers working. I'm going to leave my headrest down.

You could also put it up. You could also put a pillow there. Lie down on your side. Just got to move my mic. Okay, here we go.

So, what I want you to do, is find your leg so it's right underneath. You know we have a lighter spring than we did before which is going to give us a little bit more airtime, so enjoy that. Bend your knee. Feel the connection of the heal to the jump board. The other hand can come onto the shoulder block or down in front of you.

I'm going to put my hand on my shoulder block. Reach and land. Rolling through the foot. Reach and roll. So it's not necessarily a super heavy weight for the legs, but it's a nice reminder of keeping the whole body working.

This is eight by my count. I'm attempting for 10. There's 10. If I counted wrong and you counted right, make sure you know how many you did and do the same number on your other side. I'm going into external rotation now, finding the position of the heal and reach.

And roll. When I say roll, I'm speaking specifically about the rolling through the foot to absorb the weight of the spring. Trying to find power from the hip rather than from the foot. Last two. And last one.

Coming all the way in. Quiet with the carriage. Up and over to the other side. Pardon my backside. Here we go.

So, finding a straight line with your body, feeling where the heal can be as the foot lands and you jump out and roll. Trying to again, land through the toes, through the foot, so we get a lot of footwork here. Trying to stabilize the trunk, last two. And one. Coming all the way in and going to the external rotation of that hip.

Remember that carriage may not come all the way in and that's okay. Here we go, bottom carriage lifted up, abdominals in, and reach. Point and then flex. Trying to point the feet with long toes, rather than curl the toes under, last five. Four.

Three. Two. And one. Coming all the way in and from there, making your way down onto your back again. So I'm going to lift my headrest up so I can look at my feet.

What I want us to do is straighten the legs all the way and you're going to take your feet and roll the toes under. So just making sure that you're not rolling out into just the pinky toes, but you've got to try to find weight across the foot. We'll bend it. And so we've done a lot of footwork today. We're just going to give them a little stretch.

It's harder on the out than it is on the in. And so we reach under with the toes and press out. And coming back, feeling that initiation from the abdominals, reaching under with the toes. And back. We'll just do five.

Trying to keep weight. Typically it's harder to keep weight into the big toe, so that's where I'm focusing my energy like I'm trying to roll the feet into the insides of the foot. And bend. Last time here. Reach out.

And bend. And then unwind the feet. Reach for your straps. Now, it's very important if your headrest is up that it goes down right now. Starting with the arms just over the shoulders, going into some rollovers.

So, lifting the feet up, pressing the legs out as the arms press down. Inhale as the legs comes towards vertical and exhale with control, reverse roll yourself over. So drawing the abdominals in, flex the feet, separate the legs, roll the spine down, reaching through the heals, reaching through the arms, point the feet, take the legs down, lift the arms up, press the arms down, lift the legs up. Exhale, roll the spine over, legs parallel to the floor, flex through the feet, separate the legs, roll down, just stretching out the hamstrings, stretching out the back, point the feet, legs come together, arms lift up, last time. Lift up, roll over, flex.

Hopefully we're nice and ready for whatever's next in our day. Not quite finished with what we're doing here, but I hope we're feeling energized. Point, bring the legs down and together, lift the arms, bend the knees. So, I'm very curious actually, if I can roll up like I tried to in the beginning of class. And if I can't, then that's okay too, but I want to try.

So, if you're with me, and you want to try too, bring your arms up, just let the legs rest on the jump board, lift the head and chest and roll, nope. We, I'm rocking. I'm rocking. So, that answers that. I've got my leg strap all ready to go.

We're going to do some side overs. So load your carriage so it's stable. Grab your box. Come on to the box. I'm going to start with my back to you and the reason is because this is the side of my body that's more challenging for me and I like to start with it.

So, if that's a good reason, or even if it's not, that's the reason, and here we go. It's happening. Inhale to go over. And exhale to reach out and find your straight line. What's nice about having the jump board here is I can push into it with my foot.

