Konnections for Reformer

Hi, my name is Viktor Uygan, and welcome to Connections for Reformer. Today's class, I will be using Connections band, and here there's Christine Crooks is gonna help me and show you guys you can also do this class with the resistance band. And how to set up the resistance band will be on the instructions on this video. Also, what you have to make sure is your knobs for the risers will be all the way the highest position. Now we are all settled, let's start putting the loops on your feet.

I have two loops in here in the Connections band. If you're using a resistant band, you will have only one, and you're gonna put it underneath your feet right there. If you do have the Connections band, one band goes behind your heels, and the other one goes underneath your foot, just like this. Once you put the loops on your feet, we're gonna lay down on your back. All the settings on the Reformer, the way you like it, you can keep your headdress up or down.

We're gonna use, I'm gonna use three reds, we're gonna do double leg work. Three red springs, lay down on your back. Once you lay down on your back, you're gonna reach up towards the ceiling and create resistance between your feet and your hands. Let's start with toes on the bar. Knees, ankles, toes touching.

With high heel position, you're gonna extend your legs and keep your arms in the same position and feel that resistance. Let's come back in, and out, and in. Beautiful. Maintain the position of your arms. Feel that resistance gets heavier when you extend your legs, and it gets lighter when you bend.

One more, hold it there. Now let's drop your heels down, and when you drop, open your arms to the side, and then come back up, and bend your knees, come back in. Extend your legs. Now we're gonna do twice. Drop the heel down, open your arms up.

One more time, and bend your knees, come back in. We're gonna go up to six. This is the three. One, two, three, come back in, and extend out, heels down, and up. Two, three, four.

It's getting harder. I know we have to build endurance, create fatigue, and fatigue builds strength. This is the fifth one. Come back in, last rep, and down and up. Two, three, four, five, six, and come back in, and breathe.

Beautiful. From here, we're gonna take one red spring off, and we're gonna continue with the single leg variations. So I'm doing with the two red, and if your settings requires different springs, please use those. From here, left heel on the bar, and the right leg is tabletop. From here, extend your left leg, and hold your right tabletop position.

Come back in, and go out two. Inhaling, and three. Feel the connection between your legs and your hand. One more, out, come back in, pause. Now, with your right foot, scoop a band from the left side, and you are still in tabletop position, and extend, and inhale in, and out two, and come back in, and three, and four, and five, and six.

Beautiful. Come back in, let's change legs. Right heel on the bar, left foot tabletop, extend your right leg, and resist, come back in. Maintain the connection and relationship between your hands and with your arms, three, and your legs, and four, and five, and six. Right here, you're gonna grab a band from the right side with your left foot, and come back in, and go out one, and two, three, four, five, six.

Beautiful. Come back in. We're gonna do a different version of scooping. Right foot, once again, scoops a band, and place the right heel on the bar. Now, left foot is gonna be up.

From here, when you extend, you're gonna pull your left knee towards your chest, so there's a resistance on the left leg right now. So you're gonna pull in, and come back in, and repeat. Two, feel that resistance on the left leg and in your arms, and three, and four, and five, and six. Come back in, and release the band from your right foot. Now, with the left, you're gonna grab a band, place the left heel on the bar, and the right foot is gonna be up in tabletop position.

When you extend the left leg, you're gonna pull the right knee to your chest, one, and two, three, four, five, one more, six, and come back in, and relax. I know your arms got tired probably, but now we're gonna give them a rest by using them in a different resistant position. We're gonna have one yellow. We're gonna do reverse abdominals, and from here, what are we gonna do? You're gonna grab the band, and we're gonna place it behind the risers right here, and then you guys are gonna go on your knees.

Make sure move away from the shoulder rest, and reach forward with your hands in front of your shoulders, and then transfer your weight over your hands with your shoulders. Once you find that position, you're gonna exhale, pull your knees in towards your hands, and release, and two. And three, and four, two more, five, and six, and come back in. Transfer your weight back, and just relax your wrists if you need to. You can even push it against the shoulder rest this way, or positioning, and feel the stretch.

