Strengthening Upper Body

Hi, everyone. Amy Havens here back at Pilates Anytime for a tower, straight up tower class today. So I'm gonna tell you what you need to set up. So I've got a top loaded red spring. We'll do some top loaded red.

And you'll need your rollback bar. You will also need a bottom loaded spring four footwork. And then if you have a second set of arm springs, have those already set up. But if you don't, you'll just use your rollback bar springs for those. That's fine to do that transition.

So where I have the spring set up though for rollback bar, were one, two, three, eye bolts down or so. And then for arm springs for some rowing and things like that, you'll be two eye bolts up from the bottom. Okay, yeah, straight up tower. A little more upper body focus today. So let's go ahead and warm up though lying on our back.

Getting centered with the legwork, foot and legwork. So I want you to get your head pretty close to the top of the tower mat, use your hands, push the far up. We're gonna start right away with Pilates V. And I want you to start with your legs up everybody. So the and the spring extended so you can see your alignment, right?

You're gonna get there, press those heels together, reach those hamstrings long and your sacrum down as much as you can. So if this is, you're in a position already where your pelvis is not able to get flat down, you need to move back. I think everybody is pretty clear on that. But also seek to keep reaching your sit bones forward and tailbone down. So there's constant effort of that.

We never really just let go of that, right? 'Cause we'd probably all default and go back. We wanna really work on the extension. Okay, let's bend the knees. I'm gonna let you breathe how it feels best for you.

Some days an inhale down and it exhale up feels great. Sometimes it's the other way around, right? But again, the whole objective here feel good in how you move. Today it's feeling like an inhale here and an exhale. Pressing down, we'll probably do eight repetitions and looking at your alignment, you've got nice centered feet, kind of the weight distribution even from big toe across to the pinky toe.

So we have two more. See how I'm really working that stretch down of the sits bones out and tailbone down. Okay, now let's go ahead and just pivot to a parallel. And I want us to do flex and extend about eight times and go for some pretty maximum range there. This is another great way to watch your own alignment, doing the best we can to stay even and centered in the feet so we're not pronating or supinating on the angle of the feet.

Last two, it was fun to watch the bones of the feet move I think. Okay, last one. And then let's go ahead and press the bar up about mid-range. So you don't have to go to your maximum lift, but you're not down in your flex, you're kind of halfway between. And then the objective is to stabilize that position of the ankle while you flex your hips and your knees.

That can be a little bit smaller range of the bend and extend. Still working to get those sit bones forward and the tailbone down. And then again the inhale bend, there's a bit of a reflex I think that happens where the hips and knees start carrying the bar up and then at the very end there's a little foot thing that wants to happen. So you have to concentrate on that not happening, but rather just keep the ankles as stable as you can so that it really is more pure hip and knee. It's tricky.

I think for myself it really is. Couple more. I really wanna push the bar with the ball of the foot but I won't. Alright, let's step onto the heels now. So heels and try to really get centered in the heel bone.

And again, range of movement is probably pretty small. Concentrate on the placement of the pelvis that you're not letting your pelvis rock back into posterior tilt and then extend, right? It doesn't have to be big, big, big. These smaller movements sometimes are where the essence of things really exists. And I feel like me, gosh, I just feel my whole back coming alive.

My spine muscles, that wonderful stretch in the hamstrings. Yeah, deep. Three more. Inhale, bend, exhale, send those hamstrings. Really long. Last two. I just feel so good.

All right, now guys, we're gonna go back onto balls of feet still in our parallel. And let's take a little pedaling out, little walk in place. Okay, just let it feel good. Notice those ankles have quite a bit more movement than hips and knees. So we can see how large that range is.

I want you to feel like you're getting a nice calf stretch sacrum still down. Four, three, couple more, two and one. And then bend your knees deeply. So for this deep bend, I want you just to take the feet off the bar for a minute, shake out. But we all are gonna do a single leg series.

So choose whichever leg you'd like to start with. I am gonna ask us to go ball of foot, whichever leg you're starting with. The opposite leg, just right in line with your hip. Take a peek, make sure you're lined up. Oftentimes you need to kind of linger here to check your placement.

Okay, so let's go flex foot. How's that feel? Bend and stretch the knee first. Okay, and now point flex your ankle. And then we kind of make it all seamless.

