Stabilizing Reformer

Go ahead and move your rib cage towards the foot bar. Hang out there and then keep your ribs really open your rib cage as you side bend. And now continue to circle your body around, try and maintain tension on the springs, come back to the other side and then come right back up. And again, go ahead and translate towards the foot bar. Keep your ribs there as much as you can. Take your buddy into a side bend and then circle around. Come back to your side and then come right back up. Do that once more.

Go ahead and translate away and then take your body into a side bend, circle your upper back around, and then come right back up. And then let's replace the strap and turn around to the other son. Okay, so now take your front strap and then go ahead and flip it on your elbow. Again. Bring your hands behind your head and now start to translate your rib cage towards the foot bar. Really try and make sure you have pure translation and then again translate towards the foot bar and then come right back.

Do that once more. Translate towards the foot bar. And now keep your rib cage there. As you start to side bend away from the foot bar. Feel each rib open as you circle around through the center, come back towards the foot bar and then come right back. And then again, move your rib cage towards the foot bar. Take yourself up and over into a side bend, maintain that side Bend, circle around, come back to the other side, and then come right back up.

Do that once more. Translate away from the foot bar, translate towards the foot bar. And then circle around and then come right back up. Now replace your strap, and then you're going to come and grab your box and your bump on your ball and place them on the reformer with one red spring still. So play some lengthwise, and then come and take your foot bar just all the way down just to get it out of the way. And then you can just put your ball sort of right into the springs there. [inaudible] okay, so once you're there, you're just going to slide all the way forward on your box as far as you can. If you're tall, you can put some blocks on the headrest.

And then I just want you to lie all the way down and bring your hands behind your head. Now you're gonna use your hands to support your head. And then I want you to just find your neutral spine and then go ahead and bring one leg up into tabletop and then bring the other leg up to meet it. Now from here, relax your feet towards your butt and then start to lower both legs down towards the floor as low as you can until you start to feel the springs and then bring them right back up. So you're really focusing on taking your femurs towards extension, maintaining the position of your spine. If you'd like to work in posterior, you can go ahead and work in posterior here, but I prefer to work in neutral for this particular exercise because it really challenges you as you bring your legs into more of a neutral standing position. Let's do about three more of these.

One last one, and really maintain your lower abdominals, mason wide and flat, and then bring your feet all the way down towards the foot bar. And then you're going to come on up to sit. So now you can sit a little bit more normally on your box and then take your ball and put your ball just right behind the base of your shoulder blades. And then once you're there, bring your hands behind your head and then start to extend your body all the way back and really feel your rib cage open as you do now. From here, nod and Krill your head and shoulders and feel your bottom ribs sink down into the ball as you curl up just to about neutral and then extend all the way back and then again, not in Krill. Feel your bottom ribs sink into the ball.

Feel almost as if the ball swings back. Fill your shoulder blades, really draw down your back and then extend all the way back. Let's do that three more times. As you're here. You can really look at your abdominals, look at your lower pelvis and make sure that your lower abdominals are not puffing up towards the ceiling. As you curl up, continue to feel like your pelvis gets a little wider and a little flatter every time you not in curl on this next one, go ahead and stay up. I know rotate to the rate and then you're going to extend your body all the way back as you do. Circle all the way out and around.

Curl up towards the left and then come back to the center and I'll raise it to the left and then circle all the way back. Fill your whole spine, mobilize as you do. Yeah, crow all the way back up and come to the center and again, rotate and then extend all the way back. Circle around and then come right back up. And then next time rotate to the left. Circle all the way back and around. Curl up to the right and come right back up. Now pause here, reach your arms forward, and then exhale and circle and curl up a little bit more.

