Creative Tower Connections

Hi everyone. Elise and I are here to do a tower workout with you. We have our physio ball with us so you'll need this instead of the trapeze. You'll need a top-loaded spring for some abdominal work and you'll need some leg spring. So that's all you're gonna need.

We're gonna start sitting up on top of our ball and no spring at this point. Get close enough that your hands can hold your frame and just allow you to pull down on the bar frames just a little bit. So our feet are parallel, legs are parallel, a few inches of space between, reach forward, place your hands on your bar so you can just feel a tiny bit of recruitment of lats, so for a moment let's just focus on some down and some up. So the shoulder blades, sliding down the back, toward the back of the pelvis and getting that lumbar area nice and long. So that's the down.

And in the front, the abdominals coming up the front line and the sternum coming up. So you can already kind of start to visualize a little bit of the circuit of energy going down and then some energy coming up. All right, so let's just three or fourth breaths there. Take a nice breath in through the nose. And as you exhale you can slightly press your shoulders down toward your pelvis with abdominals in and up.

And release, take an inhale. And again, so the shoulder sliding down toward the pelvis, the abdominals in up toward the sternum to top of head. It's almost like we could levitate right off the ball. Inhale. And last two.

(breathes) Just pressing down. Start to sink your feet into your mat a little bit more. Maybe the heel's stronger contact. And inhale release. And one more time, finding that connection.

And then release as you inhale. Now, we'll keep the upper body nice and still and work to mobilize from the pelvis down. So take another breath. Gonna be fairly small movement as we exhale. We're doing abdominals in and up to allow the pelvis to go into a posterior tilt or your pelvic rotation if we're set up doing a bridge.

And then inhale fine neutral, a level pelvis. Four times total, exhale as we curl, slightly pulling down on the bars with my hands and inhale and release, growing a little taller. And last two. So this pelvic curl as we know, starts so many of our exercises in the work. So take your time right now to connect those relationship points, the feet, the heels, the sit bones, here we go curling under, hip bones pulling back and abdominals in.

But the rest of the spine growing tall up the top of the head. What the heck, one more time, this is five. Exhale and curl. See how much you can hold onto those abdominal muscles for another breath in cycle and exhale as we release. Okay.

Attach your red spring or your abdominal spring that you'll use for abdominals. Carefully roll the ball away and let's come down supine, bring your bar with you. I want us to start with our knees bent over the ball so right away we can just, as we start to open up the shoulders keep your hip joints relaxed, your hip flexers relaxed. Settle in, feel your shoulders on the mat. We'll just do three times, Elise, just opening up the shoulder.

So the first one feel free to let your elbows bend out wide, take an inhale and start to pull the bar down and as we exhale, lengthening the arms back it's okay if this bar goes through the frame a little bit. I do want us to let the shoulders be lengthened up toward the ears, too, so stretch those lats and the side obliques and all these side muscles here. And then return the bar, inhale, and exhale. Narrow the elbows now a little bit, same thing, inhale. Notice the spine doesn't have to arch doing this.

You can isolate just the movement in your shoulder blades, your arms reaching and bring the bar back through. One more time, inhale as we bend, and exhale as we reach. Warming up the shoulders. And return the bar, inhale, and exhale. Okay, before we move on, bend your knees more around the ball so you can kinda feel almost even the heels are pressing in, right?

Okay. Keep that connection but let's step the feet onto the ball. So you're gonna stay just here. Want you to really firmly press the feet down. Here we go for three pelvic curl to bridge.

All right, so the ball presenting a nice opportunity to concentrate and work on control. We don't wanna roll off of our mat. Reaching the hips toward the thighs, the thighs toward the knees out over ankles, plug your shoulders back on your mat and rolling down in sequence. A nice supple spine that moves freely. Level the pelvis and breathe in there.

Here we go, exhale, there's that pelvic tilt. Feel the heel contact on the ball, the whole foot, really. Nice and long and strong, shoulders plugged into the mat. Inhale, use that to start initiating roll down and exhale all the way down through the lumbar spine to a level pelvis, one more time. All right, stand on those feet, curl, work out any sticky spots you might feel in your back, nice breath in, and exhale as we unroll all the way down.

