Strong Base Reformer

Hi. I'm Courtney Miller. I have a foundational reformer workout for you that is going to give you a great whole body workout without any complicated choreography. So this is a great class to do if you're newer to Pilates, and this is a great class to come back to after doing some of your more challenging workouts, just kinda get back to your roots. I have one red and one blue spring on. This is for my bridge series later.

So choose what you like for a bridge. We're gonna start standing standing roll down. So I'm beside my machine, feet are around hip distance apart, and I place my hands behind my head, and this is a purposeful movement. A lot of us have forward head postures nowadays, so the hands behind the head allows you to align your spine and stack your shoulders right over your ears. Nodge your chin towards your chest. Pull your core in and exhale as you begin to fold forward.

I'm intentionally trying not to shift my butt back. So I'm trying to keep my hips over my mid foot. Maybe a little more weight into my toes. And then soften your knees and rebuild your spine, stacking one bone at a time. And then finding that vertical orientation, again, pushing the head actively back into the hands.

Get really tall on a breath in and exhale flex forward. And I am drawing my chin down using my arms, finding my scoop. In my last video, I taught Elephant Roundback. This position of scooping is very similar to that same shape. Rebuild the spine. And we'll do it one more time. This is a real good time to just feel your connection to your feet into the earth, even pressures through the right and left foot, even pressures through the big toe baby toe.

Take it down. Find that hamstring link, let gravity do what it does, and then rebuild. Coming all the way up. To standing. Awesome. Okay. Onto the machine we go for bridge. So this is a moving carriage bridge.

Carriage is gonna move, and we wanna control it. Hands down by your side, heels of the feet onto the foot bar, lift the hips up. We talked about this in the last foundational video. Finding the best bridge position means lifting the hips high enough that you can feel your glutes. And then keeping the upper abdominals tight and pulling down.

So if I could draw an arrow of energy, I would draw one up through my hips and down through my chest. On a breath in, push back to straight legs, on a breath out, bring the carriage all the way in. I want you to notice the relationship of my hips to my knees. As I push back, my knees drop, so do my hips. As I pull in my knees drop, so do my hips. 4.

3. 2. And one more, keeping the carriage all the way in on this next one. Let's articulate the spine down without pressing back. So upper spine, middle spine, lower spine. This should feel like your abdominals are working to assist, and then do that same scoop on the way up, lower, middle, upper, lifting more through the hips than through the chest. Do it again.

Roll down, upper. Middle lower. Really good time to just connect into the body, scoop and roll up. One more time. You should feel a stretch through the front of your legs when you're at your highest point in the bridge. Roll down. And roll up. Now we're gonna do a flat back hinge, so the abdominals are working to brace the shape.

Carriage stays closed, down and up. 10, 9, 8. Notice if your knees are open into the sides. Keep them tracking in line with your feet. 4 to go. 4, 3, 2, And one, take it all the way down. Draw your knees into your chest, curl up into a little ball for the 100 with no loops.

So arms will go to the sky. Legs will extend over the bar, find a Plutte's V, bring the hands down beside you. Start to pump the arms with an intentional pump back muscles working, and a rhythm. The rhythm of the arms matches the rhythm of your breath, exhaling for 5 pumps, inhaling for 5, 10 sets. Energy through the toes, stay lifted high. Halfway there.

Complete breathing. 2 more cents. Last one. It's always a good practice to hold and deepen a position before you drop out of it. Reach back behind you.

We're gonna grab our loops for a series called supine abdominal. So supine references lying down on your back. I'm placing my hands on my short loops and taking legs to table. We're gonna build from a base here. Keep the head down and practice pulling the hands to the mat. Straight arms, lifting the hands back up over chest. Use your back to pull and use your back to resist up. 2 more like this.

Caller bones are wide. One more. Adding abdominal flexion. This is an important thing to note. When the arms pull down, the chest will lift up towards the thighs.

