VIIT Reformer 4

Welcome to Palladio's anytime. I'm Elizabeth Larkam. Thrilled to be here with Amy havens. The class today is reformer variable intensity interval training with or without the tower. This class has five objectives. One to train some cardiovascular endurance in an interval training style, um, to, to develop the rhythm of your elastic recoil jumping. Three to work on thoracic mobility.

Four to work on mobility of the hips, and five, the focus and concentration required for your brain on exercise. You can look at the references that I've posted for this class. If you'd like to know more, more detail about each of those objectives. Now to set up your reformer, make sure you have the jump board firmly in place. You'll need a couple of mats to cushion your knees and in some cases to cushion your wrists. So keep those at the ready.

We have placed, um, non-skid mats underneath the legs of the reformer to keep the reformer from slip sliding away during jumping. The head rest will be up in most cases, will alert you when you should bring it down and adjust your cords. Amy has adjusted her cord length so that they are taught around the shoulder rest and my chords are adjusted so that they're taught around the post. I suggest that you start with Amy's length chords and then if you'd like more challenge for range of motion and control. You can have shorter courts when you're jumping.

Keep the courts around the risers so there will not make such so much noise. As far as the setup of the tower goes, I have two long purple Springs from a Caribbean or at the middle, uh, one or two as you wish. Short blue Springs for the push through bar, um, too short or long as you like yellow Springs with handles. And then one long yellow spring with a loop. So I think, uh, in addition to these, we'll need the box and let's get started. Amy's going to bring the loops around her thighs above the knees and work on, um, a sequence of material that focuses on hip mobility and stability of the pelvis.

Common themes in [inaudible]. I'm going to set up with the, uh, the purple spring loops around my thighs. Um, I have one red spring. Amy has three red Springs. Sometimes you have to jump for the brass ring. So fortunately the jump board is in place and it may not be brass, but you can go for the handle and the handle.

Here we go, Amy. So it's my job to keep the pelvis level and steady to work on um, a coordinated action of hip extension and shoulder motion. Externally rotating the, uh, lower arms as the elbows touch. Now I have the same side, arm and leg in a coordinated action articulating from hip, knee to ankle and foot. I suggest for variations for repetitions of each of these variations. Alternate your same side jumps, open, kinetic chain jumps, and then I'll change into the a diagonal relationship.

The anterior and posterior oblique sling system with the one leg and the opposite arm changed to the new diagonal and the last tower, open chain jumping is for the alternating diagonals. And then Amy and I will meet up into nice circles with external rotation and internal rotation. Exhale into plantar flection. Inhale into Dorsey flection planter and Dorsey flection. You have two more in this direction of motion.

Reverse the direction. Internal rotation down to the Springs extendable rotation. Internal rotation is paired with hip extension. External rotation is paired with hip flection. Two more of these.

Exhale to lower. Inhale to circle around. Now off with those loops. And Amy, your loops could go around the risers so they'll be out of your way. We'll both change Springs now so that we'll have one red spring. Amy can go from three reds to one red and I think my red can stay. I had one red. Anyway, let's move into doming on parade.

Doming on parade is an exercise that activates the intrinsic muscles of your feet, connects your feet with your abdominals, your feet with your pelvis and um, strengthens your feet to get ready for jumping. So starting with your heels at the bottom of the foot plate, keeping your toes long and your toenails visible, lift your Metta tarsals up and slide your rear foot, your heel towards your forefoot, making your way sometime today up towards the top of the jump board. And then upon arrival, you reverse and vault off the tips of your toes, the ends of your toes sliding your rear foot, your heel back down to the bottom of the foot plate, keeping your toes aiming directly towards the top of the foot plate. Begin to move in a V pattern. So rather than external rotation of your legs, you're moving, keeping your hip joints in parallel and making your way up to the outer upper, outer corners of the foot plate. Upon arrival, you reverse and come back down the V, keeping your toenails directly aimed towards the top of the jump board until you meet at the bottom of the foot plate.

