Hip and Shoulder Tower

Hi, I'm Trent Macintyre. Welcome to tower for hip and shoulder balance. So we have two different setups today. We have one set up with regular springs and straps and another setup that has archivists, a piece of equipment that I've developed that works beautifully with the tower. So we'll get two different ways to do the same exercise as we go through. So if you don't have an Arcas you can follow over here. And if you do, you can follow over here. Let's get started by facing the tower.

We'll do a half rollback if you have the straps or to slide your hands to this strap so they kind of cinch onto your wrist. And with [inaudible] just hold on to a narrow grip. Soles of the feet together. Just find a nice vertical spine so you have even weight on your hips. Nice relaxed shoulders. Take a nice breath in through your nose there and you're just gonna roll the pelvis about halfway back just to start to get the pelvis to roll off of your femurs. Nice job and just hold it there. Take a nice full breath in like that.

And you're going to curl, curl forward, nice and easy. Find Vertical right up on your sit bones. Easy collar bones there. Nice breath in like that. And here we go. Pelvis rocks, back. Go halfway down. Let the arms escape the neck. Escape the shoulders, reaching forward. Full breath in like that, and just XL, the deep in the AB connection.

Crow forward. Rocking yourself back up to vertical. Nice, easy. Collarbones just at the morast right there. Nice breath in there. And again, rock the pelvis back about halfway down. Good. Now stay there and just take another breath like that and let the knees Kinda hang open a little bit. The hips are easy. Take another breath. Give yourself a chance to get even a deeper round shape without putting a lot of pressure. Just finding some room to warm up. Nice. Full breath in like that.

And then curling forward there. Right back up on your sit bones. Easy in the hips. Knees, real heavy. Two more. And rock back through the pelvis. Curl about halfway down. Keep sending energy through the elbow so the arms, regional way from the shoulders and the shoulders. Reach away from the neck. So you have room to breathe and room to move the ribs and neck.

Nice breath in there. And then curling forward. Take your time. Nice and easy. Find Vertical. Last one right here. Inhale. Exhale, rock that pelvis back off of the femurs. Heavy knees, arms long, shoulders away from the neck. Beautiful. Nice breath in like that. And then curling forward. Nice and tall. Sit bones down. Head floats up like a hot air balloon. Nice. Let's change two straight legs within being parallel about shoulder width apart.

Just relax the feet for now so we're not pointing them or flexing them hard to, they're just hanging out their arms reaching long here. If you have an arch is you're gonna let your arms go a little bit wider. Take a nice breath and like this and you can roll back in three. So divided out in three parts. Pelvis rolls back one part and then you're going to hold it for a breath. Good.

And in the second part, breathe in there. Your third part, don't let your lower back touch the it real close to your lower back. Good. Inhale like that. On the exhale, you're going to curl forward. Come right up on your sit bones and on purpose. Flex those feet back. Pull the toes way back towards your face. Find vertical good, and then relax the feet and roll back in three sections. Pelvis rocks back one. Hold it there. Breathe in. Exhale, roll back to send those legs away from your pelvis. Hold it there.

Breathe in third section and pull the pelvis away from the femurs. Just shy of the lower back touching. Take a breath in right there and then curl it forward. Find vertical through the spine. Flex the feet back, driving those heels across the mat. Good and again, relaxed the feet. Roll back on and roll back to, and third one here. Good. Full breath in like that.

Curl forward. You're going to flex the feet here at the top, driving the heels heavy. Collarbones good last time. Relax the feet. Roll back in. Three sections. Pelvis, rocks back. One full of breath there, and two beautiful. One more almost to the low back. Three full breath and like that. Increased the curve gently to come up. Keep those abdominals narrow. Fine. The Sit Thomas, find Flexi feet back, driving the heels across the mat.

Good. And then relax the feet. They're good. If you have the artists you can allow the hands to go a little bit wider, which is going to give us a little bit more feedback to the thoracic spine so we can open that up and create some more room. So full roll down here. So inhale, just feel the collarbones arrest XL, rock the pelvis back and let that lead your spine all the way down. Legs are heavy, feet are relaxed all the way down to the head. And just stay there for a moment so you can get a sense what that feels like on the mat. A sense of the springs and the archivists allowing the arms and shoulders to escape the neck. Gently take a full breath in like that.

