Reformer Variations

So this will be an intermediate level reformer workout. So before we actually start, I always like to stretch the body out a little bit to open up the energy. So clasping the fingers, pressing the heel of the hand forward, lifting the arms up and then seeing if you can stretch the elbows towards the head to stretch out in the triceps and the shoulders in the high rib area. Then lift up the whole spinal column, the rib cage, pull the shoulders way, way, way up. And then length in the shoulders. Dye. Nice long neck. Lengthen through the spine and stretch over to one side.

The hips are going in the opposite direction so the side body gets a good stretch, deepen. Come back up. Nice. Lift through the powerhouse, lift through the waist over to the other side, lift the ribs a little bit further and deepen. Hips go in one direction and chess goes in the other and come back up. Bring the arms down and class for hands behind the back. Fingers at class, the shoulder blades roll way back to open up and stretch across the collar bones, which get very tight. So first, stretch the arms down and roll the shoulders down. So there's a nice lift and openness in the collar bones.

And then lift the chest up, stretch the arms way back, and then bring the ribs back so that you can isolate that whole line of the shoulder girdle. Then breathing out, bend forward. Stretch the arms away from your spine just to get a nice stretch in the shoulders. Lengthen the waist to get extra stretch. Bring the hands down towards the ankle and pull your chest down and pull the kneecaps up so the legs become really long. Bend the knees or pull the chest onto the size and stretch a little bit further up. And just for the fun of it, with the hands on the floor, Ben, the right knee. So the left hip gets a good stretch. Then the other knee, so the right hip gets a good stretch. Relax, pull the chest and head down, and then roll up articulating through the spine, coming to an upright position. So standing right close to the front, cross the arms.

Sit down one cheek onto them, a reformer and lie down on your backs. Pilati stands. So the heels apart. Nice long spine and pressing out. As I'm working here, I'm lifting up the power house, lengthening through the spine, looking to see if it can keep my abs long and my spine long. Not over-talking this, the lower spine, but keeping the sacred long and the tail long.

And then every time narrowing through the upper side, pulling the, you know, size up, bringing the feet together to stretch out the ankles, pressing the heels way, way, way down and slowly pressing out, looking to get as much flection into the ankle joint and really seeing if I can get the knees fully extended because the cas and the hamstrings have a tendency to get very compressed. This helps open up the lower back and then come back keeping the ankles flex. Now this is common going out and dropping down, so you want to avoid that and the priority is heels that heels down, heels down, heels down, and then stretch out and then come back. So sometimes it can take a few times of doing this to actually figure out how to release the muscles and the joints so that the lower leg actually opens up. It's a wonderful feeling when you figure out how to do this and it gives a huge amount of length and mobility into the ankle. So just two more times.

Now moving into bird on a perch, toes extended foot is wrapped over, so you're really wrapping your feet around the bar. There's a few places as the foot can be placed, you can have it across the metatarsal or you can have it in this just below the metatarsal or the center of the foot, and it's always a nice idea to play with different positions because each one of them will affect and release different parts of your body. As I'm pressing out in, in, I'm trying to relax the foot so it molds over the bar and then lengthen the spine up so you actually compress and open up the foot. You're releasing the bone to the foot becomes more mobile. Moving onto the heels, pull the toes up and pressing out.

Every time I press out, I pull the little toes up to the feet. It's as though the feet are right against the wall. Nice and long. [inaudible] spine. As long I checked to see that my shoulders are wide, my neck is long, so there's a lot of work in the lower body, but the upper body is neat and organized and hopefully I'm not banging the reformer the way I am. Tended stretch knees, shoulder with the part and just slightly apart. Lowering the heels and lengthening the size up, lifting, keeping the sacred long, keeping the stomach lifting, keeping the trunk long.

Every time I press and lift my heels up, I push down into all five toes so the foot becomes very active, very mobile [inaudible] and come back in. Setting up for hundreds. I'm putting myself on to three red springs and on this reform I'm using my hands. I'm used to grad scraps. I use my feet to put the foot bar down and I like there's many variations of hundreds. Once you're past the basics, Ooh, I'm going to put myself on two springs. All right, so this variation will do today. Lifting up, lifting my leg straight up to 90 degrees and reaching out with the arms. Start breathing in and breathing out. Lowing the legs a little in. Exhale, lower more into four, five. Exhale down, lower more.