Now progress in parallel abduction, moving to the outer bottom, corners of the foot plate. And from there, make your way up the sides of a triangle. Toes visible, uh, toes directly towards the top of the foot plate. Toenails visible to the ceiling. Not internal rotation, but coming directly to meet at the middle, at the top, and then make your way down. Not a moment too soon. Appreciating the connection of your deep abdominals with the souls of your feet, making your way up from here.

Now let's take all the Springs off the carriage. All, all one red, no more Springs. Move the carriage to the middle of the frame. And let's go get our box and put the box aligned with the carriage. So the box and the carriage will be a matched set here. And then are you'll have your on the outer edges of the box.

Now this is quite demanding in terms of weightbearing on your wrists. So you could use a couple of mats, a couple of pads to cushion your wrists over the edges of the box. Have your hands on the paths, and then matching carriage with box. Bring your knees together, inner knees together aligned with the center of the box. Now, uh, this would be just fantastic if the shoulder rests were not in the way.

So because preview of coming events, because soon we're going to sit to one side and the shoulder rests are in the way. So in order to avoid that, walk your knees towards the spring edge of the carriage. And that will give us, um, a little bit more space. Now keeping your torsos, um, uh, level and steady push with the foot plate hand and slide to the risers, pushed with the riser hand and slide to the foot plate. So it's, uh, a movement of the glenohumeral joint here, keeping your pelvis, your spine level and steady. Okay. Bringing the light from your chest bone towards the riser hand and the light from your chest bone towards the foot plate hand.

Now lift up one leg, either leg in hip extension and resume the light from your chest. Bone goes over one hand and then travels to the other. Continue this motion with knee extension. So the lifted leg, your knee extends, you have a different uh, lever, which requires more proximal stability. Bring your lifted knee down next to your other knee and the new side of weights.

First you have hip extension with knee flection. Oh, the surprise moment there. Continue this motion with knee extension aiming your knee to be even with one wrist. And even with the other risks. Mm, maybe not. So even here and here, now let's leave the box. Where it is, come down and it's time for straight knee jumps.

So for this, let's put a red spring at the top. The head rest is still up where we need it. Come to lie on your back. Have your feet together at the midline in the center of the foot plate. And I'm hands at your pelvis or at the um, carriage as you prefer. These will be straight leg chumps. We have Aiden, parallel, Aiden, external rotation, eight in internal rotation. And then we'll take jumps to each corner.

Here we go. Up and up and up as if you're being goosed right at your sitting bones. External rotation. Quickly leave the plate. Spend as little time as possible on the ground. Internal rotation.

Each time you jump the abdominals, jump up upright. Up. Lift up. Right up. Left down, right down. Lift up, left up, right down. Left down, right toes to the outside of right up. Left down, right down, left toes to the outer corner. Down, left down, right heels to the outside corner down, right down, left up, left up, right down, left down right and finish. So done with that. Now we'll take the spring off.

No more Springs come to your kneeling, a box abdominal work that we were setting up before. At first your knees are together in the center of the box and then walk your knees, relocate your knees closer to the um, spring edge of the carriage. Now slot. Move your knees. So there even with the foot bar wrist. Now as you sit down towards the carriage, slide your knees towards the riser hand. Sit down here and look up and over your shoulder.

This is a moment here where we're looking at each other, right, lowering the greater trow canter and push into the hand closest to the foot plate and come up sliding your knees to be even with the foot plate hand. Now knees even towards the knees. Go to the riser hand and sit down, lowering your pelvis, your greater trocanter looking up and over the opposite shoulder. Push with the hand and relocate sliding your knees even towards the riser hand sliding your knees towards the foot bar hand as you exhale. Slide your knees and lower the greater choke canter.

Lower your pelvis and the thorax spirals up and away from your pelvis. Push into the footplate hand. Come up once again here. Slide towards the risers. Slide your knees towards the foot. Footplate sit here.

Greater trow Cantor down, looking up in, over, pushed into the riser hand and come up from here. Now it's time for the straight, more straight leg jumps. Don't worry about that. We'll catch it later. So, um, it's a red spring now. Um, Amy, we're going to do exactly the jumping we did before. When you have a reformer tower, you have the option of giving yourself a boost to your jumps by using the, uh, the arms Springs, the yellow Springs. So while Amy and I do the same leg work, okay, I'm going to show or to demonstrate how you can use the arms to give yourself an extra extra boost for your jumps.

