Spine Corrector Essentials

Hi, so the spine corrector is one of my very favorite pieces of equipment. That's a fun fact about me. So what we're gonna do today is just go over some of the very basic things that I like to do on the spine corrector, nothing crazy, nothing fancy, just the essentials. So we're gonna sit on the spine corrector. Sit tall, in fact, hold onto the front, just the front wooden pieces and use your arms to fold your spine, lifting up, so just sitting tall, bringing the arms into play, to feel the upper back muscles working, and continue to keep that organization of our spine as we take the arms out in front.

And inhale, and exhale, rounding the spine, so allowing the spine corrector, just to provide some support for the spine, as the upper body comes back, let's the arms back, take the arms around, ah, I just cracked my sternum, and reach forward, that's one of my very favorite things that happens to me only occasionally, and lift up; talk about a heart opener. And exhale, rounding back... taking the arms overhead, reaching the spine over the top, arms reach around, palms of the hands face up, as the arms pass the T-shape, we lift the eyes, look forward and roll up all the way. And inhale, and exhale, rounding down, so just letting the spine mobilize, reaching around, reaching forward and rolling up, we'll just do one more. So being aware as we move through this range of motion that it's important, although the abdominals are stretching, we want to keep them engaged.

So we work the front and the back of the body simultaneously, arms reach forward, spine comes up. Once again up to the top, let's take the hands behind the head, fully-interlocking the hands so the head has a support system, and then again, exhaling, we'll roll all the way back over the barrel again. So from the bottom, breathing in, as we breathe out, we're gonna come up into a chest lift, so we lift the head and chest, coming just to a neutral position of the spine, inhale, and then draw in on the abdominals as you reach back. Inhale, things that work for me, exhale, initiate the abdominals before moving, pause, inhale, initiate the abdominals before moving. Something else, as you're lifting, initiating through the abdominals, think about drawing the bones of the pelvis, the outer bones of the pelvis closer together.

Inhale and exhale to reach back. And inhale, and exhale, lifting up, make sure you're not pushing your head forward, it will make it a lot easier if you do, but let's not. And reach back, we'll do two more like that, drawing in, connecting, finding the straight line, I love any abdominals where you can go from back extension, because I feel like as Pilates teachers and movement people in general, we do so much forward flexion work, so much of our lives are in forward flexion, that having the opportunity to come from extension to neutral is a really beautiful thing. Last one, lifting up, we'll come through that neutral position, we'll roll up, oh, that's hard, and we'll sit tall. Breathing in, as you breathe out, grow taller and do some rotation and feel that as you're doing that rotation, the sitting bones are equally placed in the barrel.

Lift as you rotate and inhale, so notice that the head is just still, it's not turning the neck, it's not turning the head, it's just coming along with the spine, and center, the scapula are wide, the elbows are wide, and center, lifting as we rotate, trying to get right up right on ourselves, and center, so notice what this feels like, because you're gonna do this same movement pattern in a different gravitational challenge, right now, after we go back to the first segment of this one more time. Okay, so find center, and then round back, let's take it all the way back again, let's bring the body to neutral, oh yeah, now we make our rotation, so we twist and center, and feel that you're endeavoring, not to go forward, but to keep the body long, and center, and twist, keeping the head with the spine, we'll do three more to each side, center, twist, oh my, I think just one more to each side is gonna be enough for me but feel free to add on if you wish. So this will be our last one, got a little bit ahead of my own self when I made that first numerical cue, lift the spine up, let the knees just open, and then round the spine down through the legs, just stretching in the opposite direction and then roll back up. Bring the knees back, take a breath in, exhale, roll back, so we're gonna go over the back. We're gonna lift up, we're gonna go into flexion, flexion with rotation, find center, long neutral, flexion with rotation, find center, long neutral, and over the back.

