Tone and Strengthen

Let's strengthen and tone with some dynamic fun, and we're gonna focus on the two way stretch and opposition, reachin' out away from the powerhouse. You'll notice a few Reformer exercises that we've dropped into this to increase the challenge and the fun. Let's stand tall, just separate your feet hip distance apart, and think about connecting back with the powerhouse. We'll begin with some breaths just to bring ourselves into the center so that we can reach away from that same position. So stand tall, roll the shoulders back and down, and feel connected through the ground, at the same time lengthening your head up towards the ceiling.

Breathe in, exhale out (inhaling and exhaling). And again, breathe in, centering yourself (inhaling), exhaling out (exhaling). Last breath in, preparing now for the work we've got ahead, inhale in (inhaling), exhale it out (exhaling), standing tall. Bring your arms in front. We'll do five squats, and from here, I want us to stay centered, zipping in and up, but at the same time, lengthen it up.

So even as we bend our knees and come down, we're still tryin' to reach the head up through the sky, and again, here we go for two, just three more, all the way to the top. Last one, and stand tall. Bring yourselves to the top of your mat. Cross one leg behind the other and fold the arms. Standing tall, we're gonna lower ourselves gently onto our seat.

You can use your hands if you're feeling a little wobbly, but stay connected Reaching through the head, reaching down through the legs as we lower to the mat onto our seat and onto our backs. So let's begin by finding that length in our position. So we've connected deeply with our powerhouse, our abs are scoop in, our seat is on, and our inner thighs are drawn together, but let's lengthen out away from that, so press your heels together, keep them down on the mat. The same with the upper body. It's lengthening away.

So as we come into our 100,` which is gonna be our warm up exercise, we bring the chin to the chest and the nose to the navel, reach the arms long, but I'm scooping the abs, reaching my body away, and pressing my heels. I'm gonna leave my legs down for this. As we begin, let's pump those arms, inhaling (exhaling), and exhaling (exhaling). Inhaling (inhaling), exhaling. Let's lift one leg up now, here it is, just a couple of inches off the floor, breathe the air out the lungs.

Change legs. And exhale everything out. Both legs, whatever your point of challenge is now. Exhale everything out the lungs one more time. Exhale it out (exhaling), lower the legs.

And again, scoop in, reach and pressing those legs, heels together. One leg lifts, change. Reach out through the leg, exhale it out, both legs up now, last set, and exhale it all out. Lower your legs down, lower your head down. Keep your toes pointed, but press your heels together for the roll up.

Bring the arms to the ceiling, ears between the arms as we inhale (inhaling), exhale up and over and stretch beyond the toes now, pulling the abs backs so we're reaching out through the legs, reaching through the upper body vertebra by vertebra, back to the mat (inhaling and exhaling). And reach and lower, vertebra by vertebra reaching those legs away using as little momentum as possible. Use the powerhouse, roll it back, two more, and reach, stretch, looking down to the knees. Reach the legs away long as we lower to the mat. Last one, come all the way up now, and let's sit tall.

Here, bring your arms out as though we're gonna do rowing on the Reformer. Bring your knuckles together, scoop your abs, and let's just take that C curve back, and again, sit tall, and again, scoop it in. It's just the first part of the exercise. One more time, scoop it back, press the hands out, up and over, and take your hands together behind your back and just stretch those shoulders. So we're reaching up and over and reaching the legs away and fold.

Now bring your arms up into 90, and we'll go with that same scoop, make this, scoop back, and let's do bicep curls for five, just for fun. There's one and two and three, stay with me, four and five, and then come up to sit, bend the knees. From here, arms down in front. This is gonna be very similar to maybe Twist and Reach on the short box, or perhaps the Stomach Massage series when we twist in that. So bring your arms forward and lift up tall out of the pelvis, so we're lifting up away from the center.

As we scoop, we twist, we reach from fingertip to fingertip. There's our length in our position, and then come back through the center to the other side. reaching back and up and lift, reaching back and stretch and lift tall at the top. Let's do one more in each direction (inhaling), abs deep, but reaching out through the head and through the fingertips, last one, and up, nice and tall. Stretch your legs out long.

