Release, Align, Condition

Hi, everybody. I'm Tom McCook. It's a great pleasure to be back here at Pilates anytime. I'm here with Mandy and Aaron for a reformer class, and the class is gonna be starting on the jump board. So this will be a balance of strength. Mobility and conditioning, and I think you'll enjoy.

But you wanna put your jump board on as a starting point. And I recommend either two reds or red in the blue. We'll we'll start with a little bit heavier setting for jumping, but we'll do a little warm up while you're on your back. Through either two reds or red in the blue, and then come on to your back when you guys are ready. And then start with your feet flat on the jump board, but pretty high up.

So you can kinda get a feeling that you're you're, you can find neutral in your pelvis. Now in that position, just take a moment and see if you can just start to center the weight on the back of your pelvis and take a few deeper than normal breaths through your nose. And on the exhale phase, just let the front of the body fall into the back of the body where you settle into gravity for a moment. Just take that inventory of noticing how you're doing on a feeling level. And use the exhale just to let go of superficial tension, chest, jaw, even your eyes.

And just take a couple more breaths like that. And that's it you guys. Great workout. That was awesome. Just kidding. Now from now from there. For your arms long, just start to target the breath a little more lateral into your low rib area.

And on the exhale phase, just follow it in a little bit further and picture your waist lines like a belt getting a little tighter to help you empty your lungs and just wake up that connection to your core cylinder. Just do that for a couple breaths. It's still diaphragmatic breathing. You're just targeting where you're breathing more. Now the next x just we're gonna do a little arch curl of your pelvis without the carriage really moving.

So as you exhale, curl the tail towards the back of the knees Tom imprint your lower back into the carriage and then tip your pelvis forward. And go back and forth, are you getting that sense? Can I move evenly through the pelvis? Let your lower back give you that feedback. Just to get a little warm up in the center of your body.

Just do a few more between twelve and 06:00. Six is your tail. Twelve would be your belly button. There you go. Now as you come back to the center, touch the front of your hips with your two fingertips, and just go just inside the front of the hips into the soft tissue of your lower belly wall, and picture where you're touching is three and nine on the clock. So now you either imprint three or nine into the mat for the other side to lift slightly and then back to the center.

It's really small. Think of doing that without swaying the knees. You're just imprinting like you're tipping a tray slightly side to side that's across your pelvis. That's it. One, more each side like that.

And now you know what's coming next. We're going to put the two together. So we're going to go into clocks. So take a breath. You can bring your arms long or keep your fingers there.

Now on the exhale, curl the tail to imprint 12 behind your belly button. Now lengthen towards either three or nine in one side down to your tail and curl up on the second side. And just go slow enough that you can start to hit all the numbers on the back of the pelvis between six and twelve and three and nine. That's it. I recommend exhaling as you're going towards your belly button, inhale as you're going towards your tail.

One more in the direction you're going. And as you get into flexion at your belly button, pause and then reverse. That's it nice and smooth. Feel how you're using your inner thighs, your pelvic muscles, your waistline, and a little bit of your lower back. Just two more.

And one. Good work. And then as you get back to the middle, just find that neutral position again. Go ahead and lengthen out your legs. And we're gonna do a little mobility work for your feet. So with your feet, Slowly roll up onto the balls of your feet.

Now roll to the outer edges of your feet, back to your heels, to the inner edge, and then to your big toe. I feel you're going through that little circular movement. So we're getting the ankles to mobilize. And notice how the whole leg follows that rotation of the ankle and foot. There you go.

Preparing in the feet for a little jumping party. One more in that direction? And then reverse. Outside forward to inside back. That's it.

Nice and smooth. Just two more. And one. There you go. Now as you get back to neutral, just bend your knees about an eighth of the way and then straighten and roll up onto the balls of your feet and do that five or six times. So you get that ankle crease, and then you extend into the feet.

Nice and fluid. There you go. Two more. There we go. One more. Now at the high point of the next one, when the heels are lifted, just go right into a slow running in place. That's it. Meet at that high point each time.

And put in a put an awareness on the your first two your first and fifth metatarsal, the bone behind your little toe and the bone behind your big toe. And think of those are your key front foot points that you can start to press into. There we go. Just a couple more each side. Now as you get back to the middle, interlace the fingers behind your head, With your legs long, we're just gonna do a simple ab curl. So take a breath on the exhale, float your head, now head like a wheel, roll it forward and imprint the back of your waistline to come into flexion, and then lengthen the upper body back down.

Do that three times. So do your ab curl. That's it. There you go. And one more. Now next time you come up, hold it. Now as you hold it, pick a picture the back of the ribs are going up your back.

