Day 9: Maximum Range

All right. Here we are day nine of PyLadies play all about maximizing range of motion and various different exercises. I've got my spring set for light foot work, so just two reds and a blue right now and we're going to warm up on the long box here and see where we are, where we land. Sound good? Yes. So sit kind of forward on your box, but not so far forward that you're going to fall off and rest your feet on your foot bar. Bring your feet together and your knees together and sit up tall and take just a moment to settle in. Take your arms wide, lifting tall ribs away from pelvis and take your arms down. Take your arms wide, lifting tall and take your arms down. Take your arms up to shoulder height, hands together, and let's just rotate around and see where we can go.

Keeping your pelvis and your feet and everything. Still rotating around and again, rotating, breathing, and enjoying the movement. Yeah, separate your feet just a little bit. Inhale here, exhale and roll back onto your box. So just check in and make sure that you've got your whole low back down, but your shoulder blades could potentially be off a little bit. So I'm actually going to shift back just the slightest bit. Lift my legs up to a tabletop position and get right to it here.

Nice high abdominal curl. I want to work with my double leg stretch, reaching over into thoracic extension right from the get go. And exhale to pull in a little deeper, reaching over into [inaudible] thoracic extension and exhale, pulling in deeper with the legs and go again. Reach Paul [inaudible] and enjoy that luxurious range of motion and single leg stretch here. Lifting that chest nice and high. We reach out and apt. Find your breath. Keep your low back rounded.

[inaudible] one more time. Both legs in. Stretch your two legs to straight. Hold on onto one. Take your leg down as far as you can even beyond. Try to touch the foot bar. Feel that opening through your hip and change legs all the way down. Explore, go a little deeper, less about the ABS, more about the range in your hips here and change.

And a little faster. Yeah. Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh Duh Duh Duh. Oh, I almost forgot to take my leg all the way down. There it is. And last one there both legs up. Bend your knees. Just rock up to a nice sitting position.

Place your forehead on your knees and stretch neck low back and sit up. Right. Alright, let's move into our footwork. So we'll take the box off and put it out of the way for a moment. The bar needs to come up. I like the middle position. Again, I'm on two reds and a blue spring because I intend to explore a little bit with some pelvis movement. So lie down and settle in [inaudible] so with your heels on the bar, I'm going to go just a little bit lower than I normally do. So just above my heel, pelvic curl, lifting the hips high, keep the carriage still and lower down. [inaudible] so pelvic curl, nice high-lift and okay.

And out in, in with the legs. Soft feet. Find your breath, find your flow. So pretty light spring if we're going to keep the pelvis down, but I intend to play a little bit. Come in again, lift your hips up. Find that high range of motion. Pelvis is nice and high and press out a few times here, keeping your hips high, tapping into those wonderful hamstrings, holding your hips high. Tilt your pelvis so lightly anterior, but keep your abdominals engaged and press out in in a few times so I'm not going all the way out here. I'm just checking in with my hamstrings, see how my body feels, and then come all the way in. Scoop your pelvis back up and lower yourself down. Place your toes now where your heels are, pelvic curls.

Good morning hamstrings. If you haven't already woken yours up, I'll tell you mine are awake right here, right now and lower down. Breathing and moving again, trying to explore here that range of motion through your hip joints. Lots of hamstring work to get more range of motion through your hips and lower down and out and in a few times with your legs. Good. Make sure your feet are in a position that feels stable. I had to make a little adjustment.

Oftentimes when I move through my pelvic curls, my feet move just a little. I always adjust. Come in and stay pelvic curl and press out in. In keeping that post steer, you're feeling that tucked pelvis [inaudible] come in and stay. Engage your abdominals, tip your tail bone back a little. Feel your legs. Feel your abs just a little out in, in, not all the way to straight. It's more of like a pulsing sensation. Can you feel those hamstrings? Can you feel those backs of those legs? Come in, scoop your pelvis up and lower yourself all the way down. Small v position, pelvic curls, [inaudible] and yeah, feel your glutes perhaps a little bit more active in this one.

This open v position, pelvic curl. Breathing in and breathing out. Press out in in again. Feel squeezing of those heels together. Feel your leg alignment, softness through your neck and shoulders, playing with your body a little bit. Exploring, come all the way in and here we go. Pelvic curl and keeping the pelvis high. How far can you go, but keep that tucked pelvis position, that posterior position all the way in slightly anterior pelvis but still abdominals engaged. Feel free to check in and just a little pulsing small range of motion. Breathe. Come all the way into the stopper.

