Reformer Flow

So here we go. We're going to do reformer today. It's going to be probably on the intermediate, depending on how you feel today. So I'm going to take you through a whole series, but we're going to keep it on a, I'm probably 30, 35 minutes. Sound okay? Yes. Nothing I need to know. You guys are both healthy, feeling good. So let's do this. We're gonna go through the normal blot block system.

Go ahead and approach your reformers. Just have a seat. As usual. Use caution as you lie down. Know your reformer, know your equipment well. And let's today do our, uh, Matt warmup on the reformer. So you can just stretch your legs out. Yes. And because I'm going to start you actually with a roll up. Um, make sure that you're just a little bit away from the shoulder rest. Okay?

Now the mat that you're on of course, is not as big as what you would have in the floor. So if you need to adjust at any time, I want you to feel comfortable. All right? Without going anywhere, here's what I want you to do. I want you to relax. I want you to take a deep breath. Yeah, there you go. Take a deep breath and just sort of melt into your carriage, right?

We know that when we go into these workouts with less tension in our bodies, the more efficient we're likely to move, so it's always worth taking those deep breaths or just sort of consciously checking in with the body. Okay? As we get into more advanced exercises or more difficult exercises, if you notice yourself tense tensing, take that as a clue to relax yourself. Okay? From there I said we're going to start with a roll up and I'm going to give you at least one or two pelvic curls just to make sure your back feels ready. So go ahead and bend your knees. Your the toes are going to be on the foot bar. The heels would probably be down at the, on the wood. Okay, that's great.

And feet slightly apart, about six inches or so, so we can go a little more Candace. There we go. Reach your arms down by your side and you're set up is that you feel both sides of your body. You have this sensation of reaching the shoulders down, abdominals engaged. Let's do a pelvic curl. Inhale, prepare. Begin the exhale first so that you can feel the abdominal sink to roll up. Could finding that long line. Inhale, hold at the top and exhale. Melting your way back down. Not forgetting to use the, allow the chest to fall. Inhale, hold and exhale.

You'll feel the low back pressing to the mat as you roll up. Good. Stay there for just one second and ever so slightly. Bring your ribs down. Good, good, good. Inhale and exhale down. That's it. That's it. Inhale. As you go up, imagine taking your hips towards your feet so that you feel the hamstrings kick in a little bit more. That's it. Candice. Tuck. Just a tiny bit more. There we go. Inhale, holding it there and from the top of your spine you roll down sequentially, placing the bones into the mat and we'll do just one more. That's it. Keeping to the breath pattern. Even if we don't say it.

Starting to find an internal rhythm in your body. Inhale and exhale back down. Once your tailbone is released, you can now extend your legs over the bar, zipping up through the mid line. I'm going to ask for a parallel, but if that sort of throws you, there's no problem to go to a slight turnout. What does matter? Whether you're parallel or in the Palati stance is that you have created the sensation of the rap.

Sometimes I use the cue of those barbershop poles as if you're the musculature on your leg was wrapping around the back. Part of the reason we do that is so you can let the front of the legs relax tiny bit. Arms extend straight up above your chest and that's where they're going to stay. Since we're on reformers, inhale, let the arms head, neck and shoulders look forward. Take the arms to your hips. Now, exhale to continue lifting up. Beautiful. Keeping the long curve of the body just like this. That's it. That's it. Inhale, hold beautiful and exhale leading from the hips as you roll back down.

Lovely, smooth. It's just like an extended pelvic curl. Arms will come right above the shoulders and inhale, feeling the chest drop down. Exhale to curl. Good, lovely long line here. Inhale, hold. You're still working here. Don't forget, and exhale down. We go. Encouraging your rap. It is to say that you're squeezing the glutes a little bit, not a lot. And inhale the arms lower. The head comes up and exhale. Good. So as you reach forward, all the energy is reaching forward, but the bellies pulling back. Inhale to exhale and down we go.

Nice spacing of the arms, Candace, both of you really. Here's what I do. Want to see them. When you start the inhale, press the back of the ribs into the mat. Do that now. Head will pop up right away and then exhale to finish it. There we go. There we go. It's just keeping you with the breath and keeping you connected. Inhale and exhale down.

