Straight Forward Reformer

Amy Haven's here. Hi, everybody. I'm so excited to be back in this room with you, with this water, with my team, and on this reformer that I love so much. So we're doing a really nice blended class. It's a little bit more function in it, and you'll have some exercises on the reformer and then some transitions that are outside. You will need a set of hand weights, £2, £3.

You can go up to 5 if you want. And I would like you to have some kind of dowel. It can be from your Cadillac. If you have one, if you don't have a dowel from Cadillac, you can use a broomstick. Something that looks like this, and you'll see why in a little while.

But I'm bringing this in because a lot of clients I teach have been saying things to me. Amy, I need better balance. I need to work on my grip strength. I need to work on how to get out of chairs and up. And, of course, we can do sections like that stand alone, but I also can use the reformer and those things in one workout. That's what I have for us. Okay? It's fun. It's really fun. And you get to balance a few different ways in class today. Alright? So stow your hand weights away, stow your dowel away, and we are starting with the leg work, foot, and leg work. And I've got pretty heavy springs.

I've got 3 red and a blue. I want you to go heavy. If you can tolerate all of them, that would be fantastic. And why I want you to go heavy is for strength. Okay?

Yes. So we're gonna do heels parallel. Get yourself in a good level position of your pelvis, hip bone, hip bone, pubic bone, in the same plane, easy press of the shoulders back, and just enjoy this stillness for a moment. 3 breaths inhale through the nose, and exhale either through the nose or softly through the teeth. You don't feel your whole body in this class today. So on the next one, start to feel your heels against the bar pulling down a little bit and hopefully that woke up the chain back here.

We're going 8 full extensions and doing some pulses with these today. So just moving inhale stretch and exhale bend. Anchles, inflection. Pull those heels down the bar a little bit, everybody. Kinda hug the mid line with your inner thigh connection and then pulses.

We're gonna go out and in out and in little movements for 8. Here's 5 and 6. And 7. And the 8th one, we always go back long. I love that full stretch from head to toe and then back in. Just a quick change to Pilates V. Same thing. Press work that midline.

And then bring it back in. So I want you to feel the inner thighs right away start to hug as soon as you push off the carriage, out of the bumper. Keep bringing those hit points down into the mat underneath me. I think heels or tailbone toward that end of the reformer. Not tail curled to the ceiling. It's tail toward the reformer frame.

And now our pulses. So it's halfway out. Anchor that big toe ball on the bar. 4 more. 3.

Good. And last one, remember all the way out, get those legs connected. And then bring yourself down. Swivel back out to parallel on the balls of the feet. Heels lifted a little bit. You wanna make sure that you're evenly weighted across the mar metatarsal heads and then extend making sure not to drop the heels or lift them any higher and want stability there.

That lends to better balance when we're standing on the floor later Nice and long through the whole body. Side to side, front and back. Okay. Little pulse is now. We have 8. 7.

Anchor into the big toe joint. Spread the pinky toe. Here's the last one. 8. Now when we stretch our calves today, not all the way to indulge that full lowering all the way underneath the bar, pretend you're standing on a jump board or a floor. Just lower your feet so you're relatively in line with the bar if you can get gauge what that is.

And then rise up from there. So we're not really gonna lose the contraction of the foot ankle or calf. As we would if we were to let the feet go all the way under. I want you to emphasize the power and the push up, the pull up okay, for 4 more. So it's up and up and up. It's different, isn't it? And up. And from there, bend your knees come all the way in. We'll do just one set of heels open.

Little turnout with this one, try to pull the heels in toward one another on the foot bar. We want that inner thigh work happening. Along with the front of the leg and the back of the leg. Pelvis is level. 5 and 6 and 7. Last full, 18. And then those little pulses for 8 Do you never really get a chance to rest the muscles you with this pull the heels toward each other on the bar? 5, 6, Last two where you go all the way out, feel the stretch, stretch stretch the work and the legs, and then bring yourself home. Okay.

Now we get to go back onto the balls of the feet. We're gonna do our walk in place. Same thing, though. We're not dropping the heel all the way under. It's smaller but I want you to emphasize the up. Okay?