We do a bend and a stretch and then it goes all the way through foot and foot. So it's like hip, knee, ankle and hip, knee, ankle and ankle alone. See how that works? You're just nice and smooth and up and lift. One more pattern.

Bend and stretch and point and flex. Other leg comes up, place. Start with a nice flexed foot. Check that alignment, check that pelvis. Anchor down. Linger.

Let that stretch come in right? If you go too quick, I think we just lose that positioning. Okay, foot is flex. So we do our bend of the knee, extension of the knee. It stays straight and it's ankle, ankle, ankle, hip, knee, ankle.

Keep looking at your alignment. Making sure you're straight working through it. The other leg on the mat has energy. It's not doing anything really except reaching, but that's important lift. And one more time there.

And point and flex. Now bicycle this leg up. Bring this guy up here. Now instead of having the one leg up in parallel, I want you to take that, I'm gonna use my right foot, across the midline. Externally rotate so it's not across the midline by much. Hello, stretch of the outer hip.

This leg is still in line. Now slowly lower the bar everyone. I want you to aim the knee here, the angle of it toward the back corner of the tower unit or your wall unit. You'll feel that stretch in your rotators, right? I'm pretty sure you will.

And then press with that. Let's keep that ankle just like that. Try not to point flex. We've done a lot of that. Okay, this one you'll probably be able to get the bar coming down more. It's a wonderful stretch.

Very needed. Three more times. Oh my gosh, it feels so good. And let's breathe in. Exhale, stretch.

I really almost cheated that foot there. Okay, yeah. Up comes the other lane. So transition, I just kind of cross it over, drop it down, let the leg turn out and again, lower the bar slowly. Remember you're aiming that knee for the back corner of the wall unit or your tower and extend. Push from the hip.

So a little bit about Amy. This is her weaker leg, but that's okay. Just thought I'd tell you the things start shaking 'cause my leg is working a little bit more. But it's all right. It's weaker weaker.

What would I do without Pilates? What would we all do without Pilates? Last one, everybody, press up. Okay, enough of that. So guys, you're gonna need to lower the bar safely.

Just go ahead and grab a hold there. We no longer need any of this set up. So just get yourself out from underneath there on the spring Everything comes down, safety's trained down. And we'll be moving into some beautiful rollback work. So you can just tuck this away and ready we go.

So placement wise, why don't we start? About halfway here it is on this cut mat, we can just sit right on that. You'll know in a minute if you wanna go more forward or back. I like to have these days I'm doing thumb up on the bar with my fingers so my thumb joint doesn't get grouchy. And I want us to start first just sit tall and lightly pressed down with the arms.

Shoulder blades are set, so we'll take a breath here. Nice clean rollbacks legs have energy, right? We've already warmed those legs up, articulating the best we can, we're nice and long. So right away we're gonna add three poles. Sometimes you'll hear me say these are rowing movements.

I'm rowing the bar up to my chest, down to the hips. Elbows go out nice and wide, just three and we'll roll ourselves up. So the head, neck and shoulders the springs are doing just a little bit of the work we're resisting back with those abdominals. And let's let the crown of the head come toward the bar in that direction. And then in between we'll sit up tall.

This is our breath in. Exhale, it's rolling it back. The eye is tracking the wall in front of you and then right up to the ceiling and three poles, one, two strong abduction with the legs. Keep those activated and then lift head, neck and shoulders. That idea to peel ourselves off of the mat.

Stomach pulled back, crowned the head toward the foot rollback bar and roll back up, third one. So we'll do a three set pulls again and then the next series of rollbacks are gonna take place with diamond leg position. So we'll do our roll up. And diamond position is really an interesting, I think, really nice chance to open the hips. But if you're a person that has pretty open hips, naturally like just they drop out try not to just let 'em drop out.

There's not a lot of action in your muscles this way you're just hanging there. That's actually me. My hips just fall out. So I wanna use a muscle to hold the opening of the legs. That's a little more work and it's certainly safer for my hip joints this way.

Okay, so let's do that three times. It's a different experience through the abdominals, the hip joints, the lower back inner thigh connection and three, one, elbows are out shoulder blades plunge down the back. I think it helps suppress the feet together to keep those legs activated so that you don't just plop 'em out. Okay, again, you get the drill three times contract. It's also nice I think to articulate the spine with legs in a slightly different position so that they're not always straight leg levers and sitting up last time and roll it back.

