Flowing Reformer Variations

Hi there. I'm Leah Stewarts and today we're going to be doing an intermediate reformer class. We're going to do a little warm up on the box and then we're going to play a little bit with the magic circle and we're going to kind of get through a nice session where it just kind of flows from one movement to the next. So let's go ahead and get started. So you're going to want your long box and I want you to sit, you know, sitting on the edge on the long aspect of the box.

I'm going to start with just a little bit of a spinal warmup here. So place your hands just on the front of the DS. I'm going to take a nice big inhale and we're going to open the chest up. So basically just RQ in the back and with an exhale you're going to round your back, starting at the mid back, letting the rest of the spine follow and then kind of rotating your shoulders in a little bit. Inhale, pull back gently on the knees that arch, the upper back, and then with the Xcel, draw everything in. And just kind of round the mid back and in how lifting up, feeling that Nice Arc XO.

Thread the belly button in and come into a curved back and inhale, lifting the sternum up and Xcel coming in. We're going to do two more in how reaches you're just filling that nice flow through the spine and exhale, curving back one more time and inhale and then draw it in with the Xcel. Now this time we're going to add some feet to it in how I want you to lift your heels, essentially pointing your feet. And then x, I wants you to flex your feet in her, lift your heels and the next still drive your heels into the floor as you come into the curve and flex. Inhale, lift the heels and the next they'll drive the heels into the fourth. Spread out those toes. And in heels we're warming up the ankles a little bit and exhale, draw everything in. Give me one more time and inhale this, letting the flow happen through your spine and exhale sales in all the way.

Go ahead and let the feet rest sit up nice and tall. We like the arms down by the size of the palm is facing forward. We're going to exhale, scoop into a nice deep sea curve and inhale, come back up twice more here. Excellent. Pull the abdominal zing curve that lower back. It's always important that we get that nice warm spine prior to going into the heart of the workout or of the session and curve.

Now this time you're going to hold, circle the arms up over your head, down to your side and lift back up within in him. And then we're going to reverse and curve. Take the arms down, around and up and come back all the way and Xcel arms go up. So we're just alternating the directions of the circles with the arms and come back up and exhale all the way down. Take the arms up and bring the spine back up. So getting this nice flowing movement circle in the arms, mobilizing the shoulder joint. One more time and XL and come all the way back. Get from here.

I want you to go ahead and sit down on your bottom. Bring your feet a little bit in front of you. Interlace the fingers behind the head and you're essentially going to arch your upper back wherever it feels most comfortable from you. For you, for me, it's right at the base of my scapula. Leaning back over the box. Take your feet out a little bit where it feels comfortable for you. We're going to go into a pelvic curl here. So breathing in to prepare XL, tuck in the pelvis, grounding your feet into your mat, into the floor.

You're going to roll up to where you make a nice straight line. You're at like a table position. Take the breath in and then pull the abdominal wall in and slowly roll down articulating. And though at a certain point you're going to fill the tub and just kind of flip out into a nice arch. Take your breath in and Tuck the pelvis. Now remember, you want to position yourself on your box to wherever feels most comfortable for you, engaging the glutes, pressing the hips up, opening them up toward the ceiling, taking your breath in. Then Xcel rolling down. We're gonna do one more here, scooping until you absolutely have to flip that pelvis in toward an anterior tilt. Inhale, go from the anterior all the way to the posterior with a nice big movement, articulating up, feeling the glutes engaged, keeping the adductors at this to the knees. Stay in line, take your breath in and then rolling down, articulating nice and deep, spreading the toes out. Elbows are wide.

Take your breath in. From here, you're going to curve yourself up into a little bit of a chest slipped. Good. Go ahead and curve a little bit deeper. Take your breath in and open all the way up and back. Breathe in and XL curve filling nice and grounded to your hips, Hall of the abdominal in deep, deep, deep connection and inhale all the way up and over. One more time, and Xcel curving in so you want to feel the abdominal shortening. It's not a challenging per se, abdominal exercise, but it's a nice mobilizer of the spine. Let's go into three more pelvic curls.