Good. Okay, let's come on off. Take your ball down for just a moment and then you're going to come to the back end of your reformer. And then I just want you to keep one red spring on. You're going to put your hands on your reformer and now go ahead and push your box out. And as you do really reach the carriage away, fill your body, get long. Feel your shoulder blades. Really draw down your rib cage. This is going to come in handy in a moment, and then let the carriage come in as you curl your spine and then go ahead, exhale and send the carriage back out. And then let the carriage come in. As you curl. Do that once more, send the carriage back out, and then let the carriage come in as you curl.

Now this time is you send the carriage out, you're gonna let your spine reach out. And now I want you to arch as the carriage comes in and then press the box back out again. Okay. And now as you are to feel like just your upper back above your bra line, or really your upper thoracic is going into extension. And then press right back out. And then one more time, fill your upper chest arch and then let the carriage come all the way back in.

So now take the box off [inaudible] and you're going to keep one red spring and come back onto your reformer. So now come onto your hands and knees. Bring your feet just right against the shoulder blocks and stack yourself up so that your shoulders are directly over your wrists. Now from here, I want you to keep your collarbones wide. Keep your shoulder blades wide. Really feel like the bottom tips of your shoulder blades are buried on your rib cage. And now I want you to press the carriage out from your arms only. Okay, and then come right back in. And then again, same thing.

Really try to isolate your shoulder's moving without input from the rest of your body. So your pelvis is stable, the relationship of your torso to your legs is the same, just your shoulder joint is articulating. Let's go for two more of these. Now come back in, keep the carriage home and then extend your right arm out in front of you at the cane school. We call these super stable Frankenstein exercises and then you're going to press out just from the left arm and then come right back in. So now you won't be able to press out as far, but your goal is to really maintain your body stable while your shoulder joint articulates.

Do One more. Okay. And then switch arms. Extend your other arm out in front of you. Fill your shoulder blade and your collarbone nice and wide and then press the carriage out as you do. Try to keep the base, the bottom tip of your shoulder blade as flat as possible on your rib cage so that just the shoulder joint is articulating. Do One more.

Replace your hand. And now switch sides. Again. Extend your right arm out and now you're going to go ahead and extend your left leg back behind you. Now stay here for a moment and try and really maintain your organization. Make sure your pelvis is level and even, and now send the carriage out from your arm again only and then come right back in. These going to be smaller and I want you to really see if you can maintain your pelvis and your torso as stable as possible. Again, with only the shoulder joint articulating.

Give yourself one more and then bring your hands down. Bring your foot down and then switch sides. Let your left arm come out. Extend your right leg, hang out there. Make sure your pelvis is square and then go ahead and press out from your arm. Okay. Try to isolate just the shoulder moving in the socket.

I'm in. Bring your arm and leg back down. So now if you're on a balanced body, you're going to add a yellow spring. But if you're on a grot or um, a Grad serous stop machine, you can keep your red spring. So add your spring and then go ahead and come and light on, on your back. And we're going to do a little breakdown of coordination. We're going to keep the foot bar down for now and you can have your head rest up or down, depending on what your preferences. Take your strops, keep your feet down on the platform first. And now I want you to separate your arms just slightly wider than the shoulder blocks. And now start to press her arms forward just about three inches. So you have some tension on the spring, but your urms aren't going down.

So now from here, without changing anything in your pelvis, I want you to bring your own right leg up to tabletop, extend that leg out at 45 degrees, and now without letting your pelvis move, let it open onto the side about three inches. And then bring it right back in. And again, let it open out. Try to open it without turning out, and then come right back in one more time. And then bend your knee, replaced your foot, extend your left leg up to tabletop, and then stretch it out in line with your other leg. Pause there. Let your leg open out to the side, and then bring it right back in again. And then bring it in once more, and then bring it in.

And then bend your knee, replaced your foot, bring your right leg up to tabletop, hold it there. Bring your left leg up to meet it without letting the carriage move. Send your right leg out, pause there. Let your leg open out to the side and then bring it right back in. And again, really trying to emphasize your pelvic stability as you go. Don't let anything tip. And then bend your knee right back in.

