Cadillac ABCs

I'm so glad you joined me here today at my studio, Pilates Unlimited in Dallas, Texas. This is my real life client Lizanne and Lizanne is gonna be here doing a Cadillac workout. We're gonna activate muscles in the appropriate way. We're gonna practice our breathing techniques and then we're gonna connect exercises to other exercises. The workout is an intermediate workout.

Lizanne has been taking classes for a long time. She has made lots of progress as is measured by her ability to do things at home easier with grandkids, easier in stuff like that. So I thank you again for joining me. We'll start this session lying on her back. She's gonna lie face up on the back.

Bend the knees. The feet are flat. We start with breath. Breath is the best place to start. It gets everybody centered. Your hands are on your ribs and then you take an inhale.

You feel your chest, you feel your belly. Exhale, everything melts down. We're not grabbing the buttocks. We're not over gripping the belly. We're relaxing the jaw.

We're getting the body to rest on the bed, getting ready for some work. One more big inhale (inhales deeply) and one more big exhale. We're gonna take the roll down bar, put it in your hands. You'll notice where these two short yellow springs, they're coming about halfway up. Depending on the size of the client, I'm not gonna give a bunch of lecture on the size of the client because many of you wanna perform this whole session with us.

So inhale, push the arms down, knuckles stay straight. Exhale, they release. 10 times. Inhale going down, exhale release. As she continues this, my job as a teacher is to coax her and invite her into the movement.

She's done lots of the movements before. We may throw in a couple of fancy things at the end but for right now, her body knows what to expect. On this last one, she's gonna hold. She's gonna reconnect through the shoulders and then right thigh lifts up into the bar and holds. Pressing the thigh into the bar and the bar into the thigh, we make a deep connection of isometric contraction.

Thigh to bar, bar to thigh, no bulging of the abdomen. They all release. Arms press, left leg lifts, presses into the thigh. Excuse me, the bar into the thigh, the thigh into the bar. Notice how nice and straight the wrists are.

The bridge of the nose is back. The back of the skulls is in alignment. And then release. One more time, press the bar, lift the leg. Hold.

Here comes the tricky part. She's holding the bar into the thigh and the thigh into the bar. Now she's gonna do a posterior tilt, pull her belly in. The pelvis moves from the action of the belly. and then release.

Do that three times. Here's the second one. You curl, very nice. Feel the action of that belly curl up, last one. Hold yourself right there and then release the leg, and then release the bar.

Inhale again. Exhale, press bar, other leg touches. We make the connection first. Then we ask for the posterior tilt. So the resistance of the bar and the thigh make a connection and then the posterior tilt really works this lower part of the trunk here to curl up and then release.

And then the last one, it always is challenging. Great position of the head and shoulders. And then release and then release the arms, pause. Now, arms press half the distance, pause. Broaden the shoulders, right?

And now just tip and curl your pelvis. So now we're gonna tip and curl the pelvis. Good and then roll down. So tip it less and just do a tiny, perfect, tiny abdominal curl and then release. And then do that again and then release.

And now here's the tricky part. Tip and hold. Hold the tip, take this right leg, touch it into the bar. Hold the tip as best you can, take the other leg up to match it. Hold that tip, that's the hard part.

So wanna move your head and shoulders, you're not doing it. Can you untip? Yes, you can. And then can you retip? Yes, you can.

And then can you untip? And then one more time, tip the pelvis, hold there, hold there, hold there. One more big inhale and then everything releases. Put your feet down. Relax your arms.

That's using the spring to give the idea of the tipping. The tipping is so important with resistance. That is what prepares us for short spine on the reformer. So now the hands come to the ceiling, palms will touch. So now do the tipping nicely and well, not like you would do it not nicely, right?

But we're just, yeah. Anyway, so tip it more. Good, start to lift up more. Good, pause right there. Now drop the ribs down first, then the pelvis, then the cheeks of your bottom, then you roll down, and then you pause.

Just do that two more times. So now the hands squeezing together. She's not pressing down her arms on the side using the buttocks, using the belly, and then rolling down and then we'll do that one more time. Tipping the pelvis and rolling down. At no time over squeezing the buttocks or anything like that.