You can press them down. You could make some circles each direction to take a rest, and we're gonna go back to the same position. From here, I just noticed I did say one yellow, but my red is still there, and I was feeling it during the exercise, so I'm gonna take my red off so we still have one yellow only. We're gonna come back. All right, so once again, same setup.

Hands in front of your shoulders. Once you're there, transfer your weight to your hands, and this time, extend the right leg straight out. So we're gonna do single leg. Do you guys see? I feel the bar in here.

This is actually fantastic because this is gonna give me a position not to move my leg. I don't wanna rest it there, so I'm gonna lift it, but if I drop that leg, I know that there's a bar there, and it's gonna give me a feedback. That's four, two more, five, one more, six. Come back. Bring the right leg in, and let's go with the left one extended.

Feel nice and long, and pull the right knee in, one, and two, and three, and four, five, six. Come back in and change legs. Once again, sit back. If you need to stretch, release your wrist. Couple circles.

The last one in this series, we're gonna go back to same position. Right leg extends, and now from here, we're gonna pull the knee forward to the left one. When the left goes back, right one comes in, and opposition, two, and three, and four, five, and six. Come back in. Let's do other side.

Extend the left leg. Feel nice and long, and right knee comes forward. When the right leg goes back, the left comes in, one, and two, three, four, five, six, and come back in, and relax. We're gonna step off, and we're gonna take the bands off the riser. We're also gonna take, actually, the straps of our feet, and we're gonna put our jump boards on the reformer.

Place your strap. We're gonna go get our jump boards. Beautiful. Let's see. We all have different settings on the jump boards.

I'm not gonna able to cue you exactly what to do on here. Depends what reformer do you have. Once you place your jump board, we're gonna take your band with the loops. Loops is gonna go over the knobs on the risers. Here we go.

So you wanna make sure you go under the knob so it will not slide. This way, it is nice and secure. Once you secure the band on the risers, we're gonna lay down on your back. I'm gonna do two red springs. I'm gonna do double leg jumping.

From here, lay down on your back. Reach up towards the ceiling with your hands, both feet together, heels down. I am really big. When you're jumping, keeping the heels down, you're gonna not see me lifting my heels up. So I would like you to encourage to keeping the heels down from here, and jump and down.

Beautiful. Find the resistance from the band. Now press the bands down and up. One new jumping. So arm goes down and up.

Down, up. Down, up. Find your rhythm with your jumping and with your arms. Beautiful. I usually don't count with jumping, just trying to fatigue the legs, load the muscles so they can get stronger.

Let's do a couple more, two more, and relax. Now from here, we're gonna open your legs second position and open your arms to the side as well. And we're gonna jump and close your arms next to your hips and close and open, close, open. Your leg stays wide second position. And arms closes in and opens up to the side.

Two more. Now close your legs with your arms as well when you jump. And up and in, and up and in. When you jump, arms and legs close. And when you land, they open.

Coordinate all four together. Two more, one more, and no more. And relax. Beautiful. Let's come up.

Just notice how our heart rate went up. So we got some cardio and we got some coordination in the bends. Now what are we gonna do? We're gonna change the springs to one blue. We only have one blue.

And I'm not sure if you noticed, first when I start jumping, my band, because of my height, was a little bit loose. So I could do the same exercises by taking the band around the knob like this, both sides, and I can make it shorter. So do you guys see it? It's the same band, but it got shorter. So if you guys want more resistance, this is what you could do.

And next exercise, I am gonna use this short settings. So once again, the band goes underneath and up. You wanna make sure there's not much knots or the fabric is in that side. Once you do that, you're gonna go on your knees and you're gonna take the band, bring it over your head and place it on your hips. It's not on your waist, it's on your hips.

Once you do that, you're gonna take the strap in your hand. Let's go to goalpost, both arms. And from here, you're gonna reach up and come back in control. You're gonna feel there's not gonna be much resistance on your arms. It is okay.

And the band is gonna actually help you to do this movement. Next three sets, you're gonna go up just like what you're doing. Then you're gonna do side flexion and then come up and release. Two more this way. And up and side and come up and band.

