Short and Sweet Extension

Alright, I'm going to do a short, sweet, full body workout on my favorite piece of equipment, which happens to be the uh, spine corrector or a step barrel, whatever we call it. The reason I love it the most is because it takes us into that thoracic extension. And um, I think we all need to work on that a little more. So let's go. So first it on the ledge of your barrel. Oh, I wanted to mention if you happen to have one of the longer barrels, you can still do all of these. And if you have a longer body, you should perhaps think about one of the longer contour barrels. So sitting here with both sides of your pelvis, equally weighted, just breathe for a couple of moments, lengthening through the crown of the head, opening the chest, and then send the arms forward round through the low back and peel yourself back just to the point where your low back is touching.

And then round back forward and sit tall. Exhale to round. And then just to the point where the middle of the low back is touching, round, back up and sit tall. So today I'm working with my feet together, my legs together. Certainly you could part your legs if you need to or you could put a magic circle between your thighs. If you want to work your inner thighs a little more.

Let's do one more like that. This time. Take your arms overhead and just go to this place where you're basically in a straight diagonal line. Circle the arms around and articulate back up. If that feels good to you, continue going back even more. So maybe your chest is opening your arms, reach all the way back into a nice little back. Then nod your chin and roll up.

So certainly there is abdominal engagement, but I'm looking for this ease of movement, a liquid body. Nice, easy head release, nodding the Chin and rolling back up. Just one more. Ah, really nice shoulder opener. A chest opener here as well. Okay. Clasp your fingers together. Rest your head back in your hands. So I'm pushing my head to my hands, lengthening my spine and twists and [inaudible] and tourists.

[inaudible]. And one more time. Lengthening through the crown of the head as you twists and also feeling both sides of your pelvis equally weighted. Come back through center. Reach your arms forward, roll back so that your low back is touching. Slip your hands behind your head and let's work those abs from extension all the way up to a bit of flection and inhale down and exhale left.

So pay attention to your head, resting in your hands, keeping it easy in the neck. Ah, also pay attention to the ease in your low back. You shouldn't feel any tension in your back body. Just a lot of work here in the abdominals. Good. One more time here. And now adding rotation.

So I'm going to lift, rotate, center and down and lift, rotate, center and down. [inaudible] and, and again, nice and heated with the abdominals pretty quickly here. Yeah. And again, there's very few places where you can get that supported, the rassic extension and then challenged the abdominals. Hard to talk into these two. One more each direction please.

Ah, back through center all the way up. Take your forehead toward your knees, let your arms kinda relax over your legs and breathe for a moment here and then stack your spine. Good. Let's go right into some um, sideline work here. Adding in a little bit of legwork. So I'm going to have you just um, relax your leg right in the groove. Stretch your arm to straight. Reach over for a nice big stretch [inaudible] and then put your hand down and kind of prop yourself up so you feel that you're on a straight diagonal line. Slip the other hand behind your head. And here we go. Down. [inaudible] notice that I'm focusing more on the down to a neutral or a long position.

Then lifting super high. Yeah. One more time here. Hold here. So stretch both arms straight. Stretch both legs straight and hold for a moment.

Body goes down, body lifts up, body goes down, body lifts up. One more time. Body. And we lift and we hold. Then place your hand down. Place your other hand behind your head. Take your bod top leg back. Externally rotate. Okay. Now if you're comfortable with this arm here, you can keep it here or you can rotate around a little bit and you're going to take that back like up 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two and one. Relax.

Yes. So now move a little bit on your barrel so that your thigh is lining the lip here or this right up the seat and then kind of rotate your body around and relax over the barrel. Allow both legs to soften. That would be your option one. Okay, I'll cue the option to momentarily. So my hands are just outside of the barrel here. And option one, I'm going to keep my hands available for me. Lifting two, just a very gentle thoracic extension and then pressing the arms towards straight, going for this sensation of stretch and lower down. Now if you'd like to up level, straighten your back leg and we lift engaging the abdominals, straightening the arms all the way and we lower down.

And if you're quite comfortable here, we lift, we articulate, you barely use your arms at all and lower down. And then the final option here would be to lift and hold both arms out both legs, straight, five, four, three, two, relax. It just kind of rings the spine out. I love it. So let's do the same thing on the other side. So we started with the sideline position reaching um, this leg nice and straight and long.

Use this hand here just to kind of support you in the beginning and reach over for a quick stretch, Huh? Remembering to breathe. So important, silly things like breathing. Prop yourself up a little bit and kind of pull that bottom rib up. Engage your abdominals here, slip your hand behind your head. And here we are. So notice again that I'm going down and lifting up to essentially a straight diagonal line.

Yeah. And then we lift and hold here. Stretch the arms overhead, lift both legs up and we go [inaudible] down and we lift up and we go down and we lift up. And one more time and we lift up. Good. Placed your hand down, rotate your body around or not, and lift your back leg. Ten nine nice little glue work, Kate. Seven six, five, four, three, two and one rest.

So now I'm going to skew back on the barrel and I'm going to kind of cradle or rotate around so I can relax over the barrel. My two, my two legs are bent. So just easy position. Really just using the barrel to relax. Option one, you'll keep the hands down in the legs as they are, as you just kind of lift up a little bit and explore where your body's comfortable and lower down. And then option two, you use your hands a little bit less, but, and you push up a little higher perhaps to straight arms but still keep then there and lower down and straightening the back leg. I think I did that on option two last time. So back leg can be straight the whole time if you want.

And then the final Herat here is to feel yourself, not really using your arms at all. Hovered both legs, hover both arms and hold and rest. Hmm. So from here, I'm gonna just kind of uncoil your legs. I'm holding onto the the frame of my, my barrel here, which is going to be a nice little base for me to do. Some pushups. Eye opening through the front of my body. Lengthening.

Really I should say through the front of my body. Let's do a little peck. Push up here. All those wide. Now here, lower all the way down. Keep your body stiff, stiff, stiff, strong. So I've got my ribs, the bottom part of my ribs, just above her, just on the barrel there and my legs straight here. Nick. Plas my hands behind my head. Lower down over the barrel and lift up.

Keeping your egg abdominals engaged in your inner thighs and legs. Quite engaged as well here. If you need to part your legs to make this more comfortable, that would be okay. Amie, lift and hold. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders. Well, I didn't plan to do this, but I'm going to do it. Engage your abdominals. Pull your body off of the barrel and Perissa. Good. Here we go.

Around to pack. Push up. [inaudible] well, I'm gonna do five. One more. I'm feeling a little tired, but I'm gonna do that last one. Lower all the way down. Now we change our back work a little bit here. Go into external rotation. Okay. Make any arrangements. Do you need to hear, um, to feel comfortable on the barrel? We'll do a more intense back extension here. So here, my feet are down. My toes are down.

Inhale to the straight body. Point to the toes here. Stretch the arms to straight and lift as high. Your body says it's okay. Stretch your body out. Anchor your feet and lower down. [inaudible]. [inaudible] one more time.

[inaudible] using your hands on the barrel. Push yourself back off. Let's come to standing and just do a roll down from standing with your feet right underneath your hips. [inaudible] allow your head to dangle. Soften your knees a little bit. Relax your head, neck and shoulders, and then roll up to stand that [inaudible]. Let's do one more of those.

[inaudible] as you travel down, try to feel the ease, the softness in your body and rolling up. Hmm. Thanks for playing.