Reformer on the Cadillac

Hi, I'm Carol Wiley and this is a adapted reformer workout for Cadillac. Um, towards the end of the workout, the similarities will become less apparent, but I'll try to relate to you as I'm doing the exercises, uh, why some exercises are, um, put in place of others that we would normally do on the apparatus. So we'll start laying back and we're going to begin with our hundred and we'll skip the footwork. I'm going to begin with the Roll Down Bar and four gentlemen strong gentlemen, they could begin with the roll down bar from the top. Um, I think for, for ladies, even strong ladies, we can start with it down below. That's good. Take a nice big breath into the body.

Empty all the air out of the body. Let those ribs relax. The Tummy, fall back, the legs lengthen in the bottom. Pinch folding the knees to the chest, drop your tummy deeper. Let's take the bar beyond your feet. Reach pasture tissue, stretch out and pump. [inaudible] legs can also go lower the arms lower. [inaudible] okay, in place the overhead. We'll do the airplane here.

Okay. Arms will extend completely out. Straight shoulders engaged on the back. Start with the knees pulling into the chest, roll up, lengthen the legs, reach out long and thin and let the spine massage down. Draw it in working from your center. Come up, stretch, reach length and longer than you did the first time. Keep the shoulders on the back last time in the reverse. [inaudible] in the reverse.

[inaudible] stretching the legs long. You'll push down on the springs. Use the back of the legs and your c curve to come up. Arms will work at the very end of that lift. Massage the spine, drawing your navel into your spine. Reach, push down to go up. Lengthen and using your stomach. Rule down the coordination and you can take all of those straps. Just hold them on the outsides. Glue the triceps to the Mat, raising the head stretch everything along. One stretch, open, close use. You're telling me to pull two more [inaudible] and for the rowing we'll sit up and spin around.

Feed all the way to the pipes. For the sake of time, I'm just going to keep the same springs and use the same straps. You may use the handles on other equipment and rolling back. Arms reach, push back. Take them behind the waist. Nice big clean. Circle around. Drop those shoulders and stretch again. Engaging the bottom, engaging the stomach. Shoulders on my back. Reach, push.

Use your powerhouse more than your shoulders and keep those ribs engaged. Do what she can to keep your heels to the pipe sitting tall. Attempt to lay the whole spine back. One piece. Naval comes with you. Extend the gum up. Draw into your center. Big Circle.

Lifting. Lengthen. Keep lengthening. Raging. Hmm. Placed the strap. Spin yourself around to do the rune front.

[inaudible] on the reformer. The springs always end up underneath us on the Cadillac. They'll begin on top of the arms. Push away, press down. Keep reaching into the springs. Lift. Grow Taller, pinching the bottom. Reach lower.

Grow one smaller flexing in the feet. You can drop the nose. Slide up past your heels. Keep lengthening, grow, reach, springs reaching, navel, pulling back in the other direction. Ah, crossing the legs. We'll do the salute hands go behind the head, leaning into it. You can glue your thumbs together and press away. One, two, keep the knees down. Use you're telling me three open the arms of the leg will come forward and inhale. Exhale, reverse your breathing. Flipping onto the stomach will go into the Flying Eagle.

I'm going to measure myself so that the middle of my arch goes off the edge. If you're taller than five foot six you might be all the way at your ankles will be shorter. You might be at your toes. Reach Navel to spine. Keep pressing those legs firmly into the mat. Try to lift the stomach.

Reverse. Okay. The backstroke, so far in the workout, we've engaged our abdominal muscles in and up and learned how to lift our bodies from the top of our body. In a moment, we'll start working from the lower body as well. For now, we'll do backstroke reaching arms and legs. Reach dropped the belly to circle. Stretch. You could also do a bit of an accent. [inaudible] [inaudible] starting with your push through bar.

We're going to begin with the teaser linked to the bat. You'll want to measure this tower bar so that you're just about to clip your hair line to reach out. Again, watch the ribs as you begin, drop your navel to the mat and brace those legs together as one. The bar comes through with control and extends. As I roll up, I'm going to draw my stomach into the mat and rise again. It looks very pretty to lift yourself up in a big V.

I was taught to keep my c curve a bit more intact in my legs, high and down with control. It's a great tool for learning teaser on the mat cause then when you're on the mat you can pretend as if you're holding onto this tower bar and work your body the same way. Few variations, we can stretch and we can work with our legs. [inaudible] release the bar, take the hands behind the waist and you can follow through as we just did for rowing sitting up and you'll move back a little bit. Taking a hold of the tower bar once more behind us for the push through back. We're going to go ahead and just expand on this vocabulary from the Cadillac even though it's not a part of the reformer workout, it's here to use it [inaudible] three times each way.