And then your Xcel is going to bring you up. So lift your head easy. Drop the ribs through to the basement. Keep curling up and find your sit bones nice and tall. If you just stay relaxed. Beautiful. Take a breath in like that. Here we go. Pelvis back off the femurs. Keep us thighs parallel so you're not letting them rule out so you're not getting into squeezing in your butt. You're just keeping those parallel.

Beautiful. Full breath in here. Stay here for the exhale. Allow the arms just to reach along. Another breath in there. Start with the exhale that lifts your head, that drops your ribs, the basement. You keep narrowing your Donald's to bring it all the way up. Nice John. Find the sit bones. Good, nice and tall. Full breath and like that.

Rolling all the way down. We're going to add on, so come on back the same way to get down there. Okay. Now while you're here, if you have the straps your palms are facing in towards your body with case, you'll just keep holding onto the wood. We're going to inhale and slide the shoulders up toward the ears. You're bringing them up so you really elevate the shoulders and then exhale.

Let the arms and shoulders get pulled by the springs and the artists do. They come away from the collarbones away from the neck to more like that. So they lift up on the inhale. Exhale, reach it away. Good. Anyhow, glided up, reach it away, hold it there for the next breath in. So your exhale starts. Then the head lifts here, ribs down. Keep rolling up to five vertical. Good, nice and tall. We're going to add the feet here. Just point your feet down, away from you, rolling back all the way here. Keep those feet very active now.

So we're actively pushing the feet in one direction while you pull the pelvis in the other. So even as you're rolled on, the feet are still pushing away from you, so you get that extra ankle length to help pull the femurs and thighs open. Good gliding the shoulders up three times. It's inhale drama and they go down in a way from the neck and shoulders and again, glided up. Listen to your body for the range. Don't force anything to move it. Just let it glide. One more up. Any glides away. Inhale there.

Use the breath to let the head float up. Drop the ribs down. Comes all the way up. Flex the feet for a set, keep them flex, pulled back very strong the whole time. Here we go. Pelvis, rocking back. Roll it all the way down. Beautiful. Three glides. Here we go. Inhale. Glide it up and glad it out in a way. Okay, one more time. Glide it up. Oh that XL out.

Hold it there for the inhale. Use The exhale first. Then the head lifts, curling through Cuba's feet. Flex the whole time. Nice and tall. Good. Now just relax the feet for the last set. Roll all the way down. It starts the same way. We're going to add on some bonus arm work here. So now we're going to pull the archis and the straps towards you.

So on that exhale, let your elbows go wide. And if you have the archis, ideally it touches lightly at the bottom of the ribs in heel all the way straight. We're doing five. Here we go. Too. Good. You can. You put a little bit lower just so it just touches the bottom rim. That kind of gets the whole shoulder girdle in, in the right place for you. Nice. Good. You got it. When you finish your fifth one here, roll it up.

Head first. Fine. Vertical. Good. Rolling down faster, pulling faster for the last set. Here we go. All the way down, pulling one and two, three, four. Nice. Five long arms. Take a breath there. Use The exhale to float the head. Drop the ribs to the basement. Bring it up. Nice and relaxed there. Good.

We're going to change to a bleak reach here. They're going to have your right hand on the center of the archis. You'll put your right hand in both straps. You can go all the way through and grab on to the thread. You got it. Good. So your left arms reaching underneath the archis or underneath the straps.

You're in hell like this and you're actually going to twist to your left and tip over onto your left hip and see if you can touch the floor. They're really long spine. They're beautiful. Breathe in while you've got it there, and then exhale, come all the way back up. We're just reverse that pathway. Hand comes back underneath the archis and strap. Inhale, prep. Exhale.

Take a little rotation and then dive over, reach and find. Nice job. Let's keep the abdominals narrow. Pelvis alive and bring it all the way back up. Good. And then you help prep. Exhale, rotate and lean like you're leaning out of a canoe into the water. High five or fish wire down there. Come all the way back up and center. Good. And again, inhale there. Exhale, churn, dive od of a canoe. Breathe in. Why are there nice job and all the way back up.