Exhale, lift the head and chest, flexion with rotation, so I'm just lifting a little bit into flexion, I'm still staying quite close to my, if not on the bottommost rib, and lift, and up into flexion with rotation, center, up into flexion with rotation, center, two more times, for real, that means two more times to both sides, here it is, exhale, again, wide scapula, lifting into that little bit of flexion, and one more time, inhale back, exhale lift, lift as you rotate, find center, lift as you rotate, find center, reach forward, and then finish full circle, the way we started, we take the arms back, we reach around to the sides, we bring the arms forward and we roll all the way back up. So let's turn onto our side. Lay all the way down, so when you put yourself down on the barrel, make sure you're more towards the front than the back, hands are gonna come behind the head, breathing in here, press down into the foot, and then exhale, reach out, find a straight line, so again, the energy isn't so much up, or shortening, it's more long, or creating length on both sides and then reach over. Again inhale, exhale, lift up, pause, and down. And keep the head in line with the spine, so I'm pulling my head right opposite of where I'm reaching my foot, and then back, and again, inhale, exhale, lift up, and down, we'll do two more, reaching out as you lift, and down, just remember that sometimes smiling is okay when you're doing things that are hard, so there it is.

A little smile. And now, I want you to put your arm down, put your body down, take your arm overhead, and then we'll make a big circle, so we take the arm back, as the arm goes back, take the arm back as far as it can and then allow the body to just follow the arm, so opening my hip, reach back, find your straight line, and then round forward, reach, arm to the ear, straight line, reach back, let the pelvis open, find the straight line, and round forward, and we'll just do that one more time. Reach back, straight line. Think my shirt's falling off, that's better. Round forward, and then we're gonna go the other way, so we reach around the spine, reach way out in front of you, find neutral, take it back, let the pelvis come with you, up overhead and center, round forward, reach through the leg, body comes center as the arm comes to the body, we reach back, and up, and around, last one.

This is something that I could do for a long time, feels great. Reach open, nice simple work, great for everyone in my mind. Well, maybe not everyone, but most people. Put your hand down, there's exception to every rule. Sit up, turn sides.

So remember to sit towards the front. That's just because when you get into the circles, we want to have some space to lean on. Hands behind the head, keeping the head in line with the spine, engaged through the side of the body, lift into a long body pause, and go over the top. We'll exhale to lift, head in hands and inhale to go down. And exhale to lift, and inhale to go down, so even though the focus is on the side of the body, can we also think about pulling the whole front body in and engaging there?

We're just gonna do two more. And I made us uneven, that's, I'm sorry about that. But what you could do is just make yourself even if that's something that feels like a good option for you. One more time, and then go all the way down, take the arm overhead, here we go, the arm comes first, the chest follows, we open the chest, we reach around, ah, and then go forward and up, and then the arm comes, the body follows, take the arm wide, arm can come find the sides of the body, and we go one more time, reach out, reach back, I did this one second on the first side, oh what did I do? No, I did it right, I definitely did it right, 'cause now we're gonna round forward.

I just got confused which is something that happens to me actually quiet frequently. So we reach up and over the top, and round forward, find straight, reach back and over the top, we'll do one more, I can count to three, that's something I'm very proud of. Reach forward, reach back, so I know that we did an even number of these on both sides. And back, so just help yourself up. Come up, turn yourself around again, and now we're gonna go over the back of the barrel.

So the best way to do that is just to hold on to slide so that the pelvis is right on top. And make sure you're not lying on anything blocky. And then slide down. So we want to have the pelvis right over the top. We're gonna take the legs straight up, we're gonna find basically a straight line with our spine, so from there, we're just gonna bend the knees, inhale, keep the tailbone down, squeeze the legs together, press straight up, and inhale bend, so it's quite easy to not feel a lot of work here, but the good news about that is, it's also quite easy to create the work that you want.

So I'm pressing my heels together, and I'm dragging my heels in, and then I'm pushing them up in such a way that feels like I'm pushing up against a resistance. We'll just do one more. Press up, hold there, point the feet, open the legs out to the sides, imagine someone's holding your legs apart, and then flex and squeeze them against that imaginary resistance, inhale, reach and point, open, exhale, flex, pull abdominals in. Inhale, reach and point, open, exhale, flex and pull, two more, open and pull, I'm thinking about pulling from my waist as well as from my adductors, my inner thighs, and pull. Point the feet where I can turn out here, external hip rotation, we're gonna scissor the legs, so we pull, pull, center.

This is one of the most valuable places in my opinion, to practice the scissors and the bicycle from the mat work, because it just provides such a really nice support system. So open, open, together. Reach, reach, together. We'll do two more to each side. Pull, pull, center.

