Core Crusher

Hi, everyone. Welcome to day 1 of the challenge. We are going to do a class called core crusher. But don't worry. We're gonna make sure to hit all the parts of the body.

Thank you so much for joining me. Let's get started. We're gonna start on 1 red spring, one heavy bring, and we're gonna step inside the well. You're gonna bring your stance about 2 or 3 feet away from your headrest. Bring your hands down onto your shoulder rest and nod your chin into your chest.

As you gaze down to your legs, draw your kneecaps up, draw your navel up towards your spine, but then send your shoulders back and down because remember that we can round our spine without rounding our shoulders. So we're gonna pin those shoulders back and down while rounding up through the spine. My legs are in Pilates v. I'm gonna take a deep breath in right here. And as I exhale, I'm gonna pull the carriage underneath me.

Now as the carriage comes under me, I'm gonna actually rise up slightly so that I can sustain the rounded shape of my spine. But then with an inhale, I'm gonna move the carriage away, and I'll lower down a little bit again. Now you can always adjust your stance. I'm gonna step forward just about 1 inch to give myself a little less tension on the spring so I can activate my core more breathe into prepare. As you breathe out, pull the carriage underneath you.

Let your spine rise up slightly and then with an inhale, move the carriage forward. Do that twice more. Just getting the feeling in your body, rise up slightly, then inhale, move it away. Once again, at hail pulls it under and send it away. Now before you do your next repetition, take an extra moment to send the shoulders a little back and down. Think of squeezing your armpits slightly down towards your hips.

Draw the skin of the tummy up away from your t shirt just a little bit tighter and breathe in. Now as you breathe out, rely more on your abdominals less on your arms, and you, we can do that with just your mindset. With an inhale move the carriage away. Again, power from your center. That carriage pulls towards you, but it's your belly that's in control of moving it.

With an inhale. Move it away. We're doing this twice more. Exhale. Pull it under isolate from your center. Move the carriage away. And one more time, exhale pull it back and send it away.

Now we're gonna take our feet. We're gonna turn them parallel and rotate them to, like, 10 o'clock on a clock. So my toes are pointed slightly to the left. I'm gonna take more weight and place it into my right hand. I lighten my left hand slightly. Before I do the first pull, I'm gonna draw all those kneecaps up pull the right side up into my spine and take a deep inhale.

As I breathe out, I move that carriage underneath me trying to squeeze the right shoulder down to the hip. And with an inhale, I move that carriage away. With an exhale, I'm trying to isolate the right side oblique pulling that carriage towards me with an inhale. I move it away. Now really note my pace. Exhale. I'm bringing it under, and then I'm holding for just a second to really ensure that I'm using my abs more than my arms. Carriage rolls forward.

That's an inhale. Exhale. Pull it under. This is for. Inhale. Move it away.

Last one. Make sure not to rush. Pull that carriage under, send the armpit to the hip, feel that right side oblique activation, and move the carriage away. Don't forget how that feels. Send your feet the other way. So we're going to 2 o'clock on the clock.

Little more weight in the left hand trying to isolate the left side body. I breathe into prepare. With an exhale, I pull that carriage under, squeezing the left shoulder down to the left tip, and move that carriage away. Be careful not to rush this Exhale. Pull it under and find the very depth of your exhale.

Inhale. Move it away. This is 3. A little moment of applause. Inhale moves it away. 2 more exhale, armpit squeezes to the hip.

Inhale. Moves that carriage away. Last and best. Exhale. Get there. Get all of the breath out and move the carriage away.

We're gonna return the feet back to the center. Now trying to connect to those obliques, we're also gonna add the center, what I call the center belly. So with your hands on the shoulder rest, Puff up into your back a little bit, but pin those shoulders back and down. Think about the way you felt the obliques working, breathe into prepare. And as you breathe up, breathe out, draw the kneecaps up, pull the carriage under, squeeze the armpits to the hips.

We're finding the oblique connection with the low belly And with an inhale, we move it away. So we're doing 3 more like this. Exhale pull that carriage under. Deep Then from the belly, inhale move the carriageway as you do these last 2. Think about how your abs are being in troll of moving your arms here. Inhale. Move that carriage away here as your last one.

Exhale. Pull it. We're gonna hold for an extra long moment, draw the kneecaps up, draw the navel to the spine, pull those ribs in tight, and move the carriage away. To get a little counter position here, let's send our feet back. Just find a little plank, breathe in. As you breathe out, can you access your core in the same way that you just felt it while you were doing that series.

Take another deep breath in take it into a little petite swan, open through the chest, then draw the chin in. Walk the feet a little bit wider. Just take it into a quick down dog for a stretch. Deep breath in here. Long breath out.