So why am I doing this? I'm doing this so that every angle that my legs are going into, I'm hitting into a different plane, into the abdominal muscles and I'm challenging different parts of the spine to stay long and reaching out. And last one and bend the knees, then the arms. So I would only recommend lowering the feet as low as you can. Keeping the weight of the legs in the stomach. You start to feel your back arching or the feet, um, or the stomach. The feet gripping too much.

You gone lower than your powerhouses ready to hold you. Um, short spine is taxed. So extending the legs out. Very important right from the go to lift the hips first. So there's a lot of variations that work towards flexibility, but this one is for power.

And then rolling up through the spine and letting the legs float over nice and long with control. Once the machine stops, bending the knees down just above the shoulder, the shoulder pads rolling down, say articulating through the spine to get that stretch. Watching that the knees don't roll out. This is easy, but you're missing half of your hamstring. This is a lot more challenging and then pushing your bottom now. So with rhythm, lifting the hips nice and long, bending the knees down, rolling the spine. The feet are only shoulder with the part, the kneecaps face down and press down.

Precedent. If the hips up and over, nice and long, bending the knees, rolling down, pro, lengthening through the spine, pressing down. Now three more times with an archival variation, which I really, really love and it's very unusual where you flex the feet, bring the soles of the feet together. The feet are a little bit sickled, it feels kind of funky. But as you roll down and you press your little toe and your heel side, you get a huge traction on the outer part of the foot. I mean the leg, the Shin, and it starts to pull two bones apart that can get glommed together. So if you have very kind of congested calves, it's a wonderful one to start to stretch out.

Also stretches into the it band very nicely. So this, this style of shoulder short spine has gone into archival libraries, but I love it and I use it all the time with my clients. So coordination is decks, lifting your head and chest up, gathering into the powerhouse, extending out simple version, deepening in into the powerhouse, reaching with the arms, extending again now a little bit more challenging, extending out right leg goes out and back. Left leg, goes out to the pelvis, stays very steady coming back in. And One more time with little beats working the inner thighs. Yeah, bending in deeply bending the arms and relaxing the head down, swinging around for rowing, releasing spring and extending the legs out in front.

So making sure my hips are one hand with from the Ed. So as I go back, my sacrum stays on the machine nice and tall. Now deepening into the powerhouse and closing the ribs. So two points of focus is the pelvis and the ribs. So the middle and lower back, open up, pulling the hands into the sternum, extending the arms out to the side, pushing the arms without the chest moving and bringing the thumbs together behind your back. Then long arms reaching down, reaching up, reaching out and big circle and to help open the body, grabbing the toes, lifting the elbows and, and coming up again, deepening into the powerhouse and stretching, pulling the arms behind and big circle, lifting up into the back ribs. And one more time. So there is a real scooping hollowing out of the front body here and keeping that scoop. So as you go forward, you're lifting the into the back ribs, the open up, the back ribs lifting through the waist.

So the position of the back is very rounded. The next one, the chest is lifted, the spine is lifted, the shoulders are down. 90 degree angle. Very tempting to do this or to do this. See if you can keep this exact 90 degree angle, lift the spine and hinge back in a straight plane. Come back up, reach out with the arms and bend over. Now the spine is long, so I'm extending through back, extending through the fingers, big circles and slightly different spinal position to get a different variation of stretch through the back. Lift the back.

Now I'm going to go deeper till I'm parallel to the floor. Coming back up. Stretch the arms down and back. Reaching from the shoulders. Big Circle all the way over. And one more time. Nice. Lift through the chest, leaning back, stretching, lifting way up and big circle of the arms, the thumbs touch. See if you can keep your hands as close together as long as you can to really work the articulation and a nice stretch swinging around for the next ones.

So legs are straight, hands in front of the armpits. Same thing. Nice broad collar bones and the elbows back to start to work into the triceps. Nice lift through the spine, reaching about four head height or a little higher at the hands. Come down the chest lifts up even more now out of the hips, the whole spine is reaching up and I'm trying to get taller and taller and taller, and then I relax and again, stretch.

Woops and down. I slipped through the back note through the spine. Powerhouse pulls way up, reaching through the fingers, Broad Sigh, keep tension in the straps the whole time so that it's very easy. Once you have this beautiful lift up to want to go very wide and then the the straps kind of pull back and you're not working into the arms. Want to keep them in front of the plane of the body, reaching from the hips. Nice flags deepen into the powerhouse cu curbing in rounding now pulling the stomach up and extending beyond your feet if you can.