Great. Take your arms, reach behind you to grab onto the post or where, where you can, um, where the straps hang. Perhaps if you don't have posts, you can hold the shoulder rest. Bringing one knee up to tabletop. Then the other and zip 'em up. We're going to do spine twist supine because of how your hands are though, you won't go quite as far as, you're probably used to going to your right. Inhale. As you rotate, let that opposite hip come up a little. That's plenty, Candace. Exhale. Feel the obliques, bring you back to center and inhale the other way. Good and exhale.

So I love the way both of you have your shoulders and your elbows nice and flat like that. That could be tight for some people. So if they wanted to chemistry, show how they could do it slightly up. Perfect. Inhale up to go over and then you feel the rib cage pulling back. This is just part of your warmup. Still. Keep going in here and exhale, keeping those knees lined up. So lift the hips so it's all the rotations at the waist and that'll be that last one. Good. From there, reach forward to grab onto your knees. You're still basically in table top and I'm going to let you to choose whether or not you want to come in. We're about to do devil leg stretch.

If you want to come in and real close, that's okay. Or if you want to stay at 90 degrees, that's okay too. What matters is that you don't roll the pelvis off the mat and the rest of your body stays still. So let me start you like you are. Inhale, prepare. Exhale, curl, head, neck and shoulders up. Good, good, tiny bit more lift. There you go. And you can push into your hands with your legs if you want. Alright, here we go. Devil leg stretch. Inhale the arms and legs. Exhale, circle round, grab on and hope and inhale, reach. Beautiful. Exhale, that's it. Stillness in the body's strength in the middle and email.

Stretch along and exhale, pull in. Inhale, stretch. Long to exhale, two more. Reach. Nice. Work through the whole body. One more time. I'm going to add a right on extending your left leg. Hands. Go to the right leg and single leg. Stretch and change and do the ham position you feel comfortable with, right? You guys don't need me or more than intermediate, so press and press. I'm going to slow you down just a little. Here we go and retool and one and two.

The reason I did that as you want to feel the full extension of the leg and I don't think we had the chance to do that last pass, each side, both knees and for a moment let your heads go down. Big Inhale. Exhale. Come right back up. Take the fingers behind your head. You can either lace or not. Same thing, but it's called crisscross. This time, here we go. Extend one leg doesn't matter to me and go and twist one and change too. Good. Love the pace right here. Beautiful.

What I am going to ask at a Marta is that they'll feed line up. Keep going, Candice, we'll catch up with you and hold Marta right there. We want the feet to line up so you could put a little tray here and there's a lot of reasons, but since she's in this position, I'm not going to say them all right now. It's that slow and slow. Good slide. I love how the legs are passing right next to each other. Let's get a couple more passes. And then when you've even yourself out, come back to center with both knees bent and release the arms. Rest your heads. Yeah, sorta warm. Okay.

I think I had a request for a rolling like a ball from here. I think that might've been someone's idea. So let's have some fun with it. Rock yourselves up to seated. We have by the way. Um, medium springs. Oh No, no, no, no. You're just fine. With the spring tension. We have medium to heavy resistance on these balanced body reformers. So we have three red or three full springs.

We could certainly challenge it a little more by taking off springs, but we don't need to do that. Let's go toward the front. Huh? You're afraid you're going to bang. Well you might, um, rather carriage bang and not be quite so pretty then you to do anything contractive in your body. What I will suggest for this first one is that we let the ball be a little more open. Um, what we have to be really mindful of is where those shoulder rests are. So if at home, if you are not comfortable doing a rolling like a ball yet, this is not, you should just sit this one out because we've got to be somewhat precise about how we do it. Um, that is to say you don't want to have your head go all the way back. So yeah, holding on underneath for the first one or two. Let's do that then pull the hipbones deeper into your body.

Squeeze the glutes just a little bit. Here we go. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, look at that. Not a bang insight and nice job. Inhale back to exhale up. Good. Oh, I'm so tempted to have you. I'm so tempted to have you actually take springs off because you guys are doing it so well I won't, but that's an idea and up. Just good forward. Just get forward. Good. Marty, if you want to hold on top, do just for one or two. There you go. Candy up. Beautiful. You got it. One more time.

