Full-Body Awareness Reformer

Hi. I'm so glad you're gonna join me today in this reformer workout. I have a balanced body reformer. You'll notice the straps are on the lowest setting. Start with footwork. I'll put on three red springs. Line down on the reformer, I'm gonna have my head rest up. It helps my ribs to heavy down.

Starting off in our pilates v, couple of deep breaths. Make a notice, settle in. Right? You can do just a little wiggle wiggle, reach reach, Big breath, center yourself. Try not to be in a hurry, like you're gonna try to get a workout in. Let's use it as an opportunity. Did you feel all the benefits of moving with the reformer? Let's get 10.

Here's four. Attract the heels. Inhale out. Exhale in. Fill the lungs side to side. Let's get two more.

Now last one, go out and stay out. So feel the attraction of the heels feel the narrowing of the hip sockets without a knee hyperextension. Breathe big into the body, exhale, bring yourself back in. Switching to your bird feed. Drive the feet down towards the floor as you press out and come in.

Minimize any tilting in the pelvis to maximize length in the hips. Here's four. One more. Go out, stay out. I call this a little motorcycle action, like your feet are on, like, one of those little motorcycle things. So just get some little mobilization through different parts of the sole of your foot, maybe move your feet down a little bit.

Pay attention. You're not adding a tuck or an arch of your pelvis working through all the length in your hips. Heels. Pulling the feet backwards, press away. Come in.

I like to inhale and expand the ribs, exhale sink the ribs come on down. So it's not a harsh, exhale. It's not a big grab of your belly. It's just to toning that happens when you return. We've got five more here. Arms are resting comfortably.

There's three red springs. It's not super heavy or super light. Let's get two more. And last one. Let's take your feet apart on the bar. Wide, and let's open the thighs really wide till you feel some sensation in the middle of your thighs, and then take your thighs and close them together, point your toes closer together, feel internal rotation of the hips.

Open thighs, close thighs, open thighs, close thighs, heels together, knees sway, and then knees sway. Knees sway. Kinda just waking up some rotation in the trunk. I like adding some rotation in the trunk before I start pulling the arms. So now I'm going to come back and bring myself up changing this to two red springs, getting myself ready for arms and straps. And what I'm going to do here is a little bit different. I'm gonna squeeze these straps, work on my grip from my pinky to my ring finger, to my middle finger, really work on a grip.

But watch what I'm going to do with my legs. I'm gonna push my legs till my arms come over my shoulders. Then I'm actually gonna lengthen my legs on the bar, so I'm not tempted to grip my hips for this first little bit. So I'm gonna tone up my arms. I'm squeezing And then I'm going to think about lifting both of my legs up off the bar.

And what that does is it gives me a little anticipation of front body connection. So I'm not really lifting them up, but you can kinda see if I just think about lifting them up. I'm getting a nice front body connection and anticipation. And then when I'm ready, I'm going to pull and hold lift the right leg up, lift the left leg up, and now I'm going to hold this shape here, squeezing from my fingers, making grip connection making arm connection, making core connection. Pull. Release.

Pull. Release. If your ham's finger's tight, bend your knees. This is fine. So it's the weight of the thighs towards the ceiling that is giving you this core connection as you squeeze and pull your arms one more time, hold for five, four, three, two, and one, release the feet, release the arms. Again, legs long, arms pull. Now with your legs resting down here, see my feet are resting on the bar.

I'm gonna take my two arms, and you may not see this. But my brain is gonna punch my arms up to the ceiling. And because that kind of moves my shoulder blades around my rib cage, that will make a serratus connection to my x turnal obliques. Whoo. So that keeps a good connection. And then we'll switch and switch, and we'll do something with the legs to challenge the trunk.

Still squeezing. A squeeze is different than a big old grip. Because I'm talking, you know that I'm not gripping my jaw. So you need to make the decision whether or not you're gripping your jaw or just squeezing. Alright. So now a little more traditional arm circles, I'm gonna grab my hands in the strap, and I'm still gonna give a little squeeze because I think grip strength is really important. But when I squeeze my hands to make a grip, I'm not tensing my shoulders or my neck or anything like that.