For the Tree, bend one leg in, drive your arm underneath the thigh and let's take the wrist and sit tall and I want you to pull the top of the thigh and the torso together so that we lengthen up and we try and lift the body up. So it doesn't matter as we straighten and bend this leg how straight it goes, it's can you lift your torso high enough? Now, lift that leg up, take the hands up to the ankle. Let's rock back, rock back just once, and climb down our tree, one, two, three, and up, abs bring us back up. Try and keep that tree pointing as straight up to the sky as we possibly can.

Use your abs rather than momentum, and down, and while we're down here, bring the arms to the side, let's do some leg circles. So flex your other foot, arms strong by your side, and we'll stay anchored and centered. Keep the hips to the mat as we go across, down, around, and up, across, down, around, and lift. Get those abs bringing the leg back up, two more, one more, reverse, out, down, across, and up, out, down, across, and up, and reaching the opposite leg away, I'm pinning myself to the mat. Last one, okay, let's climb that tree back up.

So take the hands behind the thigh, use the abs and we climb up, and let's just take a stretch at the top (exhaling), and lower the leg down, ready for the other side. Drive the arm through, clench a fist and hold the wrist. Pull the thigh and torso together. Let's straighten and bend, energy out away from the center, and I take the hands, walk them up to the ankle, elbows wide, scoop deep and rock back, and let's climb down our tree, one, two, three, and abs to return back up, and again, down we go. If you need to use a little momentum with that leg, you can do, but try not to use too much.

Ready for our leg circles. Place the arms down by the side, stay anchored, stay centered, here we go, across, down, around, and up, across, down, around, and lift, reaching out through the opposite leg. Two more, reverse, here we go, and scoop, reach long with the body, pin yourself to the mat. Two more to do, last one, and let's climb back up that tree. Use the abs to climb all the way up.

Take a stretch at the top and lower the leg down. Okay, we're ready for Roll Like a Ball, so bring seat to your feet and let's take hold of the ankles. Hug those legs in. The tighter you hug, the harder the work's gonna be. And let's try and lengthen the spine up nice and tall before we come up and over.

So we're not just dropping our head into it, we're lifting up and over, still finding that opposition as we roll. Don't let those toes touch down, scoop those abs deep. Keep the integrity of the powerhouse and the length in the spine. Hug it in, two more. All right, bring your seat to the middle of the mat, ready for the abs series, everybody's fun, most fun moment, so take hold of one of your knees, reach the other leg long.

So we're still seeing that opposition. I'm reaching up and over with my spine, I'm reaching out through my legs, but I'm staying centered and connected into the powerhouse. Elbows also are gonna be pulling out to the sides, east and west. Lift the leg up, scoop the abs, and lower onto our backs, hug the leg in, reach the leg away as we change and change, and keep working, deep abs, long legs, elbows wide and active. The whole body's active.

We're gonna work that full body integration, that's the full body, but not the face, not the face muscles, just everything else we've got. Reach away, scoop deep. One more on each side, double leg stretch, hug the legs in, reach the arms and legs long reach, reach, reach and sweep and hug. Feel that opposition now as we reach away from the center, hug and draw it in, pressing the heels together, two more, last one, and hug it in, into scissors, so legs to the ceiling. Now, for this one, focus on keeping these legs really strong.

Don't just let them drop, so reach the leg away, pull the leg towards you as we pull, pull, switch, pull, pull, switch. Abs deep, elbows wide, reach those legs strong now (inhaling and exhaling). Keep smiling all the way through. What's Pilates if we can't have fun whilst doing it, right? Even through the tough stuff, smile through the tough stuff.

One more on each side, bring the legs together for our double leg low lifts. Now, I want you to bring your hands to the backs of the thighs to really feel this exercise, 'cause what tends to happen is we'll drop and let our upper body, lower back, which might feel right, but we're not working to our optimum, and we wanna strengthen and tone. So press the heels together, hands behind the thighs, and we bring our head towards our knees, yeah, pull with the arms, pull up as high as you can. Now, we're here, we have to stay here. Let's take our hands off behind the back of the head.

