Benjamin's Reformer Practice

Hi, everyone. I'm Benjamin Dagenhart, and I'm thrilled to be working on the reformer with you today. I'm sharing my own personal practice, which as of reason has slowed down a bit. And, I slowed my practice down in an effort to really re appreciate the concept of opposition in Pilates, and the idea of resistance against the springs. We often say push against the springs and resist as you come in this practice is a little bit focused around how to make that happen. And in my mind, it's it's the tug of war with the springs that I just wanna stay a little bit longer in engagement with. So with that, we're going to cover a lot of traditional exercises and slow them a bit down to look for more depth I'm on a grass reformer, and I start with 3 springs. I usually do 4 for my footwork, but I'm going down to 3 because we'll start with some one legged footwork to kick things off.

So here we go. We're gonna lie down on our backs My headpiece is in the center or middle position, so I have a slight elevation to my head. I center my feet on the foot part to start, but then shift to one leg. I'll bring my right knee in towards my chest, and I use my arms to pull my thigh down. My legs are parallel, two towards each other. My left five toes are on the foot by my heels slightly lifted. Now I really wanna pull my thigh down against my belly to make sure that my hips, the back of my hips, are pressing down into the mat, I give my chest a nice little opening from there.

I make sure I stand evenly on all five toes of my left foot and then I begin I press into my 3 springs with one leg all the way out till I'm stretched to the top. Now here's the resistance We're gonna take the super slow to start. I wanna continue to push. I bend my knee, but I try not to let the spring close underneath me I stay in the tug of war with the spring longer, eventually letting the spring take me in, still resisting it till till the very end. To go again pressing out to the top and then coming all the way back in.

Now I hope you'll find this too that by pulling my right knee into my chest, I really get a good sense of keeping my hips stable and isolating the movement into my left hip. I push to pull I resist to come all the way in. We'll take 3 more pressing out a little quicker and coming in. Still holding on to that concept of pushing to pull And in one more time, press out and then come all the way back in. We'll change sides already bring your right toes onto the foot bar, bring your left thigh in towards you. Really use the strength of your arms to press down. Find a good workable lift of your heels that you can stain throughout the full range of movement. First one, we're gonna press out to the top at the top. Make sure you're still pulling that left knee in towards you keeping your hips unchanged, push to pull come all the way in.

We'll take 2 of these, somewhat slower again, pressing out really honing in on that piece of resisting the spring till the very end, doing the first bid without the spring collapsing underneath you, One more time, slow push, push to pull. And let's do 3 a little quick. We're pressing out still holding on to that concept. It's a little harder to do when you move fast to and in one more time, push Resist to come in, staying on the same springs, and now come to two legs. All ten toes on the bar, heels touch toes apart.

Same concept. You press out. You push to pull to come back in and out and in because the springs are lighter than what I'm typically used to Again, I wanna slow down to make sure that I'm not just riding the carriage back and forth, but really staying engaged with that tug of war in the springs longer couple more pressing out and in and 10 and into the arches, 10 here pressing out. Push to pull come in. None. Push to pull come in. 8 that your heels really sink under the footbar 7 chest stays open, ribs heavy, 6 push, 2 pole, 5 a little quicker out and in for 4.

3, Porsche, 2, and 1. You'll notice it's a little more challenging. On the arches even more so on the heels. Make sure you have even weight 10 here push to pull in. Not and in 8 and in. I'm letting my breath just kind of flow with the movement. I'm not trying to synchronize it in any fashion.

I just really put my mind's eye into my heels, my feet, and that concept of pushing to resist as I close the springs. Let's do one more. Tend and stretch. Onto the toast, press out once. Now same thing here.

I wanna lower my heels, but I don't want the springs to give in right away. I create this illusion of keeping the springs long, finding length in my own body first, resisting, still pushing through all tempos, and then lift back up and lowering, slowing way down to find that length and opposition in your body and up lowering and lifting. I find that this way I really feel a stretch aspect of the tendon stretch. Rather than just going into a calf raise, lowering, and lifting, push to pull it through 3 more. And up for 2.

