Infinity Bar Variations

Hi, I'm Delia Buckmaster and welcome to Pilates Anytime. I'm excited today to share a few exercises that are specific to the Allegro II Balanced Body Reformer and I know that a lot of you out there don't have an Allegro II Reformer, but if you have an Infinity Bar or a reformer with an Infinity Bar, meaning the bar travels from front to back, you might be able to improvise on some of these exercises. So I'm gonna stand at the back of the reformer, so I'm gonna walk around so that I can look at you while I give you a quick little tutorial. So on the Allegro II Reformer, if you have one at home, you know that to be able to move the foot bar back and forth, that you have to lift it to its upright position and then lean it backwards and then it'll slide. You're also probably aware that in the front of the reformer, it's considered position number one and you'll see several notches in the front that you can move the bar to.

And then about halfway down the carriage would be number two and then past the shoulder blocks is three, then about towards the back is four and at the very back, if you can hear that click, it's five, okay. So I'm gonna actually take the reformer back to its shoulder block position and I'm just gonna lift it to its upright and I'm gonna find that click. Then I'm gonna need to remove the shoulder blocks. So the shoulder blocks carefully can be removed by just wiggling them out of place and I'm just gonna place them inside the well of the reformer, so that they're convenient for me to grab onto later. And then I'll pull the other one off and onto the floor.

So this will make it easier to do some of the exercises without having the shoulder blocks in place. So, let's move on and get a little workout in. So I have one blue spring on, I'll walk back around to you and I am going to sit with my feet on the floor at about an arm's distance away from the reformer bar. My feet are gonna go towards the bar, my hand will go on the bar. This is a little bit of a reverse mermaid.

So from here, bend your bar arm, elbow in towards you, releasing that gesture arm and giving yourself a nice stretch right over the bar. So you'll see that my knees align and then I'll come back and I'll do that again. Just a quick inhale breath, opening up, little side breathing and exhale. And I'll do this, let's say three more times for a total of five, feels really good. And two.

Last one, as I stretch up and over and then release, I'm gonna go ahead and go into a little counter stretch to the other side. Transitioning, I'm gonna place my feet inside the well of the reformer here and I'm just gonna do a little seated stretch. So, pushing those little shoulder blocks out of the way, I'm gonna extend my feet out a little bit further than my knees and then I'm gonna pull on the bar to give myself a little curl. Little stretch between the shoulder blades, breathing here, deep inhale breath, and then exhale. So I'm gonna actually articulate my spine and pelvis.

So I'll go into a little posterior tilt just to give myself a little stretch between the shoulder blades and then release back to upright. We'll go five here as well, exhale breath. Inhale, two more. Easing into these exercises. Be quite a bit of core work here today and curl and then release.

I'm gonna swing over to the other side. You'll see the back view here, sitting about the same. So if it helps, I'm sitting a little bit forward of those notches where the shoulder blocks go. Feet are gonna go towards the left hand, arm up and I'll pull the elbow in, giving myself a nice stretch to the left and then returning of the carriage. So these are nice movements for the hips here in the beginning.

It's a nice place to sink your breath. The movements flow nice and easy if you're a teacher and plan on teaching these to a class. Yes, just a couple more here, breathe. Last one. Stretching up and over and then I'm going to go ahead and release here.

My feet are gonna go back into the well and I'm gonna sit as close to the front. Now, if you're tall, there might be some indiscretion here for you to be lying on the carriage, but try your best to adjust yourself. I'm gonna lie all the way on to the carriage as though it's my mat. I don't have the shoulder blocks here in the way, just feeling towards the back here and just stretching out the hip flexors. So if this doesn't bother your back at all, you're gonna have the feet down and we're gonna interlace the fingers behind the head and I'm just gonna lift my head and shoulders up to prepare for little ab prep here and then release the tension back.

Inhale, exhale as I flex forward and then lower back down. Warming up the upper body, exhale, breath and flex, you're still in your warmup phase. Head and shoulders up, chin to the chest and lower down. Last one, as you exhale to flex up and then inhale to lower. Now, placing your head down and getting your legs now right over the bar or on top of the bar, your hands and adjusting yourself as best as possible to have the knees at 90 degrees.

From here, you're not gonna go anywhere with the carriage. Your feet are just on the bar. You're actually up against the carriage stopper. Just some little pelvic tilts, tilting the pelvis back into a little imprint and then release. And again at exhale, warming up through the spine here, exhale breath.