Both knees are straight and here we go. Up and two and three and four, you can lower your elbows towards the carriage external rotation. So you have options with the tower Springs. You can keep the tension on your arms or you can in internal rotation, you can have a small amount of pronation and supination. Here come the corners upright, up, left down, right down, left up, left, upright, down, left down, right toes to the outer corners and heels to the outer corners.

Lots of different options for pronation and soup. The nation of your arms. Finish. In this case, it's the person that would be Amy, who's on the reformer without the tower, who has the most work to do, obviously off with the red spring. This is our last, uh, maneuver with the uh, box abdominals. Bring your knees to the center of the carriage, relocate your knees towards the foot plate off the carriage.

And we're going to start as we did before. Bring your knees towards the riser hand. Rotate by lowering your greater trow trocanter while you are here. Sustain this rotation and slide the carriage towards the foot. Play towards the risers.

So this would be posts, steer your pelvic tilt and, and tear your pelvic tilt with rotation pressing into the little finger side of your hand and broadening across your shoulders. Change. Now, slide your knees towards the footplate hand rotate and sit down while you're here. Slide the carriage so it's the tail wagging underneath and back. Tailbone forward, tailbone back. So you sustain rotation and with the rotation at lower spine, fluxion and extension and flection and extension.

Easy. Now coming up from here, I think we've really made a good use of this box here. It's time for, yeah, sweaty hands. It's time for of course more jumps because this entire program is predicated on alternating. One jumping exercise with some other exercise. Let's go with the red spring and now it's going to be quote regular jumps. Your knees will bend and straighten. The very same pattern we did before.

I'm going to start with the, with the Springs, the arms Springs, and then we'll take a second set without the arms Springs. So, so this is with a knee flection and heels in contact with the foot play. We have eight jumps in parallel up and two and three and four, five and six and seven and eight external rotation. By now you figured it out. The person on the tower, they're sitting pretty because they've got some help here. Have some, some booster rockets via the arms. Now we go to the corners in parallel. Up right up, left down, right down, left up, left of right down, left down, right toes to the outer corners up, right up, left down, right down, left up, left up, right down, left down, right heels to the outer corners up right up left.

And those of you who are studying elastic recoil will appreciate that you can give yourself a lot of help by jumping. Stop now with the arms Springs to start. Now we'll come up from here and let's take a different use of the box. No Springs, so off with the red spring and let's set the box up. Um, so that it's even with the shoulder rests flat on the ground. Like so perfect.

Come to your knees so that your knees are straddling the shoulder rest. Access the foot plate hand is on the close shoulder rest and the rise hand on the far one. As you exhale, take your sitting bones up and your nose comes down. Do the same thing, looking through the shoulder rest to see the risers. Now turn on the diagonal towards the foot plate. Knee gaze comes down to the carriage and then gaze looks towards the riser hand changed to the new diagonal pulling towards you with the close hand, pushing away with the far hand return to the first diagonal and place your foot on the box.

So you're single leg kneeling. And as the carriage slides towards the risers, bring your ribs towards the inside of your thigh, lowering your whole torso closer and closer and closer to the carriage coming up. And do that again with both hands on the same shoulder rest. It's a more narrow base of support. You could dorsi flex your back foot and press the top of your foot into the box.

I do that sometimes for additional, um, grounding support, additional abdominals, and additional stability. Now changed to the new diagonal. One knee down other leg up the footplate hand close to you, the riser hand further away as the carriage slides pull towards you with the close hand. Push away with the far hand and do keep your uh, lifted leg, um, in parallel. So it's a, a different experience if it's an external rotation, not as rich and experience in my opinion.

So the lifted thigh hugs, she said to herself the ribs. Now let's put this box on the new side and see what the new side brings. Always something different. [inaudible] the carriage is at home and the box is in the middle of the frame centered with respect to the shoulder rests positioning your chest, phone this switch hands Amy. There you go. Perfect. The chest bone is over. The space between the shoulder rests.