Switch legs, extend your leg out, let it open onto the side, and then floated in and again, once more. And then bend your knee right back in. Now this time, extend both legs out at 45 degrees. Hang out there. Let your right leg only open out to the side three times and I'll let your left leg open out to the side three times. Ben both knees back in. Exhale, nod and curl your head and shoulders. Press your arms down for a more traditional coordination. Send both legs out.

Let both legs open in and out. Three times. Yeah, bend your knees, Bend your elbows and relax your head. So now bring your feet back down. You're going to take your left strap and put it on your right foot. And then once it's there, you're just going to go ahead and bring both legs into tabletop. Now from here, extend your right leg straight out just like you're marching.

And then bend your knee right back in. And as you bend in, really pay attention to the fold that your pelvis. Find that hip crease as much as possible. Try to maintain a nice level torso. You can put your hands on your hip crease if you need to, just to see if you can really feel that articulation, that crease increasing as your knee comes in towards you. Now leave your leg straight and now start to float it up towards the ceiling.

Yeah, and then press right back down and do the same thing. Keep your leg in its own lane. Try not to let it get pulled over in towards your midline. Let's do two more of these and then let your leg float right back up towards the ceiling. And now without doing anything to your pelvis, let your leg circle out and around.

Make your circle as big as you feel like you are able to control it. If you can really control it as it goes around. Great. [inaudible] do one more in this direction and then reverse the circles. [inaudible] now come back up through the center flex foot and lower the pedal the carriage down. Bend your knee in, and then reach your leg up towards the ceiling. And again, start to lower down. And now bend your knee in, hold your femur where it is as you extend your lower leg up towards the ceiling.

Do One more. Okay. And then bring your foot down onto the platform. Take the strap off, and then switch. Put your strap on your left foot, and then once you're there, go ahead and just stack your pelvis up. And now go ahead and extend your leg out just like you're marching.

And then bend your knee right back in. Really feel your hips fold as your knee comes in towards you. And as you're there, try and maintain your spine without imprinting your spine onto the mat. So you really have a nice neutral in this position. Let's do two more of these and now reach your leg back out, keep it straight, and then let it start to hinge up towards the ceiling.

And then press right back down. And then do that again. Just really feel your hip full. Do. You can put your fingertips right there so that you can feel the articulation of your hip as your leg reaches up towards the ceiling. Do two more of these on this. Next one. Keep your leg up and then start to circle it out and around. Really fighting to maintain the stability of your pelvis as your leg opens.

And like I said before, it doesn't need to be a huge circle. You want to allow your leg to open as much as you feel like you have control over your leg master Facili so it's okay. [inaudible] do one more and then reverse the circles [inaudible] and you'll find that one side is really different from the other side and that's okay. That's totally normal. [inaudible] now start to lower your leg straight down towards the center, bend your knee in towards you, and then reach your leg up towards the ceiling and then press back down again and then bend your knee in. And as you straighten it, really control the articulation of your knee going into extension. Don't just let it slam in. Keep it really smooth.

[inaudible] [inaudible] and do one more. And then take your foot out of the strap, [inaudible] bring the carriage in, and then come on up to sit. And now you're going to put your foot bar back up and keep your red in your yellow springs. And you want to put your foot bar just around, just around the middle and then come and lie down on your side with your head rest up. Or if you need a pad, you can put a pad underneath your head. So now place your heel on the very flat edge of the foot bar there, so your leg is a little bit in front of you.

And then stack your pelvis up so that both Ellia or one on top of the other. Make sure there is space underneath your bottom wastes that you're really lifted off the mat and not collapsed down. And now from here, you're just going to go ahead and rotate your leg up towards the ceiling without changing your pelvis at all. Pause there. And then I want you to take your foot off just an inch and then bring it right back down and then turn back to parallel. And then again, turn out. Don't let your pelvis move. Take your foot off an inch and then bring right back down and then come back to parallel. Do that once more. Pause there. Keep your pelvis stable, lift your leg off, come right back down and then parallel.