This is gonna be a real challenge to stay up there. No apologies, here we are lower, lower, lower, and scoop to lift, stay up, get that nose on the knees, and lift, and lower, lower, lower, and bring those legs up two more (inhaling), and up, last one. Never looked forward to crisscross more, here we go, as we criss and we cross, still reach, reaching long, through the legs and out through the elbows as well. Get the armpit up to the knee if you can, one more each side (exhaling), and then with control, come up to sit for spine stretch forward. So we wanna keep that focus on those transitions to keep the quality, so before we jump into spine stretch, bring your hands by your seat, bring your feet together and bend your knees.

Let's lift our hips up to the sky, and then scooping those abs back, pull back into a tendon stretch, another reformer exercise that were sneaking in there to work you hard. Let's see two more of those, lifting up, scooping back, abs lift, abs scoop, and then lower your seat to the mat. Now, we've got that sensation of how we're drawing the abs in and up that we can recreate in our spine stretch forward. So hands to the mat, reaching out through the heels, take an inhale, (inhaling), exhale it out, reach, reach, reach, and scoop those abs to stack the spine. It's like building blocks, nice and tall, inhale (inhaling), exhale up and over (exhaling).

Inhale up tall (inhaling), exhale up and over (exhaling), last one, get all that air in, breathe it in, stay connected here, though, as we exhale it out (exhaling), cleansing the lungs, stack the spine up tall, and we're ready for Open Leg Rocker. So bring your seat forward towards your feet and take your hands on your ankles and draw the feet in with your powerhouse, pick the legs up. Let's sit tall (inhaling), and bring the legs straight as you can get them, and lift the chest, proud chest. So we're reaching the legs away, reaching the head away, and then scoop the abs to begin the Rock and the Roll, and lift tall at the top, and scoop. Keep that opposition even through the exercise.

(inhaling and exhaling) It's all too easy just to let the body fold here, but let's keep the powerhouse connected, keep the spine reaching long, even in that C curve (inhaling and exhaling), one more, and then bring the legs together onto our backs for Corkscrew. So press the heels together strong, anchor down through the hips, let's take the feet to the right. They don't have to go through a big range of movement to challenge. Down, around, and center, and reverse, and center, and to the right, and around, and center, to the left, down, around, and center. Let's do one more in each direction (inhaling and exhaling).

Last one, I'm ready to finish with a challenge. Now, push your palms, push your shoulders, I want you to push the feet through the sky five times. Push up for one, and two, resist on the way down, three, and four, and the last one, come down slowly as you can, resist, resist, resist. I want to find a Teaser now. You can do this with bent knees if you need.

find your Teaser, separate your feet, and we're ready for the Saw. Bring your arms wide into periphery and sit tall. Take an inhale, an exhale, soar off your pinky three times one, two, three, stack tall (inhaling), breathe it in, and wring out the lungs (inhaling). And again, inhale tall (inhaling), exhale twist and wring it out, (exhaling). One more each side now.

Really stay anchored through the opposite hip as we reach and reach so we've got that opposition through the hands here as well. Last one (inhaling and exhaling), and stack tall. All right, let's cross the legs for Swan. We're gonna transition into Swan, but let's add a little challenge for that to help that strength and tone concept. So place your hands by your side, and the goal here is to lift your seat up off the mat.

That might be enough for you. Maybe you wanna challenge it further by lifting the other legs, or let's lift both the legs, and see if we can hold for a count of five. So strong push down through the floor, scoot the abs, lift the legs, and one, two, three, four, and five. Lower the seat, bring the feet behind you, roll over the knees, and then step or jump back, ready for our Swan position. I'm still gonna throw extra challenges in, so stay with me, they are invites if you want to join me and turn the heat up a little bit more.

So let's step or jump the legs back, and oh look, there's room for a little pushup here, (exhaling), and then we can lower ourselves to our fun, ready for our Swan. We're working. Press the heels together, find that length and opposition now in our prone position. So pushing an imaginary marble with the nose to the top of the mat. Lift the head, the chest, the shoulders roll back, find that length and lower with control.

And again, lengthening up, and lengthen to lower. Let's do two more, and I invite you as well to rock your Swan if you feel keen. So here we are, lengthen up. If you feel you want to, you get to do a Rock and a Catch. That's one, and that's two.