Now we're gonna use that connection of our arms to our core as we go through the rest of this workout. The next exercise is footwork. I'm gonna go to 3 reds 3 heavies on this balanced body reformer. Do whatever feels right for you at home. On your back, bring yourself up against your shoulder rests.

Find Pilates. V stands with your feet and just raise your arms up to the ceiling above you. Take a deep breath in. As you've read out, you're gonna imagine you're moving your arms through resistance similar to the way that you just pulled the carriage underneath you. As you bring those hands down and eventually make contact with the mat, you're gonna connect to the obliques and the low belly the same way you did standing. Just do that one more time.

Raise the arms up, inhale. Pull those arms down, exhale, and just connect to your center by using pressure of your hands into the carriage. You'll begin your footwork, inhale takes you up, exhale brings you in, breathe it in, So sometimes what I like to do is release the effort of my arms pressing as I inhale up, but then I regroup it as I bend my knees to come in. Inhale. 6 and 7 8, use that breath.

Think about how you found that long exhale while standing a moment ago. Out and in. Let's take it to bird feet, wrap the toes over the bar, one time arms in the air, inhale. Arms come down, exhale. Make that contact with the carriage. Activate your center.

Inhale takes you up and exhale it in. 2, 3, and 4. 5. Let the neck tension go. Sometimes when we focus on the arm pressure and the, abdominals too much, the neck grabs Let the net go on vacation.

Continue the energy everywhere else. We're gonna come and take it to the heels. Flexing through the feet one time arms to the ceiling, exhale arms come down and inhale takes you up. 2. And the whole time you're moving, you're keeping that connection of the arms to the mat deepening through the low valley, activating through the sides.

7 910. We'll go back to Pilates v stands for heel lower and lift. Inhale takes you up. I want you to exhale. Press the heels down. And deep in low belly, side body, raise the heels, breathe it in.

Using this as an opportunity to really use your breath control, and to find those abdominals. I find this to be the easiest place in footwork to find this connection. So as my heels go down, I draw the belly in, and my sides draw in like an hour glass shape. Exhale, heels press. Inhale up. Up, down.

Up, last one, down. And up, just simply bend the knees to come all the way in, and we're gonna sit up and change our spring. So I'm gonna drop the spring down to just one spring. I'm gonna go down to a blue spring on this balance body reformer. When you lay on your back, you wanna scoot off your shoulder rest a little bit.

So that you've got some space between the shoulders and the rest. Your spring is very, very light. So slide back slowly. We're gonna do 100 beats here, but I'm gonna start with a little prep. So inhale, breathe in as you exhale nod the chin to the chest curl up and just take a second to reach your arms long.

You're gonna take another inhale here. As you exhale, could you curl just a little higher? Put your hands behind your head. Don't lose that curl. Now breathe in again.

As you breathe out, your heels are gonna press under the bar. As the heels go under the bar. I want you to think of lifting your heels up to the bottom part of that foot bar and then raise the heels in him. Heels go down again. As you breathe out, find the depth of the exhale, think of sending your heels up to the bar, lock into a slightly higher curl, You feel that shimmy? Raise the heels up inhale. You're gonna do it again.

You're gonna press the heels down. And as they go down, you're thinking, send the heels up, lock into the curl, curl a little higher. We're actually gonna do a set of 8 crunches just to ensure that we're at our highest curl 3 because sometimes there's just a little more 5, 6, 7, hold up on 8. Now you're gonna hold right here. Take your arms, reach them long beside you. And you're gonna breathe in and out ten times.

Breathe it in. 2, 3, 4, 5 in out. So the whole time you're doing this, your heels are kind of lifting upward. It's almost like you're slipping your feet up the bar. As you do that, you lock into your best curl, Feel those ribs slide down as if the tips of the ribs are gonna touch those pelvic bones. Breathe it in.

Breathe it in and out. Inhale. And exhale. 2 more long breaths. Let it in.

And now final breath. Don't worry. It's not over. We're gonna hold right here. We're gonna take the hands, put them behind the head again, and we're doing another set of crunches going for 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, hold up on 1. Take your right knee. Pull it to a tabletop.

Rotate up to that knee. Now your left foot is still pushing up into the bar to keep those left side obliques alive. Crunch 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 32, and 1. You're gonna come back to the middle. Extend your leg to the ceiling above you. Lower that leg with an exhale towards the bar, kick it up. Don't lean back.

Lower the bar. Lower the leg curl a little higher. Kick the leg. Don't lean back. Lower the leg. Lift it up. Don't lean back this time. 4th one, we put the foot on the bar with both feet on.