Last one. Up, side band, pause there. Do a rotation towards the jump board. Stay in that rotation flexion but go to extension while you're in rotation. Come back to flexion and derotate and up and release.

Let's do one more set. Together, up and side flexion and rotation. Open up the extension, big smile. Come back to flexion, derotate and reach up and release. Beautiful.

Let's do this on the other side. Put the strap down and you're gonna just turn carefully to the other side. Take the strap on your left hand, feel nice and tall. Both arms goalposts and let's go up together and come back in. Two more.

I get to enjoy the view. You guys have been enjoying it now. And the third one. Beautiful. Now let's go up, hold and side flexion and reach up and resist.

Control to movement, going up together and side and up and release. One more, up, side flexion, pause and rotate towards the jump board and open up the extension. Come back to flexion, derotate, reach up and relax. One more time. Exhale to side flexion and rotate to flexion.

Open up the extension, inhale. Exhale, come back to flexion, derotate, reach up and relax. Beautiful. Put the straps down. From here, we're gonna actually face towards the risers and your feet is gonna be between the shoulder rest and you can keep the same spring settings.

We could do still one blue. I'm gonna release the band so it will be on the long settings for this exercise. Here we go. And I wanna make sure that is not crossed so I'm gonna uncross it. All right, so the band underneath your scapula, your legs between the shoulder rest.

If it doesn't fit, you can cross them, same rules that we know in the regular exercises. From here, hands right next to you, feel nice and tall. From here, we're gonna go back, palms facing away from you, reach back as much as you can and come back next to your hips and repeat. Two. It's a small movement patterns and it's mostly for extension of the arm.

We're not coming forward. Four, we'll do six. Five and six. Now, palms facing towards each other, repeat the same thing. And one, two, feel nice and tall.

Three, feel the band helping you stay nice and tall. Five, six. Last one, I promise, the third version, palms facing forward and same thing. And one, two, three, four, five, six and you're done. Relax your arms a little bit.

Now, we're gonna do row one. From here, the only thing row one, when you bend your elbows to your chest, I want you to bring your hands underneath the band. And this is one. Exhale, good spine flexion and roll down, hold it there. This is the second thing.

Instead of opening your arms to the side like normally we do I want you to reach back directly and you go forward. And arm comes up slowly and over. Feel the band is hugging your spine. Feel nice and tall. From here, start to stretch the band with your spine by stacking your spine on top of each other one at a time and bend your elbows and you're ready to go the second set.

Exhale, round your spine. (exhales) Inhale, hold. Exhale, push directly back with your arms reaching forward with your spine and arm goes up and over. Control, control. Make sure your arms are straight and start to stack your vertebrae on top of each other one by one and bend your elbows and the last set. Exhale, round your spine. (exhales) Inhale, push back while you're going forward.

Bring your arms up and over and start to stack your spine on top of each other to starting position. Beautiful. Put the straps down. We're gonna take the band off. Beautiful.

Next, we're gonna do a single leg jump. So the band stays in place. It stays here. You can even put it on the shoulder rest if you like. We're gonna do one red, one blue springs for this.

You're gonna lay down on your back. Good. Now from here, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna place your right foot on the strap and you're gonna roll it like this. So it's gonna make a circle this way.

So this is my foot and from here, just go around it so it hugs your foot. It doesn't come out easily. Once you got that position, you're gonna bend your knees in and let's do this. Bend the left leg and when you jump, you're gonna extend the right leg straight forward and come back landing and repeat, continue movement and jump and jump. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, last one, 10.

Land and stay here. Straight your left leg and straight your right leg. Bring your hands inside the strap and open it to the side so you're creating a pressure. Once you do that, you're gonna do even circles with your legs and one and two, three, four, five, six. Reverse it and one, two, three, four.

These circles are small like a magic circle, big and six. Beautiful. Next jump, relax your arms, hands down, bend your knees and bring the leg down. When you jump, you're gonna kick the leg up and land. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

Good. Now we're gonna do circles once again. Really push with your standing leg, the leg that is in the jump board. That's your standing leg basically, stabilizing side and then you're gonna cross with the right and bring them down and open one and two, three, four, five, six and reverse it. Open the leg, inhale and exhale, sweep and nice even circles.

