Feel Good Tower

Hi everyone, back at Pilates Anytime again. So, so good to be here with you, with my crew, and this amazing set for us to move together. So we're doing Tower work. You can be on a Cadillac, you can be on Tower, you can be on a wall unit. We won't be doing any push through work today, so it's really just your leg springs, and your roll back bar with your springs, that's it.

Nice and simple in terms of setting up and changing. I'm really just having the roll back bar set at the top, leg springs about halfway up, that's it, we're gonna move. And we're doing lots of yummy articulation today. Abdominals, and hips, and some cats, and things like that. So just come in, enjoy, and you know, move your spine with your breath.

I want you to move your knees, and setup knees over your bar. I just need to say how beautiful it is outside right now. I'm so grateful to be here. Yes, and I personally like being pretty far away from the spring attachments, so that I'm already working with the springs, and them working with me, and letting those springs slightly, slightly traction me that way. And then my opposition is going to be all of this, right this way, and that nice long spine.

So if we start out with our hands just right here on the top of the thighs, maybe your thumbs in your hip joints, give yourself a subtle traction. And as you traction, you can allow your low back to come into the arch or the extension if you wish. I'm actually gonna go the opposite way, against that. So I'm not really tucking my hips to do it, I'm just gonna start really saying, okay, let's sink the abdominal muscles in against the lumbar spine, tractioning the femurs away from the sockets slightly. And then just come into neutral.

And just take that again, you can inhale and exhale a couple of breath cycles. Just trying to create some length here. Of course some space around your pelvis and lower back. Okay, and then just come to neutral and we'll do it one more time. Just feeling the breath, and that nice sense of support, abdominals to your back.

Okay, and then come into neutral everyone, and lower your arms by your sides. And we'll take a few pelvic curls of course, and take a nice breath to begin. Feet are well positioned, each footprint is even, and let's go ahead and we start with that lower back flexion, and then just allowing yourself to curve and elongate up the spine. Eyes to the ceiling or the sky. Shoulders are pressed back, and we're in that nice clean posterior tilt of the pelvis, where we breathe, and we get to roll down.

Just take your time. This is your chance to really feel that you're gone, coming down the right and left side of your back evenly. Okay, and if you're feeling a little cattywampus, take some time to feel like you're getting even weight on both sides, very important. Okay, let's do one more. Just a nice basic pelvic tilt.

Rolling up. Okay, use your hamstrings a little more to press your pelvis a little bit higher. Try to elongate through your mid body to get some more length. Breathing in. And rolling down.

Sternum away from the chin. Hamstrings active. Okay, we're gonna go up again, and then start adding some things. Here we go rolling up. So this movement is called hip glide.

It's very small. Place your hands on your greater trochanters, these sticky outty bones here. Okay, and just like the bar is horizontal, we're gonna track the pelvis side to side. It's very small. I'm trying to allow my pelvis to glide over the top of my femur heads, which are in here of course.

It's not a real big movement, but you're trying to get a little lateral movement, side to side, and then find center. And now as we roll down the spine this time, I want you to kind of wiggle your spine as you come down. Okay, kind of weird, I know. Come to level. We're gonna do that same thing again, so take it out.

So rather than just go straight down, just give yourself kind of some wiggly, sifting kind of movements. Loosening up in a different way. Okay, one more time, pelvic curl, deep breath in. Curl. (exhales) Your back might feel like it touches the mat more evenly now.

Get a beautiful position here everyone, and take your arms all the way back over overhead. Spend a few breaths. Let this bring this traction in your legs a little bit this way. Your stomach coming in and up this way. The back of your shoulders pressing into flexion.

If you have the mat and you want to hold onto it, you can, I'm just gonna be here. And then the slowest, most luxurious roll down you can do, all the way down your spine. Okay, so we're gonna get ourself in neutral pelvis. Take those hands, interlace them behind your head. Scoop those elbows up so you're framing your head.

Let's breathe. Chest lift, exhale. So head, neck, and shoulders. Curling up, I want you to think of your elbows reaching to the top of your Tower unit. Really getting up into that flexion, and lower back down.

The footprint of each foot is even on your mat. Exhale as you curl up. Just watching the line of your legs follow the springs. And roll down. Two more.