One heel and both come up. One goes down. Pull yourself up down. It's not like it's a bad thing to indulge that stretch, but This footwork is to mimic the floor and how we use our feet against the floor. Right? We're gonna pick it up Emphasizing the up just for 4 and 3. Hopefully, your feet feel a little more alive, a little bit more work out for the ankles, and then we come back in. Okay.

Here's the first transition that's not on the reformer. We do sit to stand. This functional movement, you know it. I teach it a lot. So we flex at the hip joints. We crease. Now you can you put your hands on your thighs to stand you up. You could put your hands back here to stand you up, but, really, we're trying to build the strength to not have to use our hands. Right?

Again, I'm thinking about my clients who are in that 60 above, that's actually young. But they don't want to have to use their hands to get out of chairs. So we practice this transition. Pretty much every time we go from double legs to single leg footwork series. We're going through that hip hinge, pushing your feet into the floor.

And one more time, everybody, hip hinge to stand, and then just stay right there. K? Drop your tension. Keep 2 red springs or even two and a half. So medium ish tension. Whatever that means for you.

I've left 2 red. We're going back to heels parallel and going into a single leg. Now Take one leg up into a 90 90, and I do want you to be at 90 degrees here. We're gonna work our quad without pressure from the springs. Push the carriage and extend this knee.

You can extend your ankle or flex the ankle. You could do a little bit of both. But we're just gonna do first, like, four movements here, guys. Work the quad muscles right here by your knees. You should feel that with your hand, I'm gonna have you stop at number 4.

Now flex your foot for sure and go out abduct your leg and adduct your leg. So you're sweeping, working a different plane of motion for the is in your pelvis while you're standing stable on the other leg. Okay. Bring it back to center, rebend the knee, and come back down. Same thing on the other side. I just like to put my hand here as I know I'm not taking the thigh any closer to me, so we extend and bend. And I really want you to use those quads right there by your knee.

Sometimes they wanna squeeze. They like the feedback. There's your 4. Okay. Now we went out without rocking the pelvis. We come back in and across the midline.

You'll notice also you'll get some stretch in various angles of your leg. Right? When you open, you're gonna feel stretch here most likely. Outside line here. Here's your 4th one across. Bring it to center re bend. We start all over, ball of the foot, of the, their foot, same knee extension, and one. Pull it down.

Press 2. Pull it down. 3 knee extension. The 5 doesn't come close or hold right here. Now this leg stretch it, touch the bar, lift it up, and stretch, touch the bar, move from the hip joint, Two more pelvis is stable and you're strong on the opposite leg, that's all. Bend the knee and come back in.

Second leg starts in knee flexion and 1. Bend and 2. Bend. Keep dropping and anchoring the tailbone pubic bone here, right, and down. And lift reach it longer a little longer.

And the last one there for and up rebend and come all the way in. Okay? So your next transition sit to stand We get to do it with some hand weights. So it's the same sit to stand. What I'm gonna do though when I come up to standing is reach my arms above my head. If you're not ready for reaching above the head, you may just wanna hold them here. I'll show a couple like that.

So the first hinge you press to stand You can absolutely just keep it here, which is a lot. Right? We wanna push our feet into the floor activating those hips and glutes are stand up muscles. Now if you want a little more, That little burst of arms above head gets our heart rate to do just a little extra Whatever that means. A little extra. Right? Push and lift hinge and sit a couple more times.

Moving the weight and your last one now and lift and then sit all the way down. Good. We can stow these for now, putting those back. And then I'd like us to change the spring tension to relatively light. I'm choosing a blue. Nothing else needs to be on.

We're facing the back. Some will call this reverse abdominals, knee pulls, hip flexion, lumbar flexion, it's abdominal focus. Core focus. So I'd like us to start in neutral spine. Take a moment. Reach your head forward, elongate.

Get your shoulder set where you need to be down your back. And now tuck the toes. There is that toe bend that's essential. Take a breath. Without moving the carriage, everybody, load your arms, load your legs, and just lift your knees up and hold. Hold, hold, and we set it down.