Not An easy thing and I think half of it is psychological, but it's definitely tough. Good. Next time up. Stay up. That's good candy. Put the feet together, swivel the legs to the side. We need to put our foot bars up. And so choose the foot bar that you normally would for any kind of foot and leg work cause that's where we're headed. That's great. And then, um, these foot bars that we're using are the two step balanced body. That just means that the, the foot part is going to sit right on the spring bar.

And I'm looking thank you. Headdresses up if you normally do and I'm thinking midway or even all the way is fine, but back to the foot bar. Um, the placement, you're hoping for the starting position to be somewhere around 90 degrees at the knee, knee joint and hip joint. Really, um, it would be fine if the legs were a little closer to you. Um, but it's just gonna require more stability out of you. If your knees don't like this position. Martyr right now is on a high bar. If for some reason she couldn't close the knee this much, we could easily lower the bar. So you want to feel comfortable and if everything else is fine, it's basically 90 degrees. Yes ma'am.

When would you put someone in the second year? Uh, to make the springs a little bit lighter? Um, when, when I put someone in the second gear is if I, in this case just if I wanted it a little bit lighter, but I would also have the option of just, um, taking the spring off. I have them in what we're calling the first gear where the bars all the way out on the three full springs because knowing this group, that's what it takes to do medium to heavy. So as I go through the workout, I probably won't move the spring bar. Um, I'll just accommodate in number of springs. Thank you. Okay. Starting with foot and leg work, we're on the heels and where if I place you sir, sorry, candies. Um, where you don't feel secure, just adjust it, but it's basically right in the middle of the heel. Legs are parallel apart. Neutral spines, lightly squeeze, glutes, exhale, push out all the way extended. Go there, stay there just for a second. And let's check it out. Back of the ribs or down. Alright, that's good. Inhale, pulling and resisting in and exhale, press good and inhale and you keep going.

Give you some things to think about. You want to feel the full length of your body. Think of the energy that is taking to reach out longer than the actual physicality of your body. When you bring the carriage back in, it's just a reversal of that resistance. So there's really no stop and start. You feel length, you're still going. Even though there appears as though you've stopped and you bring it back.

A couple more. Good. Last one here. Feet are relaxed. Both of you can relax your feet more. Good and come on down. Let's go to the balls of the feet. So it's the exact same position. Just move the feet down and when I say balls or the feet, it means that we just want to be able to relax the toes over the top. The heel placement is as if you're an a, I don't know, a low heel murder.

Just drop your heels a little bit. And what we're trying to do is get you in a place where you're not completely dropped and you're not as high as you can be so that you have to work the lower leg. I think you're good. Let me see a little drop just for comparison. Yeah, that's better. And this toe balance, your weight, big total little toasts of this, but needs a tiny bit more attention on it and it's actually, your toes are quite good. It's the ankle. Yeah, it's like this inside ankle bone. Push against my finger. There you go. Alright, lightly squeeze the glutes. Find the back of the legs. Inhale. Exhale. Press out on and inhale pulling it. Now I haven't said much about the powerhouse cause I trust your thinking to move from there.

What I mean by that right now is that the feet are just stuck on the bar. They're relaxed there. You lift yourself off your feet by engaging from the powerhouse and up. In other words, those lower legs are as relaxed as they possibly can be and you draw the energy from above the knee. Go ahead. Good, lovely long lines. Nobody's rolling their low backs into the mat.

Now what you can try to do is using the abdominals, press the abdominals to the spine. Try to think about pressing the bones toward the mat, but you are not to Tuck your pelvis to do it. Just one more please. When you come back, just adjust your feet so the heels touch each other. Shouldn't be much else to adjust. Still finding those low glutes. Exhale the push out and fully straighten those legs, right?

You want to feel the contact through the inner thigh. You want to feel at the back of the leg, gets the work that it deserves. If you leave the hips flexed at all, you're missing the best part. That last piece of extension looks good. Yeah. Lovely foot position here. Good. Great.