I always like to remind myself that this position of the legs is where I wanna be for my 100 in a minute. So keep that in mind too. You know, this last one, find that length one more time, push into out in toes, pull the springs through close, And we're done with footwork into our 100. I'm gonna lower my footbar down. I'll stay on my 3 sprints.

I take my handles from behind my ears, arms lift up. Connect arms back into your straps, find a c curve, find that same, tenant stretch position through the legs, holding into the straps, holding the shape for one deep breath in, one deep breath out, And then release the legs down, arms up, head releases back. Again, pulling into the straps The goal is to find a working level for your legs. So that might be higher, might be lower. I'm gonna challenge myself to stay as low as I possibly can. Arms pushing up and forward into the straps, one deep breath, one deep breath out. Legs lower arms lift had released us down.

I'll do 3 more of these pressing down. And I'm gonna let these count towards the full tally of the 100. Excelfully. Now, as you return, again, you wanna keep pushing into your straps even as you release decelerating your descent, 2 more, pressing down, lift yourself up, find an even seeker from ears to hips, long through the legs, long through the arms, and again, push to pull resist the straps one more time. Just that. Stretch and pull.

Press into your straps reach along through the legs and resist the straps as you come back. Alright. So we've done 5 of this preparatory move. So it means we have 50 pumps left for a 100, which now are the 50. Press into your straps find the same working position and begin, inhale, and exhale. For more inhale and exhale.

Same concept as your arms move up and down, try to maintain that sense of pushing to pull, to control the spring, to to go. And 10, 9, 87, 65, 43, 21, and release. Oh, right. From here, we're going to sit up, take off one spring. So we're down to 2 for in preparation for overhead. We're not actually going overhead today.

We will short spine later. But for right now, I just wanna continue the action of the 100 into this little preparation. And again, working on the concept, pushing to pull. I lowered my headpiece down to flat. My chest is wide and open.

I'm grabbing the handles with both hands, making contact. I press the arms down by my sides. I lift my legs to 90 degrees. I try to keep my hips down nice and heavy thinking again of how it felt in that one leg footwork earlier, keep stretching through the legs, keep pushing into the arms, and then push into your straps to pull the springs to close. Legs come down simultaneously.

We'll do that again. Press the arms down. Legs up. Really find the deepest angle at the hip crease to go into into this active straight leg race for both legs lower the legs, lift the arms. 3 more times. Arms down.

Legg's up. Press into use wraps open your chest and then keep pushing into the sprouts. Return forward to. Press down to lift. This is where we would fling into our overhead, but again, not today, legs down, arms up, Repeat, arms down, legs up, keep pushing into the handles to open your chest nice and wide, collar bones wide for a deep breath.

And then one last time, release. Coordination head stays down, fold your knees and elbows in, inhale press everything out long and low. Keep pushing into your handles as you open the legs, close the legs, exhale, bend your knees up and in, push to pull, slow down on this final piece. 4 more, inhale to lengthen, open, close holding the breath, exhale knees come in, resist bend the elbows. 3 inhale.

Holt. Excel. Keep exhaling for 2. Open. Close knees up and in.

Elbow. Spend one more time. Press out. Open. Close. Knees up and in Now resist as you lift your forms up, a warm up on our back is concluded we will stand up and grab a long box for a little bit of extension work next.

Before I do that, I change my springs down to one spring. For a pulling straps. Take your box, put it against your shoulder blocks, and facing away from the foot bar I personally set myself up thinking that the box goes centered between my knees and my shoulders. So I want to have support for my hips. In this position without the weight of my legs hanging all the way off, my chest can be slightly off because we are working on extension.

Grab your straps, reach your arms forward as far as you can, and get a good strong fist grip with both hands. Again, the concept I'm going for here is pushing to pull and resisting the return, right, one on one spring. So it's not gonna feel heavy. So I really wanna make sure that my full body is present. I let my body drape over the box, kind of lazy.

To then find my engagement, pressing my hips down, my legs start to lift, my chest starts to pull forward, I start to feel strength in my shoulders to start pulling the arms down and back, possibly up behind me, lifting the chest high or heels and head on the same height Now all this I'm holding on to, I start to return my arms. The spring follows me. We're going much slower than you would want to, And when you lose tension on the spring, you again relax everything. We'll do that twice more. Press the hips down.