Okay, let's try it with straight legs, which presents even more challenge, I think, in keeping the ball steady from left to right. I'm gonna go into a small external rotation to invite some of the lateral rotators of the hip to come in but do still squeeze the heels together. Here we go. A nice breath in, exhale and curl. A little more challenging to get through that lumbar, not locking out those knees, and then a full breath to come down.

Maybe we can start using the ball for more of a reference to reach your pelvis to on the way up and down. Here we go again, curl, rolling up, concentrating also on how the hand is holding the bar to the pinky finger side of the hand, nice and firm. Keeps those shoulders rolled back. Okay, adding onto it, let's roll up again and we're gonna stay up and add a shoulder movement, inhale, bend the elbows, so the only thing that's touching the mat right now is our upper back and the bottom of the ball, maybe our head. And then unroll the spine.

Let's use the ball for reference. Reach the pelvis toward the ball, arms away from head, get to level and return the arms. Okay, just one more like that. Breathe in here and abdominals, curl the hips and spine, steadying that ball right to left. So how do you do that?

You have to press evenly with your legs, evenly with your back muscles, rolling down your spine, reaching the pelvis toward the ball and come level and bring the bar back up. Okay, now from here, something kind of easy. Keep a little bit more turnout with your legs, heels together, toes away and frog. Just kinda get this rhythm, this is gonna happen in a minute when we do our sit-up. We'll some hip-flexion and knee-flexion while we're up in our teaser position, okay?

So right now, we're not letting our pelvis leave a neutral alignment. Slightly press on the ball one more time, pulling in and reaching away. Okay, so I'm gonna take us through, open the legs slightly, Elise, just a little bit, still pressing on the outsides of the ankles and get those lateral hips. Let's do some roll-up now from the head through the skull and the neck and the upper back and coming all the way, looking out past your toes. So remember, we're using the ball instead of a trapeze swing and here we go rolling down, like we're dragging the bar down from the sky.

Articulate all the way to the level. Again, inhale, head, neck, exhale, abdominals. Look out past your toes, lift your chest bone up and begin to roll down, dragging the spring down from the top of the frame. All right, we're gonna add onto it. Going up there and add those little leg movements.

Here we go, inhale. So it's essentially you press down on the outside of your hips and ankles. Let's do three times. In and lengthen. This is not easy to keep the back organized, good.

And stretch, last time, pull it in. And stretch, and then we unroll, we unroll and all the way down. We're gonna keep our legs straight, walk the legs together. Okay, take your left hand into an underhand grip, move it in slightly more toward the center, just by a bit, and then right hand behind the head. Okay, working on steadying both the pelvis and the ball, just lift with rotation, so we'll take a breath.

Easy chest lift first. Let's just do like... Yeah, we'll stay here, breathe again. As we rotate toward the right I want you to put a little more anchoring on the left heel and the left back of the pelvis. Inhale, return to face your legs and exhale, come all the way down.

Inhale here. Evenly press both heels and you may have to anchor a little more on the left side. Here we go, exhale, as you rotate away from the left side to keep that hip down. Inhale, return to facing your legs and exhaling down. We'll add a little to it this time, exhale, curl up.

Inhale, exhale, rotate. Let's stay here and take a breath. Now we'll exhale and roll that ball in, inhale, roll the ball out. Two more, exhale, roll it in, staying up in that chest lift and last one, curl in, ease the neck and shoulders a little bit, turn to face the legs, hopefully you're centered, and exhale and roll down the other side. So reverse hand grip.

Left hand comes behind the head. For a minute just anchor those shoulders down, we take a breath. Easy chest lift. The arm is relatively straight, inhale as you rotate, exhale, return to facing the legs and down. You may notice one side is easier to coordinate the stability to, pretty common.

Inhale and lower. Last time with the extra leg work. (breathes) So as you rotate away from your right side, anchor weight on that heel, a little bit more than the left, take a pause and breathe in. Exhale, pull the ball in, keeping level pelvis and breathe in as the ball is straight, there we go. Exhale, pull it in, inhale, reach away.

