Knees Over Toes Reformer

Hello. My name is Victor Regan, inventor of connector and founder of connect method. Today, I will be bringing your attention knees over toes using the reformer. In our daily lives, as we know, we use our knees in a relationship with our ankles, and with our hip joint, but seems like sometimes we don't really emphasize keeping the knee going over the knee. We usually keep it over the hill. So today's class is gonna emphasize using those 3 joints together.

And if there's any pain or any discomfort, do you know what to do? Don't push it and just work on your own range. Starting today's exercise, we're gonna have one yellow springs, and I already set my jump board in here. We will be using our jump forward as well. So let's start one yellow springs. You guys gonna be on all force, reach forward with your arms.

And find attention a little bit in the springs. We are in all four position. From here, let's do some cat cow. You're gonna excel round. And inhale, go to extension.

Excel. Flexion, trying to keep the carriage steady. No movement on the carriage, but there's lots of movement in your spine. And one more set. And in now, now do exactly same movement with your spine, but move the carriage forward, Excel, less rounded, and let's see how far we can go with our knees.

And come back in to extension. One second. Excel round. Inhale. Excel around In now, next week, go forward with extensions, stay on the extension, inhale and come back and round your spine, exhale.

Inhale forward with the extension, And next, I'll come back in. One more inhale. And next, I'll come back in and sit back and relax. We're gonna stand up. We're gonna change springs to one red, and we're gonna place your foot in front of the carriage.

So we're using the in front of the carriage as a foot bar, and you're gonna walk forward. You're gonna rest your left squats on the jump port. So you're standing nice and tall. And from here, you're gonna strengthen ankle muscles or calves. And you're gonna push and come back in.

And 2. And 3. And 4, and 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and come back in and relax. We're gonna walk around and do the same thing. This time, I'm not gonna hold the jump board. I'm gonna actually cross my arms like I'm walking.

So you're gonna push the carriage with your right ankle, and you're gonna twist towards the right, left arm forward, right arm back, and come back in. And, 2, and 3, and 4, and 5, 6, 7, 8, 910. Beautiful. So that movement of our ankle, it was a planter flex now we're gonna work our flexors, right, Dorsey flexors. So from here, I'm gonna stay in the same side of the reformer, I'm walking back, placing the right foot at the end of the reformer, bend my right knee reach back and grab the carriage with my left ankle, with my left foot.

So I'm relaxing a little bit. My toes on the top of the shoulder rest and using my dorsal flexor flexing, bringing the keratin, and relax, and too. And 3, and 4, and 5, 6, 7 8, 9, 10, and relax. Now I'm gonna do the other side just like I did it in the first section, I used you. I, I mean, I showed you withholding the bar for my balance, or I can let go, and I can do the walking movement again. So cross and release and cross. You're turning to the left when you flex and relax and 4.

And 5, and 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10, hold, and relax. So we work the planter flexor of the foot and dorsal flexor. Now we're gonna add a little bit jumping motion. So I'm going back to one yellow springs It's exactly same position. I'm placing my left foot.

I'm standing nice and tall. I'm not gonna hold it. This time, you're gonna Push and catch. Push and catch. Push and catch. Beautiful. So it requires coordination as well.

I'm really working same muscle groups that I did with the heavy springs. Now it's light. It's all about the coordination and proprioception. 2 more. One more.

Beautiful. Let's do other side. The goal is to feel and recognize where the carriage is and catch it up in the air so you can slow it down. If you do not slow down, it will be really heavy hitting to the jump port. You wanna make sure that there's no hit to the jump forward with your quats.

You're controlling the carriage. Beautiful. 4 more. 3 more. 2 more. One more.

Beautiful. So we did that basically standing jumping. Now I'm gonna walk back, and I'm gonna do some activation in the back of my hamstrings from here. Reach forward with your right leg in the middle of the carriage and you standing on your left leg. From here, we're gonna bend, lift the heel up, and push all the way to the end, and then come back in and straight your legs. And repeat, and 2, and come back in. We could do crossing the body once again.

