Description
About This Video
Transcript
Read Full Transcript
Hi everybody. Welcome to class. It's reformer class. It's reformer time. We're gonna move as usual. Of course you need that before you got here. I have a light spring on. I'm actually going to take my foot bar down and just do my traditional roll down. So I have a blue spring on the balanced body, but just one spring is plenty. We're going to use the carriage as our way of connecting to ourselves.
Roll Down w/Arm Extension
The floor and the actual apparatus. Take a deep breath in the theatre. Just parallel slightly apart are together is fine with me. I think a part is a little better. Exhale. Ooh Christy, slow down inhaler. It's always worth it to me. I just caught myself over everything and I want to not walk out of here like that. So I'm just making a moment of what I want to do with this class.
What do I want to do with the movement? I'm hoping you'll do the same. I'll exhale here. We'll do one more of those. So you have an opportunity to do that. Breathing. Rise up.
Just get more space and then let the shoulders fall round forward. Find the carriage with the heels of your hands about shoulder distance, maybe a little wider. If you know your tight, we then push the carriage out. It's late, right? We push it out and extend from the tailbone through the crown of the head and don't worry about maximizing anything round back up. In fact, let's go a little bit faster, not as big, just kind of almost like a lubricating of the spine. I just got in a flash of my favorite childhood toy, which was called an inchworm, so I'm not really working towards straight yet.
I'm going to do a couple more just to feel like, where am I? What do I need are my hamstrings? Okay.
Open the spring as if the spring was your spine. Then from here, stay here if you can. Again, you can bend your knees all you want, reach the tailbone, the sits bones maybe up to the sky more. And then once again, as if you're reaching further with the shoulders, something you're trying to get, let yourself shrug somehow become a bad word along the way. It's just not. It's an action that happens in the body that we need. Allow it to what Dee shrug. Hmm. Let him be pushed back into place. Do it again. Inhale, push away.
Let the shoulders come back into place and then with up, not so much attention on the arms. Start to draw the low belly. Let the curve of the spine, the tailbone, the sitz bones, the pelvis restacking over your legs. Be The reason the carriage comes back to the stopper. Let go with the hands and stand up. It's amazing what just a few deep breaths can do in terms of the speed of your motion. So we'll go into our ABS. I'm gonna use a box.
You actually don't have to, so if you have on grab it now, if not, you might, depending on how light your springs can be. Again, I have it on a blue, I think I'm going to take it up just so it's a false spring for some of you if that's probably already where it is, if you want to make it heavier, do so. I just switched that out and then we'll sit on the box or on the carriage facing the shoulder blocks.
Roll Back Variations
Mary and I do this a lot together and girl time and it's just a way of, for me, the abs are so much more effective when I can use my hamstrings. So if I connect the back of my body to the front, it's not this only effortful thing in the front, it's just more intense. So I have my heels pushed into the box just a little bit. We're going to roll back the rollback and I, I'm am trying to round the spine and my feet want to come up so bad. In fact, they are a little, but I'm trying to push them down. Then inhale collarbones wide. Exhale, sink the spine into the mat.As soon as you can get those feet back down, you can almost drive them forward even though they don't move and sit up tall. Inhale, exhale, we roll back. There's a subtle pressure, my upper calf into the box. If you don't have that action, you can still think it with the heels on the carriage. Inhale, start. Exhaling. Scoop the belly, scoop the belly. It's as if you're holding the waistline back. Once. Shoulders over, knees. You sit up tall again. Know easy.
I'm all about easy sometimes.
I literally moved it with my legs. It wasn't my arm strength. So something to think about. I push down and forward it, made my calves contact the box a little more. And while that turns out I'm a fishing. After all, inhale, why choose that right leg? Exhale, scoop it in, pull it up right into your face, but you kind of go in towards it a little cause it's tempting to fall back. Inhale, put it down, switch legs, exhale. As the left leg comes up, you can think about trying to push the right leg down, whether it happens or not, it doesn't matter. You're trying.