And one more time bring it in and reach away, turn to face the legs as we breathe and we'll come all the way down. Anchor both hands on the bar the normal way and then just do one more shoulder opener just to even the sense of what's happening in the neck, shoulders, upper back and spine. And bring the bar back around. Okay, we have one more with our hands on the bar and the ball. So I want you to pull it back in, re-bend the knees, and again, feel the heels now really pull into the ball and let's take some supine twists.

I'm gonna go to my right side first on an inhale. Pause there and put a little more left heel on the ball to feel that opposition in that oblique wall and then come back to center. Over to the left, right heel presses into ball. And center. Let's do that again.

Inhale over to the right, left heel presses into the ball. And center. And over to the left, right heel presses in. And underneath us our sitz bones are really reaching to the ball. We're not in a pelvic curl here.

Okay, we're gonna add onto that with a leg extension. So coming across to the right, now stay for just a second. Right heel pulls into the ball so that you can release the left leg and really reach it. Almost slide your inner thighs past one another. As we come center, pull the right heel against the ball and then we go to center.

Other side, inhale as we twist. So it's the left heel's turn and extend the right leg. Slide that leg a little bit longer keeping both shoulders plugged back, come across the midline, re-bend. Let's take that one last time. Inhale, rotate.

Upper body nice and anchored. Left leg or top leg extends. Make an effort to reach the leg a little bit more, come across the midline, re-bend. And last time, now this part you probably could not... Well, probably couldn't do this with a trapeze swing anyway 'cause your leg would be out of that loop.

So some of these exercises have that relevance and some are more on the creative side. Okay. Let's come up and sit up. We're done with that section. Yep, let go of that bar.

Lie back down, though. We're gonna stretch our legs out long for the 100 and a little variety today. When our legs are long, we're inhaling. During the exhale phase we'll re-bend the knees and pull the ball in, okay? And it's gonna be up to you.

You can do a little turn out when you bring the ball in, turn out with your legs, that's fine, or you can keep it parallel kinda through a tabletop. I'm gonna let you decide what feels best. Take a breath first. So let's go ahead, lengthen the arms toward the ball, pick up the head and your chest. Now, we can also do two things here.

We can press the heels against the ball to come onto those hamstrings. I want us to do that rather than lifting off. Okay, let's use that ball, here we go. In, two, three, four, five and exhale. Two, four, five, and in, two, three, four, five and exhale, three, four, five, and three, two, three, four, five and exhale, three, four, five and four, two, three, four, five and exhale, three, four, five.

So it's kinda nice for the brain. Six, two, three, four, five, exhale, three, four, five, seven, three, four, five, eight collarbone rolled back yes, and nine, two, three, four, five and exhale, three, four, five, last one. And exhale, three, four, five. I want us to lengthen it out, put the head back down, voila. Okay, ankles on the ball.

Throw it into your hands and catch it. Good, okay, so it's gonna be right underneath or slightly in front of the push-through bar, that's fine. Let's do a roll-up, Elise, so arms, head, neck, chest, and I want you to put the ball right on top of the feet, press down. As you press down with the ball, pull the abdominals and shoulders back. Let's use that to roll backward.

Just gonna do three of these and here we go, inhale. Start to reach it, good, keep that nice C curve. We're trying to kind of mimic the curve of this ball. Breathe again and roll down. Sense your hands, their contact point, make it firm.

Here we go, rolling up again. Put it right on the ankles or calves, tops of feet, press down. Now, roll up to sitting tall for just a minute. Open the legs and put the ball right between the ankles and hands on top. You can flex your feet.

Let's do a nice hand behind the head. So, right hand behind, we're gonna rotate again. So this time, as we press down with this hand, allow that left shoulder blade to rotate toward the hand as you rotate away from the ball. Sit up nice and tall. Inhale, return to the ball.

The shoulder blade can initiate our return. Four more today, exhale as we rotate, like your head is screwing into the ceiling, inhale, return. And again, exhale. The whole spine and rib column turns in a unit. Last two, exhale.

Our sitz bones aren't scooting around. They're anchored into the floor. Last one. And center. Switch hands, feel that contact nice and firm.