And we'll go three more. And two. Last one, as you exhale and then release. Extending your legs nice and long. Now, depending on your leg lengths, this might not comfortably fit underneath the calf of your foot, you might be at your knees.

So make any adjustments you need for the comfort of your legs. From here, arms are gonna go up towards the ceiling, palms are gonna face towards my feet. My legs are strong, so there's energy from my hip bone all the way to my toes. As my arms come down towards my hips, my head and shoulders are gonna follow for a little hundred prep with my legs extended and then I'm gonna lower myself back to the mat. Exhale breath to flex up.

Inhale breath to lower. Continuing to move, firing through the legs as though I'm trying to prepare to lift the legs off of the carriage. Exhale to flex and then inhale. We're gonna go right into the hundred. You're gonna lift your head and shoulders up, your choice to continue to rest in a close kinetic chain with your legs or float the legs up.

I'm gonna start with them on the bar and float them up eventually. So I'm gonna inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. Inhale two, three, four, five, exhale. I'm gonna lift one leg up first. Exhale, two, three, four, 30, inhale two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, 40, trying the other leg.

Exhale, two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five, inhale. Gave you a couple extra exhales there. Both legs rest, now both legs come up. Inhale two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five. Let's go three more sets on the hundred.

Two more sets. One more and then release the legs down. Bringing your feet back to the floor in between or inside the well of the reformer, I'm gonna scoot myself up to my bottom and sit all the way back up. So that should have been a nice warmup for you, use that hundred as your warmup. I'm gonna reach back and I'm gonna place a red spring on, removing the blue spring.

So, sitting up nice and tall, how far away you are from your foot bar here is gonna be dependent on your leg length and also your torso length. So when you fold forward, it should be a comfortable reach for the bar. So you're flexing and then, you could have a little rise of the shoulders, but make sure that that rise of the shoulders has a little bit of intention here. So you're trying to maybe stretch a little bit. I happen to be seated in a great position.

I'm gonna get my legs nice and strong, energy out of my hips to my toes, palms onto the bar. From here with long arms, I'm gonna pull myself up to an upright position. So I'm pulling myself to a tall posture here, head towards the ceiling and then the hips are pressing down into the mat. Then, I'm gonna flex forward and then inhale to sit up nice and tall and then exhale to flex forward. Continuing this movement here, so that I'm actually working my postural muscles and it's actually quite nice here to pull yourself up 'cause you could really feel the activation of the back body.

Flex forward, looking at the knees. Inhale, lengthen, and then exhale to flex. Now, we're gonna lengthen, find the tall spine and then continue to push the carriage towards the back as I flex through my spine and find a c-curve here with my back, looking right about at my hands with my eyes, and then I'm gonna sit upright and find my tall posture. So from the upright position, exhale to scoop the abdominals in. Inhale to sit up nice and tall, find your postural muscles.

Exhale again to flex. So this feels awesome here. I'm stretching, I'm also working on the articulation of the spine here and stretching through my lower back and then sitting up nice and tall. Now, I'm gonna flex and find that c-curve spine and I'm gonna continue to roll back until my lumbar spine and part of my thoracic spine finds the carriage. I'm gonna maintain this round spine and flex completely over my legs, like a roll up and I'll do it again.

Exhale to flex back. Inhale to round forward. Allow those shoulders to rise if that resonates with you, if that feels good to you. My eyes, however, are gonna stay at my knees on flexion as I'm over my legs and they're gonna stay about the height of my bar and flex forward and then flex back. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and flex forward, release the tension off of the bar and then I'm gonna sit up nice and tall as I pull myself back to an upright position.

From here, if you'd like to adjust for change, you can go into dorsiflexion of the feet. That's also okay. So I'm just gonna change it up, so that different parts of my legs are working for energy. I'm gonna bend my elbows to bring the elbows into my ribs, drawing my shoulder blades together, finding a nice little bit of an extension, but retraction of the shoulder blade and then I'm gonna extend my arms, and I'll do that again, retraction and then back to my neutral, eyes forward. And if you haven't done these before, if you've never been on an Allegro II, these exercises here are like one of my favorites for posture.

I feel like by having my hands on the bar and pulling on that resistance equally through both arms, it just really feels like it's getting the work back there. I'm gonna do it again, exhale and then inhale. Again, your breath is your breath. As long as it's in through your nose and out of your mouth, you can switch which way you inhale and which way you exhale or with which move. And then I'm gonna flex my spine and I'm gonna call this my start position and point my toes.