Exhale, rolling up, fill the bridge, fill the connection all the way. Take the breath in and exhale. Roll yourself down, articulating slowly reaching energy out through the knees all the way down. Inhale to more XL curve deepen, deepen the articulation all the way. Find it, find the bridge. You're going to feel the glue skip challenge at the very end. Breathe in and roll yourself down using your abdominals to control that movement. Elbows open nice and wide and let's assume one more here.

Breathe in and exhale up. Nice deep connection, deep, deep connection all the way up. Take your breath in and roll yourself down. Finding it each vertebrae one at a time and inhale and come up three times. Exhale, curve. Rounding that back and inhale up and over.

If your box just wants to slide away from, you can always put a little bit of a nonslip underneath it, a little sticky pad and inhale, but remember you're not pushing weight into the box. You're trying to lift up and off the box, curving, curving, curving, curving, curving. Breathe in and roll all the way back. Place your hands down and go ahead and sit yourself up. I'm going to come back onto the box. You're going to straddle the box here. You can take your arms out to the side, palms face up.

You're going to give me a little doubles rotation to the right with the Nextel double twists, one, two and center to the left, one, two and center. Now the work obviously is coming from the obliques here, but we want to make sure that the torso leads the rotation and the shoulders and the arms. Simply follow that rotation at the torso. Xcel for to and center. You can give a little bit of a squeeze with the box to just activate the adductors so that your policy means more Seti. Let's go one more time each way. Twist, twist and center. Last one and twist, twist and center. From here, take the arms up.

Go ahead and slide yourself a little bit forward. You're going to start to roll down side yourself a little bit for rid of the beat and I want you to bring your knees up to tabletop. You should have about half of your shoulder blades over the box. We're going to go into a version of the double leg stretch, so grab on top of the knees, curving yourself up nice and high. You're going to take your breath into prepare. Exhale, you pressing arms down by the sides of legs. Extend. Inhale, the arms come up overhead. Continue with the inhale the stretch over the box.

Circle out to the side. Exhale, come all the way back to that a hundred position and in help with the hands on the knees and lift yourself just a little bit higher. XL, press those arms down. Deep connection. Inhale, arms that continue with the inhale. This stretch open. Exhale, curl at deep connection. Deep connection, deep connection. Inhale, hands on the knees. Let's do four more. Xcel reach. Inhale, continue big XL and back to center, and next a. Hold that connection. Deepen the abdomen.

Arms come up, fill the extension through the upper back circle. Exhale, come all the way back the head and inhale back into more XL. Deep Hole, that deepness. Then finally extension. Keep the legs nice and strong. Xcel. Pull yourself back into that flection. Inhale back in one more time. Exhale. Inhale. All the way over. Exhale, come back to that direction.

Hands on top of the knees. Transfer the hands behind the knees and roll yourself up. Find your balance. Find your balance thing at the back of the knees. We're going to do a couple little rolling like a balls here. So you're going to roll back just to your lower back XL app.

Now don't go so far because you're going to roll off your box. So you want to keep the movement very contained. It's just a deep connection rolling just to the base of your Scapula, not to the top of the shoulders that we normally do on the mat work. It's a little bit smaller movement. Great.

And just rolling one more time. Back and roll. Now hold roll down. Roll down. Roll of the arm. Take the right leg up and the left leg down for a hamstring. Pull one. So breathing in. Pulse in the top, leg one to switch. XL.

XL, switch, switch, switch. So we're challenging the abdominal stability here too much. That's try not to post the bottom like just the top and hold it hands. Go interlaced behind the head and rotate to the right one center too, and keeping the flection, keeping the knees straight. Feel like you're just going to simply dip your elbow down to the floor. Dip your elbow down to the floor, Bend your knees, dip your elbow down and down. Two more.

Exhale, down and down. Come back to the middle, grab the back of the thighs. Inhale, get up a little bit higher. We're going to continue with rotation. We're going to finish with a little bit of a criss cross fingers in our lace and we go one XL, two, three, four, five. Keep that height, six, seven, eight, two more, nine and 10 both these in. Take the breath in and roll yourself up. Ground your feet and lift your spine all the way up.

