Meredith's Go-To Reformer

So I'm a pretty simple girl and if I had my choice, I might practice the same things every day. And I do have my choice right now, so come with me to do the workout that feels the best to me. My go-to workout. I love it, I hope you do too. So we're gonna start, I've got my springs hooked up for footwork, three reds and one blue spring, are heavy springs on the Reformer.

Come all the way down onto your back. Placing the heels of the feet on the Footbar. And lower the headrest. So as you lie on your back, just bring awareness to the organization of your spine, find the neutral alignment of the spine, the pelvis, the tailbone is reaching down into the mat heavy. Lengthen and reach the arms long along the mat.

Let the shoulders fall so that they are flat, but not squeezing together, flat and wide on the mat. And then inhale. And then exhale. Preparing to move. Breathe in again.

As you breathe out, flatten your spine, we're going right into a pelvic curl so pressing the heels of the feet down into the Footbar, the carriage is nice and heavy, it should stay still. We're just lifting the spine out of the, off of the carriage. Out of and off of the carriage. Pause at the top to inhale. Exhale, let the breastbone drop.

Feel the movement through the thoracic spine, laying the ribs down. And then deepen and work, a lot through that lumbar spinal area, trying to round and finally drop the pelvis all the way down. Inhale, exhale, rolling up, feel the heels sliding down into the bar. The knees reaching over and forward of the heels, the heels drawing backwards towards the fingers, which are reaching to the heels. Inhale and exhale slowly down.

So this is one of my favorite movements to organize myself around. I rarely do any workout for my own self, without starting here. Again inhale and exhale. We'll do three more. Heavy heels, long arms.

Easy in the neck and shoulders. Hips high and inhale. And exhale, rolling down. Rolling down, laying the spine down, longer each time. Last few times, exhaling to lift.

Noticing the weight on the legs. The quality of the weight distribution through both legs. Inhaling and exhaling. Deepening, deepening, deepening. Through the lower spine.

Last time, inhale and exhale to lift, knees going forward, heels sliding back, arms reaching forwards, just checking in with all your pieces. It's my mental checklist. I'm sharing with you. And down. And then from the bottom, take the arms and just reach and hold onto the frame of the Reformer, if your shoulders are tight and that doesn't feel good to you, just hold onto the pegs.

But I like this stretch that this involves. Lifting one leg at a time, preparing for spine twist supine, inhale, come towards one direction. Feel the opposite scapula, shoulder blade sliding wide and away. And exhale, come back to center. Inhale as you rotate to the other side.

And exhale, pulling from the waist to come back to center. As you rotate to each side, as your knees come away from the midline of your body, pull the abdominals, the navel more towards the midline of the body. And then deepen into that experience to come back through center. Naval towards the midline of the body, knees away. And exhale to come back to center.

We'll just do one more. Inhale, reach over. Exhale, pull back. Inhale, reach over. Exhale, pull back.

So if you're watching this, it's not going to be a great view but I'll give you the view that you'll see my face. Sometimes instead of just the bottom part of my body, so I'm gonna line myself up so that my shoulder blades are right over the edge of the Reformer. Legs up at, feet relax, so the knees come straight up from the pelvis but the heels are just resting down, towards the back of the legs, hands behind the head, cradling the head. And then taking the spine into extension. And then curling through neutral.

Into flexion. Pausing to inhale. And exhale, using that breath, that exhale breath to remind us, to remind us that we're working, we're working a lengthening contraction and exhale to lift. I'm a big fan of working abdominally and extension. Feel that there's a lot of flexion-heavy, things in our life and in Pilates too.

So I like that extension, it feels good to me. Curling up. It's pretty intense, we won't do too many so work deep, work deep and work hard. Lifting up, keeping the tailbone down, the pelvis in neutral. One more time, inhale.

And exhale to lift. Now from the top there, take the hands behind the thighs. Give yourself just a little help, trying to work deeper or to find a better position. Hands come back, now we're just gonna let the knees move away from the forehead about five inches. And pull them back, they'll come just past the pelvis.

Inhale, knees move away about five inches. And pull back, just past the pelvis. Nice and steady through the spine. We'll do two more. Last time.

And then alternating legs, just a couple of inches. Just a couple of inches. A little walks with the legs. Still my lower leg is relaxed. Just moving my thigh bone, it's quite challenging to try to keep the spine lifted.

Keep the spine lifted and still. We'll do one more like that. Both knees in, take the body over the top. Exhale, head and chest up, hands behind the thighs, curling up a little higher. This time we're gonna make a bigger range of motion with the legs, here we go.

