Quad Lengthening Reformer

I have my friend Andy here, and we'll do some reformer work together. Here we go, we're in our foot work springs. I've got three, he's got four. We're going down, and Pilates V. Heels together, toes apart.

I think, rotate the upper arm outward, palms face up as well for these, just to get that nice sense of openness across the shoulder. Take a breath, here we go, and exhale. All right, so Andy, getting into those abs, pull up underneath the heart, underneath the ribs, toward the heart I should say, chin lifted away from the chest, here's five, pull in, press, pull in. Feel the feet helping to bring us back in, so they're pretty firm attached on that bar. They're helping to pull us forward.

Last one from the Pilates V. Let's go to prehensile. And before we push and pull, feel as though the top of the pad of the foot is pressing down on top of the bar. Here we go, press, and pull. I have my feet pressed down on that bar, almost like I could suspend my hips up off of the mat a little bit.

And as we're pressing out legs back, we're gonna feel that lengthening of our quads, our lower abdominals, our hip flexors, trying to get some space here. Let that kinda be our theme today, Andy, couple more times. Space from our quads to our ribs. Last one, press, and in. Just lift those feet, set the heels there, pinkie toes back, here we go, press, and in, length.

Seven, inner thighs together. Eight, last two. So we won't go out wide. Let's come back down to the balls of the feet with the heels lifted, pinkie toe, though, on the bar. And press, and pull for 10.

Getting the calves into it here. Lengthen and in. Rolling the shoulders back, palms are still face up. Five. Trying to keep the legs together, all the way back, so those high inner thighs have to stay engaged, press.

Eight, nine. Let's stay out here for 10. We'll take the calves stretch, two counts to lower the heels. One, two, and lift, two, and lower, two, and lift. Easy does it on the down, and easy does it up.

And lower. So we're working that control. Not a sudden drop of the heels. Five more, press. Four, and lift.

Three, and up, really working the tendons. Last one down. And lift, bend both knees, come all the way in. Okay, come down away from the shoulder blocks a little bit, then we're gonna take the foot bar down, all the way, reach back and grab our handles for the 100. I'm gonna set my legs out over the foot bar, shoulders in position, let's take a breath.

Exhale, curl yourself up, he was already there, and in. Two, three, four, five, exhale, three, four, five, in. So there's energy out long, there's energy back through the stomach, there's energy up the top of the head, and width across the collarbones. You've got north, east, south, west. We're halfway there, six.

That internal heat. Nine. 10. Hold, good. Knees in.

Okay, we don't have to do all the transitions, but to come up and change the springs, straps in one hand. If we were, we can take a couple springs away. Let's do a roll over. Head rest down. Keep a little space between your new shoulder block, everybody, and take your legs straight up.

We'll do three rollover overheads. Breathe in as you lower your arms, secure them down, roll the hips over. Flex the feet and open the legs. Now really use the straps, keep the leather nice and taught, roll yourself down. Bring the legs in, arms up.

They go down on the inhale. Exhale takes you over, flex the feet then open. Aim them for the width of your shoulder blocks, and roll down from your upper back, middle back, lower back, circle the legs together. Bring your arms up, we have one more. Lower the arms.

Over, flex open. And rolling down, keep the chin away from the chest, all the way. Now, once your legs come together, bend your elbows and your knees, and curl up into your contraction. The coordination three times. Stretch, open, close, we'll keep our head up.

Last one. Pull it in, and chest down. Straps in one hand then come on up. And let's do some rowing. So I'll take you down to one.

Use what you need for rowing. Come around to face the back of your Reformer. All right, organize yourself. You've got at least hand length behind you. Arms are starting long.

That's not true. The arms are gonna start, knuckles together and pull the arms up. The elbows lifted, shoulder blades down. Use this to pull our spine up, here we go. Breathing in, exhale as we flex our spine back.

Hold the carriage still, now, press the arms out. Before we dive over our legs, press the arms back. Then the body overhead. Interlace your fingers, Andy, and think double leg kick from the mat. I want you to bring your hands to your back.