So we go ahead and exhaling up. We're trying to establish this long spine position, feel the trunk muscles engaged to support that 2, 3, and 1 more. 1, 23 and lower. Good. Tuck your toes down or bend your feet this way. I would love for us to put both hands on one side of your reformer and bring both knees in front of one shoulder rest.

Neutral spine or long spine. Let's work four pulls here, and then we'll take 4 pulls inflection. They're both valuable. Ready? And exhale pull. Control the return.

Press. So my hands are pressing down on the carriage edge. The frame, but lightly. I'm trying to maximize the muscles in my abdominal area, and my shoulder girdle. And then we do flexion of the lumbar spine. Exhale.

Try to control the return back. We're working posterior rotation of the pelvis. And one more for 4. We're such great, happy, excited bodies that get to do that knee lift twice more. Okay. In between those.

So get yourself at the ready, neutral, toes are tucked, breathe, lift, and hold for 3. 2. 1, you come down with control. 1 more and lift. 2, 3, and come down with control.

Other knee, other side, hands to the side Get a neutral spine to begin. Maybe think of shoulders down the body toward hips and hips up toward ribs. What does that give you? Does that give you what it gave me a nice contraction in my lats and obliques? I don't wanna drop the tailbone. Pulling the knees toward the hands.

Okay? That's feel great. I could have probably done 8, but we'll do 4 like this inflection. Next time. 1, Yeah. 2. Post here your rotation.

Shoulders toward hips, hips towards shoulders. There's 4. We're so lucky we get 1 more set. Knee lifts for 2. Ready. Tuck the toes, breathe in.

And lift and hover 1, 2, 3. And if anyone's feeling fancy, it won't be me. You could try to reach one arm off the carriage or off the frame. Some people probably could do that and let it come down. Okay. Tuck back and just rest into a little rest shape for a second, everybody. Take a few breaths into your back.

Next transition, we need those arm weights again for some standing arm movement. So Coming into standing, I'd love to stand in a pilates v. Keep it kinda traditional. Standing chest expansion first. So we did a lot of flexion there, so we went around and opened this one.

So let's just press back. Four times with the palms facing back, right, and feet are just flat on the floor. And press change your hand position palms face in for 4. The arm bones are long to go back. And 3, and 4, one more change position.

Palms face forward as you move your arms back. Each one presents a nice opportunity for your tricep muscles of your arms. Okay. Next is reaching pull. Palms face your body. Notice my elbows are not facing directly forward.

That would close my chest wall. I wanna stay open. So that's a natural position for my shoulders. You'll all have yours. Feel your shoulder blades down.

One arm comes forward, it's a reach and you pull it back in. Other side, you reach and you pull it in. So it might look like punching, right, from the traditional arm work, stay on tall, and in and 1. 4 more rounds. So it's a reach. Pull it in.

Pull it in to shoulder height and pull it in, reach 2 more rounds, punch, and reach Punch. Oh, I feel so good. And reach and reach. The last one here is book opener. It's a good one. Can be challenging. So if we start with our arms up, now elbows are a little more forward, but they're still for me, not directly in front of me, I have mine open so my shoulders can be dropped. We want to open the cover of our book.

Home still facing your head. Shoulder blades not gripped and pinched. There's a lot of words there. Come back to center. So If this is troubling your neck, lower the shape of the arms, right, you could still be very functional down here.

No problem. Maximize it up here. You're gonna feel more load in your upper back. More work for the stabilizers of their shoulders. We know we love that.

And Pilates is so important. Couple more book opener. Okay. Last one, you're gonna keep it open. This is getting kind of tricky. Open your arms, bicep curls eight times one.

Again, if your arms are pooped, lower it down. Notice I'm only stopping, though, in that little right angle. I'm not coming all the way in. I wanna pre contract those biceps before I pull 4. Keep those arms up chest as proud.

And last 2 and last one and open and down. Okay. Roll your shoulders a couple of times. Good. And wonderful. Okay. Great. So that was also some grip strength, but it was mainly arms and connection to your trunk.

We're going to stow those down, and then everyone's time to get our box. Alright? So as we get our box, we're gonna go in a long box set up. Alright. So hinge to get your box, bring it toward you. Bring it on to the reformer.