The thighs don't pull towards the chest. So see if you can feel that in your body, exhale, lift towards the legs, and push down into the arms. 3. 2. One more time. 1. I want you to take your arms out to the sides now, keeping tension into those ropes.

Same flow. We're gonna pull in using the back muscles, and open with control. If you feel your shoulders pressing up into those shoulder blocks, it's possible that you're letting your shoulders rise and I really want you to focus on avoiding that. This foundational class is all about teaching you the little tricks They're gonna help you to get more out of your work when you start to increase tempo or increase choreography. Let's add the abdominal curl. And open. And open.

Big lift up. Even though the hands are in the straps, the work is coming from your back muscles. See if you can feel that. One more time. We're gonna take it to triceps next.

Bring your elbows down into your sides, hovering about an inch off the mat. Try to bring your elbows to a 90 degree. So avoid this kind of release. You're pushing forward with the palms, keeping the arms steady, the forearms press down and bend. So the upper arm bone isn't moving. It's tucked right into your sides.

Stop at 90 and press adding the abdominal curl. Shoulders come as high off the carriage as you can. Find that complete breath. Last 2. Last one.

We'll finish with arm circles. Lift the arms up right over the chest. Open the arms to the sides and pull them in. 3, use your back. 2, feel wide through the chest.

One reverse to the tee, to the sky down, out to the sides, carriage stays steady pulled down out to the sides and exhale. Awesome. Hook up your loops. Drape your legs over the foot bar. We've got every former roll up to do. Reach your arms up to the sky, exhale all the way up.

You go. Adding a spring. So I had 1 red and 1 blue. I've added another red. I've 1 blue, 2 reds, 3 springs on pretty heavy.

Roll yourself down. Single leg footwork. Let's start with both feet on so we can find our alignment. I've got toes on, heels high, feet in line with my hips, hips heavy to the mat. One leg is gonna come off, leave the leg out, and practice pushing out with your working leg, all the way out to a straight leg, and bring it in. 4, HIPs are staying square. 3, all the way straight. 2, and 1. Now this nonworking leg is gonna bend to bicycle, sharp tabletop position, 4. 3, 2, 1. Hold the carriage out.

Drop your heel on your working leg and lift it 5. 4. Lift all the wet through the glute. 3. 2, one, place both feet on, find that alignment, opposite leg comes up, Here we go on the other side. Keep that ankle nice and high pressing out. 4. 3.

2, and now add that gesture leg movement, sharp tabletop, 4, 3, are you straightening the leg all the way? Think of a bow and arrow. 2, and press and hold. Drop the heel, get that lengthening lift, 5, 4, 3, 2, One. Both feet on. I want your heels together toes apart for this next move. Bring the carriage in, find your diamond. This is gonna challenge the stability in your hips.

I've got my leg off. It's still turned out without moving that gesture leg. Push through the hip. 5. 4. I'm really trying to keep my left tip down here. 3. 2, adding that extension, send it long, pull it to the diamond, 4. 3.

2. 1. Both feet on, heels together toes apart. Find that v, find that length. Here we go other side.

Right hip stays down. Pull out through the knee, find the work in your back body, Last two. And adding that extension when you come in, really challenging our hip stability. Spatial awareness, 3, 2, and 1. Bring it on in, drape your legs over the bar, lift your arms up, exhale as you roll all the way up.

Give yourself a squeezey hug. Come off to either side. Good. So that's our warm up. The beautiful thing about this machine is it really gives you a lot of connect shin and awareness to where your body is in space. Now we're gonna challenge that.

I've taken off my 2 reds. I'm left with one blue. That's a light tension. You could absolutely do this flow on a little bit more tension like a red. I'm gonna kneel today.

This series could also be done seated. So you can sit down face a direction or kneel in face side. Short loop is gonna be in my inside hand. Open the arms out to a tee. I'm trying to activate my abdominals before my arms move. That's a big part of stability and then open, exhale hug.