Just a good basic chest lift. And release. And last one, exhale, curl up and stay. Reaching both hands toward the bar. Some of you have very long arms and you can reach that.

I don't, I can curl higher though with my chest. So now I'm gonna take one arm only, and just reach toward my ear line, and bring it back. Other arm, and reach. And back, singles again. Try to keep that upper body absolutely still.

(exhales) Two arms twice. This is a little more weight to work with. Keep that upper body position there. Reach, now we're gonna take both hands behind the head, staying lifted, and then roll all the way down. Okay, so I have one more pattern I want us to do here.

Breathing in, exhale, we curl up, we get to do some obliques now, we're so lucky. So I'm gonna have you find your chest lift, get into that position, and just start to easy, not very big rotation. You're coming to one shoulder blade, and over to the other shoulder blade, right? Keep them tiny, everybody. Really feel like you're pulling in to your body.

You're not traveling outside the frame of the table very much. So now hold your first side. Top arm is just gonna reach for the bar once. Put your hand behind your head. Other side.

You gotta stay lifted and reach. Other side. Now you're doing two reaches of the arms here, you're gonna pulse one, pulse two, behind, other side. Two little pulses, and one. Keep your feet even.

Okay, three pulses, and one. Two, three. Up and over, and one, two, three. Center and come all the way down. Okay, those are burners.

Take your hands to your bar. Bring your knees in towards you, curl your chest up. Just for a moment kind of suspend here. Okay. We know our rolling like a ball in mat class, this is not really the ball, but kind of a little version of it.

Start to feel the relationship of your hamstrings. Really deeply press them against the bar. And start to think about your chest going toward your legs. Right? See how we're getting a little bit of momentum.

Couple more, see if you can get maybe three more, and we'll go up on the third one. Here we go, one, two. Have some fun, get all the way up, three, and we're up, okay. I needed all of those to get up. Okay guys, we're gonna unloop our knees.

And then I want us to sit with our legs piked in front of us. Hold on to your bar. Sit as tall as you can, and just really feel a good wrap of your hand, especially the pinky finger side of your hand, so that you're not twisted here. Pull the springs down, and let's just work our shoulder girdle for a minute. So I'm gonna pull the bar toward my chest.

Keeping some tension on the springs, reach the bar forward. Ideally, the bar is traveling on a nice horizontal line. Shoulders are level. Let's just do one more, so you really should be feeling your middle back, the back of your shoulders, your body, okay? Couple roll backs, just nice and easy, inhale exhale.

I like to think about those inner thighs really lengthening toward my big toes. Coming all the way down. And a nice, easy chest lift, roll up to the top. (exhales) Let the crown of the head follow the bar. As we come to sit tall, press down on your bar slightly, breathe in.

Curling back again. Right away, your long inner thighs reaching past your big toes. You do want to get through as many parts of your spine. And then rolling back up. We're gonna start adding some arm work to that.

So I'd like us to take that pull down and row, hold this here, roll back with this row. Little more muscular effort to do that. Extend the elbows. And now just reverse that, so pull in, row, it's all like you're gonna go up and over the bar with your chest. Come to sit tall, and extended arms forward.

Let's do that one more time, same thing. Row. Hold on with your back muscles, right underneath your underarms. Rolling back. Extending your arms long, pinky finger side of the bar is connected.

Hands are firm, lift and roll. It's like you're going up and over the bar. And then extend. Two more regular roll backs, just make it nice and undulated, rolling. And rolling up. (exhales)

Follow the bar with the crown of your head. Coming up, pressing down, one more everybody. We're gonna add a little more arm work when we're flat this time. Okay, and just five times, straight arms. One, and two.

Working your tummy, three. Hands are even, inner thighs engaged, four. And press up, five. Nice easy roll up to get to the top. Your body's following that spring tension, and roll up to sitting tall, okay.

Let's do some, a little bit of oblique reach. So I want you to take your hands side by side on the bar. Cross your right leg over the left leg. You can move your legs to the corner of the frame if you'd like to, or you could keep them in the middle. This is where I'm going today.

And I'd like us to roll all the way down. Right down the center of that table or the mat. Roll those shoulders back. So we're about to release the bar with this right hand. You've gotta hold on tight with the left, you guys know that, so open that arm.