Big Arc of the arms all the way down. Again, stretching and reaching all the way up. Broad arms getting nice and tall. One more time, deepening through the powerhouse. Heels and fingertips extending away the body is really extended out. Center of the body is lifted all the way down. Shaving a few variations of how to interpret this exercise.

Make sure that the thumbs are right behind the occipital bone and the fingers are on the head. It's very easy to tempting to do that. You want these hands on the head and then get this long diagonal. Today we'll work for a stretch to get the elbows behind the plane of the ears. Check that your head is up because I had 10 it's tempting to have your head down. So keeping the elbows wide, stretch up and see if you can keep the elbows as wide as you can to open through the pex through the shoulders and increase the flexibility of the arm. So long stretch and back.

Long stretch up through the whole spine, up through the stomach. So every time I'm trying to get a little deeper, I'm lifting from the waist through the ribs, through the shoulders, through the elbow, through the fingers and back. And the last one, I'm trying to get a stretch all the way from the tailbone, all the way up to the whole spine, bringing the arms out to the side and crossing the feet the other way. Big Breath in, breathing out, closing the arms, breathing in, breathing out. Nice. Lift through the spine and close. Now I'm breathing in and then I'm breathing out and I'm reversing the breaths I'm breathing in to come in and breathing out and lifting the back so can never be too tall and you can never be too lifted because as your muscles get warmer you can make more space like expanding even further. So long boxes. Next I'm just going to go and get the box.

Okay. And placing the box length-wise I'm want to be on one spring and a nice way to get on is extending out so you can lower down to the shoulders or flush with the edge of the box. Make sure I am checking that I have the straps and then I let the tension release so that um, the machine is in the spine is long so I'm checking that from the tail to the crown of the head. I'm nice and long. Then the first variation, the shoulders come on my back just to kind of warm up the shoulder girdle and I pull the arms back by my hips and lower the arms down. Next variation is a little bit harder. I pull the shoulders on the back, pull the arms back and lift the sternum forward so that I'm looking forward and lengthening out. And the third one, I'm looking to increase the backbend in my upper back, which is the hard part. So does on the back.

Pull back and lift a little bit further, making sure my shoulder blades are pulling together and the shoulder cuffs are pulled away from the floor. Releasing out t shape has a lot of variations. This is a nice one where I'm inwardly rotating. So first variation, I try to bring the hands above my bottom. The elbows are saw so the blades are squeezing together, opening out to workspace strongly into the tricep. Next one, same thing subtly to the chest and third one even more. But making sure the shoulder blades are working together because the tendency is to do that. If you can. You want your hands off your bottom, but the shoulder blades working and open out works the triceps like crazy.

So next one is backstroke. Two Springs on the box, hands above your forehead. Make sure the powerhouses engaged. I'm making sure my ribs are pulled in, arms and legs go up, arms and legs open. And then I lift and reach with my hands towards my knees, deepening into the Pow House and reluctantly come back and lift, open and deepen even more. Reaching a little further with my hands every time and back. One more time. Up Open. Nice broad shoulders, deepening into the ribs and come back and setting up for a teaser.

So sitting up, I'm not used to such a big box like back down. It's fun to work on new pieces of equipment because every piece is different. So I'll take my knees bent today in this position, letting the chest open out, letting the shoulder strap, because that line just below the collarbone has a tendency to get really, really tight. So it's a lovely place to get a stretch. Lift your head, bring your hands to your side and then roll up to teaser three times up and down. No lifting up, reaching towards the feet, deepening into the powerhouse and slowly rolling down, keeping the traction's in the straps and then letting the chest and the shoulders and the head relax. Very important to let the head fully go. Again, gathering into the powerhouse and he using it with the pressure into the hands. And again, three times lifting a little bit more and then rolling back, articulating through the spine, letting everything open. And one more time into the powerhouse.

Rolling to lift up. And three more times taking the weight in the powerhouse and reaching from the back of the ribs into the fingers and then rolling, articulating, opening the back and releasing everything out or that feels so good. So holding the straps, coming up, hooking the straps back and putting the box away, does it? And I'm setting up for long stretch series. So headrest is up to springs and a bar.