Scoop the pelvis up first and lower down second. That just feels gorgeous on my back. So here for the open position, I'm going to have you just do kind of above the heel, more on the arches so you have some more support from your feet and do that same pelvic curl [inaudible] you fought. You may find this one to be a a nice position, an easy position. This is one of the more challenging ones for me, which is why I choose this foot position allows me to feel my hips better. I like it, love things that challenge me. Keep your pelvis down out in, in and breathing and moving.

[inaudible] I just happened to be spotting a bird outside the window with the birds on my pants. It's making me feel like this was all meant to be. Come in here, Pelvic Curl, press out in, in back. So the legs, hamstrings, glutes. Okay, now carefully find this position here. You're in at the stop or slightly interior with your pelvis. Use your abs and feel that pulsing. You might feel different muscles working. Just check it out. It doesn't feel good. Go back to the tucked position.

Yeah, come all the way in. Scoop your pelvis up and lower your spine down. Beautiful. Gently roll to one side and come on up to a sitting position. So let's change the springs to one red and one blue lie right back down. And working with the hips today, I want you to try to find just something different.

So put your feet in your straps wherever it feels comfortable to you today. You may explore the ball of the foot or the arch. Flex the feet back and we'll just start with our basic frog in hell in and exhale out. But instead of coming in and stopping yourself where you might normally just see if it can go in a little deeper like we did earlier. I'm in this challenge. I had. You challenged your range of motion.

See if you can really move in and out of that deeper range. Feeling your hips, waking up circles. Point your feet go down perhaps a little lower all the way around to that high position. Nice. Straight legs and down through center. Beautiful flow here. Breathing and moving. Yeah.

Engagement in the ABS, softness in your toes. Feel your arms soft but grounded. One more time and reverse. Feel your toes soft. So I'm reaching through my feet, but try not to grip with my toes too much here. When you take yourself in the open position of the circle, really feel the backs of the legs, the rotation of the hips. Perhaps lift your legs up a little higher than you normally do. Feeling a little stretch through the backs of the legs.

And one last time here. So for the openings, settle on a middle range of motion for you. Flex your feet and open as wide as you comfortably can. Do you need to point your feet a little to open wider. Go for it. Soften your knees, rotate your legs out and glide those legs back in. Again, go a little wider than you might normally go.

Just sit there for a moment, feel the legs and pull back in. So feeling the legs means we soften the knees just the slightest bit. Rotate out a little more. Feel the neutral pelvis and glide in and just one more time and we glide and bend your knees and moving into the short spine. I often feel I get stuck on my shoulder rest, so I'm just moving down a little bit. For the first one, setting up, press the legs just straight to point the toes. Fold at your hips in joy.

That articulation through your back or that flection of your spine as you will roll-up. We articulating through the back. Bend your knees big, keeping a nice high pelvis, lots of engagement in the ABS, and then roll down through your back. Pull those toes around just like we did in the very first day of this challenge. And come through and press out to straight. Changing a little bit. Same beginning food all the way in. Once you touch the stop or you use your abs to roll lap.

And let's stay here for a moment. Lifting a little higher, rotate the legs to parallel, keep pressure on your right leg. Take your other leg down without changing your pelvis or losing your strap and then come up [inaudible] and the other leg down without cham changing your pelvis or losing your strap. Okay, so keeping just a little tension on the rope gives you that feeling that we're looking for in the mat work when we're trying to do some of the the bigger exercises, it's a handful of [inaudible] Ben, and stay here externally. Rotate, straighten the legs and then bend the knees and roll down. And just one more time folding all the way in. Exhale to roll out. Burn your knees. Big.

Skipping those extensions. Just one time for those. Roll your body down. Come on through. Hand out two straight. Bend your knees, the bottoms of your feet together. Take a breath or two [inaudible] and take your feet out of your straps. Find the foot bar and come on up to a sitting position. Okay, let's change the springs to one spring, a greener or red, your choice. We're going to step up and do some full body full body integration.