I'm letting my stomach muscles help me pull the bar down so it's not, you know, my shoulders and neck and I'm again letting my stomach dictate how far back my shoulders will go. Coming to neutral, we'll flip the hands the other direction and go through the other way, not overstressing. The neck keen began in line with the rest of the spine. If any of this is too much on a shoulder and elbow, you may soften that area a little bit. Try to get the stretch from your chest. On the last reach up, you can let your stronger arms just lower down and let the other arm slowly release the bar with control. We'll flip over and do swan onto the stomach. Once again, I'm going to measure myself with my arch at the end of the map.

Open the elbows wide. Pick up the head just for a little stretch and push through [inaudible] keeping my shoulders for you, my ears, long, long neck, adding on again, press down into those legs strong. You can continue to look up. Let the weight of the head pull you down. Open those elbows wide to stretch through. Here's your bottom.

[inaudible] again, neither fancy little transition. Beginning of the lift up. I'm going to open my legs and swing them all the way through to her for a stretch for the push through. Again, sending energy through my heels. Draw the tummy back to the mat. Use your strong powerhouse to push down and through [inaudible] back again. Shoulders remain on the back. My middle does my work. [inaudible] going onto our next series. We'll do the short box.

Coming back over to the roll down bar. I'm also going to move my leg springs out of the way now [inaudible] and they'll start with a simple role on the box. I would hold my arms around my waist here. I'm going to shave my ankles, shave my legs, pull my waist in and massage back. Keep pressing through the heels. Bring that up, shave those legs and stretch forward in with your air. Pushed through the heels. Use the sides of those legs to empty the air on the box.

Again, I would have the straps on my feet and I would be using them to help create, strengthen my body [inaudible] here in when I work the same [inaudible] lifting the stick high above the head again, lift through the spine, grow tall, lean back one piece up. Shoulders Long Tommy. Strong. Keep lifting, growing for a side to side. I can lean back a little just as I lean forward a little on the box. Working to keep that off as it hit on the mat for twists, little variation.

You can try to reach the stick to the opposite side of the Cadillac. [inaudible] where around the world where we can turn reach center, there's a reverse and rest. My favorite part is the monkey. Very similar to a climate tree, so fixing up my safety chain. Cool.

You're going to take a spring from the bottom? No, I was taught to measure myself by moving my bottom a little bit behind the level of my heels. From here, you can press up, push and flex three times. [inaudible] I like to look at the alignment of my ankles here. [inaudible] and I'm going to slide back just a tiny bit. We'll go again. Huh?

Again, easy neck, easy shoulders. Strengthen my stomach, stretch in my legs. I'm going, I'm going to try to kiss my knees. [inaudible] we can also do one leg at a time, length in one leg down or let it rest. If your hip is tight to push up, keep the square shape of my hips and my shoulders three times. Still working into my center to come down and the other side looking at my alignment. Yeah. Ah, then we can slide back onto do tower. So depending on your flexibility, it might start very close to the edge of the uh, Cadillac.

He may move farther on pushing your bar up. Let's put the feet up and you can begin in parallel. Again, just looking at that alignment. Try to keep the tailbone down and let the weight of that spring stretch your lower spine. Take a breath, watch the ribs, the tummy, push the bar away. Roll Up. My lowest spine is the tightest part on me, so I like to take a small roll up. I bend all the way. When I pushed the bar back up again, I'm going to continue to push it away me and roll out that Titus part of my spine and stretch. If my tighter spot were a little higher up, I would push a little higher up.

And again, I would continue to push away as I went down. And if my tightest spot were all the way at the top of my spine, I'd go all the way up here. Keep drawing my waist in as I reached and all the way away to stretch. Always placed the hands up. Take the feet down with control for the hip opener. I'm gonna have to face you guys first so I'm gonna change my spring.

Traditionally you don't want to use the spring that's close to your hair or if you're got enough flexibility to stay away from the spring, you might try that as well. Laying on my side, I'm going to push the bar up. Face my hips square. Okay, point and flex three times [inaudible] and I'm going to keep my hips squared off to open up my thigh and I might not go down very far at first just to get that nice open hip. When my leg is in the air, I try to reach my hip always towards the wall that's below me and then we can change and do the other side again, squaring the hips, pushing it away [inaudible] and open up the hip [inaudible] again, just taking advantage of what the Cadillac has to offer while we're getting the rest of this good work in.

And then to the next series, we're going to go into the chest expansion [inaudible] I'm going to take my roll down bar now from the very top, not move too far away with a strong abdomen. Knees press down. Again thinking in opposition. My arms are going to press down, opening my chest. I'm going to look each wet and release in with the errors you pull. Keep the tummy strong, empty your air out. Remember the name is chest expansion. Moving a bit further away.