Towards the leg. So if your right heel back, turn with your left. And then when your right leg is in front of you, twist towards the right, twist to the left, and to the right. Trying to control pushing back so it will not slam and forward and one more time back. And come back forward. Good. I'm gonna walk around, and we're gonna do the other side.

Once again, straight legs in the middle of the carriage, stand on your right leg, and you're gonna bend the left and you're gonna twist towards the right, feel nice and tall, and come back and twist to the left at your torso and straight your left leg. And 2, and come back in. And 3, and come back in. 4. We're gonna do one more.

And 5. Come back in and relax. We're gonna put some more weight, and we're gonna work on the toe flexion, ankle, knees, and hips. We are putting one red And you're gonna place your toes in a flexion position on the shoulder rest. So the ball of the foot on the carriage, heels on the carriage and your toes is up.

From here, step forward a little bit, and you're gonna excel push straight out then come back and bring the carriage in, in, in, and see how far you can bend. You can push your knee that way without lifting your heels up. And if you want a little bit more weight, you can just hop forward with your standing leg and repeat the same thing. And forward forward forward forward forward. And push and forward forward forward forward. Beautiful. Feel the stretch underneath your feet.

Keep the heels down. You should not feel any discomfort. If you do, please make adjustments or stop. 2 more and come back in. 1 more in. Beautiful.

Now we're gonna push and hold that position without moving the carriage. We're gonna transfer your weight forward and transfer back and forward and back. You can keep your hands relaxed, right, in front of you. You can reach forward. You can keep it on the side. Or you can place them on your hips and forward and back. And last one forward and back and come back in.

And let's do other side. Trying to be in the same spot, I knew exactly where I was in the middle of the carriage with my standing foot, and I'm gonna place the left on the shoulder rest fill nice and tall, find my ground with my standing leg. And from here, you're gonna push forward and come back in and try to bring the courage in underneath as much as you can and stretch your feet. And, 2, and 3, trying to keep your hips square. Make sure you have the alignment, correct alignment of the hip, knee, ankle, and toe. And 2 more.

And one more. I'm gonna stand to test them. I'm gonna keep my arms to the side, and I'm gonna shift forward, and I'm gonna come back. And forward and back. Beautiful.

Trying to focus on the carriage so it's not moving. I'm trying my best too. I see there's a little bit bounce. So trying to minimize that balance. 2 more.

And one more. Beautiful. Now I've been Journeys in. Next, I'm gonna do some hamstrings. Same springs, one red from here, we're gonna hook our foot in front of the shoulder rest, nice and tall on your standing, and you're gonna squeeze and hold and release.

Squeeze hold. This is a lot heavier. So you're gonna really feel your hamstrings working. 3, as you guys notice, I'm doing kind of like a running pattern again. So when I pull it, I'm twisting that way and then come back in 2 more. One more and relax. We're gonna go back, and we're gonna do the left side.

Alright. Stand with your standing leg, right leg, close to the reformer as you can. Maintain your alignment and squeeze in hold and forward trying to keep the heel down. Don't lift your heels up on this one and come back in. Squeeze hold. The reason I'm cueing your hold, if you don't, you're kind of gonna bounce.

I don't want you to bounce between the exercises. I want you to control the weight of the springs and then release 3 more like this. 2 more. 1 more. Beautiful.

Alright. And last set on the standing series, I wanna go back to light one once again with the yellow springs. And we are gonna do walk backs This is gonna stimulate like I'm walking backwards. You're gonna step in front of the carriage close to the shoulder rest, your foot is gonna be on the other part of the carriage, and you're gonna kind of walk backwards. And then come back in.

Control once again. 2 and come back in. And 3. 4 one more. 5.

