Strengthening High Chair

Hello everyone. My name is Benjamin Degenhart hearts and I'm here with my good friend Steven to do a workout on the highchair. We're working with the grads apparatus and we're revisiting an old favorite sequence of mine that simply came out of the fact that I was working in a very busy studio and the place where I could work myself out during a shift was often the high chair because it was standing in the corner and I could do my old sequence there while others were teaching. So we're using this high chair both as a high chair as well as a window chair, but we're not really changing the configuration of this. So if you only have a high chair, this workout is perfect for you.

We're going to start up with two heavy springs and we're going to maintain the heaviness of the springs right to the top level for most of the exercise. So the only differentiation will be if we're having two or one spring, we're going to start with pumping. So I'll have Steven take a seat facing towards the pedal, bringing himself as close to the edge and as close to the back wall of the high as possible and bringing his feet onto the pedal. With the heels together, toes slightly apart in all 10 toes touching, you have options as to how to use your arms here. One is the one that Steven chose for himself already, which is to hold onto the handles and actively pull down with his elbows close to its sides. Another popular alternative to this would be to hug your arms around the Poles.

Pilates Stance

Using the pump to press the back into the chair, reminiscent of your foot. Work on the reformer peddle rises, needs lift. Last one slow. We're going to hold it down here. Consider this your starting point for a quicker set of pumps. You come up 10 down, nine down eight, seven, six.

Try to find the height of the lift with each repetition, really getting into those hip creases and keeping the feed nice and connected to the pedal. Once you are done, we're going to change to a parallel alignment of the feet, the feet, toes, heels, and the knees. Touch side by sides. We can still maintain the connection of the inner thighs. We're going to start it again with three slow ones. Just to set the tone, pressing down, feeling the energy of the springs, hitting you slightly differently in the parallel stance and then lifting all the way back up, letting the spring tension rise, the pedal two more like that and he and slow Steve. As you lower the pedal down, your body can get a little taller. The spine can lift up against the back board on the third one, keep the pedal down. Again, this becomes your start position and we have the emphasis on the app. Four, nine, four, eight, four, seven high or six five four.

Toes Parallel

Arches

Heels Parallel

Single Leg Arch

Achilles Stretch

The ground flexes the third that's pointed one last time to dismount the knee lifts out of the hands, up in towards the chest, and then he takes that foot to the ground. Come to standing for just a second and see if you notice a difference between your right and your left leg. Hopefully something changed in the leg. You just work. Let's do the other side. We'll make that same shape again for the knee to land and place it around the top and front of your cushioning. Other knee comes in towards the chest, point the foot against the pedal and press the pedal down until the knee lands in the shape you made with your hand square, your hips off. There was a great adjustment there. Activate your back leg, your spine and then begin the journey of flexing and pointing the foot.

We'll just do three of these. These are pretty intense, especially if you are into heavy springs who are still just warming up to flex and it's 0.1 more time. Lift the knee out of the cushion in towards the chest. Bring yourself back to a standing, roll yourself up and hopefully we're a little bit more even in our sensation and our legs at this point. Next up we're going into our first set of press-ups. All right. This is an exercise that we usually finish with, but we have a second set coming up towards the end. This is just our way of getting used to this exercise, so go ahead and hold on to those handles.

Press the pedal down with one foot to start. You choose which one and then you want to stand on the pedal with both feet. You want to connect your inner thighs, your heels together. Your toes are again all touching that peddle his hands. Take a strong grip around the handles and he brings his body way forward enough so that his elbows are biocides or maybe slightly behind. Looking straight ahead and maintaining a long line from his heels all the way up to the crown of his head.

Press Up Front

Stay up here promised you 10 we'll do 10 but we'll change one thing. He's pressing down into his hands. He's lift his chest forward and up and finds extension in his body like a swan that's taking flight. Look up towards the ceiling. Fill your feet, stand to the pedal. Let's do five more here with that extension five. Press it up. Four, press it up. You've got three. Nice up for two. Last one. Keeping that chest nice and open.

Keeping the neck long. Now slowly make your way all the way down. I'm standing ready here to hold the chair in place so that he can take a stretch. You take your hands into the front of the handle and you allow your backs round away from me, away from the chair, really puffing your back out and just releasing some of the tension you might have felt throughout that exercise. It's a strong one and we have a second set right here actually facing out, so come forward again, keep the pedal weighted and turn your body around face the other direction. We'll do the whole thing there.