Do a small leg bend. Now fully lengthen the legs and just throw the carriage away. It be small. That's a land as lightly as you took off. That's it. There we go. And do five more.

There we go. Land like a cat. Two more. And one. Now as you as you finish the one you're on, let your head come down just for a moment.

The second set, you're gonna do the same way, but we'll do it in turnout. So take a breath again. Come into your flexion. Back of the waist up your back, and now first position, throw it away, and land for eight. Nice and smooth.

That's it. Feel that light landing. There you go. And three more. And one. Good work. Now come back to the middle.

Now go into parallel again and let your head come down. So for the next set, you'll do it with your head down, and it's gonna be single leg. So again, start with your legs long, and now float one leg into a tabletop and take your opposite hand to your inner knee. We'll call that a diagonal press. Now keep that and just bend your standing leg a small amount and then throw it away.

Do that for eight. That's it. Feel that your foot's like a a hand. It absorbs and it throws it away. That's it. Two more. And one. Good work.

Take a moment. To switch your legs when you're ready, diagonal press, and then throw it away. There you go. Nice and fluid. Good. You guys. That's it.

Two more. And one. Good work. Now from there, we're gonna make it lighter. Go down to just one red spring. We're on tour.

And come on down when you're ready. Now for this one, your head will stay down too. Now, the key thing when you're jumping when it's light is think of you not trying to send yourself through the back of the reformer. Because you could throw it really far. Focus. Think of the focus more on the landing and maintaining the form when you take off. So again, straighten your legs to start.

Now go into a small turnout. Do a small bend. Now throw it away and land light for eight. For how you can stay long in the centerline of your body. That's it. There you go.

And two more. And one now continue, but jump from first to sec first position to second, a little wider on the cart. So you'll jump from first to second, then back to first for eight. Yep. There you go. Exactly.

Yeah. Perfect. Nice. Two more. And one. Now, for straight legs pause just for a second. There you go. Now what you're gonna do now is you're gonna jump. And from the open position, you're gonna open the legs wide, close, and land.

That's it. So jumping in a little bit of turnout. There you go. To jump and open and land. And again, see if you can land as lightly as you took off. That's it. Nice. That's it. Last two. Last one good work. The last set we're gonna do is jump into our front split and land.

There you go. That's it. Just take your time. Just get that feel. Extending to both legs. Good. Nice. Four more. That's it. Oh, there you go. That's it.

All good. Awesome. One more. Great. You guys. Now from there, as you come in, we're gonna keep it light. Bring your hands back behind your head.

We're gonna finish this set with double leg stretch. So when you're in the ab curl, you're gonna throw it away. Just reach the arms overhead as the legs lengthen. And then land bringing the hands back. And go nice and slow.

So on the exhale, throw it away. And land. Do that for eight. That's it. Nice. Four. Four more. Two. Good. Two more of you guys.

And one. Awesome work. Great work. Now from there, we're gonna roll through your side and help yourself up. And we're gonna do a standing stretch. We'll keep the mo we'll keep the jump board for the standing exercise because it'll allow your hands to be higher, but I recommend you add a yellow.

So you have a red and a yellow. And standing single leg knee stretch, your standing leg will be straight. Maybe back in the middle of the carriage and keep your pelvis over your standing leg, and then with your foot against the shoulder block, round your spine from your waistline up. But leave your pelvis four and leave your standing leg straight. This leg will straighten and feel how you're pulled back. Now as you push back, The back knee is not gonna go far behind you because you don't want to let your spine change.

Feel how you're opening up your hip and using your core. Get a feel for that. So feel that relationship between your abdomen. Your glutes, hamstrings, and inner thigh muscles. There you go. Just three more. Good.

And one more. Short and sweet. We'll go right over on the side too. It's an adventure. There you go. And then then have your standing leg straight. And I think of pelvis right over your foot, round your back, and then push back where you're opening the front of that hip on the moving side. And you're keeping that standing leg as straight as you can. There you go.

And if you can round a little more, there you go. Beautiful. Three more now, you guys. That's it. And one. Great work. Now we're gonna take a moment at home to it Tom take the jump boards off so you can unscrew them.

And then you'll let the you can just take that bar, and then we're gonna take ours over to the right side here. Perfecto. Thank you guys. And then we'll put the foot bar up in middle bar, the second hole from the top. And we're gonna come down onto our back and do a little bit of arm work. And for arm work, I recommend, if you have anything going on with your shoulder, I would stay light with maybe one red, but you go all the way up to two reds. You could do a red and a yellow, red and a blue. You can decide in that range what's better for you.

