Dynamic Cadillac & Tower

Hi. I'm Delia, and welcome to my second tower class on the Pilates Anytime platform. Today, we'll be doing a class with the Cadillac. However, if you don't have a Cadillac at home, you can follow along either on your springboard or your wall tower, but there will be one series at the very end that will require the Cadillac, and you can just eliminate that one altogether. We're gonna start standing facing the the uprights and grabbing on to the yellow arm springs. So when we face the Cadillac, just a little bit of a tutorial on what's going on here. So we've got this vertical moving bar that the straps are attached to.

I do have in the center leg strap that we'll use later. I've set the vertical bar up in line for my height, so yours is gonna be different than it would be for me. So I air towards between my chin and my shoulders for the height of the bar, and you should do the same. The roll down bar is just attached above. And if we have to move this vertical bar up and down, just move that roll down bar out of your way. Okay? Alright. Let's start facing of the Cadillac or the tower, and we're gonna do a quick little warm up.

So I'm just gonna step far enough away that I've got enough tension that I could do a standing roll down. Palms face down, soften the knees, tuck the chin to chest, and bring the arms down towards the floor. No need to force spring here. This is the beginning of class. So just relax here for a moment and just hold enough tension that you feel the tension under your arms, and it assists in that flexion.

Roll all the way back up and back to standing. Let's do 2 more. Inhale nod the chin. Exhale to flex. Feel that tension underneath the arms.

This is actually a really great place to gauge if you have too much tension or So if you do, that means you're too far away. And, again, and press down and then roll yourself all the way up. Now from here, we'll add a little extension of the back. So soften the knees, flex the spine, go back to your standing roll down, but stop once your shoulders get to about hip height. Once you're at hip height, you can reach the arms forward, give yourself a little extension. You'll feel a big stretch at the hamstring to glute Make sure those knees are soft.

Start to press the springs down for tension and then roll yourself back up to standing. I'm gonna step back just a teeny bit for extra tension. Not the chin and flex forward, shoulders, the height of the hips. Arms reach forward. That's much better.

And exhale and flex and roll. One more time, inhale breath and flex, stretch out those shoulders come up. Let the back flatten and feel the stretch as your butt goes over your heels and then round the back and then roll yourself all the way back up to standing. Now a little rotation warm up. My legs are gonna be bit wider, maybe about the width of my shoulders.

If you play golf, find your golf stance. If you don't play golf, just follow along. So hands about shoulder width apart, arms out in front. A teeny bit of slack. Drop your bottom and look towards the floor. I want you to actually imagine a target.

If you play golf, it'd be a ball. If you don't, just anything on the floor. Keep your eyes there for just a moment. You've got tension under your hands. Take your right arm out to the side and then shift that right hip back.

That left arm will reach closer to the floor. So you've got this nice rotation at the hip, and then go back to your start position. Just bring your arm down. Do the other side. Lead with your arm, and your hip will come with you.

So your left hip will come with you, I stay down, and we're gonna repeat again with the eyes focused on the floor. Inhale, it'll stretch at your hip, exhale to return. One more inhale, and the exhale. Now let's take the eyes with you so the spine all comes along. So the hands will go to side, the right hand, the hip will shift back, and then you're gonna look towards that hand, giving yourself a really big stretch, and then return. And over to the other side and inhale and stretch and return. Let's do 2 more sets.

I'm gonna move a little quicker. Inhale, exhale, pull it in. And one more reach return, last one, and come all the way back up. Next exercise is like a standing ab curl. So little bit of slack on the spring, palms facing up. Legs start straight and tall.

Another little tip is when you're facing the roof Cadillac itself or the tower, you should be upright, not leaning back in any of the exercises, not for any that we're doing today. Now from here, turn the palms down, soften the knees, flex the upper back like you're on the mat, and your lower back is pressing up against the mat. Do not dive into your legs. Feel the tension in your arms, feel the tension in your abs, stand up, release that tension. There was too much tension come forward a little bit.

So exhale, inhale, 3 more for 5. Exhale, flex, draw those ribs into the hips, Two more, press it back. Again, reminder not to dip your head towards your thighs. One more exhale breath. And then, if you weren't already warm, that should have warmed you up a little bit. Now on to squats with a bicep curl, and we are gonna combine the squats and bicep curl with that last exercise that you just did.