Now I'm gonna do exactly the same thing. I'm gonna walk back a little bit. And I'm gonna make sure when I extend the leg, there's a spot for my heel to push the carriage and the carriage does not bottom out. If you feel the character's bottom out, walk back a little bit. So this is the correct position for me.

I'm gonna repeat the same thing that walking back and twisting towards the front push and control come back in. If the heel comes up, it's okay when you go back, but it's passive. I'm trying to keep the heel down, but if it comes up, it's okay. Beautiful. And twist one more. Twist. Hold.

Now reach forward. If you need to hold on to your leg, flex your foot, if you need to, and if you can hold the carriage and just stretch. And beautiful. And then come up, and we'll do the other side. I'm gonna walk back.

First one, I'm quite front, close to the shoulder rest, and I'm pushing forward. Right here. I'm gonna set my foot a little bit. It was too forward. That's it. Now I'm gonna go back control. And repeat.

Beautiful. This is like activating, acting like I'm walking backwards. And control forward. And one more. Come back in.

Let's step back. Make sure your foot is on the couch when you extend and you can flex your foot and bring it back. Apply your a provider twist. When you extend the leg forward, you're turning to the left and come back and 3 more. And 2 more and 1 more.

And from here, keep the leg straight and let's do the hamstring stretch. Reach forward. Place your hands on the carriage. Or the frame, or you can put it on your shin, or you can put it on your quats. And hold the stretch couple times, couple breaths, and slowly come back in.

Good. Now let's go back all fours once again. From here, I would like you to reach forward as much as you can, and we're gonna be in the plank position. Once you find on your plank position, from here, you're gonna bring the carriage in, and we're gonna go out and 2. And out.

And 3, make sure your knees are not touching the shoulder rest. As you notice, mine was touching, so I walked back a little bit more. So when I pull in, there's no pushing with my knee on the shoulder rest. 2 more. And one more.

And slowly go back. And relax. From here, you might be feeling already some stretch on your quads, on your knee joint. The one will also stretch our toes as well. So you can tuck your toes underneath and have a seat Once you do this, you wanna make sure your weight goes back and you wanna put a pressure on the ball of your feet.

You shouldn't be forward this way and over stretching your toes. Another way we could do this stretch that it really helps You can put your knees, your shin, over the shoulder rest, and your toe stuck underneath as you see in my foot is in a better position right now. All the weight goes on the ball of my foot instead of on my toes. Right? So find a spot.

We have just yellow springs, take the straps in your hands, bungee or elbows, you should feel nice and secure in here and just gently extend your arms up and hold that position in the extension of the spine a little bit and then come back in. This might work for you only one rep or 3 reps like we are going to do. And if it doesn't, just listen to your body and give it a rest. And the third one, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, and come back in and put the straps down. Last thing, I'm gonna work on the dorsal flexors again.

This is quite challenging, but it is fun. We are gonna go back to plank position And to do that, you're gonna really bring your hands up close to the end. You can stay here. You can even put your hands next to the risers right here. Once you find that position, you're gonna extend your legs and you're gonna walk to carriage back done in with your ankle, dorsey flexors and forward.

And back. One more. If you guys notice, when I'm pulling it up, I do tuck my chin and look at the position of my foot. So I don't go over and bend your knees in and slowly come back in. And relax.

What is next? We are gonna do some jumping I'm gonna do 3 reds. And if you are saying 3 reds, that's a lot. The reason is 3 reps, I'm gonna emphasize again not the height of the jump, but the position of the ankles and the knees and hips. And if it doesn't, once you try, it doesn't feel right to your body.

You need little lighter, please do make those adjustments. But right now, I'm doing with the three rats. You're gonna lay down on your back. And we are hip width apart comfortable. You're gonna extend your legs.

Once you lay down like this, I want you gently bring your heels down a little bit. So it's a one straight line like you are standing instead of your legs being up little higher. Right? Once you do that, all the positions that you feel comfortable and you train has to maintain. Right?