Yay, and three and two, keep those feet pressed and one now this time as we roll up, everybody start rolling up pause at chest lift little contractions for eight. So we're really well anchored on the pelvis and trying to do that chest toward thighs business six and seven, eight, we'll do eight little oblique rotations, right? So I'm not gonna move the bar with my hands. The bar will move because I move my trunk and then eight on this diagonal. Hello oblique.

Send two the opposite hip. We really wanna keep pressed back and flat, right? These oblique movements, the pelvis loves to kind of cheat sometimes or lose anchor. So we wanna keep that anchor. I think this is eight. Okay, come through center again, the bar moves because we move our body, it just follows along.

The right hip stays down and a contraction. I think of pulling the side of the waistline inward toward the center of the body. So that deep oblique connection, right? You've got two more, seven, eight one. And in all the way down flat please.

All the way, no more arm pulls there. Extend your legs to parallel. And roll all the way up, crown of the head toward the bar. And then we'll move on to the next sequence of exercises. Okay, wonderful.

So let's go ahead and do a spin around so that we line our back again still with the rollback bar. And then I think where positioning wise we can be is a few inches down from the top, you wanna start with your arms straight up above your shoulders. So that's gonna really dictate that. And we're doing going to some pelvic curl. There's a little bit of tension on the springs just to begin.

Okay, breathe in deep and here we go. Pelvic curl. So now once we establish this lifted position three times, that's kind of patterning, straight arm pulls. If you reach to the thighs and get there, great. It's not your mandatory place to go.

You wanna pull the springs with control in your neck and shoulder girdle. So you know these are not easy springs. So if you only make it to here, that's perfect. Absolutely perfect. Go to where your control is and then we unroll.

Okay, so that happens a total of three patterns. Here we go again, roll it up. Feel solid in the feet. Press. I am also trying to lengthen my arms longer toward my legs as I engage the springs longer journey and roll it down, sternum away from chin ribs, away from sternum, neutral pelvis once again. Lot of articulation of our back, isn't it today so far.

Long reach, like you're trying to reach to your knees almost. And we get to unroll. Okay, now we'll unroll, we'll just stay supine with the pelvis down for a minute. Now I wanna do a little more arm rowing kind of sequencing. So we've warmed up the ranges and it's this, you start to take the bar forward.

Any amount control in your neck, right? Don't make it hurt. Bend your elbows. We row the bar kind of a circular movement toward the chest. And then straight up, all with keeping, this brings open.

So we don't let that bar slip back like that. No clanks, right? So we go forward and row it up the body, elbows wide. And you just get to look at those springs and keep 'em open. One more that circle and then we reverse it.

Oh good. How do your arms feel? Active? Mind, sure dude, let's pull it down to the chest. So now there's more of a push, a push of those springs. Loop it around.

Inhale to the chest toward the thighs, once more. And you'll love the final part of this pelvic curl sequence. We're going to add the pelvic curl and one round of each of those arm movements. So take a breath here, curl your way up to your bridge, one in each. So we go forward, row it up the body, keep tension in the springs.

And just one the other way. In the inhale, exhale, press it, reach it farther, farther, farther, farther and all the way up. And roll your spine down. And when you get your spine down, you just release that bar. Everybody, check your knees into your chest for a second and curl up.

Let's kind of make a nice tight ball shape. Okay, wonderful, everybody, let's bring ourselves up. And this is where I think you can, if you don't have the extra set of springs like I do here, change your springs out. So ditch the rollback bar, just take it off and then attach your handles to your rollback bar springs. And but for what I'm gonna do now is just gonna stow that right back behind there.

All right, so next we're moving into some rowing. Continue on with arm work. Rowing, facing the tower and then rowing, facing out. We'll just do three reps of each. So you kind of know what to plan for with your stamina and your endurance.

So I want us to start again about halfway out. Make some nice strong fists and bring your fists into your chest body right there. Elbows are a little bit lifted. There's some air in your underarms. Want you to take a deep inhale and let's keep this the handles with us as we pull back away from the springs.

Try to get on your sacrum. Now, these are strong springs. Be ready, your arms come open. I'm gonna rotate the palm's face back. Here we go. Dive toward the legs, pull those springs back.