Changing sides. Left hand on top or through the straps. So you have two springs and [inaudible] one hand. Yep. Right hand underneath and take your rotation so you have that rotate tip off into the one hip, right hand into the water breathing wire there. Come all the way back up. Okay. And just making sure that you have the legs about shoulder with the part that'll give you some rooms. When you're tipping off, you still have a nice base of support that they're too narrow to feel a little too wobbly. Rotate tip over onto that hand. You got it.

But the hip come up right off the mat and that left side and then return. Good. Anyhow, prep XL, turn to the right over that left hip tip off the mat a little bit. Good. Breathe. Why are there all the way back up? You got it returned to home. Good. And again in hell. Prep XL term and a dive. Nice job, Ian Hill. Why are there x come, come all the way back up.

Nice. Rest right there. Good. We'll go one strap on each hand. And then for the archivists you can leave it right there. We're gonna Hook this here. We're going to have this here and you'll take your hand through there with that central round and cinch around. And then for you you're going to walk way back. So you get a room pretty good distance back.

You want to walk a little bit further back so you get some snug springs. So knees are bent, feet are on the mat and you're gonna lean back about halfway down with a really neutral long spine. So we're trying to get your full length and your spine eyes reaching up over the tower there. So you get that whole upper back is real long as well. Exactly. So you're going to keep your straps still and you're gonna keep the archist still. And what's moving is your spine. So the pelvis leads in the exhale, you're going to curl through and around your spine, keeping the archis still keeping your straps in a space hold. Let your eyes come all the way down to you're looking down towards your pelvis and then you go tail to head, back to your start position. That neutral exactly.

This right here. Keep the straps into space hold and your spine moves. Lead to the pelvis. Here we go right there. Back. Sync the ribs back down behind you. Eyes come down. Yeah, towards your hips. Good in health tail first. Find that long spine on the diagonal, the arms reaching forward with the archis forward with the straps. And again, pelvis leading. Curl it back. Nice job. So you're trying to create as much space between you and the artists as possible. Good tailed ahead and bring it back. A good givers arms reaching forward way out of there. Yeah, it was better that way. And Pelvis first. Here we go.

Oh, good retailers. Arms forward. Put the ribs back behind you. So if you have those straps are going to go this forward. Miss back to sync. Back through here. Yes. [inaudible] good. Two more up through. Neutral on that diagonal arms reaching forward. Okay. And then curl it back. I'm drifting forward. Yeah.

One more time. Tilt the head. Inhale to bring it up tall. Keep those arms reaching forward. You got it. We all need teachers in our life. Me especially, and come all the way back up, sitting tall guy. Just rest yourself coming forward. Take a break there for a second. Hmm. Good. So the same set up for the next one. We're going to do a little oblique twist.

So find your half lean first. Hmm. And you're going to bend your left elbow and lean out of the canoe again, looking over your shoulder into the water. Exactly. You got it. Come through center. Stay on the liens. You're not going to sit up again and then over to the right so you can over look over the shoulder, over the hand and come back to center.

Good income a little further out. That'll feel a little bit juicy. You're there. Yep. And then shifting, just let the archis kind of tell you how to twist there. Exactly. Through center and to the right in health or center. Exhale to the left. Good through center. Not a huge twist. A little bit more of a lean. Less of a twist. Good. I'm going to travel. Yeah.

Remember those fish your high five earlier. You've got to go back and say hi. Left side over. Beautiful. There you go. Through the center, right side over and that elbow. Little bit on that side. Okay. Okay. Two more. Each side. Oh, over law. Yes. Good and over. Take that elbow over. Look over into the water. You got it. [inaudible] center. Center left.

Nice job center last time to the right here. Bend the elbow, look it over. Find the middle hold here, take a breath and then go head first and just round yourself forward. Relaxed, tall. On your spine there. Nice job. Let's change the feet and straps. Takes Fan. Okay, so if you have the archivists, we use two straps and these happened to be good citizens straps, which make specific straps for artists. If you don't have these, you can use whatever strap you can attach to the archis.

They just make it a little more convenient, so you'll just use your regular straps, put on your feet there, go on line, you're back. Okay, you can't get your own feet in, but I'm just going to show you. We'll thread the straps so that each foot has a real secure setting. Good. Now, if you don't have an artist, then you're going to hold on overhead. You'll use the uprights to give yourself a little bit of stability, especially with the heavier springs. With your [inaudible], you're not gonna hold on.