So the the position of your pelvis, position of your spine, If anything is adjusting when you bring your legs down, if you cannot maintain the correct position, you can keep your legs higher. But from here, you're gonna bend your knees and extend and bend, extend. Keep the heels down. Maintain the weight between your toes and your heels is the tripod of the foot. Once you do this, straight your legs.

Let's go high heels and down. High heels and down. Beautiful. Let's do a couple more. Now we're gonna jump.

Same rules. Heels down. Jump blend, jump blend. Do you guys see? I have no height, but what I'm trying to do I'm trying to really release my hips, my knee, and my ankle. I'm trying to use all three to create a greater range of motion on all three joints. Couple more this way.

Two more, one more, and relax. Now with the straight legs, remember, I did up and down. Now we're gonna create a little bit push push. It's kind of like a jumping feeling. But if I don't jump or if my toes doesn't leave the board, it's okay.

I'm just applying a powerful doors of flexion action. I definitely feel this on my caps. If you do, you're doing this correctly. And one more. Beautiful. Now bend your knees in.

Now from here, you're gonna lift the heels up and down. Up and down without moving the carriage. As I said in the beginning of the class, the theme is knees over the toes. If you've seen most of the exercises, I'm encouraging to maintain that position and creating a deeper range of motion in a relationship between your ankles, knees, and hips and bend your knees come back in. So from here, now I'm gonna change springs.

I'm gonna do 2 red. And, we're gonna do same exact thing with single leg jumps. So let's lay down on your back once again. Good. From here, straight to your legs. Left leg tabletop and bent and extend.

Good. Really trying to create a one straight line keep the heels down and bend as much as you can forward and forward. Trying to have sense of relax and let your legs observe the weight of the carriage Beautiful. Nice and smooth and change legs other side. Down, up, down, up, beautiful. 5 more, 4 more, 3 more, 2 more, 1 more.

Come back in. Rest your legs. Now we're gonna do the exactly same thing, single leg, straight leg, and just the calf. And push push push control, trying to don't lend too hard. The the lending is the most important 54321 and come back in next thing. The left leg right leg is stable top, same thing. And push 2, 3.

54413 to one and come back in. Beautiful. Shake your legs, and we are done with the jump point. So we're gonna take off the jump board, and I'm gonna put it away. Beautiful.

I'm coming back. Hello again. Before I move on, I'm gonna also take care of my sweat Now I feel better. If you need to do this, go ahead do it with me as well. Next, we're gonna bring the foot bar all the way down position this way.

And we're gonna have a one red And I would like to do right now semi circle exercises. I believe this is really fun. But if you're familiar with the exercise today, I'm gonna do it with the low bar instead of the high bar. And there's gonna be a couple more different ways to approach it. Now toss on the bar or the middle of the foot. Middle of the foot, a little bit more comfortable, but for what we're doing today, I would like you to go on your toes. Right?

Remember, knees over the toes. That's what we're gonna try here too. Place your hands on the shoulder rest. And gently while you're doing right and left with your body, start to push the carriage away from you. I apologize if I didn't already queue you, but if you're using one rate, which is you are, make sure you use the the springs all the way to the right or all the way to the left, not in the middle.

So you have a room to bring your, pelvis down your hips all the way down in the carriage, in between the carriage frame. Once you are in here, inhale from your nose, and we're gonna start actually first just going up and doing a bridge. Once you do this, I want you to go forward, see how far you can go forward, and then extend, keeping your hips up, and drop the hips down. And let's restart. Come back in and lift up.

And forward forward forward forward and then push and extend your legs, push the carriage up drop your heels down. Oh, he, hips down, sorry, not the heels, and then bend your knees move forward. And right from here, if you need to adjust your feet, go ahead, adjust so your toes is really grabbing the bar. So you can push up and feel comfortable to go over your toes and stretch your quads. If this is not in your practice, you can open up your knees a little bit. That will give you a little bit more flexibility to go over.