Roll Back w/Single Leg Extension
Roll Back w/Single Leg Extension and Forward Flexion
This one is the one we're going to change on anchor. Find the calf of the right leg into the box or heel into the mat. Exhale. Come on. Come on. Come on. Keep the waistline pulling back. Inhale down. Same side. Two more.Oh, make sure you're on the box and already, if your feet are on the Kerogen, you're not on a buck. She might have to just lift the heels. I'm not really sure, but otherwise both legs up. Inhale both legs. Oh, okay. We can time that better says me to me. Inner thighs. It's like the legs. Have helium in them. See the toes above your knees right here in this up position. Inhale and exhale.
Teaser Prep
It's like the ultimate teaser per up in the first few exercises. Stay here. Extend the right leg and bring it down. Let's make it more efficient. When I just straighten your legs, sink the belly back or at least breathe out and see if you can make that connection between the breath and the floating leg, both legs. I'll go now all the way and keep holding on. If you're not so far over the box, you can. If you're not really tall, you can actually go into a little extension here.If that stuff I'd like you to wiggle down, it works over the edge of the carriage too. Then we're just going to exhale it. Those springs. I know it's not heavy. Just bring you up to the upper back curve and then reverse that upper back curve. All that's the good stuff. You inhale. Exhale lead with the top of the spine. The top of the spine happens to be your head.
Pretty much not exactly, but let's just imagine and lengthen it. Round it curve. We can come up all the way on this one all the way. All the way instead of tall. Just while we're here because if feels good, cross the straps. First of all does it matter which, which hands on top find what you feel like your shoulders over hips and was almost nothing else. Just the back of the shoulders.
Seated Diagonal Arm Extension
It's like we only pull, well pull only what you have too is what I'm trying to say and then let it go forward. It's just tapping into the back of the shoulder too. We can be so front side dominant cause we can see it and feel it more easily that way. But I'm suggesting back of the shoulders as if they had a spring on them and then when you get back there, go ahead. Squeeze those shoulder blades together. Do it. If your hands are too high, you're going to know it cause you can feel it other than your shoulder blades. Lower the elbows or hands. Squeeze more. Squeeze more.Maybe watch the ribs a little bit. Just squeeze like you're going to touch the elbows behind. You look up and release it all the way down. Right? Let's just take the box off for now. I'll get moral bleak stuff later, but technically they've been involved all along. But the box away, put your springs on for foot and leg work. I'm going to use three red and a blue a. If you have four springs, use four or three. Well at four chords. Hm?
Heels
I said spirit and a blue. Do it right off we go. I like my head rest up most of the time. Not always. Sometimes I like to play with it without it. Right? So we're into the shoulder rest. We feeder parallel and on the heels and I like to do this little push, release, push, release to make sure I feel secure there, but also the sense of drawing the heels downward downward.Just like we pulled the calves into the box. We're just going back and forth. We push out, we come in, we push out. I did pretty good. I want to adjust a little bit. I'm going to kind of go with it and just feel for how I can make myself feel a little straighter and in can we go just a little faster but also finish the extensions of prove it to yourself. Even if you have to look, go all the way to straight. It's not a soft knee and if you hyper extend, yeah, you have a little harder time like me, but you can do it.
You want to feel the contraction on both sides and that initial start of the heel kind of pulling toward the springs can help. Let's do four more
Toes
I'm doing four more from now. Here's one evenly distributed as best you can to pull it back. Oof. Relaxing the neck one more time. Just stay out here. This is the shorter workouts. Women take advantage of. Stir retching the heels underneath.
Heels Lower Lift
I'm going to look at myself for you to look at yourself. Oh my goodness. Fixing my right foot. What about you? I've just looking for basically straight and push. Push, push, push, push. Do it again. Just lower the heels and lift. Okay. And so, so much of what we're doing is just inventory like, oh my gosh, how did my foot do that? And I thought I was cheap. I don't know. But I like checking things out, like feeling Ken, my feet push into the earth or the ground or in this case, the foot bar and me still stay connected to the rest of me rather than leaving it.