And for this one, if you like your head rest up, you're welcome to do that. It feels better for your head position. That's it. Now when you're ready with your feet on the bar, reach your arms straight up to the ceiling. Now keep your feet on the bar and just pull the Tom, pull the carriage a little bit in the air with the feet still on the bar. Now set the shoulders back and wide on your back.

And right below your breastbone, think of imprinting the top of your waistline into the mat, then float up one leg at a time. That's it now on the exhale phase, pull the arms to the mat. Actually, you're gonna have the straps for this one. There there you go. I had a minute.

No worries. There you go. No worries. There you go. And then exhale to pull. Perfecto. That's it. Nice and smooth. Just do two more before we add to this.

There you go. Next time you pull them down, keep them down. Now keeping them down, just put your attention on the, on the head of your arm bone. Right where your arms meet your body, pull them a little more towards the mat. Now really slow, open them out to the side to a t, then back to your hips. Do that for four.

There we go. That's it. On the next one, hold them at the bottom. Now, when you go, you're gonna go into cheerleader, right arm out to the side, left arm to the ceiling, and then back to your side. Do three each side.

Take your time. Feel your way through it. See if you can connect all the way down to your inseams of your legs as you pull. That's it. There we go. One more reach side. Excellent.

Last one. Now at the bottom, hold, bend your elbows halfway preparing for coordination. Inhale to prepare, exhale curl up, slide your arms and legs long, open close the legs, bend the knees, bend the arms. And again, curl and reach, open close, bend the knees, bend the arms picture when you're bending the arms, you're reaching through your elbows from that connection to your shoulder blades. That's it. Just two more. That's it. And one more.

Nice and strong. And then sequence down, place your feet on the barges for a moment. Now we're gonna do starfish, which is a variation of coordination. So once you're up, you'll slowly open arms and legs. Pull it back down three reps before you bring your body down. We'll just do two sets of three.

So take a breath when you're ready, exhale curl and extend. Now, nice and slow. Open. Close for three. Feel that connection underarms down to the inseams of the legs. One more. And now bend the legs, bend the arms, lower the head. Just two more sets. On the exhale curl, open close, That's it.

Make it as small as you need to to have good rein good form, one more. And then start with bending the legs, then bend the arms. And one more time. Last one, best one. Open, close, strong.

One more, last one. Great work. And then bend, Now we're gonna go when you lower, put your feet on the bar, we're gonna go into short spine. I recommend you make a spring change to two reds. So add add a red, instead of a red and a blue, go with two reds. And then put the straps on your feet when you're ready.

There you go. And now with the straps on your feet, just press out to a low 45 for a moment. And then make sure your headrest is down if it's currently up. There you go. Now just just take a moment where you're you can set the back of your shoulders on the mat and start to reach evenly into both your legs. As you breathe in, let the legs come to 90.

On the exhale, let your tail chase your feet into the rollover? Now inhale plie, let the pelvis rotate a little more over the torso. Now from your abdomen, start to sequence down so you can lengthen out your back with long, heavy arms. At the bottom, pull your heels down to drop your tail. Slide your legs long.

Take your time like that. Let's do five more. Feel your way through each rep. Fast it nice and fluid all the way through. No rush.

Long neck, relaxed jaw, fluid breathing. That's it. Four more. Breathe all the way through. That's it. Fill that connection of using the back of your legs and your abdomen at the same time. There you go.

Tom three more. Breathe through. There you go. Now you're getting a little more opening in the spine with control. Ice and fluid, draw down and reach, add two more.

That's it. Excellent work. You guys just keep your breath flowing. And one more last one. Fluid and strong. That's it.

And then bend and articulate through. And right as you get to the bottom, we're just gonna keep moving. So just with your hand, slip the straps off your feet. Put the straps on the poles when you're ready, and then help yourself up when you're ready. We're gonna come and grab your long box and put your long box on your reformer.

And then once you've done that, put your foot bar down so it's out of your way and go down to one one yellow spring. There you go. Now Tom me show you standing what you're gonna do with the straps. Cause it'll be easier for you to see me. So you're gonna be aligned on your belly holding the straps, and you're gonna do external rotation with that one yellow facing the foot bar. Just what I need. See.

That's what we all need. Now come on to your belly when you're ready. And then once you're there, take your elbows straight out to the side off your shoulders with your hands directly under your elbows internally rotated. So your elbows will even be a little lower. They'll be down, like, like this.

That's it. Now before you go any now now I recommend you wrap your fingers around that so you've got strength. Now put your awareness on your, on not arching your back. Keep your lower back, your belly wall, lifted, and your inner thighs tones. Now on the exhale, spin your hands forward inhale to lower. Challenge yourself as you do that Tom keep the neck long and feel the connection to your belly wall as you spin the arms.