There'll be a time for that in our next exercise. Take the bar again. Legs come out into the trapeze now. So they're gonna come up in here. Very good, now you might need to adjust yourself accordingly.

Is that comfortable there? I need to come up a little bit. Just a little bit. Now set your shoulders, right? Tone your tummy so we're just kinda like feeling, we're not gripping our butt or anything like that.

So your inhale, press the bar, curl your pelvis, lift up till the thigh touches the bar, bar touches the thighs, very good. And then the thighs lower down as the bar releases, right? Do a little breathing exercise here. You can do it quicker if you'd like. Inhale, press. (inhales deeply) Exhale, release two, three, four.

Breathe in two, three, four and exhale, two, three, four. Inhale, lift your pelvic floor. Exhale two, three, four. One more time. Notice the beautiful position of the head not changing, not smashing the neck, not doing anything like that.

Release the arms lower down and I promise this is last one. She knows I'm not a good counter but we're gonna stay up. Press the bar into the thigh. Push the thigh into the bars. Feel your thighs.

Feel your buttocks. Feel the back of your shoulders. Now this time release your arms first and then lower your butt second. And then everything comes down. Nice job.

Take the legs out. All righty. Moving on now, another exercise with breathing and trunk stabilization. It's going to be a single leg circle. So left leg comes into one strap, stretch your right leg out long, press this leg out long and pause.

So heavy shoulders, right? Pelvis is level, tighten up this left leg. Now this leg is gonna press over to the side. Look at that spring Lizanne. Stretch that spring out, bring the leg down and out and then it comes in.

Five times, go. Down to me out here and up. Inhale. (inhales deeply) And then exhale, keep reaching the spring. Last one in this direction and then come around and then come up. Now we'll reverse it right away.

Come out down. Cross it over and then bring it up. Two legs are strong, right leg is pressing away as the left leg circles and move. Notice again the nice head position. Where's your head?

Check your head and neck. Maybe you need something underneath your bottom. I mean, underneath your head when your bottom is down. We'll have one more circle like this and then circle it around and then bend the knee into the chest. Give it a hug. Pause.

Now, press this leg out just to it's about at 90 degrees. Give it a little pressure away. Feel the springs open. Next exercise is open the spring, close the spring, call it bend and stretch. So stretch the leg out and then resist it in, I give a little resistance.

Press the thigh away and then resist it in. Three more times. The knee is just a bridge between the thigh and the foot. She's pushing with her thigh, pulling with her thigh, much like footwork on the reformer and she's starting to quiver, and we'll do one more time. Press and bend and then take that leg out and rest.

Very good. Other leg. Grab your strap. Put your leg in the strap. Check in where are your chest, where are your chest. Where is your chest?

Where's your head? And then we start with the legs straight up to the ceiling. Good. I'll move this. We're gonna use this in a second so that's why I'm leaving it up there. Press the leg around and down and then circle it out with control.

Sometimes you can take two fingers right of your hand and put them on the inside of your pelvis. Remember how we had to keep the pelvis level, right? You have to think about that as the leg circles. The leg is straight and strong. It's reaching across the body coming down and around.

One more time. Inhale, come over please. (inhales deeply) Exhale. Come down and around. Pause at the top. Reverse, inhale out down. Exhale crossover, touch my hand here.

Touch it, touch it. Good and then bring it up. I wouldn't be surprised if you get that little cramp in the front of top of your thigh. Do you feel that there? Just a little bit.

Two more times around down and come up. Left leg pressing very long, ankle pull very up. Last time. Actually, I think there's one more. Let's do one more just for the Girl Scouts.

Over you go and then bend that knee in. Give it a hug. Pause. (inhales deeply) Good, now bring your leg out to about 90 degrees. So in this position here, it's important that you actually feel yourself put the brakes on, right?

So you feel, yeah, yeah. She always checks her muscles with her fingers, right? So that's good and then it comes in. Then you push away, inhale, exhale. You resist that spring in.

Quiet that spring, right? Keep the tension. Even when you bend the knee you still wanna keep the tension, do two more. Inhale press and exhale bend. Last time.