One of the main differences between facing the chair and facing away from it is that you start with your hands way farther behind you, maintaining more openness through the chest, through out, but it also gives you a little bit more advantage in how the pedal supports you into the lift. So as long as your shoulders can manage, maintaining that openness and holding the elbows behind the body, you will actually find this one almost a little bit easier. Begin to recline your body so that your shoulders are closer to being above your hands. And once you feel like you can take that pedal up away from the ground, go for it. Press it up. We'll have five with a straight spine. Take Five. Press up for press up. Aim those elbows back. Lengthen the tailbone down towards the feet. Take your last one at the top. Press down into your hands. Lift your chest up, lift your gaze up.

Press Up Back

Go ahead and step one foot to the ground. Stand on the floor to lift the pedal up. Take that foot to the ground and shake it loose for a second. Nice work. I think at this point we deserve a little stretch into the spine, a little articulation into the opposite direction. So we'll do our push downs. That is essentially a wonder chair exercise, but we don't have to change this cardboard chair into a one chair to make this happen. The only thing I'll do is I'll take one spring completely off.

So we're left with one top spring. At this point, he's standing about a foot length away from the front of the chair and just depends really on your own height as well as heels out together. His toes are partying, he raises his arms up towards the ceiling. It's a flection exercise, so this moment of lifting your arms up gives us a chance to lengthen out, open the chest, reconnect to where we just ended up. He brings his chin over his chest, he rounds his arms forward and down in first order of business is to connect to the pedal. Once he has it, I want him to feel as if he's pulling her towards him as if he's pulling his hips towards the pedal and then he takes it all the way down, pressing the pedal towards the ground, keeping his hips above the heels, and then he comes halfway back up, lifting, pressing down nights and come right back down. Good, and do that again. Halfway up and press it down. Halfway up. Good. Press it down. Let's take one more here.

Push Down

One more time. Press it down. Hold it down. Roll your feedback too flat. Roll your spine arb until you lose tension on the springs and then raise your arms all the way up towards the ceiling. There was our dress rehearsal and outlining the movement. We'll do it one more time, a little bit quicker this time. Chin over, chest. Connect to the peddle. Roll it down.

Push the pedal towards the ground three times up and down for two. Keeping your feet fled. You heels nice and heavy. After three pars raise onto the [inaudible]. Lift those heels up. Connect them into one another. Come up halfway. Three Presad down. Calm up to press it down one more time. Up. Press down hold.

We're going to stay here for a little twist. He brings his feet too flat. First, roll yourself back onto those heels. Then separate your heels so that you're in a parallel stents. From here, shift your left hand towards the center of the pedal and hold the pedal down. He's bending his left knee, letting his right arm lifts up towards the ceiling so he stays nice and wide across the chest and the ideas that you want to corkscrew your head almost towards the chair. Letting that right hip crease sync back, keeping the right leg nice and straight, indulging into what feels a little bit like the saw on the mat. And then we'll change to the other side. He comes back down, moves his right hand to the center of the pedal, replacing his left. Ben's the right knee, lift the left hand up and that pedal wants to lift up because it still has that spring attached to it.

Twist and Reach

Lift your arms all the way up by your ears from the moment you opened the chest and then let your arms come down by your sides. Next up, we're going into our long leg press. We're building up towards going up front, so we're starting to play a little bit more with balance at this point in developing a strong connection to our standing leg. Um, it looks like you're in the right position there with the best way to measure is to just put your right foot on the pedal with a straight leg and see if you're at the right distance. You want to be about your own leg length away from the chair. And we're going to do this exercise parallel today. Actually scoot back just a little bit so your arch can land on the round part of the pedal. All right, so you can do this. Turned out for a little bit more stability.

Long Leg Press

Lifting out of that standing leg, feeling the left foot strong against the ground. Awesome. Lifted up. We're going to add on. There's a spinal band that comes with it and we're trying to compound those two actions. He's pressing the pedal down while he's moving his ribs back in space, keeping his hip above the heel, rounding his spine nice and evenly into what feels like a spine stretch forward. He tries to combine those two actions into the sensation of one movement and then he lifts himself all the way back up. Simultaneously. The spine extends, the leg lifts up. We'll do one more of those. That was awesome. Pressing now, rounding the spine if it's the same movement because they are connected and then slowly lift yourself back up. Keep digging your left standing heel into the ground or find that lift on top.