So now, we're gonna go back to the bottom of your roll up. So I'm gonna roll back. This time, if you're tall, you might hit the back, but you'll have to lift those legs up a little bit, I'm gonna roll all the way back and then drop my head into the well of the reformer and find extension. My head did touch the spring, but your head will be up in time before it pulls your hair. Just an FYI, seems to be concern for a lot of people.

You'll be fine. So, start to roll yourself back, find your lumbar spine, thoracic spine, open up the chest, find that extension, this feels amazing, now the chin and flex forward and continue. So, the shoulder blade should hit right around the edge of that carriage, which is going to allow for, for like a safe place to take your neck. Now, if you wanted to go back a little bit further, which I have actually placed the center spring on here, you could move the spring, the red spring out to the sides and then you'll be able to drop your head a little bit further. But I think for the sake of this workout today, this is completely fine here.

Ah, that feels good. All right, let's make that the last one and I'm flexed over the legs. Now, I'm gonna turn my palms up as I'm flexed forward. So my palms are facing up on the bar. I'm gonna sit up tall, find tall posture again.

Here, I'm gonna draw my ribs back and so, now I'm doing my low rows here, exhale. So the position of my palm is gonna work a different muscle on my arm and it'll challenge this posture here as well. I hope I'm upright, like I'm assuming I am anyway. Exhale, I don't have a little mirror and I'm too blind to see the screen that well, so I can't tell, but you should be right on top of those sit bones and exhale. Again, forming that little retraction there with the shoulder blades, so the arms are moving from your back, not just at your shoulder.

Let's just do one more. I'm gonna exhale. As my arms extend, I'm gonna fold forward. I'm gonna place my hands back, palms down. Now, let's bring the hands right in line with the shoulder, so they might feel a little bit closer than they did before and then release the right hand off of the bar.

As I start to roll back, like I did before, I'm gonna turn my right palm up and then I'm gonna come into a half rollback with rotation. So now, I've got a nice long wingspan. Be careful what happens here with your spine, you wanna feel that nice spiral as you reach back. Then I'm gonna take my arm and exaggerate it back over the bar like I'm trying to reach past my toe. Let's do that again.

Let's take a rollback, inhale breath, and then reach forward, exhale breath. Two more times on this side for a total of four. Last one, reach it back and then return. Bring the hand to the bar and pause. Left palm comes off the bar, we're gonna try the other side.

Start to pull with that long arm. So, a couple of mistakes that I see people make in class when I'm teaching this is that, they wanna bend that bar arm. Make sure that bar arm stays nice and long, so that you get that really nice opening of the chest. Consider this like you're trying to practice that really long swim stroke. Take it forward and take it back and continue.

And this is your last one. Now, just to add a little bit of coordination and maybe a little heart rate, I'm gonna alternate sides. Right hand off the bar, I'm gonna rotate back, half rollback and then I'm gonna switch. Try not to bang into that stopper. So you gotta have a little bit of control here, a little bit of core control.

Yes, you're working your core just in case you forgot while you were here with me today. Inhale and exhale. One more to the other side, and return. Nice job. So one last thing here, hands are gonna be out, just as wide as they were in the beginning.

Just pull yourself up and then this time, bend those elbows and then from here, I want you to lift your chest, extend your upper body back and just pause here as you gaze at the ceiling for four, three, two, one and then release and flex forward. All right, so moving on from there, I'm gonna go ahead and rotate. So, I'm gonna keep the red spring on and just so you know, this can be done also with a blue spring if a red spring seems a little bit too challenging. So I'm gonna go ahead and lie onto my back. My shoulders are gonna be in front of the shoulder block holders as though they're invisible and they're there still, okay.

So you don't wanna be totally far back. So the placement of your body on the carriage is gonna be the exact same. My hands are gonna go onto the bar, still a little bit of upper body work and then, now I'm gonna take my legs to a tabletop position. So you wanna have that 90 degree angle at your knee with your feet lined up with your knees. This is a really great way to engage that inner corset.

So palms facing up, you're gonna pull the carriage by bending the elbows, getting your eyes to maybe where the bar is and then extending the arms out. So for right now, it's gonna come into little parts and pieces. You're gonna keep the torso nice and steady as you bend the elbows. Just a couple more. One more.

Draw those ribs in, feel that knit feeling and then release. Take your feet now to the platform. Arms are long by your side and you're gonna find a bridge. Now forewarning, you only have one red spring. Pelvic floor needs to rise, otherwise you might cramp your hamstring.