Inhale open. So I'm trying to use my back body about as much as I'm using my front body. I'm trying to pull my shoulders down, and there's a certain amount of anticipation. Right? I need to know that when I yank on this arm, This underneath me is gonna move, and I have to stabilize against it. Open to the sides and close.

The next time the arms connect, interlace your fingers. Keep your hands right in line with your chest, and then use your spine and abdominals to rotate towards the foot bar. And then back around and through. 5, not yanking with my arms using my back, deep abdominals, and core. 4, 3, I think it might find like a braid, like a rope, right, vertical, taut, going straight up to the ceiling. One more time.

Open the arms and turn your palms up. This is a challenging one. Arms reach overhead and open. We'll do 5. Sitting lower will make the weight feel lighter. 4, try not to tilt or lean next days long.

3, 2, And one more. Oh, overhead. It's called hug the moon. You can use your opposite hand and grab your short or long loop if you have the options. The short does feel a little bit heavier. Inside hand onto the thigh, bring that fist towards your hip, four moves, and each one's important.

First thing we do is lift the elbow, then keeping the elbow up, extend the arm. Notice that my wrist isn't twisted, right? It's my palms facing forward. Bend the elbow without dropping the arm and then bring the whole thing down. First one's the hardest because you go the slowest, so you lift extend, bend, and take it down. And I'm trying to keep my shoulders and my hips straight forward.

3 more. Up, working the deep muscles in the shoulder. It's gonna help us when we do big movements, arm jumps, arm presses, push ups, all that good stuff. Two more. One more time.

And bring it down. The next movement is a Matt Pilates exercise, and it's a great one to do because you see it on the reformer or other apparatus using resistance springs and loops. Let's just take it to the mat part. Arms out like a t. I'm gonna ladderly tilt towards my headrest. Hand comes on.

Opposite leg comes up. If that bar is bothering you, just pop it down. I like it because it reminds me to keep my leg high. Top hand comes behind the head, pulses up. About 10 repetitions each variation here. You definitely wanna feel this into your side, not just into your booty.

5 4, 3, 2, keep the leg as high as you can. Small circles up and around. 5, 4, try not to wiggle. 3, 2, reverse your circles down and around. 54, 3, 2, 1, and done. Great. We're gonna do the same thing on the other side. So come on around. You'll be able to see how my shoulder blades are staying pretty fixed in space and how my spine is staying vertical. Hopefully, arms to a tee, knees wide, abs in, exhale as you bring it in, inhale open.

When I do this movement, I'm trying my best keep my hands away from my chest. I'm hugging a very big tree. Elbows stay up. Shoulders stay down. Don't forget that our breath helps us to co contract our abdominals with our arms, and this is really important for stabilization.

3, 2, and interlace the fingers. So this is what it would look like if I was using my arms, and this is what it looks like when I'm using those deep muscles in my spine. So just fix the arms into one shape and focus on the rotation coming from your back. Inhale and exhale. I'm just letting my head kinda go with it.

A good rule of thumb is wherever your chest is pointing, your gaze follows. Last two, and last one. This is a tough one. Out of the series, this is the most challenging for me, overhead reach without leaning off to one side. It's called hug a moon. 5 4, 3, 2, One more time. Although, yep, we go.

And now grab the loop in the opposite hand. I'm choosing the short loop. Inside hand presses to thigh. 4 moves, elbow up. Punch off to the side.

Don't flip the wrist. Bend it, and drop it. And then just sort of smooth it out. Up and punch. 5.

4, 3, 2, And one more elbow first. Extend the arm, bring it in, bring it home. So I go inside hand, To the headrest, outside leg over the foot bar, stacking the hips and the shoulders using that bar as a reminder that my energy direction is up, 10, 9, 87, 65, 4, 3, 2, hold the leg high to circle. 5, 4, 3, 21 reverse. Focus on the app 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and done. Awesome. Okay. So now we're gonna go into a standing series on the machine. I'm gonna put my foot bar down so I've got room for this. It is important that you know how to safely get on and off this machine when you're standing, especially when it's a light tension like one blue.