Heels are lifted, chest is toward the eyes, back is straight to begin, and I'm just going to move my necklace so it's out of my way. There we go and feel a nice long back. Engage those abs. So slide the carriage out and then just a couple of times and just check in that you're on the right spring for you. Change it if you need to. From here, she hinged down to a plank position and sit with that for a few moments. Fill your ABS, fill your head, pull all the way forward to the stop or trying to keep the body still so I didn't dip my hips. Now here change. We're going to flex the spine, rounding the back to pull the carriage or pull the body back to that ab stretch position or that that pyramid type position. So here I hinge down, my back stays flat and I pull forward and I'm just changing this a little bit. I want you to flex your spine around through your low back.

Use those abs to do that and keep lifting your low belly up. Your head is dangling and then straighten out again like that. All the way forward. Once you're at the stop or use your abs to create flection, lifting, lifting and straightened out. And one more time, just like that forward, oops. I found the stop or a little faster than I expected. Flex the spine and straighten out. Look forward at your bar. Step forward with your one foot. Doesn't matter which one.

So we have a front foot and we have a back foot and you're gonna find balance. If balance doesn't suit you, keep your hands down. If you're balancing, take your arms wide, palms maybe facing up for an open heart and breathe. Press your front leg towards straight. So towards straight. I say because I don't need it to land straight, but I want your body to stay as though it's traveling along the same line. Yeah, stay here. If you're comfortable in this position, we're going to take the arms up by the ears as you bring the carriage into the stopper and then you're going to go, how low can you go? Palms down, pay attention to their hands and the feet.

Big stretch and palms up. Good. Then palms down. How can you go increasing your range and palms up and palms down here. We're going to come halfway up. Then the front knee, put both hands on the bar. Keep the opposite hand down so my left hand. Find that rotation in joy.

Take your arm forward, hand down, change sides just to loosen up your legs a little bit. We'll sit in this plank for a few more moments. Feel the hips recovering. Yeah, wiggle around. Nothing wrong with lugging around. Take your other leg forward. Now foot is stable. I'm using this front leg to really stabilize myself and then feeling balance. My hubs are working, palms open or palms up, arms wide.

Who find this? Keep your hand down if you need to, press your front leg to straight and gently come in. Try to feel the back of the leg working. As you press out. Damion, press out and we stayed there. How are we going to lift up? Arms by your ears. Try to come all the way into the stopper. Palms down as you press down.

How low can you go? Three thing up. [inaudible] [inaudible] trying to increase range in those hips and down. Come halfway up. Bend the knee. Bring your hands down. Opposite hand stays down. Find a wonderful rotation.

Reach the arm forward. Put the hands back on the bar. Step back, bend your plank. Shake your legs. Be here. Hips, high feet flat. Walk to a forward fold at your head. Relax. Let your body be soft and loose and come on down to your knees. So let's put the bar down so it's out of the way.

Keep that same spring you had on. We're going to come all the way up to our kneeling position and hold the ropes here about the buckles returned to that five stretch. Yum. One of my favorite exercises. Okay, so working on a little more range of motion here. First, engage your inner thighs, curl your pelvis underneath you and feel that flection of your spine really work on that. You're going to bend back at those knees. Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel the edge. Go ahead and sit down like we did before. Straighten your back out and then press up. That is a way to recover. Yeah. So curl your pelvis underneath. You.

Look down at your pelvis here and go a little deeper and a little deeper. And now press yourself back up. [inaudible] and straightened out again. Curl your pelvis underneath. You should, you need to recover, recover. But how far can you go? A little deeper, a little deeper, a little deeper and per ass back up. And again [inaudible] and one more cause I'm starting to get tired and I want to be fully tired with you and Pressa. Have a seat.

Just put the straps away so you can bring your legs out in front of you. And let's play just a little bit with the teaser position here. So you want enough room to be able to roll back for your low back. So my feet are on the head rest here. I'm going to reach forward and start by holding the reps above the buckles.

Just check in with the spring. So I'm going to round back to the point where I feel my low back down and feel comfortable there. And then round back at really working on movement through my low back. Rounding back, I'm on one full spring. If this feels like too much spring or too little, just change it.

And now here we changed. We round back. Feel that low back down. Lift one leg up, lift to the other leg up. Stay here. We're gonna work to straighten the legs. Good. And now we're going to lift the body inflection to your straight leg simultaneously bringing the legs in. Good. So were inflections of not straightening out my back here.

Pulling my straight legs in, squeezing together, flexing my spine. The legs can go away a little, otherwise you might roll back and squeeze them in. How close can you get and down. And one more time. Straighten out your back. Take your legs away from you. Hold here. One leg down, lifted up the other leg down.

