VIIT Reformer 2

Welcome to Pilates Anytime. I'm Elizabeth Larkam delighted to be back with you and so happy to be here with Amy Havens. Thank you so much, Amy. Thank you for having me with you. Today Amy and I are going to do some interval training using the reformer and the BOSU.

So we will alternate elastic recoil jump sequences on the reformer with core and trunk control exercises on the BOSU. So if you're curious about the theory that comes behind this reformer sequence, then please access the reference material that I've provided that goes along with this class. Amy will start with a red spring on the high setting. We'll be in supine for doming of the feet. And this doming on parade, we're going to start with the feet in the center and then we're going to make butterfly wings as if your feet will go up on the diagonal, down on the periphery, and then up on a diagonal towards the middle.

So two triangles with their points. So to start the doming, you place your feet together and make sure that your feet are in the center of the jumpboard, so maybe not quite, there you go, not quite so low, okay. Now place your palms on your lower abdominals with your pads of your fingers midway between pubic bone and navel so that you can feel the connection between your foot action and your abdominal reaction. Now start making the diagonals, your right foot goes up to the right diagonal corner then your left foot goes up to the left diagonal. And both feet, all toes stay directly towards the ceiling.

So it's a lateral motion of your feet and legs rather than an external rotation. Pause when you get to the upper corners and then go down the outer edges of the jumpboard until you get to the place where the jumpboard narrows and then come a little bit closer together until you come all the way down to the lower corners of the jumpboard, and now make your way on a diagonal into the center of the board, toes aiming directly towards the ceiling, and your big toes will touch at the center. You might ask yourself, why are we doing this? Because this activates the intrinsic muscles of your feet and gets you ready for having a good landing gear-- Perfect. To connecting the feet with the pelvis and the abdominals.

Roll to either side now and let's come to the BOSUs. All right. You go-- After you. Please. (both chuckling) Now here you are on your BOSU with your elbows bent and your forearms on the BOSU.

Give yourself a good width with your knees, maybe the width of your knees are almost greater trochanter width apart. Your ankles can be in dorsiflexion or plantar flexion as it suits you. And pushing with your left elbow, your left knee, rock the BOSU to the right and then push with your right elbow, right knee, and rock. So here you go from side to side. Two more of these.

Bringing your chest bone up to the spine between your shoulder blades. And then rock forward and back. Shifting your weight, organizing your shoulder girdle and your lower ribs. Diagonal right front, diagonal left back. So you go towards your right hand, towards your left knee.

Twice more here. Change now to the new diagonal. Left hand, right knee, left forearm, right knee. Twice more here. Now you make a circle starting from your right knee, right elbow, right hand, left hand, left elbow, left knee.

One more circle in this direction. Reverse the direction of the circle in a clockwise fashion. Now to prepare for one knee at a time, bring your right knee more towards the center between your two elbows and lift your left leg up. Keeping your left thigh high, the plot thickens, and shift the BOSU from side to side pushing with your right elbow and then your left. Now rock forward and back.

Ideally right down the center track (whooping) of the BOSU. Mm-hmm. Diagonal right front. Back where your left knee used to be. And change, diagonal left hand and back to your right elbow.

It's time for circles. Not a moment too soon. Oh, buckle up, ladies. It's early in the game. What is the secret?

Don't make the secret-- Reverse direction. I'm more like an etch-a-sketch. I'm berserk. Yeah. Okay.

But wait there's more. Of course. The left knee awaits. Okay. Buckle up.

We can do this. Rocking side to side. Having learned my lesson on the first side, I will be more conservative now. Good idea. I'll take that.

Shift forward and back. Mm-hmm. Let's go to right hand, left elbow on these diagonals. And then left hand, right diagonal. By now that jumping little weights is really appealing.

Circling maybe. Whoa! Hard to say. You're full of surprises so I'm just coming. And circling the other way. Oh! We are so done with that and can't wait to jump.

