Postnatal Reformer - Gratz

Hi. I'm Zola. Today, we'll be doing a post natal classical inspired reformer workout meant to not put any pressure on the rectus abdominis or the superficial abdominal muscles. I will be using a grots. Let's get started. I will be starting on 3 springs today a little less weight than normal.

Go ahead and lie down on your back. Toes on the foot bar. Place your hands on the abdominals, and let's just take a deep breath before we start. So take an inhale, fill all sides of the body up with air, the belly, the ribs, the lungs, and exhale deep in the abdominals down to the spine at the bottom of that exhale. Tailbone is heavy, arms by your side. Heels together, toes apart.

Let's go into our footwork, exhaling on the way out, inhaling in, and continue. Tailbone is heavy. Back ribs are down abdominals to the spine, and try to get that carriage to come all the way home every time that last couple of inches uses the backside of the legs. Let's do 3 more here. 3 all the way in, all the way out.

One more time. And using the abdominals, both feet come off of the bar at the same time to change to the arches, closing the knees, knees and feet together, exhale out, inhale a bit. Lengthen the tops of the thighs every time you straighten the legs. 4 more. And same thing. Both feet lift off at the same time to change to the heels and then push into the carriage.

Make sure the feet are centered on the footbar and stretch and bend. 5 more. Oh, collar bones are wide backs of the shoulders pressing into the mat without splaying the front ribs open. One more time out and all the way in changing to that narrow Pilates stance back onto the toes for tendon stretch. Lower the heels and lift the heels up.

As the heels go down, the arch is lift, and then push the heels up. We lower with control, we lift, lift, lift, down, and up four more times. Lower try to not let those inner ankles touch. And 3. 2. One more time down.

And keep the heels lifted as you bend your knees. Carriage comes home. Let's use the feet to lower the foot bar all the way down. Grab onto your handles. Reach the arms up to the ceiling and find a tabletop position with your legs.

Scooch your body forward just a little bit so your shoulders have some room. I will be keeping the head down today. If you don't have any diastasis, recti issues, you can lift your chest up. Otherwise, stay with me, press the arms down. And then start pumping the arms inhaling for 5 pumps and exhaling for 5 pumps. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale. And exhale. Inhale. And exhale. If you're feeling comfortable, you can start to lengthen your legs up to the ceiling. Tailbone stays heavy.

Don't imprint that low back into the mat. Try to touch your fingertips to the opposite end of the room. The carriage should not move. And if you're comfortable, bring those heels together toes apart and start to lower your legs only as much as you don't feel your abdominals domed up to the sky. Keep pumping inhale. And exhale.

Inhale. And exhale. Let's do one more breath inhale. And exhale. And then bend those knees, lift the arms. Let's lower the headrest and very carefully come up to seat it however is safe for you. So I'm gonna put the feet down and roll over to the side a little bit and sit up taking off one spring.

I have two springs on. And let's do short spine massage. So put your loops through the handles. Bring your knees to your chest and place the loops onto your arches. Did I cross my straps?

Make sure you don't cross your straps like I did. Bring your heels to your seat And from here, stretch your legs to a high diagonal pause here. Now, instead of lifting the hips up right away, we're gonna bring our legs up to 90 degrees and pause. From here, I'm gonna deepen my belly down to the spine and let the strap start to pull my legs or my hips off of the mat until the carriage is all the way home. From here, don't move the hips, let the knees come down to the shoulder blocks. And then today, I'm going to keep my heels to my seat as I roll this whole shape down, down, and down until the tailbone is down.

From there again, stretch the legs to a high diagonal, but keep the hips down until the legs are at 90 degrees. Now from here, I deepen my abdominals to lift the hips Let the straps pull the legs back and the hips up. Good, bend the knees, keep tension on the straps, and roll the shape down. Feel that massage in the low back or on the whole spine. It feels really good.

Got 2 more of those. Get the legs to 90 first, and you can really deepen the abdominals here to lift the hips. Keep the arms pressing down. Push your feet into the straps as the knees bend and roll it down. One more time, legs to a high diagonal, but keep the hips down until you reach 90, deep in the belly to lift the hips.

Bend the knees, and roll it down. Once the hips are down, take the loops off the feet, bring the handles back to their original position, For coordination with the head down, so same as the 100, pull the elbows down, but keep the head lowered. We'll do the same breath. So from here, stretch the arms and legs, inhale. Hold your breath open and close the legs. Exhale, bend just the knees, exhale, bend the elbows.