5 more crunches. 5 4, 3, 2, and 1. We're gonna take a quick rest. Here's the other side. We breathe into prepare. We'll nod the chin to the chest. I'll take a second here.

Let's take the heels, push them down, Think lift the heels up to the bar. 8 crunches in the middle. Go. 1. 2, 3. Now we lift and hold. Don't lean back as you draw the left knee up to table.

Keep pushing the right foot into the bar. Rotate left. Go. 8, 7, 4, 2, and 1. We're back to the middle. High curl leg goes up with an inhale. Lower the leg as you exhale curl just a little higher. Kick the leg up.

Don't lean back. Lower the leg. This is too. Lift the leg. Don't lean back. 3. K. Get up on the 4th when the foot comes down.

Both feet are on that bar, and it's 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 rest down. We're gonna bend the knees to come all the way in, sit up, do a quick spring change, We're gonna go to 2 reds for coordination. We'll go ahead and get the footbar down as well. Reaching for your straps, pull the elbows into the sides, Now don't forget the way you just curled with those feet pushing up on the foot part, inhale, prepare with an exhale nod the chin to the chest. Come up. You're gonna go inhale out. Open, close. Ben, knees 1.

Cur a little higher and send them out. Open close. Think about the way you push those feet up. Reach it out 3. Open close. You're in for the highest curl you've got and out. 4. Open close. Niece and arms last one out, open close, knees bent. Arms bent.

Take a rest. We'll hook the straps. We're gonna sit up, and it's time to grab the box. We'll do swan next as a little moment. I think we're living up to core crusher here.

So bringing the box onto the reformer, footbar comes back up, going to one red spring and will lay on your stomach. Hands are gonna go to the corners of the bar for this swan today. We're gonna roll the carriage back. And let's get a nice extension after all that flexion. Take it down.

And we'll just do that twice more, and the hail brings you up. X hail takes you down. And, again, let that inhale guide you up and that exhale. Brings you down. Bend your arms to come in.

We're gonna lower the foot bar down. We're gonna stay on the same spring. Now We're going legs through the straps for an ab series, legs on the, straps on the thighs. So adjust your spring as needed. This really could be done a little bit lighter.

I suppose it could also be done a little heavier. But I'm gonna stick with the red. Quick tip. I like to keep the straps really high on my knees. Sometimes it's a tendency to work them up high on the thigh. But if I'm a little lower on the knee, it actually gives me a little more resistance. Sitting forward on the box, arms reaching in front of you.

You're gonna take a deep breath in, grow even taller with it exhale. You're rolling down. Draw the knees back. You can give those arms, the knees a little pull, hands on the knees, and just curl a little higher. Think back to that tie curl you had a moment ago.

Don't lose it and put your hands behind your head with an inhale. Extend your legs out. With an exhale, you're in Pilates. These stance strawing those knees in towards you. Inhale legs extend out.

Exhale. I want you to note how high I'm extending my legs out. I'm keeping tension on the straps. If I go too low, the tension goes away and I get slack on the straps. Inhale. This is 4. We're doing 6. 5.

6. We're gonna bring it in. Now hold here. Put your knees together. Send your legs out once again. Now you add a crisscross to it.

So you bend 1 knee. You come up to that bent knee. Meet in the middle, note how high my legs are. Exhale twist it. With the legs up high, it keeps me locked into my center.

Twist it. Nate in the middle. Twist meet in the middle, one more set, twist, middle, twist, and middle. Then the knees in, you're gonna let your head hang and release for one big breath in with an exhale, curl back up, Hands behind the head. We're now parallel with the legs, inhale legs extend out.

They've been to inhale out too. Bring them back. Keep that high curl really focus back to how you used your core to curl on your 100. 2 more, 5. Bring it in. 6.

Bring it in. Now we do one more time, but we add crisscross twist it up, neat in the middle. 2 neat in the middle. 3 sets. And that's 2. 1 more set.

3 curl high through the center. Bring the knees in, rest the head back. We do that one more time with the feet flexed in parallel trying to mimic heels from footwork, inhale prepare. Chin to chest curls you up. Flex your feet.

Hands behind that. Inhale. What? So as you get tired, I know it's tempting to take those legs low, but I want you to keep your legs slightly raised. If you need to lighten your spring, to be successful, please do that. Inhale 5. Bring it back.

And 6 Bring it back. Now we extend the legs. I'm gonna point my feet, and we do one more set of criss cross. That's one. That's to one more set. And middle, bring the hands under the legs yourself up to a seated position. Okay.