Pull, pull, center. Take the legs parallel, go into the scissor, bend the bottom knee, tip the edge of the barrel, cycle through, find the scissor. Bend the bottom knee, reach down, and scissor, so I want us to find that scissor shape each time and then bicycle. Find the scissor shape, reach down, and two more. So it's a continuous flow but there is that moment of just finding that scissor, and then from there, we'll reverse, top leg bends and reaches down as the bottom leg comes out straight and then reach, find the scissor.

As you're reaching your leg down and away from you, keep the abdominals working to support the spine, last time, last time. Both legs come up, let's go back into external rotation. You're gonna open the legs, let's say right leg towards the body, left leg down, open the legs in a helicoptering action, come back around to the opposite scissor, and then come back. We'll do five. We're gonna go the same leg again, inhale, and reach out, all the way around, and exhale.

And inhale, make that one long exhale, both legs stay real straight, last two, really nice opening work for the hips, one more, reach out, and back, now let's take that in reverse, so we'll go right leg down, left leg back, open the hips, all the pieces of the circle, in a real even motion, so we touch all the points of the circle equally, and center, and open, around, and center, two more, open, super active through both legs, and center. Last one, open, around, and center, and we'll finish here with a rollover, it's a real great place in my mind to teach the rollover 'cause you're already halfway there. So take your legs down as low as you can without allowing your lower back to arch or become unstable. Then inhale to lift them up towards vertical, as you exhale, we're gonna keep the middle back against the barrel, but fold the legs over until they're parallel to the floor. Flex the feet, separate the legs, take the legs down if you can but keep the barrel against the middle of the back and then roll down, get the pelvis to come upright on the barrel, point, reach legs down together and up.

Exhale, middle back stays against the barrel, we roll over, flex, separate without changing the spinal position, we reach down and roll down, reaching, pointing through the feet, together and up. We'll do two more, exhale, round, my goal is to touch the mat, I just don't know if I have the flexibility. But I'm trying. And round down, last one inhale, exhale over, parallel, flex, separate, and reach and roll down around and center. So then roll up, bringing the knees towards the forehead, take your arms and just push that barrel out from underneath you so you have space to roll yourself down into the mat.

And then we'll roll to the side and help ourself up. Okay, so we're gonna do two more things here. The next thing is we're gonna get down on the barrel, putting the pelvis right over the barrel. And the feet, we'll just tuck the toes under, and let the feet rest down on the floor. This is a back extension exercise and what I want us to feel first is that we're creating a dragging action with the upper arms so the upper arms and the shoulder blades drag backwards, continuing that dragging action, let the elbows leave the mat until you're lifted up into just a slight back extension, and then as you're lowering down, continue that dragging feeling.

And inhale, and backward, drag through the shoulder blades, reaching the spine out as it comes up, and then backward drag with the arms. Really nice back extension because you kind of start below neutral so you can stop just in the neutral position, you can continue just a little higher, or you can go into a little bit bigger of a back extension so it's a real easy way to kind of choose your range. We'll just do two more, backward drag, you can create a lot of really nice sensation here, might not look like a real fantastically, choreographically-complex exercise, but it's quite nice in my opinion. So let's come up all the way, and then we'll slide back, and what you want to do here is, I'm actually gonna move my barrel a little forward so I can have my feet on the mat. So we want to just position the body so where the apex of the barrel is, is where the work is gonna be focused in the back.

So I'm gonna put it about underneath my ribs. Take the hands behind the head, reach all the way over the top, press through the legs, keep them strong, we're gonna inhale, bringing the back out and up. Exhale, stretch the arms, lift, bend the elbows, and lower back down. Strong legs, head comes first, working through the middle of the back, exhale arms, keep the head still as the elbows bend, the hands come back behind the head, and go back down, strong legs and head first, shoulder blades reach down, arms reach out, hands come back, and go all the way down, we'll just do one more, inhale, reach out, reach forward, reach back, and go all the way down. And what we'll do is we'll just take the arms down, slide back onto the knees.

Make sure you have enough room so I might push my barrel out in front of me a little bit, rest the hands on the top of the barrel and just sit back towards the feet. So there you have it, full ranges of motion at all the focal joints, and kind of a full body workout in just a short amount of time on a tiny little piece of equipment. So that's fun.