Again, inhale stretch everything. Zola your breath. Open close. Bend the knees. Bend the elbows. If you're feeling good and don't have diastasis recti, go ahead and lift the chest. Otherwise, head stays down.

Open close. Bend and bend one more time, stretch, open, close, bend, and bend. Good. From here, come on up to seated, put your straps into the well. Let's remove one spring and grab our long box.

We will be doing swan on the long box. A modified version of swan as to not put too much pressure on the front of the abdominals. So get onto your box like a surfboard, hands on first, tops of the thighs go down. And I'm gonna let my chest come off the front edge of this box. Now from here, actually don't grab your straps.

Have your hands right underneath the shoulders. Now, before we do anything with the upper body, try to find the reach of the legs. If you have SI joint issues, keep the legs hip distance apart. Otherwise, squeeze the inner thighs together. Try to press your hips and pubic bone down into that box.

From here, crown of the head lengthens forward. I'm gonna reach both arms forward and try to bring them up to the height of my ears. Feeling the back body engaging without going into a full extension and just put the hands back nice and simple. Reach those legs really long. Pull the belly button away from your box.

Slide the hands forward. Try to lift the arms about the height of your ears, if you can, and then bring it down. Again, inhale to slide the hands forward and reach. Exhale lower it down. One more time. Inhale, stretch it forward.

Exhale lower it down. Grab your straps. You can place your handles around your wrists like bracelets, climb the hands up the leather straps, continue to reach those legs long and squeeze them together if you can. Keep the arms straight for pulling straps. We drag the knuckles down towards the floor, reach the hands back towards the hip can you squeeze the shoulder blades together, reach the crown of the head forward, and then bring the arms forward?

Again, bring the arms down to go back. Squeeze the shoulder blades, pull the belly button away from that box. I'm shaking, and then bring it forward. Good. Two more times down and back with the arms reach. And lower it down.

One more time, try to touch the knuckles on the floor before they reach back, squeeze the arms in towards the hips, and then bring the arms forward. For t pull, slide the hands down to the tops of your straps, reach the arms wide to the side. The palms always face down to the floor, reach the knuckles out to the sides of the room, and back to the hips, opening the chest squeezing the shoulder blades, reaching the legs, so many things happening at once, and return. Exhale. Reach back. Inhale. Bring it forward.

Two more times. Exhale out to the sides with the arms. Stretch it back. Reach it forward. One more time. Reach. Reach. Reach.

And bring the arms forward. Good. From here, put your straps back down into the well. You can step off your box. Let's change long box to short box. Grab your pole, place it in front of your box, and let's add a spring.

Sit on top of your box. Make sure there's a hands with distance space behind you for safety, and then grab your safety strap. Make sure your feet go under the safety strap, and then try to tear that strap apart with your outer ankle. So really press into that strap when working the outsides of the legs. Your feet shouldn't be tar touching any part of the reformer, so don't let them rest down. Don't let them rest into the springs.

Don't be crunch down. We're pressing, and we're lifted. So from here, stack one hand over top of the other. Look down towards your belly without collapsing, and let's experiment with our range of motion rounding back only as far back as our abdominals don't tint forward, and then come on up. And again, moving from the pelvis curl the tailbone under rounding back. You can go a little bit further if you don't have rectus abdominalis, I'm sorry, diastasis recti issues.

Sitting up tall at the top. And again, curl the tailbone under rounded back. And bring it on up. Sit up tall at the top. Let's go into flat back, grabbing your pull.

So just like your feet and your ankles pressing the strap apart, I'm gonna try to pull this bar apart with my arms at all times. So sit up tall in the spine, front ribs to back ribs, hinging back long spine, bring it back up. If you only move 6 inches back and 6 inches up, that's okay. We're deepening the abdominals to the spine as we hinge back. Again, pull that pole apart as you hinge back and bring it up. Good one more time hinge it back and bring it up. Let's lean forward a little bit for side to side.

So keeping both hip bones down, I'm gonna stretch up and over to the right, not crunching in my right side, but lengthening. Bring it back center. Up and over to the left. Right hip is heavy. That's the hardest part.

Bring it back center one more time each side up and over to the right. And center and the left and center sit right on top of yourself. Let's twist the ribs to the right. And center. Lift taller to twist to the left.

And center adding that reach or that hinge in your twist so twist the ribs to the right. And reach it back moving from the pelvis. Body comes up and center. To twist the ribs to the left and reach moving from the pelvis. Bring it back up.

And reach one more time each side, lift and twist, and reach. Body comes up. And center last one, lift and twitch, and twist reach, body comes up, and place your pole underneath your legs in front of your box, and let's do treat. Let's start with the right leg. Bring that right knee to the chest.