So I'm always gonna step on what isn't gonna move first. That's gonna be my platform. Then I will anticipate that this thing is gonna move, so I have to be ready for that. Rise up to standing. This is our standing split series, which means the wider you start, the harder you're gonna work.

More inner thighs. So start narrow if this is a new series for you. You can also add more tension to feel more supported. Toes forward hip strong, core tight. Here we go. Inhale as you press out.

Arms reach overhead. And then exhale. I want you to think about going up. Not just in. So up through the spine, up through the abdominals, energy up through the head. Inhale to press out. And exhale to pull it in. Easy.

If it is easy, widen your stance. Shouldn't be easy. The arches of my feet are lifting up, and that's an important thing to note. So if I were to flatten out my arches during this exercise, I might feel less connections through my core, inner thighs, and knees, so I'm pushing to the outer edges of my feet. Let's do three more.

Big press out. And 2. One more time, big press out, and bring the carriage all the way in. Okay. So pivots that you're facing towards your shoulder blocks come down to your knees. We're gonna do a plank preparatory movement.

So This is another foundational movement that's gonna help us to establish and build the strength in the building blocks that we need for a more dynamic style work. Elbows onto the mat, and I wrap my hands around the shoulder blocks. To get into a plank, I always keep one knee down. And I wanna be ready for supporting my weight. I don't wanna be surprised.

So push the elbows down, pull the core up, And then when you're ready, that opposite leg goes back. It is better to be more scooped up than scooped down. In a plank. So feel like you're pushing up, tucking the hips, drawing the abdominals in. And the only thing that's gonna move will be the elbows. 10, 9, 8, 7.

I'm squeezing my legs together kinda like how I did for the 106. 5, 43, 2, 1 and bring it in. That was great. We're not just building strength and flexibility. We're building endurance, so you're in those positions for kind of a long time.

Let's do the standing series on the other side. So don't forget, always step on what is not gonna move before you step on what is gonna move. The wider you stance, To stand the harder you work, lifting through the arches, purposeful arms to the side, inhale overhead stretch, and then exhale. It's about the sensation of lifting up to close in. Inhale out.

And exhale. If you find that you're able to connect to the back of your machine, that might be an indicator that inhale reach and exhale. Wait to the outer edges of the feet. It is also common to kind of stick the butt back a little bit here. Just try to stay stacked.

Shoulders over hip. Hips in line with heels, head over shoulders. Last two. One more. Same move. Turn to face the carriage.

Take the knees down. Find your plank first, and then let's change up the variation. Elbows right underneath the shoulders. One knee stays down. Prepare for holding yourself up.

Make sure you're using the glutes. Find that position. This time, the elbows stay right under the shoulders. Bending the knees and pushing out. Building that upper body endurance and core strength.

5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Awesome. You'll see where that move becomes amplified in another workout. We're gonna grab our box and place it on in long box position. So I'll be going in front of the shoulder blocks like this, lengthwise to the machine.

I have to do 2 more things, bump my foot bar back up, and I'm gonna add some tension. I'll be choosing 1 red spring for the next flow. If this feels too heavy or too light for you, please change it. The right way to get on the box is by getting your hips not your knees on. So hands to foot bar, swing a leg over.

Now I wanna be pretty far forward off the box for this move, because I'm really working spinal articulation, mobility, and extension. Legs are gonna be apart and lifted. I should feel like I'm pressing my pelvis into the box very similarly to how we did with swimming. Push all the way out until your arms are straight. On a breath in, I'm gonna lift my chest, look up, and try to close the carriage.

On a breath out, I pull my core in to push back. So inhale to find the lift My pubic bone stays on the box, but my hip bones are off. Exhale to push back. I just want you to feel in your own body that when you're lifted here, you're scooping up. And when you're pushed back here, you're still pulling up. As if you're allergic to touching the box, you kinda wanna feel like you're scooping away from it.

