Glide and Slide Reformer

Hi. I'm Maria. And today, we're gonna be using your reformer as a glider. But first, we start with your footwork. Have your footbar in your footwork position. Try putting your springs a little bit heavier than you would normally do because this is gonna be the majority of our legwork. Come on to your back.

Head rest can be up or down. The heels are wide on the bar. Take a breath in, and exhale start moving your carriage. With a feeling of a push and a pull. You've done this a lot. So use this moment just to get centered to feel that full integration from the corona that head to the tail, keep that feeling of scissoring from the inner thighs.

Come halfway down and pause. Let's take little pulses here. And I'd really like you to find the pulse coming from a scissoring of those inner thighs, not the knees, Check-in with your shoulders. Make sure they are not bracing up into the shoulder blocks. Press the legs out all the way straight come all the way in, find first position, heels are lifted, knees, the distance of the shoulders, and pressing out and pulling in.

And we really want an equal emphasis here. Actually, maybe even a little extra emphasis on the way in. It's a tendency to just ride the carriage in. Keep your focus. Keep your concentration. Continue to work with a feeling of effortless effort.

See if you can really begin each action from the sit bones pulling away from the feet. And now that's come in halfway and take those little pulses, recommit to the center of the body, drawing the abdominals, not only in, but also up finding the little pulse here from the sit bones, no extra tension in the face, neck, or arms. Press out all the way come all the way in, swivel your feet so that they're parallel. Press all the way out. Find as much length here between your vertebras as you can. Slowly lower and lift, lower and lift. And we're minimizing the movement of the carriage of course, it is going to move.

Looking for that weight to be right up and over those first two toes, the sit bones are still drawing together. And I'm still trying to pull the rib cage away from my pelvis. So there's energy from head to toe. Last time here. Come on in.

Bring your heels to the bar. I want your heels pretty high on the bar. And just a little variation here, we're gonna begin marching. One knee pulls in as you go out, come in, find your weight on 2 feet. Back out and in and out and in.

Continue like this. The knee points straight up. Pay attention what happens as you shift, as you change sides. Keeping everything nice and still. 2 more here.

Let's come in halfway. Let's take a quick pulse on one leg. Go ahead and put that heel down if you need to. I just need a little bit more heat in my thigh all the way out. 2 feet to the bar. Lift the other leg come in halfway or keep 2 feet on the bar and a little pulse.

Check-in with the neck and the shoulders. 2 feet back to the bar. Press all the way out. Come all the way in. Reach behind you.

Put your headrest down if it were not down already. Hands by your side. We're gonna go to a simple bridge, tuck the tail under, peel your hips up, pause there, and roll right back down. And, again, talk to bridge up and peel all the way back down. Let's take the hands to the ceiling.

Tuck the bridge up just so I know you're not using those triceps to help you get up. Really using this now to stretch that lumbar spine out. Last time here, tuck and peel up. Take one leg to the ceiling. Hold it there. And now cross that leg over to a figure 4 without dropping the hips.

The hands can go by the side, and now we pulse up. And I want you to be honest with your position. Notice my knee is a little bit high because I'm pretty tight in my hips. I wanna make sure I'm keeping both hips at the same level. You're gonna feel this quite a bit on that hamstring glute.

Stay at the top. Take the leg up. Put that leg down. Take the other leg up. Hold it there. Enjoy that stretch. Cross the leg over without shifting the hips.

And then taking that pulse up, this pulse is happening right from that hip socket. Right? Really see that hip as a hinge, and you're opening the front of the hip, check-in with the tension on the neck and the arms, last one here. Extend that leg back up. Put the foot down. Roll yourself down through your spine.

Curl yourself up into a ball shape. Use your hands. Draw the knees in curl, curl, curl, curl, curl, curl. From here, release your hands. The chest doesn't move. Extend the legs over the foot bar. You know what we're doing in for 5 and out for 5.

It's vigorous. Make a lot of noise with your breath and commit to everything. Hugging into the midline, particularly those legs. The legs might be parallel. They might be turned out Do what works for you.

Keep that energy flowing through the arms, belly button, not just in, but also up pull your knees in, lift yourself up a little bit higher, higher, higher, lower down, extend the legs to the ceiling. The hands come to the shoulder blocks or your pegs. We're gonna go to a little modified cork screw. Start by twisting your hips one direction. Circle the legs over the foot bar, twist to the other side, and pull yourself center.

And opposite direction, twist the legs lengthen forward, you twist to the opposite side and you pull center. Again, And I want you to find here that the motor is the hips, not the legs. The legs move because of the hip action. One more each way, inhaling, exhaling as you twist to the opposite side. Last time, inhale.