So arms out in front. You want enough tension that you can drop into your squat. The beauty of doing squats here is that you can get almost a perfect squat and stand up and lower and lift. Imagine now that someone's well, not someone's, but there's something underneath you with your bottom that pops you back up So it feels like it's lifting you back up to a standing position. We'll do this one more time, bicep curl with the squat, stand up. Now let's combine those last two exercises you have to move a little bit faster, but stay in control. Palms facing up.

Soft knees, upper back flexion, into your ab curl stand up. Find your bicep curl. Stand up. Exhale breath. All the way up. Inhale breath. Squat.

3 more sets. 2 more. Last one. And then back up. The way to lose form is to speed that up if you're not ready to speed it up with all of the gesture that's happening with your arms. Back into your bicep curl with a squat.

Now you hold. Okay? I love this. I feel like I'm gonna levitate, but bicep curls, shoulders back, pull your abs in, make sure that your lower back is safe, and imagine sliding up and down a wall here. So biceps are working. You're contracting that muscle. Your quads are working.

Your feet are flat. You're working your glutes. 2 more. Last one and release that tension. So just to open up the front of the body and move unilaterally through the legs, which is a little bit more athletic, we're gonna do some lunges with rows continuing to face the springs. Okay?

So now find your row make sure that you've got enough tension. If you have too much tension, when you go to bring your arms forward, it's gonna pop you forward. You wanna stay solid in your feet and stay as upright as possible when you're facing the spring load. Let's add a lunge with the right leg. So I'm gonna lunge the right leg back and then back up.

I'm gonna choose to hold the tension. You can release the tension if you'd like and move into your rows, but I'm just gonna hold. Okay? From here, level it up by bringing the knee to chest and drop it down and lift. Good for balance. Good for control. 2 more.

Last one, hold. Stay. This is my strong balance leg. I always start there. So you're gonna reach your arms forward.

Let the leg come back. Hold it here. Lower that foot to the floor. So now you're in that hip extension. Lift the foot, think about hinging at the hips, tightening the glute to hamstring, and lifting that knee back up.

4 more arms reach forward, toe dips, toe lifts, Me in. 3 more. And up. And to a lot of glute. Last one. Lower lift and stand.

Other side, find your row. Drop the left leg back and up. Inhale. If you choose to keep that back knee under your hip and you drop back into a lunge, you will load that knee. If that doesn't feel comfortable for you, Just place the foot where it does feel comfortable.

Let's add a knee lift. Need lift up. Little squeeze of that glute too. Tight abs 3. You've got 2 more. Last one And now we're gonna go up.

Arms go forward. Keep tension on the springs. Left leg goes behind. You lower. You lift.

You come back up. Adjust for any imbalances that you might have. It's not worth falling over just to get this exercise in. So make sure that you feel stable and lift. 2 more arms out.

Lower lift. Last one. Reach out, lower lift, pull it up, and release. And you can do a little side to side stretch after that. There are so many more variations that we can do with those, but we're gonna move on. Into chest expansion.

Let's balance here with the ankles. So I'll walk forward for a little less tension, and I'm gonna test that tension out, actually. So that's about right in here. You wanna be able to move from the shoulder blades freely. You don't want it to be a forced movement in here because if you're already tight in the chest, that's where you're gonna feel it. Okay?

So a nice little glide palms face back. Legs are gonna be adducted together so that way it moves nicely into the next exercise. Glide those shoulder blades back. One more time. Inhale and release.

Let's relevay or pop up to the balls of the feet, or layman's terms, just some calf raises. Okay? So you're gonna lift the balls of the feet up, pull back If you have the right amount of tension, it's gonna keep you pretty balanced and tall, lower the heels down. Inhale float, exhale lower. This gives us that nice movement in the ankles to strengthen the shin's and the ankles. Great for balance. 2 more. On the next home, we're just gonna hold it up and pulse those arms and challenge.