You got it. And then bring it in and then rest that leg down. All righty. So now we use the spring for resistance. Now we're gonna go back to the left leg, bring it in, lift it up.

Same exercise, leg go straight, single leg circle. No spring, no help, no nothing. This is where you get five circles each direction. And when you pull that leg up, sometimes you get a little cramp in that top of that thigh and then bring it around, two, very nice and this right leg staying long. Here's three and then here's four.

Last time around. And then reverse it five times. Check in. Where's the shoulders? Where's your head, the bridge of your nose, right? The tummy has a little tone in it.

As the leg circles let's get one more. And then bend that knee into the chest. Give it a hug. Good. And then reach that leg out long. Bend the right knee in, kick it up.

Arms are down. Chest is open. (inhales deeply) Exhale. Good. I'm exaggerating the breath. She is breathing nicely. A round down nice strong stable leg, nice and solid.

We have one more time in this direction. Good and then reverse around down circle around and up and around down and up. Here's two more. Notice nice position of the head and shoulders. She checks in periodically with her pelvis as should you.

Last one. Very good. Lower the legs down. Pull it in and then rest. Two knees bent.

Now, from this position here, we have 10 tiny bridges, okay? Getting ready for the back of the bottom for our plank on our trapeze, right? So, she's gonna do five just little up and downs. I mean not high, just up and down and press legs, lower bottom. Here's three.

Good and four. Last time. Good, now the bottom stays down. Arm come to the ceiling, palms touch. Now this time we're not gonna curl, it's how you're gonna lift your belly button first, right?

It's up and then crease the hips, go down. And then lift the belly and then crease the hips go down. This feels different. They're both good exercises, one's articulatory, one's neutral. I lost count already.

How about three more? One. Good. Press these feet down and two. And then last one. Very good and then rest.

Okay, come up to sitting. Turn and face the bar. Now, we're just gonna do a tiny little roll back here just to get that spine. You're gonna hang onto here. I have these short yellow springs on.

They're gonna stretch out as she rolls down and rolls up. Legs aren't gonna touch anything. As she rolls down, the knees will bend a little bit. The pelvis will roll down, very good. Lift the head, look at the bar.

Curl the trunk and have patience to come up three times. Just hang onto the bar, bend your knees a smidge. It allows your belly to roll back. Good and then lift the head. Let the spring shorten. Very good.

And then last time. (inhales deeply) Exhale. Move your body down and then lift the head, look at the bar. Curling the trunk. Front stripes get shorter, these back stripes get longer.

Very good. Release the bar. Nice job. Okay, come up to standing. So in our standing exercise now we put a little challenging exercise in after this beginning part here. So this is our reverse plank.

We're not going to do pull ups today because this is a new exercise we've been working on. So hands grab the sticky. Move back just a little bit, please. There you go. So I'm gonna double check this.

Yeah, I already locked it. Okay, so now this is the tricky part of the exercise, this is the new part of the exercise. First she's gonna bend this knee into the chest and hold and then put it down. So now she's lifting her thigh against gravity important to make sure these hip flexors are strong. And then as this leg lifts in, what is the other leg doing?

It's pressing down. Yeah, she knows the answer, she answered it as well. One more time on the right and now, very good. Now lift the thigh. Kick the legs straight, touch bend in, lower down.

Three times. Bend and kick. It may not touch, it will move you closer in a second. Good and then in and down. You get that cramp, right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, one more time. It's important for those hips. Very good and down.

Now move closer just a little bit. You know where you're headed. Right leg is going first, bends in, kicks out. Press it down. Hang onto your arms, other leg comes up.

Now bring yourself level, the elbows will stay straight. Your feet pressed down. You hold this. Look at this line right here. Shoulder blades are squeezing.

Fingertips are squeezing. Arms are active and then hip creases. And then you take your left leg out first this time, then the right one and you pull yourself all the way up and rest. Whew and now we have other legs. So starting first we lift the thigh five times, right?

It's important to tie in the relationship between hip flexor lift and belly lift. This would come alive on chair pumping and all sorts of exercises like that against gravity. Now lift up, kick out three times. Kick out and then bend in, lower down, right? So I'm not gonna let you touch it this time, good.

