Total Body Reformer Barre

Welcome everybody. Welcome to Pilates Anytime. I'm Tracey Mallett and I'm here today doing one of my favorite activities. Bar, bar and Pilates. Well, you are wondering, well if you're doing bar, why are you standing at the reformer?

Because I'm gonna fuse Pilates and bar together and here is my jump board. But my jump board now becomes my bar because you can pull and push on the jump board because the, obviously the reform is very heavy, so it's not gonna go anywhere. So you can kind of use it as a bar, which is fantastic to mix it with Pilates strength training activities. Now I do have ankle weights on today. I know they look very cute here.

My little green ankle weights and I've also got green matching dumbbells here with me. So I have three pound dumbbells and I've got my ankle weights. Those are totally optional, but if you want a little extra intensity, grab them, try it and see how you get on. We're also going to be needing a ball too today because when you do bar, you always have a ball. So I hope you enjoy and have fun with me.

So we're gonna first set up the reformer, how we're going to be starting our bar workout today. So I'm going to take all the springs off and I'm pushing it all the way down. Just wanna make it a little secure here. So I'm just gonna grab the pulley here and all I do is just wrap it around here a few times just so it's a little stable. That's (indistinct), that's all I do.

Just to keep it stable there, okay? Now we're gonna step inside because this is going to be my area where I'm going to be doing bar. Alrighty, shall we get going? So let's get down onto the reformer. We're gonna start with the butt right at the edge, sitting up nice and tall, feet hip with the part.

We're gonna circle the hands behind the head, interlace the hands. We're gonna do a nice C curve to start off, just to mobilize the spine. Inhale, extend, exhale, drawing the abdominals in. Inhale, extend. See if we can go down a little bit deeper and then come back up again. Exhale,(Tracey exhales) inhale up(Tracey inhales).

Exhale, (Tracey exhales). Inhale up, one more. Exhale, blow (Tracey exhales). Inhale up, now straight spine, incline forwards, back to center. Incline forwards, back to center.

Now incline, holding here. Do a little rotation to the right to the left, which is mobilizing the spine, giving the core warm to get ready for the workout. For four, for three, for two for one. Back to center, lift all the way up. Take the hands right at the edge of your reformer, curl yourself down, bring your legs up into chair position.

Circle the hands around. Now we're gonna dip the right toe down into the floor and then back. So we are dipping the toe down to the floor and back again. So you got a little extra movement there because we are elevated. So we can take the leg all the way down to the floor.

Exhale, tap. Inhale, back. Exhale, tap. Inhale, back. Exhale, tap.

Now really focus on drawing those abs in. There we go. Especially if you've got those little ankle weights on, woo. I definitely feel a difference. And tap and back.

Now pick the tempo, up we go. Tap and tap. Keep the head ,lift up. And eight and seven and six. Keep breathing.

Five, lift up an inch. Four and three and two. And one chair position. Lift those legs up. Turn your feet out.

Lower down about an inch. Flex the feet frog is in, extend out. Now you're trying to reach diagonally out. So if you look forward, see where the ceiling meets the wall. And that's kind of where you wanna reach out to.

So you can feel those abs, but you're not too low that you're not losing control of the center of your body. All right, can we do four more? Now press the energy out through the heels. Can feel the heat in the belly, whew. Two more, whew.

One more, whew. Hold it here, point the toe as we go, out, diagonal, frog. Out, bring it in frog. So you're in like a little diamond here and out, open, diamond, reach out. Inhale, exhale, back out.

Try not to move the knees too much towards your chest out. So you are working those inner thighs and those lower abs, keep their head, lift up. We've got three more and out, diamond, extend and back and out. Diamond, extend. Two more, keep lifting up.

And one more. We go out, in, reach. Bring it in, knees together. Grab hold of those legs, drop your head down. Knees to your chest.

Now we're gonna reach that right leg up. Take the opposite leg down. You're gonna feel a little stretch obviously. 'Cause the foot's going way down to the floor. Don't get too comfortable 'cause we're going right back up again.

So lift your head, neck and shoulders off the mat. Elevate the leg, reach that leg out. You're in your scissors. So we go Scissors, scissors, switch. Scissors, scissors, switch.