Hold the chest forward and up. Against your chest reaching forward, pull the arms back. Find a sustainable place where you can still breathe deeply and you feel the back of your body fully engaged. Now, again, Can I leave the carriage where it is as I return the arms and let it follow me instead of the spring just pulling me to a close? Going slower than you'd want to release down. We'll just do one more. Hips, press down to engage the lower body, extend through the upper body, chest pulls forward chest pulls up.

Return with supreme control. Release. Let the grip of your hands slide to the beginning of the strap for your tee. Same thing here. We're gonna start already engaged.

Hips pressing down. Legs out. You're stretching your body north, southeast, west, and you pull straight back. Even here, hands, head, heels, can you lift them to the same height? Now, my arms start returning. The box stays where it is.

The spring follows me the second I lose tension I go again. Pull open through the chest, lift through the heels, head, hands, open the arms, spring follows you, One more time. Pull. Back, chest, lifts, open wide. Come all the way to a close. And release. Alright. While I'm here, I'm going to hang up my scraps.

Gonna need them again in a bit. And step off and get ready for a way to counteract all that extension work. Wanna keep the box, the long way for a half rollback, no scraps, no springs involved. I leave one spring attached, because it can help us a little bit find activation in our hamstrings, the backs of our legs. You're gonna see in a moment why.

I wanna position myself just about a hand with away from the front edge of my box, my feet parked on the foot bar, and I lift myself up into a nice tall seat arms out in front of me for a half roll back. So just like on the mat, I'm curling my hips under. I'm bending my spine. And as I go, you might find this too. There's a tendency of the body to wanna push into the foot bar. I want you to actually use the fact that there's one spring attached to try and close the springs actively as you go, and you might find that it opens up and un stiffens your lower back a bit. And lift yourself back up to the top from here.

So if your reformer does not even have a tendency to move, still think I'm pulling my heels to my seat and my seat to my heels as I roll back. It's a small range of motion, quite effective, I would say. You come forward. You lift yourself back up. Let's do that twice more. Rolling back halfway.

Actively closing the carriage with the legs, pull yourself forward, lift yourself up, We're gonna do one with the legs extended over the foot bar. So this might feel a little precarious. You wanna make sure your center of gravity is back far enough that you don't slide off the box, this will be a little precursor to our teaser. Half rollback first. So with the legs long, You come into what basically looks like your hundred position, and you pull yourself back up from there. Taking this a step farther now into our teaser.

You roll yourself back into that hundred position. From there, you pull yourself up. Lift the legs, lift the arms, try to get them parallel to each other, reach for your toes, lower the legs with control, and let the weight of your legs help you find your upright position again at the end. So that's our first variation on this. Rowies have halfway back.

There's a point when your legs feel lighter and in control from your center. At that point, lift them up. Try to keep them straight. It's not a bad thing if they bend. Do what you must.

Lift out of the waist. Lower the legs. Let that shift your center of gravity forward to come back up. And let's take one more of these, roll halfway back, legs, float, reach for your toes, Find space in your spine, lower the legs, shift the center of gravity, lift back up, And then let's take it to our 2nd and final variation on our teaser today. Roll yourself all the way down from here. And stretch your arms up and back over your head.

This is where we typically take our teaser from on the long box with our straps, thankfully today, No straps. You circle the arms around and up to land in the same teaser, finishes the same, legs lower. They ultimately pull you up onto your sits bones. Arms come forward. We start again. Rolling back.

Arms reach all the way back behind you. Circle them around. Chin over chest. Lift yourself up. Find your teaser at the top.

Can play around with lifting the arms by your ears as the legs come down. Let that bring you onto your hips again final one. Arms forward to roll back. Arms reach up and back overhead. Can indulge in a little stretch here, arms circle around through t, shin over chest.