So for 876543 2, 1, and release. Alright. Well, that concludes the standing portion of the springs, and we're gonna lie down on the Cadillac and or your table or if you have a tower, and we're gonna work on some supine exercises. Let's do the next set of exercises on our back. So supine, lying on the table, head needs to be towards the spring low that we were just working with on the tower. So line on your back, you're gonna reach back and grab the yellow hand springs. Alright? So this is going to be just about right for these next few exercises. So you're not even going to have to move the bar.

Let's test the resistance by placing your hands in the springs, and then just pressing the springs down. Okay? So remember, not remember because I'm gonna remind you, but I have to remember that these exercises progress. So I don't want too much tension on my arms because we're gonna be lifting the upper body. So just practice here, make sure you have at least enough tension about halfway down. Alright. So from here, we'll do some ab curls. Let's lift the head and shoulders up.

Check out the thighs. Press the springs down. You'll know when the first one, if it's too much, not enough, roll yourself back down. And again, chin to chest, lift up, can you feel the stretch at your back body? When you feel that stretch at your back body, you will get a little extra flexion out of that torso and lift and lower. Let's just do one more. Exhale. Into that app, curl.

Your choice whether you wanna maintain neutral with your lumbar spine or gently press it into the mat. From here into some bridging. So we're doing counterintuitive exercises in between the abs. So lift your hips up, press the springs down, touch the mat if it's available to you, and then drop the bottom back down and repeat, and lift. And lower. So you are lifting in neutral. So please fire your glute to lift up so that pelvic floor has to be fired to get that glute to fire properly. Let's just do two more.

And then one more and then lower. Okay? Now legs up to a tabletop position. Elbows are bent, head and shoulders up. We're gonna take some stuff off the mat here. So head and shoulders up.

Going into single leg stretch, I've got just enough tension here on the spring. As I extend my right leg out or pick a leg, I'm gonna extend my arms. My toes are nicely lined up, hopefully. And as I bend the elbows, the opposite leg goes. Shush. 2 more sets.

2 last set. 1, both knees controlled a tabletop and then rest feet come back down. Bridging again, but a little variation. So now the hips come up and the arms come down. As far as bridging is concerned, I'd like for you to make you have your legs about fist distance apart, but if your thighs are really tight, you can open up the legs a bit wider.

Just make sure that the hips, knees, and toes are in alignment. From here, take the right leg to a tabletop position and just toe dip five times one. Lower 2. Strong through the arms. The whole body is working.

You've got one more, place the foot down, and then the other one comes up, and you lower. And you can place the hands all the way to the mat, If you want a little bit more support, you've got 2 more, one more, place the foot down, roll the spine down, and then back to your abs. So elbows bend again. Legs come back to tabletop. Head and shoulders come up and now extend your arms and open up to scissor legs. So right leg for me to the ceiling left leg out. And then now you're gonna switch.

You're gonna bend switch. Switch. So try set presses as you move through your legs. 2 more sets. Last set, both legs up, control, bend your elbows, bend, feet down, last set here of the bridging. Arms come down and you hold.

Okay. Right leg comes up to tabletop. Extend that I'm just gonna get a better grip here. Extend that right leg to the ceiling. Flex that ankle, hold it here.

I want you to feel as though you are bringing your heel to a nail on the ceiling and nailing it down. Now point the foot, lower the foot, and bring it back up by pointing and flexing the ankle at the same time. 2 more Last one, foot comes down. Rest only if you need. Otherwise, other leg to the ceiling, flex that ankle, get that nail up there, and then point and up. Point and flex. Liminate the point and flex.

If you don't like it, I like it. One more, hold, bend, roll, and release. I'm just gonna take my arms out to the tee, take my legs together, drop my knees to one side as I look over to the other side. Some spinal rotation feels good. It's nice to lay down for a second or the other side.

And then one more. And you are done with those. So facing now the frame and grabbing on to the roll down bar. So I'm just gonna get my springs out of the way. Here and face the roll down bar.

Okay? My legs are gonna be together. Arms are gonna be out. I'm gonna extend my legs long. So visualize your roll up position off the mat. K?