Both legs all the way down, see if you can tip the floor, without lifting the lower back and then pull the legs back. So if you can't keep the lower back on the mat and touch the floor, only go to as low as you can. Hi people. Last two. And back.

Last one. And back, oh I don't know if you feel this as much as I do, but it's hard work for me. Hands behind the thighs, one leg at a time. To the floor, one and one. You can reach forward with the arms, that's a little bit easier, although it's not as much head support.

Up to you, last two. Two, one, one, both legs up. Hands behind the thighs. Lifting up. Lifting up.

Lifting up. Hands come back. Now tiny, tiny movement away with one leg. Rotate to the up leg and change. Five, four, four, three, three, two, two, one, one, center, hands behind the thighs.

Both hands to the outside of the left leg, right leg all the way to the floor. Use your arms to help you find a nice, connected, lifted, integris position. Last two. And two and one and one. And that is the end, bringing the knees into the chest.

Roll up. And lie back down. Heels of the feet on the Footbar, head down. Arms down long, footwork. So we once again organize around a neutral spine.

And press the carriage away. I like to pause for just a moment, check in with even weight on both feet, check-in into my neutral pelvic position and then in. And press away. And pull. So what are we thinking about?

We're thinking about the connection of the heels to the back of the legs. The connection of the ribs to the mat. The focus on always being aware of what's happening in the center of the body. We'll do three more. And two and one.

Pausing there, moving to the toes. Just using the footwork to warm up the body. Onto to the toes, pressing all the way out. Find a high lifted foot with a good ankle alignment and then keep the heels still as you bring the carriage in, push away, pull from the back of the legs. Imagine that you're using your abdominals to bring your knees into your body, as your knees are bending.

Stretching long. Resisting in. Last three here. And two. And one.

Coming all the way in, pausing at the bottom to bring the heels together. Heels of the feet together. Press the heels together to touch and wrap from the back of the legs. Pull the carriage in, wrap. And drag.

Center body working. Neck long and aligned. Breath. Last five. And four.

Creating a rhythm. A push and a pull. Last two. And in, one more. And in.

Taking the heels to the outsides of the bar. I like to lift my head sometimes and make sure I'm aligned, one leg's not wider than the other. Draw in, try to slide the heels towards one another on the Footbar and stretch away. Imagine the feet are standing on something flat. They stay still.

Notice, that the legs straighten at the exact same moment. One leg doesn't straighten before the other. Pulling back. We'll do five and stretch. Resist and three.

Resist. Coming all the way in. Moving to the toes, knees stay just as they are. Just that wide. And then reaching out and pull.

So creating some inner thigh awareness. Checking in again, tension in the neck and shoulders. Long arms, are your hands flat? Creating that work, that two multi-directional work. We'll do four.

Pull back, three. Pull back, two. And one. Coming to the center of the bar again, feet are separated, they're about as wide as your sitting bones, couple inches apart. Few inches apart, press out.

Connect the heels to the glutes. Like lift the heels with the glutes and then take the heels under the bar. And lift from the entire backside of the leg, that full posterior chain. We do articulate the foot down and articulate the foot up. Creating length as the heels go down, can we get taller in the body.

We'll do five, four, noticing where we put weight on our feet, is it even? Last time. Holding it up and then prancing, one foot drops, lift. So we lift and change. The foot of the knee that's bending, pushes into the bar.

So we stretch the toes of one leg, while the calf of the other leg, gets a little attention. And here's five, five. Checking in that the pelvis stays stable. Four, three, two, last time and then pause, dropping the foot all the way down. Reorganize if you need to, for a good grip on the bar.

So the heel's dropping, we get that nice stretch. And then let the knee bend, so the stretch moves up towards the top of calf and down towards the Achilles tendon. And then take it back down. And we'll change. So the other foot goes under the bar.

That knee can bend, the stretch will change. Back down. And bend the knees. Roll to your side and help yourself up. I'm going down to two springs.

Two red springs. Or a medium spring. What I'm gonna do, I like single leg. I like single leg, I think it's important to work one side at a time. So I typically do my single leg, lying on my side.

So we're gonna go onto the heel of the foot, I just lie on my arm, you could also put a pillow there. Press into the heel and stretch out. My hips are slightly behind my heel here. And I'm feeling, sometimes reach back and see, feel for myself, the engagement of my hip. Making sure that that's where the movement is starting from.

And not just from the quads. So we'll do four more here. Press the heel in, think of the heel pulling back, as the knee's bending. And three, pulling in. And two, pulling in.

