Hey everyone, it's time for class. Um, we're just gonna jump right in. So I have the reformer already set up even for the warm up on four Springs. This one has five, so I have what we call three reds and blues of it's ready for my foot and leg work in a moment, but for now let's just have a seat. Get our backs warmed up just a little bit. So my foot bar is down, lying down. I have my head rest down as well because I'm going to go into some pelvic curling and warming up to the spine.
Please your feet if you can on F on a firm surface with the heels and the toes resting over the bar. From there we inhale and just exhale and let your body become kind of heavy into the mat. Just let go so we can pick ourselves back up however we want to inhale and I'll bet you could even let your bones be heavier. Let the muscles just sort of drip off for a second. We know that if we head into a workout with less tension, we're going to have a lot more efficiency. So one more of those. Inhale, shake off from the minute the day, the whenever you need to so that you can be here for yourself. And we inhale, begin the exhale, allow the abdominals to sink or fall or even work as we roll the pelvis up all the way up to the shoulder blades. If you're not ready to go that high down, but just check out what your feet do. Inhale and exhale.
See if you can't put yourself back down as heavy as you started bone by bone and just notice what's getting in the way and what your knees want to do or your feet want to do and just try to relax them where possible, but stay connected to them. Exhale, roll up
And then if you do not have posts like I do where my strops are, you can just let the upper arms down. Otherwise go ahead and grab onto those posts. We lift the heels. You might need to bring the toes closer and let's just take the knees toward the front. They're glued together so that means that opposite foot comes up and we just twist from the waist. We're reaching, we're stretching, we're warming up, we inhaled there. Then the weight of the ribs sort of lends itself to bringing the knees back.
Other side. Inhale, reaching the kneecaps side-by-side across the other way and exhale back to center. A sense of swaying. Sorry. Decide.
Keep it flat. You're not rocking the carriage. Just rocking back and forth. Lifting up, lifting down positions, not changing. One more to come all the way up. And there you are hugging it in closer. Now let me use together. We're going to hold onto the leg closest to the front of your screen or to the front.
Extend the opposite leg as you roll down and you hug that knee in really close as if the other leg was the harder you hug the knee and close to you. The other leg is reaching further. Switch that. Take a second to feel it. Feel it. Lift the front of that hip. Just sort of drop and let's go a little quicker. It's inhale. Inhale, exhale, exhale, pull, stretch. Exhale, exhale. Come on. Reach. Nothing wasted, nothing wasted. Certainly not time. Give yourself another set here.
Pull, pull. Pull both knees in. Hug them close. Curl yourself in so much. You almost touch your forehead to your knees or do lift your butt. It's okay. Put your butt back down. Stretch arms and legs out. Inhale one. Exhale in double X church.
Find that opposition both legs up. Bend your knees, head goes down. Hug your knees to your chest. Good work. We're going to do the rocking one more time, so just hold on. Either behind the legs are in front. Pick your head up. Find that circle of energy. Make sure you're not right at the edge of the carriage. Start rocking.
Give it two or three. Come up, legs off to the side. Put your bar up for footwork. I'm going to put my head rest up partway. It's up to you. It's just a comfort thing for me right now. So we're touching our shoulder rest. Our heels are in parallel.
We sink heavy into those bones again, including their wrist bones and hands. Heels around the bar. We push all the way out. Take a second, get long. That's enough adjusting. Pull yourself back in. Don't just ride. And off we go. We press out. We fully
Start to straighten the legs. Connect yourself to your movement.
Just sort of play with it. Find yourself in it. Come down both feet at the same time. Slide down to the balls of the feet. All the toes are on. We push out, we pull in. We keep those heels as still as possible.
We feel hopefully some sense of connection all the way through. Give it a few more. Have a three
So and pull back in all the way out. And this one's just a really great for making sure those ankles actually flexy. You do your best to keep your heels in space the same.
A bit of a turnout today or always when I do it this way and heavy sacrum, heavy back of the ribs. Off you go PRS and pull in. Find that infinity sign of resistance so it's not a snap and a release. It is a pressing a pole both directions.
For us, I'll pull in always a little harder to keep those heels stable so you might have to look up and, and it's also sometimes hard to finish the knees and be afraid to straighten those knees. You don't snap them to a locked position, but you do go to straight. Go for more here. Who one? Pull in. Press out to pull in. Resist out three in, one more for ally. Feed back to parallel on the toe or balls of the feet. Press out. Try to get all five toes on there and lower the heels. And before you just push into the feet.
