Creative Reformer w/Tower

It's that time again. It's girl time, girl time. And we're going to do a reformer tower. It's going to be hopefully quick. So let's start, I'm gonna warm up by moving my legs cause I've been sitting and Mary's joining me. I have um, a set up. She's got, it looks like three red and a blue. I have three red and a blue. Why not over here? We'll, all we think we're going to be using is um, they're yellow arm springs and also the longer yellow legs springs, which some people call arms springs, but one has a hand arm handle, hand handle and one has a foot strap. So that's basically, I think all we're going to need other than we're going to integrate it.

So we're going to use them both at the same time at the same time. Wow. Let's go lie down. You're ready? I'm ready. Mary's ready? Mary's Ben. Ready? She's waiting on me. So we're going to start with our heels parallel. I'm going to put the head rest up just a little, just cause I need to and want to and need to feel comfortable before I start. I'm not going anywhere. My feet are parallel, slightly apart. Deep breath in and if we could just do a couple of breath to let go.

Knowing we're not going to be here long, but we need to be efficient while we are here. Do it again. Inhale, fill up however it feels good to you or maybe you don't know, but when you exhale, just if you can, putting a little pressure on the heels with this sense of a downward pressure as well. Inhale on the exhale we push out for us. We're one full extension. Nice heavy bones and help pull in. Exhale, push out. We'll keep that going. Here's three. Yeah, pulling those toes back. Not just the first and second, but all of them. [inaudible] let's just do five more one and pull in getting acquainted with yourself.

What you need here. [inaudible] give it one more. Come back in. Keep the control through the center. Just slide both feet down at the same time. Not one at a time. Lift the heels a little so that they don't sink and be heavy, but they're supported and off we go. Press out one. Start paying attention to the back side of your body.

You feel maybe the arms pressing in, you feel the whole palm may be or you could try. Perfect. She says to herself, lifting boxes all day, caress and then kind of just check in with are you pushing with one leg or the other? Stop counting cause you know I'm not just go, I'm counting your co shoot. Then how many [inaudible] okay, good. Come on down. Turn the feet toward each other and can count. I'm really good at counting. If you are good, so go for it. That would be a huge help off you.

Wego and but finish it right so you get the way up there. I'm not checking the you at this point, Mary, I'm just talking to me and get a long, can you find more space in the waste? God, what? Freedom when you don't have to count you really counting. Yeah. That's awesome. Awesome. For more, she says reach and are already, God. This was good already. I'm so happy Zit got that far.

Bring it back. Heels. Why go a little wider than normal or if you always go really wide, bring it in a little. Make it different. Feel the bottoms of your feet but not just that back your legs. Off we go. School is enrich and two. Oh I'm not kidding. I forgot and it really is kind of Nice to just breathe and move without worrying about it. So hopefully you can do that too. Cause Mary's on our side two more and then come on down. Let's do one more time. Balls of the feet.

Same wide position or narrow. A few always go real wide off we go and reach. And you can maximize this, right? I mean how many years have you been doing these exercises? How many times do you have to change it? Not that many, but I can't count that high. I can't count to that.

Oh you can't count that high? I have no idea. Yeah. Good point. Well how many times have you done this right now? You can't count that high for sure. I was thinking how many years you've done it. Can you count while I'm talking to you? A kind of two more I think. Okay, fair enough.

Okay. And here we are. Down we go. Pointing I was gonna make was just that. Find a different take on it. That's all. And I'm not telling you how to do that cause you know all the way. I'll hold it way up. Just exaggerate the stretch.

Not so much to the ankles or feet, but through the waist. And then without dropping into the knees, you're going to lower the heels. Just take your time. Oh, can we just sit here for a second? Finding all five minute tarsals hopefully it's a bit harder for me on one foot and then not, it's from the back of the leg too. Not just the foot up we go and we'll go into a little more normal pace down.

Enough down, up. As opposed to if you're counting, I should tell you how many we should do, but how about we just do some, I'll just tell you when I'm tired and we'll start. Okay, that's not good for me. I do long from, how about four more? Four more O'Grady one. And then you just pay attention. Right? That's sort of why Mary and I get together is how do we feel? What do we want to learn? Is that for Kay? Bend your knees. Come on down. I'll do it in a second. Here we go. Back out.

I needed a break and we're doing our prancing or running. So we'll do down, up, down and and down and now will rely on you for the rest of us. We're keeping the hips still. It's like you're pointing the knee straight up. We can go even quicker without pushing through the foot bar. Too much. Down. Up, down, up, down, up. Best we can. Our toes aren't gripping. They're wrapped but not gripping. There is a difference. Figure it out. Give us how many last time now last time up and oh, she wants to stretch. Stretch. Okay.