Let's lift the legs up into, or the hips up into that bridge position. Your shoulders are nice and wide. That first bridge, just enjoy the stretch of the front of the body. We're working in a lot of hip flexion at the moment. Arms are down by your side, shoulders are nice and wide.

Just a little hip, lift and lower, drop your bottom towards the carriage and then back up. Now, if your femurs are long or you're taller than me, to give you a point of reference of myself on the reformer, I'm a little under five four. I thought I was five four forever, but I'm not. I'm like five three and three quarters, I think. But that'll give you a little reference as to what you would look like on the carriage.

Lower and lift. So you can have the carriage, maybe stay off the stopper a little bit if that works for you, but I'm getting a lot of back body engagement here and I wanna make sure that I'm getting a nice stretch of the hip. Now, roll your spine down to release that tension into your lower back. We're gonna go back to that arm position on the bar. Palms face up.

Now, just a quick little tip, the bar moves, if you move the bar up, it comes out of position. You're not gonna get hurt by any means, but it might frustrate you and scare you a little bit 'cause it unclips itself. So don't push into the bar when we're doing these exercises. Palms face up, legs back to tabletop. Now, I'm gonna have you bend your elbow slightly and just hold that tension.

Legs are gonna go to about a 60 degree angle. So now, you're holding the tension with the upper part of your body and you're gonna give me some reverse curls. Now, if I could gauge, I would say probably 60% of you out there pushed up on that bar and it just click, click, unclicked and it's totally fine, everyone does it. But what I like to do is make sure I've got a full grip of my hands, so I'm not just pressing up against the bar, I'm actually wrapping my fingers, little curl. So now, you're creating all that tight tension, like you're trying to make yourself into a little ball here and exhale.

One more. And then return, releasing the tension and just release your feet for just a moment. A little quick tip, you don't have to hold the tension on the bar to do those. Just put your arms down and then you can continue to work and do the little ab curls or reverse curls with me, okay? Now, we are going to go into a rollover.

So if the rollover isn't for you today, for whatever reason, then you go back to that last exercise. So now, I'm gonna bend my knees to 90 degrees and then I'm gonna extend my legs at the hip at 90 degrees, so they'll be right above me. Legs starting here are kind of more of a modified version of the rollover. So, we'll advance it here in a second. I'm gonna take the tension, so I'm gonna bend my elbows.

I'm gonna hold that tension as I slowly roll over, bringing my legs to a parallel position to the floor. I'll open my legs slightly, flex my ankles, roll myself down to find that start position and as I bring my legs together, I could release the tension. Inhale to bend at the elbows, exhale to roll over. Inhale to open and flex, and exhale. Legs together, point and return.

Now, if you wanted to, you can lower those legs to that diagonal line. So, legs open, flex, and you could actually take them down, circle 'em together to the diagonal, which is a little bit harder releasing that tension and then doing it again from there. So, your choice as to where you wanna work today with that rollover and then release and then return. Now, I'm gonna reverse the motion. So I'm gonna start right above my hip.

I'm gonna open the legs about hip distance apart and flex my ankles. I'm gonna take the tension into the spring and I'm gonna roll over. Once I'm in parallel, the legs come together, the toes point, I'm gonna roll down, stop right at the hip and then release the arms. I'll do it twice, stopping at the hip and then I'll go to that lower diagonal line. Oops, open here, sorry, open flex and over, almost forgot what I was doing.

Legs together and then roll yourself down and then release that tension. Now, we'll go a little bit lower. So tension first, legs roll over, legs together, point the toes, roll down, release the tension as I open and flex the ankles. Takes a little bit more coordination and then exhale, up and over, legs together and then I'm gonna slowly, I always like to do this roll over, the last one really slow, so it feels like I'm massaging my spine a little bit, ah, and then release that tension. (sighs) Nice work.

We're gonna take the feet back to your bridge position on the platform. This time, we're gonna do a little bit more mobility in the carriage. So make sure you feel comfortable here. Let's take the hips back to that bridge position, opening up the front of the body, arms are pressing down, shoulders are wide. Now, be careful here because you don't have a lot of resistance and this could put too much pressure on the knees, but we are gonna move the carriage back about halfway and then pull it in, so we can make the emphasis happen at the hamstring to glute.

So inhale back, exhale in. Again, don't go so high that you're cramping your hamstrings. Remember that pelvic floor, it plays a huge part on what part of your back body fires on the bridging. Don't go up too high if you're really tight in your hips and take it into your lumbar spine. Make that adjustment with your feet, bring 'em a little closer, take 'em a little further, but whatever you're doing, make sure you still feel a little inner thigh connection on a shoulder bridge.