Hand behind head, inhale here. Here we go. So the reaching of the right shoulder blade to hand can kind of help you manipulate some movement through your rotators, stretch your upper back wide, taper your waistline in. Last three, exhale. And inhale.

Can you sit a little taller? Using those back muscles to sit and twist, one more. And reach. Center, okay. One last time, roll here, roll ourselves back.

We'll do one more roll up with a little added rotation at the top so we won't let go of the ball. (breathes) Instead of on the top to the feet reach all the way up to the ceiling. I'm gonna have us flex our feet now, breathe in. Let's just do one rotation for three pulses and one, two, three, center. Other side, you could certainly do more if you want to at home.

We're just gonna pause there, re-point the feet, and we're gonna come all the way back down. Okay, voila. Now, let's go ahead and put our ball off to the side just for a moment. We'll need to come up and take our spring down and then we'll move into some of the leg spring work. So go right back down supine, both feet first and once you get your feet in let's go ahead and re-put the hands on the frame and push ourselves away so you've got that nice full connection, hands on bar pushing that way.

And then heels in the together place here. And we're gonna pull our legs down and hold. Okay, bending the knees let's do just four, Elise, little frogs, inhale when the legs are long. Exhale as we pull 'em in. You can think of the rhythm of the diaphragm lengthening down the ribs, pulling up under the ribs as the legs fold.

Last two. We'll come back to this leg movement periodically and the springs. Inhale, stretch, exhale, fold. Now as you stretch back out, inhale. Just stay there, exhale.

Left leg stays steady. I'm gonna have us do one movement right leg out to the right. Pelvis shouldn't scoot. Bring it back in, exhale, heel to heel. Left side, inhale, trying to hold your external rotation in the hip.

Let's do it again. Right leg. So it's like how much external rotation can you work with without having the pelvis swing. Left leg and in. Okay, so we're gonna do that in between the leg bending.

So let's come in, exhale. (breathes) Stretch out. (breathes) Right leg. (breathes) And together, left leg out, and together, pause to breathe in, exhale, fold the legs. We'll start the left leg now (breathes) Left leg, exhale.

Inhale together, exhale right side, inhale together, fold the legs, exhale. And stretch. Same pattern again. Open, pull together long legs. When the legs are touching you might push your arms back into the frame, fold the legs, one last round here.

Left leg (breathes) and right leg and fold as we exhale. Inhale, pull the legs front. Now we're gonna do some crossed changement walking up. Either leg starts. Five, six, seven, eight, walk away from the frame.

Five, six, seven, eight, and toward the frame. Three, four, five, seven, eight, away from the frame. Two more sets of this and how can you keep the whole body long? Keep pressing with the arms, up, two, three, four, seven, eight and down, two, three, four, five, six and then seven, eight, hold. Let's do eight brisk leg circles up, open and down.

Up, open and down. Three, and. (breathes) And up, hold. Now the other way, inhale down. (breathes) when the springs are long we're breathing in.

Good, four. Last four. (breathes) And then we can just rest. Okay, take your hands down. We're gonna stay in the springs with the left foot or the left strap.

So just take the right one off. This is a great figure for a stretch and a little single leg circle kind of experiment and yeah, something to feel. So first, no hands. Cross your ankle over your knee and notice how the spring may wanna help kinda cheat your leg and kinda make it floppy there so I want you to really steady how the ankle is touching the knee and then stretch your spring by trying to do more external rotation in your left hip. Does that make sense?

Okay, good. So there we go. Now, float the right leg up so we're kind of in our tabletop right leg and a figure four here. Feeling okay? So I'm gonna have us think of two little circles.

Here's a circle in the knee. Maybe another circle at the ankle and that contact point. I'm gonna make eight little clockwise circles here. So it's very small but one, two, you'll probably start to really feel your left inner thigh is my goal, and four. Don't be afraid to cross over the midline.

Five, there we go to stretch our lateral hip. Six, we've got it. And seven, eight. Eight the other way. One, still working external rotation and the heel and ankle contact is strong and four.