Then stretch your arms behind you. Then lift, go really and let your chest drop down more toward you nose to your knees. Circle your arms around, and let's start again. We'll go two more with flow. Inhale, knuckles in.

Exhale. Press, pull your arms before the carriage moves. Keep the carriage still as you take your arms behind your back. But then they have to shave a little bit here. Stretch, lift the arms high.

Dive the head down, let the straps take the arms around. Go for a little hamstring stretch, but pull the abdominals away, and we roll back up. Knuckles to the chest. And rolling down. Arms out, carriage still.

Arms press, then we dive over. A little bend and stretch of the elbows. Lift the arms, let the straps take your shoulder up and around, and reach. Okay, let's do three of rowing two. I got twisted.

Elbows are lifted, here we go. Leaning back, arms up. Same rowing, but just keep it going now. All the way around. So as you come up to rowing sitting tall, scoop those elbows back up to the right angle.

Leaning back. Lift. Just keeping it moving. Circle, roll up. Right when you catch the tension, leaning back.

Good, and up. Down. Hold into your hamstring stretch for a full breath in and out. So as we transition for turning around the other way, Andy, let's just put our straps like this, that way we don't have to reach behind and get 'em off the pegs. And just turn around, pick 'em up, scoot back.

There. Okay, we're ready for a front rowing. Flex the feet. So we reaching forward, we tap the fingertips down. Lean forward a little bit to use and pick up the spine.

Pick that spine up, open the arms out a little taller as we press down, hands to shoulders. Two more. And lower. Legs are parallel, ankles are in flexion, good. Keep lifted as the arms come down.

Come into the shoulders. One more there. Lift. Around, hands to the mat further bending forward. And diving down.

Feel like we can reach the hands past those ankle bones down to the spring. Then we pick the spine up. Lift a little higher. Press the arms down as if you're going through magic circles right there, breathe in. Exhale, flexion.

Reach to those springs. Now, all the way up. Check those ankles and make sure they're flexed, and legs together, good. Ready? One last time, and down.

Reach toward the springs. Pick up the spine. Good, all the way. We'll save the other things, like the shave and the hug for kneeling. Okay, which we can do now.

Not the smoothest transition, but let's just come on up on our knees. Sometimes we just through it, right? Okay, so let's do shave from here. Before we do, pelvis is in a little posterior tilt, so you and I can get some stretch in our quads. Let's do five, extend.

And if this is too much for anybody watching, just stay down on the seated position. Three, keep the heels back, really firm against the shoulder blocks. One more, and then we're gonna keep the arms up, open 'em out to your sides, everybody, hug a tree just five times. Inhale forward. Oh, man, exhale.

You're only on one spring. He should be on two for all this. Last two. Andy, last time. Okay, and down we go, no worries.

Good, let's now put on two springs. So put one more on. Called me out again. Called him out again. Yeah, he's just taking the easy route.

Let's do a short spring, okay? So we can stand up to do this if you want, loop, loop, lying down. It's kind of fun to get in there like that. Short spine, everybody. Whatever Reformer you're on, get yourself ready for short spine.

I personally like to try. It doesn't look the prettiest, but it's kind of nice to try this. Instead of pushing off the foot bar and stepping in, right there you're pelvis is already a little hyped up on one side, and as you pull weight on that side, you're already a little askew. So what if you try this? Put your arms up, hold the straps, both knees in.

See, your pelvis is level. Then you step in. Ideally, it's even. Headrest is down. We short spine.

Pressing forward. Right away, pick up those hips. Now, lift your hips up high, even when we bend into frog, we're trying to get the sitz bones higher. Inhale, exhale, roll down, massage. Massage.

And heels down. We'll do five of these, Andy. Inhale, sitz bones higher as you fall. Exhale and we unroll. Massage.

And extend, keeping it moving. Gaining suppleness in our spine. Lengthen the space from pelvis to ribcage. Last one. And unroll.

Now, take the hands to the leather loops, take your feet out, and just bring your carriage in. Okay, now we can grab those wooden handles, pull them back, shake everything loose, and put those down on the pegs back there, okay? There, let's come up for pulling straps. I'm taking my springs down to one. You can probably handle two.