Running Prep
Use the left foot to push away up and switch and just hold. I'm not going to do running or prancing right now. I'm just finding the stretch come up high again. One foot at a time, doesn't matter which, put it right on the arch of your foot. Right in the middle. I feel so good.Unless you have a metal bar that doesn't feel good. You might want me to skip this and I'm just needing the bar connecting the bottom of my foot to my self and feeling off. Okay. Supposedly there's good like acupressure points in here. I don't know about that, but sure. Feels good. Bring yourself down. All right, we're going to go come up and take a few springs off.
If not only one. I'm going to take off. Actually, I'm going to go right into AbWorks. I'm taking off to red ones. That leaves me with what I would call medium weight for the handles being in my hands to go into the a hundred picking up the handles. You could put your foot bar down or leave it. I'm going to start with a little resistance. My shoulders are a little bit away from the shoulder blocks, feet together and off the bar of we go. Exhale, reach out. Hold.
Hundred
Then do that thing where you know how we lifted the shoulders earlier. Do the opposite. Reaching so far down, it's just weird. And then catch the strap. Catch the spring, so your shoulders, they don't go up into the blocks or your ears, but they do hold the strap, right? You're not just trying to get them away from it. You're trying to let them be your guide. Raise your arms up. Inhale. Just a little extra push down. You can pump if you want. Inhale up.Exhale, I s I often, I almost always do it this way. Now I don't. I like the pumping, but I feel like I can breathe better. When I feel the handles in my hands, when I feel that the shoulders aren't locked down, when I feel the arms traveling up on that end, he'll exhaling down. Let's do three more. Inhale, blow it all out. That's the goal. Blow it out and do it partly by the shape of your spine, not the arms.
And exhale, maybe you try to come more forward. One more time. Hold it. Curl the upper body up more. Bend the knees and come on down. If you got wedged into the shoulders, move down for coordination. We exhale, curl up, open, close the legs, boom, boom. Bend the knees. Inhale, bring them away and way in today. And exhale up. Start Your inhale right here and keep it. Inhaling as you go down, if you can, exhale up, push, pull up, bring it in and take it down.
Coordination
And again, reach open, close, pull, pull, pull, pull. Both go forward with you. Everybody don't lay back and down last year. Push Bull. So the legs then the biggest part of this. But if you're gonna use them, push against an imaginary sal at last one out in bend and down, feet on the bar, push out, step into your strap. If you need to change your weight, I'm stalling for you. Hurry.
Frogs
All right. In the frog position, again, you don't want to be wedged, but now, particularly with some reformers, the sprints could just pull you in and you're chilling. It's fine if you need it, take it, but rather come to a place where right from me, I could rest totally here if you're looking, but I'm keeping a subtle push going the opposite direction even as I'm moving towards my face with my thighs and then I can push all the way to straight. So here's where I'm talking about, I'm pulling it in. I often call it like an infinity sign of energy. I don't even know if that makes sense, but it's how I visually see it in my body.
I'm pulling the energy in and just before I get to the maximum, I push it back out. So it's that sort of figure eight of not feeling like I'm doing a push and a release. I'm just like, oh, we're done. Then we pull it back.
Let's go to parallel theater together. Rise up a little or almost to 90 and then test to go a little further. She can. If all of a sudden your buck comes up, you've gone too far. If you need to bend your knees a little, I would also say back off, you know, you don't have to go that high, which way we're going. We're going to go down. Exhale,
Leg Circles
And now it's generally a circle, kind of a square if you're newer to it, but it's fluid ultimately. And as you do it, can you leave your spine still?