We'll try that just a couple of more repetitions. One more time. I pull it in and then I go ahead and release that tension down. So now, I'm gonna sit up and face you guys. And so that I can make all of the repetitions happen, I'm gonna take it down to one blue spring this time.

I'll be lying on my side facing you guys. So I'm gonna go ahead and fold my right arm under, lie inside and my legs are stacked on top of each other. So I'm just lined up here like I'm about to take a nap, but we're not taking a nap. All right, and then I'm gonna take my left arm forward, so it's towards the corner of that bar and then I'm just gonna pull and make sure that I've got a good position with my body, that I didn't slide, that my shoulder's in the right spot and that my arm is also in the right spot. With the arm forward, it'll create a little bit more of a 90 degree angle.

If you take it back here, then you're gonna go into too much of a stretch of that shoulder. All right, are you guys ready? Let's just do a little one arm here, yep, and you'll lose my eyes, they should be right at that bar. Elbow's gonna come to about the height of your shoulder there, so a little 90 degree angle here and then back 'cause you wanna make sure we've got that tension right before we start the side leg series here. Now, I'm gonna extend that arm out, that should feel pretty good, you can continue there.

I'm just gonna tuck the bottom knee in and extend that left leg out. I'm only gonna hold tension here, that's all this is for, we're not gonna be moving the arm here. Flexing the top ankle, I'm gonna bring that leg forward and I'm gonna point and bring that leg back. Now, what the tension is doing is making me very core aware here and press back and open up through the glute. Now, if you don't want to use that tension, you're more than welcome to release.

So you can follow along, still continue with the program, exhale forward or inhale, whatever works for you. Depends sometimes. Yeah, inhale does feel good forward. One more here and I'm gonna go ahead and release. Now, I'm gonna extend my arm, so I release that tension and now both legs are gonna go out.

From here, I'm gonna pull tension again. This time, I'm just gonna lift and lower that top leg. So a little abduction. A lot of work here, except what happens here with that arm and that tension is it really does bring a lot of awareness to the lat and the obliques, so I'm hitting that little extra work, which is awesome. One more time, and then just hold that tension, gimme small little leg circles, small.

Good, and then reverse the tension pressing back three, two, one. Now, maybe give me a little adductor on the bottom leg and up and pull for four, three, two, one. Now hold, maybe lift both legs up. Yep, just making it up as I go. Feels really good.

Three, two, and one and then tuck both knees in. We're not quite done with that one. We are gonna go into a little swimming. So I'm gonna extend my legs out and what we're gonna do is we're gonna add the dynamic of the movement of the carriage. Just straightening my head out here, all right.

So start the swimming motion, little side swim. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Let's pull on the bar, four, five. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Stable hips, three, four, five.

If you're having a hard time stabilizing here, lean that left hip back just a little bit, but not forward. Forward's just gonna put more pressure onto your back. Maybe even tuck the bottom knee in and just do the top leg and start from there and pull. Ooh, feeling a lot on that side, feels awesome. One more time in a pull two, three, four, five and exhale and release that tension.

Ah, feet go down and release. So now, I'm gonna do a little extra mermaid stretch that we did earlier, but I'm just gonna add onto it. So this time, I'm gonna take my legs back as though they are actually in front of the shoulder block. My hand is out to a T position. I'm gonna bring my right hand to the bar and just kind of pull.

So I'm gonna have to be off of the stopper here to do this. So now, I'm gonna bend my elbow and I'm gonna bring myself to that little mermaid stretch and I'm gonna hold. Then, I'm gonna take both hands to the bar and then I'm gonna allow my body to stretch against that tension here, looking down at my thighs, and then I'm gonna push the carriage through using mainly my left arm to lift the hip and open up the chest towards the ceiling. I believe they call this Cleopatra, I'm not quite sure. Do I look like Cleopatra?

I might with these really bright pink pants and then round forward, and we'll do that again. Just rotate, opening up the chest and exhale to flex. Just two more of these, ah. And now this doesn't work for everybody, so there's times if I have some things going on with my sacrum, this is a little bit too much movement on that hip. So, always modify for you.