Mary's stretching and I'm happy for a kid that I had to move my foot. I literally, what do you think I should be rewarded for canteen. I will of course be rewarded for being here. She switched. I had to move my foot cause honestly it was, I'm tired and it was too much. I had to take a little breath for the foot. For what it's worth. For those of you who might've thought about it, did you switch again? I did. Cause you did. Oh I did. Okay. I should one more time though. Right? Cause that would be four or two.

Okay. Well coming down. Right. Why don't you take it from here. So get up. Uh, I like this on a blue spring. It's plenty of spring for me. You can make your choice for sure. Take off all the three rep. I wouldn't go heavier than a red. Um, I, if you want my honest opinion, uh, blue spring is perfect. So we're gonna take the short arm springs, they're connected to the, what's that whole?

Just above our shoulders. So just be careful with yourself when you're getting on and off this moving carriage with springs in your hands. That's maybe the most challenging thing about doing the tower and the reformer together is that this is a very light spring and a moving carriage and good luck. Don't hurt yourself. What she's saying. All right. So getting onto the carriage called a bottle. Hands worth of space behind myself. Knees together, feet on the headrest.

Lift up tall but lean back slightly. That's a springs. The arms springs have pulled the reformer whale. Feel that. So now we're going to bend the elbows. I want you to think of lifting your chest through your arms and then take the arms out straight and then alternate that by rounding the spine and you. So we curl the tailbone under almost as though the springs are holding the upper body still in the lower body is moving the carriage and then roll back up.

Lower body moves comes back into alignment with the shoulders and then pull back and reach and Tuck the tail under an curl so that I like the of that. Moving from the lower spine, almost like the, I mean the shoulders are going to appear to rise and fall, but I think just because the spine is moving out of the way, that's my story and I'm sticking to, here's my story. I'm sending the carriage forward with my pelvis or my spine. That's the same thing I'm saying. I know. I'm just giving it another words. Oh, not knocking it. Just you had a story. I've got a story. Okay. We apparently have the same story with different words. Exactly. Last time, same story. Okay, so now we're going to stay down here. Christie. I want us to lift the left knee, so about into a tabletop position. Straighten that left layout, stabilize the pelvis. Now we're going to curl the body up.

Now the upper body's lifting going forward as in he comes in and stretch out and curls the upper body lifts and then we tell the same story that reaching legs sends the carriage away or the spinal movement sends the carriage away. Um, we're going to do two more like that, so, oh, that's kind of Nice. It was on this floaty carriage. That's great. Interesting sensation. So let's go back out. Stay down, bend the knee, put that foot down, lift the other leg up again. We did five by my account, which is stellar as you know. Yes. And reach back and deepen like you're pulling the leg in from underneath the ribs are with a hall onus. Okay. Holland is in the center of the body. This is number two. Oh, counting down number one. Okay.

And then back then the knee left leg out again. Straight. So now as we bend that knee, we're going to rotate and back. So as I rotate Christie, the arm that's further away from that knee reaches past the arm that's close to the leg. Are you bending the other and Nope, I'm not bending anything. One's just reaching. Thank you. [inaudible] I mean, I don't know if you could do it. Keeping the arms square it.

I like that. I like my story. Here we go. Almost put the foot down. Switch sides. Straight. Right leg. Here we go. We twist the left arm reaches past the right arm and then come back. So you, as you're coming back, we're laying the spine down, right? So there's control in all directions. Laying the spine de last too.

Yeah, last time. Come back then that knee and roll all the way up through the spine. Send the shoulders over the pelvis and just three arms here. Pull. It's nice to get a little bit of extension, a little bit of back work after being infection for so much too. One more time and three.

And now Christie, you are in charge. Okay. I love it when that happens. We're gonna switch. So just come off this carefully. I enjoy this. To put your arms springs down, we're going to go to the leg springs in a second, but let's change to one red spring instead of a blue. So what we're doing, what Mary and I know is the legs and straps, right? Um, and it's again a little different cause we're still gonna use this spring. So we take hold of the longer springs in the way where we have it. Gosh, I don't even know what to say. It's about my shoulder height, but it could be a little lower. Slightly lower than my shoulder.

Right about that same, yeah. It's essentially going to be fine either way. So let's not overthink that. The hardest part, like Marie said, is getting on the care, especially when it's sort of light. So I have the springs in one hand lying down with her with the head rest come on down. So we're gonna push out to straight again, we're on the one red spraying that kind of matters.