So knowing that my foot's not actually moving back and forth. Last time. Lift up. Arms straight, reach over. Lift up three.

Inhale, lift up two. A lot harder with arms up here, go back to hands behind the head if you need to. Last one. Up. And all the way down for the stretch.

So, one of my favorite things to do here is to hold the front frame, the frame that's in front of me, and then to roll my pelvis backwards. I've got a lot of work through the front of the legs today, it's nice to give them a little bit of a stretch. And then come back to center. Rotate so that you're facing the floor. And then bend forward.

And then reach long. And then take the same side hand as the foot in the strap, so my left foot's in the strap, I'm going to take my left arm over towards the opposite edge of the reformer and I'm going to stretch into that lower back. Which, I feel like, this is why I like the exercise so much, the side overs. They are one of my favorites, but I think I like them because they're such a good reward at the end. It's true.

Okay, so switching sides, starting with the hand on the headrest, finding your straight line, hands behind the head, here we go for our first three with the hands behind the head. Reaching out rather than up, one. Inhale, over, exhale, out, two, inhale, over, exhale, out, arms up. Inhale, over, exhale, one. Feels like a whole different body to me, this side.

And two, standing on that jump board if you can and three. Hand comes down, oh no, we did it this way. We just went all the way over the top. Then the arm reaches, the leg reaches in the opposite direction. We take the hand to the front of the reformer, roll the pelvis back, turn the body, and reach the spine forward first rounding, and then lengthen up.

And then same side leg to hand comes to the opposite side of the reformer and we stretch into that lower back. Then I'll come back down. Come all the way up. We're going to turn the box, so the box goes the long ways on the reformer. And this is another one of my very most favorite things to do.

I'm going to leave one spring on. Any spring, it doesn't matter, just to secure on my reformer as I get down onto the box. And then the jump board will be in your way so feel free to push away a little bit. Then reach down and take all springs. So, I now have a spring free carriage.

So, I've pushed myself away a little bit. I'm going to keep my hands on the jump board with my head not dropped down, but just in line with the spine. So that means, if I wanted to come all the way and I couldn't, because the jump boards in the way, but that's okay. So, from here, we're gonna stretch the arms out, stretch the arms out, and then keeping the legs lifted, or just as high as the box, we're going to pull the reformer in towards the jump board, extending up through the spine, press back away, and here's the magic, bend and pull the elbows apart as you come in. Just such great back work.

Inhale reach out. Exhale, shoulders fly down, abdominals and legs still. You don't have to come all the way up. You could pull yourself all the way up or you could stay low. And I'm just going to choose to stay low today so I can focus and pull and bend.

Make sure your elbows aren't behind you, but they're in your periphery. I'm choosing to stay low today so I can focus my work, my energy into my upper back, primarily and then, lift up. Eyes come with the spine. As we go down, the eyes come with the spine. Don't drop your head below your arms or don't drop your head below your sternum.

And bend, so, I suppose the arms are slightly above the head here. Just do one more. Inhale reach out, exhale, elongate through the spine, lifting the chest, the eyes. Inhale to come back and exhale to bend in. So just for a moment, hang on to that jump board, let the legs relax, let the spine have a little bit of a stretch.

And then just be careful as you're getting off the reformer, remembering that it doesn't have any spring. I'm going to go back to a blue spring and come full circle, finishing the way we started. So, standing again, with the thighs up against the foot bar. Let's take the arms up here and then dive over, hands to the box. Elongating out through the spine, drawing the abdominals in away from that jump board, roll the spine back in, press the thighs against the foot bar too, accentuate the curve of the lower spine, roll the spine all the way up, bring the arms out to the side, reach out and up.

Exhale, dive into the jump board, hands on the jump board, or not the jump board, the box. Reaching out. Rounding back in. And this time, rolling all the way up. Let's just keep the arms near and bring the arms up with the body, lifting up, looking up, gathering energy as you slowly reach way out to the sides of the body, way out to both sides of the room and all the way down.

And then, enjoy your day.