All right. So when I set myself up, I always like to have the shoulder right over the wrist. So I take the position from the upper body and I place my feet wherever they go. So sometimes I need to adjust the gears a little bit because what I'm striving for is having a completely straight trunk so the hips are locked then without anything changing, pressing out and coming in, keeping the heels forward the whole time. So very tempting to let the heels go back and slightly lift the bottom up, but then it doesn't send the pressure of the exercise right through the whole trunk, the whole body. So three times bending the knees down for down stretch, making sure that my knees are lined up with my feet, bringing the hips forward and lifting up these two bones to create space in the hip flexors, lifting up in the waist, pressing out.

And as I come in, all opening and lifting in the collarbones, going a little bit further and again with control all the time, I'm hugging the midline to create stability in my legs and in my lower pelvis. So the pelvis is PR is locked so I can lengthen the trunk, lengthen the waist, lift up under the fingertips, lift the chest, open the collarbones and look back. So they took a high backbend coming up, lengthening up out of the lower back, hips along waist as long and arking up and out to get a little back bend. Bringing the hands down and up. Stretch fever, just a little bit forward and bringing the head as close to the knees as you can so you really get a stretch in the shoulders. The shoulders get very tight. This is one of those beautiful places within the method that you can really get a stretch into the upper back, but it's different from yoga.

You don't want in a straight back. You want this lift in the power house and the ribs will then end up. So keeping that alignment, the shoulders stay steady and you press out to a plank. Hips must be locked to protect your lower back. Keep that alignment as you bring the carriage forward and then you pike to knees.

My teacher used to say like folding a piece of paper into an envelope so you, you stay long and then you pride but not with the sit bones up the sit bones are curled down towards the heels in the stomach is lifted, pressing out without the shoulders moving. So it's all lower body opening the shoulders broadening and piking up. One more time. Elephant blowing the heels, lifting the toes. Now my pelvis was back. I'm coming forward so I'm kind of halfway between my wrist and my heels with so someone's like grabbing around my rib cage lifting up. So nothing changes in the trunk.

Every time I press out I'm digging down into the heels and I'm lifting my stomach and ribs, checking that my shoulders stay wide and then lifting the heels, pressing out, lifting my right like ups for Arabesques, the shoulders stay square, the hips are square. Bringing the carriage in three times to open up in the hamstrings, pressing out a little bit, locking the hips before the light comes up and bring the kerogen three times and stepping down long. Backstretch very important to have the chest wide. So the hands are on the shoulder, rest one heel into the shoulder, rest. I'm so into the foot bar, the other foot.

Now I'm checking to keep my shoulders lifted and wide in the spine. Long, lower the pelvis, talk, press the pelvis away, come back up and lengthen the body. Long down scoop preps and come back. Too Long lifted body one more time, scoop and lift and come back to long and now reversing it, scooping, pressing out as far as I can and lifting up, scoping and lifting up, scoping and lifting up and stepping down. Now often, especially for women, we can be very weakened. The upper body and in the triceps and shoulder girdle area.

So one of the things I often like to do just to really develop strength is to be in this position with the shoulders wide and just bend and try not to let the chest collapse. So however low I can go and press up just to get a sense of what I'm going for is my ultimate goal in this exercise, which is to do the whole sequence without the shoulders, curl, curl again, stomach massage is next. So Sticky Mat, I'm going to work on three springs today and what I'm looking for today with the alignment is to have my heels lifted and my hips right under my knees. So the line of the size is vertical, which means my body wants to fall back and I have to use the powerhouse extensively to hold it up and it's opening up my lower back. The hands are here to help me, but ideally it's the powerhouse that's doing the upward and forward movement, not the hands gripping. So pressing out, I'm focusing on lifting the stomach, opening up the lower back, broadening through the shoulder blades, making sure the knees go to full long legs every time. So the quads are working nicely and one more time.

Now hands behind, more basic would be with the hands up here to help get a back extension. More advanced. The hands are lower, so now the back muscles have to work on their own. So again, same thing. Nice list of the back, wondering what's making all this noise. I think it's this. Okay. Yes it was. I don't like to do a noisy stomach massage, so nice lift, broad shoulders.

The sit bones are just a tad under, which means I have to pull up very strongly out of my lower back. Very good. Now I'm releasing a spring now without hands. Hands are shoulder, little bit above my forehead. Pressing out nice lift through the spine again, lifting the stomach up, lifting the lower back up, making sure my shoulders are nice and wide and then pressing out and seeing if I can get 180 degree twist. That's the goal. So that there's a nice rotation in the waist, in the spine and the shoulders are being pulled apart and I stretch opening out and I stretch opening through the shoulders and the collarbones.