And let's stretch the leg up to the sky, and then the goal is to keep the thigh bone in the same place with both hit points facing forward stretch. And then last time stretch and hold. Climb the hands up the leg. Let's flex the foot, forehead towards the shin, pulling the ribs and waist back. We take this whole shape back so the heel faces up to the ceiling.

Pause here. Now climb the hands down the leg as you sink your waist into the well. I'm only going a little bit, and then climb the hands back up. Try to keep your waist pulling down into the well as you climb up the leg. Right hip forward, left hip back 2 more times, climb it down, and climb it up one more time.

Climb up the legs, sink the belly to the spine, forehead towards the shin, go take this whole shape up, sit up tall at the top, and bend that knee and switch. That foot goes under the strap. Left knee to the chest, sit up nice and tall, thigh bone stays in the same place in space as you stretch that leg. And bend. I was leaning a little bit further back.

Try to keep your shoulders over your hips. Stretch and Zola. Climb the hands up. Flex the foot. Forehead towards the shin, and then heel to ceiling as you lean back.

Think of the left hip reaching forward, the right hip pulling back to keep those hips square, climb the hands down, sink the waist into the well behind you. Climb it up. Maybe go a little bit left if if you see your belly button or your abdominals doming up to the sky. So climb the hands down. And One more time. Clim it up, sink the waist, even more, left hip forward, right hip back, and then sit up tall.

Good. Let's do sides, sit ups, keeping the right leg underneath the strap. Turn your hips. Make sure you're not sitting on your glute. You wanna really be on that hip. You can place your hand on the headrest.

Long through the spine, top leg is pushing up to the sky, top hand behind the head, pull the front ribs to the back ribs, try to not move as you place your bottom hand under the head, and then elbow to the head rest. And lift 4 more times. 4, and lift. 3, 2, 1 more time down. And up, place your hand on the head rest. Take a side stretch. If it feels comfortable for you, you can place your hand on the floor for a deeper stretch.

And then bring yourself back up. Switching sides. Foot under strap, hand on the headrest. Make sure you're on the hip, not the glute. Good. Pull the front ribs to the back ribs really stack those hips hand behind the head.

Once you're ready, don't move the body as you place your bottom hand under the head and sideband and lift. 4. 3. 2, last one down, and up, and either hand on the headrest for a stretch, or you can place that hand on the floor if that feels comfortable for you. And then climb the hands up. And let's put our box back.

The foot bar goes up. Let's do elephant. So hands on the foot bar first, stand up on your carriage and walk your heels back until the backs of your heels are up against your shoulder blocks. We want to press the heels down, down, down, round the spine, ribs, sternum, waist, everything pulling up to the ceiling, relaxing the head, and wrapping the arms back. So you wanna think of the triceps wrapping back towards the back of the room.

From here, lift the toes, And then without moving the upper body, press the heels back and in, back and in, out and in. You wanna almost think of the heels getting heavier as the carriage goes back which is not easy. 3, 2, and 1. Let's do single leg, right knee to the chest, stretch that leg behind you, but keep your elephant shape round for 4. Push back for 3. 2, weight, even in both arms.

1, put that leg back. Left knee to the chest. Try to keep that round spine as you stretch that leg back five times push back. 4, 3, 2, and 1. Good to put that foot back and carefully step down.

Let's add one spring I'm going on a lighter spring again for a stomach massage, grabbing my pad, placing it at the front of the carriage, have a seat on top of your pad, and place the feet on top of your foot bar. Heels together toes apart. Before we go into the rounded spine, really try to get the shoulders over the hips and then grab a Zola of the front of your carriage, round forward. Keep your shoulders over the hips as you stretch your legs, lower the heels, lift the heels, and then finding that flow out, down, up, and in. Let's do four more here.

Press out, down, up, and in. Thinking of lifting up and over ribs and waist pulling back. As you round up and over those ribs, one more. Stay in. Keep those 3 springs. As you reach your hands back, open the chest and sit up tall.

Same thing with the legs. You stretch lower. Lyft and bend. I'm inhaling as I go out, exhaling to come in. Let's do 4 more for Not too much weight in the arms.

I'm trying to keep it all in my core. And last one. Come all the way in, remove one spring so that you're on two springs. Try to reach the arms forward and up on a high diagonal, stretch the knees, no lower lift this time, and bend. I'm really trying to keep the shoulders over the hips the whole time, and it's my abdominals that pull the carriage back in.

Let's add a twist. I'm gonna lift the arm up and over as I twist to the right and bring it in. Up and over twist the left, don't take the hips with you, and bring it in. Up and over. One more time, up and over.