As you exhale, the pelvis moves over the head of the femurs sitting bones flare up and wide behind you. I'm not really sure they flare. It just sounded good at the time, but really I don't think they're flaring but they're just moving up to aim the sitting bones up and wide on the diagonal. [inaudible] now turn towards the foot plate. That's right. Sitting bones go up and wide as you lower your torso. That's the thing. It's, it's a really good idea to keep an editor on your shoulder. Turn to the other side when you teach and just listen to yourself and say, is that true or did I just make something up because I want it to be creative, but not because I was being honest. You should really, you should be honest with yourself and others.

Now turn to the first tag, you know and stand your foot in parallel as if the inner thigh could hug the ribs. Exhale to lower. And then always, if you, um, if you misspeak or make a statement that's more hyperbole than it is accurate, come clean and apologize both hands on the same shoulder risk close to you and make your way up. Change to the new diagonal. As you exhale, lower your whole torso in the direction of the carriage. Taking the longest distance from your sitting bones towards your hands, pushing the carriage towards the shoulder rests coming up from here, both hands on the same shoulder rest. Exhale to lower and inhale to return.

We'll leave the box right where it is and put a red spring back up for our quote regular jumps. This time both of us will have arms wide to the side. It's a similar pattern except that we'll have single leg jumps, parallel external rotation and internal rotation prior to the corners. Yes, so choosing a place for your arms that's reasonable for you and we'll start in parallel. Here we go up and to end as if your wings could help lift you aloft six and seven and external rotation, making a strong connection between the soles of your feet and the base of your pelvis. Internal rotation.

Now we have single leg with the right leg and up hand in parallel two and three and four and of course any kind of arm variations that suits you for a counterbalance is fine. Left leg up and two, you can make your landing gear stronger by placing your tongue down to the inside of your cheek that corresponds to the landing leg, external rotation. Quickly leaving the jump forward, not wasting any time down on the tarmac. External rotation on the left side. Well, I need all the help I can get on the left. Hm Hm Hm. Internal rotation on the right side.

Mm, mm, mm, mm. And internal rotation on the left side. The reason for these free form arms is that it gives more opportunity for the ribs to move up. Right. Uplift upright. Up. Left down. Right down. Left up. Left up. Right down.

Left downright toes to the outer corners. Up right up. Left down. Right down. Left up. Left, upright, down. Lift down, right heels to the outside. Up. Right up. Left down. Right down. Left up. Left up. Right down. Left down right and finish. Ridiculous. Now am I. So let's change these Springs.

You'll be into the down stretch with your hands on the top of the jump board. I'm headed for the push through bar. So Amy, what are your spring choices here? Red and a blue on the down stretch. Alrighty. Amy has a red and a blue on the down stretch. I'm going with just a yellow at the top. The head rest is up. We're fine with this. This will be the down stretch. Um, in the sagittal plane. Hands to the corners.

And also one hand letting go. Changing the spring as you like for that one. [inaudible] those of you with the tower put either one or two blue Springs on the tower. I'm using one blue spring on the diagonal and keeping the head rest up. So here we go. I'll cue myself. How about that? Why not so absorbed?

[inaudible] inhale to prepare a you exhale, you go forward. Turning the palms up, we have two bicep curls. Tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, behind your upper teeth turning with rotation so that one hand goes to the same side heel and that same hand reaches for the opposite heel. Change one hand to the same side, heel one hand to the opposite heel crossing over the midline. Now you have greater rotation.

And finally, last variation crossing over the midline and to one heel and hand to the other heel. No easy making your way out of here. And let's go immediately to our um, jumps this time in sideline. So we'll take just one blue spring for sideline jumps. Bring the head rest down, both sitting bones.

Off the edge. I'll do the jumps first with the yellow spring and you're on your own. As those of you on the tower move the push through bar out of the way so you can have your um, single spring with your arm. So we have regular jump says in bending in parallel, turned out and turned in. And then the hip extension version. Here we go.