Lift it up straight back. Lift your legs more. N There's the edge right there for me and we're gonna roll all the way down here to the low back and roll all the way up to more roll down and roll up. Trying to really work on the legs here and one more and are all up. Bend your knees, see if you can bring your knees toward your forehead, the springs pulling your arms forward. Tap your toes down, forehead, all the way in toward knees. Take a short rest here. Wherever your hands need to be. I can actually put my hands, my straps without even really looking. So that's what I'm choosing to do.

Nice little ball stretch here. Holst side to side. Let's come on up to a standing position. We're going to keep that same spring. I know that was a little funny how I stepped back that way. Okay, I'm gonna put one foot on the frame of the reformer and the other foot is going to go next to the shoulder. Rest there. So nice and wide with the legs, keeping the carriage in a roll myself up. Take my arms straight out to the side and feel the power here in health. Opening those legs nice and wide. Finding your range.

Where can you go and lift up? [inaudible] hold the carriage at the stopper for a couple moments and reaching nice and wide. We lift up, ah, and again and this time lift and hold the carriage at the stop or use those inner thighs. Place your hands behind your head and rotate your upper spine and rotate your upper spine. And again, whoops. Keep the carriage at the stopper. I said didn't I? One more time.

Arms are wide. Roll yourself down. Fine. The reformer. Step off with grace and ease and change sides. So we'll walk around the reformer here, stepping always on the frame. First foot on, up against shoulder rest. Second, use your hands to support and roll up harms wide.

And we open how wide can you go? Try to keep your legs equally weighted. Hold the stopper. And again, I find the holding of the stopper to be the most challenging part. [inaudible] [inaudible] we're going to do one more my friends. One more. Hold the carriage in. If the stopper, bend your elbows, hands or behind the head, and we're going to rotate.

Hold it in and rotate. Try not to rotate your pelvis, but to rotate your spine. Last one, take your arms wide, roll down, catch the edge of the reformer and step yourself. All right, let's get onto the box. So some lateral flection with range here. Short box. We're going to add some spring to lock the carriage down. Remember, remember how involved your legacy to be when you do your lateral flection? So think about that here.

So really wedge your foot into the strap. Fill your bottom leg, fill your top leg. Feel free to use your hand on the head. Rest here to feel your position and own it for a moment. Feel the glutes, the heel, everything. Then just slip your hands behind your head. Here you are right. And now we're going to go down and up just two times like this. All about variation in range of motion today. And one more time.

Now hold here. We're going to rotate. Send the arms to the side. Bring the hands to the box, lift your body up. Keep your back leg lifted. Feel the stretch return. Send the arms to the side, hands behind your head and open and again, who rotate? Send the arms to the side, hands to the box and lift round. Reach open behind your head. Unwind. One more time please.

Rotate has side hands to the box and lift hands to the side. Hands behind your head. Unwind and stretch. Ah, enjoy that. Feel free to roll your body forward. Roll your body back. Just enjoy the pleasure of that stretch. Ease yourself back up. And let's change sides. Man. This is a yummy workout. I hope you enjoy it as well.

So reach up through your back leg. Engage your belly muscles. Feel your legs. Slip your hands behind your head. You're here, you're ready to go. We're going to go down and up just two times before we add on what? Yeah. And to now the add on.

We rotate hands to the side. Try to get square with the horizon. Hands on the box. Lift. Hmm. Look down. Arms wide. Hands behind your head. Unwind. Two more. Just like that. Rotate arms wide, hands to the box. Use the hands to assist.

Find that full extension down. Hands behind your head. Keep that back leg engaged. Reach out behind your head and unwind. What boards I we rotate around. Send them wide hands to the box. Lift up, come down, hands wide behind your head.

Unwind in the very best part is the stretch. We're rolling your body open. Oral your body clothes. Ah, use your hands to assist from yourself. All the way up there. Come to a standing position. We're going to call that flection and rotation today and move right into a nice closing full body squat. So find the foot bar, put it up if you need to.

Find your reformer in a way that allows you to sit head relaxed, back, relaxed feet, relaxed, sway side to side. [inaudible] and remember, if at any point you need to change this position, change it. So a, you'll notice if you actually watch me do this. I explore my range of motion, I play around with the movement and what feels good to me. I use my hands, I explore and find stretches that work and you're ready to come up. Look forward. Use Your hands if you need to. Make your eyes forward. Stand for just a moment with your feet underneath your hips and feel everything loose alive. Thanks for playing.