I mean, look at those shoulders, right? And your back. Lucky. Okay. Shoulders right at the front.

Now, the wooden handles on the wood floor do make noise, but that's okay. Let's go ahead and walk our thumbs all the way up. Head is down over the edge. Enjoy the shoulder blades being somewhat elevated on the ribs back here. So they are up.

If they're not up the back, they have no place to go down to. So we pull them down first. That invites the pull of the straps, okay? Pull as much as you can, but remember, the chest is going forward and up. Return.

Down with the chest, forward with the arms. Shoulder blades are up the ribs. Two more. Then the shoulders come down. As we pull, we're lifting higher.

Feel the relationship of pulling the leather and lifting the back. And then down. One more, shoulders get to slide. Pull, and lift. And lower.

Okay, T press. Slide the hand down a wall. Holding on to the edges, that's right. Three times, arms are fairly elevated. We go, if you can, bring your arms over your back behind you, and out wide.

And pull. And wide. One more, and pull. And wide. And lower.

Okay, straps can be, let's hang, no, put 'em in one hand. Step off. We really should do this this way. Okay, like that. Yeah, no, actually, I'm not gonna have us do backstroke.

That's what would happen now. Let's try to go to teasers, okay? I'm gonna do it on my one red. I'm gonna come and sit really close to the edge. We're rolling back, our legs are down, our back is arched, our arms are down.

As we teaser, bring the arms down into the imaginary water, chest goes up, that's right, and we lift. Good. Rolling back. Remember to reach your legs forward as your arch back. Let that chest go.

And then arms come down, chest forward. Lift. And again. The next time we come up, let's try some arm circles. Ready?

Okay. Open, down, around, up. Open, down, around, up. Open, down, around, reverse. Pull the abdominals back.

Pull the abdominals back. Pull the abdominals back, and all the way down. We did it. Okay, let's put those together, we can drop 'em. We'll change it for short box.

I feel pretty good about my teaser. That's good. Yeah. (Andy murmurs) Huh? I can believe that. Yeah, you know.

Okay, all springs, strap at the ready. Some short box stuff. We have our pole, we'll put it here. We'll step in. Okay.

All right. Here we go. So let's think about this as the mat exercise neck pull, where our feet are in the straps on the raised mat, and we're flexed ankles and ankles are pulled open. Okay, now for today, let's just put our hands right here at the abdomen, and we'll just use this as we sit tall, taking an inhale, and then rounding back, we can go pretty far, I think. I'm gonna go ahead and take myself way over into the arch.

It feels really good to open up the line here. Breathe. Coming forward, and all the way down. Now, when we go down, that ankle strap has to stay taught. Roll back up, and again.

We'll do four total. Rounding down. If it doesn't feel good for you to go arching all the way over, you stop where you can, where you know you need to. Pull in, up, in up. Good, Andy.

Two more. Go taller, right? We need this space, here. And down. I'm thinking sitz bones to heels.

Big arch. Up and in with the stomach, toward my circulating heart. Lift. One more, and roll. Sitz bones to heels.

Stretch those quads, and curl up. Nicely done. Okay, so let's grab our bar for our flat back. Today, I wanna put my hands on the edges like that, just for something different for myself. And then we'll take ourselves in a flat back.

Here we go. So no arch. Okay, look toward the wall in front of us. And then back up. Mm-hmm.

Shoulder blades down the back ribs. And lift. Ankles in flexion, pulling out. More space between the thighs and ribs and lift. Last time.

Oh, I think I might have just gone a little far. Okay, side bend. So lean forward a little. As we stretch toward the right, fan open that left rib wall and sit on that left hip nicely. Good, and center.

Lean a stretch side bend to the left. Open that right rib wall, and center. Once again each side. Sit on that left sitz bone, and center. And sit on the right sit bone, and center.

Lower the arms for a moment. Right back up. Maybe just kind of hairline angle rotation. Let's go to the right. And center.