And one and from here, lift the heel and then keep that heel still, as we press in and out. Controlling the in, stabilizing the knee as we press out. So it's my intention to do 10 of each. That's what I'm trying for, I think that's five. And so we'll go four and three, and two and one.

So come all the way in. I just transfer onto my back here. And there's a couple a stretches that I really love. One is to just, so I was working my right leg so I'm gonna take my left knee all the way across my right leg. And I'm gonna take my knee off to the side, just go where you want to.

You can adjust the right foot if necessary. Or just stretch that hip, stretch the side body. And then come back to center. Now take the right knee over the left knee, go the same direction. So it's just a little different.

And the stretch will feel slightly different. And then coming back. And over onto the other side. 'Mkay, so the heel of the foot starts on the bar. Finding a neutral spine and we press out.

And resist and press out. And resist, creating long, and again, moving with a rhythm. And you can let your breath create your rhythm. Good, exhale the carriage away and inhale it back. Or do the reverse.

But do remember, to focus on your breath. Last time, stay here. Heel lifts and we hold that foot still. As the carriage comes in and out. Supporting through the knee as we press the carriage away.

Making sure the neck is relaxed. Shoulders are relaxed. Here's halfway. And counting down, five, abdominals supporting the spine. Four, rhythmic work.

Three, and in, two, controlling the carriage, last time. Coming all the way back and then turning over. So now the left leg, oh we cross the right leg over the left leg. It doesn't really matter, we're gonna do both anyways so whatever but we're gonna pull the knee across. It might feel better to you to adjust the left foot on the bar.

I'm allowing my spine to move quite a lot. Even allowing my shoulder to lift up off the mat a little bit. And then change, the left leg goes over the right. And stretch down. And I pull my legs, not just across but also down towards the Footbar.

Again, this is, this what feels good to my body. My favorite things. And then coming back in. And keeping the hands where they are on the pegs, bring the legs just off the Footbar, send them out in front of you. Breath in to lift them just to vertical.

And now as you exhale, roll over. So from there, we're gonna keep the feet together. We're gonna roll the spine down and with my hands, I'm thinking about pulling the pegs apart. Pulling the pegs apart. Rolling down.

Decelerating that downward movement. Working nice and slowly through the spine. Point the feet. We'll lower the legs. Lift the legs, roll over.

It's a good place to notice if the knees are parallel to one another or facing straight down towards you. And then rolling down. And away and just one more. Rolling up and over, pulling the pegs apart. I'm gonna take my legs down, just a little closer to my face this time.

And roll down. And then bending the knees and rocking ourselves up. So we're gonna go from that two spring down to just one spring. Using a red spring, a light spring. Coming up against the shoulder blocks.

And holding onto the straps just above the hardware, above the buckles. And then organizing the body, finding an upright position. Abdominal muscles pulled in. Shoulders over the pelvis and we inhale. Going into chest expansion, we're just gonna do five like this.

Pressing back and forward. Pressing back and forward. So there's always the element of controlling or working the forward. Working both directions. This is four and five.

Now I'm gonna sit back, hips to heels, abdominals in, ribs in. Arms just to the sides of the body, not behind, just to the sides. And tricep extensions. 10, nine, holding onto to the upper back support. Eight, resisting the bend.

Seven, holding your balance is part of this too. Six, upper back check-in. Five, have a conversation with myself, about my right shoulder every time. So maybe you have a right shoulder you need to talk to or something. I don't know now, two, we'll say.

And one. Come all the way up. Shoulders back over the pelvis, adding some thoracic extension to the chest expansion. So we're gonna take the arms into chest expansion. Push down with the arms.

Don't lean back, just lift the chest. The chest will go more forward and up, rather than a big back bend. And then come to neutral. Take the arms forward. And again.

Back, lifting the heart. Coming back to neutral and forward. Three more, back. Lifting the heart. Back to neutral.

Arms forward, last two. Right through the center of the middle back. That's where we get our back bend. And center and one more time. Back arcing.

Center and forward. So set the straps back for now. I'm gonna go to quite a heavy spring. I'm gonna change to two reds and a blue. It'll be quite a few spring changes happening, in the next couple minutes.

So scoot back to where you can hook with your feet, against the edge of the carriage. Arms out in front. Draw the abdominals in. Lean back, find your thigh stretch, not a super low thigh stretch, just a manageable thigh stretch that you can hold for a bit. And pull and push.

Pull back, push forward. Working from the shoulders, the back of the shoulders. Working from the back of the legs to keep the hips in place. Five, four, three, two, one. I'm gonna take a spring away so now I'm gonna be on one red, one blue spring for my biceps.

So again, finding that thigh stretch position. Arms up and we bend. So bending and stretching. Stabilizing the shoulder blades. Breathing.