Four, feel free to make it a little bit bigger, six. I can't count, here's six, seven and last one, eight. Okay, foot down on the mat. This leg goes up straight. Now I want you to just use that hand on the bar, other leg on the mat, exactly, leg circles.

Here we go, cross over midline and one. Five times, so the femur is doing the same movement now, three and four and five. Reverse for five. Press the left arm into the frame, stretch the left leg long away, three, and four, and five. We're not quite done.

Lower your hand, turn the leg out. We're gonna do eight down and up pretty quick. Down and control, inhale, exhale. (breathes) Diaphragm down, diaphragm up. (breathes) And seven and eight, there we go.

Other side, kind of fun. Breaking the chain of the regular form of things, so step in with the right foot, find your figure four stretch. First is no hands. Again, just recognize the difference in coordination probably in the sensation. So your ankle to knee is strong, point of contact.

You're trying to stretch the spring by doing a little more external rotation. Hopefully you feel the work. Now float the other foot up but still keep the external rotation. So if we think about single leg circle direction we always go over midline first. That's what these eight little circles are for.

Heel and knee we go across. One, and two, three and four. Little bigger for four, four more. Three, two, and one. Eight the other way, they can start small and build.

Work to externally rotate the femur in that socket. A little more openness. Five, six, check those ribs occasionally, and eight. Okay, for the single leg circle that opposite leg goes down, we're up with a little turnout, right arm, here we go. Cross our midline, around and up.

(breathes) The other arm is long as well and there's your fifth one, reverse for five. (breathes) Three and up, two and up, last one and then the arm comes down we stay in a little brisk and control. Lengthen and fold. (breathes) So you're gonna let go of your hip flexers on the outside and really let the psoas in there work its way up against the spine, last two and up, and last one and up. Okay, good.

We'll take the foot out. Let's go prone, we're gonna need our ball. We're gonna relax for a minute over the ball. Just kind of be a floppy, hands, feet, and just let yourself be on top of this curve, right? So we want that curve to kind of be also the thought that's occurring in the low back.

Let's just take three breaths. And exhale. And a little heavier, think about the inhale again expanding the width of the lower back. (breathes) one more. And okay.

We're gonna crawl our way into a full plank position. We're gonna wrap our hands over the edge of the mat. Pick up the abdominals in the lowest ribs exactly so we're not hanging that basket down. We wanna lift that up. Let's just do three, like a mini kind of tabletop.

Don't go over the edge. Try not to touch the push-through bar, and reach back. So if I travel too far over my hands I'm gonna fall off or touch the push-through bar and I just want it there as a reference to stay back away from it. One more time, pull in and extend. Okay, feel that length.

Single leg kick, right leg will start. We can go kick, kick, reach. Left. Occasionally reach at the ribs. Our legs are together (breathes) And (breathes) Just one more each side.

Kick, kick, down nice and steady on our ball. Okay, move away. Go back to that relaxed place, just one inhale, exhale cycle. So if we go into a little swan, no springs, just us. Let's walk closer to the bar.

We have to just wiggle back in. I want us to start with our knees on the mat, feet are turned out, our heels are touching and we're now gonna reach ahead. It should be easy to hold onto the push-through bar. Okay, so sequencing the extension if we let our head drop down first, perfect, that's a good call. Okay, all is well.

We're going to take ourselves here and just feel for a moment, Elise, the rotation of the pelvis, so pubic bone on that ball. Okay, let's do the opposite just to feel the contrast so that we actually... That's not it, we know that. We don't wanna shorten those erectors in the QL back there. Think more length, almost like we're holding our tail under to the ball.

Now, swan eyes, look forward. Nose, chin, and as we start lifting the chest it's just gonna pick our bar up with us and we're almost upright. We can take the arms up. Now what I want us to think about being on reformer down stretch. Lean forward, pick up the arms and reach up and let your shoulder blades actually come forward up a little bit.

I'm gonna take a peek at you. Beautiful. Okay, back it out a little bit. Re-bend the elbows, control the down, might be harder and dive forward over the ball. Yes, let's do that again.