Come on to your reformer now and let's change to a blue spring. No more red, just a blue. On the up-- I think the blue one, the heavier setting. All right. This is a strike a match jumps so you'll be on all fours with your hands over the shoulder rest and both feet down low on the path of the jumpboard.

Knees very close to the spring edge of the carriage. We're going to jump with striking a match bringing the heels to the sitting bones with both feet and then alternating legs and then each leg gets its own turn eight of each. Okay. Ready and go. Jump both legs.

And two end. And quickly off the mat. And four, another four of these. Change to alternating now. One foot then the other.

Sounds good over there. Thank you. Abdominals jumping up to your spine. Now one leg gets its own turn for eight. Should these be big jumps?

Um, big jumps. Big. Yes, Amy. Okay. Go! (both chuckling) Don't hold back on my account.

Other side goes woo-hoo! Spending as little time as possible on the foot plate and as much time as possible in the air. Last two end. Last one. Okay, it's BOSU time again. Okay, that was fun.

It was? Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah, I like that (giggling). Now the quadruped work we did with forearms on the BOSU, now it's quadruped with your hands on the BOSU.

All right. So come on down. Give yourself a good base with your knees. I'm going to swing this BOSU around because I need all the help I can get, and that label is slippery. Okay.

Mm-hmm. All right. So rocking side to side having the light from your chest bone, shine towards the right hand and towards the left hand. And now rock the BOSU forward and back as you like with your ankle's dorsiflexion or plantar flexion. Now swivel the BOSU towards the ocean, so you have a diagonal.

And now you can rock right front, left back, right front, left back. A different orientation of arms and shoulder girdle. Swivel the BOSU in the clockwise direction and rock on left front, right back. Left front. I'll be left front.

No, thank you. I'll be right back. (Amy chuckling) Now level the BOSU and it's time for the circles. Okay. Right hand forward, left hand back.

Right hand forward, left hand reverse. Left circle. So there are some advantages to coming up on the hands and arms. Yeah. Now time for the single leg works, so bring your right knee in line with the center line of the BOSU.

Good luck to all of us. And hover your left thigh off. I was trying to put it off but there's no putting it off. Ideally the elbows will stay straight. Now, rock the BOSU forward and back.

Little deviation at the wrist. Don't swivel the BOSU. Too much trouble. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Instead intend the diagonal. Gosh. Hour or so, mm-hmm. And the new diagonal, left front, right back. Mm-hmm.

Every single one of these variations has a sobering recognition attached to it. And circle around. Mm-hmm. And there we go. Oh, heavens! The new knee awaits.

Just like my clients, when things get difficult, I go faster. Uh-huh, that's good. All right. Good with me. (both chuckle) Hover your thigh up and ideally the elbows stay straight.

And this is organizing through the thorax and the glenohumeral joint. So when an elbow bends, what might be occurring if the elbows bend? Where's, disconnect? Such a good point. Pausing.

Sorry to break your flow but-- It's too hard. No, I think that's a good point. When the elbow bends, it's possible that, stay paused, it's possible that the connection through your arm line, through the thoracic area, and maybe the area of the serratus has lost its connection there. The other possibility is that the thoracic spine is not so accustomed to translating and rotating in that direction. Without-- That's exactly right.

Because if your elbow bends and takes up the slack, then your spine doesn't have to participate in the same way. Okay. And since none of us are symmetrical, I mean, that's just not the nature of life in the body, all of these things bring these awareness to our attention. Thank you. Right leg up was where we were (chuckles).

Thank you. (both chuckling) Were we circling or we were starting the whole thing again. Start the whole thing here again. Oh, if you would say. Okay.

Side to side. And then rock forward and back. You could have the idea that it's the abdominals and the lower ribs that are driving the BOSU. That helps. Does it? Uh-huh.