You can take those straps off your legs, and we're gonna go into a little bit of short work, and we'll use, the wooden dowel. So you can grab a dowel, and I'm gonna go over the silver poles for myself. Get my dowel, and you can just load up your springs for safety there. Keep it nice and tight. And feet underneath the strap.

So we're just gonna add a little icing on the cake on our 5th rep of short box round. Find your rounded shape, and this is such a great opportunity to go back to the way we started the class. As you hold this bar in your hands, Can you kind of create the same energy that you had on the shoulder rests? With an inhale, take yourself back. Let your breath in.

As you exhale, bring yourself back to start. Keep those shoulders pinned back just like we did earlier. Inhale. Roll it back. Exhale. Bring it forward.

Inhale. This is our 3rd. If you wanna go for a deep range, take it on this 4th rep. Now on the 5th rep, we're gonna reel the range in slightly. Don't go so far. Hold for a moment. Lift your gaze slightly.

Get your shoulders where they need to be breathe in as you breathe out, raise the bar up above your head. Now you're gonna push your feet up into the strap. The way that you pushed your feet up into the foot bar, row lower the bar breathe in. Raise the bar. Let the breath out. Sustain your rounded shape inhale lower the arms.

Do that again. The bar goes up, but the belly pulls tight and the toes push up into your strap. Inhale bar down. Do that twice more. Bargoes up. That's an exhale. Bargoes down then. Hey. Last one, exhale.

Pull the belly strong, strong, strong, lower the bar, down sit all the way up. We'll take that into flat back position. Adjust your sit, seat on the boxes needed. Raise the bar up. And just for a moment, take it into a little swan extension, just a little bit of a counter.

Now find your rib connection and stack up bar overhead head over hips. We're gonna breathe in to prepare. As we've read out, we're leaning back. And with an inhale sit tall, do that again. Exhale. Inhale. Come up. As you breathe out, almost have a slight spirit of a swan.

Lots of length. Exhale takes it back 4. Inhale brings you up on this 5th one. Go back a little less and hold. Keep your gaze lifted.

Lower the bar inhale. Lyft the bar, exhale, and hold, inhale, lower the bar. Lift the bar, create length, inhale, lower the bar. Exhale. Lift 2 more. Inhale. Lower. Lift. Last one.

Lower create as much link as you can sit all the way up. We're gonna do side ups next. I'm gonna put the bar down. You can use it if you want. I encourage you to challenge yourself. We're gonna do side ups, knee to chest here.

There's gonna be some icing on the cake on the sixth one. So Hands behind the head. Inhale prepares you with an exhale. Take it down. And with an inhale, guide yourself up. Thinking that to how we did that standing series, can you send the armpit to the hip and find that same oblique connection? At the top. This is 3.

And up. This is 4. And up. 5. And up. Alright. Get ready for it.

Here we go. 6. We're gonna come up, but don't sit up to where you lose tension on your strap. Hang from the strap, think back to the way you pushed your foot up into the bar for your 100, rotate up towards the ceiling slightly and crunch. 2, left side alive. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. You can sit up and take a rest. When you do those little crunches, open that hip up a little bit.

It doesn't need to stay squared off. And if 3 felt like enough for you, don't do all eight, that can be a big challenge. Let's turn to do the other side. Bring the hands behind the head. Breathe and prepare.

Breathe out to take it down. Inhale guides. You, thinking back to the start of the workout, can you send that right armpit down to that right hip? Just like you did standing at the start of class. And this is for we bring it up. 5. Bring it up. And on 6, we come up, but we don't relax. Hanging from that strap.

Rotate, open the hip slightly crunch 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1, and rest. Okay. So now we're gonna go through a series of pikes. So I am gonna lighten my spring just a little bit. I'm gonna go to one blue take the reds off. Let's get rid of the dowel.

And the box is gonna come onto where the foot bar and the onto the foot bar and the frame. So always double check for safety. Make sure that it's balanced on there so you don't fall off. And we're gonna flow through this. So listen carefully for the cues. You're gonna be on your elbows here.

We're gonna send the legs back. And from here, I want you to adjust your feet. Think back to the way you were laying on your back pushing your feet up into the foot bar now while on your elbows, push your feet down into the carriage and find that connection to the belly here. First, it's just gonna be a little slide back and forward. We're gonna do that five times 2. We come forward.

3. Forward. 4, and 5. Now we're gonna do an extra one, but instead of coming forward, nod the chin to the chest. And come up for a high pike. Inhale takes that out.

Exhale. Lift up too. Inhale, sends it out. 3. And out. Now on the 5th one, the little surprise is coming.

This is 4. Now on the 5th one, we come up. Keep that carriage on the stopper. Bend the knees down. It's shins parallel to the mat.