So I've given you guys an exhale out. An inhale in. Ultimately that doesn't matter. You can reverse that. No problem. I won't just because it's more habit, but the of being worked both ways. This'll be our last one. Come in, hang out here. Next foot position is heels wide on the bar.

It's in a subtle external rotation of the hip. Yeah. Good, good. Maybe this is good, but I think I'm going to have you bring it in just a little and not actually not your feet just instead of wider with knees. Touch my hands. Yup. And that the fetal come with so it's not quite as turned out. Okay. Now I love what your feet are doing. Leave them like actually flex your feet first like that.

And now relax the toes. So I'm putting my hand right by Candice cause I'd like you to touch them. Touch your toes to my hands. That's it. Okay. Yeah. Can you relax and do that? Yes. All right. They're, they're just massaging me. It's cool. It's cool. Let me have your toes.

All of them. I'm thinking. Okay. So, okay. And I hear that. That's no big deal. Right? So push out, but keep, keep your toes on me. Oh, nice. Good. And then relax your feet to do it. Yeah. Why I'm making a big deal out of this is there's too much tension in both of your feet and why that matters is because it's pulling it out of where you really want it. You want it from above the knee. Let your inner thighs do something. Yeah. Nice. You got it, Candace. It's possible. I'm, I'm flexing you too much, Candice.

I might let you sit in her thigh. That inner thigh. That makes a big difference. Good, good. So that's, and I think that that inner thigh Q is true everywhere. You know, it's a gateway to the pelvic floor is the gateway to the powerhouse and it's also the way to let our feet relax. Not Natural for a lot of us that can tell you that. Let do just one more, but since we've mentioned it, I'm going to keep that the theme for the rest of the time. Let's go down to the toes. Yeah. Good.

So they're stuck there right there and then nothing else has to happen. Think about inner thighs, if that works for you in the last position like this. Yes. So no longer is it this driving force into the bar rather it's this collection through the inner thighs to help lift. Yeah. And if those cues don't work for you, you just push out and ultimately it's just about energy dispersion.

It turns out just checking. Let me see what it would look like if you dropped your tail bunkers. I think that's going to be a little bit better. Good. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Good. I still feel it. Putting your breath work for you.

Finding the rhythm. Let's go two more out in, in on and pull in and two. Great. Come on back. Heading into calves. Um, something we call progressive and I will say feet apart a little bit. Sits bones, distance again and for, we're going to go out to straight legs. You'll lower both heels down then up and then you'll come back to where you are now. The next time you'll do that, you'll do two calf raises and back. And I think we'll build to six. If you can help me keep track on your exhale, push out to straight, get out there and just hang out for one second.

Because the rule about the lower leg still applies even though we're going to work the calves. So as you're, as long as you can be for this first one, imagine leaving your head out there. As you reach the heels under the bar. It's impossible probably, but you can try way under way or way under and then up to high on the toes were really high on the toes. Watch those hyperextending knees, Marta and bend your knees. Come down almost to the stop or push out again. You're going to drop and lower the heels twice down. Up. I'm going to go a little quicker than I did down, up and bend to come home and out. Number three, this time stretched the waist to lower the heels under one and lift two and lift three and bend your knees to come in good and pushing out. Heels go down. Xcel want to feel the lengthening of the whole spine, two out of four and three and four and pull yourself back in.

Don't just ride those springs. Exhale number five down to lift up. One down release intention in the back of the knees. Two you want to feel the high end to the back of the leg. Look for it. Sometimes you have to do that. I think this is five good. Come on home. You get one more relaxes fee work from someplace else.

You're lifting up yourself down to lift up one. I would say that the inner thighs would work for you. Two here. Two. Nice job. Easy through the chest. Three, I think four and five way up on this. Next one. And then bring it on home. Yes. Why don't you stretch your legs over the bar for a second.

Kind of give them a Shimmy. Yeah, it's supposed to burn a little bit. Um, certainly we're working the calves, right? No doubt about that. But as you get more proficient with this, we start to think, well, okay, that's a given. Where else can I pull from? And I think the qs with relaxing the lower leg or inner thigh are steps toward making the work higher. Okay. Would you please help yourselves up swivel to change your springs down a bit.