You could go heavier and I've tried and it kind of wears me out a little too fast for what I want to do and where I know I want to go. So step into it with one foot. Now keep in mind, you know, we're working that deceleration that we have in some of these other classes when we're integrating both. So it, it will bounce around on you, especially if you're not prepared for it. So we're trusting that we're going to kind of be under control with all of this and know that we're going to have to pause and make it a different dynamic, um, range and or tempo. So I'm in frog. I picked both feet off if you didn't, and just keeping the pelvis neutral, press out pause except an absorb that little bit of bounce and bring it back in. Let's do a few to get used to that. Really letting the femurs fold into the hip joint and in, and I think you'll find pretty soon that you can kind of control it relatively easy, but it would also be really fun just to swing it back and forth and I'm trying to avoid that. So for a moment we press out pause.

That's going to matter more in a moment. Nothing is changing on your spine or your low back. Let's just do two more. Letting the legs fold. That's what I like about doing this integration is that there really is a different sensation of the springs that allow the muscles in the front to relax. Next time we go out, stay there, hold it.

We're going into circles or squares or however you see it. Lift the legs up. Probably no more than 90 we don't need to do that and now we're going to press down. Come all the way around, keeping it fluid, pause at the top. Boom. Press down, circle around all like circles. Make it feel good. That's again another thing with the sort of bouncy carriage. It feels a little bit like a, I don't know, simulation almost.

Of what could be happening in the joints down on the next one. Take it down. Just hold it there. Pause. So you know you're in charge and reverse it. We lift up, we open, we come down and around and pause in the low point. Oh, that's where the bounce comes. Right. Inhale up, come down. You can kind of let it be fun too. We did say we were going to do that and yeah. Okay. Around breeding boom and finding that sort of natural, I don't know. I want to call it recoil.

I don't know if it's natural but it once was and let's just do one more here and um, then from there while we're here, go ahead and go to parallel. I think initially we'll keep the knees together. I've done this before in class without the springs attached. But from now what I'm going to try to do is keep my thighs where they are. You might want your hands there to judge it for yourself and bend the knees to table top or 90, and then back up. So the carriage will move.

It's fine. Just bend. Try not to let the thighs come closer to you or further away and up. And then I imagine you were heavier, not to force it, but to control it. Maybe you touch the back of your thighs or of hamstrings or, and for me, I try to keep the connection with that weighted tailbone, a weighted bones in general so that I can feel the, the area between the glutes and the hamstrings. So since I said that, just a couple more [inaudible] feed a relatively relaxed [inaudible] and well can you feel it at all? Okay, good. Just checking. It's all quiet and stuff.

Now at the top I went back to straight turn the links out again, bring it down to a diamond position, kind of wide, kind of high with the feet. Initially heavy bones. I just caught myself kind of hanging on the straps, so I'm gone heavy there. And then from the outer edges of the thighs, we just keep the shape of the FYS and as best you can lower the feet so they're not pointing up to the ceiling, but straight ahead when they come down and bring it back up. Exhale. Meanwhile, back in the [inaudible] studio back in your mind, you're keeping the shape of the legs and maybe focusing on not letting anything else move. Can you find some ease in it? If it's too easy, you can contract or you want to, that's always an option one why? From here, we're going to play with a little bit of the short spines of press out to straight hairdresser down. Yeah. Okay, so this is very similar I think. Although I did, I tend to do this.

I'm slightly have her spring, so just bear with yourself and just play with it slowly. If you know it, we're going to fold all the way over until we find the stopper with the carriage and you might have to lift higher because of where the springs are. That's okay. Then roll up, but you're still in charge, right? You feel the backs of your arms, you feel some initiation through the backs of the legs. You're getting up there. Even though you could let this springs go, but you don't. You're right, Mary, you're right. Go ahead and bend the knees nice and deep. You've got to hang onto them and then we roll down.

I'm leaving the feet a little bit today. They come down a little bit just so I can hold onto them when I get as low as I can with the spine, then I'm bringing the feet with me. If you can flex without losing them, do it. Yeah, it's hard. You might have to keep the feet slightly pointed on that pair. Here we go. Press out. Now you know what to expect. We roll over.

It might take you a lifting into the pelvis a little sooner, but that's okay because you could do this without springs altogether. Roll up Ben to frog from throat down. You roll. Yeah. Elongate. Let it feel good with or without the flex foot there, but definitely use the hamstrings to bring it back. You know what that felt like a little bit ago. Let's just do two more and fold over. Oh, missed that one. Oh, and if we go Ben the frog, roll it down. Getting more subtle if you can.