So I'm gonna tighten my tummy, lift the thighs in past 90. Maybe my low back flattens because my knees are pulled in. I'm gonna let my shins rest so I'm not governed by the front of my hips. Here we go. So reach up and pull down, reach away come up. Let's do five of these. That's one.

Up and pull down, push away and come up. Here's three. Here's four. Here's five. Fee come down.

Get ready for pulling out to the side, adding a circle. Arms push up and down. Lakes come off. Circle. Five times in each direction. Two, three, four, five.

Reach away. Come up in your circle. One. And two, connecting through the ribs, three, pulling from your whole arm, not your elbow, four. Last one, five. Bring it on up. Rest your feet down.

Now we're going to do a hold action where the arms will be out to the side like a t. So I'm gonna tone and tighten my tummy as my thighs lift my arms pull, and now they're gonna come out to the side. Five breaths. Two more breaths. The breath is an invitation to open your ribs.

Oh, that one never gets easy. Okay. Moving on to feed in straps. So I'm gonna grab. I have a double looped strap here, by the way, just for the ease of changing back from arms to legs. I'm gonna squeeze the strap. I'm gonna pull it and my legs come off.

Then I'm gonna put my feet in the strap. So a little bit different awareness of your feet today. I want you to turn the soles of your feet together. And see how this strap is more on the the higher part of the ball or my foot, kinda where your bird feet would be. Okay? And then I'm gonna turn the sole of my foot in. So the outside lateral part of my foot is lengthened.

And then I'm gonna get to this long, neutral position of my spine, but I'm going to let the soles of my feet try to face each other. And then as I close my knees, I'm going to invert my feet where the outer edge of the foot is coming up, like the soles of my feet are turning away. This is an action that we do sometimes on the floor where we're really trying to work what I call the cell with and I call it. It is the subtailer joint. So we're working through eversion I'm keeping tension on this loop, and you'll notice that one foot behaves differently than the other foot, or maybe you won't.

I notice that in mind. And then one more time. And because your thighs are maintaining this vertical position, you're actually in essence also rotating your hip joint. So now we'll bring our feet to the Pilates V, and I'm gonna let these straps moved down a little bit to just my heel cup. And so now I'm gonna reach come into the frog, and then my body's gonna think, proximal, like, close to the center.

So even though the straps are on my feet and my feet are softer now, the work is coming very centrally from my inner thighs and my hips. Let's get five more. The spine is not going from flexion to extension. The spine is long. Your bottom is heavy.

Your core is toned. It's not gripped. Let's get three more. Two. Last one.

Stay out. Now let's open the legs just to the distance that you feel some sensation in your inner thigh. Okay? It's not driven by the knees. It's driven by the thighs. Five times here. Here's three. Always pressing away for length. Bend all the way in, and now you're going to use your thigh distance closer to your chest to start a little curl in your bottom.

Almost like the little start of rolling like a ball. Right? Because that would look, you know, something like this. Don't worry. We're not doing rolling like a ball with your feet in the straps, but I just want you to appreciate that shape. Now what you're going to do is take your hands on the pegs. And I'm going to pull the pegs in the direction of the ceiling.

And on an exhale, you're gonna lift your bottom maybe an inch. And down. So now as I lift my bottom, my arms pulling up will help my ribs draw down it will give me nice connection through my hips, and then it'll give me flexion through my lumbar spine. I'm not coming all the way up so there's no need to lower my headrest. In fact, I still want you to feel a little flexion connection in your neck, your eyes can look down into your cheeks.

And let's do one more. Then reach the legs all the way out, take your arms down, and now go from that flexed position to a fully lengthened position. So now in this length position, from my armpits to the side of my ribs to my thighs are really long. So feel that in yourself and take a minute here as now you do your circles. So your goal now is to keep this length all the way through the torso, making your circles the size that you need to so you don't change any length in here.