The Springs get dispersed a little bit differently so you don't have to brace with the shoulders a little more as as much bring legs up a little higher to start. Just go straight legs in parallel to begin and you'll have your legs apart about hip distance or so par. Good, so you do an abandoned stretch here. The legs won't touch, but you can try to get them to bend equally. Coming in, flexing the feet, press it out. You're going to point those arches over the straps again and again. Flex it in good and it out. Push the few over the straps. Good. In terms of alignment in your body, if you have, if you're working without an Marcus, let's have your hands a little higher on the bar there.

Give yourself a little push into the bar and let your tailbone come along on the mat. Yeah. Did you hear that? Your spine was like, thank you. And just to give you a little bit more options here, you could make this a little more challenging, but by just taking your arms up in the air, I can just float up there. That really makes the work have to go to the abdominals. Good. Keep going there. So two good options. Good. Now if your feet get crampy on this or you get your calves get crampy in this, you can just let your feet kind of relax. You don't have to make them work.

Each time you push out, you could down down level that a little bit if you want to. Good. Let's call it out straight here for a second. Okay. And then do three more together. So you bend in, flex XL, press it out in points. Good. And bring it here. Beautiful. Nice and long. See how long legs can get once they're straight, there's another half an inch there to reach. Yeah, one more time. Beautiful. All the way straight. Stay out there.

Now we're going to bring the heels together and externally rotate a little bit. Hold the heels together, bend and stretch. Flex the feet as you come in. And then you're gonna press it out. And in terms of the rotation, just about half your full rotation. I don't want you cranking your turnout to ban just some rotation, but not your maximum above half. Good. Good. And what the arc is, you can add a little down press at the end of it there to help with those femurs come out of the hips.

Or if you're like me and your femurs live like up by your neck, you might need a little extra reach. Good. Flex it in, get a long reach. Use the feet to pull the shins. Use the shins to pull the femurs so you have a chain reaction. You're using that kinetic chain to create the space in the joint as you go out. So it's not really a leg presses as much as I joined opener so those hips can be freed up so it's getting back to the theme. What you're looking for here with that hip and shoulder balance.

We want those hips to have freedom. Yeah, two more like that. Nice breath in this way and an Xcel reaching long. One more time. Bring it in. Cool and long. Good. Rest your legs right there for a second. Now we're going to do an outer hip exercise here. If you have the archis, we won't make any changes, but if you don't have the art, you can use a strap and tie it around.

Or if you have one that's already a closed loop, you can just wrap it around your legs before you put the straps on. So it gives you some resistance to work against. Okay. You get coordination points if he can do all of that by yourself. So all right, so both legs go straight out to start and you can use the same hand grip overhead there. Yep. Good. Now you notice that we have about a mid or upper calf placement for the resistance. So that's what you're looking for. We don't want them to be so hard, but you can't move your legs, so be mindful of that, that you just about halfway up your shins are a little bit higher than that.

Okay, so we're going to open the legs. As for why does they'll go, if you have the archis, you'll feel there's a, there's a limit to how far that'll go and you're going to dig into that limit. And for the band, you just feel when it gets thick, listen to your body. They're like a little bit wider than the shoulders. And then bring your legs together so you get zero resistance. Good. And then open here. So we're gonna ideally stay parallel to start with. Good.

And then bring all of it together. Staying parallel. Good. So if your band gets slack when your legs come in, you can just go as far as you can before it gets slack on you. Exactly. Good. Good. Now let's point the feet real strong. We're adding that level [inaudible].

Press it out and bring it back in. Now we're going to exhale the press out. 500 right here we go. And all of it together and press it together a little bit. If you can press it, ouch to and bring it in. Good. Those feet, pull the shins. Pull the femurs. Yeah, so you're not holding a shape of the leg, but you're using the feet to pull that chain reaction out. Again, finish your fifth one here. Nice. So you can open like this, just like this. It opens in parallel.

But now when you close, we're going to spiral and externally rotate to close. Then internally, rotate first, then open. Extremely rotate and close. Internally rotate and open. You can bring your legs down a little bit. Lower. Yas will juice. You're down there like I know. That's why I was up higher.

Turn out and close. Good. Spiral into open. Spiral out to close. Nice job. Finish the one you're on. You're good. That's beautiful. Bonus. Take a break. Let's let your legs bend in for a second. Breathe that for a second. It's good.