Scissors, scissor. Now you've got those little extra ankle weights on there. So let's go a little bit slower and controlled. Scissor, scissor. Little more control here.

One , two, one, two, four more. Four, four, bring it to your chest. Three, three. Two, two. One, one.

Now drop the opposite leg down. There's that stretch. Drop your head down, little stretch, fantastic. Now we're gonna bend the knee, bend the other knee into join it. Lift your head, neck and shoulders off the mat.

Circle the hands around. Now into your split, so everybody's in a split. Hold it there. We're gonna do our circle here. Circle, circle, circle, circle, circle, back.

Circle, circle, circle, circle, circle. There we go, fantastic. Keeping the pelvis is still as we can, keep your head lifted. There we go, that nice circle. Let's do four more of these, four and three and two.

Got one more circle. Bend the knees. Hold on, behind the back, the knees lift up a little bit higher. Roll yourself all the way up and lift up nice and tall. How do you feel now?

Abs feel pretty toasted, absolutely. We're gonna come back up. Now we're gonna come up into our bar position here. The hands are here. So we're gonna work our legs.

So we step back, we hinge back and we are gonna come into a chair position. So you can see I'm kind of pulling on the little jump board here. And I mean a chair position. Shoulders over hips, ankles underneath knees. And then we're just gonna go up and down.

So your feet are slightly separated. The focus is your hamstrings. Your hamstrings are lifting you up. So this is kind of like we're doing leg work like you would do on a reformer, except we are moving it to a standing position. A little bit more functional, but we're still in a neutral spine.

The shoulders are somewhat over the hips. Look down, your ankle joint is under the knees, super important. And the hamstrings are lifting me up. Can you feel that? Yes. Fantastic for those legs, let's do four more.

Ready we go. Four, do not come to full extension. We're working through the mid-range of motion last time. Hold it here, triple pulse. Three, two, one, midway.

When I say midway, that means in between going all the way to straight leg to your thighs, parallel to the sky. So you're kind of in the middle. You're keeping the work on the thighs. Soon as you fully extend those legs, you take a little vacation in those legs. And remember, there's no vacations on this workout.

We are keeping the work in. So those lower body here, there's lower legs and abs here. Let's do four more. four, da da da, three, da da da, two, one more, da da da da da da. Come down.

Hold it there. Now pelvic tilt. Inhale, neutral. Pelvic tilt. Inhale, neutral.

So now it's your lower abs. So this is ab work. Work in the lower abs to tilt the pelvis underneath. Can you feel those abs? Inhale, go (Tracey inhales), four more.

And we go four. Bring it back, exhale. Three, bring it back (Tracey inhales). One more (Tracey inhales). Hold it here, lift all the way up, woo-hoo.

Feel those legs? Absolutely. Come back again. Now this time we're gonna go up onto a tippy toes, up onto a releve hinge back, chair squat. Arms are straight. We're gonna rock the knees out and in.

So the knees are going out to the sides of the reformer. Can you see that as I'm rocking out and in, out and in. Let's do eight more here. Goody goody. (Tracey chuckles) And eight and seven and six and five and four and three and two and one.

Bring it back, rock through your feet. Little prancing. Lift up a little bit higher. We prance, we prance and go. Eight more.

eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one. Send your buns back. Come up onto the top. Push away and see if you can go into a plank position. If you don't feel comfortable here, just step your feet down and do it with your feet on the floor.

Come up, hold it there. Now you're in a lovely plank position here. Looking good. Now let's see if we can go up into a pyramid. Ears by your biceps.

Inhale, plank. Exhale, pyramid. Inhale, plank. Good, let's do four more. (Tracey inhales), (Tracey exhales), (Tracey inhales), (Tracey exhales) (Tracey inhales) (Tracey exhales) One more.

(Tracey inhales) (Tracey exhales) Lift up. Now hold it here. We're gonna lift that leg up. Curl like a cat. Step it forwards.

Bend the knee into that stretch. And again, come back into your plank. Lift the same leg up, cat, bring it in, bend, lift up. Come back into your plank. Now ready for your left leg.

Okay, lift that left leg up. Cats, step it forwards. Bend the back knee in. Press your hips forwards into that stretch. Come back, plank.