One more time in this direction, and then reverse. Even though the feet are in the straps, the work is coming from the thighs. Twice more. Last one. Now coming back to the shape we started in, I'm gonna put the soles of my feet together.

I'm gonna move these straps up just a smidge, and I'm going to open my thighs and feel the soles of my feet try to open, whether they do or not. So this creates a nice arch in my foot as well. And then I'm gonna do eversion as I press out. Pull the soles of the feet, open the feet inversion, press the straps with my feet toning outside of bottom e version. Come back into the diamond shape.

Let the diamond shape be longer now rather than wider feel the external rotation in the hip, and then take that whole diamond shape down, and that whole diamond shape up. So I'm pushing with the outside of the hips. Let's get five of these in a row. One, two, Whether you're pushing down or coming back, maintain the external rotation force in your hips. Three, four, and five. That's really good for the hips.

I'm gonna grab my straps into the short handles so that when my feet just pop out and my elbows come down, I'm ready now for coordination. Starting to build that big breath in the back of the body, inhale as you lift. Let's get five of these. Last one. Coordination.

That is a nice way to start to use the inhale as you curl your spine to get a nice awareness, into the back of your body. Continuing now, facing the back of the reformer, put on one spring, It's typically where I would do rowing. I'm not gonna do the full rowing series today with you, but let's just get our legs in here. Let's grab. This is I'm gonna take my opposite hand and I'm gonna grab as far as I can And I'm gonna do our little keyhole awareness. Right? So you do the keyhole.

So my arm is is pronated down. My shoulders in internal rotation. This hand I'm just gonna rest it here in my tummy. So I'm gonna the carrot is completely closed. So I'm gonna turn the key in the doorknob, and then I'm gonna pull my elbow towards my ribs and hold and look straight ahead.

As I release, I'm gonna reach my arm over and turn the key. I'm gonna grab a little bit further because what I really want is that feeling of the start of rotation with internal rotation of my arm. Let's do five in a row. Make sure when you inhale, you don't shorten your back. So we want this rotation.

There we go. Oh, I'd love to talk to myself. I when I get happy with myself and it feels really good, I know that feeling. Let's get two more here. No extension in the back.

Fill the breath, and then let the rotation happen. So this would be kinda like saw. Right? Okay. So we're gonna put that strap down. Take the other one, reach. So now my torso is rotated to the right.

I'm turning my key to close the lock, and then I'm gonna open the lock. Just pause here for a second as a little reminder. This is not a bicep curl exercise. So you don't wanna shorten the business like this. So we wanna rotate, pronate, go down, let the carriage close. Pull.

Release. So having a little bit of resistance here from the reformer is a nice way to really feel the length and internal rotation of the shoulder. Then we turn, we pull and release. Let's do two more. Last one. Now we'll take the straps and we'll crisscross them.

And we'll take the straps here, my hands are grabbed. And now that I'm sitting pretty much vertical, and then I'm going to pull apart, and this also is not a bicep curl. So if anything, I'm trying to really reach my elbows apart, tighten my shoulder blades. My elbows do not pull back. They're just holding this upright posture.

Let's get five in a row. Inhale, fill the chest, exhale return. Inhale fill the chest. Exhale, return. Three more.

Last one. So filling the chest and doing movements with the arm is a nice way to get chest expansion, which will be our next exercise. As we build into the breath, and build in here. So I still have one red spring on. So the interesting thing about chest expansion, you can certainly have more springs to work on, quote, strength of your arms, but I see the reformer as an opportunity to educate my entire body and try to keep it, connected. So I'm gonna press the shins down.

Sorry. Do a lot of lecturing here. Well, sorry. Not sorry. You know what I mean? So we just wanna feel all these pieces. So in this exercise here, I want my hands to be grabbed, and I need the inhale to just pull my arms to my thighs to start with. Then I need to kinda set those blades on my back so that if I choose to pull my arms further back, I'm really not disturbing my head or my rib cage. So that's the strength of the spring that you need is not to fight.