This is one of those ones that just looks so simple and easy and maybe it is for somebody, but it, it took me about 15 years to ever even find it or I cared enough about it. And the idea that rail always helped us understand is if, I don't know what the idea he would say, but it's that you keep the feet on the same level, that it's really abduction. The inner thigh, right. So I'm not pulling down on the straps or at least I'm trying not to. There are literally sliding in and the only way to do that is to kind of slide and reach rather than just pull. See if that means anything to you and your body.
Open Close Legs
Cause if it does light spring can make your legs absolutely quicker. I'm going to only do one more just to cause that's all I probably can right from there. We're going to play with a little short spine. If your headrest is up, you must put it down a prominent, I'm going to go all the way up, but pert way so I could get crazy. We're going to bend to a frog and here's that thing where you have some resistance pushing away, right? If you just fold in, it's going to be all arms. Your arms are there for help, but you have some resistance.
Short Spine
We're going to peel the spine up, say high shoulder blade and then you can roll the spine down. Just leave the fetus there, roll. And if you plopped down, that's information isn't it? Push out to straight Ben. Let's do that again. I'll make it a little less hard sort of. We're going to, it's like your feet are standing on a wall, right? They're not going to move. You don't get to actually push them away. They Latin I true. They're going to come up with you, but they're not.You're not extending it the knee. Then you're gonna roll down. Take it with you. Try to find the sticky spots. That's probably where you're wanting to fall. If you are, and next time we go, push out. Just straight, bring it back. Keep some sense of tension in this trap. Not your body. Peel up from the tail. Vona. Your feet will travel toward the ceiling.
You get that curve with the spine. You end up with the shoulders over hips. This time we're going to leave the feet here for a while and we roll down. They may lower. That's okay. Roll down, roll down, roll down, get as much of your spine down and as much of your size on your body. Then you get to pull the heels into your bomber towards it and push out. Can we do one more? This bent arms are in chest expansion.
That means basically you're pressing down for support, but no more. We peel up, we let the legs just go with us as we move with the spine in assistance with the spring from here, when to leave the feet over our face is maybe the better way of saying it. They'll lower towards it. Ooh, inner thighs. We'll keep those heels together. Massage that spine down when you've gone as low as you can. The goal is still to get the low back down.
Draw the heels in and push out, right. Bend both knees, take the left strap off our the right doesn't matter. Straighten that leg. Define the foot bar. If yours is still up, take the other strap off. Come on down. We're getting up for a little knee stretch. I'm going to leave the springs.
Round
A lot of people like to go later on a balanced body for grots or someone's with the Bungee cord. I can't think of the name right now, but have one you're going to want to on that so we sit down. If you can sit on your knees, you don't have to. It's just the way I like to get into it. So I find the curve hands are on the bar. I keep sums over on these wider foot bars, heels very much into the shoulder blocks. Scoop the belly to round up and keep that curve. If you feel tight, initial does, you can go wider.You gotta work with yourself in relation to these machines. From here, I'm going to go slow. At first we push the carriage out. I'm trying to keep a curve of the spine from here. I don't just let this spring come in and I allow the shape of my body to let the spring in. So we'll go a little quicker. It's inhale, push and a lot quicker. Actually trying to maintain the stillness of the spine. So when you push out, you're going to find those hamstrings just like you did in the beginning when they were wrapped around the box. Exhale and exhale. We'll do one more. Hold it in all the way. Touch that stopper, prove it unfurl at the hip joint. So you're gonna hinge. Are you gonna stick your butt out, whatever. You have to look at it, but let your body come into, I don't know, straight isn't quite right, but it's neutral but not overly arched. ABS are in same exercise, but you can go further now hindering of the hips instead of the weight.
Arch
Elephant
And then I draw myself forward into my hands. So there's weight both in my feet and the hands and that's all I need to do. Inhale, I push back. Exhale, inhale. It's like again, those feet are not just going up out of the character, but they're pushing down and forward.