Organize your midsection here. Pull your shoulder blades down. Lift that leg up, ears by your biceps. Curl like a cat. Step forward, drop that knee down.

Come back into your plank. Either feet on the floor or on your toes of your reformer like this. We do about eight pushups. Eight pushup. seven, six, five, four, woo.

Three, two, and one. Step down, step down. Bend your knees, a little stretch all the way down. Lift up, lift up, curl, and come up. All right, step off.

Now we're gonna release it. We're gonna be coming back later. So we're gonna release this, come all the way down. We're gonna take it to one red spring. So one spring, everybody hook it up.

One red spring. Make sure your headrest is up. Grab your ballie now. So we've got our ball. And come all the way down.

All right, we're gonna grab onto your ball here. We are gonna take one strap in our hand here. Now press onto that ball. Pull away, chair position. Now we're gonna exhale and press down.

Inhale, exhale and press down. So in that chair position, keep your head down. You're resisting against the ball and working a little bit more unilaterally here. So really engage your lats, your serratus. Your arms are connected to your back.

You're pressing your other hand on the ball to connect to the core a little bit more. So you got a little bit more intraabdominal pressure going on here in your chair position. Let's do four more and three and two, and one. Hold it here, you're still active. That leg goes out.

It goes in. Reach out, in, reach out. In, reach out, there we go. And love these exercise 'cause your head is down. You're really focusing on your core and not the head, neck and shoulders.

Three more here. Three and two. Give me one more, whew. And then come back down. There we go, let's go to the other side.

So don't think those are easy, just 'cause your head is down. In fact, it takes the work more into your core here. So already lift up into your chair position and drop your scapula down before we move, we more focused now on resisting the ball and then pressing the hand down to the side of your waist, tapping the reformer and back again. Now look at your knees. Your knees wanna be over your hips.

And I'm really pressing on that ball. My knees are moving towards my chest, but I'm stopping it by resisting with the ball and then drawing in the abs a little bit more. Can you feel those abs? Woo-hoo, exhale, (Tracey exhales) And inhale (Tracey inhales). Really, hollow out those abs (Tracey exhales).

Just a couple more (Tracey exhales). One more (Tracey exhales). Hold it here, ready? We extend that leg out. Out, bring it in.

Out and in. Inhale out, exhale in. Inhale out, exhale in. Inhale out, exhale in. Four more, inhale out, exhale in.

(Tracey inhales) (Tracey exhales) Three more,(Tracey exhales), two (Tracey exhales). Can you give me one more for good luck, woo-hoo. One more, inhale and exhale. Bring those legs down. Put the little straps back, there we go.

We're gonna turn, lift all the way up. Turn around to the other side. Grab your little ball here. Put the ball just kind of in the lumbar spine. Pick up your straps.

So there's my straps right here. Now from here we're gonna take it around the elbows, hands behind the head, feet on your headrest. Curl the elbows forwards. Now we're gonna roll down, up over your (indistinct) and then curl back again. So the elbows open as you roll up and over the ball.

And then we inhale and draw those abs in. Ooh, that's intense for those abs. Inhale, rolling back. Exhale, curling forwards. Elbows open, as you come over the ball, look back a little bit further.

Curl elbows come closer. Can we do four more of these? So we are looking back as far as we can. Remember everybody's flexibility is gonna be different. So work within your own comfort zone.

(Tracey exhales) And inhale, exhale (Tracey exhales). One more. Inhale, inhale, and exhale. Now bring that right knee up. Extend that leg, you got it.

You're like, we're gonna add that leg now. All right, drop the leg down, elbows open, And then everything comes back up, woo-hoo. And inhale down. Some of you like, "Why did I follow Tracey and have those ankle weights on?" I know what you're thinking right now, but it's good. It's always good to push yourself just a little bit out the comfort zone.

That's how we get stronger and more inspired to keep moving. Okay again (indistinct) me one more. Inhale, drop that leg. Exhale and bring it in. And let's lengthen the other leg up, ready?

We roll down, open the arms. Curl all the way up. Breathe, that's how we can really activate those abs. Inhale down. Exhale up.

Inhale, open those elbows. Look back a little bit and curl all the way up. See if we can look back a little bit further. Oh my gosh, those abs are on fire. Inhale, back, back, back we go.