So now the exercise inhale. Hold your breath. Exhale. Five times you know the drill. I feel myself coming forward.

So I press my shins to take the weight of my body into my buttocks. Two more. Last one. So love chest expansion because it expands the chest, not only from a strengthening in the arm position, but also from an expansion in the rib position. Moving on to long box.

When I put the long box on, I like to have a little, what I call a little interlude in the body. It's not really a rest, but it's like a little set change. Right? So let's just have the box here. Let's take one leg all the way up on the box. How ever you can get it up there. And then, kinda move your hip crease out of the way, push everything down, push your back leg down, and feel the grounding in your front leg. So I'm in a little bit of a lean forward, but I'm feeling weight through all my foot on this right leg. And then on the back leg, I'm gonna start to go up and up. Because at the end of the workout, Right?

We're about halfway done. By the end of the workout, when we do tendon stretch, I want you to feel the power of pressing the ball of the foot so that this back leg gets its entire posterior connection. So that's sole of the foot, calf, back of the thigh, back of the butt, and then we reach as far as we can, and then come all the way down. Switch legs. So I'm a big fan of the interlude, not as a rest, again, but as a connection into the body.

So foot presses down. Press the foot, raise. Raise. So where else would we see this? Right? We see this on the chair. We see it on the high chair. We see it on the low chair.

Press down. Press down. With both legs, even though you can see that my height is changing, I'm pushing through the calf, the thigh, and the buttocks on the back leg. Continuing now with pulling straps, I'm going to lower my foot bar down. I have one red spring on. I'm gonna lie on my belly.

Arms down by my side. I'm grabbing these straps pretty high up because again, I like to make that pinky grip. I get myself all connected here in the front. My body needs to recognize level before I lift it up. I'm gonna pull three times.

One, two, Three. Now I'm gonna push my arms long and start to lift my chest. My eye gaze comes forward, and then I'm gonna lower down. I have realized that I'm a little too close to the edge of the reformer because my carriage is in because that's where I chose to start it from my footwork. So I'm gonna move myself a little bit south on the box because the more I can support my chest here, I'm not going to fight extension way down low, and I wanna maximize extension in my postural upper back muscles.

So now as I lift, I have a little more awareness in my upper back. Let's get three more of these. Inhale, exhale. Come on. Squeeze all those hands and punch your knuckles. Really makes a difference. Last one.

Raise it on up there. Give a pull. Now take your arms out to the side like a tee. Let your arms get a little bit longer on the strap. And then come down. Come up to the t, hold, pull into the t, lift your chest, get the connection through your arms and your upper chest, release with control, lower down. Remember the exercise happens on the pulling, and the exercise remains on the releasing.

Last one. Alright. So hang up the strap. And now as we come up, onto the box, we're gonna turn in the other direction. And now I have to gear out because I need to have my head on the foot bar because I like to support my head in the overhead press version. So I'm going to come on down I'm going to add a blue spring to this red spring. My hands are on either side of my head.

My elbows are pointing down to the floor. I'm going to push the carriage, And then I'm gonna control the carriage and hope that my head is about the same. So I wanna resist starting like this and maximize the push. We got eight here. Two.

The push is from your arms at your shoulders, not your elbows. My pinky finger is pressing into the bar. I'm really resisting lifting up. Because I want the overhead press to be from my shoulders and my shoulder elevators without a shrug. Two more here. Last one.

I'm gonna press out. Stay out. Now as I lift up my chest, I wanna continue to push my arms. Even though the box will come in, I want my arms to be super duper active. Whoo. How good is that?

Don't come in. Don't come in. Push. Push Push away. Here comes the tummy. The tummy is long and it can still be toned. Push.

Push. Push away. Come on down. Two more. Push. Don't let that carriage close. Unless the springs are closing, but your arms are pressing away the whole time.

Last one. Push it. Push push push from your arms and your shoulders, not your elbows. And then come all the way down, bend the elbows, bring yourself in. Push yourself up on the box. Come to the hands and knees position.