And that is a warm up. Okay, so we're going to take the box and just set it to the side and we're gonna move on to our footwork here. So go ahead and load your spring up. You can do a heavier spring or a medium spring. Whatever feels more comfortable for you. I'm going to do a little bit of a faster version of our footwork here. So we're going to start on the parallel heels and we're going to add some arm movements here.

So make sure you just have a little bit of a space between your shoulders and the shoulder rest so you feel nice and comfortable here. Taking your breath in. We XL press out, arms go straight up to the ceiling. Yeah. Now some days when I want a little extra challenge, I'll add some two or three pound weights to my hands here to add a little bit of shoulder work, but you'll find what's nice about this, let's do two more is that the coordination of the lower body and the upper body is really nice and challenging. Hold here, go to the toes, palm facing in out to the t position. Xcel in Talon. Now as you exhale, you're going to feel the shoulders are stopped by the shoulder.

Rest with just fine. Make sure you're in a comfortable position and you just want to feel that link, that coordination of upper and lower body as you get into those hamstrings, warming up the big muscles of the legs. Last one. Now hold it halfway in, so you just bend your knees halfway. We're going to do some prancing here without moving the carriage. We lift the right heel than the left heel than the right and left, so you're working all of those nice muscles of the lower leg and of the foot, so you're kind of get as much point as you can as you prance back and forth.

It's a nice challenge on the quads to more add right and left. Come back to the Cedric. Send out one more time before you bend your knees and come into the small v. From here. Take your right arm up. Keep your beads just a little bit smaller and Xcel.

We switch arms and bring it in XL and bring it in. Now what's nice about this is as you're moving alternate arms, it's going to challenge your stability of your torso. Xcel, bring it into more and bring it in. Last one and whole. Bring the right arm up to match it. Turn the pumps in, lower the heels down for calf raises and up. Keep the heels squeezing so you have a nice external rotation at the hip joint and down and app. Feel that Nice. Lift up through the center body continuously.

Five more and a breathing. Inhale. [inaudible] three more. Three. You start to fill that work, deepen the calves, deepen the hips in the stabilization of the trunk, hold it and bend your knees to come in. Open into a wide position. This time we start with the left arm down and we're going to switch again, XL one and bring it in. Exhale too, and bring it in. And the three keep the toes nice and fanned out for, and five and six. Let's do two more and seven and the eight.

Come all the way in and let's go to the toes for the toes. The hardest one, you're going to do a full circle with your arms, so wet. So you go out, open out to the side and circle in and you might not get to go as far as you want in the circle, obviously because of the limitation of the arms against the shoulder rest to just do as much as you can comfortably. So you're trying to time it that you make a full circle. By the time you bring the carriage in, three more full circle and at the same time you're trying to fill the control in the heels and letting your breath guide you hold up at the top.

Turn the palms in, Ben, the carriage halfway in. Now this time in the open position and to keep the carriage steady, you're going to lower the heels and lift the heels, lower the heels and lift the heels so you're getting that full range. Feel like your heels are going to press underneath the carriage. As you move, press underneath the carriage. As you move for more for and the three and the two and the one come all the way up and press out and slowly bring the carriage in. You can elect to make your way a little bit lighter.

You can stay on the same resistance for the single leg. We're going to do the heel work, wants you to take your right leg underneath the bar and flex the left foot. Taking the breath in. We're going to start with the first five just simply keeping the leg underneath the bar. Press out. Inhale, draw it in. Exhale, press out. Now as you do, this is very tempting to want to hike the left tip or the hip of the leg that's moving here, so you want to really pay attention to keep that side of the waist nice and long. Last one m press. Now I want you to draw this right leg through, bring it up nice and long and bring it under. Now again, this movement is a coordination of both legs but also corporates.

That idea of disassociating the lower leg or the lower body rather from the upper body so that the thigh can move, but the pelvis and the chunk aren't necessarily affected by it. Whole. The here, flex that foot. You're going to give me legs circles, crossing over the left side of the body and we go, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale and hold and slowly bring it in. We're just gonna do one direction of leg circles. Change feet, flex the right foot, point that left leg nice and long. Make sure the hips are nice and even five times just like this press. What I love about single leg work is that it really allows you to connect with that hamstring of the leg that's working and you can feel that deep hip extension coming from the hamstrings along with the glutes of course, but we're focusing on the hamstrings here. One more time I'm pressed, which is really beautiful. Now add the leg extension and bring it up. Fill that nice pretty position here and then bring it in and bring it up.