You look at it. Okay, it's anywhere you wanna go with this arm. It feels really nice though to start adding the opposite body side bend. So I'm reaching now to that corner, but I don't want to just arch my back, see what I'm doing there? We wanna get down in that mat.

Press the back of that arm on the table. Breathe in and out. Top leg should be really stretched. You should feel a beautiful stretch across the side of your waistline. We'll do it another one, just in case you don't get it the first round.

Hand on the bar, rolling up. Let's go one more time. Inhale tall. Exhale, roll it back. (exhales) Release.

Now you can start to allow that body to bend more. If you have your mat and you want to pull on it, there's lots of variations here, or just reach, try to open your ribs, press that arm back, circle. Okay, you're ready to do to the other side, so everybody come all the way up. Hold back with the abdominals. Rolling to sitting tall.

Second leg on top, that'd be your left one. Inhale, roll it back. (exhales) Okay. Right hand holds the bar, left releases. Go kind of slowly first, just check it out, see what you've got.

You can pause here, or you could go farther. I'm trying to side bend this way. Open those ribs. Recognize the differences of the sides of your body, right? Breathe in.

If you feel tightness, breathe into that area. Take that leg and make sure it's really long on top. Take one more inhale, exhale. Okay. Circle that hand around.

Roll up. We have one more inhale at the top. And exhale. (exhales) Really juicy roll backs. Releasing your hand.

Watching it arc, arc, arc. Go where you can. Open those bodies, open those tighter spots, take the breath into it. Making sure you're not arching your back, you're trying to imprint your vertebra. Okay.

And then circle around, and roll your way up. Okay everyone, we're going to pivot quarter turn. Scoot around and get on the side of your hip. Really feel your feet press into your bars, okay, and then lean out, put your hand behind your head, get on the side of your pelvis. Use your legs, and really press into the bar, so you feel that firmness.

Now lift off the elbows. You're just barely off of the mat, right? That's it, but I know you'll all feel the work here, and then set the elbow down with control. Let's try it again. Exhale, pull into your body.

Feel the strong legs helping, right? If you push into the bar, you're gonna feel how you levitate a little bit, and then come back down. Two or three more. Just use that small movement. Lift a little more.

And lower. And imagine in a minute that we could do a lateral flexion toward the bar like a mermaid. We'll get to that in a little while. But here we're just prepping the side body. Just hold, legs are long, stomach is in, and release.

Okay, let's do the other side. So just pivoting around and really secure your hand on your bar. Leaning out and putting that hand behind your head. Using those legs and press into the frame. So we breathe in to prepare.

Now not a big movement, but just use the anchor of your legs. Lift up off of the mat, and then come back down. Set that shoulder, take a breath. Head is nicely aligned over the shoulders. You lift, and you come back down.

Use those legs to stand on. Elevate your elbow a little bit above the mat. Get long from tail to head, and come all the way down. We have two more. (breathes) Feel the breath help you move into that lateral lift.

And one more time, and exhale we lift. And we lower. Good work everybody, come all the way up, and then we're gonna move into some leg springs now. Okay, so I'm just gonna tuck my bar right behind there. Everybody turn around on your back.

Now, supine legs first, okay? So I have my springs fairly high up there. Feet in. Press yourself away. It's such a great Tower unit, and you're going to kind of reference this bottom eyebolt, that's where I'm going, and I'm gonna put my hands right there, and I'm pushing myself away from the frame.

Get your heels together, toes apart, and then the bottoms of the feet together in that diamond position I love to teach. So I'm gonna start you with your springs stretched, pelvis in neutral, in a diamond. Press the feet together to activate your inner thighs, and then we're starting to move that diamond down and up. If you can get yourself all the way to a nice flexion at the hip, leg over hip, and then all the way down to the mat. Pinky toe could touch.

And all the way up from the hip joints. And all the way down. (exhales) Beautiful arcing action of the femurs. Trying to feel the resistance of those springs, as if you're still stretching the springs, even when you're coming up, and that's that weird, weird suggestion. Two more times down and up.