One more time. Stretch and stretch, pulling the arms apart. Now, little variation to work on the thighs and strengthen the knees. If there's knee problems, right? Like is down to six time going out and in with one leg changing sides. Again, it's the same shape, it's around back. So similar to the first one, very strengthening on the legs, put the foot back, hold the foot bar. And as I stretch out seeing, I'm trying to keep my sit bones down. So I open up in the spinal column and I separate all of this area that gets so compressed and tight. Lower the heels. Nice stretch through the legs.

And one more time. Nice. Stretch through the legs and come back in. Okay. All right. Short box. So let's see here. This foot bar I need to do by hand and I'm putting three springs so that everything is set good. I do need a stick. I'm going to get a stick.

So sitting, sitting with heat in the strap. I like to position the box so the legs are long that it has to be adapted to each person. Checking that my sacrum is one my, my bottom is one hand with from the edge starting nice and long for round back. First Time I go back I just kind of check, check the diamond, gauging my abs and I'm lengthening through my lower back and coming back up. Second time I like to release and then girling and deepening into the powerhouse. Third time I'm going to give myself a good stretch. So I lengthen out, reach underneath the machine and pull and then lengthen through the legs as well. So the lots of beautiful opening through the body.

Hands come back to the ribs, connect the drunk, deepen into the powerhouse and I score with stretch. Next one is a flat back, so arms are up. When I'm taking my arms up, I'm checking that they're floating up without the shoulders coming up. So at the more basic level, if the shoulders are stiff, I would want to see the sick and the peripheral vision. If the shoulders are looser, they can actually come up longer.

So nice lift through the spine, leaning back without the back curving and coming back up. Little bit more. Lift lengths, sending out and again, one more time, lengthening out. And now I'll take the stick and hook it by the toes. They just go have enough stretch coming back up. Nice lift through the waist, reaching to the right and to the last. What I'm focusing on now is getting the waste to work.

So I'm trying to find my obliques and opening up in the ribs a little bit. So I'm both stretching and working the side waist muscles and coming back. Now twist, twist and reach. Rotating. First time both hip stay long. So I'm picking, keeping both hips down on the, on the um, box. Next one I'm going a little bit deeper.

So I'm rotating and as I go I'm starting to roll onto my right hip. As I come back, I use the left hip to bring me up. So it's a little bit more of an expanded rotation. So first I get the twist, I start to go back and I roll onto the hip. So extending way out. Now the right hip brings me up.

So a lot of attention has to be paid to on the way up because there's a temptation to use the arms rather than pelvis to bring you up and he yanked up from the periphery. But you want to use the powerhouse that pelvis to bring you up and then bend forward and stretch down, bending the right knee into the chest. Now starting out, I'm always checking that my hips are square. Both sit bones are down. As the knee comes in, I feel that I'm rocking a tad back of the sit bones. So the spine is long. It's like locking that base and you can lift up out of the lowest time.

Very important. Keep the sigh into the chest and then extend up. So this will work deeper into the hamstrings, which is a slightly different interpretation, but it gets, even if the leg doesn't go to straight, it's going to open up the whole back body and the hamstrings over time. The nice lift through the spine, flex and point the leg a few times just to loosen up even more. Check that the hips are nice and square and walking down, opening out and now stomach the chest, chest, and the stomach. The thigh, chest and knee had extending up towards the foot.

So you're looking to sandwich in as much as you can to work on your flexibility going down again, articulating all the way down and then curling in, rolling up, using your powerhouse, seeing if you can snake up the leg as much as possible. One more time, rolling down, opening out, deepening into the powerhouse, coming all the way up. Nice extra stretch, grabbing the foot, pulling the foot down and lifting up the chest as much as you can. Then nice bend and stretch over to open up the side. Other side. Again, bending the knee in as much as you can. Pulling fine. Very much like single leg stretches to loosen up the hip socket and really open this back body, which can be steps. So you may be starting here, but see if you can go for this angle as much as you can.

Now lifting the stomach, the leg goes up, up and up. Again, flexing 0.1, flex as much as you can. Try to keep the knees straight because it's going to want the backhoe cause the hamstring and the cabs are tight. You want to keep them. You go is to get those parts of the body very long, very lean, very powerful. Then walking down the leg, keep the leg where it is. See if you can bring your stomach to your thigh, your chest towards your knee and your head. Head towards your foot. I'm almost there. Go down again. Yeah. Up again, using the powerhouse to come back up and lift. Last one, going down, climbing up, going to grab my phone, pull the shoulders down, lift your back, my back, stretch my calf, stretch my hamstrings.

