Class #2916

Cardio Interval Reformer

45 min - Class
341 likes

Description

You will integrate some interval work into this Reformer workout with Amy Havens. She switches off between jumping on the Jump Board and working the rest of your body in traditional Pilates exercises to give you a boost of cardio. This is a great class to try if you want to work hard and sweat!
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box, Triadball, Jump Board

About This Video

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Hi everyone here for a reformer workout, and we've got the jumpboard mounted. This class will integrate a little bit of intervals, so jumping and then some arm work, and jumping and some ab work, kinda back and forth that way. I will warm us up also with a ball. This is gonna be for between the knees. So let's go ahead and get started with pelvic curl first, warm up our spine.

So headrest down. I'm going to start just with enough spring on my reformer that it will help hold me at the carriage, but certainly I'll have to challenge myself to not push away. So let's just take about three to four deep breaths, settle into your mat, into your carriage. Start with having some space between your shoulder rest and your shoulder bones so you don't have to fight that positioning there. And just really recognize how your bones can settle easily into your reformer.

Let's take a nice deep breath. And just exhale, lightly abdominals to the spine. Lightly press your stomach down, any of those cues that make sense for you. But I want us to think that we have length between ribs and pelvis here. And that as you're doing your exhaling and getting ready and contracting, we're not shortening the front abdominal musculature.

We're actually keeping it nice and long and getting that sense that's helping the spine get long and that connective tissue in the lower back getting long and opened up. So one more preparatory breath, inhale. We'll go ahead and start moving on the exhale. So I've got my arches near the top of the board. Just feel that nice sense of curling your tail, your pelvis, and pressing my feet down on top of the board just a little bit to help me access my hamstrings.

And just take a good inhale, keeping this nice and hollowed in. And then exhale as we roll down. So I was planning to do three to five of these to warm us up, so taking your breath in at level pelvis. And exhale, you can think that your exhalation is helping bring your hip bones or your pelvis a little bit narrower, feeling that lower abdominal engagement. Taking a breath.

And exhale, feeling that nice clean smooth fluid rolling-down of your spine. At the very bottom release the glutes, release the hamstrings, take an inhale. And exhale, you can close the sits bones. Feel that narrowing of the front body, the widening of the back body, rolling up, maintaining space between you and the shoulder rest. Deep breath.

And this last two times, let's think about little more length between every vertebra, so long spine. Those deep intra-vertebral muscles getting the extension, the length. Okay, two more. (deeply inhales) And exhale (deeply exhales). And a nice breath in.

And exhale, massage the spine. And start getting ready for the thought of jumping right away. I won't do a whole lot of slow warm-up with the legs for the jumps today. And just feel this nice mobilization there, inhale. And exhaling.

Hollow that stomach, widen the lower back and come all the way down. Okay, so I was on three red springs, I told you I wanted enough in there to keep me off the bumper. So let's take one of the red springs down. Rollback, whoop! Rollback down, bring your ball with you now. So I've got a medium-sized ball.

I'm gone put it between my knees pretty high up there and I'm gonna start with the balls of my feet planted on the board, heels lifted. And I just want to start a little bit of pulsing through the legs. So pulsing for me means right now not a full extension of the knees. I'm gonna start focusing first on the big quadricep muscles here. But those high inner thigh muscles.

And I'm squeezing the ball pretty firm. That was 10. I'm gonna do 10 more, little pulses. Inhale or exhale breathing either way. Focus on the length in the abdominals, the contraction of the inner thighs, spreading the metatarsals, spreading the toes.

Three, two, and one, okay. Now a little turnout with the legs. I'm gonna bring my heels together. I have to take a very, very narrow Pilates V, but I can still squeeze the ball. So I did about 20 of those little pulses, same thing.

And four, five and I wanted to put the ball between the knees today to get real centered. So inner thigh up to the low abdomen connected, 10 more. Press the heels. Keep breathing fluidly. (deeply exhales) Let your collarbones press open wide.

And seven, and eight, and nine, I think about there and 10, okay. So just take that away. Put the ball off to the side. Parallel your legs. Slide all the way out, feel that.

Again connect to the length here. And let's go ahead, I'm gonna do just some soft, easy, not very high jumps. Let's focus on the feet, the articulation of the toe, foot bones, the extension and flexion of the ankles. I'm gonna do 20, so that was 10. I've got 10 more.