And then last time lift up, out and down, rest. (exhales sharply) We only have one more. Okay, so bend in the leg, hold the hip flexor. Kick it out. Oh, there's that cramp. Good job.

Now, as soon as you press down on that leg, that cramp goes away, right? So now you're working the back of your leg. Bring yourself up, she's in total control. Now, press the feet down, squeeze your hands. You're just gonna hold here.

Just gonna hold. Just gonna hold. Head is in line. Just gonna hold. Take a big inhale. (inhales deeply) Big exhale and then slowly with control, the crease comes down of your hips. Your right leg comes out first this time and then you pull yourself up and you come all the way up, and you rest. Complete quiver.

We have a little water. A little drink. Very good and rest. Now that's a big accomplishment. Okay, accomplishments are important.

They're measurable. The client knows it. You know it. They feel it. All right, come on down to your knees. We'll take a little interlude here I like to call it.

Come forward just a smidge. Put your hands on top of the trapeze. Good. Come forward just a little bit. So now push these arms down as if you're gonna stretch these springs but you're not going to be able to because they're tight. So as you go forward, it's like a little kneeling plank and then come back, good.

Take your pelvis with you, you might wanna even lift your feet so you're on your knees. Oh yeah, that's it and then you come back. You feel that little quivery in the front line. Okay, three on your own, I'm not helping, you're doing it. That's it and then return.

Good. Here's the second one. Bring your pelvis towards my hands. Yes and then good, quiver, come back. And then last time inhale, go forward. Can you stay there on an exhale?

And then can you take one more inhale and then exhale, bring yourself all the way back. That's a plank, right? Yes. That's core activation. Hands to the bar, come to standing.

Turn around and face the other direction. So one of the thing that's important in our clients. Well, in everybody actually, not just people that are certain ages, right? But we look for thigh musculature, we look for all the muscles that help the knees and help make different connections like that. So in this little lunge series here, she's not going to lift both legs up and do hanging with her face down.

We're gonna use this as a lunge series. So hop this leg forward just a smidge, there you go and let's see what this looks like. So as the right knee bends forward, the left leg reaches back. Good and then pull yourself up. That's beautiful.

Okay. We got eight of them. That's two. Pull down with the arms, lift up. As the knee comes forward, this quadricep is working. This thigh is elongating and come up.

And we're halfway done now. Lizanne tuck your elbows into your ribs as you pull yourself up, very good. (inhales deeply) Exhale, press this left heel down. You just got two more. Be sure you pull in your tummy, good.

And then last one and then bring yourself up, nice job. Take your left leg out and pause. (blows) That might have been the best you ever did that. That's really good. Okay, so take your other leg back now.

So again, what we're looking for here, right, is this ability to do almost like a single leg squat. We could do it without the tower but I like having the back leg elevated, it puts a little load in the front leg. So let's bend the left knee forward as the right leg goes back you pull on your arms, you lift up. Good and then sometimes I might say, hey, use your arms today more than your legs. Or sometimes we might say, hey, today use your legs to pull up more than your arms and then maybe we'll go halfway back and hold.

Here's the tricky part. Do you have to hang on so hard? Yeah, she can take time. Yeah, you feel that little work in your legs, good. And then pull yourself all the way up and then step out of there.

Whew. Nice job. Okay. Round your torso down. Touch the mat just for a second here. Nod your head, look at your thighs. Good. Breathe into your back, right?

Tighten your thighs up here and now when you come back up to standing, tighten your tush, right, 'cause it's your tush that drops down that help you lift all the way up. Very good. All righty. Come all the way down one more time. And put your hands flat and then come to your hands and knees. Very good.

So stay there for a second. As your own little interlude do just a couple of flexion and extensions or cat and cows. Okay, so we just go through here now in between. So it's a natural little rest for her. She's sweating, she's working.

Her legs are tight. She's gonna press these shins down a little bit and now she's gonna arch her back, hold right there. And she thinks here her bottom is sticking out a mile but really it's just a flat sacrum and then nod the head, lift the ribs. Nod the head, look at your thighs, hold yourself right there. Big inhale.