Awesome flowed your right foot off the pedal because it should be weightless at this point and then just bring it down again. Take a moment to check in as the right from the left field. Any different probably does. We'll do the other side of course, so we're not running around in circles. The left leg lifts onto the pedal already. Begin that strong connection into your right standing heel into that right standing leg that your left sitz bone drop towards the ground.

Press the pedal down. We'll start with three of those. Keeping a straight spine. Take it down and then resisted up. It's like you're trying to keep the pedal down. You just let it when the little it exactly without it pushing you off your balance. Let's do two precedents. Get Nice and tall against that. Awesome and lifted up with control. One more time like that. Press it down.

Start to notice what happens to your right foot here. Right and make sure that the inner heel, the outer heel, the inner ball, and the outer balls, the foot are evenly weighted against the ground. Lifted back up with control at the pedal. Take the leg up. We're adding the spine straight just two times. Press the pedal down. Begin to add the action of your spine rounding tail towards your standing heel, crown of the head towards the top of the high chair. And then with control, slowly we build your spine, rolling yourself back up right on top of that standing heel.

And we'll take one more looks way easier than it actually is. Pressing down around it. Good and slowly lift yourself up. It is an awesome preparation for what's about to come. And again, it's less about playing with weight here and more about with playing with your balance and your center of gravity. Let the lake float up, park it next to your right foot and shake it loose for a second. I'll have to change the springs back to two so that we can get ready for our going up front. So remember on the high chair, we usually use the highest spring setting. Um, so I have two top springs attached here.

If you're working with a different kind of chair, just play around with what, um, counterweights your own body weight the best. We're doing another version of leg presses now against two springs. So now it's less about balance and more about building some strength in the leg he's holding on to the handles, stands right against the front edge of the chair, distances himself if he needs to, to bring one foot on top of the pedal and we'll stand right in that position. Use your arms nice and active against the handles to lift your chest up, find that connection into your standing leg. Again, we'll start with oppress down. He's pushing the pedal towards the ground into a single egg pump and slowly resists back up. We'll do that four more times per se.

Single Leg Press

The back heel can be lifted, but since we have the opportunity to outsource some of the effort into our arms, I want him to almost feel as if he has 50 50% of weighed between his front leg and his back leg. So we're not just on the front foot from here. He rises straight up as if it was magic, except it's not. It's strength, it's control, it's mobility with control. Lower yourself back down and let's do that again. Keep your back foot weighted on the pedal.

Going Up Front

Mountain Climber

Press and hold. Let the pedal come down, let the grip go and then we'll change. Our legs will come all the way down for this one. So the left foot finds the floor. Lift the pedal up, take your foot off the pedal for a second, shake it loose. We're going to set everything up on the other side. Starting with our leg presses. Nice work. So hands go back to the handle.

Remember we have a strong connection to our standing leg already, so you just pick that left leg up, place it on the pedal, and we go for five pumps pressing down. Resist it up for pressing down. Resist it up. Keep your left hip, your left Sitz bone reaching towards the ground to make sure that that doesn't take up to take your last one president. Hold it down, jump your right foot on top. The high chair has a little center ridge. You want to park your foot right against that, and then your knee goes against the back board. So depending on your ankle mobility, you want to have your foot either touching the back board or be slightly away from it. Arms go on top. Remember, there's even weight on the front and the back foot.

Single Leg Press

Going Up Front

Mountain Climber

Cross Over

You use your right hand against the hip to find a level of squareness here. His left third inside and outside is evenly weighted against the ground. The movement itself is quite small. We're just taking it about halfway up. Press it down nice and up. Precedex up. Press it down, up, press it down. It's almost more important to go a little quicker here than it is to go far with the exercise because we want to challenge the connection into the standing leg as well as the crossing of the hip and keeping his spine untwisted the entire time because they'd write a really wants to come forward here.

Hold it down on this one. From there, take your left foot, place it against the diagonal ridge at the front of the chair. Your left hand can stay here for you going outside or it can go on top. What's more and most important is that your hips can be squared to the front as far as possible so it serves you to have your right foot in this case as far back on the panel as possible so that you don't have to turn out massively because most of us either don't have that much turnout or have already lost it. I'm just talking about myself right now from here. Again, think even weight on both feet. We don't just want to work that left leg. We want to keep the right leg attached and connected to the chair.