Lift and rotate left, and center. Lift, rotate right, use the back and twist. Think of this almost more of a back exercise than obliques. Which they do go around there, but lift and spiral. Last one here.

Let's take it into the hinge so we can rotate. Be mindful how far you go. Come back up, and center. Left. Keep spiraling as we hinge back.

Keep spiraling, keep spiral. Rotating. One more. All right, that's enough. One, climb a tree.

I know you get sweaty on these, but let's just kinda, we need one, so hold onto that thigh. Get yourself seated tall. Yeah, why not? We'll go with this one. Okay, you asked for it.

Stretch, bend. Let's flex the foot. Stretch. Bend so our leg is pressing against our front arm here. Hold, take this available hand up here.

The other one right there. Organize the hips if you need to. Let's bend the elbows so that we can go toward that front leg, squaring the sitz bones. Dropping the shoulders. So I'm gonna do one big one.

I'm gonna lean back. We're just doing one climb a tree. Take a moment to square this right pelvis exactly. Walk down, the leg stays right there. So I'm gonna go for it, I'm gonna take my arms back, I'm gonna try to get to the floor down there.

I did it. I can walk up, I got there. Gonna bend forward again, head to shin. Okay, that's it, other side. Okay.

Getting things organized. Sitz bones anchored, flex the foot, it's a different stretch in the hamstring. And different challenge to stay vertical in the back. I think, two, just make sure that the foot isn't rotated or inverted. Hold, outside hand holds the ankle.

This one releases, hold the ankle. And then we bend the elbows to allow us to pull ourself toward the shin. I'm fighting the urge to adjust that hip. I'm gonna try not to, okay. Lock, lean back.

This would be the time to square. I have to do it, and walk the hands down. Once again, you're getting that nice, big stretch on the leg that's supported by the ankle strap. Reach back, get that backbend prep. Point the foot up here, it's a better line.

And then go back up. Good. And now, maybe there, good. Okay, great, let's take the boxes. No, we don't, we need to do side overs first.

Let's just keep that foot in. Okay? Lean, boy which version? I think what I want us to do, Andy, first, is take the hands behind the head, lean out to your left. So we're gonna take the arms now, parallel to the sides of the head.

Just reach. Okay, keep 'em there. We'll do five. Go down a little lower, pull it up, exhale, hold, two, three. Down, they're little, and up, hold, two, three.

Three more. Ankle strap is taught. Lengthen, two three. Down, and up, two, three, last time. Down, and up.

Now, let's go over for the stretch that we're craving. I'm gonna take myself into rotation, hands on the frame, trying to center the body between the two sides of the frame. So you may have to really rotate that right side around. Let the head go. Feel a nice, long right leg from the hip.

And then let's unwind and do the other side. Okay. Good. Okay. So we've got our body position.

We started kinda getting it there, hands behind head. We found our diagonal, and then we took the arms up. From here, five times, lower down a little, coming up, and we held, two, three. And lower. Up, and hold.

Lengthen the leg there in the strap. Three more, down. Pull up, and lengthen your leg, two, three. Down. Two, three, last time.

And up, two, three. And stretch. Okay, hand, hand, try to center the spine between the two rails. Your leg is nice and long. And let's come up.

So I'm not gonna have us do stomach massage. Let's go to some weight-bearing. So a long stretch series. And then knee stretch series. Okay.

Great. Two springs, maybe three for you. Depends on what your want. You could probably push 'em all. Hand, now when we're getting in with that second, that first leg, let's be very kind of no bending of that knee.

Leaning onto the arm, standing up, and stand. Okay? Ready, let's do five repetitions, lift the abdominals. Push as far as comfortable, push in. Inhale back.

Exhale in. Kinda lift the throat and sternum a little bit. That's right, and up. Two. And up.

Last one back. And up. Knees down. Down stretch, reposition the feet, heels are tucked, toes are deeply bent down. Lean forward.

Lifting up, we'll do five, sternum tall. Push, pull. Heels are important here. Push the heels back. Really wanna contract the hamstring and glutes.

Knees bent means hip, hamstring engagement. Hamstrings could be active. Two more. Up. Last time.