Nine, eight, allowing some good creasing of the hips, knees and ankles. Seven, eight, I'm not counting very well, nine, and 10, just go right into turnout Pilates V. I've got those heels pressed together. (deeply exhales) Five, six, not very big jumps. Eight, nine, I'm gonna go for 10 more here.

And heels pressed together. (deeply exhales) Long abdominals. And five, and four, and three, and two, and one and closed parallel and pause. Take one full inhale, exhale. (deep breathing) Press back out.

Now same thing, 20 of each, but let's go a little bit bigger jumps. Maybe a little bit more dynamic from your thighs. Three, four. (deeply exhales) And six, and seven, and eight, and nine, I'm gonna go for 10 more. Remember 20 of each one.

So try to get that full hip extension here. Powerful jump, stretched toes, stretched arms, and three, and two, keep going guys. We're gonna go turnout first for 20. Heels are pressed in. Abdominals are long.

And five. (deeply exhales) Seven, eight, give your legs a workout. And 10 more. (deeply exhales) Rest if you need to, drop the weight if you need to. We're almost done with these.

Five, four, strong feet, three, two. Close and parallel, pause. Full breath in and out. (deeply exhales) And then extend. We're gonna do 10 more jumps, but let's go side-to-side.

Excuse me, 20, what am I thinking. 20, going back to the softer jumps. So I'm just hopping to the right side, left side of the center. (deeply exhales) Seven, nine and 10 more. Hip, knee, ankle flexion.

Really give in to those joints. Let them be buoyant. (deeply exhales) Long abdominals. Seven, eight, nine and 10. Pause.

Around the world: top, side, a little bit to the bottom, to the side, around and then around the opposite way. So I'm gonna go 10. It really won't be 10. Two times around. Top and then around to the left.

So top and left, and bottom and right, and top and left, and bottom and right. I'm gonna around the clock again to the right, so clockwise twice. (deeply exhales) And again, clockwise twice. (deeply exhales) And then counterclockwise twice. Top, to the left, to the bottom and right.

Last time, we'll take a little rest for breath. (deeply exhales) And center and pause. Okay up we go for some abdominals. So I want everybody to turn around. Take your headrest down.

You can keep it on the same spring. Let's come all the way, bum near the shoulder rests, knees in. We're gonna go for the 100. And I want you to do four inhales, six exhales. Here we go, legs should be pressing just lightly against those shoulder rests.

Fire up your hamstrings, here we go. In three, four, exhale, three, four, five, six, two. (deeply exhales) Three, four, five, six, three. (deeply exhales) Four. (deeply exhales) Don't rest the legs there.

(deeply exhales) Seven. (deeply exhales) Nine, almost there. And 10, three, four, exhale. Three, four, five, six. Squeeze in.

Head can come back. Single leg stretch. So pull yourself up, extend one of your legs. And the same thing, just lightly feel your hamstrings press against the top of the shoulder rest. Pull the other leg in deep.

This sit bone reaching towards the shoulder rest. So just use those to help you find your square, to help you stay in your box. Here we go. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, stretch. (deeply exhales) In and in, four more.

And three, two, last one, double leg stretch. Put your head back if you need to or take your hands right back to the board. Feel your arms circle, and squeeze. Big inhale. Open (deeply exhales) squeeze.

Three more times. Stretch, try to keep that upper body there. (deeply exhales) Last two. Open, close. Last time, stretch.

Open and in. I'm gonna put my head down. I need a little breather there. And come back for scissor. Now scissors today, hold onto the board.

Take one leg down, and the other. And switch, switch, and switch. So it's not as much flexibility work as it is the abdominals and inner thighs. (deeply exhales) Eight, seven, six, five and four, three, double leg, straight leg lower lift. Both legs up, let's do parallel flexed feet.

So take your legs down those shoulder rests. Point the toes and lift. Flex and reach. Point and lift. Three more.

Long abdominals. And up, last time and press down. And lift. Tuck your knees. Lower your head back and rest.

Okay, let's come back around. We'll do some more jumping. Headrest comes back up. Single legs, so I'm gonna take down my springs, put on one blue and take away one red. So let's get set with two straight legs.

Parallel, reconnect the length here. Abdominals facing the other way did not really allow me to get that full extension out of my hips right in the front of the hip flexors. So take a moment right now to feel that elongation, long lumbar spine. Pick up one of your legs. Lift your four hops on this single leg.