Legs hurt while together or maybe even just slightly apart, whatever feels comfortable to you, but find a tall posture. We're gonna do a little sitting sit up. So bend your elbows towards your ribs and check out your thighs. So it's just a little press. Don't press so much that you're actually really going into that crunch. Let's let's take away that crunch from here and just do a little curl.

And then sit up nice and tall. I use the word crutch, crunch sometimes, but it's only if I can't get that person to maybe somehow exaggerate that movement, but I think a curl feels a little bit more gentle. It makes a little bit more sense. So just curl, and then sit up. Let's go into a full roll down, put some tension onto that spring. Roll all the way down.

This is a go to Cadillac exercise for me. I absolutely love it and rest. Once you're here, feel that tension. Lift or drop from the shoulders, but they assist of the spring load. Now as you lift up, keep a little tension in the spring.

The lower you keep your arms, the more challenge these challenging this becomes. As you find your sits bones, come into that little ab curl. Sit up tall. Do that again. And tilt the pelvis back. Allow the shoulders to protract.

So when you come back to neutral, it feels good. Now the head comes up. Those shoulder blades separate. You're checking out your toes. You're keeping tension on the bar. You're looking at your thighs.

I'm gonna flex my ankles as I do do a little ab curl just to get the feet, moving as well. Flex all the way down. Drop the head. Lift all the way back up. This should feel good. This is your last one, flex, and return.

Let's cross the right ankle over the left ankle, hold the bar with the left hand. So right ankle over left, left hand on the bar. So right leg is crossed on top. So now this arm is free on the same side. Go ahead and roll yourself down and give yourself a little stretch to the side and hold it here for one breath.

So you're giving yourself this big wing span. If you can grab onto this bar behind you, grab onto it. When you come up, you're gonna flex and use those obliques to lift yourself back up, 2 more. Roll down the center of the spine, swing the arm overhead, reach for the opposite upright, one breath inhale, and on your exhale swing right back up one more time, inhale breath, and reach to the side grab onto the upper right, and then flex all the way back up a switch to the other side, left over right, right hand onto the bar, left hand down. Exhale. And for some of you that don't feel like this is doing much for you, this is actually giving yourself a nice stretch, but you're gonna work into those obliques in a second.

So this stretch of mat warm them up. And if you don't have that lateral flexion, then it's gonna be hard to get into those obliques one more time and exhale, arm up and over. Take a breath. And then roll all the way back up. I'm going to turn towards you and stack my knees on top of each other, and then drop my forearm down to the table or the mat.

Now there's quite a bit of tension here. So, again, the closer you are, the source of the spring, the less tension you'll have. Let's drop that shoulder into the ear and then pull up so that you are actually firing through that oblique on the side. Holding onto that bar at the same time. One more time, here, hold. Now pause and then just bend the elbow into the ribs and press. So you are working one arm and working that ladd on that side, and probably, and hopefully, your lower trap. One more time, and then the arm comes forward.

Now take the legs and open them up. So one foot, the bottom leg is forward, and the other leg is back, and you're gonna reach for your uprights. So you're gonna place the balls of your feet on the bar, again, top leg behind bottom leg forward. Extend all the way down onto the mat placing the palm down. I'm gonna keep my hand down for this exercise. That first exercise that we just did here with the bar, that was your prep.

So stay there if that works better for you. Let's slide the arm up the mat. Ben the elbow towards the rib and allow that top heel to drop under the bar. So you see how that lifted me up a bit higher, then point the toe and then lower back down. 3 more, floated up.

This arm is supporting me. That elbow comes to the rib. You're gonna drop the heel, look at how much higher I got, and then extend and lower. 2 more. Let's do inhale to float, exhale.

To bend, inhale to reach out, exhale to lower. One more time, you guys lift it up, bend the elbow, drop the heel, reach it out, lower down, and then just sweep that arm around and we're gonna go to the other side so you get to see what it looks like from behind. Like stack on top of each other, grab onto the center of the bar, drop your elbow down. Little shoulder shrug, make sure that I feel good here, and that my shoulder feels comfortable. Now, bend that elbow. Let's do 4 of them, one, and to the ribs, 2, 3, one more, and reach. Okay?