Exhale, relax your shoulders. Good and then bring yourself back to level. Good. Turn yourself around. Have a seat here.

So on the start of our push through series today, we've been working on lengthening the thighs a little bit, right? So we're gonna actually straddle the carriage, okay? And is this okay if your feet aren't touching anything here? Do you feel okay with that? Okay. Yes, I'm good.

Scoot you forward just a smidge. Yeah. And then just put, maybe just a little bit more. Yeah. So first holding the tower here, we want to find vertical, right?

So here's the vertical sacrum. There's that and there's the head. This is great. She just knows exactly where this is now. She used to be a person, don't even do it, you just keep holding that. Okay.

That kind of lifted the chest and had this little shearing forward in the ribs. But once we understood and learned like where this package of the ribs lives made much better feeling in the back and a much better connection in the front. So before we even move the torso, just bend your elbows, pull the bar down. Feel how that pulling down starts to get that front connection there. Can you feel that? Yes.

Good and then release. So we get a feeling first. We get no movement, right, and release. But as we work the bar down, this is actually a flexion force in the trunk. So this right here is a great start of the exercise.

Now she's gonna pull down and straighten the arms out round the torso forward. You have the bar? Yeah. She's got the bar. I always ask if you have the bar.

Continue to press the bar down to the floor and then unwind yourself up. So bring the back of your sacrum, very good and then here comes the back of the back. Very good, the elbows bend. You're a little bit pitched. You need to sit back a little bit, sit back a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit.

There you are. And then bend and straighten and you'll feel, that's it. Now you feel exactly where you are. Good. So it takes a second to feel that little awareness there but don't bypass it. Press and hold.

Press the bar down. Now nod the head, we flex. And then we round. The front ribs are pulling backwards to the back ribs. I'm gonna give her thighs just a little press here so that sometimes I can actually help her lift up and over even more.

And then she's gonna sit back in the pelvis. Arms are continuing to press down, the shoulders are soft. Keep coming back please, keep coming back, keep coming back. You got it. You feel that little tiny quiver when it happens right there.

One more time on your own. Nodding the head, press down and forward. Now can you stay there and shrug and unshrug your shoulders? Yeah. So we differentiate shoulder shrugging from ear hiking or gripping in the ears.

We just use the arms. Good. And then press down with your arms, pull your belly in. Come all the way back to vertical. It's further than you think it's for, yes, you did it and then stack up. Now we take the flexion connection and we turn it into a more lengthened connection.

So now the bar is gonna reach up. She's gonna pitch forward in her hip angle but not arch that back. Pull, there you go. That's it, right? So you just lean from the hip. Good.

And this is nicely and the other thing that's so good accomplishment here, this shoulder used to bother her, now she has full shoulder range of motion. And then bring yourself back to vertical till your head touches my hand, you got it. And then pull the bar up, go forward. Inhale. Perfect. And then exhale, come back.

So the alignment of the spine so important here, she's gonna go forward one more time and stay there. And I hope you're doing this too, let's straighten out the wrist because that matters. And now take three breaths. So inhale, the ribs are gonna expand and then exhale, it's like shrink wrap. Like your belly pulls away from your shirt.

You got it. One more time. Good. And then release. Can you stay there? Take your right arm, reach it over here to the pole.

So now we get a little rotation connection. I'm gonna guide her right buttocks down, good. Now just a couple little breaths in that rotation. Can you straighten this left elbow? You got it.

Feel how that shifts your pelvis over to the right. Can you feel that that helps you rotate left? You got it and then come on back. One more time on the other side. Mm-hmm. Good.

Be sure you straighten that elbow. That gets this shoulder blade to lift, good. Sometimes I would like the client to feel this on your own so that you can get this rotation on your own. Very good. And then bring yourself all the way back and rest.

We have color coded towels here at our studio. Yes. Working hard. So great to see. How'd you feel? Good, feel good. You're good?

All righty. Nice job. Okay, continuing now to kneeling. So you're gonna knee here, face the bar. We're gonna take the push through bar on a cat-cow journey. Just to let you know where we're headed we'll do cat-cow then we'll come back up to standing for squats and single leg squat.