Four, three, two, and change. Four on this second leg So we're gonna stay with these four jumps in a row. Okay, change. Make it dynamic. Point, work your foot.

Three and four. Work your thigh, so you can go ahead and tighten up your quads when you're in the air. Let's go back to the first leg. We'll do two more sets of four jumps. (deeply exhales) Trying to get all the way through the foot to the heel.

We're gonna go down to two jumps, guys, two on each foot. And one, and two, switch. One and two. Big jumps today. (deeply exhales) See how far you can get away from that jump board.

You may bump the top of reformer, don't be alarmed if that happens occasionally. Okay, we're gonna go down to single legs for 20 jumps. And jump. And stretch that leg. Really stretch it before you change.

(deeply exhales) And, and push. And everything is long, abdominals, legs, arms. 10, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, five, four, three, two, land in the middle. Stretch out and recover your breathing for a couple breath cycles. (deeply inhales and exhales) Turn your legs out.

Bend the knees, lift one leg up. We're gonna go scissors just easy switches. Go the easy jumps. Easy jump quality. (deeply exhales) Focus more on pelvic control, foot articulation, length of your abdominals and arms, and your neck.

(deeply exhales) Really, really feel. Focus on how your foot is making contact to the jump board, how it's leaving the jump board. You can use some images of sticky or, yeah, sticky is what comes to mind. All right two on each leg. One, two, change.

One, and two. We'll stay with the twos for a while. Remember that nice buoyant quality we had when we were warming up. So your hip, your knee, your ankle all very yielded when you land. Yield, yield.

Yield, yield. Four more sets. The leg in the air is strong reaching up. (deeply breathing) Let's go to single leg scissors for 20 jumps. Strong legs.

So for a moment both legs are straight in the air. (deeply exhales) 10 more. One, two, stay focused, three. (deeply exhales) Nine, and 10, both feet on the board. And recover.

Three breaths. Oh man, it feels good breathe. (deeply exhales) We're getting a little sweaty here. Okay, let's come up for some arm work. So roll yourself over.

I'm gonna drop down to one red. And, turn yourself around. Fold your legs and take your headrest down. All right, we're gonna work on upper back and arms first. So loop your elbows through.

The straps will go right up on your elbows. Make a fist in each hand. I'm gonna cue it this way. the wrist right now is facing our eyes. Let's move the arm so that your wrist face your ears.

Bring your shoulder blades together on your back, really squeeze. Release your shoulder blades away from another and then return wrist to face eyes for that's where they start. Open, they're facing your ears. You're gonna squeeze those shoulder blades, I want you to bring them close to the spine. Release them away from the spine.

And then return. All right, four more times, so six reps. Open and squeeze. It's a challenge to bring the shoulder blades together, but not thrust the rib cage. So what moves?

It's the shoulder blades that move around the rib cage. It's hard to decipher those two landmarks. You got two more of these. Shoulder blades, shoulder blades, and then arms. One more.

Shoulder blades, shoulder blades, and arm. Okay, take your body back a little bit further which is gonna stretch that spring just a little bit more. Palms face back. Elbows are long. Arms are not right close to the reformer, but up a few inches away.

And now shoulder blades don't do the movement together at all. We want to keep 'em wide. So I'm gonna have you pull your arms to a place of control. Arms forward. You can also think of pressing your knees down a little bit.

Energy off the top of your head. So I'm trying to focus on not squeezing the shoulder blades now, just simply think about moving the arms, and the arms. We've got three more. I'm trying to do things in sixes here. I might have given us one extra, but that won't hurt you.

Okay, here's your last one. Now change the grip. So I'm just gonna make you, have you do a fist, thumb out and six reps. Pull back and forth, so there's a little deeper work in your shoulder girdle, rotator cuff. (deeply exhales) Trying to keep those ribs steady.

When the arms start getting pooped, the back starts the push the ribs. So arm strength. Okay, the last count again. Let's say this is five. Actually I think I'm doing things in sevens, but that's okay.

All right. Now one more guys, facing this way on our seat. Bend your knees, put your feet down. Start with your elbows long. We're gonna do bicep curl and spinal flexion at the same time.

So let's take a breath. Exhale, spinal flexion. Elbows flex, you're rounding back to your sacrum. Bring yourself up. Spine begins to extend, elbows begin to extend.

Breath in. Exhale, making that nice clean C-curve. Shoulders are low. Extend and lengthen. Breathe in.