Squeeze inner thighs or maybe sense of wraparound and lift up and lower and lift up and lower and lift up. What's your low back doing? Where are you in relation to your feet? It's all connected. Keep going. If you roll out. Don't. If you roll in, don't try for level. Get the work in the shortest amount of reps. you can have about three more. Lift and lower and lift and lower and lift. Bend the knees, come home. Ah, let's do a little coordination.
So help yourself up so you can change your spring down to what you would normally do some AB work on. Mine's going to be a red and a blue or medium for AB work. Come on back down. Find your straps wiggle away from the shoulder rest. And before we get into coordination, let's just find her arms and connect into our back. Pick the knees up there together and just again, when I was a lot of energy, just reaching straight arms down and the straight arms up.
Finding what my ribs are going to do to me today or what my breath can handle today. And I think we're good. Let's go up this time into what looks like the a hundred position. Off we go up, we go turn the arms and the legs out and it's not quite coordination is it? We're going to open the arms and the legs and exhale close. Reach right under those side. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. But reach to the foot bar to inhale and exhale.
Mixing it up. Keep your upper body up. Stay there. It's like snow angels, Sandy angels. Find that under armor. Find that side body here. Find the back body. I don't know. Just look for something that feels good and solid.
Same steam spring tension usually. So our heels are glued together, knees are glued together, and then this would be, it's easy for me to just chill here, right? That's not chill. Let's keep reaching into the straps enough that we feel the back of the legs. It's an intention that we need to have. Sometimes you just have to decide.
So we're going to bend like a frog and as we push out, of course it's not so heavy. So what could you do to find other parts? For me today, it seems to be like a bony landmark day. So I'm making sure my sacrum didn't move, making sure my heel stayed together, that my knees actually come together again. And then I don't really want to do a whole lot more and that's where I'm probably going to get my best work. So that's what I invite you to do.
That's fine. Places you can cue yourself. What would make you feel like you're stirring up the hip joint? Make you sure you could be under control with the range that you have.
They'll do a lot, but we're deciding when and how and how much energy they get to upon us in relationship to us.
Kind of helps those of us who hyperextend to find an image that doesn't allow you to just drop into that joint. In my case, the knees. So for me, if I keep reaching, let's change it going wide. Why did you feel like you can handle it then? That's be crazy. Nothing moves you. Bend the knees. I shouldn't say nothing. The carriage doesn't move until you find the Hills again. Push out to straight, extended frog, open wide, straight legs. You're going to maintain that.
Try not to raise the legs up or down or move the carriage. Did you come across the center to the heels? Touch and push out just one more in this direction or you could do several more in this direction. I'm going to reverse it after this. All the way to straight. Boom. All our bony landmarks are attached. We bring him back by Ben in the nice, stretch it out. Careful how [inaudible] do that frog and we don't lift up or down.
We just come straight across the center line with those legs. Bend frog, stretch it out. No motion in the carriage there. Think long through your bodies. You reach through the legs, touch and last one bend, stretch wide. Check your ribs. She says to herself and vendor frog, we're going into short spine. Put your head rest down. If you've never done that, you really do want to pause and make sure either you have someone teach it to you or that you watch it and understand it more. So we push out two straight legs.
We fold this version were fold all the way over when to find that stuff or we're going to enjoy the stretch. Even though our tail bones may come up a little, we're trying to hold them back. Hamstrings are engaged already. Not because we're pulling on the strap so much, but because we just know how to do that. We rise up without moving and carriage. Oof and Ben to frog. Keep the space here, right? We don't collapse from your throat. You rolled down everything. Well, the feet won't change much here at all for now anyway. Now I've gone as low as I can, but I still want my sacrum on the mountain.
So do you flex your feet as you draw your heels to your glutes, you're going to get that sacrum down at the same time. Push out. Here we go. And he'll fold. Letting the stretch happen. Exhale without moving the carriage. You rely on that relationship to your straps. You bend to frog in the air like so, and you rule roll. Get as low as you can.
Stay somewhat in a frog position, some of your super flex, flexible bend and bring it over and again, take it over. So in other words, I don't want you to roll down to your legs are straight. You want to keep it in frog position bent and frog here, and this is where I'm talking about it. You come down and bring the thighs with you. Bring the shape with you. Get that spine down, flex your feet, draw to the glutes over again.