Know that your dowell is underneath. That's okay. Now with the bar for sequence, I'd like it to be low. Alright? So change it to the low bar. There you go. And also springs we're just going to keep it on the blue. So we're going prone on your abdominals.

Size this up first I love this way is just stacking the forearms on the bar and head down. Depending on the length of your torso, and legs. This just really is. Some of us are gonna have the chest over the edge. Some of you will have your chest on the box. I think I'd like to just preface it.

Make it feel comfortable because you'll be here for just a little bit. First things first, we get to stretch our quadricep. So notice that I bent money, hand on the ankle, and forehead stays on the hand. If this is too much for you, You can also grab your pants. If you have your pants like that, you can hold. If that isn't a a option for you, you can just bend your knee towards you.

Like I'm doing there. Okay? No need to worry. But if you're doing where I'm at, I want to flex my ankle I'm kicking it into my hand. I'm pressing my pelvis for me on my box and I feel the thigh. That's what I want you to feel.

If you have it in you, raise that thigh an inch, you don't have to go high. That's not what this is about. Connect your pelvis into your box. What's the shoulder doing? I have it open. I'm kicking into my hand.

That's an active quad stretch. Relax it, lower that foot down. We have the other one to do. First, get your pelvis organized, hip hip pubic bone. Flex the ankle.

Notice the difference if you're pointed and flexed. It works the quadriceps differently. Kick it towards your hand. Open your shoulder, press the hit points into the box, actively work in the quad, And again, if you have it in, you try to raise the thigh a little bit. Reading deeply. Relax your foot, relax your hand, and bring your hand on your hand.

Wonderful. Now you need that to bend both knees. I want everyone to flex both feet again and press your elbows now into your bar. Shoulders below. And raise your head barely up and enter 2 above your hands. I want you to look forward I want you to use your neck and look toward the wall that's in front of you.

We're not going higher with the chest. Not a swan yet is coming. This is neck and upper thoracic extension. I'm really tempted to lift off the box this way. Stay low. It's for your neck.

We need strong necks. It's okay to do this move and then head down. You can straighten your legs to do the sequence. Lift your head. Look forward.

Keep looking forward. Look toward the wall. Maybe image that you're kind of rolling your ears backward. Yeah? We wanna counter the head position that many of us are in for too many hours per day, which is head forward.

And looking down, It's okay. Stick your chin out a little. Stick your chin out. I know it's silly and look up. You should feel the back of your neck, and it's okay to feel that. However, come on down. We're gonna do a cervical rotation. So you press your elbows on your bar.

You float your head up. I wanna look at you. I bet I can kinda see you're gonna churn. I'm listening toward the floor with my ear. Going through the center.

Use the other side. Look toward the wall. Let your ear face the floor, pelvis is still organized. Look down to your hands and put your head down. We have that to the other side.

You can rebend your knees. Blow at your head. Rotate your cervical spine. Look down toward the springs. Look toward the other side, cervical rotation, extremely important, like down toward the bar, lower your head and lower your legs for a moment. Okay.

Moving on, we're gonna put our hands right here on the corners of the bar And for the first round, elbows down, bend the knees again. Chest doesn't come up any higher, and I'd like us just to push. And bend. And you're working to even pressure with both arms on the bar, both hands on the bar, Helvices level, my tailbone reaching to heels, abdominals up the front. 4 more shoulder presses, try it with elbows out.

That won't be for everybody. You'll know right away if it feels uncomfortable in your shoulders, That's for you down here. Okay? So we don't lift our chest yet. I have my knees bent for a reason. And three, imprint the pubic bone.

And 4. Okay. Now everyone straighten your legs. Put your elbows into place that it felt most comfortable for you. Alright? We are going now 4 swans. So wherever you are, I'm gonna put my midway. Start to press and hold.

Use that head, neck, and eyes cue. Look over your bar, look forward. Now the chest comes up. But we have a low bar, so we don't have to go very high. Focus on your sternum lifting up.

Okay? Engage those legs up. Pull your tummy up. Press yourself back so you're beautifully long. And bend to come in.

We do that three more times. Press. So with this lighter spring here, you're having to do the back work on your own. We're not getting the feedback from that spring. Lift. Use your muscles.