This is flow. If you want to add arms, you can and bring it up. Press up. Then slowly bring the kerogen and perhaps you should feel like your legs are like a mile long and press up and bring it in. And last one, press flex up foot. Hold that position. We're going to go over to the right. We go. Inhale for circle. Exhale, inhale, exhale, anchoring the pelvis down both sides of the pelvis, filling that deep connection way in the base of the pelvis. Inhale.

Exhale, two more. Inhale and hold it up and slowly come in. We're going to go ahead and take our weight down just a little bit. You can go onto a light resistance, which will work here. I'm going to go into our abdominal series.

We're going to do a little bit of a fun coordination series. We're gonna start with the basic coordination and then we're going to move on and progress from there. So back going your back, grabbing your hands, jobs, palms facing towards your feet, knees up to tabletop position. We're going to go into our basic coordination here. Taking a breath in. Exhale, we lift up into the flection. We open, close the legs. Inhale, bend the knees and lower down. Xcel up, open, close. Then the knees and lower down. Three more XL. Open. Close. Then the knees.

Now the key here is to maintain your flection throughout the exercise. Do not lose the height of your trunk. Try to maintain it continuously holds it here. Turn the palms in, open the arms in the lakes and XL. Squeeze your legs should be an external rotation open. Exhale, squeeze. Two more open. Hold that height. Fight for that stability. You're working at isometric contraction that the abdominals. Hold it, palms these down. Bring it in and roll back.

Give your neck a little bit of a break here. We're going to move on. We're progressing. Take your breath in. Exhale, come back into the position. Rotate the arms and lengths. Now lower the body slowly into a nice open position and Xcel. Squeeze it open slowly.

Feel that energy reaching wide. Exhale, squeeze open. Slowly. Feel that energy. Reach out to the size of the room. Exhale, squeeze and open. You should be feeling that nice challenge here and next to squeeze a close. One more time open and XL. Find it. Rotate the palms in the arms and the legs and pull everything in.

And Rez. Very nice. Let's continue. We're going to work on what we call backstroke that we normally do on the long box, but now we're going to do it just on the reformer. So wants you to take your knees up and come into a hundred prep position. Then take your fist and place them right over the chest, across from your forehead. Inhale, arms come up, rotate the legs, open the arms and the legs. Xcel squeeze all the way. Come back to center. Inhale lap, rotate.

Feel like you're going to get a little bit higher here. They're trying to maintain your flection. Inhale up, rotate. Exhale, squeeze. All the way closes. Go. Two more. Inhale up, rotate. Lift a little bit higher. One more time. Inhale up, rotate, lift a little bit higher. Here, go, go, go, go, go, go and bring it into rest.

And that is a nice continuous, nice flowing abdominal series. We're going to go ahead and move on to our hip work, but today we're going to be using the magic circle. So go ahead and grab your magic circle and we're going to be playing with some adductor works and rotation work and we're even going to use a magic circle on our spinal articulation. So go ahead and carefully place one foot into the strap and then placed together foot. And you're going to place a circle in between the ankles right above the little ankle notches there. And you're in parallel here.

So flex your feet as much as you possibly can. Bring in the toes back towards your face. We're going to bend the knees into the frog. Inhaling. Now when you ask, they'll give a little bit of a squeeze with the adductors as you reach out. Inhale, bend the knees in and exhale. Now here's what I want you to think about as you bend the z's and fold at the head. Feel the tailbone reaching away in the opposite direction.

So you get this really gorgeous hinge at the hip. You get this really nice open position of your pelvis. Then XL flattened the abdominals. As you press those legs out, you really start to feel the work differently here. So get that nice deep hinge reaches this bones away from you. Then Xcel press out and flatly abdominal wall feels really good.