Three, four, five, six, beautiful. Good, change legs. We're gonna do the same thing other side. So we have the left foot in the center and you're gonna go around it to make a circle, beautiful. From here, bend your right knee, bend your left knee.

When you jump with the right, extend the left forward. 10 times, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Straighten your right leg. That's gonna be your standing leg. Open the band, separate it with your hands and we're gonna do magic circle size circles with your left leg.

Four, five, six, reverse it and one, two, three, four, five, six, beautiful. Bend your right leg and the left leg down. When you jump with the right, kick the left leg up and land. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, beautiful. Right leg straight, now full single leg circles.

Let's cross in, inhale, exhale out, one. Five more, two, three, four, five, six, reverse it. Inhale, open, exhale, one, two. Keep pushing with your right leg to the jump board. Four, five, six and bend your knees and relax.

Very, very good, beautiful. Now we did this single leg jump. We're gonna do side kneeling work once again. And from here, let's go back to one blue springs. In here, I'm gonna make my bands shorter once again by putting underneath the knobs.

One more turn, go back to my knees and bring the band over my head on my hip crease. Now I'm gonna do draw a sword exercise. So from here, holding it, make sure you're not too close to the shoulder rest once again and feel nice and tall and pull your sword and pose and then come back in. You can hold your right hand on your hips if you like and two and come back in. Feel this opposition in forces that the band is providing you while you're using your straps with your arms.

Let's do one more and big smile and relax. From here, we're gonna do side band. Your hands is gonna be on the shoulder rest. We're gonna do the triceps version and extend your arms straight up and bend and two and come back in and three, four, five and six and come back in and relax, beautiful. We're gonna do other side and turn around carefully.

Take the strap with your left hand and we're gonna bring it to the right, your left hand on your hip and we're gonna draw a sword and one and come back in and two and in and three, three more, feel nice and tall. Four, feel the opposition in forces that the band provides. Five, keep your hips nice and square. Six, beautiful. Let's go side band and we're gonna do the triceps.

Look down and extend and bend and two, three, four, two more five, one more, six and come up and relax, beautiful. Let's take the band off our hips and we're gonna take it off the knobs actually and we're gonna bring the straps in front of the reformer and we're gonna put this loops on the jump board knobs. So right here, make sure it goes through so it will not come out and then just like that, you guys see how it came out. I'm gonna try again, beautiful. This is in and this is in, here we go.

So this is it. Now, the straps is gonna come over the jump board and we're gonna have one red, one blue springs and we're gonna do some single leg jumps once again. You're gonna lay down on your back. Okay, from here, bring the band over your knees and you're gonna extend the left leg straight out and keep the right one tabletop position. So this right leg has resistance from the band.

We're gonna maintain this resistance. Let's jump eight times with your left leg and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Next eight, extend the right leg out. One to the ceiling, two, three, four, five, six, seven, next eight, hold the leg there. And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and come back in and release, good.

We're gonna change legs, bring the band over the left knee. Left leg is tabletop and we're gonna start jumping with the right eight times. And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Kick the left leg up to the ceiling. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Hold the leg up, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and come back in. I hope you enjoyed that oppositioning engagement on your hips and in your abs. Now we did that, we're gonna continue moving this way but we're gonna probably change the spring. So let's come up and let's do one red springs. I lied, let's do one blue.

We're gonna do one blue because I'm counting there's gonna be resistance from the bands as well. So we're gonna lay down on your back. This is gonna be abdominal work. We're gonna take the straps. You're gonna make a circle, a loop right here.

So there's a loop. It's not just the one cross. Don't make a mistake making a one cross. Actually, it has to be a full loop. It's gonna look like double.

Once you do that, you're gonna place your foot, both feet in all the way to your knees. So basically there's a resistance on my legs through the loops and it's wrapping my knees. Once you find that position, you're gonna take the straps in your hands, keep the leg tabletop and let's do some ab work. Press your arms down, tuck your chin in and come up. Exhale and inhale, roll down and two. (exhales) Yes, there's the opposition.