You lift yourself up into your final teaser. Arms by ears, legs lower, shift the center of gravity forward, bend your knees, just to make sure you don't slide off as you step off. Nicely done. From here, we're going into some leg curls. So this might be The most complicated piece of this entire workout is to set ourselves up with our straps over the feet.

So if you're on this kind of reformer, you just kinda wanna ignore the handles and slide them down to the base of their loops. Again, this is where it gets tricky. Cross the straps. I crossed my right strap over my left. And in the way they are, I put them onto my feet.

This is the tricky piece. You want to now uncross them. Set your foot down so that you don't lose the straps as you turn yourself onto your stomach. And if you're lucky like me, the scraps stay and you're good to go. So again, I have the box centered between where my shoulders and my knees are.

I use my forms against the box to give myself some traction and I connect my heels, but keep my knees as wide as the box. So for our leg curls, I start similarly to our pole straps by pressing my hips into the box, thighs lift, and then I add a pole, heels to seat. Once I'm at my final end range of this motion, I reengage my arms pulling into the box, my chest pulling forward, my hips pressing down in my feet, pulling towards my seat, and up towards the ceiling. And then I push to pull. I resist.

I stay engaged with the tug of war in the spring till I feel it's ending. And then I release. To start again, arms, hips, thighs, feet, pull. Try to lift the feet a little higher off the box and release. We'll do that 2 more times.

Hips down. Arms pull chest opens, heels to seed, feet to ceiling, and release Woo. Last one. Hips pressing down. Arms pulling back. You always feel free to adjust your position. It's very possible to slide on that box.

Lift and release. And just because it's right there and I really want to stretch, I separate my feet to parallel a test if I can grab a hold of my feet. It's happening. It's not always the case. Press your hips down, thighs lift, feet push back, chest lifts up, and deflate the shape I'm not gonna go into full rocking. I just wanna take that stretch one more time.

My feet kick back into my hands. My chest lifts forward and up. And I deflate the shape I'm in. And then we transition into breaststroke. We're gonna have to let go of the straps We'll do it like this.

Extend your legs. Bring your feet close to the ground to flex. Shake the straps off. Just to avoid a lot of noise. And then we're gonna pick the straps right back out of the well, and we're gonna set up for breast stroke.

This is not a breaststroke for a big and impressive backmen per se, but really just to continue the work we've been doing so far and put some of these concepts together specifically in regards to our push and pull. So same rules apply between my shoulders and my knees. I put the box centered in between I like to do this with my hands on top of the box, shorter distance for the extension. I start again with my hips pressing down, thighs lifting up, After the leg curls, this should feel a little easier. I take a double kick. 1, 2, simultaneously extend arms and legs.

Push like you're diving into water. Now I'm not looking for a chest lift today or at least not yet. I wanna keep pushing my arms forward into the spring as I start opening. Really resisting, and I have the spring right in front of my eyes so I can really look at it to work on this concept. You kick once twice.

Your legs and your arms do the same thing at the same time with the same energy. Boom. You're in there. Now keep looking at that spring. Try to keep it open. Push into the springs.

And you might find that inevitably you start lifting your chest up a little bit, So follow that instinct. Let's do it again. Kick once. Twice. Stretch. Keep pushing into the spring to lift your chest up let the arm slide back behind you. I'll give myself one more.

Kick, kick, stretch arms and legs push into the handles. Lift your chest up. That feels good. Suspend. Take your hands back to the top of the box.

Step over your straps. Into a good, supportive lunge position so that as you close the spring, you're not being whacked of your feet. And we're gonna hang up the straps to go into our long stretch series. So the box goes behind the reformer. And I like to use a sticky pad just to not put my feet where my head will be later and to avoid sliding, of course, the footbar lifts up.

I'm gonna do this on two springs. Now long stretch is an excellent place to really think about the concept of opposing the return. It feels so rhythmic and good to rely on the spring tension, but I wanna play with it today. I'm just gonna do 3 in each position because we're slowing down. I pull my chest forward, I kick my heels back, I find my plank. I'm stretching my body long, hence the name of the exercise, and I try to keep it long.

Pushing out with my entire body, arms, spine, legs, hips. Now keep pushing into the foot bar. Look at the springs. Keep them as open as you can. Engage with that tug of war as long as possible twice more. Push.