And again, I'm slightly pressing my knees together as well. If your neck is starting to get too involved, lower your arm position and continue doing it which would kind of look like this. So it just takes the weight of arms down to a more manageable level. I'm gonna do two more with 'em up here. Flex the elbows, flex the spine.

Once again, we'll carry on with some more arm work up on our knees. So if you need some cushions, have 'em at the ready. And lower, okay. I'm gonna take my spring down to one blue. Take away that red, so we're one blue.

Climb up on your knees. Let's hook our toes over the back end. Let's do a little combo of triceps, lats, and then bicep curl. You've seen me do this before. So it's kind of simple as far as the weight goes.

But your timing and your rhythm is gonna be the interesting feature here. So we go from bicep back to triceps. Stay on the front of those knees. This is a moment of balance challenge. And again, pull.

(deeply exhales) Lift and pull. Three more in patterns. Lats and triceps. Lift and it's really abdominals and biceps just like you did on your seated position. You'll feel that.

There's that moment, right about here, whoa like that. (laughs) that you've really got to find yourself over your center. Last pattern. Okay, be all over your center. There you go.

Pull, release. Let's add some rotation. But I'm gonna choke up on the straps. I'm gonna go on that tapey part. Arms are long.

Start either side, I'll face away. This time, bend your elbow and rotate toward it. And I'll go toward you, okay. So I want you to think about this. My toes are hooked over the edge helping me to keep my hamstrings fired up.

We'll get more hamstring curl in a minute. Look out into the horizon. So let your eyes really register something in the room, in your space. So that your spine is connected. Okay, once again each side.

(deeply exhales) Working into your side body muscles a little bit. That is plenty. Okay, so we finished these kneeling arms and seated arms. Let's come back and do more jumping. So I've kind of warmed your elbows, your upper body, your upper back.

Let's go to one red spring, no blue. This will be an interesting position to put you in. I haven't had you jump like this before. Maybe you've seen it with other teachers. So see first if you can get yourself propped on your elbows.

Look up to the wall in front of you, kind of where the ceiling and wall connect. And I don't want you in a slumped dropped shoulder, neck compression position. I think you know why. And then I don't want you to do too much popping of your ribs. So find that happy medium.

Shoulders are stable. Lumbar's extended. Feet are gonna go right up to the top of the board. And let's just start jumping in parallel. Wow.

That was one red spring. I might be able to handle more, but I'm not going to. (deeply exhales) Try to get those heels down. (deeply exhales) And same thing, we're gonna do 20 of these. So this is number 10, let's go 10 more.

Hmm. I'm making a lot of noise. I owe myself a quarter for each bang of the reformer carriage. (deeply exhales) And seven, eight, nine. I gonna start doing some skiers.

Turn the legs to the left. Swivel and turn to the right. Now I'm not hopping across the board. Pretend you're on a rotator disc or there's a bull's-eye, right in the middle of that jump board and your spiraling your femurs left and right. And left and right.

That was 10, let's go 10 more. Check your shoulder blades. Check your low back. Check those long abdominals. (deeply exhales) Four, three, then we'll end up coming right into the bull's-eye, right into the board.

Same thing, right in the middle for 10. (deeply exhales) Now I've changed my head position. This feels better for me. I'm looking right out over the jump board rather than up here. I was feeling my neck a little bit.

So just keep monitoring your body positions. Make it work for you. If you come all the way down to supine, you can do that, lift your little leg, scissor open/close. And open, close. (deeply exhales) And open/close.

I have a lot of leg strength today or something. I'm really jumping vigorously. (deeply exhales) Losing my control on the coming in. (deeply exhales) And nine, and 10 more here. Try to keep those abs in.

(reformer thuds) Two (laughs). I probably will myself a whole dollar by now or five bucks. Every bang is a quarter. (deeply exhales) Five more. (deeply exhales) I'm in parallel on these.

You could do these in turnout. That would be fine. And nine, and 10, okay. Everybody rest. Slide yourself in.

Put that head rest up. Keep on going, we're gonna do some changement. Start with your feet in first position. Jump, cross one leg. Then over the other.

And change midair, land. Change midair, land. (deeply exhales) So on these lighter springs, a lot more airtime to lengthen the abdominals and spine. If you're feeling strained and you can't keep your back down and all you feel is your neck gripping up, come up and add a little bit more weight. (deeply exhales) Let's go 10 more.