Exhale. Can we do one more? Absolutely. Inhale all the way back. Exhale, lift that leg up and drop that knee down. Roll yourself up and lift up. Put those little straps down and we are gonna stand up.

All right, grab your ball. We are gonna put the ball right underneath the foot here. We're gonna hold onto our bar. The foot is bent, your stabilizing foot is bent. The back leg is straight.

Gonna place the hand on the hip. Pitch the body forwards, lift that leg up. Now super simple, we tapping down and up. So now we're going into our classic leg lifts here. Now I've added the ball there.

What the ball actually does, it stabilizes us in a nice releve position. Not too high. So my weight is over the five feet. You're five feet, five toes, yes. Over five toes.

I don't think I have five feet. I sometimes wish I had five hands. So that would be really helpful. So anyway, our hips are square here. The legs are lifted.

And what do we feel? We feel our glutes and our hamstrings. Okay, keep breathing, keep going. And one more, hold it here. Now we're gonna bend and extend.

Now keep the thigh still. 'Cause what happens is we forget and we drop the thigh. Now this is about your hamstringing too. So you gotta keep that thigh still. Keep the hand on the hip.

So you've got that long waist. Good, I'm wrapping it up, awesome. Keep breathing and keep smiling. Good, all right. Can we do four more?

Four, three, two and one. Hold it here. Guess what? We're gonna go straight up, straight down, straight up, straight down. So it's a single leg squat here.

Single leg squat. The leg goes down, the leg goes up, the leg goes down. And this is where you start to feel your leg shake. And we always say in our bar class, embrace the shake. It means you're getting a little stronger.

And that is very inspiring. All right, four more, good. Lift up, four back three, back two, back. One back, and bring it in. Take your ball away.

Sit back, just stretch it out. My leg was shaking was yours? I'm sure it was. And that's a good thing. All right, pick up that ballie.

We're gonna go to the other side. All right, inside leg. Closest towards your reformer. Foot on the ball. And remember, if you don't have a ball, it doesn't really matter.

Mine's not cooperating today. Hands here, now pitch your body forwards. Lift that leg up, ready? Up and down. It's super important that your stabilizing leg is bent and you wanna want to focus on is that, you're lifting from your glute and your hamstrings, not your lower back.

That's where if you can see, I'm slightly pitched forwards to compensate for the leg lifting. That's super important to remember. 'Cause we don't wanna overwork the back. Now placing the hand on the hip too, gives you a little bit more stability in your pelvis. So we're more aware to keep this nice and still and strong and stable.

All right, keep it going. Keeping it super simple today. Simple in choreography. That doesn't mean it's simple. Just simplistic in choreography.

Two more, hold it here. Bend the knee, in and out. So look, keep my thighs still. It's all in the hamstringing. In and out.

Now make an adjustment. Make sure your hips are facing forwards. So it's not externally rotated. It's parallel. Good, keep going.

All right, you've got four more. four, three, two, and one. Hold it, here. We go, up, up, down, down, up, up, bend, bend. Single leg squat, lift.

Single leg squat, lift. Not too high though. Keep breathing. I know it's getting tough. You've gotta keep moving four more.

Four, three, two, one. And bring, get back down. Squat, sit back, stretch it out, woo-hoo. Awesome work already. From here, we're gonna put the ball just away here.

Now we're gonna take it to a blue spring. Now if the blue spring is too heavy, we can always go down to a yellow spring so it's a half spring right now. We're gonna come forward into your quadruped position here. Now first of all, we grab the strap, we wrap it around. So you've got double whammy right now because you've got the ankle weights too.

So we're gonna hinge back, bring your hands forwards, and then take your leg to the side. So look where my underneath leg is. Knee underneath the hip. The hands of forwards. So everybody's there.

Okay, we all there now together? Pull your shoulder blades down, connect to your back, and then take the leg back and then forwards. Now remember, this is not just about the lower body, it's actually more about your upper body right now. I can feel my upper body and I can feel my core. My legs are secondary to my upper body and core.

Okay, and back. Four more everyone ready? Four, take it back. Three, take it back. Two, take it back.

One more one, take it back. Bend the knee in, grab it and switch. We're gonna make that transition smooth. Grab your loop, wrap it around your instep just like that, very simple. Hands down right by your shoulder rests.