When you're ready. We go back up, lifting all the way up and down. Nice. You got it. And so he's using his arm out to the side, which is a great way to keep the chest open and avoid spiraling too far towards the chair. If you feel like you need your hand on your hip to gauge how much your hips are spiraling forward and back, that's another alternative here. I'll take one more all the way to the top. See how far you can come up. Yes. Nice work. And then take it all the way back down.

Going Up Side

So you're now going to face your back to the camera. Looking out to the ocean. Don't get lost in it. I know, I know we still have to do some work. So again, you line yourself up with the front edge of the chair so you're centered there. Take the leg across, bring it on top, closest to use. It's not that far away from you. It'll serve you in the transition into our going up side.

Cross Over

Find the openness in your chest. Again, check in. Did my left hip come forward on the side? Can I open it out just a little bit more and then go for it. Even weight on the feet. We press up, up, up. You come down with control. Nice and up, up, up.

Going Up Side

The hand goes from the back board to the back handle so that the third arm, the chair can step behind and cross behind the pedal. Third slowly lifted all the way up. Watch your knee here in this transition. Take your foot off, shake it loose, and we're done with our going upside here. Exactly. So now it's time for another stretch. At this point, after this very athletic exercise, we will change our springs from two to one spring and we will put a mat out in front of the chair. Our next exercise is the spine stretch. Using the pedal and using a mat, or you have some cushioning, something to sit on. We're on one spring here. He places his hands on the pedal, so you want to be about an arm length away from where the pedal is completely relaxed.

There's no spring tension yet the legs out straight out in front of you if necessary. You could always roll up your mat a little bit to get some elevation. If you feel like your legs are tired, but at this point they should be pretty warm. We're using the pedal to press down a little bit to start and find a lift through the spine in opposition to that. Send those heels really far away from you. Curl the toes back towards you and then begin to round your spine back in space.

Spine Stretch Forward

Press deep breath in. Exhale to round back. Press the pedal towards the ground. Really feel your chest widen from the pushing action of your arms. And then with control, lift yourself all the way back up. We want to stay in the same position, but the dynamic changes a little bit from moving the ribs back in space to rounding up and forward over the chair. The elbows will bend on his exhale, so take a deep breath into start lifting yourself up.

Round forward towards the chair. Pull your elbows out to the side and place the center of your upper spine or your head right on top of that pedal. Feel your upper back widen and then slowly unfold the arms again. As the spine we extend rebuild itself. We stacks itself nice and strong through the legs.

We'll do two more of those deep breath in and go chin over, chest round up and forward over the chair. Elbows wide and still feel like you're pulling the pedal towards you. You'll just feel a little bit more of a whining in your upper back and across your shoulder blades. What feels quite lovely, especially in preparation for what's to come right at the end of this session. We'll take one more around, forward and down. Keep those legs energized like you standing against the wall broad in the upper back. Lift yourself all the way back up.

Nice and let that one go. We will calendar it with the Flying Eagle. A little extension here will stay on one spring. You'll be on your stomach for this one, so to swing your legs to the back of the space, you want to position yourself about an arm length away from the pedal and you want to start with a pedal not having any tension. If this is prohibitive for your shoulders, you might have to start with your chest already somewhat lifted and your head may not touch the ground at this point from here. Legs on together. If that's available to you, the hip bones press in towards the floor to find some activation in the legs, some length in the back.

The pedal is not moving in the first part of this exercise, he brings his head forward and up. Go ahead and lift your chest forward and up through the arms to the highest point available to you without relying on the springs and once you've arrived, begin to press the pedal back down. Thinking of that spine stretch we just took, use that to find deeper extension in a higher lift. Now keep this new height. See if you can release the arms up and forward. Let the Pennell take you. Maintain the upper back extension and then slowly lower yourself back down.

Flying Eagle

Really feel like the pedal pulls the hands away from your center and slowly retreat back down. We have one more because these look like they feel really good and you might appreciate them after everything we just did. One more time. Lift yourself forward and I will just go through it a little quick and pull the pedal towards you. Lift yourself up. Mason high chest opens, legs energize behind you. So nice lifting arms forward and up. Feel that extra length you get through the middle. Ah, hello yourself all the way down. Take your hands off the pedal. At this point you might want to take a count a stretch here as sits back over your heel.