I'm a fingertips to the mat gal. Pull your hips back as you lift your arms and circle, try to stay right on your pelvis as you are. Do not let those springs pull you. You're in charge of you. They'll want to pull you out of that shape, right? So we have to really work the core.

Inhale, curl it back. If that was too hard, strong strength-wise, scoot toward the springs. That'll be a little easier to pull. Mm, it's fingertips down and lift. Keep your butt right where it is. Do not shift forward.

Do not shift forward. Or you wanna be inflection of the spine. Circle, one more time. Breathe in and ouch. And press pull back of those shoulders.

Lats everything. Lift, circle. Can you scoop your stomach back even more? Let the scapula really widen and roll up. Okay, back facing the springs.

Rowing front. So I'm gonna ask you to put your thumb down in the handle like that. So the springs are underneath you. Okay, back up kind of. I think you'll want, you can always move forward.

Be safe. Come back. Rowing one front. Here we go. So reaching the arms forward, tap the fingers down. Like I said, if it feels too easy, move forward. But what I want you to do here is you lower your arms is try not to slack the springs, right?

So I'm gonna make a choice. That felt a little easy for me. So here I go. Challenge myself. Reach, yep. Right in the right spot. I wanna make sure there's tension. That's a challenge but not a strain.

Have this lift from the hips to fingertips. Arms come down. Don't let those springs go too slack. Circle your hands right around to your shoulders. One more time. Reach. That's a breath in, fingertips.

Reach, stretch those springs. Lift, lift, lift. Arm bones up high like an ear check, arms right by the ears. And circle. Rowing front two, you bend down first hands are by hips, right?

So we take a breath flex through that spine, okay it's lot. Same as we just, were right on your sit bones. Don't lose that positioning. Reach, reach, stretch, feel, connect to opposition, right? So there's energy this way and a lot of energy back in your hips and your stomach.

Now roll up to sitting tall. Arms just stay in front of you there. Now lean, lean, lean. Pick up the arms. You're just gonna feel how the body just rocks back with that tension.

Stretch. Open. Two more to go, breathe in. Slide the hands to the feet. Roll up the shoulders to slide back. We reach forward.

Feel that rhythm of those springs lift the springs are helping us lift haul in the body. That's always what I think, right? Helping us with strengthening, that's for sure. But decompression, the coils are open. Lift the skin, lift your joints, open things up and circle all the way around.

Time to come up on our knees for a few things facing out this way. So just climb on up. So I like to start this again a little on the safe side. Back up. We can always move forward. Tuck the toes down, pinch the heels together.

And you've got a nice sense of long line here through your hips. We're going in for hug a tree. Hold the position for a moment. Stretch, make sure the springs are already unstretched. Take a breath and close that circle.

It's really an oval of the arms. Exhale, gather around the air, keep that sternum pulled up high. Three more times. Just beautiful concentrated work in the shoulder, griddle, your chest, your arms. Hips extended, hamstrings engaged.

One more time there and go all the way open and lower the arms for a little transition. So you've got choices now. If we can do salute or arms from behind the head, they're relatively the same exercise. Let me just quickly show you a one of each so you can make a decision. The salute again is from hands in front of the head, pressing in, out on that diagonal right there or behind the head.

It's a little more work to stay organized in your torso. And then your reach would be more of a vertical. Okay, I'm choosing that one. I'm gonna go for five. Come along with me. Take a breath, whichever one you're choosing.

Oh, stretch it up, control the bend back down and again, you should be feeling quite a bit of work in obviously your shoulders. But you're upper back now. Right behind that breast bone. Last two and it's like I'm trying to pull my bun right off my head there last time all the way. Now lift here.

Open out to hug a tree if you need a little break, take a little break for your arms a lot of work. I want you to hold the tension and now do a bit of spinal flexion toward your right or left. And then come back through your center. Exhale, a little spine flexion to the opposite side. Please try to stay evenly weighted on your knees and consistent tension in the springs.

You will feel your arms like nobody's business feeling your back. Oh your shoulder blades are connected onto your back. Yep. And side bend. We've got two more sets. Trying really to work my trunk muscles there to bend the spine to the side and a lift and the other lift.

And then re-bend your elbows. Hello. Feels good, doesn't it? Okay, one more set up on our knees facing the springs, chest expansion. I think it's just such a vital exercise with the reformer or the tower or the handsprings, anything. But instead of the head turn, just being like a regular head turn to the side, you don't even have to do the head turn.