And then come up one more time. We will not do the reverse one. We're gonna do this one more time to go forward And back, bring the carriage in. And slowly pull yourself up. You could do right and left once again.

And then breathe, bend your knees to your chest. So let's bring the spine a little bit opposite position. You can do knee circles, kind of like a figure 8. So each knee is doing opposite circles and reverse that. And next, we are going to bring a box.

If we're gonna do short box exercises, So in here, What I'm gonna do is first, I'm gonna bring the foot bar up once again, and I would like to be in the middle position. This is in the middle position, and we're gonna start with the tendon stretch in a different way. And I'm gonna ask you to stand on the box place your toes in the middle of the bar and bring your hands on the side of the bar. From here, you're gonna inhale from your nose, exhale, extend your legs. So you could be in here, you could be all the way straight. Yeah.

Listen to your body. Either way, wherever you are, you're creating attention not from the spring. Spring is one red, but I'm creating attention with my hand because I'm holding in here, While I'm extending my leg, I'm also pulling myself forward. Once you find that position, you could be, again, bent knee or extend. Doesn't matter.

You're gonna drop the heels down and then bring him up. Drop it down and up and drop it down. And up and bend your knees and stay here, tuck like a ball. Keep the heels down again. And breathe a couple breaths in and out.

Reposition your hands. Let's do one more time. Extend your legs. Drop the heels down. And high.

Drop and up. 2 more. One more and then come up. Beautiful. Just for a second.

So it's not in our way. I'm gonna move the box back once again. Beautiful. And from here, we're gonna go down the yellow springs, and we're gonna do some standing exercises. I'm changing my springs to yellow.

And from here, you're gonna take one strap, and you're gonna place it behind your knee, the closer to the reformer. So my right leg is closer to the reformer frame. I'm gonna place this strap behind my knee. So I'm gonna walk back a little bit. It feels like it's a perfect spot when you walk back, you are in the middle of the carriage or you are a little bit in the forward part of the carriage.

Once you're there, feel nice and tall. You're gonna bring the opposite knee without the band up, same arm forward, and you're gonna pretend you are walking. So there's a little bit tension from the strap in the back of your knee. I'm not encouraging you to go to hyper extension. But really feel nice and lengthening legs. So your standing leg is sporting you. While you're doing this movement, while you're walking in the air.

The next step from here, every time I go back to extension, I'm gonna band my standing, like, as much as I can going forward, still keeping my heel down and then come up. And let's go back and come up. And 3, come up. 4. Come up.

Last one. 5. Now when I come up, I'm gonna try to come up on my toes lifting the heels up up and all the way down. So this is where I kind of feel like, okay, I have to get my balance in, and I'm gonna go up and down. Not a jump. Control up.

And balance up and down. Oh, one more and up And, if your right leg is in on fire right now, you're doing it right. You are with me. So now we're gonna take this out. Oh, no, we are not.

I apologize. Let yes, we are. We are final answer because I wanna give a rest to the right leg. I'm gonna place it on the left, right? Once you place to the left, we're gonna turn sideways. So the pull now on my knee sideways, like laterally pulling me out, and I have to use my AD doctors to control that force.

It's exactly the same exercise we're gonna do. We're gonna inhale, excel back. Air walking, feel nice and long while you're using your arms and your legs swinging back and forward, And this is the 5th one. Now add the band and bend and come up, and bend, and up. Here we go. And banned.

This is not easy. And 4. And 5. Yes. You're right, we're gonna try to go up all the way on our toes again and up and drop. And up and drop.

And I do say drop, but I wanna say lower. Don't drop down. Trying to control. Let's go up and control down. And one more time.

Up and control down and breathe. Beautiful. Last one. We're gonna switch again So the same band is going to the right one, and you are still facing towards the risers. This time, the poll internally. So we're gonna have to use AD doctors to control that weight. We're gonna keep the opposite leg behind the strap and our walking movement is gonna be with firing the hamstrings right now. Hamstring walk and 1.