So same action here. Bar presses down, head nods. We first have to feel the flexion. The flexion connection stays right here. She has stripes on.

The back stripes of her shirt are long, the front side of the shirt is short. Now she's gonna journey her chest out into extension. And then the head nods, the tummy pulls up, the butt curls under, and everything comes back up. Woo, very good. And then head nods, go down.

I am here spotting the bar, trying not to let it go too far past the vertical uprights. You can come forward a little bit more. Lengthen your chest a little bit more. Good, pause. And then bottom curls, back ribs lift and then you're in the flexion.

Very good and then last one. Bar presses down. And then you journey on through. You're on your own. I don't have the bar.

The shins press. Extension. A beautiful job. And then nod your head. Look towards your belly button, curl, and then bring yourself all the way up and rest. Woo, those are good ones.

Okay. Put your hands back down and pause. I like to interject little interludes that reproduce another fundamental pattern. So squeeze your knees together and now this is your little tail or your little mermaid tail. These shins are gonna go to the right and then you're gonna look, oh no, look over the other side.

There you go. Do you see your foot? Yes. Good. So now she's opening on the left and shortening on the right, very good.

And now take your little tail way over here to the left and look over the left shoulder, good. So all this is staying good. Do one more time on the other side, getting the breath going, the ribs opening, very good. And then come back and one more time to the other side. Very good and then release.

All right, come on up to standing again. So the fun thing about standing up and down and changing from all standing exercises to standing and kneeling exercises is that it gives the client or you just another time to stand up and down because I think that that's an important exercise standing up and down. So you're gonna take those sticky pads and put them here. So this is relatively a new exercise, okay, and it gets us ready for a little squat and lunge series. Now I'm going to use the push through bar because I don't want it to move a whole lot.

If you need a challenge you could use the spring-loaded roll down bar and then it would give just a little more challenge. So come over here and take your hands and first of all, just pull the bar back so you know it's not going to move. You see how it's not going to move. Yes. All right.

So step forward just a little bit. Now, when you do a squat, your knees come forward, your butt goes back, okay? You got it just like that and then stand up. So in this feeling here, she's gonna keep doing this. You'll see that she's a little hesitant in the rhythm which is fine.

I'm not looking for anything perfect. I'm looking for something that is addressing quadriceps which she's feeling nicely. And if you let them go a little bit without overcorrecting you'll see now that she's getting into the rhythm, do you feel that now? And press into the heels. Good. Now can you come down and stay down?

There's a tendency here to wanna lean the butt back because the quadriceps don't wanna work. But if I move her forward a smidge she's gonna go, oh, oh, there's my quadriceps. Now my quadriceps are working. And then I have to stand up. So, we want to be sure that those quadriceps, those are decelerators when we go downstairs or down a golf course or something like that.

So again, I'm gonna have you do it two day different ways just for the sake of the workout here. Now, sit your butt back and sit down. That's called a hang on and you could stay there a little bit longer, right, and then stand up. Right. Now you're gonna do that again and have your knees come further forward.

Yeah, there you go. So now you have a little more knee action, right? Or a little more quadrant kick. And I gotta stand. And she's gotta stand up.

That's really good. Okay, take your hands away. Rest a second. So, it's really important that we differentiate that, right? Because if we hang on the tower too much or hang on to something in front of us too much, it will just be a hip crease which is a fine exercise, don't get me wrong.

But we wanna be sure we get the different, like can you unscrew part of that and let's move that forward. I don't think your head's gonna hit it but just, yeah, we just wanna be sure to get that out of the way. All right. So now we're gonna switch to one leg, this is really hard, okay? We've not done this before.

When you teach a session, it's okay to teach something that you guys already know, right? And then we add a couple new things in based on our previous connections. Okay, right heel comes forward to here. Okay, now, as you sit back in this heel this is gonna be left thigh loaded. Got your left thigh loaded?

You got it up and down five times. So one and then down. And when you do a squat, it's okay that the upper body leans forward a little bit because it is really kinda shoulders over knee, over toe on the weighted one. Now it's on her left, she's gonna do one more. Yes and rest, switch sides.