Now we're gonna open up the legs. So we're gonna open them up one foot here, one foot there. Top leg is behind. It's important to know that arm extends long. Okay? So now you're gonna float up and keep this arm there for support. Bend the right elbow into the rib and drop the heel.

That heel's gonna lift me up just a bit higher. Point through that foot and lower. Your feet on the upright should feel as though they are solid as though they were on the ground. So feel both balls of the feet strong holding on to that bar. And again, and inhale.

And drop lift higher. Reach lower down. 2 more. Drop point release. Last one.

Inhale to float up, bend that elbow, support with the lower arm, flex that ankle, go to a pointed leg, feel strong here on this last one, lower yourself down, and then float yourself up. Another option is if you actually have one of those little safety strap things, you can hook your legs under there as well if you wanna practice with that. Onto the knees facing the roll down bar. This is not an exercise that I do often. I find other ways to stretch the front of my body, but it is a great way if you have the ability to be on your knees to open up the front body from the knee all the way up.

To the neck. Okay? These are called thigh stretches. Holding onto the bar, thumbs are gonna be inside of the rings, and the fingers are gonna be on the outside of the rings. Nice and tall with your spine. Let's test the tension. So just lean back at the knees slightly and make sure that those springs feel like they're supporting your weight back.

That's the beauty of doing thigh stretch holding on to the springs. I'm gonna walk myself a little bit further back. Okay? Before we go for full, the full exercise, let's set up. Take your pelvis and you see how my tailbone is kinda sticking back out there. You're gonna tuck it under. Okay? That immediately gave me a stretch from here to here. Once I did that, I also felt my quads fire just a tiny bit.

I'm just going to lean back as far as I can. Before I start to lose control and come out of this long spine and then lift back up, that's step 1. K? Inhale, lean back, and then exhale. The next day's an alignment. So just let the eyes go where they're supposed to as you lean back. If you're feeling pressure on the bottom part of your knee, the part you can't see, maybe come out of this exercise. It might not be for you, but the top of the knee feeling a little bit of a nudge is probably just a tight quad around that knee.

Okay? Let's add the arms. Inhale as you lean back. Pause. Press the arms long towards the hips as you simultaneously come up to tall knees, makes me a little shaky, release the tension. That's gonna challenge you.

So as you come up, if you put too much tension on there, it's gonna be hard to balance up here at the top. So stay nice and tall. Inhale. Arms come down. Exhale. 2 more. Lean back.

Pressure on the springs. Lift up, up, up, up, up, maintain that long line. Last one, inhale back. Arms down, lifted up, released tension. Now let's try some extension, which also feels good.

So arms out in front, you'll start by leaning back Once you're at that position where you feel comfortable and not too far back that you can't maintain that balance, pause. Then drop your head back as you bend your elbow squeezing the shoulder blades together and then opening up through the front body, almost like you're trying to bring a ponytail to your toes. Take the chin to the chest, extend the arms at the same time, try to find that long spine again, press the arms down, come back to tall knees. Inhale to lean back, exhale extend the spine, dropping the head back, releasing arms forward. Bring the arms down. Now, a little tip here. Try not to overtighten the abs.

If you overtighten the abs at that belly button, you're not gonna be able to get that nice beautiful extension. So it recruit your glutes a little bit for support and don't just rely on tightening your abs. So you're gonna lean back and then bend your elbows. Drop your head back. I'm gonna let my abs go a bit.

Feels actually much better extend the arms, look forward, arms down, to the thighs, release that tension, and you are done with your thigh stretch series. I'm gonna place the rolled on bar down, and we're gonna go over to the push through bar. So I'm going to attach the blue spring on to the push through bar. Take your time to get that all loaded up, and we're gonna go through a little teaser series here with a push through bar. On your back, supine, grab onto the bar with your hands, and make sure that you are able to bring the bar overhead. And I'd like to maybe line it up with the uprights down here.

And, or maybe just a little bit further. If you have a springboard, you don't have the ability to push past the wall. So improvise here if you need to. Alright. Line on your back. Arms are long. Let's do a little elevation and depression of the shoulder just to make sure that our arms are going to be in sync with this next move.