Last three. At the top of the movement, I'm trying to push down into my hands and push my chest forward through my arms. Last 2, and press out to hold. These are your arm presses. Point your elbows right towards the rails of your machine, not too wide, not too narrow.

That's gonna keep your chest feeling long. I want you to practice straightening your elbows without lifting your shoulders. That's easier said than done. So you're straightening the elbow, but the shoulders are staying down and back. This is gonna help you with your push up alignment.

This exercise can also be done single arm. Single arm press. And in if the resistance doesn't feel right for you, change it. I'm on a red. A blue would be lighter. If you think you can do heavier, go heavier.

Foundational movements like this doesn't mean easy, doesn't mean light, still should feel challenged, working that upper body strength here and spinal stability. 3? 2. And one more each side to be even. Awesome. Okay.

Fox is gonna come off. And we're gonna come into a series that it's pretty tough. A little bit of, cardiovascular conditioning to it. The exercise is called knee stretches, which is a terrible name for what I just described, but that is the name of it, hand's hand knee knee. It's not a stretch.

I want you to lean your weight back and press your heels into those shoulder blocks. Find a deep scoop through the abdominals. And lean back to the place where you could let go. So no weight on the upper body. We're gonna do some with the knees down, some with the knees up, two positions.

So keeping my spine in this shape, I'm pushing my legs back and pulling them in. And there's a bit of pace here. So it goes like this. Now this move is also done in a flat back position. So here's the different alignment of my spine.

I'm still leaning back. So it's not a upper body exercise, pushing with my legs, pulling in. Using my glutes to stabilize when I push back. One more time. Now, if that's feeling good for you, I think you should do it a second time.

Kind of a weird exercise, so just do it twice. If you're looking to amplify, add an additional spring. You'll want more tension to support your body. So I now have a red and a blue, could also do a red and a yellow, a little bit more tension. Knees come off.

Find that hover, remember I'm leaning back. Right? Leaning back. Here we go. Roundback? And take it down.

Oh, that's a tough one. So We did it. Moving on. I've got the 2 springs on. I could pick heavier light for this next flow. We're doing our sideline feet and straps.

I'm gonna leave my blue on and take my red off, making it a little bit easier for myself. Maybe another day I'll do it with the red spring on. Okay. So your positioning is lie down. Scooch your booty towards the back of your carriage and don't be afraid to use your whole surface. So I don't want my hips to be up close to the shoulder blocks. I'm gonna use this whole mat, top foot, goes into the loop, bottom arm is extended long and through.

Alrighty. I support my head. If you have a prop, you could use that as well. I just want you to note before we get started that there's a sensation of lift in your side. Yeah. Try to keep it. Hips are stacked.

Top leg swings forward. Allow the resistance to give you that hamstring stretch and top leg swings back. As soon as that rope gets close to me, I know it's time to stop, and then repeat. Inhale, big, stretch forward, exhale back. So the true challenge here is the disassociation that I'm that I'm trying to create between my leg doing the work, and the movement, and my spine, and my core holding and stabilizing. And once I can feel those two things, and I can separate them from each other, then I really start to isolate my glute.

Inhale forward. And exhale back. As my leg goes forward, I'm trying to pull my top hip back. But as my leg goes back, I'm trying to reach my top leg forward towards that foot bar. So there's a sensation of opposition and length.

Let's take it to a bend and extend. When I bend my knee, you can see the strap is right in front of my knee. My foot and heel is in line with my knee, and my thighs about parallel to the ground. So find that alignment and kick to the foot bar. Inhale, bend in, exhale kick.

It's common to overbend the knee. So the strap comes in. I want you to focus on the rope and the strap staying in front of the knee. Bend it and kick. If you're starting to lose your connection into that side body, now is your time to fire that back up. 4.