Adjust your knee underneath your hip, leg goes down. Scoop up through those abs. Press the hands down, reach out for the crown of the head, let's go, ready? Down and lift, bring it back. All the time, we are maintaining shoulder stability.

I'm focusing on pressing my hands down into the mat, but lifting up and out at the mat at the same time. Drawing my scapula down to the pelvis. Trying to keep a neutral spine as much as I can. And I'm going in front of the hip, just behind the hip, front of the hip. Just behind the hip.

Three more, two more. One more. And then bring it down. Take the strap away, walk the knees against your shoulder rests and come forward. We're just gonna do a little pushup down into the floor and back.

Little pushup, not too challenging. It's really good to open up your chest. It's a little bit of an upper body pump here for eight seven, six, five, four, three, two. And lift up, awesome. Come all the way back into Chad's pose.

Okay, we're gonna do some balance work now. So we're gonna stand up. Now you can be on a blue spring or a yellow spring. I'm actually gonna take it down to a yellow right now. But blue or a yellow, which is a half or a third of a spring depending on what you have at your studio or your home studio.

We're gonna put the box. You can see where I put my box right here, right next to where the foot is here. It also depends on how long your strap is. So we're gonna stand up to here. So you can see I'm on that pulley.

I am gonna hold on here, palms down. Now from here I'm going to inside leg is gonna lift up. So my inside leg. So from here I'm gonna lift up, and then come up into a little stalk. So we are gonna go down into a stalk.

We go down row into a stalk, row into a stalk. It's like single leg squat and up, down and up. Four more, four. There's a lot of balance here. But actually this is helping you balance.

'Cause it's nice and tight. It's got resistance there to help you balance. Whew, one more. Hold it here. Go out and in and out and in and out.

You can lower that leg a little bit. You don't need to be too high. You're gonna feel the work on the underneath (indistinct). Woo-hoo, it's on fire for four, for three, for two, and for one, amazing. Step the outside, like fours, you're in a lunge.

We're gonna rotate, rotate, rotate. Keep the hands on top. Rotate, extension, rotate, extension. So now we're working into those obliques here. The arms, four more rotation.

Reach out, rotation, reach out. That's it for four, woo. Three, back two. Back one and back, lift up. See, I get excited then.

And then I lose my balance. All right, let's come back down to here. Now from here, we're gonna sit to here. Now still on light spring, blue or yellow, either or. We're gonna lift the legs up and we're gonna reach overhead here.

Now your elbow is high. The hand is on the hip. We're gonna work into our core here. And we lift overhead, that's it. Now draw the belly in as much as you can.

Find that balance. Two more here. One more overhead. Bring it down, switch with the outside hand. Hand on hip on the inside.

And open, that's it. So elbow, forearm, wrist, elbow, forearm, wrist. You got it. So now we work in the arms, but essentially you're working on core and balance, right? And three, my classes absolutely love this exercise, which is why I wanted to include it.

So you can see and bring you the joy of these wonderful exercises to challenge your core and balance. One more. Hold it here, take it around, wrap it around. Scoot a little bit away 'cause I want a little bit more intensity. Hands back.

And we're going to wear little clam. Now if this feels a little light, just go ahead, take the weight up maybe to a red spring and work the inner thighs a little bit more. But I'm doing fine right now. I can feel my inner thighs and I'm doing my sideways little clam here. All right, let's do five more.

five, four, three. Exhale, two. And exhale one, woo. Nice little flow, that's take you back. Now we're gonna work on the other side now.

So pop that little strap down. We're gonna move to the other side. So pick up your lovely box. Just make sure my weight doesn't move. There we go.

Take it around to the other side. All right, so we're gonna pick up your lovely strap here. Now it's the inside leg, right? So we're gonna lift that leg and the elbows come in. And then as we come up into a knee lift here, the arms go out, okay?

So we go in and out, in and out. It's not gonna move very far. We are using the pulley system to help us balance actually and reach and in, into your arabesque and in, let's do four more. That balance. Remember, if it's too challenging, bring it to a tap.

There's always a modification. There we go. Two more. I'm focusing one more. Now take you back out into an (indistinct).