Feet are flat onto the mat, and now depress those shoulders down. Bend your elbows The bar is gonna come across your face, nod your chin, and roll yourself up until you are sitting behind your sits bones. This should feel comfortable. If it doesn't, then you'll have to roll back down Scooch yourself back so that your arms feel like they're in a comfortable position out there. Let's try that again.

Reaching the arms back. Bend your elbows as soon as it starts to cross your face, start to lift your head, scoop through your abs, roll yourself all the way up, reach the arms up, and that feels more comfortable for me. And then roll yourself back down. This is a teaser prep. This is showing your upper body what it should look like. Even if your legs were in the air rolling through your spine, That spring will control you and help you up, and then you're gonna pull down slowly and reach back. Alright.

So now right leg goes up to tabletop. The arms are gonna come down. Your head's gonna lift. Same motion with the upper body. But as you come up, extend your leg, and half the toes be about the height of your eyes.

Roll down. Once your mid back touches, you can bend your elbow, reach the arms back. Let's do that again. Inhale. Shinto chest. Exhale. Scoop the abs in and reach and slowly roll back down. Two more times for 4 total.

Inhale breath. Peel that spine off, and you might need to adjust that other foot to make sure that your hips feel comfortable. Lower yourself down. Alright. One more time as you flex up. Now as you come up, pause here, hold lower and lift that leg 4 times 1. Inhale, exhale 2, 2 more. Last one. Bend the knee.

Lower yourself back down. Put the foot onto floor or the mat and reach your arms back. Let's take the other leg up. Bend those elbows. Head comes up. Allow the bar to assist you up. Look at your toes.

Lower yourself down. Start to bend your knees as your mid back touches arms reach back. Inhale. Exhale reach. Inhale. Exhale lower. 2 more.

And lift and roll through. That rolling through is a key element to this exercise. Make sure you're not just hinging your body up and chin to chest and lift and exhale breath and slowly roll down. We're gonna do that one more time, but you're gonna stay up there. So roll yourself up, stay up there, hold, and then lower lift that leg for 4, 3, 2, 1, bend the knee, roll back, put the foot down, reach the arms back, and then extend the legs long.

I'm gonna come up to full teaser with my legs starting on the mat. It feels the best for me. So why don't you guys try it out with me here? So legs are nice and long. As I bend my elbows, I'm going to drag my heels towards my bottom simultaneously, scoop my abs in, find that tabletop, extend the arms, extend the legs. I'm gonna hold the legs long until I'm all the way down to the mid back that I'm gonna bend my knees, drop both toes, extend out, almost feel like I'm stretching in opposition.

Inhale. Drag the toes. Extend. Lower down, lower down, lower down, lower down, toes come down, you reach back. Let's try for 2 more.

Last one. And it's a little bit hard to drag those toes with those sticky socks, but I'm trying here roll up and reach and stretch now hold. Now pause a little bonus. Let's bend those elbows 4 times 1. 2, 3, 4. Keep those toes long.

Keep the legs up. Bend the knees as the lower back and mid back touch. Touch the toes. Reach it out. And hold.

Alright. Time for a little extension. If you are alone and have no assist here, be really careful that the spring doesn't pop up and the bard doesn't hit you on your head. So turn around. Keep the hand on there. Flip over, place your hands onto the bar, and now you'll find yourself in a prone position.

So we're gonna go opposite. We're gonna start by bending the elbows to pull the shoulder blades back into a slight extension of the upper back Arms are long. Okay? Let's do that elevation and depression again on our belly. So reach the arms forward and back, keeping the arms along. The arms should feel is though they're like the letter v, and they come to the bottom of that letter v right between those shoulder blades. Okay?

That's the depression part. So depress the shoulders Ben the elbows so that the bar comes behind the head. Hopefully, your elbows should feel like they are in line. They need to be in your peripheral. When you do that, just float the upper body up a bit, squeeze those shoulder blades together and then lower the nose and take the arms forward. Your gaze for right now should be at your mat.

The bar comes behind the head, the elbows are in your peripheral. You squeeze your lift, and then you extend your arms out. Okay? Lower back is stable. Hips are pressing down. The legs are strong.