So you feel that support. Do four more. There you go. Good. You guys.

Two more. Nice. On the next one, spin, and then press overhead. I am. And then open out to the side, and you can think of no extension, just like straight line.

Just focus on that body line, then bend back to that starting place, that internally rotated position. And again, spin and press. That's it. Beautiful. Just two more. Spin and press. Excellent. One more. Find your breath as you do that as in the hard part of the movement.

And press good. Now as your arms come down by your side, Just let your head drop for a second. We're gonna do one more variation. Take a breath or two there, soften for a moment. There you go. Now we're gonna do traditional breaststroke, but we're gonna do it where don't worry about extending until your arms are open to the side and a little below your shoulders. So for this one, you'll take your hands, in front of your shoulders with your palms below your body. Now just take the head of your arm bones a little more back again.

And fill your body line, but just like that. Now on the exhale reach the arms overhead, open them out to the side when they get below your shoulders now extend. And then as you lower bend the arms again. And again, exhale reach. Open, extend. Three more times to your own pace.

XL reach, open, extend. Good. There you go. Two more. That's it. There you go. And one more. And reach. Open, extend. Beautiful.

And rest. That's a whole lot of work going on there. Great job. You guys now carefully help yourself off the box. And now from there, we can just we're gonna go back down onto your belly and do swimming. In the same position.

So when you come down, add a couple springs so the carriage doesn't bounce around, and just rest your, either your wrist or your hands on the bar a little wider than your shoulders. That's it. Now just do a small retraction of your shoulders, draw your shoulders slightly back and slide the top of your chest forward. And then feel the length through your neck. Now feel the tone through your legs and just practice pressing one arm down as you lift the other and you lift the opposite leg. And just do that a few Tom.

Nice and slow like that where you just go for connection over speed. That's it. Feel how you can stay nice and long through the torso, open in the top of your chest. That's it. One more each side.

Now, next time on the exhale, just float all four limbs like an inch. Now, really slow start to swim as you breathe, alternately swim. Inhale for three or four, exhale for three or four. Two more breaths. That's it.

There you go. One more breath. And then lower good work. Now as you come off the reformer to the side, put your forearms on the box standing, bend your knees and round you back for a second. Just decompress for a couple breaths. That's it.

Good work, everybody. Nice job. Now when we come up, we're gonna take the box off, and we're gonna set up for the long stretch. And for the long stretch, I recommend, middle bar. Put your head rest up and put on a red and and a and a yellow.

And if a red and a yellow feels too light, go for a red and a blue. There you go. Now when you come to standing, put the ball of your feet in the crease of the headrests and come into a strong plank. Now in your plank, feel like you're drawing your low ribs away from the bar. And your inseams are toned and really slow on the exhale push the bar away. Inhale, it came in over the bar with that tone body line.

Exhale reach away. In Hellend. There you go. Fill out the arms or just the connection point to a toned body. Two more. That's it. And one.

Now as you come in, come up to standing on your reformer, we're gonna do single leg elephant where you'll you'll have your heels up. You'll go up into the up stretch, but when you come in into plank, you're gonna pull one knee to your chest and then reach back up into that single leg elephant. But I'll talk you through. So when your carriages all the way in, take one leg up and back behind you. Now as you push away, now have your standing like the heel lifted a little bit.

That way, you'll you'll have it'll be easier to get into position. Now as you push out, pull that free knee to your chest as you arrive in a plank. So this knee will pull into your chest as you come down. Then as the carriage comes in, reach up and back, and do four on that one side. That's it. Strong and connected all the way through. There we go. One more. Great work. As you come all the way in, you can take a moment to switch your legs and then reach up and back again.

Now feel your form. And now as you come in, pull that knee to your chest, long straight line, and then up and back. Four reps. Excellent. And one more. Great work, you guys. Now from there, carefully step off the reformer, and we're gonna go into a quad stretch.

So for quad stress, instead of having your foot just against the shoulder block like this, you're gonna put your knee against the shoulder block. And then tone the belly wall as you push out without letting your back collapse. And I'll talk you through that. It'll keep the weight the same or red and the yellow. And you can step your front foot up pretty close to the foot bar. Now, first start to pull the belly wall away from the bar and tone your glute on the stretch side.

And really slow, let the pelvis go down as you push out and hold it for a breath. And then come up and in. Just do four nice and slow like that. There we go. That feels kinda yummy after all that work. That's it.

Now next time you go into it, hold it, and on the stretch side, take that arm forward overhead, and you'll do a small side bend towards the standing leg. And breathe into that. There you go. Keep it in that feeling of the pelvis staying open towards the back leg. One more big breath. And then nice and slow come up and in.