Lower gently down. Take your seat back to your heels, and stretch out with a nice, well-earned rest position, but not for too long, mind. We're ready for Thigh Stretch. So kneeling up now, knees just under the hips, arms forward. I like to start our Thigh Stretch with a strong chest expansion, bring that breath into the body.

So arms forward, take an inhale, (inhaling), look to the right, look to the left, look to the center, and reach the fingers down even as you bring those arms back. Let's do one more, inhale (inhaling), let's look to the left this time, look to the right, center, bring your arms forward ready to hinge into our Thigh Stretch. So lots of this, lots of this, and lots of inner thigh connection as we hinge back, reaching long out from the center, through the top of the head, and lift tall. And again, Thigh Stretch, reach, lengthen back, tall to return. One more, stay connected, stay strong, the whole body working, but with a happy smile on your face, and lift tall for your Thigh Stretch.

Okay, hands come down, curl your toes under. Let's take our seat up to the sky, and then you can walk your feet back, or if you want, see if you can jump them back through the feet, so we'll jump and lower ourselves onto our seat. And now we're ready for our Shoulder Bridge. So lower gently onto your back, arms by your side. Now, press your feet and thighs together, arms long by the side of the body, lift the sit bones to the backs of the knees, hips lift tall.

Keep the hips even as we bring one leg up to the sky, and I want you to imagine there's a rain cloud above you. Let's pierce a hole in it. Let's go five times, push up for one, two, three, four, five, reach your leg out, change legs. The other that leg comes in and pushes up. Let's pierce that hole in the clouds, one, two, three, four, five, reach the leg out and lower slowly down through the spine.

Now, reach your arms and legs long and roll over onto your side with as minimal movement as possible. We wanna stay integrated and controlled through all our transitions ready for Side Series. So here we are, press the feet down, leg kick front and back, opposition away from the center. Keep those hips stacked, reach the body away. Here we go, kick kick, back back.

Kick strong, reach long, strong kicks. Lengthen the body. Keep the upper body as quiet as we can. Last one (inhaling), up and down. Here we go, lift it up, reach it out, and up, reach away.

Scoop deep as we lift up, and then lengthen the head away as a leg reaches away, two more (exhaling), last one, and circles around (exhaling). And reversing. Now, bring the legs in line with the body, lift them up, and let's scissor them as though we're swimming on our side (exhaling). Good work, okay. Bring the legs to the front of the mat.

Let's sit up. Hands behind, strike a little Teaser, and then onto our other side, ready for Side-Lying Series on the other side of the body. Once again, hips are stacked, reaching out through the head, reaching out through the legs. Let's start with our leg kick front and back. As we kick kick, back back, kick strong, reach long, one two, lengthen back, two more, and back and forth, and back, up and down.

Lift that leg up, reach it away. You'll notice I'm reaching out. I'm reaching out in both directions. How long can you make yourself? Three more, and two, last one (exhaling).

From here, over on to your tummy, separate your knees and press your heels together. I want you to imagine that you're pushing your heels up through the sky as we push up and lower, and up and lower. Keep the upper body quiet, just the seat and the legs working, one more, and then let's pulse for 10, 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Stretch those legs out. Curl the toes under.

Once again, I invite you to join me if you want, let's add a pushup here. Push up and down, up, lift the seat up to the sky, and once again, walk your feet in, or if you feel you want to jump them forward on the mat. And we're now ready for some Teaser. Lower yourself gently down to the mat, stretch the legs out long, integrating everything now, so this is a great exercise to incorporate the whole body, and that stops us hinging through the Teaser. So lengthen the legs away, lengthen the upper body away.

Lots of seats, lots of abs. Here we go. Take an inhale (inhaling), reach for the knees, reach for the toes, reach for the sky, return to the mat, let's go again. Reach for the knees, reach for the toes. Now lift up, and on this one, can you stay lifting as you the legs, and raise, two more, and raise, last one, and lift and lower everything to the mat.

Let's rollover for Swimming. Turn ourselves over onto our tummies. Now, reach your arms and legs along. Pull the navel away from the mat like a little bit of ice under the belly (inhaling), and then on the inhale, lengthen up, and let's just swim as fast and strong as we can. Swim and strong like Jaws is nibbling your toes, a little quicker.