Exhale and back center, pull the knees in, lift yourself into that ball shape, keeping the shoulders out of the ears, rock yourself up, and we're gonna do our first spring change. Come to a light spring and take your footbar down. So I'm gonna use a yellow on this machine. We're gonna go into an all fours breast stroke. So the feet are gonna go together on your headrest, pick up one loop, and find yourself onto your hands and knees. The hand, with the loop is right at your shoulder.

Pelvis is neutral option to extend the opposite leg straight out in a straight line. Let's build this. So we're pressing the arm up over the head, and we're bringing it in. Let's move on. Press the arm up over the head. Stay here. Create a circle.

Reach that arm far away from you. And all the way back behind you, bend your elbow, come back to your shoulder just like breaststroke. Press the arm up over the head. Circle the arm. The arm reaches all the way back behind you and back to the shoulder. Option to add extension.

We would extend tears. The arm goes over the head. Maintain that extension as you circle the arm back, keep lifting, lifting, lifting, come back to neutral as the hand comes to the shoulder. And, again, extend to lift. There's energy through that back leg.

Circle the arm. Keep taking the heart so far forward. Come back to your shoulder, lower the back leg, and come all the way up onto your knees. And you might need to move forward here depending on what tension you want. Hands start at the waist for tray. We're pressing the two arms straight out and slowly in.

So we're looking at that alignment, holding the body so still. Check-in with where your tail is and spin your biceps up. Option here to move on to tree hug. This is considerably harder. And you'll really feel now the work of the core on one side of your body.

Those obliques are working so hard to stabilize you. You can also do just a small tree hug to just have a little taste of what that is. Continue like this. Whatever you're doing, and you might still be doing trey. Last time, that's all joined together here with your arms straight in front of you.

The loaded arm bends and you turn in that direction. Pause here. Check-in with your pelvis. Now we rotate all the way across and all the way back. I've taken my palms up, but do what feels organic for you. Notice the path of this loaded arm has not changed at all. We are rotating around our axis giving equal emphasis to the push and the pulling action.

So think about your body three dimensionally here. Keep getting tall. Integrate your breath. Last one here. And have a seat, and let's do all that on the other side.

So pick up the other loop, taking the feet back to the headrest, finding yourself on all fours will build it. Thung to shoulder, Pell, this is neutral. Maybe the opposite leg is reaching out. The arm goes over the head, and it pulls in. Back over the head, feeling the support of the abdominals into the lower back, moving on, the arm goes up over the head, and now circle the arm, reach it all the way back behind you, and bend the elbow back to the shoulder.

And, again, push out. It takes a bit to navigate that rope. I know. Be patient and come back to the shoulder. Maybe this time you add the extension, the heart lifts.

We open the arm. The heart keeps going forward. And bend the elbow back to the shoulder. You're neutral. Extend as the arm presses out. Keep pulling the heart forward, feel like you're moving in space back to the shoulder.

Last one here. Lift the chest. Open reach wide with that arm, back to the shoulder, back to neutral, back down to two knees, and perhaps you scoot forward here a little bit. Set yourself up for your tray, serve a tray, pressing the arm straight out and in. One side will typically feel a little bit different than the other.

Mattail is straight down. The biceps are spinning up. Shoulder blades are always gonna stay on the backside of the body. Option for some of you to go to tree hug. So the arms will open and the arms will close.

And, again, this is considerably harder. So don't you can always start small. That's what I'm trying to can start small with this. Appear. You would always see your hands and your peripheral vision. Last one We're gonna come together.

Everyone end with your hands in front of you, bend the loaded arm, turn towards it, the other arm reaches forward. So we go into a push and pull. So we rotate. We push and pull. We rotate. We push and pull. Palms up feels best to me, but do what works for you.

I'm more interested in the rotation of the trunk and you're keeping equal emphasis on the push and the pull, the ying and the ying of the action. Keep getting tall. Always gotta check back in with what happened to that pelvis. Right? And come on in, put that rope down. We're gonna go back to something more traditional.

Set yourself up for feet and straps. So two heavy springs. Onto your back, headrest can be up or down for me. I'm gonna keep it down today. As gracefully as you can get into your loops.

Many different ways to do that. To legs go out straight in front of you, I'm gonna work with my legs in a slight external rotation today. Let's start by drawing tiny little circles. And I really wanna draw your attention right here into the crease of your hip socket. That's what you want to feel circling more than the feet.