Now stay parallel. Lift your leg off an inch, bring your heel back on and now turnout. And again rotate back to parallel. Float your foot off an inch without changing the position of your pelvis. Bring your foot down and then turn out one more time. Go ahead and come back to parallel. Stay there, lift your leg up an inch and now keep it off as you turn out.

And then come right back down to parallel. Don't let your pelvis move and then lift it right back up again. And then come right back down. Do that one more time and then come right back down. And then bring your foot on. Good. Let's turn around to the other side. [inaudible] and then come and set yourself up with your heel just right in the front of your foot bar. And now sir, to rotate your knee up towards the ceiling, hold it there, lift your leg off an inch, bring your heel right back on, and then come back to parallel. And again, rotate.

Keep your pelvis stable as you lift your knee off an inch and then bring it right back down. And then come back to parallel. Do that once more. Rotate. Don't change your pelvis, don't change your torso. Lift your leg off an inch. Bring your heel right back down. Turn parallel, no state here. Lift your leg off inch. Bring your heel down and now turn out. And again, come back to parallel. Pause there.

Lift your leg off an inch and come back to the foot bar and then turn out one more time. Turn parallel, lift your leg off, keep your leg off, and now open up to turn out without changing the position of your pelvis. And then bring your leg right back in. Really see if you can feel your femur. Just rotate in the socket and then come right back in. Do that one more time and then come right back in and then replace your foot. So now you're going to come on up to sit again and this time you're going to take off one of your yellow springs. If you're on a or a grads, you can change to um, slightly later spring or a blue.

And then bring your sitz bone, your hips, all the way back against the shoulder blocks, and then grab your straps for salute. So now you're going to bring your hands just into the salute position and I want you to hinge forward from the hips. Feel the shoulder blades, really draw down the spine and make sure your bottom ribs are not open and flared. And then you're going to send your legs right out level with your eyes and then your arms right out level with your eyes. And then send them right back out again. Make sure as you're bending and straightening your elbows that your shoulder blades are not going to change their position on your rib cage.

They're going to really stay stable and why wide, especially the bottom tips of the shoulder blades. Now you're going to send just one arm straight out in front of you, and now your fight is to make sure you don't rotate your torso. As you switch sides, do one more time and then just come back up to sit. And you're just going to replace your hands, your straps on the pegs. So now come onto your hands and knees. And then I want you to keep your red spring, but you're going to take your foot bar back down. And now bring your hands just on the edge of the reformer.

We're coming back to that same hands and knees position we had before, but this time your goal is to keep the carriage in. So now fill your collarbones wide, fill your shoulder blades wide, pull your lower abdominals up off the floor. And I want you to hover your knees off Justin inch and hold it. Try and keep the carriage home. Don't let it push out and then come right back down. And again, take a little hover, hold it, feel your pulling a little bit more and then come right back down. One more time. Take your hover, let your shoulder blades get wider, your collarbones get wider, and then come right back down.

And then we're going to take some little baby pushups, letting your elbows go straight back towards your hips. We're going to take 10 of these. Try not to let your shoulder blades move on your back as you do your pushups. Take one more now. Keep your elbow straight, broaden your collar bones and shoulder blades. Float your knees off the reformer. Hold it there, and now you're gonna extend your legs out. Push the carriage out, and then really feel your hips hinge as you pull it right back in.

We're going for 10 [inaudible]. Do One more and then let your knees come right back down. You're going to take your foot bar up and out of the way, and now I want you to come on off of your machine. If you've got red one red spring, you're going to keep it, and now you're going to take your machine and put it in the last year for a little version of scooter. So now, once you've got in the last year, you're going to come and step inside the well.

And I like this version because it allows you to be really square in your pelvis without Ab ducting your leg. And you're just going to bring your foot right on the edge of the reformer. And now from here, start to hinge from your hips. Maintain your stability. Feel that fold again in your pelvis. And now send your leg straight back and then come right back in.