And then we go out and in. So we go, there we go. So you can choke it up a little bit to get a little bit more resistance to lower that leg. There we go, whew. Elbows going to the side, whew.

Exhale, four. Find that balance. Three and two and one. Yes, coming in. Take that leg forwards.

You in the nice lunge here. Now ready, rotation. Rotation, extend. Rotation extend. There we go.

Rotation into those obliques. Cinching at the waist as you rotate. Guys, got it. Four, three, two, hand back. Love that exercise to feel right the way through those obliques.

All right, we're gonna come down to work our core now. Gonna keep it the same weight. If you wanna take it up, you can a little bit, but I'm gonna keep it at the same weight. Hand on hip. Knees up and we go overhead, ooh.

There we go. The lighter the spring, the more you've gotta be challenged through your core to balance less on the upper body, of course, but more on your core to balance. So it goes up and over your head and back. Exhale up and over your head and back, exhale. Let's do four more here.

Keep your knees close towards your chest if you can. You want an incline C curve with the spine. Alrighty, we are nearly there. One more. Take it into the other hand, outside hand.

Hand on hip, elbow, forearm, wrist and bring it back. Elbow, forearm, wrist and back. You can follow the hand if you feel that you're able to balance. Give a little extra element of balance there. I can feel those abs feel my legs.

Three more. Three, keep those elbows nice and high. Elbow forearm wrist. Two more, we are nearly there. One more and brewing it back down, amazing.

Now we wrap it around our thigh. If you wanna amp it up a little bit, you can take it up if you want. I would maybe go up to a red spin if you would like. Otherwise I'm gonna keep it right here. Legs up, fingertips pointing forwards.

And we do our little clam. So the knees go out and in, out and in to work. Those in the thighs. Exhale in and out. All right, can we do seven more?

Seven, exhale, six. Keep on the incline. Five and four and three and two and one. Bring the legs together, drop the feet down. And let's take that lovely strap away, beautiful.

Put it down. Now we're gonna turn around to face forwards. We're gonna pick up those little, this little weights here. Dumbbells that match my ankle weights. Now we're gonna stand up nice and tall and we go into a trace up extension.

So we go trace up extension here. So you can see my elbows are high. We're gonna finish off with a little bit of arm work here just to work the upper body. And we're gonna work the lower body as well, because we might as well, we are here, right? So we're gonna transfer over and we're gonna lift the right leg up.

So it goes up and tap, up and tap up and tap up and tap for four, for three, for two, for one. Bring it down, take it back and in, in your squat, hips are back. There you go. And four, ready transfer and three and two ready, lift that leg. Those arms are working hard.

And the legs together, we go out and in. Keep it going. Four more and four and three and two. Back to squat. We go down and back, like a little row, push and back.

Now I'm gonna go a little bit diagonal here so you can kind of see me here working. And we do like a little bounce and lift and lift and lift. Four more. And four, three, two, one. Holder here we fly, we extend, we fly, we extend, we fly.

Now I'm gonna go to the back. So you can see me from the back here. See, I'm pulling my scapula together as I fly. Ears open four. As we've got four more, four.

Lift up for three, lift up for two, lift up for one. Hold it here, we go down. Swing it high down. Swing it high down. Swing it high.

Now hold it here, turn it up. Play down, we circle four, three, two, one. Take it down. And again, four, three, two, one, take it down. And again, four, three, two, one, take it down, woo-hoo.

And four, three, two, one, take it down. You've got one more and four, three, two, one, take it down. Bicep, curl, we go right, left, right, pick it up. There we go. And 10 and nine, apple's high.

Good, keep moving. We are nearly home. Just finishing off those arms. We don't give up, we keep on moving for eight, for seven, six and five and four, three and two and one. And hold, hold it, lower, hold it for five, for four, for three, for two for one, oh, and down.

Relax, oh my gosh, doesn't that feel good? So push it a little bit more. Bring the legs together. Curl yourself all the way up. Let's take a deep breath in.

Inhale, exhale and touch your toes. Roll all the way up. One more, thanks for joining me today. I hope you had that fun. Like the fun innovative class today where we really truly fuse Pilates and bar together.

And I hope you appreciate how we move them together. Have a fantastic day. See you back here again, bye.