And press yourself back. Okay? Bend it in. Last 2 weeks, press back. Most natural shoulder blade position on the back.

The front spine is enjoying that lift looks straightforward. Get those legs to kick up a little bit and reach out one more time. A good prone shoulder press into Swan is always a good good exercise in class in my book. Lift lift lift. And come back down and all the way in, we need to enjoy a child's pose type of stretch on the box. I think. I like to let my ankles hang over the edge because that way I'm not caught up on the feet, and you can actually slope the lower back to sacrum down towards your heels.

Hands on the box, you could actually kind of push yourself back a little bit. See, I'm doing that to push to open up that c curve. Take a few breaths. And then we have another transition We're gonna stand up and use that dowel, the one I kicked underneath the reformer. So come on up. And stand or sit on your box.

Whatever your body's needing right now, I'm gonna stand for us. And I want you to put your hands on your towel thumb with fingers. See how my arms are in line with my shoulders. Raise your dowel could be here. It could be here. I think you probably know what I'm gonna say. Easier, more challenging.

Okay. Open one hand. Close it. Open the other. Close. Just do that again. Try to keep your bar level.

It's not as easy as it looks. And as you wrap your hand, use the muscles in your hand. Use your grip, even the pads of the fingers. I'm pulling up underneath the under part of the bar. Right?

Now change that to open it. Let go. Grab it and roll it. Make the wrist move. Open. Grab roll wrist, open grab, roll wrist, right, without sinking it, just do it.

I'm emphasizing my wrist at this point. Wrist wrist wrist. 1 more each side. Now grip level. Try to bend the wrist down, knuckles up, and hold that.

And then level it and hold it. Let the rest bend and hold it forward. Level risk. So we're bending them, leveling on purpose, bending them, and leveling on purpose. Now open let go grab it roll it backward. So fingers are gonna be this way.

Grab roll toward you. Down grab roll toward you. It's hard to do slow down grab roll. Down grab roll. Now if I just think it and move with it wrist wrist wrist wrist wrist for 3, oops, 2, 1, grab and relax for a second.

Just feel what you feel. Probably lots of buzz through hand carpal tunnel. Grip. Okay. Now up we go, no wrist. It's a smaller move.

I'm keeping my hand kind of in this claw like motion, but I'm trying to go faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, Good. Keep breathing, standing tall. 4321. Rolled backward. Try not to bend the wrist now. Right? Just feel the connection into your upper back. Hopefully, yours is feeling like mine is lit up like a big, bright Christmas tree.

And 4, 3, 2, 1, pause, feel it. It should be pretty easy to feel. I dead center between the shoulder blades and around the blades. Right? That's where these connect back here. You need that now. Let's stow this away.

I'm gonna put it against the wall. And then because we don't need it anymore, box safe here. Let's change the tension down. I'm gonna go the lightest spring I have on this reformer. We're at yellow. Okay. Why am I doing you'll see I love to incorporate balance with everybody, not just balance on one leg, although that's great.

Come up top. Turn around. Get a quadruped position. Okay. The bar is still there. Yep. Check that it is.

You haven't dropped your bar. In fact, just reach a foot back. Just assure yourself it's there. Okay? You'll use it in a moment. What I want us to do is pick up a strap in one hand You can use the loop that you have. You could choke up and make it more taut.

Whatever your arm feels like it can handle right now. Use that. Choking up is kind of nice. I'll give you a hint. Okay. Now square shoulder girdle knees below hip, we're just doing some good old triceps.

Never. Never a bad idea. Now use the grip. We just worked. Grip with your hand. Feel that strength all the way up to your shoulder.

We'll do 2 more, 5, and 6. Okay? Now keep it in a bend. Bring your body all the way up to the high kneeling. Balance, balance, balance.

I want you to focus at whatever you're looking at in front of you. Don't shift your eyes. Focus. Use your eyes. They help our balance system immensely. How to get back down? We have another set.

Crease at your hips. There's that hip hinge. The box is right there. Set that hand down. How'd you do? Good.

6 more on this arm. You're neutral. You've been in this before. You can use your inner thighs toward one another a little bit. Use those grip muscles, guys.