Pump the legs out and in. 2. Don't worry about going out far. Pull it in. 4 and 5. Now put the knees down.

Take a second. You're gonna do a similar series to the side. So back on the elbows, you'll send the legs out Turn your feet to the side with straight legs come up. Now you usually won't go quite as high on this one. Lift up to bring it down.

Squeeze that left shoulder to the left hip. This is for Now on 5, we hold. We bend those knees and we go out and then five 4, 3, left side alive. 2, and 1, the knees can come down. You can take a little second.

Get ready for the other side. Deep in, he'll prepares you. Exhale sends the legs out. Turn the feet to the side. We go up and down.

2. And 3. 2 more. 4. And on 5, we hold. Bend the knees.

And bring it under 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 knees down and rest. We need to balance out the body a little bit. So let's go for a variation on semi circle. What I'm gonna do is bring the box over the shoulder rests, and I'm gonna butt it up against the shoulder rests. And then I'm actually gonna bring the foot bar up.

We're gonna go to 2 red springs and then getting into this well, semi circle is just awkward anyways, but getting into this is awkward too, isn't that exciting. So you're gonna sit. You're gonna kinda push back a little bit. Bring your back onto the box and just rise up. Now I'm a little off the back of the box.

So let me just scoot forward a little bit. Feel free to fiddle around with your position so that you feel as comfortable as one can feel in a pilates studio. You're gonna bring your carriage as close to the stopper as you can and breathe in. We're rolling down first. We're just gonna lead the hands behind the head and try to honor the semi circle by moving slowly and working through those two extremes let that tailbone release down.

Now we're gonna stay with the hips down. Just roll back about halfway. Don't go to straight legs. Keep the legs like they are. Keep the carriage where it is.

Pull the belly to the back and then come up and just keep working your best pelvic tilt so that you're as neutral as you can be at the top, and then you bend your knees to come back in. We roll that down. So this is a nice little moment just to kind of regroup our energy, slide back about halfway, and then exhale. Pull the belly in. Keep that carriage still.

Keep it still. Oh, it's so hard to keep it still right there, and then come back in. Let's reverse that two times. Take it back with an inhale. Exhale rolls you down. Try to get that hip connection to the mat.

Stay on the mat as you close your springs up curve the tailbone up. We do it again. Take it back. Roll it down. You see that shimmy?

And you come in and you roll it up. Go ahead and bring the carriage as close to the stopper as you can, lift the hips, maybe, and inch or 2 more, and then we can come out of that. So we'll take the box away. We're just gonna do running next. So I'm gonna throw one more red on for 3 reds.

Parallel stands on our toes, but let's just take a second to go back to the start of class. Raise your arms with an inhale. As you exhale, press the arms through that imaginary resistance, bring the hands eventually down onto the mat, find that connection of the belly as you press your hands to the mat. Slide up. Run. Inhale.

Again, because it's a simple exercise, you can really focus on how can I incorporate my core into this just by simply using your breath control? Breathe it in and out. Breathe it in. And out in and out both heels up. We're gonna close those springs up And we're gonna sit up. We're gonna drop the spring down to just one ret for control push up, leave the bar like it is, and come on up to standing.

Now this is where we're really gonna tie together the whole workout. It works really nicely to think about the way we started the class with this exercise. Inhale. Raise the arms up to the ceiling above you. With an exhale, bring your hands down to the shoulder rests. Now here you are in this same position that we started in.

Can you find that same connection of your hands to your core? Keep your spine rounded for a moment here and walk your feet up to the bar. Now we're gonna slide out and take a moment here. First thing I want you to think back to is the connection of the feet pushing into the bar when you did 100. Can you create that activation through your center right here? Now add moving the carriage with the arms. We're just gonna inhale, move it out. Exhale. Pull it under.

Inhale. Move it out. Now I know the spring tensions in the opposite direction, but you can find the similar connection here. Now we raise one leg. We move the carriage out. Move the carriage in.

Lift and out and and out and and one more set out and and out and in. It's not over. Not the chin to the chest, think back to the pikes. Lift your hips up. Find that same rounded shape. Walk one foot down followed by the other.

Find a pilates v stands. Draw the chin into the chest. Feel the ribs, the waist, and the low belly deep. Lifting the kneecaps up, we're gonna roll our spine. Inhale all the way up.

Reach the arms up. Circle the arms around, and you're cooked for today. Thanks for joining me for that cord pressure workout I know you're feeling it as much as I am. Don't miss day 2 where we're gonna do upper body focusing on some really great variations on push ups, salute, and teaser. I'll see you guys next time.