A little. And then diagonal right front and left back. Mm-hmm. And diagonal left front and right back. I must admit Amy did, I'm grateful for the question because I was really fatiguing.

Okay, well, good. (both chuckling) Circle around. Mm-hmm. Whoa! I think you also said to me possibly minimize the movement range, that's also kind of conservative motion or something. (chuckling) Well, the alternative is not pretty.

Okay, it's jumping time. Okay. Careful on the disc mount now. All right. And let's head to our reformers.

This will be supine jumps push ups for your feet. Let's go with a red spring on the heavy setting, a red spring at the top, off with the blue. Now with these foot pushups, we're going to take them in a Z pattern so that your feet start in the middle. And keeping your toes towards the ceiling, you'll jump up to the right. That's right, with straight knees, uh-huh, and then way over up to the left, and then down to the right, and down to the left and then up to the left, and over to the right and down here, and down there.

Exactly. Correct. Okay. Yes. And we have three sets of that because the first set is with your toes oriented towards the ceiling.

Okay. The second set is with your toes orienting towards the corner. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Towards this corner, yeah, and towards that corner, and then towards this corner, and that corner, and that corner, and this corner. Okay. Right.

All right. Yes. Good luck to all of us. Now... Uh-huh.

And actually what the corner you go to is not so important as the fact that you keep your knees extended. Okay. I didn't even finish my thought. The third set is your heels lead to the corners. Okay.

Uh-huh. Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

Perfect where your hands are because that's the abdominal control that's required. You own this, Amy. Right. So toes towards the ceiling, and with knees extended the whole time, the first place is going to be toes up to the right. Toes to the ceiling and legs up to the right corner.

Here we go, and up right, up left. Down right, down left. Up left, up right. Down left, down right. Toes to the outside.

Up right, up left. Down right, down left. Toes to the outside. Up left, up right. Down left, heels to the outside.

Up right, up left. Down right, down left. Up left, up right. Down left, down right. And finished.

Onward to the BOSU. Yes, just don't do that ever with single leg. I think the stresses to the SI joint wouldn't be a good plan. Great. Okay. Thank you.

Now it's forearm planks. So come on to your forearms here. And press one foot back on. Make sure you have enough mat there to steady your foot and then come on to your forearms on here. And rock side to side.

Dead silence here from the cure. And forward and back. That's right. I'm busy, I'm concentrating. Okay.

Diagonal right front, left back, right hand, left elbow. Diagonal left hand, right elbow. Pause. Come down onto your knees. And let's take your arms now.

Your arms in a plank. Or plank with your elbows extended and hands over the corners or the handles of the BOSU. Test your mat placement to make sure that you have a steady place for your feet. And here we go. Pushing with your left foot going to the right.

Pushing with your right foot going to the left. Lower front ribs. Climbing up to your spine. Forward and back. A shared responsibility of ankles and wrists.

Diagonal right front. Left back. It's diagonal in my mind. Mm-hmm. Left foot pushes right.

And now right foot pushes left. Right. That's right. Can't wait to get back to jumps. Oh, God.

My gosh. Okay. Here we go. Go ahead. Let's go to side lying jumps now.

For this you'll need one blue spring at the top. No more red. Bring the head rest down. And this is excellent. We'll be facing each other just the way we're doing with both sitting bones off the edge, sitting bones off the edge.

And come to lie on your side. Your floor knee, the carriage knee is bent up out of the way. That's right. And you're doing the right thing to keep your floor arm tucked in here. Now check to see that your foot plate leg is lined up with your heel, in line with your sitting bone.

Lift up your ribs and lift up your waists. And we're going to take jumps now in parallel in external rotation and internal rotation. We'll do two sets. The first one, test this out now. The first one, eight in parallel and then eight turned out et cetera is just aiming your toes, your foot straight to the jumpboard, et cetera.