Your legs can be open with the toes turned out, or your legs can be together. And about in line with your hip. I'm gonna add on to this one. Bend your elbows, squeeze the shoulder blades together, now start to lift your eyes, push the bar to the ceiling, and come into full extension. Again, this I've said it in other classes, but this is not fight or flight.

If you can't hold it here for a moment, it might not be for you right now. Start to lower yourself down slowly and bring the arms forward. It is a timing thing, and it does require a little bit of control. Bend your elbows, squeeze the shoulder blades together, start to lift the eyes. Push the bar to the ceiling as you come into that full extension.

And then slowly belly button down as you bend your elbows. Keep that bar behind your head. Otherwise, you'll knock yourself out. So two more. Inhale. Push the part of the ceiling.

Ass slowly lower down. One more time, you guys. Bend your elbow. Squeeze a shoulder blades together. Push up.

Inhale. Slowly lower. Nose down, arms out. And now one last thing here. Can you guys lift the upper body up, connect those lats, hold, take your legs up, and just swim?

Swim, swim, swim, swim, swim, swim. And as you're swimming the lower half of your body, bring your hands a little closer to each other, and then take one arm behind you. Find a little extension with rotation and breathe and smile. And then take that hand down, and we'll just do one set on each side. So just count. As long as you held one side, you should hold the other.

Bring that arm down. And then rest. Now to get out of this without hitting your head with the bar, place one hand on the mat. And that way you can come up and release that bar up so you don't fling your arm up, towards the ceiling. A little cat cow here. I'm gonna stay on my heels.

I'm gonna take my hands to the bar, so I'm sitting on my heels. If that's not available to you, get up on your knees, or just do a a quadru pet in all fours cat cow, hands to the bar. Let's push the bar forward and then round the back and press forward. Feel that stretch in the lumbar spine. Roll yourself back up. It just feels good.

Date a little bit of mobility in there when you've been stabilizing it for those exercises and forward and back. So those last two sets, the teaser, and the extension exercises, a lot of strength in the spine. So make sure you take care of your back after those exercises and do something that feels good. One more time inhale and exhale press the bar down and stretch it forward. And then roll back up and then release the bar. We're gonna continue doing exercises with the push through bar, but there won't be any resistance on there.

And because there won't be resistance, we're gonna have to attach the safety strap. So with the spring still on, so the bar is up high, I'm just gonna go ahead and attach the safety strap now and talk to you while I'm doing it. So these exercises are in lieu of if you had a trape piece. So the Kennelac you can put a trapeze on top and do some pull up exercises. If you don't have those, which I'm not gonna show you those today, I'm gonna show you the version that you could do if you just have the tower version or the combo version with your reformer.

So I'm gonna wrap this safety strap around and place it on the higher loop. So it's got the most tension. Then I'll remove the spring bow that was on there and let that spring go. So you'll see that it's about level here from where it's attached to on the, uprights. K? We're gonna do some pull ups from here.

I like these pull ups better than normal pull ups, but here we go. Alright? So where you'll be sitting will be determined by the length of your torso and how hard you wanna work, essentially. So the further back that you are, the less your body's gonna weigh, Okay? So let's just go to the very edge without dropping my head off the back of the table. I'm gonna reach up, grab the bar with my hands, and because of how high this is, my head has to automatically come up. So my head's up.

Feet are going to be flat as I pull myself up. So start first by just checking to see if you feel like you're in a good position. And I actually might scooch back just here a little bit. Feed or flat. Okay? Now, I'm gonna bring my heels a little closer, lift my bottom up, and I'm gonna pull myself up from here, one, adjusting my feet as I need to, 2.

2 more. Last one, lower your bottom down, rest your head and shoulders, and release the tension so that you can drop your head. I'm gonna turn my palms the other way. Okay? My hand goes on to the bar.

Tom's face the other direction. I'm gonna test these bicep curls here, make sure that I'm in the right position, and then I'm gonna bring my heels closer, and then I'm gonna get my butt off. So I'm gonna lift my butt off and bicep curl here one. Inhale exhale 2. We're just gonna go for 2 more.

Last one and then drop the bottom down and then release back to the mat. So on the next one, I'm just gonna add a little bit of extension. Reach the hands back up to the bar. The head will come up. Legs will go out.