Right? The feet go along for that ride. Notice the carriage is barely moving. Notice your arms aren't doing anything at all. Now with this same precision, open your legs as wide as is comfortable for you. And create that same precision right here in that hip socket. Bring your awareness to the hip socket.

Check-in with your knees. Make sure they haven't locked out. The flexy girls make sure you haven't hyper extended your knees and that you're really feeling the work and the inner thigh creating that circle, the pelvis is so nice and still for me here. And now that's close the legs completely and go to traditional leg circle. The legs come up to 90, they open, and down and together.

You open as far as you need today. So find to go small, find to go really wide, maybe you do a couple, a different, a few different ways here. Big sweeping gesture to close. Check-in with the face, the neck, the shoulders. Make sure nothing's bracing you other than the center of the body. Last one, pull the knees into your chest, gracefully remove the foot straps, bring the carriage in, repeng the loops, bring yourself up.

We're gonna go into a pretty untraditional series, I call the glider series. I want you to start by taking all of your springs off the machine, And then push the carriage out to about the midway point of your reformer. Go ahead and get your box. And you are gonna bring it into the tall position right in line with your carriage. About 6 inches or so away from the frame.

Bring yourself onto your hands and knees The hands are gonna go under the shoulders, knees under the hips. You might need to adjust a little bit depending on your height. So now we're ready for our glider series. Spine is neutral. Curl the ball of your foot under.

Without moving the carriage, float the knees up into a crawl position. Stay here. Equal weight on two hands, two feet, do not drop your head. Lower the knees down. Okay. Let's try that again.

Lift yourself right back up. Without moving the carriage, bring one heel to one sit bone, hold it. So we're 3 legged, put that foot down without shifting, the other heel comes up. Don't expect it to be perfect the first time, guys. I've been practicing this, put the foot down, lower the knees down, quick child's pose. Come right back up.

Recurl the feet. Come back to your crawl position from here. Shift your weight to one hand and lift that opposite opposite hand to the sky keep the carriage as still as you can. Bring that hand down. Shift the weight onto that hand.

Carriage still twist and lift. Looks easy. Oh, so hard. Shoulders are out of the ears. Check-in with the back. Bring the hand down, lower the knees down, and turn around and face the other direction.

Okay. So we're coming to our elbows now, and you wanna find yourself so that your sacrum is on the carriage, elbows about in line with the shoulders, bring your legs to tabletop, and now push your elbows into the box to create height through your neck. Twist the hips to the right. Maybe starting pretty small at first. Exale pull yourself center. And twisting the other direction.

Legs are glued and exhale pull center. It's always a good idea to start small on the machine when working with no springs, twist and back center. Notice the arc your feet are drawing. Pullback center. Keep getting tall for me.

Action is in the pelvis. One more each way. Do not sink onto those elbows. Come back center. Stay here. Push yourself up.

Come all the way forward. Place the hands right inside of your feet. This take a little spiral stretch again, push into the ground, take one arm to the ceiling, and gaze up, bring that hand down and spiral stretch the other direction, opening the chest, bring that hand down, and come right back to that same setup back to the elbows. We're gonna add can can, building can can now. So we twist the hips one We twist them 2.

We twist them 3. The legs go out in, and we twist 2, 3 out in. I like to think of that top hip really pointing to the saw sky. Out in leg lengths are the same. 1, 2, don't sink. 3, out in. Again, twist, getting tall. 2, 3 out in last time, twist. 2, 3 out in and push yourself up, turn around and face back forward again. So back to the crawl position, we're gonna add a little bit of movement here.

Start by reacclimating and just finding your crawl. Stay right here. We're gonna start small. Twist the hips one way and pull back center. I told you to go small.

The other way, twist and back center. Your brain needs to catch up to this very new sensation. Begin to go a little bit bigger. But I do want you to keep control of that carriage. Notice the head and shoulders are not changing.

And do try to keep weight on the feet. Your body's gonna heat up quite quickly here. We're supporting the full weight of our body. Last one, pull back center, the knees go down. Let's take a little child's pose.

You can rest your forehead right on that box. Bring yourself up. We're going to a side plank. Face your footbar. Place your form down on your box.

In line with your shoulder. Your knees are bent, and we want a straight line from the crown of the head to the tail. Really keeping focus on this opposite waist. Hand on the hip. From here, lift into a side plank.

Notice my carriage pulls into me. I wanna find that nice straight line. As I lower my hips down, the carriage will go towards the foot bar. And, again, make adjustments as needed. Lift yourself up into that long straight line.