Now you know why I said one blue only. Two more, (exhales) one more. (exhales) Next six, you're gonna open your legs to the side when you roll down. So you come up, stay there. One, when you roll down, open your legs away. And two (exhales) and open.

And three, open. Four, five and six, hold it here. When you roll down, you're gonna open your arms to the side. When you come up, you're gonna open your knees apart and open one, two, three, four, two more, five, six. And come back and relax.

Beautiful, put the straps down and we're gonna take the straps off your knees. All right, next, we're gonna take the long box and we're gonna do some swan variations. To do that, we're not gonna need the jump board anymore. So we're gonna remove the jump board. You can also take the straps off the knob.

Here we go. Take your time getting rid of your jump board. Beautiful. If you need to towel off a little bit after those ab work, go ahead, do that as well. I definitely need it.

Now we're gonna take the jump, long box, sorry. And we're gonna place it on the carriage. I would like you to keep the foot bar at the lowest position and we're gonna have one red springs. We're gonna attach the loops to our feet again. This is a great way to do the swan exercise using the resistance from the reformer and also from the connections band.

Beautiful. From here, you guys are gonna lay down on your stomach. Your hands is on the bar in front of you. Chest off the box. Right in here, you wanna make sure you're not laying on the bands again.

And from here, you're gonna extend your arms straight out and feel the feedback that the band provides to your legs. So you don't wanna be relaxed. You wanna feel nice and extended away from your hands. Bend your elbows in. Once again, if you need to adjust the straps, make those adjustments and extend.

And come back in. Last time, extend your arms and stay there with straight arms and let's go to swan. Inhale, come up the extension. And this one might look different on you. Just make sure your body, your vertebra is ready to extend.

And up. And down. Inhale up. Extend. One more time.

And up, up, up, up, up, up. Feel nice and long. And down. From here, let's do a couple of variations. Gently bend your knees in.

Keep the knee bent here and come up. Once you feel like you cannot come up anymore, extend the leg. And push straight out. And bend your knees. And come up.

And extend again. Beautiful. Last one. Extend. And bend.

And up. And extend. And reach. And bend your elbows. And relax.

We're not gonna come out of here. Now we did our extensions. We're gonna get rid of our boxes. Be safe. I usually put the band over my shoulder this way.

It stays there. And you're gonna take the box. And let's walk away. And put them down here. Beautiful.

All right, next let's do standing splits. We're gonna have one red. Once again, bar all the ways down. If this feels it's on your way, you can bring them all the way down as well. But it works for us.

So I'm gonna place one foot on non-moving platform, the left one. And I'm gonna step up with the right to the carriage. Once you're in this position, you're gonna reach out with your arms. And you're gonna bring the band on top of your head. So from here, I have a feedback on my hands, the top of my head, and on my feet.

So I'm pushing against those feedback and push the carriage away from you, all the way out. And come back in. Let's repeat three more times. Two. And in.

And three. And four. Next push, we're gonna do side bend towards the side you're pushing. And bend. And come back in.

And two. Beautiful. And three. And four. Nice.

Let's relax your arms, relax the band a little bit. If you need to shake your shoulders, we're gonna do one more set. It's the same position. And bring the bands over your head, arms open. Now what we're gonna do, you're gonna push and you're gonna twist away from the push.

So towards the left and turn. And then come back in three more times. And two. And come back in. And three.

One more. And four. Come back in. And breathe. Beautiful.

Let's step down, please. Let's be safe. After you step down, we're gonna go around and we're gonna repeat the same thing that we did. First, make sure you're stepping the non-moving part of the carriage, then the carriage. And set your position by opening your arms to the side.

And from here, exhale, push both feet evenly while you're pushing your hands and the head to the ceiling. Come in. And two. And three. And four.

Beautiful. We're gonna do a side bend now. And side bend, one. Beautiful. And two.

And three. Last one. And four. Here we go. I'll give you guys a break once again.

Do a couple rolls on your shoulders. Shake your shoulders. And we go back. The last set. From here, you're gonna push and twist.