Doesn't mean that you're weak, just means you're tight or just not having a day that you wanna move in that direction. I'm gonna go on and slide my arm forward, come back to my side and then of course, there's always that counter stretch to the other side. So instead of going right into the mermaid or Cleopatra, we're gonna turn and do the side legs from this side. So I'm gonna lie all the way down, same thing, as I say second verse, same as the first, all right. So we're stacking the legs up, arm out to a diagonal and then start with just the arm pulls.

I wanna make sure that you feel okay here and if this is all you wanna do today, that's great. Just do the little arm pulls here, pull the abdominals in. If you're feeling neck tension or you're sliding down your carriage, you might have too much retention onto your spring. So, sit up and change that. You're not stuck at this spring load.

All right, so now I'm gonna extend that top leg out, am I even here? And then reach that leg out, bottom knee stays tucked out of the way. I'm gonna hold that tension as I swing that leg forward into that one leg kick and back and forth, working that front of that body, working the back of that body, opening up through the hip, exhale or inhale. Again, I'm only really particular as to how you inhale and exhale, but I've never really been particular as to when you do it, unless I need it for something specific, maybe to add a little bit more flexion or extension to the spine or maybe just on the exertion part of it, I need that exhale breath. One more, and then take that leg out to the side and then release that tension.

Let's go ahead and line the legs up now and hold and then I'm gonna pull that tension back onto the carriage and then do my abductor work up and down. Again, that's not for everybody, this tension, you can release the tension and just relax if you want. I'm gonna maintain the tension the whole time. Now, my leg will stay to hover, small little circles here. The carriage is moving and that's okay.

I'm not gonna put that much pressure on myself to keep it quiet, and then we're gonna circle it in the other direction. Keep reaching past that bottom foot. Now, I'm gonna hold that leg and I'm gonna get into that adductor and something I didn't say on the other side, do not try to just bring your toes together. Lower that bottom leg and lower the expectation or lower the top leg and lower the expectation of that bottom leg 'cause you want them to just reach and reach. Now together remember, one, I added this one on the fly and lift, your bottom top leg is the weight for your bottom leg.

One more, hold, release the tension. All right, here comes your swimming everyone. Set yourself up, start to swim. Inhale, two, three, four, five, pull the carriage, three, four, five, inhale, two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five. Try to reach that top leg maybe a little bit further than the bottom leg.

And again, and extend two, three, four, five and lift, two, three, four, five. Continue. Let's go one more, inhale, two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five. Release that tension and then go ahead and swing the legs around. All right, let's go into Cleopatra, okay.

So, the shin right in front of where the shoulder blocks would normally be. Leg out in front, it's already a big stretch there, reaching so that you can pull yourself off for just a moment and then you're gonna bend that elbow and just give yourself a stretch to the side. Once you're there, grabbing on with that gesture arm and feeling a huge stretch at the hip, a huge stretch to the shoulder, then widen the arms and start to pull through and under the bar. As you lift the left hip, pull with the right arm and look up towards a ceiling in a slight extension. My left arm, I could actually release, there's no tension on it, it's all from the right.

And I'm gonna round forward and stretch and ta-dah and then back and forward. These pants are bright. The only thing missing from these pants is I needed to borrow Lesley Logan's lipstick. I don't have her lipstick, she would've totally matched it. I should've done that, and then lift, and then around one more time, as I extend through the spine and rotation and then flex and stretch, bringing that arm forward, bringing it around and then releasing.

All right, so I'm at one blue spring, I'm gonna turn around. I'm gonna place our feet inside the well here. So now, this is gonna, it might be a little bit of a challenge, but hopefully you can follow along. I'm gonna take my legs actually over the bar, okay, so they're over and I've got that look at my face because I've only practiced this a couple times, so I hope it works, all right. This is a little variation to rolling like the ball.

Now, my tension is here, okay. So I actually feel my abs working just to hold the rope or the bar nice and steady. Do I have room back there? So let's take this slow, squeeze those inner thighs together. I'm gonna push the carriage back until I find my lower back and I'm gonna bring my legs towards me like I'm in a rolling like a ball position.

Arms are long and I'm gonna slowly rock myself up and I'll do it again. Inhale to roll back, exhale to come up. It gives you that nice feeling, that ball feeling that it's hard to get when you're on the mat. So it's a really, I think a really nice little training tool here. Exhale.

Inhale, and again, and my legs do rest in between. So they rest right on top of the bar as I articulate my spine to push that carriage back. Let's just do two more of these. Last one. And then release.

Now, I'm gonna scoot my bottom forward and I'm gonna lie all the way down. Am I resting on there good? All right, now I'm gonna try another variation of bridge. Now, if you are long-legged, you could move the bar down to the next notch and I believe that would be number five, but right now I'm on four. So my height's fine with this here.