I'm just gonna have to test it here. So start to lift the hips and keep the head down. Okay? So you're gonna lift up into sort of this high bridge with your head down. Okay? Now as you lift the hips up, pause, feel that extension.

Make sure you feel secure here. Your head's gonna stay back as you extend and lift up. Extend the arms down, drop your head and drop your hips. We'll do that again. Roll the hips up.

Start to drop the head back, find that extension, drop the head down, and then roll yourself all the way back down just Two more. We'll do 2 more. Lift it up, inhale. Extend up. Exhale. Lower the head and release one more time. Lift, hips first, pull, head drops, extend, hold, count 4, count 3, 2, 1, drop the head, slide everything back down, and release.

Okay? Alright. Hopefully that was a nice challenge for you. Usually, the rule of thumb is try to do 80% of exercises that you can do really well, and then just challenge yourself about 20% of that class, and you'll be getting stronger by the minute. Okay? So let's go ahead and take the strap off so I can drop this bar down. Now if you recall in the beginning of class, I said that there was just one exercise that was only gonna work for the Cadillac.

So if you don't have a Cadillac, you can stick around and watch. So when you can get to a Cadillac, you can try these exercises. There are exercises on the Cadillac where you reach up for these uprights and you hang essentially and do some tucks with your knees. Those are hard for me. So I do them a different way using the fuzzy straps So I'm gonna bring the fuzzy straps over to about center of the Cadillac, and then I'm gonna take the back fuzzy strap undo it and then place it side by side with the other one. K?

Once you place it side by side, you want them to be about shoulder width apart. Okay. So I take that loopy loop on this side, and then I'm hooking through on the side that's closest to me. Now if you don't have these and just drop down to the floor, do some mountain climbers, do some burpees. It'll feel the same. Okay? So now straps are on.

I am going to take, and I just need to readjust here real quick before we get going. There it is. They weren't even. Okay? So instead of hanging like this, which is hard on shoulders, my shoulders, especially, I'm not very wide here on the shoulders. I'm gonna slide my arms through the fuzzies. Okay? It's not that this isn't gonna be work. It's just gonna be different work. Okay? Grab onto the straps, and I'm not tall enough to touch. Well, maybe I am. Oh, I could touch the floor.

There we go. Okay. So from here, pull your shoulder blades down, pull your lats down, and then pull yourself up into this position. So you're actually holding down. Now for 5 knee tucks, two try not to swing 3, 4. I'm gonna end with my feet on the Cadillac table.

And then from here, I'm just gonna stand up because I feel like that's a much better way for me to go into this exercise. Okay? We're gonna go into obliques. I'm gonna do 3 sets only. These are really hard exercises. So dropping it down to those elbows, you still wanna not hang into the shoulders.

You wanna pull out of your shoulders here. So I'm gonna set myself up here. A little bit easier. I'm gripping. Legs down, side to side.

1, 2, pull those abs in 3, 4, 1 more, 5, 6 feet on, and release one last thing. We're gonna do some beats. Okay? So I'm going to actually turn around. Place my arms inside this direction. Grab onto the fuzzy straps, and maybe this view will get me through this next exercise. Alright.

You guys? Ready? Alright? You're gonna hang the legs down. Find extension by drawing the heels back and just beat the heels for me. 1, 2, 3, 4, flex your ankles, 3, 4, point your toes. Flex your ankles, one more set point.

Flex, knees down, straps out of the arms, and then on to the floor. I'm gonna have a seat on the Cadillac for a quick little stretch. Get out of the way of those fuzzy straps. So we'll start with just a little cross of the legs, take a deep inhale breath, little figure 4, and breathe. And let's go to the other side and take that leg up. And do a little stretch.

Figure 4. And now let's take the hands out in front, interlace those fingers. Bring the arms out in front of you. And if you can see me sideways, I'll stand up. And feel that stretch between the shoulder blades.

We did work a lot in there, and then bring the arms behind you, and then open up through the shoulders, nod the chin, get a little stretch in the neck. And then just release and take your time to cool down as much as you would like. Thank you so much for joining me on the tower class. I really enjoyed teaching this class, and I hope you enjoyed it too. Thanks so much.