Stretch finding more space each time. Ben the frog role. It's massaging your way down. All right, now we'll take the handles again in a tour. Hands and knees at 90 now we'll do coordination. So hands are right above their risks in this version.
Excellent to the a hundred position. Stay their legs open. Close. Bend the knees way in arm. Straight. Head goes down. That's your inhale. So long breath. Exhale, open, close. Ben. Now start inhaling as you take your body down. Get up there though. Stay up there. Exhaling and nail down.
Might take you 15 years if you're like me, but that's something to work on. All right, hands on the bar. Shoulder distance, scoop device. So if you can sit back onto your heels from there, that's where you're gonna get this curve of the body, the trunk itself. Then hover it however your hips off your heels. But keep that shape from there.
It's pretty much all legs and nothing else changes you push out. Remember that resistance that you're going to create. Exhale, bring it in. It's almost like your shins are driving the character forward. As you get to round your back more, let's go five more quicker. One, two. We're not changing the spine.
Glue it to the stop or you're going to shift forward. Stand up for a pyramid or upstretched position. Heels are somewhat up the shoulder block, so I should, not even halfway from me, but it could for some ears right by your forearms. Inhale, just push the carriage back a little bit as if the Springs weren't there. You draw the belly in. Lighten your feet in a way that the carriage has comes home.
Push it back in here. Just a few of these to get that sense. See your feet here. All toes are down for now.
Inhale out. Exhale, bring it in. Get light on those Springs. Let the Springs work for you, but
So you inhale open out to the plank, you ride forward. You can breathe whenever you want to, but I typically exhale right here to go back to the pyramid. Once I'm on the stopper. Inhale, plank forward. Exhale, lift. Let's do two more of those instead of reversing it.
So essentially you would just be doing a runner's lunch type stretch. If you have the reformer though, you're stepping pretty close to the forward leg there. Start with that sense of, I'm going to stretch my hip flexor as the goal, but I'm not going to drop into my low back, so I'm going to keep my pelvis as forward as possible and I'm going to send the thigh bone back. So your, that's all just do that. It's the idea that you're not dropping into your low back, that you keep the pelvis forward, your energy is almost more up than back, but you the deed or pushing with the back leg.
And so for this who really tried to level out the pelvis and straight in that forward leg. So it's a sense of really pulling the hip backwards. It's also okay if the knee state stays a little bit. Let's come forward again. Let's do it again. I'm going to, I'm going to drop my blue my half spring on this one. Now that I feel a little stretched out. Oh yeah. That's like really up to you, right?
You don't want it to be so far back that you're already spread out. The forward leg is really your stabilizer for the first part anyway. You're light on your hands and then when you're ready you're just going to start to shift back. You could keep the back leg as is and straight into forward like or if it's hard for you to find it like that. Sometimes it's hard for people to find the hamstring on the forward leg.
What you could do is pike the hips a little bit so you kind of feel like you're sticking your tailbone out or up, but out. Maybe it's another way and then you may not have to go nearly as far and you may not straighten the leg. That's all cool. As long as you feel that hamstring on that forward leg. Let's go to the other side. Same thing. If you want more resistance, put it back on.
I'll just leave it for now myself foot, feel that connection to the foot. I'm on the staffer, I think about, all right, I'm up. I might not need to even go anywhere with it. Hands around the bar and then I just push with my foot to move the carriage. But the pelvis is working in opposition. Jeff, find that stretch
If you're not sure of it, you might have to reset, but it really feels like the whole trunk is going forward and up, but the leg wants to go backwards. That's how I kind of think of it.
Cool. Come on in. It's time for arms.
I'm going to put it down cause I don't think we'll need it at all. Sitting at the back edge of your carriage. Now you may need to elevate yourself on a box or a towel or a pillow or something that might be necessary. You could also bend your knees a little bit if it starts to get too hard on your hip flexors. But that is where the challenge is, is can we be upright, work? All this posture stuff we do and get some are more.