It's inner thigh work. Inner thighs together. Inner thighs. Inner thighs. (deeply exhales) Seven, eight, nine, that's all.

Land in the middle of the board. And recover, three breath cycles. Feel the length. Feel the length. (deeply exhales) All right, now it's time for some long box.

Everybody come on in. Let's roll ourselves up to a seated and let's grab our long box. And let's come up and do a pulling straps combination. It's okay that the jumpboard is still here. Head rest can come up.

So I want you to position yourself with your shoulders right at the edge. Find that tapey stuff again. And let your head drop down a little bit. So I want us today to keep the legs up, two reasons. The board is there, I don't want to take it down.

But I want you to see if you can get your hamstrings a little bit involved. Let's flex the feet. Here we go. So I'm gonna take the pulling straps. Open out to a T.

Close the T. One kick back. And then straight arms. We'll come down, we'll do six patterns. Okay, so we're kind of maximizing our body position.

So pull straps. Open to a T, you're in external rotation of your upper arms. Close. Just isolate your triceps. And then long arms come down.

Four more patterns. Inhale of exhale. I want you to find the breath that helps you stay connected to your body and to your movement. (deeply exhales) Keep working on those hamstrings. We're gonna feel 'em a lot in hamstring curl momentarily.

Pull. Elbows, elbows. You got two more patterns. And extend. And open.

And close. And triceps. Long neck. All the way down. Last time, extend.

And open. And close. Triceps, extend. All the way down. And then just take a couple deep breaths here.

Now we're gonna come up for hamstring curls all right. But what I want us to do, instead of having the straps the length they are now, let's shorten them because it gives your hamstrings just a little more oomph to pull with. So what I'm gonna do is instead of having my strap at the should rest length, I'm gonna hook it over the silver peg and really shorten it from there. Okay, so now it's just in line right over the shoulder peg. Do that on both sides real quick.

Okay, then the fun fancy to get in, some of you know this one, you'll have to do it if you're watching me. Cross your straps, okay. So I have the top strap in my right hand. The bottom one in my left. Put those straps on your feet.

And you'll see that if you have your straps crossed, it's done correctly. So here's the one that's on top. I'm gonna turn toward that loop. You have some fun. Try to keep the feet up.

Don't roll off your box. It's happened before. Okay, right? So there we go. Now, we're pretty close to the jumpboard I realize, but if your head's down here where I want it to be, you should be okay.

Feet are gonna be flexed for me. Lift your thighs, and let's just extend. These are real short movements on purpose. I want it right in the belly of the muscle. Pull, extend.

Now if this is just wacky and you're bumping the jumpboard, you can come up and take it off. You can put your box over the shoulder rests or just hang out. It won't be that long that we're here. Okay? And 10 more.

Nice and small. I'm only on a blue, focusing on lifting my legs up a little bit. Open the chest. (deeply exhales) And three, and two, and then here we go, hold. Here's the money part.

You're gonna hold it for awhile. Take both hands back. This might be enough for you. I want you to do it with flexed feet today. Don't point your feet, okay?

Flex your feet. Think about pressing your shins back into your hands. Press your shins back. Lift your chest, press your shins back. Thighs up.

Shins back, thighs up, chest up. Let's hold, and hold, and hold. And release. Okay, that's all of that. You can come in.

Take the straps off. Step on up. Let's take our box away. Then next we're coming into some kneeling on the reformer again. I'm gonna hook these just to be tidy.

Might as well go back to the original way. And as we do some kneeling, we're gonna be facing side, kneel side. I'm gonna face the ocean first. All right, we're on our knees. I want you to first of all, take your shoulder straps and put them down here.

We don't need them. Have a red spring. So if you had a blue, which you did, take that off and put your red one on. Kneeling, hand on your shoulder rest. Lift the other thigh and I want you to put your leg on the jump board and press out slowly and then align it in parallel, okay.

So for a minute, just hold yourself. Yes, you see kneeling side arms in the mat work or kneeling side leg in the mat. Inhale, bend slowly. I don't want that heel the come up and extend. Inhale and bend so it's a tiny movement.

The leg underneath is active as well. Notice the thigh is staying very steady underneath there. That femur is upright like a nice strong cylinder allowing me to focus on this hip, knee and ankle. Okay, so don't go for maximum range. I don't want to lose your balance on your kneeling leg.