Append to and lift up your ribs and lift up your waist. That's correct. Amy has hand on ilium to remind the ASI us to stay forward in external rotation. Now those of you fortunate to be working with the tower spring, appreciate that you can give yourself a little bit of a rocket booster with your arm work, internal rotation, suspending in the air. Now both of us will solo with the arm reaching out and brushing back into hip extension, keeping a strong connection from pubic bone up underneath the chest bone change up now to some angle that suits you for external rotation, brushing into hip extension.

And then the last set is with internal rotation, brushing up and back behind you, lifting up your ribs, lifting up your waist, keeping the ASI S forward finish right away onto the new side. Here we go. In parallel suspending two and three for making a direct and strong connection from sitting bone to heal external rotation. Now [inaudible] and internal rotation. Now both of us, Amy and I will add a arm as we like to accompany hip extension, the sole of the foot brushing against the foot plate, changing the angle to external rotation, [inaudible] and finishing with internal rotation and finish.

Now both of us are moving into the single leg, the single leg short spine stretch. So for this I tend to go with a red and a yellow. Um, we'll have the leg on the diagonal. You may be, um, Amy, better off with a red and a blue, um, as it suits you here. Um, we'll need our loops around the posts so we can easily get them. And we're only going to use one loop at a time. So this will be um, the loop from your left shoulder onto your right foot.

And I'm backing off. I'm putting the red and the yellow on the lower deck on the hook rather than the post. That was just my self preservation there. Okay, so the head rest is down. Now the loop from the left shoulder comes onto the sole of your right foot. Both arms are down, palms down on the carriage, and we'll have the, the left leg is soloing now. No cord for it. Pipe roll up.

Navigating this unusual vector, pulling your right leg to the left. Lift your sitting bones higher. Turn your palms up, keeping your palms up, flex your feet, Dorsey. Flex your feet. Roll down and push out. Now we'll take the arms wide to the side pipe roll up. Right about. Now we're thinking like, Oh well a little bit more spring would have been helpful. Slip the sitting bones higher.

Bend your knees as your sitting bones. Lift Dorsey, flex your feet, roll down your spine and push out. Take both arms up to the ceiling on either side of the court's pipe. [inaudible]. Yeah, lift the sitting bones a bit higher. As you bend your knees towards your shoulder rests and roll down your spine and push out. Now for a mid air transfer, reach for the loop on your by your right shoulder. Cross underneath the other loop and last so your left foot.

Take the loop off of your ripe play. Sit on the post and here we are. Not even stopping for refueling. External rotation. Palms down pipe as you exhale. Roll. Huh? Do you ever run away? Loop? Roll your hips up, turning your palms up as you bend your knees, lifting your sitting bones higher. Flex your feet, roll down your spine and push out.

Arms wide to the side. Pie. Aim your sitting bones up in the direction of the ceiling. Lift your sitting bones as you bend your knees, dorsi, flexing your feet, roll down your spine, pushing and take your arms up to the ceiling on either side of the cord pipe. Yeah, long on the both ways, especially the waste that has the foot with the loop. Lift your sitting bones higher as you bend your knees.

And then Dorsey flex your feet, the Dorsey flection of your feet, uh, recruits your abdominals and also makes the knee a bit more stable. Now put your right foot onto the foot plate. Take the loop off. And Amy, it's a return to the down stretch. Uh, this time with more rotation for the opposite heel, most likely I'm going for the push through bar. Again, those of you on the tower, you can use your diagonal spring or two Springs as it suits you this time. Instead of having a sagittal orientation towards the push suit bar, I'm going to start right away on the diagonal orientation facing chess, bone, gays and knees, all in the same direction.

So going forward and spine extension, Dorsey flection of the feet, we'll make the abdominal stronger plant or flection of the feet will make the back of the legs stronger. Tip of the tongue to the roof of the mouth behind the upper teeth. See the ceiling above and behind you. One foot hold onto one heel. Increase the rotation and reach for the other heel.