Get it while we're there. So our hands are in the middle of the strap, not on your fingers. Reach forward. Sit tall. It's like your head is trying to reach it. The front of the room and we pull down and back. So your hands are skimming the frame, then you have to reach down and forward in order not to collapse. Right? So you're still upright and
Here's the thing to watch for here is your collarbones are meant to be wide. If they're in front of you, you're off to a start. That's just not going to be helpful. So pull those collarbones real wide. Then it's simple. You just leave the upper arms where they started and you've been the elbows bend 'em all the way and let them go all the way to straight
Think a little bit to the back of your body.
From there you just separate. I'm not really going for pinching the shoulder blades. We could later, but let's see if we can just move our arms from right in front of our shoulders to the side of our shoulders or to the side of the body without thrusting ribs hunching in fact get taller and I'm pretty sure you'll see the point of this. I called it arm work, didn't I? But it's a lot of posture work but that's sort of why we're here too.
They just never changed. I'm doing a few extra cause I like them.
Like none of them are using my opinion so I'm just going to hang out here. Straight legged arms or why'd you call the hug a tree and it's really like hug a block cause we're not going to round too much. We are just coming just in front. Right and open. Wide, wide, wide. Keep those elbows kind of pointed up rather than down. That's something to watch for.
Getting ourselves ready is almost a teaser. You can feel it if you know the move. Generate more from belly, if that can make any sense to you. Look for it.
Grab your box for a little side overs and back extension and we'll call it a day. Easy peasy. Let's go.
You're going to go down and up like that. Second version, hands behind your head. Third version overhead. I'm only doing five. I'm doing version one. Ready? Here we go. Inhale, you dive down. Now when you come back up, it's not all leg, but it's a lot. Feel the breath. Feel the abs like we've been doing and just come up to the diagonal one.
Use that leg three. Make sure you stay sideways, right?
Help yourself up and do that. Not by yanking with your foot, but put your hands on the frame. Walk yourself up, turn yourself around five more other foot in the strap. Make sure you're on the side of your hip and not totally upright, but I line up with the head rest with my hand. So essentially I'm not trying to come all the way to up, right. I just want that long diag and already pick your hand position either in front of your waist, behind your head or arms out. Straight off we go for five.
Inhale and exhale. Don't come too high. Hang out in no man's land there. When you get on that diagonal. Number two, fill the breath and the abs help you. Here comes three. Sometimes it's hard to keep your head. Here's four half to say 'em out loud. Keep your head in line with your spine. Last one
And then it's about time to help ourselves up. So you use your hands on the frame, the head rest in the box. Turn the box. So step off, turn the box lengthwise and we'll just do some polling straps and be done.
For some reformers it's appropriate to have to test it out. Should feel kind of heavy, but not enough to hold you pinned. That's kind of the way I look at it. Lying face down, facing the back of the reformer, so away from the foot bar, chest, maybe just over, maybe not. That's a little different for everybody on this performer. I'm grabbing a hold above the buckle and rapping yet again so that I have a little more to hold onto. And also a little more attention at the start.
So much like we did our arms posture stuff earlier, we're going to draw the shoulders down. Our legs are already engaged in straight off the box, so they're not just hanging out that it just doesn't work for us. We initiate this from the shoulder blades. We keep the arms absolutely straight as they skim or past the frame right up to our butt or higher, but our backs are still level. Okay and then reverse it, but you don't give up on reversing.
Reversing is just as good. So we go again. That means we don't have to do as many do twice in one rep. If you want to add a little extension, you may please do. But let's do it consciously. You look forward, you send the chest forward. It's not about getting your feet higher, it's not about even really getting your chest a whole lot higher, although it might. And again, pull down, hug those arms and close the upper arms. Touch your body as much as you can.
Okay. It's not your fist that do. They may too, but talking to the guys there, the big lats hugging in close, squeeze those shoulder blades
Be careful when you get up a fair amount of backend posture work today. Stepping off the side, we'll do just one little stretch here, which is if you grab one side of your box or your reformer or even a wall and just bend your knees and hinge back. Round back. I should say, I'm just rounding my spine essentially just rounding back and then from that round position, I don't really mind what you do with your arms. I actually like to drop my elbows into the rear end out. My knees are bent, very bent to find a flat back and then straighten the legs around the body to come on feeling the ground again. Filling yourself up, right, filling the support you just gave yourself. Turn your arms out, look up, feel upbeat, up. You just did that for you. Inhale and exhale. I'm going to do one more.
I just want to grab it. Here we go. Inhale, and we are done for the day. Thank you. Let it out. Enjoy.
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