All that feels so good and bend forward. Nice. Opening in the back. Okay, so next is knee stretch series with the box away and yeah, with Bart is up. I'm on two springs and checking that my feet as much as I as possible. I want all five toes on to open up the foot and really get a full bend in the toes. And then I'm checking to see that my knees are in line with my feet deepening into the powerhouse and scooping back. So the, my pelvis is almost on my heel, so again it's just opening in the lower back.

Shoulders are away from the ears and then back and forth keeping the pelvis steady and deepening every time the accent is in, deepening into the powerhouse, lifting the ribs. Next one is flat back. So the hip stay almost on the heels. I'm not sitting, I'm lifting, but I'm creating length and again, same thing, looking to stay very quiet in the pelvis so it's not moving. So the thighs and the knees yet to work a whole lot. So next variation is a more of an archival version, but I really love it. With the foot bar down the hand on the frame makes you work your powerhouse a whole lot more deepening into the powerhouse.

Making sure that my shoulders away from my youth to my head and neck is not poking up to strain it. Lifting my knees up to just, this makes my powerhouse work really hard and then going back and forth, looking to get quite a bit of extension in the legs without losing the scope in the powerhouse and then kneeling down back onto three or four springs and running. So setting everything. I've been working hard so now this is like a cool down toes and heels at together, knees together. I checked my spine is long, nice, long legs and nice articulation. I check every time it's my knee pulled up and also this foot am I really lifting my arch fully so the feet are being beautifully exercise and the muscles of the legs are being brought back into balance. At the same time I checked with my powerhouses long. My spine is long, I'm not over or under stretching any part.

My shoulders are nice and wide and then coming back in, sitting up for pelvic lift, I'm still fine. Let me get this microphone back. It keeps falling off. It's not designed to work out. Whoops. Okay. Now a few variations of how pelvic lift can be done. Gonna take my knees a little bit wider today so knees and feet have to be the same angle.

Checking that my my pelvis is one hand with now this is a thing you can work tact, you can work with the sacred long so I'm going to work with my sacred longterm. I'm working more in the waist area today so the whole trunk is being asked to work in. I am not overworking in my hip flexors and then rolling down. Now I'm getting to get that lower back to work and just to finish with a little bit of a stretch front split on once in two springs, right foot is back the foot in front of the shoulder rest and the heel is on the foot foot. I'm on the head rest now, the angle, I want my knee above my heel and my hip in line with my knee and to hips square to the front, first of all with the hands down. So I'm working very hard to keep my right hip forward, my left hip back, keeping the power house working strongly and the feeling is really that I'm going forward and back, not up and down because the temptation to keep doing this, to push back to a straight like this is to get this tight, nice and strong Russian dancer position. I'm checking that my hips are going straight forward [inaudible] and then bending down, bending the back knee and pressing the hips for two.

This is thigh stretch, so it's a huge stretch into the hip flexors, the thigh and the as. So I'm squaring the hips and my goal is to get my hips down between my knees, not to stretch the front legs. It's very tempting to do that and that can always stretch your hand string in. It doesn't open up your hip so it's not really going to get you to really good split. If you work slow with knees bent and the hips going down, you start to open all the other parts that are really necessary to eventually be able to get to a full split.

And one more time pressing the hips down, coming back. Nice lift with the right arm. So the whole right side of the body is getting a good length, stretching out and other side. So right tip is forward. Again, checking out that I have this 90 degree angle of my leg. Keep making sure my hips are square, my stomach is supporting my back and I'm focusing on going forward and backwards, not up and down and as much as possible pressing my heel down.

This is the build up stability and strength in the hips. So the strength is in this leg because as you do split, you don't just want flexibility, you want strength to stabilize the position. Then side stretch, the hips are square, getting the hips forward. So this STI is opening and I'm working the back leg as much as the front leg. Often it's really easy to forget the press with the back leg and just push with the front leg, which again makes it tempting to do that.

You want to get energy in the back leg as much as the front, so the hips go down looking to get the hips right down between the knees and come back in. Left foot is up. My stretch left arm is up, I stretch and then I'm done.