Let's go four more here. (deeply exhales) You need to charge up the glutes on the supporting leg. Seven. I think this is maybe the poorest counting job I've ever had. I've been away for a while, so I don't even know how to count.

Bring your leg in all the way and then turn it out. So we're gonna do the same thing in an external rotation. So establish your position and then here we go. Bend and straighten. I promise 10 times.

Two. And extend. Three, and extend. So you can try to study being evenly weighted on the downward knee. Five.

And five more. Six. (deeply exhales) Seven. Getting good alignment through your rib cage to pelvis. Last two.

Nine. And you'll probably be feeling the hip in the downward leg more than this working leg. So most likely you're gonna be feeling this side. Here we go. 10 of each was my plan.

I counted incorrectly on the first round. Parallel. Leg is centered. For variety, if you want to put your hand behind your head, open things up, you can do so. Here we go, bend, and straighten.

And bend, and straighten. Three. Open the elbow, open the chest. Four. So the range is small with this foot anchored on the jump board.

You may feel that it isolates your hip function a little differently than just regular leg presses, side lying on the jump board. (deeply exhales) Nine. All the way and 10. And then as you come all the way in, just release. Turn your leg to turn, now get on the arch.

Try to align this femur nice and upright. And here we go. Pressing out long, one. And two. Control that bottom leg underneath the pelvis.

It's more of what this is about than the pushing leg. If you have a mirror, you're lucky to see this leg staying steady. You have to keep contracting around those lateral hips, your glute medius, so that it doesn't waver in or out of that pelvis. (deeply exhales) And press. And press.

Let's take two more long abdominals, long spine. And last one here (deeply exhales). And in, okay. Kneeling still, facing the board, and we can stay on the red. Get pretty close guys.

Come on down, try to get your forearms down, forehead right near the board. Then just as if we are doing Pilates push-ups, press and bend. But we're not doing Pilates push-ups, we're doing those knees down. Trying to get those elbows and forearms to the board. And I'm fairly narrow.

(deeply exhales) Going for 20, so that was my 10. Eleven. You have to allow your triceps to lengthen in order to get your elbows down. Long triceps. (deeply exhales) Five, four, and just so you know what's headed, we're gonna come back down to the supine jumps on two red springs.

(deeply exhales) And there's 20. So you're gonna reach right in, add one more red to put you back on two reds. Lying on your back, headrest up. And let's go right into, feet together, 20 jumps. One, and two.

As big as you'd like, as small as you'd like. (deeply exhales) Five, try to get that length again. Six. (deeply exhales) Eight. Nine.

10 more in parallel. Really hold your inner thighs close together. (deeply exhales) Four. Five. Six.

Seven. Eight. Nine. 10, just one inhale/exhale to recover. Turning out.

Here we go, 20 jumps. Heels together. (deeply exhales) Strong legs. (deeply exhales) Five, easy back muscles. Seven.

(deeply exhales) 10 more. (deeply exhales) Five. Six. Seven. I'm getting nice and close to the risers.

Nine and 10, a little recovery. Skiers for 20. Either way to start. And one. (deeply exhales) Four.

Five. Six. (deeply exhales) 10 more. (deeply exhales) Seven, and eight, nine and land in the middle. Just feel your nice strong heartbeat.

It feels so good. Okay. Let's kind of start to stretch, slower things down. Short spine. Press away, step in.

If you didn't notice, I returned the straps back to their real length. I think I made note of that. So for a moment just fold your legs. Open your shoulders. Let's go, pressing out.

Pass through a nice deep hamstring stretch here, guys. So let those back legs get really nice and supple. Peel your way up. Look up at your feet. Look up at those feet.

Allow your back get some good stretch. (deeply exhales) Pulling your knees down. Let's keep the feet up. And roll the feet away, the hips away from the feet. Make a commitment to stretch a little further on the mat.

Heels down. Pass through that hamstring stretch again today. How long can you keep your sacrum down before you have to activate those deep abdominals to roll your spine up. (deeply exhales) Inhale, flex. Keep the feet there.

I had my feet with a little bit of tension on the straps, rolling over the vertebra. Let's just do one more. Short spine today. Then we'll do a mermaid and lunge. Pass through, peel up.

Look at your feet. (deeply exhales) Let your back stretch. (deeply exhales) Inhale, fold the legs. And unroll. (deeply exhales) Make sure you're all the way down, using your hands to take the straps off the feet at the same time.