Pubic bone is still pressed so we look forward with the eyes, we know what's coming so our nervous system is ready as the chest is getting lifted, our back is strong picking up those arms. Lean forward a little bit with more pelvic tilt. There we go, I can see you. Lengthen the sides of the waist, back it up a little bit, body upright bend the elbows, the descent is a little more challenging for control, beautiful, come down. One more, we'll add some variety up there.

Here we go, eyes in sequence, nose, chin, chest picks up the arms, and we're lifting. Lean forward a bit. So from up here I want us to do eight little elbow bends. We're gonna bend, straighten. Bend, straighten.

Occasionally check the ribs, breathing in to the back muscles. Good, pubic bone pressing against the ball. Four more, we pull the bar down even though there's no spring. We're mimicking that. Pull down, reach up, last two.

Pull down, lengthen up, last one, pull down, lengthen up, now we've gotta get outta there so bend it down, follow the bar, yeah. And release. And then just hands on, float over the ball for a moment. Let's get ready for some side work. So I'm gonna lean and yeah, put the ball right against my left thigh.

Okay, right against your left thigh and you're gonna lean out over the left. As you do so, extend your outside leg. Now we're gonna do a little setup with our supporting hand. Instead of being a flat hand, make a fist and then turn your thumb toward the frame. So it's gonna set your upper arm in that good solid external rotation and then you can slightly pull the upper arm into the ball.

So you really feel those inside stabilizers working. Okay. Other hand behind head, head into hand, tailbone underneath so that our back doesn't help lift our leg but our hip lifts our leg so we're gonna breathe in first. Five times we exhale, lift our leg up, inhale, down. Lengthen and lift, lengthen and lower.

Our head is energized toward the frame of the wall unit or your tower, four, good, getting good height. We're gonna stay here for five. Now flex your foot. Bring the leg forward, open the chest to the ceiling. Trying to rotate over the ball but not moving the ball.

Leg goes back, body goes forward. (breathes) And body up, leg forward. We're just gonna do three of these. Finishing the second one now, lengthen from the hip to the foot, last one and rotate. Try not to use the ball.

We don't have to lean on it. Okay, it's gonna get a little harder. Steady the leg to the side, keeping a slight pointed foot, four little circles for one, let's go a little higher, two, tailbone under, three, good for you, four. Other way, tail under and one, and two, and three, and four, put the leg down. Take the bottom leg out from underneath there and just go into a little side plank for a second.

Yep, you can drop your hand if you'd like. Reach your arm, your top hand now toward the frame. Try to lift up off the ball a little bit so it's the inside waist, the inside hip, stretch. And then we can come down for mermaid on a rock. Bend both knees and just hug your ball.

You can just put your temple on there and just rest. Let's do the other side. So I'm gonna face the window and you can face the center of the room. Bring that ball right up against our hip to start, lean over, and again we want our fist down with our thumb facing the wall unit. Bring that upper arm into the ball 'til you feel that work in the inside shoulder.

Hand behind the head. Okay, last but not least, we've got our tail that's under so that our back is not what's lifting our leg but our hip is lifting our leg. Five times let's go up, down. Almost think of turning your leg inward. That might help the hip come in rather than your back.

And down, tail under lift, lower, last one. Now the foot flexes. Bring your leg forward as the body goes up, rotate. Now the body will go down, leg goes back. So the ball is helping us pivot on top, we're trying not to lean on it.

It's gonna be a nice variation to your regular side leg kneeling work. Last one, up, keeping that leg pretty high. Good, we're gonna go back to the side with our foot slightly pointed for four little circles we're going up a little higher, and up a little higher, three, and four, the other way, inside elbow hugging the ball. Three and four, okay. Foot down, bottom leg out, you can switch your hand if you want to or just stay, lengthen your top arm and imagine the ball not there.

Could you lift off of it, sliding the shoulders down? Inside waist and hip actively lifting and come all the way down, mermaid on a rock. We're just holding there. Okay, we've got a couple more exercises to go. We don't need the ball for this first one here so set it down, lie back.

We need our safety strap. So safety strap for tower with no springs, okay? So we're on the conversion table, let's go on the second loop from the bottom. That should do it. Okay, so get yourself centered hands first holding the frame and you want a good long arm length.