She hasn't looked at the clock yet. Often she does but it's okay. So this is really good. So, you're gonna bend that right knee forward. You're gonna hang on with your hands and then stand up.

So this is her thigh working, right? Front thigh. That leg, that heel likes to lift. Hang on just a second, just a second. Let me just get something here because sometimes it's actually important.

It's a tight ankle and if you put something underneath it just for a second it gives you something to press down on. Can you feel that? Yes. Let's do two more, Lizanne. Two more. That's it.

Press down on that heel, smash that cushion and stand back up and last one. Woohoo! And then bring yourself up and rest. Come back down to your knees and then lie back on your back. Whew. Now.

As we start to wind down to get off the Cadillac into standing, I'm gonna change up the work here. People say I'm just here for legs and straps, right? Isn't that like a Pilates joke but it is a great exercise, right? Feet in straps. So these are purple springs now, one on each leg.

Before you put your other leg in there, make yourself be about a hands distance away and yeah, yeah, there you go. Just so that when we have your hands there you can press, yeah, press your thighs just to vertical. Yeah. Yeah. And these are purple springs. These are a little bit heavier.

Okay, squeeze your heels together for me. Good. Now when the springs start to get heavy, the upper body wants to do all sorts of different gyrations and changes position, right, especially as we get tired. So, first couple, we're gonna have the hands be over at the pole and you're gonna push the pole away as you press your legs away. That's an inhale and then exhale. Good. You got it. So the pelvis is staying level, you inhale.

The chin is not smashed, the neck is not, yeah. Bridge of the nose is back, arms are pressing away. Two more like this. Good, last one you're gonna go out and stay out and then you're gonna turn your toes together and then your heels together, good. So we just go through a little internal and external rotation of the thighs.

Good and then just come to parallel. So touch your two toes, yeah, and then take your two legs to the ceiling, pause, and then push two legs down and long. Get long through your torso. Good. And then come up. Feel when you press your arms away from you and you reach your legs away from you, you get this tube feeling in here.

I love that feeling for myself as well. Now one leg goes down, good, and then the other legs switches with it. Good. So it's never gonna come way far back. You're always stretching your springs away.

Even though one spring closes a little bit, good. Three and three and two and two and one and one. Bend your knees in and rest. (breathing deeply) Arms come down by your side. Legs circles now.

So open, down and close, good. So now what happens? It gets a little bit harder when your arms are by your side but you kinda know what to expect. Shoulders are open, beautiful job. Now sometimes if somebody is on the Cadillac and they get real slippery or they have the pants on that are slippery or if you feel like that, just stick a little sticky pad underneath there or something and then reverse the direction of the circle.

So her feet are roughly in parallel now. Legs are working nicely. Last two. Good and then last one. And then bend the knees all the way into the chest and we'll take legs out, feet down.

All right, now two knees into the chest, arms by your side, good. So now just a little finish up here, a little rotation. So two knees will come this way but you'll yearn to keep that shoulder down. Again another big accomplishment here for her. Two legs pressed together, they come back to center, they go to the other side.

This shoulder yearns to stay down, right? Yes and the knees pulling into the chest gives you a tip of that pelvis so it doesn't arch. And then come back. Very good. One more time to this side, mm-hmm. And one more time to the other side.

You'll notice that the thighs almost press on the arm bone and that's okay. And then come on back and then lower your legs down and then rest. Very good. Okay, roll to your side, come up to sitting. All right.

So our last little bit of information here which is really good is we're taking these little weights here. I'm gonna put this box underneath her feet so she has something to press down on. Okay. Would you like an orange clean towel this time? Yeah. It's okay.

It's important not to be slippery if you're gonna hold weights in your hand. Okay. So we have some weight work to do. Now, Lizanne doesn't have low bone mass or anything like that but it's really important that we keep up some resistance training. These are eight pound weights.

She used to do two to three pound weights, okay? So feet are pressing down. She's gonna hold these weights by her side. It's a complete overhead press. She's gonna do eight of these three different times.