Make sure you're feeling long in your abdominal wall. Last one, now we're staying low. Start to move your femurs to parallel, and then extend your legs. Reverse that, start bending the knees open to that diamond. Again, femurs to parallel, extend to parallel.

Bend your knees and open. So I'm really not changing the length of the spring here much on that diamond movement. The length of the spring changes when I extend my knees. Okay, couple more. (exhales) I'm pushing with my hands.

Last one. And now instead of a diamond, I want us to come to frog. Start to make a circular motion with your frog. (breathing) You can make that movement bigger, as if the heels are gonna get all the way to the mat, big leg lift up. Press down.

Legs all the way up, two more this direction. Slide. And one more. Okay, and now reverse it. Let's do four everyone, so we'll take the legs out.

Feel the mat and slide up. Heels toward the sitting bones, then heels to the ceiling. Down. So you wanna try to get a full leg stretch, right? All the way, all the way, all the way, get the heels to the mat.

Notice what you're feeling, a lot of good hamstring and inner thigh work. Beautiful, and rest for just a minute. Now leg circles, let's come up to parallel. We'll do four each direction, we don't need to do many, come down. Externally rotate.

Go as wide as you feel like you wanna go today, and close. Press. Open around, and close. Three. I'm not doing as many reps supine, because we have some side lying legs that we're gonna do with some half rond de jambe.

Okay, so we'll get there, now let's reverse it, open. If you could get your legs all the way down to the table, great, or the mat. I'm gonna stop just a little shy of that. And one, two more. Long springs remember, really long springs.

And our last time. (exhales) And lift, okay. Bring your legs down, take the feet out of both straps. I'm gonna rotate toward you all, that'll put me on my left side. And then I'd like to have us get as close to the side of the mat as we can.

All right, without rolling off. I know I can get a little closer, and then it's this spring that's going on this foot. All right, so. Now something you can do, if you don't, if you're not on a raised mat or Cadillac, you might wonder, where's this hand gonna go? You can put it right in front of your chest, you can put it up on your wall, okay?

So just take a moment and stretch from head to toe. I want you to do some leg lift in parallel. You're right on the side of your trochanters. Three. And use those adductors, and four.

We'll take four more of this movement, it's nice and healthy, four. And down. And three. Pelvis stays nice and stacked. Four, okay.

Raise your leg a few inches. You should be right in the top here with your leg in line with your hip. Now this is a challenging one, I've done it before. Bring your leg pretty far forward. Okay, now from here arc the leg up, keep tension in the spring, and then pull it down so you're in external rotation now.

Roll to parallel as you come front. Try to keep those sitting bones pointing that way. Lift the thigh, and then it's adductors pulling down. Okay, a lot of great hip joint work here. Mobility and strength.

One more this direction. Ah. Good, and lower. Now we're gonna reverse it, so keep it turned out as you come up. And as the leg comes down, you're just coming in parallel.

Keep stretch on that spring. Reach this sit bone that way. Pull. Turn out and lift. Lower the leg with control, and pull it back.

Ooh, I have that spring attached pretty high, and it's up. Turn and pull down. One more. And then there's something really lovely coming your way. Oh my goodness, okay, so everybody roll over on your back.

Voila. Carefully lift this leg up, and in line with your hip here, but we've got this nice diagonal pull. I've done this before too, I love this sequence. You can put your hands back up for support. Single leg circle, you're gonna cross over and get a really lovely IT band stretch.

Take the leg down. Now really control how you open that leg, and up. Just two each direction. This is a lot of circling leg action here. Okay.

And then two the other way. This is where a lot of the work of control is, right about now. Stay in control of that spring. Let your outer hip get the stretch. Last time.

(exhales) Just work with that spring, stay in charge of it, and then a piriformis stretch real quick. Okay, how'd that go? So all that on the other side, this is where it's weird, I won't be able to see you now, but that's okay. Take your foot out, and then we just roll over to the right side. And once again, get yourself as long as you can, as close to the edge of your mat as you can.

Up comes that leg, whoa. Okay. And start with your leg in parallel. Hips are stacked. You can take your top hand and hold the bar, or wall, or frame, or in front of you.

I'm gonna hold in front. We did eight AB-duction AD-duction. And remember as you take your leg up, you are not wanting that whole pelvis to hike, right? You're just really getting lateral medial glide of the femur. (exhales) Four more.