Plank w/Inverted V
Just go right into a plank like a hinge to play. So here, this should be an easy place. If you're so far back, don't be. Come back here and next time when you come in, you're going to leave the arms essentially in line with where they were. You fold the body around it, around the shoulders, in the hips. You push out, you hit plank. Boom. Do you feel the back of your legs like you're going to have slide those feet up the shoulder blocks. Exhale, bring it back and inhale. Boom. It's a strong place. I can't help but say boom when I do this. It's a rail as him for sure. Far, far, far more passionate.Usually when he does it, cause he's making a point. I'm trying to to, you hit it. You hold it. We're going to move on. Once you're there, do you feel the back of your legs like you're literally about to do up front support. Drag yourself forward as far as you can. Hopefully do the stopper lift back to pyramid. Hit the blank one. Go forward to lift up three carriage never moved when you get up to three one, take it forward to keep the carriage there. Lift three last one, press go forward, lift up and we'll go to elephant there. You can reverse that for funsies if you want to pause it, but we're going to move on. Heels are down. You can move them forward if you need to, but I'm not so tall.
Up Stretch
Try them down from there. Same thing you press back as if the entire sole of your foot were sliding forward. That's what brings it back. Or you can think lighter and the springs will do it for you, but nothing else gets to move. See this for now? Maybe today as just a breath exercise, not a leg exercise, not a back exercise, not an habit exercise. Just breath. How about one more?
Elephant
Hamstring and Hip Flexor Stretches
But then you can just push the carriage backwards a little. I hope you saw it cause that's all I have. By pushing the foot into the shoulder block and not changing anything else, I'm still going up with the upper body pushing into the carriage and that's enough from me. Some of you are going to be way more flexible than that. Just check that is not in your back from that place. We're not trying to hold that even as we press the forward leg to straight.
Now the trick from me little tighter right now I have to bring the carriage back in a little to get that forward leg straight or more importantly the back straight. So even if I bent my knee a little, yeah, the forward knee a little bit. I'd rather you go for the flat or back and then aim for the front leg to be straight later.
It's not right in the middle. That's just a little too crazy for me. All right. So, um, again, if I took my hands off and felt comfortable with balance, I'm doing this bias towards the posterior Tuck of the pelvis. I'm then thinking down stretch, which we didn't do today, but the idea of this whole line from my knee to the top of my head being one and fluid and not broken in the middle. Then if I have more, and I think I do, I'm going to try to push that back foot into the shoulder block to move the carriage a little and then I got to breathe or that's just tough.
But remember we're aiming both to hang onto with our hands and oh boy for a flat back. Some, I'm just being gentle because I'm not really sure about this leg anymore.
Side Over
We're setting up for aside over or to a, traditionally you're going to cover your shoulder blocks. I'm not, I always feel a little bit better when I don't, but just a, I'm not super tall and my proportions are such that it kind of works out for me. There's, my strap is already on the springs. That's a wise idea to lock them down so you don't have to worry about the carriage moving.
I reach the top like through the strap I'm reaching and pulling up. I'm totally reliant on it. Okay. This bottom arm, the more I use the top leg, the easier it is to get into it. Right. And so for today, just check yourself out. I liked, I'm going to leave the top arm up on the leg. There's versions you can, if you know a different one, do it. I'm holding.
And then you're trying for a straight line versus coming all the way to the top. So if you lose tension on your foot strap, that's a good indication you're losing it. We have three to go. Only
Now if you're really far and you're barely on the box, you definitely want it over the shoulder blocks. That's way more normal than not. But like I said, I learned this by doing it. So hand on the shoulder rest, find your position. Are you a straight as you can be. Top arm on the leg when you're ready, when you take the bottom hand off, nothing moved cause you were ready. We dive down. We come up finding that straight line. When you get this straight line you can kind of levitate a little there.