One, two, feet pressed down. Her torso is staying completely still pressing the feet down. Interestingly enough, doing this in a seated position is harder than doing it in standing. I've lost count but she's keeping track of it, rest. That's it.

Now keep resting. You have to rest in between, right, because it's important to get your breath back. In standing when you do an overhead press, you have the added advantage of kinda getting into your glutes and kinda leaning back and doing an overhead press where your head comes forward and that's fine. But we're getting her ready for something like that here but we're just starting in sitting so she gets more or integration between the trunk and the arms. All righty. You ready?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm and you'll notice when she pushes up and down her elbows go straight. She's punching the ceiling. That's the cue, punch the ceiling. Her blades actually lift up but her neck is never shortening.

I can count on her to count, feet pressed down. I think there's one more. I almost know what I can say to get through eight repetitions. Okay, great. (breathing deeply) We have one more arm series and then we'll end up with another one in standing that I think is really good for our legs and our torso to get together.

Couple more breaths. (exhales sharply) It's important that we recognize that rest and recovery are a part of the package within a session and then between sessions, okay? Okay. So she's ready to go. She has eight repetitions. She's gonna push the knuckles up. You'll notice her wrists are straight, her knuckles are to the ceiling, oh yeah.

Long torso. She's not leaning back. Her feet are pressing down. She's almost done. And rest. Woo! All right.

Step on off of there. I'll move this box out of the way. Our last exercise in standing is a hip hinge. It's like a single leg deadlift we call it at the gym but it's going to be, she's standing to her side here. Right leg comes forward, mm-hmm.

Left leg stays back. Now I'm gonna give her this weight in her left hand. What I want you to notice first. Hang on. Let me get behind here. If you're doing this at home, what I want you to notice first is that she's using the bed for balance.

I do not wanna turn this into a balance exercise right away. I want it to be a loaded exercise for which leg? This one. This one, okay. So she's gonna bend forward and then lift your chest please a little bit.

Yes. Yeah, much better. Exactly like that. Does she have to lift up the left leg for it to work? No. She'll tell you, I feel this in my right thigh, right butt.

Good. Mm-hmm. Twice more. Open up the chest, please. This is so important to recognize where the chest is when you do the hip bow forward. Come on up. Rest the right down, turn around other side.

Okay, so the weight now will go into your right hand, the left leg is forward. So I'm gonna put my hand right here on the sacrum and so as she does a hip hinge forward this goes flat. Open up the chest, please. There you go. That's it. And the weight doesn't have to go all the way to the floor, it just has to go enough that it gets a load on that front leg.

Can you feel that? Yes. Whoops. It's okay. That's why you have the table there for balance or the ladder bar or ladder barrel or something like that.

Lift the chest please. I know getting tired. We're on the home stretch here. Good. Last one. Very good.

And then come back and then rest. These are just two sets, we'll just do one more. Have a seat. We're almost done. Inhale, exhale. (chuckles) Good job.

We just have one more, okay? Now Lizanne actually said to me, we've done improvement by meeting twice a week. Is that true? Yeah, it's true. Yeah.

So we have made several, well, we, she has made several improvements. Okay. Got your breath? Yes. Okay, here we go. One more set, we'll be done.

So I want you to be very mindful now, okay, so that your torso, yeah, it just bows forward at the hip. Oh, much better. Good. That's it, tuck your chin in just a snitch, yep. Mm-hmm, feels it right here, right here at the back of the buttocks. This is good. Two more.

Oh yeah. She's starting to quiver. This is good. Last one and then come on up other side. So home stretch, just got one more. Yeah, so take your time to get set up, right?

So take your time. You know what you're supposed to feel. Her challenge in this particular exercise is keeping the chest open and not collapsing, right? New word I invented for that is called collapsion. So we say, no, collapsion, right and we say no shrugzies.

So that's what it is. It's no collapsion, no shrugzies in the shoulders. Let's get three more we'll be done. Because if you did some extra ones it really wouldn't matter. So really quivery, really tired and that is it.

Have a seat. All right. So, here we have activating muscles, breathing, connection through the series, on the Cadillac doing a full session, okay? For somebody that's made vast improvements, being consistent, being constant, and being present. Thanks for joining us.