3, 2, and now we go into circles, not that different from the arm circles, you reach it out, reach it up, pull it down, and around 5 in each direction forward. Up and around. A circular movement is like medicine for your hip. So don't restrict it. It should feel good.

It should feel challenging. And keep your spine as stable as you can. One more. This direction? And reverse. So pull it back. Open and around.

5. 4, 3, 2, And one. Perfect. Bend the knee in. Slide the foot out of the strap.

And before we do the other side, lie down onto your back. This exercise is called rollover. It's another mat Pilates exercise. Now the carriage doesn't have a lot of spring tension on it, which means you're gonna have to be real honest, not use too much momentum to get the lift. Arms are down, legs are table, connection to the abdominals, spine to the man.

Extend the legs. And then on an exhale, using strength in your arms and a solid and complete breath out, roll up so that your legs are parallel to the floor. Separate your legs, the width of your machine, flex your feet. And then the precision comes in as you take your time to roll one bone at a time back down. The legs come together, and the movement starts again, exhale up. If you're having problems getting lifted off the mat, try bending your knees because one of the things that might inhibit you is just tight back, tight hamstrings. Separate and flex.

And now you'll keep the legs apart and feet flat. So it's a little bit harder to roll up this way. Legs together, find that Pilates v, zip them up, and roll down with your legs together. So try that again. Roll up with the feet apart and down with the legs together.

Last time like this. Take it all the way down. And you're ready for your side leg series facing the other direction. So use the mat. That's really great advice.

Don't feel small. Don't feel, contracted. I want you to feel more open in your body open your spine. Support the head, extend the leg straight, and then find the alignment of the hips and shoulders, and the lift in the side body. First move is our 10 sweeps. So forward and back, I'm using the resistance of the spring, to pull my leg forward.

So this is an active lengthening exercise. I'm creating opposition As my leg goes forward, my hip is staying back. And I'm aware of the evolution within the movement. So the more repetitions I do, the more length I'm gonna get, the muscles responding in real time. 3 more.

2. One more. Bend your knee in, and then find that alignment where the rope is in front of the knee, heel in line with the hip, recollect yourself. If you shifted it all, 10 presses to the bar. 3, driving that heel away from you. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, almost there.

Circles are next. Keep the legs straight. 5 in each direction. Forward up and around. 1, 2, stability in the spine, movement in the hip. 3, 4, 5, reverse, 5, 4, 3, 2, And one. Easy. Fuck comes out of the strap.

Help yourself sit up. And we're going into a new move. And if you do have that blue spring on, I would say put a red on now. If you already have your red and you did that last series on a red, amazing. This move is Mermaid.

You love it. You know it. I've got one red spring. I have my legs in what's called a z set. My shin is against the shoulder blocks opposite leg par parallel to the front edge of that carriage. And arms kinda like a t shape, so extending from the chest.

On a breath and I'll push away from the foot bar and flex my spine to the side. I'm doing my best to keep my neck long. I always like to look up here, get an extra little stretch, then on an exhale I come through to the other side. And repeat. So pressing out and rising up. The challenge is to keep my hips heavy, and then just allow my spine that freedom of movement.

Awesome time to breathe here. Natural want to inhale when you laterally flex, right, get big when you side bend. Adding rotation So the next time I reach towards the foot bar, I'll hold, twist my chest down, and put both hands on the bar. Now I want you to feel like it's work to get that hand on. You should feel like your shoulders are level and also that sensation of scoop that we practiced in our reformer roll down.

Bending your elbows wide this time and pressing all the way out. So when I provide a hands on adjustment to my clients, when I teach this exercise, I help them to draw this shoulder down and this hip back So there's this opposition between the swan and push out. 5, 4, 3, 2, and one more. Press out. You always wanna get out of the exercise the same way you got into it, which was from here, and all the way up we go. Here's a magic trick.