Change sides. Change arms reach for the same heel, reach for the opposite heel, crossing over the midline, increase the rotation for the same side heel and the opposite heel. And last one, exactly making your way up from here. Now it's time for quad repetitive jumps. So for this we'll need one blue spring on the carriage, on the reformer and we'll need our knee pads.

Let's put the loops around the risers so that they will be out of the way. Less noise. Hmm. Let's see. [inaudible] knee pads. So these knee pads will be very close to the spring edge of the carriage because that's where our knees belong for this particular exercise.

And um, yes, ever hopeful? I'm going to have the head rest up just in case I, I'm able to jump so high, but uh, that, that may not occur. All right, the tips of your toes are at the bottom of the jump board and you press into the little finger side of your hands. Here we go. Kick your butt up and two and three. And, and for another four of these for a total of eight, bringing your heels really close to your sitting bones. Now you alternate landing on one foot and landing on the other.

Timing the jumping of your abdominals with the sliding, the brushing of your feet. Collarbones wide, one leg at a time. Tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, behind your upper teeth. Gaze at the level of the risers or above. Just so you're not in a flection pattern of the upper thoracic spine. Oh no, not that. Come down from this. Now we're headed into our long box hip extension exercise.

So for this it's a yellow for both of us. I think we'll both need the long boxes. I don't think we'll need knee pads at the moment because we're not grinding our patella with jumping [inaudible]. So you'll position your box so it's nearly almost flush with the edge of the carriage where you will be. Okay. I didn't change my spring yet. Yellow spring, right?

The person on the bridge, well in the tower is using a yellow spring. I'm off to one side. Now you have options with the placement of this yellow spring. If you place it on the upright bar, it will be easy. It will be less likely to interfere with your shoulder. No spring burns from the sh from the spring on your shoulder. However, it doesn't give as much assistance for hip extension.

If however you put the spring on the cross bar, then they'll be more of an angle of the spring that facilitates hip extension. So place the loop. Each of us places the loop on our foot and then easy careful getting on this box. You can use your box foot in Dorsey flection as UX sale derived down with the looped foot and come up and back into hip extension. And we'll take three more of these.

Exhale to come back. Inhale to suspend. Exhale, come from another one of these tongue up. Gaze up Isaiah. This time we'll go back and then Amy, you'll go from side to side or circling around as the cord allows you to do because clearly the spring vector and the cord vectors are different. We'll take one more in this direction.

Then the reverse. Those of you on the tower, you can't get too enthusiastic about, um, riding the momentum because then the carriage will crash and you will be called out for making all that noise. So using a good deal of East centric con. Troll careful on the dismount. Now bring the box all the way back in.

Now we'll put the box on the new side of the carriage and we'll put the spring on the new side of the tower. Also [inaudible] I'll be right with you, Amy. This is my slower side. Yup. Here we go. Starting back into hip extension. Tongue up, gaze up, eyes up. Three more of these encourages hip extension.

This time we'll stay up and take circles. You could dress this up a little bit. Spine flection, spine extension, spine flection, spine extension, reverse spine extension spine fluxion. Three more of these. Those of you on the tower box have the intention of putting more weight on the hand closest to the moving spring.

That will help to assure easy on the dismount. Now that will help to assure that you keep your thoracic spine in the middle and don't default to side bending and translation. Now. Exactly. Now I just have one more diagonal to do on the push through bar which means it's a a total down stretch festival again for you and then we'll have made sure that all the hip flection that's required. The activation of the hip extensors.

We tried this again the activation of the hip flexors that's so necessary for all the jumping that we have done due diligence in addressing hip extension so we wouldn't send you out into the world like this. Alrighty now here you are in your down stretch or cat stretch palms up in my case addresses or supports the bicep curls one hand to the same side, heel one hand to the opposite. You one hand the same side here to the opposite heel crossing over the midline which encourages more rotation, rotation and extension for which you are very horse that heal. Very well prepared. Come back to the middle Amy and let's finish with one sagittal down stretch and easy on the dismount. Amy. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you very much for joining us. We'd love to hear from you, love to hear how this goes for you, and always look forward to being with you on [inaudible] anytime. Bye now.