And let's do a little stretch because it feels nice, separate the heels let them fall under the bar and pull yourself forward with straight legs. And then bring the carriage all the way home. Let's step off. Take our pad back, put it in the well, and add our extension straps to the handles. So the handle and the loop become 1.

Place your extension strap on. And just make sure that the hardware of the extension strap is on the outside of the reformer. So facing away from the center of the reformer. And then you can hang those right back up on the little hook. Just so they have a place until we get back to them. Make sure it's on the outside. And then let's do frog and leg circles.

So lie back down. Headrest is lifted. The straps go on to the arches. Make sure they're even, arms by your sides, heels to the seat, and right away go into your frog, pressing both legs equally into each other. Only bending the knees to the chest as much as the hips stay down. The tailbone is heavy one more time.

Keep the leg straight for leg circles. Let's go parallel lifting. Opening the width of your reformer down and squeeze it in. Smooth out the circles. Lift the legs. Let's go the other way.

Press down first. Open up and in. Down, open, up, and into more. Good legs together, bring the knees to the chest, take those loops off, Let them fall into the well. And let's do a modified version of knee stretches.

So come along the side of your reformer. You're gonna place your left knee on the reformer. The right foot is on the floor. I'm gonna have my knees on the same plane, so make sure the right foot isn't too far forward. Left hand goes on the foot bar so that it's in line with the shoulder the other hand goes behind the back. I'm going to round the spine as I would do for knee stretches, hover that knee off of the mat, and just press the carriage back and in out and in. Finding stability in the rest of the body as you push that left heel back.

One more. Pause here. Find that flat back, lengthen the tailbone, and then out and in. Out and in. 3 more. 3, 2, and 1. Good. And then go ahead, go to the other side.

Hand behind the back. Let's find both knees on the same plane rounding the spine, hovering that knee and pressing back. We're doing eight times. 4 or more. 4, 3, 2, and pause. Go to your flat back.

Same thing. Press back 8. 7, 6, 5, 4. Push. Push last one. Take it out and in. Beautiful. Add your springs. I'm adding one spring, so I have 3 altogether for running and pelvic lift onto your back. Let's cool it all down, slow down the heart rate.

Knees and feet are together and parallel. One heel down, one heel up. Making sure to lift both heels up together in between switch and switch switch and switch 4, 3, 2, and 1 both heels high. Bring the carriage in, arches of the feet to the corners of the foot bar, lift the hips, just so that the pelvis is off of the mat, keep it low, press it out for 4. And pull it all the way in.

Press it out for 3. 2. And the last one. Bring it all the way in. Roll the hips down. And, again, step off of your machine for side splits.

So the foot bar comes down. I'm gonna do one spring today. If you want a little bit more support, you can do two springs. So I'm gonna walk around and then step up because it's safe. So on the carriage first, we place one foot on the frame of the reformer.

And then for me, I only walk my foot till it's a little bit past center. I don't go all the way to the shoulder block because it puts the strain on my sacroiliac joint. And then from here, try to squeeze the carriage home to start. I keep a slight bend in the knees because it's nicer, and then I glide it out. 2, 3, and Zola. 2, 3, pull it in, equally pulling with both legs.

Hold it in. 2, 3, glide it out. And I hold it here. I pull it in equally with both legs, and I try to squeeze it in and hold. Last one, I hold it out, And then I round forward, I grab a bunch of flowers, I pick them up, and then I give them away arching the upper back, come back center, do the same thing with the carriage in. So squeeze that carriage into home, rounding forward, pick it all up, and a high arch, center yourself, and then I heel toe my foot a little closer, step onto the carriage, and very carefully turn to face the other way. So one foot goes on the frame.

He'll toe the other foot to the distance that you like. Make sure your toes are even on the same line. Reach the arms out, hug that carriage in to start, and then glide it out. 2, 3. You hold here. 2, 3. Pull it in. 2, 3.

Hold it in. Squeeze. Squeeze. Glide it out. Zola it out. Glide it in. And squeeze it in.

Last time we glided out and hold. I'm gonna do saw this time, so I'm reaching my right fingertips to my left toes. Don't move the carriage as you come up. Same thing other side. Bring it on up, glide the carriage in.

We do the same thing squeezing the carriage in, fingers to toes, bring it up, fingers to opposite toes, bring it up, heal toe your foot a little bit closer. Stand on top of the carriage for safety. Step down, and you are finished. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you got an amazing workout in like I did.

I hope you feel safe in your body, and you feel good. I'll see you next time.