Let the springs win the tug of war, but you're still fighting. You're still pushing. You're still lengthening in all available directions. One more time, push out Keep the length, come all the way in, down stretch, same concepts, different position. We're in a backbend, but I'm working on the same exact thing, pushing through the arms back through the heels, continue that even as the springs pull you forward and pull you up. So you're already in a deeper start position for your second time.

Press and lift. Still pushing. If it was up to your arms, those springs wouldn't move. You just give them enough power to return, but you control it, lift it, lift it, lift it, up stretch. Come up onto your tippy toes, park your heels against the blocks, fold in half at your hip crease, straighten the legs, straighten the arms, Puff out your back to come into an inverted 100. Keep pushing as you come in, And then like a pull up, you roll through your spine for yourself in half. Again, twice more.

Proge to pull, roll yourself up. Last one. Feat flat for elephant, but it's the same concept as our up stretch. I want you to find your heels press them down, lift your toes, all ten. Press the heels of your hands, curl all ten fingers, press down through hands and feet around your spine.

Now move just the legs back and in. Back Keep pushing back through the heels even as the spring's close and push, keep pushing forward through the arms even as the spring's close out and in, out, and in. Let's take 5 more, push back pull in. Remember this, coupling of energies for your needs to register later. 3. And in 2, And in one close, close, close, and stepping off, getting ready for tendon stretch. I really like to do the tendon stretch right after the elephant because there's a lot of carryover between those two exercises. So hopefully by doing them quickly in succession, you'll feel this too.

I am on 2 springs still. I made sure that I used my outer springs that my heels have a space to drop into. Because today, we're gonna hone in on the stretch part of tendon stretch just like we did in footwork. When I have a seat on my foot bar, Making sure that my sitting bones are sort of in front of the bar so that as I push my legs out, I'm being pushed into the foot bar rather than up and over it. Alright? But I also still have my hands here for support.

This is a footwork of swords. I'm just sitting on my foot bar stretching and bending. I like to do this a few times for one to back hone in on the concept of pushing into my springs, even as I bend my knees, to really learn how to control those springs in this position, but also for me to get an understanding of how much weight, how much resistance do I get from the springs as I'm about to put myself in a much more precarious position pressing and then again pushing to pull. I pull my knees up. I lift my spine up a little taller. And I let the springs carry the carriage home, but I resist it all the way.

One more time, press out. Now the tendon stretch begins. I press my hands back into this bar. So like elephant, my arms and my legs, doing the same thing, pushing against the spring, pushing the spring apart. Between those two forces, my spine is rounding.

Now, like the same way I pulled a character close an elephant, I let the springs ride me in my heels stay behind, and that where I get that beautiful stretch down the backs of my legs. I stay around it for now. I press back out. And when I say press back out, it's not just the feet. It's also the arms.

And then I come back in pushing to pole one more time pressing out. I stay around like a summer salt. I stay around it to pull myself back in, adding on, pressing out, adding a little long back stretch. You open your chest, You bend the arms. You press the straight arms.

Still pushing back through arms and legs. You come back in, leaving the heels behind. Pressing out 2 more, bending stretch, round the spine to lift, all the way in, One last one. Press, bend, stretch. Pull yourself all the way into the stopper. Have a seat on your foot by first.

We did it. You can step off to the side, and we're getting ready for short spine massage. Couple of changes. We're gonna bring the foot barn down. So it's out of the way. I was on two springs.

I'm gonna stay on two springs and get rid of the pad. And always make sure for short span or any overhead exercise that your headpiece is all the way flat. I have to shorten my straps on this reformer. Let's do it together. You pull the loop through your handle, hold the loop tight.

This way you don't have to take your handle all the way off. But you probably know this if you're in this class. I'm gonna get my feet in here, and we'll do a version of short spine that I quite like as of late. Which is to bring my feet into a prayer position, meaning the soles of my feet are completely pressed into each other which limits the amount of external rotation or knee opening that I can get, and it forces my hips to be locked into a position where any articulation of my lower back really stretches the small of the back, which is what we're after in this exercise. So first, make sure that your hips are settled down arms pressed open against the mat, press the soles of your feet into each other. And this in and of itself is already doing its number on my back in a very good way. Now from here, I extend my legs pretty much straight up. My springs are already somewhat open.