Breathe in and press breathing in empress now, not on one. I don't need like a death squeeze on the circle. Just a little bit of a hold because trust me, that'll be enough. You don't need to Overdo it or else your inner thighs will be screaming for mercy. Breathe in. Press now. Point your feet so that nice length of your legs and you're going to lift your legs up to the ceiling. Now here again, I had this really nice hands. You can see that my tailbone is staying down.

Engage your hamstrings to reach the legs out and down, feeling that nice to open through the front of the hips. Then inhale, slowly hinge it up. Excellent. Gauge the hamstrings and think of going out and down and then hinges slowly. Bring it up at Zell, engaging out and down. It should feel really good and bring it up and you can see that I'm not creating an arc in my lower back. I'm keeping that neutral position throughout. Let's do one more and exhale.

So keeping the quality of the movement and let's go into corkscrew here. We're going to go the same direction. We're to go over to the right twisting at the waist, allowing the left tip to rise. Xcel down around to the left, allow the right hip to rise and come back to center again over twisting at the waist, XL down around, over to the left and center. Let's keep going. Inhale, exhale, squeeze in the circle in between the thighs, feeling that control back to center. Two more to the right. Inhale and exhale.

So this kind of is a good marriage of a lot of different things. We have the oblique work, we have the inner thighs, we have the hip work here. And then of course that all is embodied under this element of control and efficiency to the left XL round. So I like to think of my waist being the leader here, so I Chouest from my waist. Then my legs kinda connect, but I'm still feeling that rotation happening at the waist and I'm trying as much as I can to not come past that 90 degree angle. When I'm up at the top, keeping my legs parallel, twisting over, you should be in such control.

You're able to do this with your arms out at the tee. You can go ahead and try it and feel how much control that you have here, all the way over. Find it. And Russ, go ahead and bend your knees for just a moment. Take the circle out for just a moment and go ahead and reach behind and take your head rest down. And we're going to move into the short spine with the magic circle. So take this circle in between the ankles.

We're going to do the whole short spine here in parallel because we have the circle. So hands down by the sides, feet flex XL, pressing out point the feet. You're going to inhale, hinge and find that beautiful stretch all the way to the stopper. That is so nice, right? Getting that wonderful stretch. Now look, my hips aren't all the way down on the carriage, but what I'm doing is I'm trying to keep my hips down in the care, so I'm getting the most out of this position. Now XL, I'm going to slowly peel my spine off the mat. It feels great. It feels controlled. You should see that articulation. I'm going to bend the knees at the top, feeling that beautiful shape, 90 degrees, 90 degrees as gorgeous curve, and then roll down and just feel like the circle is coming straight down over your face. Then over your chest, you're going to take the hips as low as you can. Flex your feet and come back to center again.

We're going to speed it up for two more and point. Inhale, hinge, fill the stretch. Now when I say speed it up, I don't mean we lose the integrity, we lose the detail. We've got to keep it intact and then the knees hollow, the abdominals in more. Fill a deeper scoop. You can do it. Come on, scoop more and then roll down. Finding each vertebrae into its spot. Let the hips open here. Flex your feet and come back to center. One more.

Xcel, press points. Extend over. Feel the reach, open the back of the knees and Tuck and roll. Articulate, articulate. Press those arms down. Feel the deep scoop. Feel the connection. Ben's Halloween even more, and then roll down, relaxing the throat, lengthening out through the crown of the head, and then I have a little bit of a different way to do it. Here we're going to reverse the short spine, so keep your frog. You're going to point your feet and you're going to hinge and bring your knees back in towards your armpits. You're coming to this position.

Try to get the carriage to the stopper if possible. You're going to start to roll up in this position, keeping your knees bent. Give me a pelvic curl. When you get to the top, you extend your legs all away breathing in XL, you start to roll down, keeping your legs at the angle, getting your hips all the way down to the mat and then slide the legs back. Flex your feet. It's an really lovely way to do it. Come all the way into the frog hinge. Point your feet.

Inhale XL, Tuck the pelvis, give the circle a little bit of a squeeze. Roll that keeping your thighs nice and parallel to the floor. Extend all the way trying to stay onto the stopper hollow even more and roll down or reversing the order of the short spine. Opening the spine deep articulation and bring it all the way back. Let's do one more flex.