Yes. Yeah, but your knees wide and use your hands to push your hips towards the heels. Going into that deep squat pattern. Huh? Am I ready for a home stretch? We'll do a couple more. Very athletic exercises. We will not need the Mat for the next few.

Child's Pose

I changed the spring setting to two in the meantime, so we get some heavy load. You might find that as we go into the pushups, it might be too much spring tension, but we'll uh, discuss that when we get there and see what you need today. Bring your arms up by your ears just to have a moment of extending yourself and then round yourself forward and down. Bring Your Chin over your chest. Think of your push downs from earlier. Take your hands flat down in front of you. From here, bring one foot up against the pedal. Take Wade into the palms of your hands.

Push Up Front

She would find a little bit of extension through the upper back, neck in line with the spine. That's beautiful right there. So now that we found out playing, we go into a little bit of a long stretch like on the reformer ways, pulling his body weight forward, taking the pedal slightly with him and then shifting his heels back in space to close the peddle back towards the chair. Let's do that two more times. Pull yourself forward, forward, forward, and bring the heels up and back as you push the ground away with your hands. One more time. Pull it forward. Forward, forward heels up and back. Pike your hips back up. Drop the head. Walk your hands back towards the chair. Be of the pedal, which is not super secure against just those two springs.

Take one foot down and then the other. Make your hands. Make their way back towards the feed. Roll yourself up from here. Lift those arms straight up towards the ceiling. Just like where you started. I'll make a little adjustment on this springs here, so he doesn't work with two top springs, but one top and one middle spring because I don't know if you agree, but it looked like it was a little heavy to move those springs and it will get in your way in the pushup. So let's try it on this spring setting. We're going right back into the same beginning arms. Raise up, Chin over, chest.

Roll yourself down. You now know the ways we can move through it a little quicker. Once your hands find the ground, find the pedal. No, the spring tension is less. At this point, you may find that it's a little less, um, less easy to control. Walk yourself out. Essentially the idea is the same as before.

We're pulling the body weight forward, but we're adding a bend of the elbows to lower ourselves down into a pushup. Then press yourself up, push the heels back, move the pedal too close. Do that to more tax. Pull yourself forward to come down. Press up to go back. So Nice. One more time. Forward and down. Push up to go back. Pike those hip creases up to the ceiling. Drop their head, walk your hands back towards the chair and then take one for down the other.

Really take your time in those transitions as you roll yourself up. Restacking your spine arms. Lift up for a moment of extension here at your arms. Come down by your sides. And speaking of extension, that's exactly where we'll end up with our second set of press ups. Nice job, sir. Are you going to turn around? I'm going to up the springs. Back to the maximum setting because I'm nice that way.

Go ahead and hold on to those handles. You already know the setup from our press ups. We did in the beginning. You take the pedal down with one third ad, the other. Connect the inner thighs together. We're going right into that extension work will only go up five times here.

Bring yourself forward in space. Lift your chest, lift your gaze, press down into your toes, into your hands and lift yourself up and take it down. Fat Press uptake it down for press. Uptake it down. Three, a premise, something external. It's about to come. You have one more here. Bend and stretch or stay for. Okay. There you go. Thank you so much for indulging me. Now you press down into your hands to pick the feet up off the pedal.

Front

Beats Back

Back

Beats Front

Once you have your feet there, lower yourself all the way down. Yes. Nice work. Hold on to the front of the handle. I'm right here to hold the chair in place. We'll take another stretch. We're going to do the same thing one more time. I'm afraid to say I'm going to assist your aid until those last little beats come back into start position. You can keep your spine straight on this one.

We'll just come up one time. Hardest thing, right for the end of the day. Lift yourself up. Pull back, lift. Bring your knees up and into your chest. Take your legs out. Long in front of you. You got this. Now Open. Close the legs. Open. Close, open, close. I'm going to let you go forward. Three, two, one. Pull the knees up and into you, freeing your feedback to that chair. Bring your hips forward, nice and straight spine and lower yourself all the way down.

Hands go into the front and I'll really luxuriate into this stretch. Open the front of your chest. Ah, no, that the work is over. Bring yourself back. Turn around. Remember dismounting the chair. This point, you might just want to jump off, but let's be mindful. Take one for two. The ground. Lift the pedal up with control. Once you have your standing foot against the ground, you, my friend did fantastic. Nice work. Hope you enjoyed this one.

I hope you guys enjoyed this one too. Thanks for watching.