Then the second set we'll brush and strike them up back into hip extension. Okay, and we are doing knee bend, knee flexion. Yes, yes. Please. Because I think single leg push ups for the feet in this position will just be horrendous for a number of structures.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. So lifting up your ribs. Yeah, that goes with the idea that I sometimes say to my students, just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Okay, that makes sense to me. Lift up your ribs and waist and here we go for eight jumps in parallel. One up and two, and three and four. Quickly leaving the mat. Six end, seven end.

External rotation. Toes and knee, two end. Great, again. Each time you jump it's as if the lower ribs come slightly further off the carriage. Internal rotation now.

One end. Oops. Two. Three end. Four.

Five end. Six. Now we go back to parallel and brush and strike a match, push back and back end. Gorgeous, three end. And abdominals jump in right above your pubic bones.

Six end, seven end. External rotation. Two, mm-hmm. Brushing back gets back and down. There you go on a diagonal.

Okay, that feels different. There you go. Now change to internal rotation and brushing up and back on the diagonal. Yes, well done. Four, four more (mumbles).

Six. (both chuckling) Are we done yet? Yes, we are so done. Yes, we were done, we would be finished. Nice.

Change to the new side, flip around. Mm-hmm. I can't see you now. Both sitting, but I can hear you. Both sitting bones off the edge and come to lie on your side.

Okay. Okay, are you ready? I'm ready? Here we go. And in parallel, two end.

Quickly off the mat. Four, or quickly off the foot plate. Five end. Six, connecting your foot to your pelvis. External rotation now.

Brush it. Or not, it's not brushing yet, sorry. Okay, yeah. Brushing is a second set. Internal rotation.

You could imagine that your feet, the soles of your feet started at the base of your pelvis because in terms of connective tissue, they do. Time for the brushing back in to hip extension. Sounds good over there. (Amy chuckles) Your cuing is helping. You've got the brushing going on.

As long as the abdominals jump away from your foot. External rotation. Now the brushing is down on the diagonal towards your back. And finally internal rotation, brush up and back. Wow.

Nice rhythm there (laughs). Thank you. Yes. Oh my God. So done with that.

What times is it? It must be BOSU time. (Amy whooping) It must be. Let's go with some back planks now. So let's move the BOSU so we can face each other.

Does that work for you? Yes. Okay. Fantastic. Have a seat on the BOSU actually.

Right. And then come on to your forearms. And oh gosh, we deserve something that feels good about now. Sink your ribs, your chest bone and then push into your elbows and undulate that so gorgeous tongue up. Eyes up, gaze up, see the ceiling above you and behind you.

As you exhale, slump back rounding the pelvis. As you go, the shoulders couldn't be any higher and they should be there. You like this? This feels so good. Oh, I'm so glad.

Where does it feel good? Yeah, just everywhere, I can't-- Oh, good. Shoulders, up and back. Just everywhere. Since it feels good to you, how many more should we do?

Three. Okay, you call it and say when we're done. All right, two more. Okay. Last one.

Okay. Now it's time for a forearm back plank, so stay here. Take your legs out straight there. Push in through your forearms and hover your, I'm not even getting off the tarmac. Good for you.

I didn't get off the tarmac much either so can I readjust? Come a little bit forward. Okay. Okay. Here we go.

Staying up there and coming down. Oh, I'm not sure there was enough clearance there that I've had. Okay, now it's time for the back arm plank. So your hands are over the handles of the BOSU. And pressing wide with your collarbones, swing your pelvis forward towards your knees.

Chest up, gaze up, and rock a little bit side to side, from left foot to right hand and from right foot to left hand. Twice more. Change, come down from here. Coth legs outstretched now. Both legs out straight.

And press in to the little finger side of the heel of your hand, broaden your collar bones, and swing your pelvis forward. And rock just a little bit. Be conservative there. Thank you for the reminder of how it's gonna tip off the mat. Oh boy.

Yeah. It must be time for jumping. Perfect. Just as you cued us. Let's leave this BOSU immediately and come to supine jumps.