5. You get 1 more well, I'll You get one more attempt here just like this coming up. So I haven't straightened my arm. You could little more balanced challenge there. Right? If you rebend, just notice.

You're at you're playing with forward backward vectors right here. So stay with the bend. Here's the deal. If you wanna use your hand on the box, you can. I'm not going to. I'm going to hinge and come back up using the backside.

Tushy tush time. Hip flexion. Look at that headrest. That's the hip hinge and up 4 in this sequence, and then we have the other side to do. Really helps to track your eyes in the direction you are going hold.

Fun. I think it's fun. I've had a lot of clients say, oh, hard, and they do well. Like a challenge. That's not always the same. Okay. So here we go.

Quadruped elbow bent grip. Hold it like you mean it. 6 tricep kickbacks. How would you progress this? I'll just ask that for teachers that are watching, you know, what you could do. You could do bird dog leg if you want.

I'm not in this class. You could if you wanted to. When you know your crew is real balanced. Alright. That was our 6. So mindful as you engage your glutes hamstrings, hip extensors, and just hold the strap.

Gaze forward. Like a warrior right there. Right? And flex at the hips, come back down. 6 more. Yeah. Balance doesn't always mean standing on one leg. It's how we're managing against movement of in here, the springs, forward back motion.

We're high up off the ground. That in of itself is a balanced moment. Okay. That was your 6. So now hold that arm bent. Use your hamstrings, use your glutes, and you power yourself up.

K? Now four times the hip hinge, if you need this hand, please use it on the on the box. Otherwise, you're just flexing at your hips. That was fun using the hamstrings and the glutes. Looking forward, crease in the hips.

So it's a kind of a central not to tug on the other arm or the arm that's holding the strap, that'll move the carriage. We don't want to do that. Carriage relatively still. I'm noticing some nice things about the side of my body. We and up.

Okay. Now here's the next one on the knees. We're not gonna be here much longer. I do want you to settle both hands on the corners and then take your feet one foot back at a time, of course, at a time and just push yourself out into half of the bird dog. Right? It's your hip extension. You don't have to go anywhere else.

If your balance is feeling enough right here, just stay there. If you wanna add the opposite arm lift, yeah, You could also take it to the side. The little less difficult than arm reaching forward. And then put the hand down. That's all we're gonna do with that, everybody. Feel free to do more if you want.

Foot on the bar. Thank goodness. Reach it out. Beautiful hip extension. This knee should be right underneath that hip.

Solid leg on the bar. Arm forward or out to a tee. And for me, this feels a little bit better. Today. And then I want you to set your hand down and then bend the knee and come all the way back And guess what?

We get that round stretch once again into that little rest pose. That's a lot on the back that we were up there. Put your hands on the muck and push and push good. We're doing great. We're gonna change the box to short box, but, no, we're not. First, we're gonna do a standing balance challenge coming around to you.

So remember at the beginning of the class, I said something about strength in standing single leg stance? Okay. That could be this. Let's just try that. That's pretty easy.

By the way, this calf is against the wood of the reformer. You don't have to have it there, but there's some safety there. I know that the reformer is right behind me. Okay? Now center yourself between in the box. Take one foot onto the ball of the foot, bend both knees.

I want you to hip hinge again. We know the box is right behind us. So why don't we just reach back a little bit and feel, yes, the box is there. Sit phones just touched it and move away from it. Okay? All the way up. Just practice that a couple times.

Now the progression, the challenge would be for us to move away from that reformer because as we start to hinge back It's farther behind us where the heck is the box. You've really gotta get yourself back there with your sit bones to touch the box. And I do want you to touch the box with your sit bones. Okay? And a couple more. So you're getting that hip hinge fundamental.

We do so much here with that. Now that's with this foot on the floor. If you wanted to progress and try to do single leg sitting back toward the box, Hello. Up challenge like crazy. Mhmm.

Now what would be really Challenge yep. There we go, touched a couple more, is later to maybe have the box as the moon box or something lower. So we'd really have to go low as we go down. I think you know what I mean. Knowing that long box is pretty tall and I get my butt to it. Yeah. I know it's there. That's a lot. Single leg, other side. So we started with the foot on the floor.