But I am gonna offer that and I've been doing head turn looking down. Just a little different option to feel your neck different ways you can always turn and look up too. Change it up, right? Don't always look the same way. I suppose it's the rule or the objective here.

So let's take a breath and press your arms back. Can you get them to the side of your thighs and hold that. Now as you rotate your spine, your head spine, your cervical spine, glance down, you're gonna feel a different contraction and a different stretch than just looking to the side. Then arc back to center, other side looking down a bit, center and arms can come front. Start the opposite way.

Objective also to keep the arms in one position. So this brings have to stay the same length as you do these. We'll do two more sets. Start the head, turn the first direction and center and side and center. Last time, start your head, turn the opposite way.

Now is your chest beautifully broad? Yes it is. It feels so good on the neck. And then release. Okay, we are done with these springs. Okay, so you can just walk forward, just let those come down. Then the next series is we need our top loaded spring.

I'm gonna make a choice right now to just take my rollback bar springs down so that I have less in the way. There and just tuck those on the floor. And we don't need the safety chain for this of course 'cause we're loading from the top. So here's the deal. We get to come down on our back, sorry, on our side.

Now, there'll be two different hand positions for this side series. One set with your palm this way, and then there'll be a set of something this way. The first set is here. And if you can gauge where your arm is in a nice straight vertical line from your shoulder and then this arm can be long or you can make your pillow. This feels kind of nice to have that support.

And the legs are right in the middle too. So we're basically cutting this mat right in half. All right, so here's what's happening. We'll bend the elbow, pull this bar down, that initial pull there. The of course the shoulder blade we want pulled down, right?

So keep that pulled down. But what I want us to do is as the bar passes over the ear is now let the shoulder blade really glide up. It's important to keep the shoulder blade moving in various directions. It's always not down. It's not always down.

But to return the bar, it does slide down to initiate. So we'll flow through that about two more times. Shoulder blade depresses, over the head and reach the scapula up. It feels lovely to stretch, but then depress back down again. So we're kind of playing with a little mobility stability there, right?

There's it stable, a little more mobile. And then we needed it to be stable for some work on the lower body. Both legs up and both legs down. And both legs up and both legs down. Five of these here. Exhale.

Oblique work. Trunk work. Last one I want you to hold your legs up and now just five top leg only and two and three. I say this a lot but the front ribs love to push forward. And that jutting, it's kind of a salt, false sense of like balance, I think, it's not gonna help your back.

So keep your front ribs kind of snugged in. The back of you should be beautifully wide, right? So now you're gonna take the bottom leg down and up and down and up. There's a lot of side body focus here, down and up. Now I want you to take both legs down.

Here's a pattern, top, bottom. And both come down together. Top leg and bottom leg and they both go down, just one more time and up and down and both go down. But then we go up again. And of course little flutters, make 'em kind of quick but small, right?

Stabilize this upper body and brush, brush, brush, brush those legs. And four, three, two and one and down. Okay, now just a little transition, just lift up, change your hand, that's all you're gonna do. Come back down again. Now the hand needs to be kind of pressing toward the feet.

So I'm gonna grip with my palm, but is this I'm trying to pull my hand across. I think you get what I'm saying. Front kick back kick. You really want to use the arm on the bar. Yep. And kick, kick. We'll do five and kick, kick.

How are your abs feeling here? Kick. Kick. Yep. Last time. And kick. Kick. And that's all we need to do. Hold the legs together.

That's it, right? Other side, however. So flipping on over, over hand grip to begin. Get yourself long. Hopefully we have a nice long arm here and it's straight above the shoulder.

Now feel that shoulder blade depress. Bend your elbow bar overhead and really enjoy the glide of the scapula up, back down return. So it depresses you let it go. And slide down and lift. We did five, I'm pretty sure depress pull, it over.

Re stretch your waistline and down that play of mobility stability. And then we're gonna definitely need it to be stable right here. Okay, so two leg, double leg raise and lower. It's really the top waist oblique connection, but it's that bottom inner thigh. Also working to press the legs up holding there.

And now top leg only in parallel abduction. And three and four and five. And hold and bottom leg down and up. All that inner thigh work. Three and two. Okay, nice and snug inner thighs.