Good. So long ago was your next, so press your legs out all the way. We're gonna give another arm option if you have the archis, which is just to reach your arms overhead. So you went from that, that ceiling, reach to overhead reach, and you might want to go just to kind of higher than the bar there. So you're, you're not quite hanging back in the joint, but you have a little arm weight to work against and you have to almost there. Okay, so let's start with the legs to your bottom. Whatever your bottom is yet. That's good. They're good until you have archivists.

Your bottom is can be a little bit lower than if you're just free sprung there. So be mindful of that and if you're, if you're watching any wondering what the differences are. This when you have a little bigger range, so don't go quite this low if you don't have the artists. So long ovals, we're going to bring the legs up first and we're going to close them to push down. So we'll go. Inhale up, exhale down, inhale up, exhale down. Use the feet gently, but definitely keep a skeet pointed so those arches are reaching over the strap and the shins and the knees are working to help pull the femurs out of the lower back. Let that tailbone release over a cliff a little bit so that our lower back can be long [inaudible] and let's speed it up and comes up to down to up. [inaudible] good. Watch those that parallel. Do not let them turn out.

Don't let your goods take over so much. Nice job. Real smooth, nice, smooth, even motion. Hold it down. Reverse it coming up. Open Up. Stay parallel. Oh, hope. Listen to your body and the springs for to make them match it evenly as possible. So both legs have a similar tempo, a similar timing. Check your neck and jaw. Make sure that you're not doing Polonius from your jaw. Nice job. Keep that tempo.

Two more good, Ben. Done right there. Rest good. You can take the strap off your legs there and we'll slide these off. Okay, we're going to go to some single leg work. Next, I'm going to take two of these straps off and we're just going to take the two straps, thread them through. So when you put them on your feet, you have one behind the ankle and one around the arch secured that way. Exactly. You got it.

So you want to have your leg straight up to the sky and then check the spring tension. So if you're, if your leg is being straight up for you is a loose spring, you want to slide down to make that spring tighter. If you don't have this range of motion, then you might, your, your leg might look something like this to be at your top. So whatever your top is, you just want to have the springs slightly engaged to start. Good. You might winnowed down just a little bit more look. Okay. All right.

So you have just a little pressed on a spring so your hamstrings can say hello. Good. And then we do windshield wipers. So the leg is going to come across the body keeping the pelvis where it's at, just to like move in the hip, find that maximum range across the body. Come up through center and it's going to travel slowly out to the side. Exactly. You got it up through center.

We're going to come across the body and what we'll do is inhale up through center, exhale to go open. Inhale up center, exhale to go across. Keep pressing occur. Yeah. And Open up their center and have a little sense of that hip reaching down towards your other ankles. So the leg gets in the strap, that same hip.

We want to make sure that that's not shortening up, that it's reaching down toward the other ankle slightly. Yeah, just to give yourself equal room and your lower back there. Inhale up. Exhale. Aqura good back through center. We do high circles here. So let's cross the body, push down a little open and around five each way. That's one. And here's to keep in the spring tension. If you can, three, four, nice five and reverse it and around. Get the left hip, reaching down toward the right ankle.

Yeah. Good. And if you don't have enough to do, you could always bring your arms up in the air and reach them overhead again. It's good. Good. Relax right there. Bend your knee, take a break there for a second. Yeah. Okay. Let's take a nice stretch across the body here. So if you have the archis, you'll take the right hand on the outside. Good. And just guide the leg across the lake can just hang on the spring and your hand. You can just use Arcos to support it.

We don't have the art cause you can just grab the strap wherever you can reach there. If you have a hard time reaching that strap, you could always put on another strap. It's lower the hold onto like an extra handle, kind of like a subway handle to kind of grab onto [inaudible] sure. To keep your pelvis square though. So this hip stays on the mat if you can. So you can kind of back out of us is just in the hip. Thank you. So keep breathing into that.

Okay. And we're going to add a little flex foot here. So drive that heel. You got it. So it's actively reaching. It's not passively hanging there, but you're actively reaching through it. Hmm. One more breath there. Return to center.