Hands help you step in, good luck, I don't think anyone's gonna start out in neutral pelvis unless you've got really flexible muscles and things. But take a look up at your feet as parallel as you can be, pretend you have a suction cup on one foot and the other foot and the suction cups are holding the bar. Since we have no spring to help us, right? Nothing's gonna help. So I want us to start parallel, little space, bend the knees so that again, you're suction cupping the bar down, those are your hamstrings, really.

Here we go, rolling up the back, knees toward the frame, pelvis right above and we've got this wonderful niney niney. Now let's do three movements. Inhale the legs up, that's the diaphragm again. Exhale diaphragm toward the ribs. Way up to the heart, inhale.

Think about the back of your diaphragm. Exhale, last time, inhale, exhale, re-bend the knees. Let's roll down from here. Slightly press your hands on the bars, chin up away from chest, feel that nice massage of the back and then when you're at the very bottom, extend your legs and try to keep your tail down on the mat or at least your sacrum. Let's go at it again from the bent knees.

Bend 'em first, there we go. Notice the suction cup feet help pull the hips under. Okay, we're gonna do three again, inhale. You're staying on this same place on your back. This can maybe help us think about some of our mat work control balance on the reformer control balance.

Holding here this time let's roll down with straight legs. Push with the arms. I always imagine I'm trying to cover more surface area on the mat with my body when I think about stretching out trying to cover more surface area. Cover more surface area. Gotta reach, must reach, and then bend your knees.

Let's do the full one with straight legs to roll up. Here we go, breathe in first. (breathes) Suction cup feet holding the bar lift, lift, lift onto this nice high tower. Three times we bend. Stretch.

That's it, inhale legs long. (breathes) Legs long and they'll stay. Take as many breath cycles as you need to roll yourself down, make it connected, try not to leave out any vertebra. Each one is important, roll over each one as smoothly as you can. The very bottom endeavor to stretch yourself more.

No compression in the lower back, you want space. Now flex the feet. Hard with no spring. One hand holds the bar, the other hand holds this bar. I can't reach.

So this might have a dependence on how long your arms are. Or not. Flex your feet, and just hold. Mamma mia. Okay Elise, we're ready for Eve's lunge.

Let's take our feet away from here. We can take our safety strap down. This will be our last exercise in class. Take that down. We'll stand back up on the frame, we'll bring our ball, put our hands at the top of the tower.

You might just have to kind of guess where you want the top of the foot to be first. Either foot to start, you know we do both legs. So I'd like us to be standing like a slightly externally rotated leg, the top leg also slightly externally rotated, and as we plie or bend, here we go, think about the legs reaching away from one another, not so deep in the bend idea, but like you're trying to choo that way and choo this way. Okay, abdominals up. All right, now to get out of there, the standing leg, the front leg pushes down to lift us up.

Let's do that again. Now, you're wondering, can I square my pelvis? Well certainly. The front leg hip, you can slightly try to rotate it back toward the ball. Stretch your low belly through your leg, sternum up.

Could you go a little lower, longer and press to stand. One more time and enjoy the length. Stretch, take a full breath cycle. (breathes) And all the way up for the other leg. Quick switch.

Okay, wrapping it up. Standing leg slightly turned out, top of the foot on the ball, hands are steady, here we go. Think about it first that your legs are reaching away from one another or the pelvis. Not necessarily about how low you go but long and then press the front leg down in the mat to stand. If you wanna work on squaring it's this front hip.

Try to rotate it back around toward the ball. If you're working on that in your own practice to square your pelvises, think about rotating. It's gonna feel a little odd but you can bring in that piriformis stretch we did earlier. All right, and press to stand. Last one, guys, here we go.

Length and strength equals Pilates. Ready, let's come all the way up, stand. Now, Elise, let's just finish class on the floor, okay? Just come on down, we can just do whatever we want with those. Let's just do one easy standing roll down first so as just to put it back together.

So good breath in, and thanks everyone for joining us. Give yourself this final roll down. Don't rush away. It's really important to recenter. Let's all bend the knees, just easy lower backs and take eight slow counts to roll up.

Two, three, and four and five and six, seven and eight. Thank you. Thank you.