I like to say where my ankles just were in my knees. We'll go for thigh stretch again, drawing into the c curve hinge one piece back and one piece that as far as the reform sequence goes, we skipped ahead. We're now in chest expansion and so forth. This next variation that we can add to the thigh stretch, we can go into a back arch if you can moving forward. If you run into that tower bar [inaudible] draw the ribs in to return. You can almost do the long stretch series here, pulling back if you like.

You can go into your full stretch chest, shave the legs, shave the mat, feel the pelvis roll right back up on top of the knees, so similar to your up stretch. [inaudible] reverse it crests back down, shave it to the thighs, come all the way to a nice strong arch scan and return rolled around. Put in, keep working from your middle to extend and draw it up. You could do for ladies here the arm span series. I'm reaching three times. I'm going to move a little more forward for a little more tension and three circles.

Reverse sending energy into my hips forward. I can feel my powerhouse engage. You can come up again for chest. Six are salute here and some little curls to finish working from your center. Yeah, I'm going to turn around and go right into a spread eagle. Sending my heels to the pipes who grab a little bit above so I don't run into any of the hardware that might be along the edge of my Cadillac. Keeping my phene parallel. I'm going to drama.

I was just back pushing my heels drawn to my nice c curve. Easy in the shoulders and neck during the feet out wide. Open the chest. Give yourself a nice stretch. One more time. Scooping it back. Shoulders in line, stomach strong and open the chest. Where are the ballet stretches? I'm going to stand up, stepping out.

I'm going to look to see that my trapeze bars far enough away from me to begin with. My left foot is going to go ahead and [inaudible] link right there and to the fuzzy strap and I want to make sure I'm standing tall on top of one leg. Taking one arm up, draw into your stomach lift and pull that whole stretch. Oh, I'm totally doing the wrong thing. I'm sorry. I've just got, okay, so for the ballet stretches, let me take a few steps back and starting with one foot across my body into the fuzzy strap, pushing the heel to the pipe. Growing tall. Fold yourself forward. Keep your center lift up, open the chest up.

Looking forward, I'm going to put my foot in between the pipes and take a nice split forward, keeping my hips squared off, taking a pivot turn around. I'll take one arm up and go towards my leg first. I was taught to reach for the middle of that pope. MRIs, hands can change and you'll go for the middle of the other pipe and rise again. One arm or one foot goes between the pipes into your split. Again, don't just hang out. Keep strengthen your tummy.

Keep lifting to reach those legs apart. Use your center to return. I'm going to do a little exchange here and move the same foot into the opposite strap and continue to pivot all the way to face my trapeze. Begin by pushing your foot into that pipe behind you and pick up your chest, squaring the hips. Both hands reach for the trapeze for the strap all the way to the mat.

Once again, the foot can go between the pipes. Take a nice big stretch return. Turn again, both hands to the strap, trapeze and pipes, and you can walk back. Try to tit your foot to your head can begin the whole thing. On the other side, it goes into the strap and grow tall. Fold yourself. Oh, lift open the chest. Rise. Take a stretch. [inaudible] return facing work will go towards the leg.

[inaudible] oh, away from the leg. [inaudible] M to a split. Again, changing sides all the way around. Keep your balance lift unreached and stretch return. Walk back and stepping out of it. Little variation on your snake and twist.

Can you hop into the trapeze flat and yourself? Move One foot to the middle of the trapeze. Stretch a leg in the air without dropping your hips. Stretch your foot side of the bars and try to plant your foot in the middle of the Cadillac coming back. I'm going to aim again for that stretch, keeping my hip up. Gonna do a little switcheroo [inaudible]. One side might be tighter than the other and I can hop up and moving on. Stepping down, we'll do some squats from the end of the Cadillac.

So in my version, this will replace our knee stretches from the end of the workout. Standing tall stomach in. You want to sit down as if you've got a nice high back chair behind you. Push down into both feet. Use your belly to return. Adding a little element of difficulty. You could have a seat [inaudible] use. You're telling me to rise up, flip the hands, try to touch your ankles and return and to finish a classic plot finish to bring breath back in the body.

It's called the breathing. So feet turned out. Now in my trapeze, I'm going to take a hold of my roll down bar and what's my length and my breath. I'm gonna rise up and take air into my body. NMT The air to roll down. Inhale, Goa. You can do three to five.

If you were to have high blood pressure, this would be an exercise to skip the last two. [inaudible] [inaudible] and finish with rest. [inaudible] [inaudible].