I let go of the prayer position in my feet to extend my legs, hardly any movement on the carriage. Since the springs are already active, they can now take me up lifting up and over. Keep a lot of space in the front of your body. As you fold your knees down, bring your feet back into that prayer position, as close to your hips as you can, and then press your heels towards the floor to make space for your spine to roll. Down till your hips are completely released again to start over, legs up, roll over, prayer feet, roll through the smile of the back, open through the chest, completely down to start again, legs up, over.

Press the soles of your feet, especially those outer edges together as you roll down. To go again up over fault. Press to roll down. Now here's that concept again of pushing to pull. With the springs active, continue to push your feet into the straps even as you let them take you up and over, you're in control.

Push into the springs. With the unrolling of your back. Let's do one more. I could do this all day long, and I just might, but just one more for now. Press into your feet, roll yourself down.

Press your knees open for a moment of stretching. With the soles of your feet still together. Ah, lovely. And then take the scraps of your feet. Pull the handles out.

Hang them up just for some housekeeping. So everything is ready for you for a next set of exercises. We'll be on our knees for chest expansion gonna stay on 2 springs for that. Can always drop down to 1, but I like a little oomph on my springs. So I position myself for today, feet and knees together in the center of the carriage, feet flexed around the front edge of the carriage, hands on your handles strong fist group with both hands. So already, you should get your arms pretty close to the size of your thighs.

Before even pulling, I can start playing a bit with hanging off my flexed feet, pressing my hips forward, lifting my chest up, And then I just add the pole. Doesn't have to be a big one. Pull straight back. I always pretend that I'm lifting myself off of those handles behind me, opening the collar bones, lengthening through the neck, and then again, I keep pushing back I let the springs take me in, but I'm still giving them a good fight until I'm all the way in. So it's a very small motion.

Very impactful. Pull straight back. Lift your chest forward and up. Let's take a slow turn of the neck all the way to the right. All the way to the left.

Notice any changes in the power of your pole as you twist your next side to side and push to pole return with control. Little quicker inhale to pull. Hold the breath, turn to head right, left, straight ahead, exhale, come in with control. Three more times changing your lead side to the left first. Right.

Straight ahead. X are coming. One more set. Starting right. Reese as you return.

One more time. Excellent. Come on. Nice. Sty stretch. Now you grab on to the leather part of your strap. I'll just sit back from here so it can add one spring.

I want a little bit more resistant. So if you did chest expansion on 1, make sure you add 2. You wanna have 3 springs for this one. Alright. Pressing your hips forward. Again, I wanna play a little bit with how well I can stand up on my knees almost in danger of face planting forward so that my body is somewhat alert and actively lifted I don't want to go deep on this one for the sake of my knees. So I get my tailbone underneath. I bring my chin down I already feel a stretch in my thighs.

And now all I have to do is lean back an inch, maybe 2, maybe 3. I wanna stay and linger here for a second. Now in order to come up, again, I wanna play tug of war with the springs. I push my hips forward. I lift my chest up.

I press my shin bones down and I control the return almost to the point of being full pulled forward. That'd be a little exciting. You're still in control. We're going slow enough. Nothing crazy's gonna happen.

I promise. Chindown, tail under. I lean back. So rather than going down, I think of going up and back, up and back, up and back, and then I press my feet and shin bones down, to return one more time. So it's a microthigh stretch, but we're getting our money's worth by preparing the thighs, tailbone under, pushing the hips forward, staying open through the chest, even if my chin is down, and pressing down to lift back up. Lovely. And we take our handles with us stepping off to the side to do what I call a combination of arm circles and horseback.

We'll be on 1 spring for this. So I'm taking 2 off. Make sure my straps are organized behind me. We're going to face towards the foot bar, feet against the blocks, and I wanna sit back onto my heel. So if this takes you a minute to get your toes under, take it here. Wanna be nice and solid.