All right, arms are long by your side. Your body is, your carriage isn't gonna go anywhere. We're just gonna press up against the carriage. We're gonna go on some traditional shoulder bridge exercise. Let's push against the bar, lifting up to a high bridge and I'm actually pulling at the edge here of my carriage to secure my shoulders.

Legs are a little bit closer than hip distance, so that I can find balance on this bar. I'm gonna take the right leg towards me and extend it long to the ceiling, flexing that ankle for a nice stretch. Bringing that leg down, I'm gonna bring it down to try to touch that bar and then I'm gonna bring that leg up. Inhale to lower, exhale. Shoulders nice and wide, just like they would be on the mat.

Two more. Last one. Now, I'm gonna hold that leg up and then I'm gonna lower and lift that bottom hip up for eight and seven, like I'm carrying a tray on my foot and it's four, three, two and one. Foot comes down, if you don't need to rest, let's not rest. Let's take that left leg back up, flex that ankle, hold, point, lower one and exhale, two.

So that bar gives you a little point of reference, a little goal, press down, keep going. Do we do, how do we do the other side? One more, we'll do one more. Take that leg up, hold it here, try to keep those hips nice and level, flex that ankle and it is eight and seven, use that glute to hamstring and four, three, two and one. Foot comes down, you roll your spine down and you release.

I'm gonna step off to the side. We are finally gonna move the bar to a different position. So I'm gonna go ahead and take the bar, lean it back and I'm gonna roll it to number five and lift it. Click, make sure you hear the click. I'm actually gonna move my shoulder blocks over and then I'm gonna step into the well.

Now, be really careful here, this bar needs to be stable in order to do this. The other thing too is make sure that you don't trip over the frame and you don't trip over the rope. I only say that 'cause I've done it before, okay? So now I'm gonna have a seat on the bar. I'm gonna extend my legs out.

So the bar actually is quite nice to sit on because there's only one place you can stick your rear end. It's gonna be either in front of your sit bones or behind and behind is way more comfortable. My legs are extended, but there is a softness in my knees here. Hands on the bar, fingertips all pointing forward, shoulders wide. We're gonna just do some little tricep dips.

So I'm gonna take my bottom off, feel secure okay, and we're gonna bend and extend the elbows, one and inhale, exhale, two, wide through the shoulder blades and three. To six, one more and then have a seat. I ask you because I was asking myself, six? All right, so now the legs are long and I want you to just test the resistance. You've got blue spring there because we're gonna go into little hamstring curls from here.

Yeah, and then pull. You might need to drop down to a yellow spring. I find that the yellow spring or the quarter spring's a little light. The blue spring, I can't do, it's just too much. So this is just about right, all right.

Now, we're gonna come up at a hover with long arms and try those hamstring curls. So again, you're gonna have to adjust your feet to where they work for you. My little short legs are gonna be right here and I'm gonna just give myself little hamstring curls as I set those shoulders back nice and tall. Careful, don't bang on the stopper, tells you a lot about whether you're losing control there of that carriage, shoulders nice and wide. For two more.

Last one, legs extend and then the bottom comes down. Feel secure there. Lastly, we're going to combine. All right, butt comes up, let's do one tricep dip, one hamstring curl, one tricep dip, one hamstring curl. Inhale, exhale.

Keep the shoulders nice and wide, inhale and exhale, stabilized through the lower back, and lift and pull. Let's go one more, bend, extend, pull, release, and then release the feet right back down. All right, we are in the well, we are gonna lie right down onto the carriage. Scooch those blocks away again. Here we go, so lying all the way down, ah, I've been waiting for 40 minutes for this.

All right, so you know, as a studio owner, the first thing I think of is that I have to dust the floors when I get to this position. So, I don't know if anybody else can empathize. All right, so now I'm going to place my hands here and come out. Now, what you don't wanna do, I'm still on that blue spring by the way, you don't wanna put your knees on the carriage in any compromised position or hang the legs off the knees. That's not comfortable either.

So again, this is adjustable to your height, okay? So from here with the blue spring, see, I'm cleaning my reformer right now, hands are on wide, all right. So this feels about right. We have to move to see if it feels good. So push the pubic bone down, inner thighs together, strong through the front body, let's go into some swan.