How much deeper into the curl can you get before you pull? Then bring those heels towards your glutes or you could bring the whole shape over. No big deal. Did I say two more and we've only done one, I don't know. Okay. One more. 21 defund. And as you bend the knees, it's tempting to drop you back. You're not doing that. We're just holding the shape until now when we roll down, trying to give it that bit of massage and then we bring it down. I think I'll stop there for now, Mary.

Okay, so you're done for now. Okay. So we're taking our feet out maybe long spine next time. Huh? Long sign next time. Okay. Should we try it now or do you want to wait next time? Okay, next time. Okay, so we're gonna, I'm just gonna drop those straps because that's the easiest way for me to get myself off this carriage. So coming up, let's leave that spring on red spring. Come up onto the knees and you're going to get your handles again. Straps with handles. So the short ones.

Yeah, the short ones. I was playing with this, you know what I think? I think blue springs is going to be better. You could probably do both. I've just, I'm still working on my way out of a, um, as in mind arm injury. So I'm going to go white springs with my arms until they feel excited to do heavy work again. So careful as you get on the character on your knees. And so my idea around this is the, the kind of the reverse of the reverse knee stretch. Reverse of the reverse.

Okay. So you know the reverse knee surgery, you have your hands holding onto the frame and you keep your arms still. So what we're going to do now is we're going to hold the arms in front of us and now create around spine, a d for round spine. So like a, like a knee stretch position or round back knee stretch position. Now instead of pulling the leg through, we're gonna pull the arms to bring [inaudible] already. Yeah, it's fun, Huh? That's paying back. So the arms move this time, but it's not about the arms, it's about finding the abdominal work or that's what I'm thinking anyway. Deep deep. Don't let your stomach push out onto your clothing. Keep it pulled down, keep it pulled back.

Imagine as you're drawing your abdominals, your deep abdominal muscles in that they're spreading to the outsides of your waist at the same time. This might be my new favorite, and I know that's pretty good. But what are we on blue? Yeah, that's all we could do in two more. It's pretty awesome. You don't need to read no way or no, I think the, honestly, I think they're red would make it to army. It would make it, yeah, to Nicki army. Wow. That's good. All right. And then we're gonna let it come back and I'm going to let Christy tell you what she thought about. What do you got, Christie? Oh, from there? Yeah. Okay. Um, gosh, I want to do some [inaudible] do something here, but it seems a bit early, so let's just crawl forward. Set these down, but stay out there to grab the other bar. So you had the pushy bars not loaded. And this is, I think, safe to say one of both of our favorites. Just slightly twisted, slightly different. So we're going into as close to as you can to a flat back. There's no spring on the push through bar.

We're still on one red spring of blue could work. We'll see from here. You're just going to as if you're spreading that bar apart, you bend the elbows wide top of the head, go straight to the bar and then go back to straight arms to make it a little more challenging though. You want to be careful though because you don't have the support of the springs in the normal way you would. This is sort of shoulder push, but we're going to call it shoulder pool. You may need to keep the knees more forward than directly under your hips, but you could to challenge and take them a little further away out from underneath you. Behind you. Almost elbows wide. Nice. Long neck. There's no hunting in the shoulders. Wow. I think I did on a blue before, but I like it. What do you think? This is blue, right? It is blood. Yeah.

Oh good. Thank God is not red. [inaudible] this is fine for me. Okay, good. One more. You could keep to just two, both arms, but you could also, when you come back to straight, take your left hand off and put it onto the shoulder. Rest back as flat or neutral. Either one. And same thing, pull elbows. Why don't let them dip down or up. I'm doing three to an extend.

Enjoy the stretch. Here's three. Look, all of a sudden I can get down and switch arm. That's really hard. It's feeling harder than it did when I was practicing it. Here we go. Four elbow wide, one. Oh boy. This is even more fun. So if you do twist to one side, if I'm implicating myself, use that hand into the shoulder as to help you. Whatever you can feel. Here's already three things. Goodness, right? Yeah.

And then both arms on bring yourself forward just enough to let the bar down. Hold the frame as you do and bring it back. Oh, that's all I had for that. Okay, so maybe what about chest expansion standing on the inside? Like, couldn't we just stand on the inside on a non-moving carriage and the inside of the frame and the inside of the [inaudible], the Blue [inaudible]? No, what not even using this springs on the carriage. Who's using the arm? Sorry. Sorry. Yep.

We will do chest expansion starting by bringing the arms just to the front of the size, settling the shoulders down the back and then begin just reaching the arms down and back and down and forward. Let's do five like this, down and back, down in, forward, down and back. Down in Farty. Feel that body lifting tall or as the arms go back and I would take the arms back, lift the heels, keep the arms where they are, lower the heels, stretch longer through the body and bring the arms forward. Try not to lean back into the springs and again, press back through the arms.