So the horseback piece of this is starting with our arms straight down rounding our spine on top of that. It's not a big c curve. It just needs to be an even one from your ears. Down to your hips. So the arm circle begins with the arms pushing forward.

Keeping the round back start to lift your hips of your heels. Once your arms out in front of you, you look towards your fingertips. You continue lifting the arms up. Till you feel like the tension on the spring changes to pull you back in. Resisted. Open the arms.

If they go slightly behind you and you can control that, let it happen happen. Just sit back down. So that was super slow. We go a little quicker pressing forward to lift. Keep the lift. Open the arms.

Let your chest widen. And again, rounding down, press forward. Lift up and forward into those springs and open the arms wide. Well, it's really just one spring. Let's do that again. Pressing forward round the back, compounding the action of standing up on your knees with unrolling your spine and circling the arms.

One more time, press forward. Lift up now. Keep all of that energy active and just continue the circles 3 more times up and around. 2 and around. 1. And around, we're going to reverse open and forward and down. 2 forwarding down one more time.

And just because we didn't row earlier in the class, we're going to get the arms up overhead one more time. Make a diamond shape with your hands, thumbs together, index fingers together. Lean almost forward into your spring. Bend the arms for the shave. Hands to the nape of the neck, press back up.

Repeat down. Press back up. Now keep pushing up and forward into your handles. Push to pull. Here's that concept again. Press it out. One more time, bend, and stretch.

Open the arms wide. We'll finish this with a hug, exhale to close, pulling the arms far away from your center. Reese the spring. Don't let it move right away. Let it follow you.

Do that again. Hold together. Lift the chest. Try to keep the carriage where it is as you open the arms. It follows you one more time. Pull. Close.

And open, sit back onto your heels, let the carriage come all the way to a close, hang up your straps, almost there going into our knee stretchers so we can leave our feet exactly where they are. We add a spring. And we get ready for this. Super slow. Super controlled.

And I want you to think back of your elephant. Alright? My hands are pushing forward, my feet are pushing back, my spine is puffing up in between. I press into feet and hands to push This brings out, but I also push my hands and feet away from each other as I come back in. So I'm gonna go this slow to really hone in on that. Press out.

Keep pushing arms forward feedback as you come in. And once you have a hang of it, you can add your pace pressing up, pulling in, pressing out. Keep pushing those arms forward the entire time. 3. And in 4. And in 5. We'll go to 10, 6, and in 7, 8, 9, and 10. Same in the arched position. My arms push forward.

My feet push back. My hips and hip creases are lifted back and up, I push into feet and arms to stretch, and I keep pushing those arms forward resisting the return on my knees and back. Keep it slow for a couple more. Come back in. One more here. Before we go into 10 a little quicker, push out 10 in.

9 in. 8, 7. 6 key pushing the arms forward. Ideally, there should not be any twitching of muscles in those arms. Hip creases stay lifted back and up 2. And 1.

And in good news, we're not gonna do knees off. And there's no bad news. So let's go into running next. I'm gonna add 2 springs. Lie down.

I like to lift my headpiece up into the medium position again just to feel supported in my head. You press out your legs Now this is one of those movements that is easy to kind of throw away, and it still feels good today. We wanna control those spring side to side. So rather than running, I'm taking a very, very slow run today. And rather than focusing my weight on the heel that's dropping, which feels so good, right? I wanna focus my weight into the foot that is supporting me, which changes my dynamic somewhat, which slows me down, which still gives me a very satisfying stretch on the opposite side.

So just play with that to really stay engaged with the tug of war of the springs longer. One more. And then go into a regular pace. And this is your opportunity to really switch off your brain for a second. Ah, let your breath normalize.

And start thinking about what's next for you. Maybe another workout on the different piece of apparatus. Maybe some splits on the reformer. I'll leave it at this. You come all the way in.

You sit yourself up. And I feel pushed and I feel pulled and I feel reignited in my understanding of opposition Pilates. I hope you enjoyed this reformer workout. Thank you so much for joining me, and I'll see you in the next class.