[inaudible] try and keep a nice even line. Extend through the crown of your head, out through your body as you're sending the carriage in and out. Now you're going to send the carriage halfway back. Don't let the carriage move back in as you bring your torso upright, and then hinge and come right back down. And then again, bring your torso upright. Don't let the carriage move and then hinge and come right back down. Do that once more, and then hinge and come right back down. Keep holding the carriage where it is. Bring your arms to a little genie position and now rotate towards your standing leg. [inaudible] I now rotate away and then again, rotate towards your standing leg and then rotate away. Do that once more.

Rotate towards your standing leg and then rotate away. Come back to the center and then come stand right back up so it's sides. Let your foot go just right against the edge of the reformer and then feel the fold at your hips and hinge down. Now once you're there, you go ahead and press your leg in and out. [inaudible] now bend your knee halfway in. Keep the carriage exactly where it is and start to bring your torso upright and then come right back down as you bring your torso upgrade.

Really fight not to arch your back. Think of everything articulating off of your standing hip. Now pause halfway. Bring your arms back to I dream of Jeannie and now you're going to rotate towards your standing leg and then rotate away. Don't let the carriage moving towards you and again, rotate towards your standing leg and then rotate away.

One more time. Rotate towards your standing leg and then rotate away. Come back to the center and then come stand all the way back up. Good. Okay. Come on off of here. We're going to put the jump boards on, so I'll give you a minute to collect your jump board and then come back down. Okay, so we're back with our jump board. So now I want you to add one red spring actually to red springs.

You've got one on already and then you're just going to sort of use your jump board to hold on to and square yourself off. And then I want you to rise up to Relevate and then you're just going to take yourself into some prances just to warm up your feet. I now add a little bit of plea a as you do your prances just to get your ankles organized and then relax. And now come onto your side again [inaudible] and then set yourself up again with a little bit of air underneath your bottom side. So you're really lifted. You're going to put your top foot on the foot bar just slightly in front of you. And now go ahead and press the carriage all the way out.

Now stay there and see if you can create even more length than your top hip. Almost like you're pushing your top foot into the foot bar. And now keep that length your torso and bend your knee right back in [inaudible]. We're going to do two more of these [inaudible] and then bend your knee halfway. Maintain that torso position, and let's take 10 bounces, take two more, and then the last one. Press all the way out. Reach away a little bit more, really push your foot into the foot bar and then bend your knee and come all the way back in. And now turn around to the other side.

Set yourself up with your foot slightly forward. And now go ahead and send yourself out and really press away. Create more length in your top side, and then bend your knee right back in. And now press on out. Bend your knee halfway. And then let's take 10 bounces here.

Really fighting to maintain your pelvis and then press the carriage all the way out. Create even more length in your top side, and then bend your knee and come right back in. And now come on up. Now we're going to take off the spring. So you're going to have just one red spring. Come right back down to your first side, put your top foot on the bar. Go ahead, press on out.

And then we're going to take eight jumps from here. Try and get some air time and make sure as you're pushing off, you're really articulating through your toe ball and heel. And then when you land, he'll ball too. And then switch feet. Okay.

And jump off just your bottom here. The fight is really to make sure your pelvis doesn't wiggle side to side. Try and keep that space underneath your bottom. Hit bottom waist last one and then switch again. Yeah, and then switch one last time. Try and keep your hips really stacked up as much as possible.

Last and relax. Turn around to the other side, stack your top foot up, keep your pelvis nice and stacked and then go ahead and press on out and we'll take eight. So tasty jumps. See if you can get some airtime and really articulate through your feet as you land and then switch feet when your bottom foot is jumping. This is the time you really have to pay attention to whether or not your torso is staying stocked up. Switch feet again.

Last set, switch [inaudible] and then relax and come on off. Come on up. Off of your reformer. Come stand, and we're just going to take a quick calf stretch just to finish off and then switch sides and you guys are cooked. Good work.