So we're moving on to the a hundred and coordination. If we went from three full springs, I'd like to take you, actually let's go a little lighter than that Marta. Cause because we're out on the first gear, way up, close to the edge, I'm going to take it down to what we're call one and a half here or even one in a quarter. So if you had colored springs, a red and a yellow here, just because that's what's there and she's got a red and blue here cause that's what's here. Ultimately what we're going for is knowing you're about to come into the a hundred with the straps that it's medium to light. Okay. Cause we don't want them messing us up that much. Alright. Lie Back Down.

Once you get their foot parts, I'm just leaving them. Thank you. Just gonna leave them. I'm going to use him soon enough. Um, plus we don't need to lower the legs quite that much. So you've taken the straps in your hand, make sure that the strap is in the middle of the hand and it doesn't float up around the fingers, cause that just going to instantly take you into bad form. The shoulders are pressed down. Lightly away from the ears, away from the shoulder rest and make sure you're not wedged into the shoulder as can aside. Scoot down. Yeah. Alright. Tabletop with the legs. Find the back of the ribs into the mat before you go.

Put some tension on the strap. So you're going to pull forward just a little bit there. And that's going to be our start and stop position when we get to coordination. But here's the a hundred inhale, prepare. Exhale. Everything curls up. Extend your legs, set your position. Inhale. And here we go.

Exhaling. One, two, three, four, five. Inhale, be nice to yourself if you want to bend, bend, or raise the legs too. Good. Nice correction, Martin. Nice broad collar bones. In exhale, two, three, four, five. Inhale, remind yourself it's expansive breath, right? Don't be so afraid to let see some movement in the ribs. You just want to see the whole call on of the spine or the whole trunk. Expand good modifications you could do.

Watch the shoulders that tend to creep up. There you go. You could raise the legs up a little bit. Yeah, that would te the main thing is you want to feel the low back released into the mat. I think we have one more round possible. Two. Let's go. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Bend the knees. Keep reaching forward and then take it down. Arms will stop right above your shoulders. How to go look good. So far so good. Okay. Right into coordination. Feet up off the bar. Still away from the shoulder rest.

We're going to do this version with the arms straight the whole time, so it's inhale, prepare on your exhale. Curl up like you're going to do the a hundred then the legs only open. Close. Bend the knees. Then come on down. Inhaling, I'll give you the breath fully in a moment. Exhale, curling up. It's a long exhale. Open-Close inhale, bend, knees, continue emailing as you go down. Head touches the mat and exhale, curling up. Open, close, tap, bend. Inhale and down you go.

And exhale, curling up. Open-Close as you bend, you might curl up a little more and, and two more here and make them good. Working through a six solid. That is the air. And down we go. Last one long exhale enough. Bam. Bam. Inhale and down. There we go. Nice work. Okay. Put your feet on the foot bars. Push out until your leg is straight. I'll use actually yeah, I'll use you then.

Take one handle and put the foot in it so you could just, um, lift the legs to do it. But I like doing it this way when the foot bars are up, like keeping it all under control. Feeling graceful, hopefully. All right, we're gonna start with down circles today doing a slightly different version of the basic series, both in Pilati stance. Um, and like where you're at Kansas state. Let's just bring you up initially just so we know where our start and finishes. Release your tailbone. A Little Marta. Yup. Take your legs higher. Yeah, we're going to chat. You can do the flexibility to go ahead. Good. Right. That works for you.

So as long as you don't move your pelvis and you can actually come a little hair too. I just want to know are your ranges, does that feel okay? Happy. Okay. So we have a same, relax your feet. Okay. You especially will relax the back of the knees. Okay. And so that you have extra energy to squeeze the glutes like you look good. Okay. Inhale, prepare. Exhale. Lower the legs down.

Inhale. They come apart around and up, all the way back to the top. Exhale. Good. So the object of the game here is that you just keep going, um, that you don't move the pelvis around. So your range of motion is dictated by your ability to do that. Okay. Marta's has got a little bit bigger range. She's more used to going a little bit bigger. In fact, I'm about to hold you back because you're so used to going bigger.