And we'll switch sides. Good work. And just take your time. Get your set up with your knee up close to the shoulder block. If you need padding for your knee, that's fine too. Now draw the belly wall draw the belly wall back and tone tone that glute on that back leg and then really slow, go down into it.

And then slowly come back up and in. Just do four where you're mindful of not substituting in the lower back, keeping your connection to the middle of your body, two more. That's it. On the next one, go into it and hold it. On the stretch side, reach the arm forward up overhead. Now small side bend towards the standing leg.

There you go. One more big breath. And then we'll lengthen all the way up and in. Now we're gonna finish with seated mermaid. So we'll go down to one red, and you can go into the z seat. If it's uncomfortable or anybody do the c seat, you can cross your legs in front or even keep your feet on the floor.

I'd I'd say the z seat would be the the the the chosen way, but you can make it work for you. Now when you push away, push away without side bending first. Now with your free arm, reach it up on a high diagonal and think of taking your spine towards that up arm to side bend. So you feel how you can get the ribcage to open and then lengthen back up and in. That's and do it a few times where you go away from me. That's it. There we go. That's it.

Now next time you go into it, go into it. And from the side bend, spiral down to the bar, bring your free hand to the bar, and open up your weight bearing arm a little wider. Now take your torso a little lower. Hold that shape and bend and stretch your arms for three. Feel that shoulder blade connection. Bottom your shoulders to your neck and stay long.

One more. Next time you press hold the press now slide your heart forward and up to come up and in, and then flex down from the top and do three times flexion and extension like that. There you go. And then you'll curl down, and then add your extension again. There you go. And one more.

There you go. Now the next time you go down, stay at the low point, Stay with your weight bearing arm and reach your free hand away from your legs towards the frame into a twist and just take a couple breaths into that twist. Breathe into where you're feeling the tension. One more breath. Nice and slow back to the foot bar, back to the midline with your weight bearing arm, back to your side bend, and then do a slow counter stretch the other way as you come up and in. Take your time.

Very nice. And we'll take side too. Good work. Yeah. And just take your Tom. Just get your set up. Push away when you're ready.

There you go. I appreciate you listening to your body. And as you reach away, take your spine and ribs up towards that up arm so you can open and then side bend. There you go. That's it. And then lengthen up to three of those.

Feel the shoulders moving away from each other down and away from each other. That's it. Next time you go into it, go into it, hold the side bend, now wrap down to the bar. Bring your free hand to the bar, open up the weight bearing arm wider. Go a little lower with your torso, and then bend and stretch your arms for three.

That's it. There we go. One more. Now as this last press, hold the press, now slide the heart forward and up, come up into extension and flex down from the top. Three Tom, nice and smooth. That's it.

And one more. When you get to the low points, stay stay with your weight bearing arm, reach away from your legs into a twist towards the frame and breathe into that for a couple breaths. Nice and slow come back to the bar, back to the midline with your weight bearing arm, back to the side bend, and then come all the way in and do a counter stretch the other way. Very nice. Now from there, put on three springs the way you did for, like, traditional work, and we're just gonna come on to our back and finish with running. There you go. Come on to the balls of your feet and let yourself extend your legs long.

Just go into a slow running and just bring your awareness to your breathing, your posture. On the bending leg, press the shin forward as you press into your foot points. On the lowering side, think of taking your sit bone a little more towards the midline. That's it. And just sense awareness where you can start to let go of superficial tension you might be noticing so you can finish in a really good space.

There we go. And then just drop one for a stretch for a few breaths. And when you're ready, go ahead and switch. And then as you bend and come in, roll to your side and help yourself up to standing. We're gonna finish with a standing roll down.

There we go. And just put your feet right under your sip bones, and picture you have three wheels in your body. Your head's a wheel, your ribcage, and your pelvis. So do a small leg bend. Now let the head wheel roll forward first. Now the ribcage wheel then let your pelvic wheel roll over the top of your legs. And at the bottom, feel the weight of your head wheel and nod it yes a few times.

Rotate it no. Take your breath and initiate from your pelvic wheel start to roll back up and let your head be the last thing up into a line posture. And as you arrive at the top, unlock your knees, let your breathing drop, center your head over your body, and just take a few breaths and notice ease alignment. Acknowledge yourself for your good work today, you guys. Thank you for joining us. I hope you enjoyed and enjoy more with Pilates anytime.

We hope to see you again. Let us know how you feel about the class and be well. Thank you, everybody. My pleasure. Thank you. Nice to work with you guys.