Now, holding here, come up onto the fingertips. Bring an arm and then an arm, and try to lift to go back a little bit. Lift, and that's plenty. V up stretch. Ooh.

Should not have banged the Reformer. So hands are steady, heels are halfway up. Feeling those distal connections, feet and hands. We open the connection, open that Reformer. Bring your plank forward, pelvic tilt to lift.

It's like a long elephant right through there. Let's do five, total. Press back. Almost a plank, but not quite. A little bit of like a long elephant.

Push the hands down against the bar. Three more. Push the hands down, the chest up. Last two. Last time.

Flat feet. Round back for elephant, so really pull the hips under, the waistline up, and then that rhythm is a little on the faster side. We push, and pull, push and pull. Three, four, five. Push and pull heels and toes.

Toes, heels, toes. Seven, eight, nine, and 10, and knee stretch series. Okay. Round back. Lot of distance between our chest and our bar.

So I bet you can bring your hips back further. Even more, even more. There we go. Ready and push and in. Accent in, there we go.

Three, four. Seven, eight, nine, keep going right into arched back. One, two, chest open and tail up. And four. Got a little excited.

Six, seven, eight, nine, and 10. Round. Lean into your arms, tuck your toes, lift your knees up, Andy, and bring your hips back a little bit. I'm gonna start that high, and just start moving, and see if I can lower on the way. Under with the hips, under, good.

Six, seven, eight. And 10, down we go. All right, let's do some semi-circle. We've got our block in, and that'll help us not push the carriage all the way back. I'll let you decide.

You can have your bar up or down. We all have options. Pilates is fantastic. Some days we want the bar up, some days we want the bar down. Okay?

I'm gonna work with my bar up, today. Hands right here by the shoulder blocks, I'm gonna push out. Still on those two red springs, step, step, okay. Now, feel free to look and make sure that you're pretty centered, if not very centered with your feet on the bar. I want us to start up in our bridge, okay?

So just establishing this position, let's think about the distal places again. So the feet, the hands, there's pushing going on. The ribs are not pushing, they're actually pulling in. The pelvis is in a tilt, so you should feel some pretty good quad stretch here. This is our start when we inhale.

Rolling down the spine, trying our best not to move the carriage. It's a process. You're stretching the deep, spinal muscles, nerves and stuff. Push back to that stopper. Stay there, pelvic tilt.

Stay there, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge. Pull it in with control. Okay, let's go for a second semi-circle in this direction. So we're rolling down our back, trying to keep our carriage as steady as we can. Really stretching over the edge.

Sit down in those springs, here we go. Push distal edges, find that stopper. Peel your pelvis, tilt, tilt, tilt, and lift. Bring that carriage home, let's do more more this direction. Exhale, roll it down.

Use those strong legs, push. Pelvic tilt. High bridge there, and bring it in. Oh, we've got to reverse it three times. Keep high hips and press.

Roll down. Over the edge, and bring the carriage home. Pelvic tilt. Knees out over the foot bar, lift the hips bones up, press back. Rolling down.

Last one this direction. Press. Roll down. Good. And then come all the way in.

Now, Andy, let's take our hands off the shoulder blocks. Hold your foot bar, or the side of the Reformer. Yeah, I'm gonna hold the side of the foot bar. And try to get more of a quad stretch. Not rib thrusting, but quads, yeah.

Okay. And then let's go back, and I think we're gonna do pelvic press. We're ready to do it. We're both so sweaty. Getting back, our feet'll be up on the edges of the foot bar, nice light spring.

We don't need anything heavy. What I want us to think about now, is almost a suspension of the pelvis up off the mat. Not really a tilt, almost just that we levitate here. And back and forth 10 times. Okay, so back to our regular footwork from the very beginning of class.

Let's concentrate on getting distance between our quad and our ribs. Our butt is just barely up off the mat. Five. Six. Seven.

Eight. Nine. 10, all the way in, setting the hips down. Okay, let's come up for a thigh stretch, chest expansion. I'm gonna stay with two springs for my thigh stretch.