And 2, and 3, and 4, and 5. Ready? Bent 1. 2, keep extending the knee away from your 3, 4, 5 control, and we're gonna go up and down. Hold.

And up and down. 3 more. Down. 2 more. Last one.

And relax. Beautiful. Fortunately and unfortunately, we have two legs. We're gonna have to do other side. So let's go around.

And we're gonna repeat the exactly same thing on the other side. First, starting the leg that close to the reformer, which is the left leg. We are facing towards the risers, little bit in front of the middle of the carriage, right knee, left arm forward, and they extend together back. And forward, and 2, and 3, and 4, and 5. Now, Bendelek. Bend. And 2.

And 34 5. Hold it here. We're gonna go up on high heels and 1. Beautiful. And 2, and 3. 4 5.

And hold. And breathe. Let's change legs. We're gonna bring the strap on your right leg. Now we are facing towards the foot bar.

And from here, we're gonna bring the left knee and right arm forward and extend backwards walking. And, too, 3, 4, 5, and bend the right leg forward and 1. 2, 3, 4. 5. Hold it here. Find your balance, and we're gonna go up on toes and down.

High heels balance, and down. And 3, down. 4, 5. And brief. Last one, we're doing the left AB doctors.

Place the strap behind your left knee. Good. Facing towards the risers once again. Now the right leg is gonna do hamstring curl, and we're gonna extend and bend. Extend pant. 3, 4, 5.

Bend your knee while you're bending the right leg as well, hamstrings and quilts, and extend. And 2, 3, 4 and 5 from here. And let's go up and down. And lift your heels high and lower them down. Stay on your toes and control come back in.

2 more. One more. Good. I finished it with the good one. Almost and relax. Fantastic.

So I'm sure your legs is on the fire. You're filling in your glutes, the quats, calves, your feet. You're gonna finish with the bank. They're gonna bring the box back in. We're gonna change the springs to one red once again.

From here, you're gonna have a seat And we're gonna start with an exercise that close to the tendon stretch, but single leg on the bar. So from here, you're gonna extend your legs, left leg, and drop the heel down. Your hands on the corner of the box I want you to round your spine and lift your butt off. So from here, You're gonna do a split by reaching back and extending your spine. And then come back and round your spine and pull in keeping the knee straight.

Once again, reach back. Keep your toe exactly the same spot on your right leg. And then come back in and round. Now next to extend back. Stay here. Bend your front leg and drop the right leg down and then come up.

And excellent. Extend your leg and spine. Stay there. Go forward and back. Excel forward and have a seat and change legs. Right leg on the bar, extend your legs, drop the heel down, lift your butt up, and hold yourself with your arms and with your legs.

From here, gonna go back to split, drop the left knee down, extend your spine and then come back and exhale to flexion and hold your body off the box. And, again, extend. Excel. Next too. Once you split your legs apart, hold that position, bend your right knee and drop the left down.

And go back. And last one, and forward and back and exhale. And have a seat. Good. Now from here, let's see.

If all that work we've done paid off and we feel more mobile and strong from here, Toes on the carriage, heels is supported by the box. From here, first thing, you can even hold the bar and find your balance if you can't hold yourself there. You're not needing the bar. If you feel very secure, bring the arms up and hold. If this is doing well too, now slowly, we're gonna go up and bring the arms down.

And feel nice and tall, lengthen your spine. And now let's go down. Don't lean forward Keep your shoulders over your hips and go down. And come up. Should we do one more?

If you say please, I'll do it. Okay. Let's do it again. And come back in and go up And this is the last one going down. Control. And brief.

Beautiful. Thank you very much. Joining me in this niece over toast reformer class. Once again, this class meant to bring attention to the range of motion of the ankle, knees, and hip relationship. You can use this exercises and add it to a regular reformer exercises.

I hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you guys in my next class.