Stay seated on your booty. Start to turn your body towards the back of your machine, windmill those legs over, and you're in the same position on the other side, ready for your presses out. Reach and return. I'd say in this exercise, particularly, I feel a really big difference between my left and right sides, and you might as well. If you're not able to get both sit bones down onto the mat, that's not a problem.

Just try to keep your hips as heavy as you can so that you can focus on moving the spine through lateral flexion. Lateral flexion is another way to say side bending. The next time we press towards the foot bar, we're gonna hold it. And come into our twist. Hands go on. Hands go wide.

Find the scoop. Nice wide elbows pushing. This isn't supposed to be the hardest push up you've ever done. It's about combining rotation of the spine with flexion, keeping the shoulders down. And teaching you tools that you'll need as you go through the practice.

The next time your arms are straight hold, lift up. Look up. And exhale press 5, 4, 3, To and don't forget to get out of the exercise as you got in. Slide that hand forward. There's your lateral flexion, all the way up and over you go. There's one more move I wanna do before you wrap up today's class. And this is a real important one to know because we do it a lot in our athletic condition.

It's a combination of doing a floor lunge and Eves lunge, so work and stretch. I'll leave that red spring on. I'm gonna place my hands onto my hips, push my inside foot against the shoulder block, whole foot is on outside foot under my hip, bending into my standing leg and extending the carriage leg back. I lean forward so that my spine feels long, and I use my body weight to load my glute on that standing side, and then rise to come back up. Back leg straightens all the way and rise to come up.

Lean into it, opening through the front of my back hit, and rise 3 more. And rise front knee travels forward towards my toes. And I can stand real close to the rail of the machine to help the alignment of that front knee on the next one hold. Take the back knee down, hands to the foot bar. Now it's time to stretch.

So I want you to think about your hips dropping even lower. Just kinda sinking into it should feel really good. Now using your hands and your standing foot, press out into whatever version of splits you got looks different each day for me, and then bend into the front knee. Back knee is down on the carriage, pressing down into my front heel, One more time. Bring the carriage in. And before you come up, I want you to take your outside hand up off the bar. Laterly flex.

Then take your inside hand off the bar, laterally flex. And the best way to go to the other side is go over your machine. So we'll start with the standing. We'll finish with the stretch. Standing foot is underneath my hip.

Back foot is against the shoulder block, diagonal lean, find that straight back leg, knee over toe alignment, and rise to come up. I have my hands on my hips for 2 reasons. 1, I can feel that my hips are not twisting, right, because I have my hands on them. 2, I can feel that my abdominals are engaging. So I can feel my core be drawn in.

Pulled away from my fingertips when I go into that low lunge. Last three? Last two. And this is the one that we're gonna hold for the stretch. Bend into that knee, hands go to the footbar, sink into it. Just let that hip open.

And then when you're ready, push back with your standing leg, Find that straight leg split position. Bend into the knee. It's really common to lift the hips up and come out of the stretch, out of that hip opening, and wants you to stay present on keeping the pelvis low. Last 2. Last one.

Bring the carriage in. Take the same ham to leg that's off. Laterly flex towards the carriage. Take the opposite hand to front leg off. Laterly flex.

Rise all the way up, and we're gonna finish today with the same thing we started with, which is our standing roll down. Hopefully you feel a little bit different. Hands behind the head, head presses into the hands, find that stacked alignment, nod your chin, intentional flexion to take you down. Keeping the hips over the heels. Big exhale while you're here.

Soft knees to rebuild. All the way up. Feeling a little bit taller. Tuck your chin. All the way down, feeling a little bit longer, right, in the spine.

One more time. Definitely feeling more open, more mobility. Oh, Pilates is the best. Alright. I hope you enjoyed this workout. Like I said, it's not an easy workout, but this is a great class to teach you the building blocks to continue to grow from, make sure you come back to this class, time to time to check-in on your form and alignment because you'll get so much more out of those dynamic classes when you have those foundations dialed.

I'll see you guys soon. Bye.