I'm not doing a back bend, so I don't need to lower my bar. What do you think? It's up to you, it's really up to him for what he wants to do. But thigh stretch, Andy, let's put our knees right up on the shoulder rests here. Thumbs on the straps.

Okay. Once again, distance between quad and ribs, you've got a nice sense of open hips here, hamstrings and glutes contracted. Leaning back, we're bending your knees more, taking it slow. Lift the straps and bring yourself up. So again, if you can think of this as a weight shift from the top of the knees to the shins.

Not so much a backbend, we're not doing the backbend today. We're just gonna stretch the quads and lift. Five total. It's like a pelvic tilt, a continual pelvic tilt. Two more times, try to hold this one.

One more time. Really getting that length at your quads, knees against the shoulder rest, hold. And up, okay. I'm gonna take one spring off for my chest expansion, you can stay there. I'm walking my knees back.

Now, hold into the handles, tucking the toes against the edge, yeah. Here we go, pulling the arms back, hold. Turn the head one way, the other way, center. And pull back, hold. Head the second way, the first way, center.

Two more round trips. Pull, hold, you're tall. Turn, turn. Last one. Rotate, rotate, center.

Okay, Andy, let's hold those down. I would like to do some stretches for my quads. We have been stretching 'em, but a little more strength and stretch. So I'm gonna mount two springs. One more than what we have, okay?

Facing the back of the Reformer, stepping on. Put one foot, I'll let you decide, everybody, one foot up the ramp of your headrest, in parallel. And then the other foot back, turned out, right on the edge of the foot bar. Okay. Bear weight into you hands, lunge down.

And just hold this for a moment or two. This could be fine if you wanted to stay right here. In fact, we can. I want you to connect to the back foot and the heel. Really push your heel into the foot bar for security.

And you should feel a contraction up your leg into your butt, okay? You could stay here, or if you wanted to come along with Andy and I, we're gonna come all the way up, putting our hands behind our head. Yeah, and your back is arched, your lower back. Push the carriage forward, control it back in. Just the 90 degrees that your knee, or further, if you can.

Three times. Push, both heels are pushing into the surfaces here. Both heels. Here's our last one, hold. Take your arms up, Andy, arms up.

Reach down to those shoulder rests. Carriage in, the back foot steps down. We're ready for side two. Step back. Look back, place that heel.

Try to square your pelvis, it won't be perfect. The pelvis is open just a little bit. Start yourself here, 90 degrees if you can. Even weight into your hands. Connect the feeling of strength and stability on your back leg, okay?

And again, this could be all you do, it's a lot. Or, lift, hands behind your head. Before we move the carriage, push that back heel back. Here we go, push the leg forward, carriage forward. Carriage in.

Carriage forward. Carriage in. Back leg is straight, push, hold it there, Andy. Lift the arms up. And down.

Hands on the shoulder rest, back that carriage in. Okay, let's step to the floor. Let's actually cool down. You ready to be kind of done? I think we're ready.

Let's do some walk in place. I'm gonna go all my springs. Yeah. We'll use this as our cool down, then we may do one more tiny little thing at the end. So pressing back, and easy, down, up, down, down.

Listen to your springs. If they're talking to you, it's kind of fun to hear them. 10 more, one, two, three. Heels up. Bend the knees and come in.

All right, so before we walk away, let's cross a knee, I mean an ankle over a knee. Figure four stretch. Hold the back of that other leg, and pull in pretty close. Slow your breathing down a little bit. Good.

Place the foot on the foot bar, continue to cross this knee all the way over the other, so it's a nice tight, and then go ahead and add a deeper, spinal rotation. I'm holding the side of the Reformer, do what feels best for you. Breathe into your back, the back of the ribs that are up off of the mat. Okay, and then just that on the other side. So come on up, ankle over knee, figure four.

As close as you'd like to bring that bottom leg. Good. And then foot to the foot bar, slide your knees all the way together, and then rotate. Good, and come all the way through center, and let's just rock ourselves up. Thank you, Andy.

Thanks for working out with me. Thanks, everybody. See you next time.