(exhales) Three. Two. (exhales) Last one, okay. Now comes the single, the single leg rond de jambe, the half rond de jambe. So as you're taking your leg forward, you're definitely not hiking this hip.

That sit bone should be reaching down to the end of the mat. Bringing your leg up in external rotation, coming down. Right, so it's that parallel to come front. Really allow your hip to feel the stretch, carry it up. And lower.

We did five each direction. Keep tension on the springs. (exhales) So you're gonna feel so much of your torso, obliques, and back muscles really working to help you not fall off of your table if you're up on one, okay? Or to roll forward. Now reverse the movement.

So really a lot of the work is in the trunk as well as the hip joint. (exhales) Externally rotate to lift. From the top up, take it in parallel. Keep it parallel as you pull back. We've got two more in this sequence.

And, (exhales) one more time, turning out and lift. Try to keep some tension in there. Up and pull. Okay, here's the fun one, roll onto your back. Woo.

Okay, readjust. I like my hands up. Bring your leg in line with your pelvis, and then we had two leg circles going over. You want to get that stretch, pull. All the way around and center, good.

It feels pretty good, doesn't it, to get that stretch on that outer leg. Really stay in control of it here. Okay, now the reverse is true so you're going out. A lot of effort right here, a lot of control needed right here. Ooh, but allow the hip to get that long stretch.

Last time. (exhales) All the way. And then a figure four stretch. Nothing too fancy, but we're just crossing that ankle over the knee. Great, and then everybody take that foot out of the strap.

Okay, let's come on off of our backs. Woo, and we're gonna come up facing the roll back bar for some thigh stretch. Here we go. Come on up, grab that bar. Now, I want you to start pretty far away first, everybody.

Tuck your toes. If I told you we were gonna do it a little toe stretch, or toe exercise, you probably wouldn't have wanted to do it, but I want you to just to sit, do a toe sit, right? So you're just bending those toes, and sitting on your heels. Just try to be quiet with it. You've got some support from the springs, but see how much you can really settle down, heel, onto your heels.

Okay, now from there get a really deep pelvic tilt. Really deep pelvic tilt, and you're gonna feel that deep stretch in your quadriceps. We know that's what the thigh stretch is. And then just release that, and come back to your toe sit. Okay, you certainly could do this without the bar, I just wanted to do it with the bar.

So here we are sitting on our toes, and we're going into that really deep pelvic tilt. Stabilize your shoulders. Try to allow the quadriceps to get that deep, long, long stretch. Okay, and then come out of that, we'll do one more of that. So just sit for a moment on your toes.

Ah, so good. And flex. So that amount of that deep quad stretch, we're gonna try to get that in our thigh stretch plus, okay? So carry this all the way up. Keep, keep, keep the tilt.

At the very top you can undo your pelvic tilt, and set your feet flat. But here we go. Pelvic tilt leads the way. Lean back. Go further than you think you can go, get all the way back, get your sit bones down on your heels.

Go, you have more stretch in you, guys, go. Reach your knees forward. This feels like heaven. And then as I come up, I'm just trying to keep that pelvic tilt. I'm gonna keep it.

And at the very top, elongate. Two more of these, pelvic tilt. Keep it, increase it, lean. I'm going back, I'm letting the quad stretch, trying to stay parallel. Setting the weight of my knees forward.

So deep, deep quad stretch. And coming up, let the springs help you, but you're doing a lot of the work. And we're coming up. One more time, let's set those shoulders, pelvic tilt and lean. And lean.

And lean. And I throw a little curve ball in here, let's see if we can take that upper body back. Just check out what's behind ya. Couple rows. Good things come in three, so do three, there's your three.

Lift your head up. And re-curl, and re-curl. And now you're all the way up. I want you to come into a cat back. Come into a cat.

There's your cat. Now let's really let the cat flip its tail up. Elongate, lift your upper back up, press your bar just a little bit. You've gotta stay in control of your body weight. There's not a lot of help here.

Stretch longer, and now curl that tail. Come all the way back up, press your pelvis forward. Another cat. Trying to keep pelvis above the knees. Flexing that spine.