Let's look where we're swimmin', and hold, and lower. Take your hands and bring your seat to your heels for a moment, just scoop in the abs in for rest position (exhaling). So from rest position, that's curl our toes under. That's another Reformer on the mat exercise. We start with the toes curled, but they're in a little Cat and Cow, just rounding the back, arching the back, feeling the position of the spine in space.

Now on this one, round it and scoop it and scoop those abs fiercely until yes, the knees just lift off the mat. We are ready for our knee stretches, so stretch one leg out long, and then bring it in, and out, and in. Let's do three more. Keep the other knee just hovering. Last one, change legs.

What we do on one side, we have to do on the other. Stretch one leg out and bring it in and out. And the challenge is always to keep smiling, two and one. Bring that leg in, lower yourselves down. Let's go back into our plank position for a leg pull front support.

Now, press the heels together. Once again, look where we are. It's an invite only, but if you're with me, let's do this, one pushup, and then rock the heels back, rock them back. One more time (exhaling), and then let's turn over onto our seats. So lower your knees down and over onto your seat for a variation on Leg Pull.

So hands behind you, you can point your hands in any direction. I've got my fingers pointing forward. Separate your feet hip distance apart and lift your hips up, we'll march on the spot, march, keep the hips lifted as high as you can (exhaling). One more on each side, and then some bonus tricep dips, just three, keep the quality, and one, lower to your seat. Very good, we're ready for our side bend.

So turn onto your side, foot in front of the foot, other hand on the mat, and lengthen up tall. We're still trying to find that opposition, and we'll get a beautiful sense of opposition as we come into what can only really be described as a rainbow shape. So let's lift the hips, lift the body and stretch away from the center. Hips kiss the mat, two more, one more, and up. Swing the feet to the other side, and we're ready to repeat.

So lengthen up tall. We're looking for that opposition, even in the positions that it doesn't feel as natural. So reaching away from the center, connecting with your shoulder girdle, push, reach, and rainbow up, stretch it up, hips kiss the mat. Up again, length, one more. Lower the seat down, and swing your feet to the front of the mat for our Seal.

Okay, so for the Seal let's take the hands through, and take hold of the ankles. And I don't want you to grip the ankles this time. Let's see if we can just keep the fingers long and push into the ankle and the foot, and that's gonna help keep us connected here in the center. And how do we find our position in such a strange position? Well, you got to scoop your abs, lengthen your spine, and round up and over rather than just dropping into this.

So see if we can stay connected like that. Here we go, let's clap our feet three times, roll back, and the same, and again, push those elbows into thighs, thighs into the elbows (exhaling), clap, clap, clap. It's a fun exercise, too. One more time. I'm gonna go all the way up to standing, so be ready for this.

Let's clap one, two, three, scoop back, and I'm crossing my legs here to come all the way up, standing tall, and stay reaching. Look how I'm staying in our position even as I'm turning ready for my pushup. Heels press together (inhaling), rounding up and over, reaching through the heels, reaching through the head hands, come flat to the mat, you can bend your knees if you need to, to get there, and then staying connected here, looking for your navel. Walk the hands out two, three, ready for three pushups, press your heels together, stay long through your body, one, two, and three. Now, walk the hands back, keep the hips even, and roll up to stand.

Stay long, stay tall. Let's do one more set of pushups. Add in a further challenge, you're welcome to repeat the ones we just did, or if you're ready to turn the heat up, one leg, take one leg behind you, roll down. This is a challenge in balance as well. Walk the hands out, there's our pushup.

Walk the hands back. Stay connected here. Try and stay on one leg if we can. As we roll up, change legs. Rolling over, hands to the mat.

Hopefully yours was a little stronger than mine. One pushup, walk the hands back, and then with control, returning, bring the legs together. To finish as we began, feet wide, hip distance, arms out, five squats. Stay strong, stay connected, reaching away in both directions, and we lower and push. Go as deep as you can (exhaling).

And push, three, two more (exhaling). Last one (inhaling and exhaling). Great work everyone.