Bend your knees and hinge. And, boom, there's the box. And jump. Alright. And you're getting pretty good tracking of your knees. Pretty simple with the foot on the floor. If you're ready to progress yourself, come forward and then reach requires a much bigger hinge, mobility in your hip, and a stretch here, and then use that to come up.

Right? We did 4, and then we took the big challenge. Alright. I'm gonna move back. Okay. So the leg comes up. Bend, crease.

Trust it. Trust. Trust. Trust. Trust. It's also as you can see, what is going on for me is ankle stability work, stabilization work, key for balance, There it goes. Mind a body. So I anchored my big toe joint is what I tried to do. Heal big toe joint.

There it went. Good old mind body work. Sometimes you have to slow it down. Do a standing roll down real quick. Easy, easy. Everybody standing, roll down, and roll yourself up.

Now we changed it to a short box. I'm so excited for the short box because it's a fun new stretch I have for us. I think a little variation on an Eve's lunge, and we will do red instead of yellow. And move your bar back up to your high bar setting. Okay. I'm gonna come in the front to show you this first one. And so Side sit, make sure your box is even on your reformer, so you don't wanna fall off.

And I want you to be right on the edge. So my groin is right on top of the edge of the box. This foot is stable against the front. This guy, you can see where it is. Hip extension.

That in and of itself should feel quite nice. You can stay just like that. I'm on the ball of the foot. And what if you wanna go forward, take your arm up, and we are going to side bend. Can you reach to the other side of your box?

There's a strap there. You might even be able to reach that strap. Now I don't want us to swivel in toward the box, and then we don't need to swivel out, although we could. Try to go right in your lateral flexion, energy in your leg. If you feel like going farther, everybody, you could bend your elbow down to the box and straighten and bend going a little deeper and up one more time.

Beautiful hip flexor stretch with lateral flexion and bring yourself up. Get out of it by hopping that foot forward. Stay on it. Take a little moment. All is going well.

We walk to the other side. So all these moments of balance for teachers that are watching class It's it's a way to in integrate balance exercises in a pretty sneaky little way that clients do well with. I've I have found So you're on the ball of the foot. This is sable. The leg is parallel back there.

Your hips are square. Elongate now up with the arm. If you're going there, walk this hand toward the strap Hold on. Side been toward it. Breathe deeply.

This elbow can bend. Heaven and stretch, keep bringing that pelvis into facing the foot bar. And stretch. How does that feel? Oh, I heard everyone say it.

It feels great. K. Come on up. Good. Now we sit right here. And I think everyone knows what a plank looks like. Right? So we're gonna try a little plank here.

Here's the deal. You'd bend those toes, so we've just done that position for your feet a few different times. Your parallel. Trust yourself. Put your hands on your bar. There's your hip hinge.

Hold on with your hands, grip like we did with the dowel, push out, and just hold your plank line. Hold that or come with me. I'm bending and straightening. We're not pushing off the shoulder line. This is really hip joint.

Hip joint. Hip joint. Hip joint. Please bring it in. Sit back down. The box is there. We just did all that stuff with the box.

We're gonna go one more round. Okay. Trust yourself. Ready? Push it out and hold it. You could also just hold it, but I wanna do 4 and back.

3. Back. They'll very strong. Use your quadriceps to push. And in. And let's hold and hold and hold.

Bring it in and sit on down. Fabulous. Bring one leg up over the bar. I've got my ankle kind of calf on there and want you to reach towards your bar a flat back or a round back and bend towards your leg. Breathe deeply. Stretch those wonderful hamstrings.

Bring your body up. That same leg, I'm gonna have you cross your ankle over your knee, your figure 4 stretch, Great use of the straps of the box. Put your hands in those straps. Pull up, bend forward. We're not collapsing.

We're lifting and bending. Open this back up. Try to be even on your sitting points. Go as far into it as feels comfortable. So these kind of primary stretches, hip flexors, hamstrings, hips, sneaking them in, hamstrings here, reach, and bend.

We're not locking your knee. Some of you are real bendy. You can touch the toes. Usually 3 to 4 breath cycles in each shape. We're doing so great, everybody.