Elongate, flip the tail, lift those sitting bones. There's that undulation through the spine we've been working with today. And then re-curl, starting at the tail. And roll our way back up. Now let's do one more and kinda put a few things together here, okay?

So her cat, his cat, their cat, everyone's cat. And lengthen out. Feel the gesture. Right, now we're gonna move this cat back into a thigh stretch, so just go back in your thigh stretch. Go back into your arch.

Bring yourself up. All the way, let's do two more rounds. Just make it really connected now everybody. And just really connect all of those components together. One more.

How are we doing, curl, your quads are gonna love you tomorrow. And extend, and roll. (exhales) So we've got a cat, into a thigh stretch, into a back extension. And it would be fitting for a day like today to do some mermaids, because heck, we're outside. So I'm gonna turn away from you first everyone.

And the mermaid I'd like us to do, you can do as if you set up on reformer with your one foot behind you, and the other foot in front of you, or you could kind of do that little layered foot position, and heck, you can make your own design with your legs. I really want this to feel comfortable and doable here in this one arm support. And then I want you to take the opposite hand behind the head. So we were here earlier, remember, and what I want us to do now is lean away from the springs, trying to have a nice diagonal line from your head to your tail. Just holding there.

Now as you lean more, stretching the springs, we're gonna try to get down to the tip, closer to the tip of the elbow, I may not get there right away. That's fine. Now I want to round myself into my mermaid spine. I'm gonna just really allow my spine to flex. Open back out into that diagonal line, and come up a little bit.

And again, leaning out. Oh, it's so beautiful out here. My goodness. Take a breath, as we exhale from the core of the body, rounding in. I'm not truly in the sun, but I'm imagining if the sun were really, you know, warming up my back.

How that feels to let your back go into the sun. And open up. Maybe you lean a little further, and come up. We have one more with a little extra at the top. Ready?

Let's go everybody. Enjoy this movement. Connect that hand securely on your bar. Rotate. Curl in.

Open back out. And as we come up this time, that top arm is gonna come up and over, and reach, and reach, and reach, and reach, and relax. Okay, we have our other side to do. And then one final stretch that's gonna feel really nice too. Okay.

So get your hands secure. About halfway away on the Cadillac pad. Hand behind your head, and then find your lean. Find your lean. Just trust that.

The breath is there. And then as you exhale and you're feeling the connection in the middle of the body, the response on the outside as we curl in toward our body. Open back out. Open that chest, lean down a little further, breathe. And again, I said a little lift.

The contraction of my abdominals helps me flex that spine. Again, opening the back of your back back. Opening up toward the front. Maybe you stretch the spring a little more. We've got one more, ooh, and up.

And contract. (exhales) And open. And then our final lift. Let the springs help you take this arm up and stretch over, and over, go for a little more length, and over. Okay, wonderful guys, we're gonna stand up.

Now I have a, I know that you, all of you who are on a wall Tower, you won't be able to do this completely, you might have to go against your Cadillac, or against a wall to do it, or doorframe, but the rest of us can. We're gonna come up to standing for our spread eagle, okay? Yeah, and, you know, put your hands kind of hip height on the bar. Walk your toes really close to the edge. If you learned it the way I did, they taught us to curl, or hook the bar with your big toe and your other toes.

I don't know about you, that doesn't feel comfortable, so I'm gonna go back here. What I'd like us to do is, you see I'm very close to the frame. Lean back, straightening your arms, legs are straight, and I want you to go to a round shape of your spine. Let your head come down. Right, curl that tailbone.

Now from here a little variation, we're just gonna sit into this little squat movement there, and then reach your hips back and try to go into that real wide back. Spread your wings. Now bend your elbows and pull yourself straight up. A couple more times. Leaning back with straight arms.

Curving your spine flexion. Mainly the tail and the sacrum getting that long curl. Little squat. Gotta use your arms and use your legs to bring you up and round. Let the back of your back skin get really wide, and then bend your elbows, pull yourself up for one more, everyone.

(exhales) And bend your elbows. Bend your knees. Straighten, inhale, widen that back. Here's your last movement, pull those elbows up, and all the way to tall. Okay, thank you for joining me everyone.

See you next time, bye.