Take your journey on a little spine, little, spinal flexion. So my body will come down. My abdomen will draw in. I'm gonna lie my torso down. What I'm going to try to do with my head is take the crown of my head and flex it.

Because that full flexion goes from your back of your occiput through your neck, through your low back. Again, top of the head down on the box, then my hands will grab my heels. I hope you could see the shape of crab there or the shape of seal or the shape of a deep flexion. Coming now to Quadropet on the box, where we don't have a lot of real estate under the shins, So we really have to think right arm presses, left knee presses, they pull towards each other in this diagonal to keep the center of the body still, and then we reach one leg and one arm. And sometimes I say reach the arm and the leg lower than you want to so that we really get the length through the spine. Pressing left arm and right knee Reaching, keep the length in the torso, reaching.

Pushing. So it's never a rest, right, if there's always something working in one direction or another. One more time. Awesome. Coming now back to one red spring.

I'm gonna have a seat on the box, and I'm gonna move to a little rotation. So I'm gonna take this strap. I'm gonna grab it pretty low. So that remember in the keyhole where we wanted to start in a little rotation. So I'm gonna take this very close to my hip, hold center, And then I'm gonna keep my head center as my arms reach across my body.

And then I'm gonna bring it back in, and then I'm going to release it. So I'm gonna add the twist now with the head and the thorax. So I'm gonna start with the twist. The carriage is closed. Pull reach, return return. If I wanna make this a bigger circle, I can pull with it close to my body, reach it away from my body. Let's do three like that.

Reverse it. Oh, that's a little harder. Reach. Pull it. Never a bicep exercise. Always a back body shoulder blade.

Torso exercise. Whoo. How great is that? Okay. Turning around other side. The first action is just the arms creating a force.

The head pretty much looks straight ahead. Then for the next three, I'm gonna grab a little bit closer. So starting in rotation here to the left, pull the arms, reach the arms torso twist to the right. Come back in. So these are all towards the center. Wanna be careful that I don't use my back extension to push the the strap out.

Now we make it bigger. We pull close. We reach away. We stir. We pull. We've reached away.

Weaster. One more in this direction. Reverse. Big pull and in rotate. Big pull try not to lean back. I feel myself wanting to, so I know I have to get more connected in the front of the body.

So those rotations are really nice to add there to kind of bring in the connections to the ribs. So I'm gonna lower my foot bar now. So, typically, in long box, pulling straps, one and two, you could do backstroke teaser. I'm choosing not to do those today. They don't feel the greatest on my body right now, so I'm just going to add a spring on here to keep my carriage stable.

And now I'm gonna lie down and do the abdominal series. So I still get that force of flexion through my trunk and the leg activity. Right? This is not for sissy's. Okay. I said the fives. Okay. We'll do one repetition of each.

Just kidding. Let's do about five three to five. Let's see what happens here. So when we start the abdominal series, I'm just gonna have your head behind my hands behind the head. I'm not gonna talk a lot through this. So I'm gonna lift my head, curl my trunk, outside hand, on that outside ankle. That is key, right, gonna snuggle up over my ribcage, pulling it in and reaching away.

Let's switch for five. Last set. Double leg stretch for five. Last one. Single straight leg.

Crawl up that leg to lift the chest. Let's do five. Last one reach. Reach. Two legs together.

Hands come behind the head. For three, down. Keep connected. Last one, Here we go. Crisscross until you don't want to do anymore.

I'm stopping two more. Come on up. I resist the urge to hang off the box. If I want to get extension off the box or and lengthening through the spine, I'll come around the box for an interlude put my hands on the box and just bow down. So the the hands on the box are a nice way to get your spine to lengthen.

Alright. We did crisscross. One last interlude left leg on the box, right arm forward twisting in the direction of the front leg. This becomes like saw. We're gonna find that twisting and rotating are one of the most important pieces to get in a session. Well, Let me rephrase that.

I find that rotation are very important pieces to have in a session. One more. I always do a rotation first trying to look straight ahead so that I really engage the torso. And then I keep reaching, and then I turn the head. And then I reached just a little little bit further.