It's quite a heavy spring, so if it's too much for you, please by all means, go lighter. I'm gonna go four more times. Three, two, (sighs) one. Sorry that was a little bit of a stall, it was hard. Okay so, I'm gonna take another red spring away.

So now you just have one blue. One light spring, my lightest choice. Coming to the frame of the Reformer with my hands. Bring the shoulders in front of the hands, round the spine, tuck it into a nice deep flexion. And then think of rounding the spine even more to bring the knees underneath.

Get a nice back stretch and inhale, keep your flexion. And deepen, abdominals move the carriage. And inhale, holding flexion. And exhale, so that once I set my shoulders in place, they never move, they don't go back and forth. Just hold them still as I work from my hip flexors.

And my abdominals work to stabilize, stabilize the spine. So we're gonna do four more like that. Work deep, I love these nice, simple exercises, they're my favorite. And three, and two. And last time.

And then coming all the way back. We're gonna walk up to the risers with our arms. So you can hold the top of the risers or you can hold the sides. I'm gonna hold the sides today. The further away you allow your knees to be, the harder it is on your arms.

So you can decide about that. We'll pull in and reach out. So I'm working from my upper back. Working my abdominals to support and stabilize my spine. Thinking about my mid to lower trapezius, really taking a lot of the force of that pull.

We'll do five more. Pulling and reaching. Pulling and reaching. Here's number three. Working both arms evenly, it's a good thing to remember.

Let's do one to grow on. And then let the body hang down through the arms. Taking that stretch. Come back, turn around. Putting the feet up against the shoulder blocks, sit down, take the straps, still on a blue spring.

Bringing the arms just to the sides of the body and we take the arms forward. Up and reach, touch both sides of the room as they come down. And exhale forward. Lifting the spine through the arms. A big, wide, open circle.

And up, taking care not to lean forward as the arms are coming up. But to keep the body aligned. So we'll do two more. And last time, I love arm circles. And let's reverse that.

So we take the carriage out as the arms come up. And bring the palms up as arms come down. Palms face forward as we reach up and rotate so the palms face up as they come down. Getting a nice full shoulder range, three more times. Around and up and down the front.

Around and up and down the front. Last time. So leaving the feet, reach, set the straps away. I'm gonna exchange the blue spring for a red spring so I'm on one red now. Into the down stretch.

So we bring the pelvis forward, lifting the spine and take the carriage out. And pull in and reach back through the upper body. I like to combine flexion and extension. I feel like we need more extension in our lives, I need more extension in my life. I'm just assuming everyone else does as well.

So now we're gonna come, make a combo of this, we're gonna round the spine, pike the knees in. Flatten the spine, press out with the arms, be careful with your shoulders here, push out, drop the hips and pull all the way through. Pull the carriage in as you sit back, the carriage shouldn't move there. Straighten out the back, press out with the arms. Press out with the legs.

Pull through center, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift. Touch and round. One more, arms press out. Legs press out, come all the way up. Round, we're gonna untuck the toes, take the feet together behind us.

And just reach down, resting the forearms on the bar, taking a little shoulder stretch. Have a breath or two. And then come up. I'm taking the bar down now. I'm gonna go back to the blue spring.

And gonna grab my box. So going into a long box. Coming down onto the box, onto the front of the body. Reaching the arms way out front. And then notice the difference between just dangling your legs, feel what that feels like and then pressing the pelvis into the box and feeling that the legs are just parallel, just maybe slightly higher than the box.

And then starting from the shoulder blades, drag the scapula down the back. Lift through the back of the ears and the back of the head. So your eyes are still down in front of you. And then focus right on that middle upper back again, as you come up into extension. And then resist down.

So I'm not coming up into my maximum extension here. I'm actually trying to keep the space where my lower spine is, the lower lumbar vertebrates still, they're not extending at all, but trying to maximize the extension, around the middle of the spine. And resist. And shoulder blades glide down, spine reaches out, back of the ears come back, back of the ears and the back of the head. Chin maybe comes into the chest a little bit.

And then reaching down. All the way, two more. Scapula sliding, back of the head reaching back, abdominals engaged. Resist the down. And last one.

And all the way down. Once the carriage comes all the way down, step off to the side. I don't know if you know this about me yet, but side-overs are my favorite. Probably my most, most favorite. I don't know, I like a lot of things but I like these a lot, because I like the stretch.

And I also like to work hard, so this exercise gives me both. I've loaded up my springs. I'm gonna bring the foot into the strap. And just reach over and put your hand down on the headrest and find a long body on both sides of the body. The heel of the foot, the heel of the straight leg foot, pushes up into the strap.