Let's have a red spring at the top. One red at the top, no more blue. The head rest is up. And these are quote, "regular reformer jumps", so your knees will bend upon take off and landing. All right.

We'll do parallel, external, and internal rotation eight of each and then we'll do the Z pattern we've practiced before. All right. Here you are. So let's start with your feet right in the center of the platform and we'll start in parallel. Bend your knees.

And here we go. One end, and two. And three end. From feet to sitting bones, five end. Six end, seven.

Now the next one is external rotation. Your first position from your ballet career. Long time ago. That's right. Lacing the tops of the backs of your thighs, internal rotation now.

Come back to parallel and jump up right, up left. Up right, up left. Down right, down left. Up left, up right. Down left, down right.

Toes to the outside. Up right, up left. Down right, down left. Up left, up right. Down left, down right.

Heels to the outside. Up right, up left. Down right, down left. Up left, up right. My abdominals are really (chuckles).

Down left, down right. On target. Oh God. What's that you were saying about your abdominals? I can really feel it.

It's so great. You know, that's okay. Yeah, yeah. It's good, it's good, it's good. Yes.

My understanding of that, stay, my understanding of that is of why this is such an abdominal intensive is, well, first of all, look at the context. You've just done nothing but abs on the BOSU in every configuration. And second of all, when you take your feet to each corner that's putting the load on your abdominals from a whole different vector. Right. Each different vector.

And then when we further the mix by turning your toes, heels to the outside or your toes to the outside, that also puts demands up the chain. Yeah, it's very clear to feel. Like it's just this nice, I just feel the line. It's great. Fantastic.

We'll take it. Okay. I know, but as much as I like to discuss to put off the BOSU, guess what time it is. Yeah, I had a feeling. Okay, so now we've done a lot of different things on the BOSU, it's time to climb aboard.

So we'll be facing each other on a quadruped. That's it. And we're going to have knees on the BOSU and hands on the BOSU also. All right. If I slow down my speech and start talking about a lot of cuing, it's a sure indication that I'm really scared about what's coming.

Like a train coming. Yeah (laughing). All right. If you're scared, what do you think about me? You know, I'm a little too close to this reformer.

Okay, now let's just try this. Good. Okay. Okay, so now here we are on this rodeo situation shifting side to side. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Now change the shift to forward and back. Okay, forward and back. Oops (mumbles). (both laughing) No helmets here, uh-huh.

Diagonal. Front on one corner and back to the other knee. One front hand, back to the other knee. And then you change the diagonal, front hand, back knee. It must be time for the circles.

One knee, same side hand. Other hand (whooping). Same side knee. Dead silence from the BOSU realm. Yeah, it's the etch sketch again.

Very busy (laughs). All right. Now bring one knee, either knee, whichever one you choose in line with the center belly button of the BOSU and make your, make your tripod area. One thigh is up and let's rock forward and back just because it's simply going side to side. Oh, shoot, my knee, yeah.

Okay, I'm gonna get that again here. Whoa. It makes all the difference, doesn't it, where you place your-- Yeah, I needed to readjust that. So height of the back leg is kind of not as. (Elizabeth laughs) I mean, I have it up.

Is that-- It should be way up she said to herself. Uh-huh, 'cause if this were a photo shoot of Pilates Anytime we would be looking our back leg. Make sure you're going side to side now going, oh my God, why didn't someone tell me to get my butt up, but guess what. Okay, diagonal here. One hand where the other knee used to be.

'Cause when I get all fascinated with where the BOSU's going then my back leg just droops like a sad tail. Well then the new hand and the opposite knee. change knees now. Okay. Buckle up, we can do this.

I got it, okay. Lifting your knees high, forward and back first. And side to side. And the silence is just-- Deafening. (laughs) Evidence of what's happening. No,

what I was thinking now the diagonals, choose a diagonal that you like first. What I was thinking is that people who do this class with us might say, wow, those Pilates girls, they sure can jump but they're wusses on that BOSU. New diagonal. And I'll say, you know, you're right. I have a New Year's resolution.