Bring it in and point hinge in him. Come to the stopper if you can, and Tuck the pelvis. Roll up with the next sell, giving the circle a little bit of a squeeze. I want this pubic bone to aim to come over the face, over the face, over the face. I move the carriage a little bit. Forgive me. Sorry. Extend those legs, reach up, reach up, reach up, reach up, beautiful extension of the legs and then as you roll down, you're just going to feel those vertebrae just flow away from one another.

Like you're creating space, putting air there all the way down. Extend the legs and come out of it. That should have felt good. Take one leg out and bring it there and then take the other leg out and bring it here. Go ahead and sit up and we're going to get rid of the circle here and we're going to come into some full body integration exercises. [inaudible] put this back on.

So I'm on a light to medium weight here and we're going to work on a couple of different versions of the knees stretch. Go ahead and place your feet up against the shoulder rest. Sitting back onto your heels. You're going to lift your hips and glide the pelvis underneath you. I'm going to to bring the hands a little bit closer and you're going to start here for four in how to take it back.

Xcel to Gerad in inhale, inhale. Now as I bring those legs in, I feel like I'm a Holloway even more. Now I'm going to take my right arm down by my side. It's going to go a little bit wider than the foot bar. Inhale, it's going to go back and exhale. It comes forward. Inhale back and Xcel deepen, so I'm feeling the challenge of the stabilization and my left shoulder as I'm moving my right arm and I'm keeping that deep. Scoop one more and scoop it out and switch.

Left hand comes down. Inhale, take it back. XL drawed and inhale back. Exhale, draw it in. Three more. Inhale back. Keep that scoop. Feel like the pubic bone is going to come further underneath you. Two more reach.

Exhale forward one more and hold. Articulate to the flat back reaching the energy out through the tailbone. I'm going to go a little faster engaging the back extensors here we hinge and excelling. Okay. Wide shoulders, six, seven in and hold on the eighth one reaching nice and long and rest.

Now this next one's a fun one. I want you to go to one spring, a full spring, one full spring. I want you to come up into a v position close to the edge of your carriage. Place your hands, just the width of your shoulders and you're going to pike your body as much as you can. Yeah, you're going to lift the heels that in. Squeeze them together. As soon as small v you're gonna take your head down, looking at your pubic bone, take the legs back just some little bit. The next cell, pull them in and come all the way forward.

So my shoulders do not move. I'm scooping deeper into the work. So essentially I feel like I'm creating a deep pelvic girl, a public tuck. Inhale, exhale, pull it in. Two more. Inhale. So you're getting this beautiful, deep connection through your abdomen and this gorgeous opening through your back. Take your heels down. Now we're going to go with lighter weight, which means we're going to have to practice more controls.

So I put a half a spring on and took a full spring off. Come all the way up. The carriage is going to be less stable, so you have to practice more control. Take it back. Inhale, exhale, draw it in a squeeze. Inhale, exhale deep and open those shoulder blades, wide. Inhale and so deep and into the work. Three more. Exhale, squeeze it in and to draw it in deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. Last one, draw it in. Go, go, go, go, go, go.

And take those heels down. Now the last and final one, practice safety is no springs, so even more control. Come on up, take it back and draw it in. This is the hardest to mind. Keeping your control. Take it back, look at your pubic bone, draw it, and even more. Inhale, exhale, draw in and even more. Inhale, exhale his rod and even more. One more time. Inhale and exhale all the way in. We're down.

Load up the spring and you're all done. Coming down onto your knees. I put one full spring on and one half spring on and we're going to work on the shoulder push. We're going to get a wonderful work to the shoulders and through the triceps. Hands are about the width of your shoulders. Nice, flat back.

I want you to press all the way forward and down. Sandwiching your chest into your thighs, bending your elbows to draw the crown of the head toward the bar. Keep the Scapula wide. Xcel. Extend all the way out. Inhale now feel like you're going to flip your tailbone up behind you, sir. Trying to get that full extension through your spine.