Let's bring everything down. So now we're gonna do a pattern. Top leg goes, bottom leg joins and both go down together, top and bottom and both come down together. Couple more. And then all the way down.

Lift one more time top and bottom. And then those flutters balanced right on the side of that hip. Keep that shoulder blade nice and snug and flutter and flutter and flutter and together and lower. Okay, now the change of the hand, I just you know why? Why wouldn't I just do front kick back, cook from here.

You certainly could just this is nice to feel the energy that arm pressing that way. The lap helping for stability. That's all. Just changing things up, right? Different connections. So that we have our front kick. Oh yes. And that kick.

I'm trying to pull the bar away from the tower frame. That's my thought front kick, back kick. We only did five, front kick, back kick, last one front and back and seal your legs up together. And now we have another sequence with this rollback bar. I'm coming around this way.

Some mermaid, some nice side bendy kind of work. So I hope this sitting position works for you. You can also do this one, but it won't feel the same. I think we'll be fine here. Hold up on that bar hand will be on a little bit in front of your shoulder now.

And I want you to place the other hand behind your head. And bring the bar down everybody to start. It's pretty heavy spring. I want you to decides, Ben, let's take our time here. Thumb can be with fingers and try to keep your sit bones down.

I'm not gonna, it's not mandatory that this stays. What we're working on is lateral flexion of the spines. If your hip lifts a little, okay, now that's a side bend here, let's change the side bend this direction and stretch the legs out. So now I'm really working this side. Okay, now let's flip it and go back the other way, side bend the opposite way and come back to the top.

I hope that makes sense. Side bend to the left. And as I go side bend, right, I wanna lengthen the bottom waistline up. And then as I flip it, I side bend to the left, open the right ribs and then I back all the way up. We have one more and side bend over. Kind of just one move into the next move like a ribbon.

That's my image that I'm curling myself like a ribbon or a string. And all the way up. That's all. That's a lot. Let's flip it around three the other way. Hand slightly in front of your shoulder. Bring that bar down hand behind your head. Here we are.

So we are opening the side ribs. It's your lateral flexion. Now start thinking of lateral flexion the opposite way. And then transition those legs right on out from your hip. Okay, now to return right away, start side bending those legs. Come just right into your mermaid and vertical.

Side bend toward the bar, side bend toward the mat. Return side bend toward the bar and up to vertical four. One more and over. Stretch the legs out from those hips. And then your one more, side bend toward the bar and all the way up.

Okay, hope you're feeling great. We get one more exercise and that's our spread eagle. To put some things kind of full circle, right? And work some grip strength. Although this whole class has been about grip strength, but I want us to stand up.

Get your hands on your frame about pelvic height, just a little bit higher than that. Feet are flat or if you like the toes up, like the talons wrapped around the bar, that's pretty traditional. And reach your hips back. Really let that go, everybody, take a deep breath. Now I'm gonna ask us to do a squat position.

I love to add these in my spread eagle movements. Just get the sit bones down and then as we reverse it, reach back with the hips. Okay, arms stay straight. I want you to really flex through your lumbar spine. Start to articulate to about mid-thoracic where your shoulder blades are.

Then start bending your elbows. You arrive at the very top where your elbows are bent and your face is right to the frame. Now to back bend, keep your elbows bent. Start the stern extension, the upper back extension. Then you lean back with it, right?

You don't just throw your head back, keep your body in extension. Use your arms and pull yourself all the way center. Two more rounds. So we're going back. Let yourself traction there, right? Bending down.

Lead with your hips to go back. Here we go. Tailbone, pelvic curl. Basically, get to about your shoulder blades. Start to pull yourself to the frame. Your head is the last thing to arrive.

Elbows are bent. You start lifting into that high release. On the way back, your elbows extend. Nice strong grip. Bend the elbows. Again, your upper body's the last thing that arrives for one more.

And spread your back and reach back. Strong shoulder connection. Curl it, curl it, curl it, curl it. Bend and pull your head's the last thing to come up, elbow state bent and your high release. Yay, go back as much as you want here.

Your final arm pull and you arrive. And then just let go. Kind of just stand here, everybody. And I wanna thank you for taking class with me. Always so lovely to be here and present movement and let me know how that felt for you. I think you're gonna feel very strong in your upper body.

I'll see you next time.