Lift up with the seat lowered down with the fee. Bring the arms for just one more time. Press back, reach up, lower down and then forward. Well, we could do the whole arm series here. You want to continue? Yeah, absolutely. Turn around. Absolutely. You read my mind, Hey, you're on it. Okay. So same time, um, nothing's changed with leaning forward, finding place where you can, you can see your arms in front of you. There's your not completely straight, but you're not far off at either.

Some energy in the biceps, which you haven't completely given up on the backside of the lats feet are in the middle on how nice you can actually measure it versus when you're on the Cadillac. Right. Okay. I didn't either until just a second. So from there we just gonna go right into hugger tree and so the arms are ending up right in front of you. Um, we're not bending our arms so much that we ended up hugging a tree. We're actually hugging like a block ish kind of thing. Some version of that oppose a very long post anyway and things you get to feel is that the reason we even I even specified is because I can easily round forward so much that I feel nothing here and I wanna practice that play between almost falling forward when I open wide and almost being sent backwards when I bring it together. And so somewhere in there. Let's do this last one here.

You may need to lean more upright, but let's try it like this. We go straight up over head right by the ears go wide broad with the arms and back to that place we just came from. Let's do it again. Inhale up and open and close. So there's not a whole lot of energy in the shoulder blades moving in terms of pulled together or apart, but they are definitely rotating around. So let that happen. Don't really control it. Just move. I'm going to make this the last one.

Once we come around to the side and then reverse it, taking it up and bring it down. Now this is a place I feel a little more connecting to my middle. I don't know why, but anyway, so right down here it's easier. Yeah. Just like, oh my arms are attached to me. It's kind of like what we just did with around back. You're just rounding. Exactly. Exactly. Thank you.

Do One more and we'll go into something else from there. Both arms come to you. So don't fall forward. Elbows directly to the side, right? That's a funny way of punching. But we're going to do it. Extend the right arm, let the left arm pass it as the right returns and now go a little, well, not quicker yet. And the second one go a tiny bit quicker. But just notice the adjustments that your body, your spine are having to make so that you don't rotate. Can we go a tiny bit quicker now and press one, one, two, two, four, three, three and four for both arms. Back in.

Stand up straight. You want to do, I want to do butterfly. Do it. I love it. Stay standing. And even better. So that's the same position. We're going to go laterally flex. So you're gonna bring the, say the right arm down towards right side. Now lift the left arm so it comes right up close to the ear and then start to press that arm down in front of you as you reach the back arm up and then unwind the idea of the arm coming to the ear first is a good way to avoid the spring running into your head. So inhale laterally. Flex in the arm comes up, and then as soon as it comes up towards the ear, it starts to pass the head.

It pushes down the back arm lifts. So you're making x with your springs. We inhale and unwind through using this as our rotation, our rotational component to our workout in hand. Reach up to go over, back and up with the backend. The backend also pulls in, come back on wine. The back arm pulling in towards the body is key. As the top arm presses down and forward and back. Let's do one way.

It feels great. Okay. No. How could we finish? What could we do for back extension here? I saw you playing. You were, weren't you doing something with your yeah. Arms. Oh, breaststroke. Up here.

Okay, so what I was saying with was the idea of breaststroke here and I think we can do it be a little different. It'd be the same choreography as on the reformer on the box. So let's bend the arms and you want the arms, the hands that come up near the elbows. No, no, you don't want the hands to come anywhere near the Elvis. You want the hands to come up near the shoulders. They're all of those are below the hands. Okay. Phew. Again, I got it. I got it.

Lean into your springs just a little bit. Keep your body organized so you stay straight. Yeah, I'm going to scoot back to keep your body organized so you stay straight as you press your arms out in front of you. Now allow the springs to assist you as you extend right about at the bra line. Extend through the upper spine. You got to hang onto your springs as the arms come around to the side and then we're going to come back to neutral. Alignment in the spine is the elbows bent.

I really like it. Awesome. Push forward. Let's exhale here. Stay on your feet. Inhale, reach back, let the springs help you into extension. Take the arms out. Are you looking up to or just, um, I don't know. Okay. I'll have to think. Good. Is good enough to think about it. So I'm looking with my eyes up. Oh, what do you know? Not Super Up. Not, and not so much that I'm arching my neck, but I'm allowing my gaze say to travel with my sternum.

I think we need to just do one more. Last one. Last one. Finishing with the some nice, beautiful back extension. Taking it out to the side. I'm just going to come all the way down with that one. Now. That's my new favorite. Well, I liked that you liked all the ones that I thought about teach more often.

Thank you everyone. Thanks. Thank you.