More BOSU. Yeah, currently. Yeah, me too for sure. Okay. Let's leave this, Amy.

Let's go jump some more. Okay. It's jumping in quadruped now. And for this one you'll need a blue spring. But I feel this very interesting space here.

Where did that come from? My glutes actually. My supporting leg on the ball having to really recruit into that which will be hopeful here. We'll take it. Yeah, we'll take it.

So off with red and on with the blue. But let's do a test first so you can just, a test of what, you might say. Have your hands on the shoulder rest and your supporting knee will be fairly close to the spring edge. And then you'll have one foot with your heel at the top of the plate. Okay, jump this foot up a little bit higher.

There we go. So this is the height of where the heel belongs at the top of the plate. And aim this ASIS, there you go, towards this inner knee so you level, so to speak, you level the playing field. Well done. And pressing in to the little finger side of your hand you can bring the chest bone up to this like that, to the spine between your shoulder blades.

Now do a single jump here with a regular plié. That's right, mm-hmm. And give that a try in external rotation now. Correct, note where the right ASIS is pointing. Thank you.

That's right, true turn up and then internal rotation would be next. Yes, indeed. Now is this is spring all right with you? It is. Okay.

I wouldn't want it any different. Well, I couldn't. You have a lot more strength than I. I don't think that's true. (mumbles) No, no, no, I'm just accustomed to this but I'm not so strong.

All right, so we'll have a tripod base just as we had on the BOSU with one knee and two hands and the other foot, your heel is at the top of the plate. Leveling your pelvis by aiming your ASIS we'll have eight jumps of each, here we go. One end, and two. And these are drilling your foot straight to the jumpboard so it's no brush back yet. Low front ribs up to the spine.

External rotation aiming your right ASIS, or aiming your ASIS towards your supporting knee whichever is left to right, I don't mind. And meanwhile back at the thoracic spine. Internal rotation now. I know it's hard to keep my tongue on my mouth on this one. Mm-hmm.

And also difficult to keep the foot and ankle properly aligned. Yeah, it's just hard. Now we'll change legs now. So bring the one knee down, bring the other foot up. And here we go.

One end, and two. Three end, and four. Lower front ribs up. Six. Seven end.

External rotation. The lifted ASIS goes to the supporting in our knee. Quickly off the jumpboard she said to herself. Internal rotation. It's hardly any available.

I'm just saying out loud. Well take it all even if it's imaginary. I'm thinking it but I'm trying to-- Pause. Oh, God, okay. Rest your wrist for just a moment.

All right. We have one more round which is the brush in the hip extension. Okay. We can do it. We can. Okay.

Promise there's no more BOSU after this. Okay, I'll take it. Okay. Super. Okay, Elizabeth.

Your heel is at the top of the plate and you will brush into hip extension. A little bit of thoracic extension might help as well. Looking past the risers towards the floor. Sounds good, Amy. You know how to brush that floor.

External rotation. Nice. Oh gosh. Internal rotation. Lower front ribs connect too.

Thank you. Broad collar bones. I was talking to myself but I'm glad if it was relevant to you. Okay. Oh my gosh. Quickly

other side now. So we'd stay in our mode and parallel jump. And two end. Brush, three end, four. As you brush into hip extension, the abdominals just rise to the occasion.

External rotation. Pressing strongly into the little finger side of the heel of your hand to pump up your ribs. Internal rotation. Or the imagination thereof. I swear my brain is, it's doing it.

Seven end. Eight. Careful on the disc now. We are so finished with this. Thank you.

Thank you, Amy. So good to be with you. Thank you, Elizabeth. So great. Oh my goodness.

Thank you everyone at Pilates Anytime. Look forward to being with you again. Bye bye!