Hook those straps, come on up. I will face the window first and I'll just drop it down to one red spring. So I'm gonna do my mermaid with my feet. I learned mermaid this way. I've also learned it and done it this way.

This is the way I would like to do for my body today. You can do what you need or come along here. Placing your hand up. Hold onto the shoulder rest for a minute and see if you can get yourself fairly upright in your spinal column. The upper arm is rotated outward.

And let's go ahead and take the upper arm overhead. And then feel for a minute both sides of your spine long rather than curved. And then rotate that long spine around. Rotate to back to facing your side. And bend your inside elbow to come up.

Let's do that again. So leaning, think about being on a diagonal line. And take that diagonal and spiral it. And unspiral, if that's a word, and come all the way up. One more time.

Over. Low abdominals are in and up. Rotate. Now take your inside hand or this outside hand and hold onto that shoulder rest. That might be enough of a challenge for you.

If you like a little more challenge, reach up from your hipbone to your fingertips, pull with this other elbow and lean a little bit. Lean, lean, lean. Feeling that beautiful stretch in your hips, your lower back spine area. And then other side. I'll turn toward you.

So you're gonna hook the feet, stack ankles and knees. Jumpboard hand, arm is turned out. Other arm comes up and over. and again you're finding your lean. Taking that lean and rotate.

Inhale. Let's come back to the first facing. So this jumpboard arm bends as you arrive. Inhale, arm comes up as you lean. Hold this position nice and solid and you're pivoting around that jumpboard arm, and shoulder.

And then coming upright. And one more time, leaning over. Lengthen both sides of your spine. Rotate both sides of the spine. Back to facing front.

The jumpboard elbow bends. This hand holds the shoulder rest. Once again, this might be enough. We can take the other arm and really reach and then press over to the side. Okay, we're going in for low one.

That's final stretch for our quads since we did so much jumping. You can take your head rest up. Now this is kind of extreme, one red. I'm gonna put my knee right here rather than knee here, okay. So if you want to try this, go-ahead.

It's a lot of intensity on the quad. Outside foot is pretty far forward. So there it is, it's a little bit deeper stretch. And I'm just gonna take it back and kind of open this up. Collect the abdominals.

And then as I bring the carriage in, I want to try to stay kind of low here in my hips. But my upper spine can come up. And then again, I'm thinking of driving back through the thigh and the knee. And then coming up. Try to keep your knee wedged into that shoulder rest space and lift one more time, stretching back.

Trying to keep the knee back there. I actually feeling a good, good, good stretch there. And then lengthen. Okay, other side. You can climb right over.

Knee down. This is my different leg. Okay, trying to keep those hips as square as they can. Outside foot is near the front leg. And then here we go.

Slowly take that carriage back. Thigh down, knee back. And then as you bring the carriage in, trying to keep the thigh down and knee back, but lift the upper spine, collect the abdominals. And again. And then in and up.

Hmm, that feels so good. And then last time. Okay everybody. We made it through another jumpboard/interval class. Hope you had fun, burned a few calories.

Thanks for playing around. I'll see you later.

Comments

2 people like this.
Great class! Just when I needed this! I love when I see a new jump board class on here. I definitely was sweating through this one. I have lower back and shoulder issues, so I put my Bosu ball on the reformer and leaned back on it for the upright jumping portion - it was so tough to jump my legs straight - my abs were shaking like crazy. Love you Amy!
1 person likes this.
I liked this class a lot, I loved your clothes Amy :)
Gerri M
1 person likes this.
Love the jumping. ...took my January blahs and blew them away! Nice cues..fun class!
1 person likes this.
Doing this tomorrow!! Can't wait!
1 person likes this.
Awesome class Amy! I'm trying to incorporate more cardio in my life and this class delivered! I loved it. Second class of yours I took this week. (Took one of your tower classes again!)
1 person likes this.
Funny right when you clanged the reformer I did the same thing. I think owe as well! Fun good workout! Loved the 100's. And I love the cue about not resting my leg on the shoulder rest.
1 person likes this.
i loved this class...wasn't always clear on what springs she had on for each jump set. red/blue? blue? red?
Excelente!!!
1 person likes this.
Sooo happy when I see a new jump board class from you Amy! :) Yay! Can't wait to try this tomorrow! Looks fun and challenging~as usual!
1 person likes this.
Loved the class. Thank you.
1-10 of 48

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Welcome to Your Pilates Era

Experience Your Joy

Let's Begin