Good. So take this foot out other foot in. This is where we're glad we're not an octopus. We only have to do it twice. Okay, good. So let's find that little pressure down. So you have a little micro spring pressure. Now that we're on the right side, you want to make sure that that right hip is reaching down towards your left ankle. So the pelvis is square and there's no, there's no side bending in that, that waist there. Okay. Windshield wipers come across the body anyhow.

Come up through center Xcel to open away from the body, inhale up through center and across the body and open up and across. Ah, good. I don't forget. You can bring your arms up in the air, you can reach them overhead. There's a lot going on, but if you want a little more sense of having to create a survival of the exercise where you react a little bit more organically, having the arms off the table puts a little more work into your abdominals, into your pelvis. Little more unexpected responses along the way in health center and open. Good and open up through center. Hi circles here. Five each way. Cross. Push it down around one. They're real high in the air, so that real blow it all to just let that hip glide lower backstage. Pretty quiet.

The jaws easy. Let that breath escape each time. Finish your fifth one and reverse it so it goes open around one and open around to keep that right hip. Reaching down to the left ankle so that waist stays long. Good. You should. The collarbones are easy. Finish your fifth one. Nice.

Now we're going to go across the body for hip stretch here so you can take your left hand on the ArcGIS, keeping your hip down, keeping that right hip, reaching down towards your left ankle. Good. Listen to your body. So if you need to ease out of it, if it's too much, feel free to do that. Everybody on the trains jealous that you're doing this and they're not. Keep reading into that. Keep pushing that right hip down to the left ankle. Good.

And then add the foot flexing. So you're gonna drive that heel out that's active. And if that means you have to back out of the stretch a little bit, that's okay too because I want you to feel like you really have that foot supporting the drive of the leg so we can free up the hips. Good and relax out of it there. Nice job. So both feet long underneath you here.

Just stay flat for a moment. What's nice after all that work is just to let your legs kind of flop in and out. So your toe, your big toes kind of bang and they go back and forth. And just so that the quads and the hamstrings are just loose, loose meat on the bone and kind of a thing. Good. And then just take one breath in while you're moving and then when you exhale, just let them rest right there. That should feel good. Good. It's roll to your side to sit up for me here. So nice and easy.

Good. We're going to do a kneeling cat next. So we're going to make a little change here to set up. We'll take your Arkis back up to your arms springs. Come on the inside here. So we'll kneel facing that way and you'll just hold on to the straps from behind. Exactly. Hmm.

You're gonna look a little post up off straight arms and lean into it slightly. That's plenty. Then go tail to head. You're going to curl the spine, round your spine into a ball. Exactly. And then tilt the head back out to neutral. Good. And then again, exhale, rock the pelvis. If you have the straps, you can bring them a little bit forward so that the springs a little bit off your arms. Yeah, that's it. So there are a little more free there. Xcel the curl through it. Find that deep curl arms are doing. Lots of pushing forward and then tails ahead.

Keep your arms pushing forward the whole time. Good. Three more round the spine. Curl through and then tail to head. Back out to neutral. Looking out on the table. Yeah. Good tail to head. Beautiful. Lots of leg work here. You're doing great. Last one. Good bye. Got To neutral. Good. Bring everything back to home.

Rest right there. Good. Yeah, those are tough. Okay. Have a seat and spin around to face the tower and we'll finish with a nice roll down, straight legs, arms long and you can loop right back to those straps again. We'll go straight legs in parallel about shoulder width apart. Good. Here's your inhale. Xcel rolling the pelvis back little bit faster. You got it.

Just so you can make a comparison to when you first started versus the end of class. Take a breath in. Let the breath lead to head movement. It starts, then the head goes, the ribs dropped to the basement. Nice. That should feel different than the beginning. It looks different, that's for sure. I'm just fine. Vertical collarbones are rested. Inhale, exhale a little faster. Pelvis rolls back. Take it all the way down. Good. Inhale there. Exhale, curl. Head up, ribs down. Good, fine, vertical. Last one here. Curl it back. Peel through. We're gonna stay here. Five pulls of the arms, and you notice we have the archis flipped to the other direction for this roll down, just to show the versatility, but when it's flipped, you can pull.

The arc is so solo that the center of it wraps around the bottom ribs, gives you a little greater range of motion in your shoulders. Good. Finish your five total good. Then back to straight arms, and then the breath lifts the head, the ribs drop to the basement, curl up and tall, and your spine. Good, and you're all done. Nice work. Okay.