Bring the one hand behind the head and then get yourself ready before the other hand comes up, so you're just, you're just there, you're just there, working hard and we go all the way over. And then we reach out. All the way over. And reach out and just pause, hold. And inhale and exhale.

And two and reaching out. Last one, reaching out, hold it here, take the arms out, hold five. Longer, four, three, two, one and then reach over and find your stretch. So there's a few things that I like to do here, one is just to push away with the leg as the arm reaches. Second thing is to take the hand in front of me and let the pelvis roll backwards.

So I can feel that stretch all the way down my, from my ribs, down the front of my body. And then turn so that one hand is on either side of the Reformer. And stretch forward there. Then I like to take the same side hand as leg, so my right leg is in the strap, my right hand is gonna come over towards my left hand, and then I can use that to lean in, get a nice side stretch in my body. And then coming up.

And changing sides. Okay, so we feel the heel of the foot reaching up into the strap. Take the up hand behind the head. Get prepared, get ready. Lower hand comes up and now we go over, inhale and reaching out and up.

Inhale, over, reaching out and up. Keep the legs still if you can. Keeping the head in line with the spine. Last two. Last time, so we go up.

We hold it up, stretch the arms, hold five. Four, three, two, one and go all the way over. And stretch, pushing the foot past the strap, reaching the arm overhead. Breathing and take the hand to the front. Roll the hip backwards.

And then reorganize so that your, body is square towards the floor and take a forward stretch. And then again, same side arm as leg. So the left arm, if my left leg's in the strap, my left arm comes over towards my right arm. Then I can lean. This is my favorite.

Okay, so that's that. We're gonna come up all the way. I'll get rid of the box. And we're gonna finish with some leg circles. So for that, one and a half springs of medium spring.

A red and a blue. Something like that. So coming all the way down. Onto our backs again. Pressing out to bring the feet into the straps.

And stretching the legs out. So arms long along the sides, heavy through the ribs, heavy through the tailbone. Take the legs down and out. So watching them as they come together evenly. And press from the back of the legs.

Send the legs away from you, lifting through the center. And reaching around and together. And down. And out and around and up. And down and out and around and up.

We'll just do two more. This is our warm-down, I guess, cool-down. A chance to create and promote some ease in our body, in our relationship with our bodies. Separate and go down and touch. And then lift the legs up so just to the point where the tail gets hard to hold down.

And then again, down and together. Stretching the legs, trying to reach towards the far corner of the room. And out, around, together, touch. We'll do three more. Checking in, doing a check-in with the arms, check-in with the neck.

Check-in with the tailbone as the legs are coming towards the body, last one. And bend, short spine. Pressing forward, pointing the feet. Bringing the carriage all the way in to touch the stopper. Roll through the spine, lifting up.

At the top, we'll bend the knees. Bringing the knees just outside of the, just about as wide as the shoulder blocks. And then rolling down, allowing the feet to stay just over the eyes of the face. So you start dropping the thigh bones, down towards the outsides of the ribs. Then we bring and we pivot that shape through.

And stretch the legs out. And inhaling as we fold in half, allowing the abdominals to sink back towards the spine. Exhaling to lift up. Inhale, bend the knees. Exhale, roll down.

Dropping the thigh bones, keeping the carriage still. And reach through and stretch. Last one. Lifting up. Bend the knees, roll down.

And then at the bottom of this one, we'll just separate the legs. Take the straps in your hands, you can drop the tailbone down a little further and pull down on the straps with your hands and take the elbows on the insides of the knees and push away on the knees. And as you do both of those things, also attempt to drop the tailbone down a little further. Opening up through the hips. Maybe rock one way.

And the other way. And center. And then taking one foot out, the other foot out. Coming up off the Reformer. And just standing tall.

Finding alignment. And taking the arms out to the side. And then as they come from the t position, up overhead, lifting the sternum up. And then reaching back out to the sides, allowing the body to come back upright. And letting the arms come just next to the body and roll down.

Rounding, dropping the head. Noticing that the knees stay just over the ankles, the pelvis stay just over the feet. Inhale and pushing the floor away, pushing the floor away with the feet as you lift up with your abdominals. Aligning the pelvis over the knees, aligning the shoulders over the pelvis, aligning the back of the head, the ears over the shoulders and then bring the arms out as they reach out, let the chest lift. So again, it's not a big back bend, it's just trying to move through the upper part of the back.

And then reach way out wide, touch both sides of the room as you come back upright. Allow your arms to come down. And thank you for taking class with me. That is the class that makes me feel good.