Lift the eyes, pull the carriage forward and then press the carriage back. So if you're not getting enough play, so enough range of motion, then you might need to scoot yourself forward a little bit. So that way, when you come forward that this carriage doesn't hit the stopper. I think I'm about right here, I just shorten my range of motion just a little bit. Inhale, arms are meeting at that V position at the middle of your back.

I'm a swan lover, I put swan in any exercise possible. I do swan prep at home, just for fun. It's one of the best things that I've done for me for my back. That's not to say that the full swan dive works for me, but all of the prep exercises have been really good for my back. Now, pause here and we are gonna attempt the grasshopper here, okay.

Where is the bar? Out of my way? All right, so I'm gonna open my legs a little bit wider and I'm gonna cross my ankles. From here, I wanna have a teeny bit of fire here at the back of my legs. I don't wanna be completely relaxed where you see space between the hip and the carriage. So I'm gonna press the hip down and then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take the knees off slightly and then cross and uncross three times.

On the very last one, as I start to move my arms to give my legs room, I'm going to extend my legs and find my swan and then bend my knees almost immediately because of the bar behind me and go inhale, inhale, inhale, start to straighten as you find your swan. And again, one, two, three and extend. Good and again, and it's one, two, three, make sure to move that carriage 'cause I touched my toes slightly to the bar. One more time, one, two, three, pull, extend, open up the chest and release and return. I'm gonna step off to my left now and I'm gonna end with just some standing work on my legs and mainly so I could just be on my feet for a moment at the end of class.

So I'm gonna put a red spring on, take off a blue. If you are not secure to stand up on the platform, you can just take that bar and then roll it all the way over to this side. I'm just gonna leave it at position number five. I'm gonna place my left foot, always the foot that's on the non-moving surface first and then onto the moving surface and basically what I'm gonna do here, my toes pointing forward, is I'm just gonna go out and back. So I gave myself a little bit less resistance, so I could just feel the movement of my body here in these side leg series.

And if you remember, we did some side leg work lying down. So it's just really to get the blood back to my feet and the movement back into my arms, so, it's a little bit more functional. All right, so from here, we're gonna go into a standing saw. So I'm gonna reach my arms out and pause. From my hips, I'm gonna hinge as I soften my knees.

I'm gonna take my right pinky finger, let me secure myself here, to my left pinky toe and give myself a little stretch. Then I'm gonna take my left pinky finger over to my right pinky toe. Then I'm gonna come back to that hovered position and then I'm gonna return the carriage and bring the arms down. It's an inhale to reach away, exhale to start to hinge. Rotate to the opposite side on your inhale, rotate to the other side on your inhale, back to the center, lift yourself up and return.

Just one more, inhale as you reach out, toes pointing forward, soften those knees, hinge the body, rotate. I'm going to my left foot first, then I'm going to my right foot. Doesn't have to be gorgeous, just move and then go ahead and lift yourself all the way back up. For the sake of safety, I'm gonna step off the back with my carriage leg and I'm gonna walk around and then my right foot will go on the platform that does not move and my other foot goes on the one that does and I'm just gonna go back out. And I'm just pretty much feeling that nice range of motion in my hips.

Toes are pointing forward. I am somebody who works a lot in parallel. I feel like it helps me and the activities that I do outside of here. One more, and then I'm gonna go into that saw. You're gonna press it out, inhale.

Hinge to the body, both forward with soft knees, I'm gonna go to the platform leg first, pinky finger to the right toe, back to a hinge, right pinky finger to the left toe, back to that hinge, lifting it all the way up. Be careful of your back if it's tight, soften those knees, inhale. Forward, opposite side, carriage leg, platform leg back to the middle all the way back up, back to the start position. Last one, everyone, reach it out, back over to your right foot, center. Back over to your left foot, center.

Come all the way up and return. Again, step off with that carriage leg. Turning over to the platform without the bar, I'm just gonna place my leg down wherever it feels comfortable and line my foot here with the platform and just push back into a lunge, using my palms to really open up the hip and then flexing that forward leg. This is just going to be a nice little static stretch and hold and then return the carriage. And then I have the ability to straddle.

So I'm going to straddle for a second and then come over to the other side, but you can walk around. Left foot comes close in line with the platform. I'm gonna push the carriage back and I'm gonna stretch. And if it's too much resistance, you have complete control of what you use here. Shoulders nice and wide, extending through that left leg just a teeny bit, returning the carriage and then concluding the class.

All right, well, I hope that you enjoyed this Allegro II routine. I really enjoy the Infinity Bar and it's been fun to share some of those exercises with you today. Thank you for joining me.