Come on up. So figure 4, use that box, pull up with your arms, how tall can you sit, and then flex the spine softly forward. You can pull the abdominals back to support this. Stay even on the sit points. I think the sitting bone points, that's probably the most primary.

Coaching for me if you wanna know where you're organized. But if you have it in you and you wanna go farther further farther, does feel good. Okay. We have a standing balance exercise now. And then we have something special. Can't tell you yet.

So we take our box away. I think it's special. And as we do this standing balance, I think it's better to go light. For me here, blue. I'm gonna use this footbar as my center, so my navel is in line with it.

It's also there if you need it to hold on to. But we're gonna take our inside foot externally rotated. The arch of the heel is right on the arch of the Carrick. And now we push. My standing leg is also an external rotation.

Now I'm gonna tell you Can I I'm gonna show you because that's what I'm teaching you? Here's the easy way. See what I just did there? I kind of rode the spring, and I just rode along. It feels good, and I I am balancing but it's not as specific as I want it to be. No shifting.

This is solid. So if you do not push this leg very far, so be it. If you can, it's gonna come from back there. The rotators of your hip. 4 to 6 of these is plenty.

You could add some elbows up here. Oh, that made it better for me. And I also like to add row patient of the trunk a little bit away from the working leg. Let's go 3 more and exhale. Twist.

That brings a little bit of vestibular work, which is another balance system. Alright. And lastly, don't change it yet. Take your arms out. Lift that foot up off there and just hold for four.

3, 2, and 1, voila. K? Other side. I love that sequence. So foot on the mat, on the carriage, external rotation, standing leg, external rotation. I won't show you what not to do.

You know now what not to do. We're trying to stay elegantly strong. On our standing leg. There's a detail I didn't tell you about before, which is the foot. The toes should stay down. Okay?

Keep the toes down. I'm gonna raise my elbows. Gaze forward. Add a little rotation of the trunk away from the working leg, which really challenges your standing on that leg organization. I'm not turning much. Here's our last one.

What we're not quite done, arms go out. Look at something in front of you. Use your visual system and hold for 4. Whatever you wanna do, 3, 2, and 1. And bring it down.

Fun. I think it's fun. Gotta have fun. Okay. Now comes the fun part. Another fun part. 2 red springs, please.

Lieback. Now we're going to jump. Yes. Little jumps. I said this to a client recently. I call them hops for her, and she just turned and said, I don't hop. And I said, well, you're gonna hop right now. She she did it. She thought I meant out here.

And so really what this is, why I'm bringing this in is appropriately reception. We know the bars there. We know our feet are on the bar right now. We've been on it. We've been over here.

The bar is the floor. The floor is bar. So if we do just little hops, I'll show you teeny tiny, your feet and your your brain knows where your feet are. And your feet know where the bar is. We're not powerful explosion jumps like jump word, might be. Take it easy. You're you're building some trust, and you're not looking down at your feet. Look, I'm looking up at the at the ceiling here.

Now if you felt like going farther, trust yourself. Your feet might not make it. You could crash in. I've seen it. I've heard it a few times. It happens.

Right now it's we're doing good. I'm not getting this repetition because it's kind of one of those moments we just do it, and we then say, I'm that's enough. I don't know what that's gonna be for you. But because I'm in a structured setting somewhat, I'm gonna give us a countdown now from 4. Yes. You could do single leg.

I'm not doing that with us. Simple. Remember, hold. How did you do? It's kinda fun. Right? I think it's fun. Oh, you want another set? No.

We'll do it next time. Guys take your knees up towards your chest. Cross your ankles. Hands on your feet. Fold yourself in. If this is not available to you or your client's knee joints, find another way to stretch.

I just I'm gonna give the hips a little stretch And then a big stretch this way, surprise, and then cross the other ankle over. So because of my clientele that I teach in my private work is mainly people over 60, It really allows me to think outside in, you know, normal traditional functional work of Pilates on in the repertoire, and that's perfectly functional. But it's also interesting to me to sprinkle in little bits that are daily functional, standing on a leg, holding other things. So that's why I wanted to bring that in and let me know how it goes for you and your clients. I hope you had fun, and I really look forward to seeing you again soon.