Inhale shoulder blades down and wide. As you extend. Inhale, exhale down and wide as you extend two more. Inhale, exhale, reach all the way out. Last one, and exhale. Hold it. Hold it. This time you're going to reach the crown of the head up. You're going to come into a nice upper back extension, reaching up, reaching up, reaching up, and then Xcel. Press all the way down and inhale.

Draw the shoulder blades down. Reach the head, neck and chest stuff. Find the work all the way up, all the way up, all the way up. And then Xcel, reach it down last one, and out through the crown of the head. Bring the carrots into the stopper, but continue to lift the sternum. Lift the sternum, draw the shoulder blades down, and come out of it. Go to one full spring, and we're going to turn ourselves around. And we're going to go with bees up against the shoulder rest here.

So for this exercise, we're going to combine a couple of different exercises to reach forward, and I want you to grab the rope or the straps. Bring the pelvis forward underneath you. You're going to bend at your knees and you're going to hinge forward keeping your elbows tight to waist. We're gonna do some triceps here, so you need to take the breath in. With the exhale, you're going to extend the arms back, bring it in. Exhale. So what I love about this exercise, so it makes it so challenging is that the, the um, the demand on the stabilization of your torso is just incredible. So you have the instability of the carrot, the stability demands on the torso, and then the isolation of your triceps just by extending your elbow, keeping your upper arm absolutely steady to your waist.

Now notice that every time I pull those arms back, I'm drawing my abdominals in a little bit deeper. I'm feeling full spinal extension. Two more, and I'm filling my triceps big time. Last one. Bring the arms forward, extend them in front of you. Take your breath in. Give me a little tuck in the pelvis. We're going to do a little thigh stretch. You're going to hinge back. Allow the straps to pull the carriage breathe in, and exhale, come back up. Inhale, tucking the pelvis slightly and roll hinges at the knee, keeping the hips up. Breathe in, and exhale back up.

Let's do two more feeling that control breathe in and all the way at great continuing one. We're going to finish with some back extension exercises. So I'm going to go ahead and grab my box again. I'm going to place the box long ways right on top of your carriage. And I want you to take your foot bar and put it down.

And I want you to work with a half a spring here. We need to do an exercise called the pulling stops three. So this a little bit different from pulling shops in one and two. So you're going to lie on the box facing away from your foot bar chest. Just over the edge of the box.

You're going to grab your straps that I want you to hold this jobs in between your forefinger and your son with your palm facing up. So you're reaching at Palm, facing out. You're going to bend your elbows, pull the elbows back to your waist. As you start to extend your elbows, you're gonna lift your back up. Keep your backed up as you circle the arms around, challenge your shoulders here, challenge your shoulders, and then turn the palms up as you come down to the flat position. Bend your elbows as you extend your up. Let's reach out through the head, neck and chest, pressing the pubic bone down into the box. Circle the arms around like you're touching two ends of the room. Circle, circle, palms that again.

Inhale all the way up, all the way up and reach around. Reach around, looking down in between the reformer two more and all the we feel that strength. Fill that length. Keep the spine working nice and strong. Fill the shoulders, palm space up. One more time. Inhale all the way up and reach, reach, reach, and slowly down. Go ahead and place your straps back on and sit up for me and I want you to face forward.

You can load up a little bit more spring if that feels more comfortable. I just wants you to feel nice and open here. Actually, I think I may just for a little extra stability and I want you to put your arms out to the side. You're going to grab onto the side of the box, Ben's your elbow and you're going to give me a little side stretch. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and big XL. Press up and just circle around to the other side, so that was a really nice short session.

Nice full body session there with an inhale and exhale all the way up. Go ahead and from here, open the legs a little bit. We're just going to finish like we started. Actually no, I'm going to turn to this side so you guys can see me a little bit better. Grabbing onto the knees. We're going to reach up with an inhale and then round and reach back with an exhale and reach up with an inhale. Feel about work radiating through the whole body. Exhale, inhale, feel that nice extension last one.

XL drawed in. Draw it in, draw it in all the way and slowly roll yourself up. They'll nice and connected through your whole body. Breathing in. Nice big breath in. Fill the lungs with that air all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, and exhale, bring it down, bring it down and bring it down. Nice work. Thank you so much for joining me on this reformer class. Thank you.