And come back in. And two. Two more. Three. One more.

And four. Come back in. And breathe. Let's step back. Good.

Next is a very fun exercise. We're gonna do mermaid or merman. And we are sitting. One leg cross in front of you. And the other leg is underneath.

Your foot is going back. And the shin is towards your shoulder rest. From here, you're gonna reach up with the band. And take the band. And we're gonna bring it in front of you.

And you're gonna cross it behind you. And grab it with your right hand again. So the same hand that your shin is on the shoulder rest, the hand that is close to the shoulder hand is grabbing the band. But the band is gonna basically come from in front of you. It's gonna wrap behind you.

Once you do that, the rest is same mermaid exercise we do. You're gonna push with your left hand the bar. And feel nice and long from here. I want you to push the bar away from you. And then reach to the ceiling with your right hand.

Once you get to that position, let's rotate towards the left. Bring the right arm. And reach towards the left side. And inhale, open. And come up.

Hold with your right arm, the shoulder rest. And bend with the left arm towards the right side. And breathe. And inhale, expand. Place the left hand on the foot bar.

And push away from you. And rotate to the left. And open up to the ceiling. And let's reach up to the ceiling. To starting position.

Hold the shoulder rest. And bend towards the right with the left. One more set. Inhale, push the bar. Reach up towards the ceiling with the right.

And round your arm. And twist to the left. And come up to extend. Reach up to the ceiling. To starting position.

And bend to the right with the left. And relax. Let's turn around. We'll do other side. So, I'm turning towards my right.

My right foot in front of me. My left shin on the shoulder rest. From here, I'm gonna take the bands from in front of me. Bring it behind me. And then I'm gonna hold it with my left hand.

Here we go. Right hand in the middle of the bar. And I'm pushing with the right. And extending with the left to the ceiling. And exhale, round your spine.

And reach the opposite direction towards the right. Inhale, open it up. And come up. Hold the shoulder rest with the left hand. And side bend.

Two more times. And push. And rotate. Open it up. And up.

And bend. One more time. And push. Rotate to the right. Keep reaching.

Opposition side. Up to the ceiling. Come up. And bend towards the left. And come up.

And breathe. All right. Now, the last exercise for this class. We're gonna do a lunge. From here, we're gonna stand up.

You're gonna have one red springs once again. And the band is gonna go between your legs. And you're gonna wrap it on a single leg, which is the right leg right now. Okay? Once you got your right leg wrapped with the band, you're gonna place your right foot on the carriage, right knee on the floor.

And left toe in front of your reformer. All right? From here, we're gonna do our lunge series. But I want you to almost pretend this time not to stretch the band. Do you see the difference?

Don't do that, but trying to keep the band short as much as you can. And you're gonna feel deeper stretch on your hip flexors. And then come up. Let's go to flexion and pull the carriage forward. Exhale, round, round, round, round, round, round.

And inhale. Trying to not to stretch the band. It is gonna stretch a little bit, but don't do too much. And inhale. And exhale, come back in.

Transfer all the bands to your left hand, free your right next to. Let's go back and open up the right arm to the ceiling. And come back in and squeeze in, in, in, in, in. And one more time. Exhale, come back in.

Beautiful. And let's do other side. Once again, from here, it goes behind you, behind your left leg, and it wraps high glutes. Once you do that, place your right foot in front and left foot on the shoulder rest. From here, you're gonna push the carriage back and trying to not stretch the band as much as you can.

Trying to stay forward with your hips. Listen to feedback, the band providing you. And then come back in. Exhale, pull in. And inhale.

Back, back, back, back, extend. Exhale, come back in and pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Transfer all the straps to your right hand. Your left hand is gonna be free now. And same exercise, extending up to the ceiling with your left arm, with your torso, with your chest.

And come back in round. Feel the positioning, feel the feedback the band provides. And come back in round. (exhales) And relax. All right, we did it. So today we did connections on the reformer.

We used the band external resource to create internal connections. This is just the idea of which exercises we can do with the reformer. There's much more and I'll see you guys in my next class.