Notice the carriage comes into you. The neck is long, hold, hold, hold. Push you the forearm in hand. Lower yourself down. I'm not gonna sag in my ribs, the carriage just goes back in towards the foot bar.

And, again, lift up. The carriage will pull in towards you, push through those hips, find that straight line, and lower the hips down. We're gonna try a little add on Here we go. Into the side plank, stay here. Set your position. The top leg goes straight.

Flex the foot. Lift that leg straight up and down. Pure AB Duction of that hip. No flexion in the front of the hip, guys. It's not gonna be high. If it's high, you're probably not doing it right.

Keep the carriage still. Bend the knee. Sit yourself down. Oh, that was harder than I thought. Let's go the other side. Graceful transition, judge your distance. The forearm is going, so you're lining the elbow up in line with the shoulder.

The knees are bent. Hand is on the hip. Set up the bottom side body. Lift yourself up into side plank. Hold it here.

The brain has to adjust. Sit yourself down. The carriage moves away from you. Push the hips through. That'll draw the carriage in.

Nose belly button, pubic bone in the same plane, and lower down. The carriage moves away. And, again, really pushing into that form, hold it here, glue the legs together, feel the work on that bottom side body, lower down, the carriage moves away. Lift back up into that side plank. Stay here. Add the top leg straight, maybe.

And that abduction up and down with the leg. Really ask yourself what muscle you're loading. I really want you to feel it right here into this top glute. This top glute mead. Carriage still or still as you can have it.

Last one, bend the knee, lower your hip, and this come out of here. Back to something more traditional, the carriage comes in, we're gonna go into short box. So set up your machine However, you set up for short box. That usually means a couple of springs on. The box is going into the short position.

For me, I know I need my box over the shoulder box. We're going to side over bring your foot under your strap. I like to sit on the side of my hip, knee forward, and I like to tuck my foot. I want a diagonal about like so. Take one arm over your head, the other arm forward, or hands behind the head.

We bend into the well, and we lift up. Keep lifting that leg into your strap. I don't like to see the leg in the strap bouncing up or down at all. And you're going here into your full range. Don't shortchange it on me.

We're not here long. And maybe you even have 2 arms up. Last time, everyone come all the way up pivot towards the strap. Pull your knee into your chest tight while doing a bit of climate tree. Take that leg up to the ceiling, pull your head towards your foot, From here, tuck your tailbone under, begin walking down.

I'm gonna do the first one modified. I'm gonna go just to my lower back. Maybe you've gone all the way down. Nodge your chin, peel in, and come all the way up, pull your head to your toe, tuck and walk your hands back, peeling through the spine, may be coming into full extension, nod your chin, peeling as you come up, using your hands to create length. Last time here, making sure the hips are nice and square.

Open the heart, chin in, lift yourself up, up, up, release that leg and come into a figure 4 position, just stretching yourself forward here, keeping the spine long, keeping 2 sit bones heavy to the box, and that's set up for the other side. The foot comes into the strap. Again, I like to tuck my foot under. Make sure you're on the side of your hip. One hand may be up, maybe two hands behind the head, and all the way into the well and lifting I'm gonna do a variety of different things with my hands. You choose what works best for you.

Full range of motion here. Don't shortchange it all the way down. Few more. Make sure the head is not going forward. There's always a tendency to round the upper back.

Remember that leg is nice and still come all the way up, pivot to that leg. Square off your hips into a bit of climate tree, hug the knee and tight first. Extend the leg out. Drop the shoulders. Pull your head to your foot.

Tuck your tail. Take the leg with you. I always take the first one as a little warm up. And then peel in and all the way up. And, again, walking your hands down that leg, light with your hands so you have the room to completely come into the extension. If that's what you're doing, the chin comes in, peel yourself all the way in and up, pull your head to your foot, Last time, everybody.

Open the heart. Shin comes in, peel yourself all the way up, pull your head to your foot, release your legs, come into a figure 4 position here. I'm using my hands behind me just to help me lengthen The two sit bones are heavy to the mat. Place your 2 feet down right to the edges of the care carriage. Notice the knees are parallel.

Bring your hands back down right to the insides of your feet. Take one arm and spiral stretch up. And I'm creating a little brace here between my arm and my thigh. Bring that hand dazzler ball ring a bit from yoga. The other arm comes up, and then my upper arm and my inner thigh are connecting. They're squeezing, and that really makes a difference.

Come all the way up, roll all the way up through your spine, sit cross legged, Bring the palms up or down on your knees. Close down your eyes. And let's take one deep breath in through the nose. Hold that breath. And a long slow exhale out through the mouth.

And we are done for today. Thank you as always for joining me.