One more time. Alright. Let's take this box off. Let's prepare for our long stretch series. So two springs. The first long stretch series I mean, the first exercise in long stretch, of course, is long stretch.

Anyway, I don't mean to do a lecture here, but I'm going to do long stretch with changing to a side plank. So my feet are gonna start on the shoulder rests and not in the headrest. And then I'll just continue from there. So just to monitor my position, I'm gonna come out and in just a couple of times to kind of feel my connection. And then when I come in, I'm gonna take my left hand to the middle of the bar, turn my feet on the shoulder rest, take my torso open, arm to the ceiling, gonna hold first three breaths. One, two, three, pivot my body down, back to the balls of the feet out three times. One, two, three. Move my right arm to the center.

Wohoo. Turn those feet. More challenging side and hold it up there for three breaths. One, two, three. Come on back, out three times one, preparing for down stretch, two, and three, knees come down. Carriage closes, pelvis comes forward, arms press down to create the chest up. Inhale, exhale.

I'm gonna find a spot on the ceiling, and I'm gonna look at it on my way down, and I'm gonna find it on the way up. Two more, push those arms down. Drag your chest up. Last one. Down stretch.

Up stretch, pressing into the feet, pressing into the bar, right, engaging through the center, stomach, ribcage, lifting up, holding the pike shape, close that carriage. Keep it closed. Out forward, way over the bar, way over the bar. Way over the bar, way over the bar, way over the bar, hold the carriage. Slowly pipe. Don't move that carriage.

Push. Whoo hoo return. Push down, lift up. You're hitting the home stretch. Two more.

Exercise is up. Up stretch up, up, up, up, up, up, up, last one. Always pushing the arms. And then get that final bike. Whoo.

And then after that, elephant the long way. Right? So now I have my head in line. My spine is long. So now I'm pulling my carriage in from the connection at the top of my hips to the lowest part of my belly. I could try to lift my toes, but I don't wanna snap back the knees. I want that full upper thigh connection. Alrighty. Up stretch.

Down stretch. I mean, long stretch, down stretch, up stretch, and elephant. How great is that? Right? So we'd added that with a side plank. So now we're just wrapping it up with a little bit of running and bottom lift. So let's put on four springs.

I have one green and three red. So previously, in the workout, again, I'm gonna put my head rest up, heavy the ribs down. I'm gonna go to position one, or my little pilates v, press out these four springs without a bulge in the thigh. So I want length So that when I lower and raise these heels, I'm pushing up a little substance, okay, because this substance of the calf, the back of the thigh, and the back of the butt, This can happen just from doing this movement of your ankle. You do not need to squeeze your butt.

Your butt will begin to participate when you do 10 more of these. Yep. I said 10. Here's two. Three. Yeah. It's getting tired already. Four. Five.

Six, seven. It's coming from your feet, not your knees, eight, nine, and 10. Whoo. How great is that? Then we open the legs apart. We're going to do a tiny little curl of the pelvis, pushing the feet down, engaging hamstrings, a tiny curl of the pelvis.

We're not coming up into a high bridge. We're curling the bottom. We're holding. Not squeezing the pelvic floor, not squeezing the glutes, the action of the heels pulling together and feet pressing down is actually what engages all this. Hold the bottom lift, go out a smidge, come in a smidge.

Whole reason to go out and come in is to deepen that hip connection without changing the shape of your spine. And then roll yourself all the way down one more time. Feed down, tummy toned, tiny curl. So when I curl this pelvis, right, there's no need to get any business involved up there. Last one, push pull. So you go out to the distance you can without changing anything else. And whether I'm going out or coming in, my thighs are very active. And bring yourself in.

Alright. You can stay lying on your back. You can take a a break. You can do anything because that was a great workout about forty five minutes long. Gets the heat going addresses all areas of your spine, arms, and trunk. I'm so glad you joined me, and hope you'll continue to do so. Thanks.