If you want. Go down again, down, down, down and come back up and inhale. I actually take a couple fingers right there and that all bleak, the side waist and I feel that engaged first so that it's not all leg and we only have two more. Feel that oblique or the breath come first and it just helps you last one before you come up. Start exhaling, see if it matters to you and your leg can almost relax and get longer, but the ABS will do more. There we go. We put the hands behind the head, I believe. Press your head back into your hands. Open those elbows get longer hand down. Come on up. Right.
Pulling Straps
We're going to do the arms with the back so we're just going to turn the box to a long box position.Alright, so what I've done is I've taken this drops off, I'm going to wrap them around, just have a higher grip without pinching my hands and with a little resistance. So I actually did, I didn't have to, but I did. I pulled off the stopper a little bit. I'm thinking straight across the chest, right across the back and for the first few, just pulling down and back. Now when you get back to your body, touch your body or try our, your elbow straight, you might have to look or have someone tell you, straighten them, straighten them, straightened them. And come back down now. Then probably what's most important is nothing to do with the arms.
It's the legs. What are they doing before you do anything that's draw the abdominals up off the box. Just a little. Just be aware of them. You don't have to do much there, but the legs theoretically are on a table. The height of the box, you don't let them drop down and don't let them loose. Super High. Again, this is where you benefit from a teacher or a friend watching you. Exhale, Paul Paul, Paul Street, elbows and down. I'm not lifting my upper back yet. You could and I will, but not yet, so stay with me. Exhale. How energized can you stay in the upper arms as opposed to the hands? It's just not about the hands. If I could wrap the strap around my upper arm, I would and down try for feet together. She can.
Let's add a little bit of upper back extension. You start the arm pull, you start to look forward, you the ribs. Stay on that box, but you start to look out in front of you just a bit and take him back down. Those legs did not get any higher when you did that, right? All right. Lift, lift, lift, lift, pull. Come on. Get those arms close to you. Way closer to you than you think and down only one more like that. We are so close gang. Hang on. When you get up here, roll the shoulders back. Pinch the shoulder blades. Bend the elbows.
Tricep Extension
Only the upper arm does not go down. Straighten fully straightened. Get those knuckles to your feet. Sort of bend. Straighten only three to go. Make it feel evenIt's fine. Last one, let's go. Keep the arms straight. Lower them down with control, with control, with control. Set the straps back on the pigs. Take a second if you need it. That ship me off to the side and just leave the box there like we started. Take a deep breath round. Hands on the corners of the box. Prs Away. Fine that straight line.
Spinal Articulation w/ Box
Notice differences. Notice that ease that you want to lean for, but you're going to keep those hips over your ankles around to come when you're almost all the way and do it again and go out. Start tilting the tailbone up, fine waste space now wasted space. Find space at the waist and then round it. Keep the space but round one more time. We're gonna stay out in this long position. It's okay if your knees are bent, that's fine. Keep the hips over ankles. Then wide elbows.
You bend to allow the box to almost touch the top of your head and you think maybe shoulders drop a little before the arms go to straight. This is not intense. Hopefully Ben, I'm doing two more after that. Here's the one,
Thank you very much.
Pilates with Kristi Cooper: Reformer Workouts
Mention
 |
Kristi Cooper (Teacher) |
 |
Donna H |
 |
Rachel |
 |
Sarah M |
 |
Adrian D |
 |
Rena W |
 |
Jennifer S |
 |
Mirna |
 |
Terrip88* |
 |
Margie N |
 |
Jo D |
 |
Patti S |
 |
Oksana P |
 |
Trinjia D |
 |
AnnS |
 |
Cristina P |
 |
Silke L |
|
|
Lori H |
|
|
Kelly M |
 |
Sarah Jane Conrad |
|
|
Nicola F |
 |
Christina P |
 |
Elizabeth D |
 |
Sally Anderson |
|
|
Stacy B |
 |
Jackie H |
 |
Connie M |
 |
Natalia H |
 |
Laura C |
Comments
You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.
Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.