So let's stop maybe 90 degrees. That's good. That's great. Yeah. And then if you can just imagine inhaling the legs around them together. Start the exhale and they just reached down and inhale around in together. Some toes, annex hair, one more like that. Inhale and exhale down. Pars.

Reconnect with your powerhouse. Say upper edge of your powerhouse of right under the chest. Pick the legs up from there. Inhale up, open XLRs soft feet. Inhale up, open and around. Can you imagine that you're literally picking your legs up from deep, high up in the trunk. We're never just relying on our equipment, right? We're sort of preparing for no equipment.

Sometimes I try to do my entire reformer workout pretending like I don't have a reformer. Like how could I do it? Yes. One more please. Good. Staying here. This is next one's going to be the extended frogs. I'm just bringing it down a little bit and then relax the legs a tiny bit. Okay.

It starts with the opening. So we're going to inhale to open. Actually just breathe however you want cause I'm going to talk then without moving the carriage, you're going to bend the knees and draw the heels across that center line. So they come together again and then press out a straight. Fantastic. Inhale. They come apart. I can't help it. Keep the breath. Can I bend across the center line without moving that carriage and here's where I would exhale there and push out. Good. If you need extra breathtaking, let's do three more. Inhale, open bend across center line.

Good and exhale. And again, I want to see them. So again, a huge range of motion. So I'm going to challenge you differently. Last one, inhale open. So you can still go wide. Stop there. A actually not that wide right there. And now when you bend the knees, I'll, I'll have to say it as you go. Go ahead and bend the knees now somewhere right around here.

I want you to start narrowing the knees. Yup. And, and now touch. Good. I'm hoping that's making you work a little more through inner thigh. I'm not entirely sure it is. And all the way out holding it there. We reversed it, Ben to frog. So a little more narrow than you can and now extend. And as you're extending, you can go. There we go. Then here, hang out one second.

Without losing your abdominals. Powerhouse. Completely relax your legs. You are not to raise the, oh wait, what are we doing? We're going to straight like Jack. Close the feet together without raising them up or down. We're lecturing knees, inner thighs only. Straight across. Don't push into me. Don't push in. It's straight inward. Just inward. Just inward. Yes, totally different. I'll show you what I mean. Where we been to frog separate. Okay. The natural thing here and we're watching you, Marta, is not, is to push up or push down. Instead, it's as if you're going to come right under a sheet of glass that's pushing up into me. Feel it. So you'll touch me, but you won't put, there you go.

There you go. Yeah, there you go. So it makes sense. It's kind of like you have to do it too. To know what I'm saying. Cause it looks the same as it always does. Stretch out. Watch how wide you go. Marta said a little bit much. Okay, so you're not going to push in or you'll feel the same exact pressure the whole time. If I had a pole here, there you go. You're right at the edge there. You start to pull them up a little bit. Does it make sense? Yeah. Again, enjoy reaching out. Yeah.

So it's like a sheet of glass and it's hard to look at it because I'm, my arms are on different levels there. There you go. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Last one for you. Most people do it right away or they push down, but it's the act of last one here. Here we go. Yeah. Right. Major adductor. So I have to personally relaxed, totally with exception of my powerhouse and the legs. It's like how little can you use them to let them come back to the midline?

The look on your face tells me that something's working good. Okay. Take your feet out of the strap. So one at a time, once you take well that's fine. That's good. You guys were be graceful with it. Perfect. Put the straps away. Head rest back down and oh, should I leave it like this? No, I'm gonna put 'em you guys don't have to get up. I'm going to give you back a spring. So we've got two and a quarter springs here and two and a half here.

Um, if I wanted to be incredibly challenging, I could've left it, but it's a bit much and it kinda turns into something else. So let's go balls of the feet parallel on the bar. Sort of like that second foot position we did. And slightly apart. There we go. This is the bottom lift. So, um, who that's going to be tough Candace. Well, you're right on the border of the high bar almost being too high for you, but I think the low bar would be too easy. So I'm going to leave it. You could do that. You could adjust your feet. The, let's see, let's challenge it and if we need to, um, okay. So inhale, prepare.

We'll give you a long breath pattern. Start. Exhaling to do a pelvic curl to roll up. You've all put your headrest down, right? Good. Good. And the trick is, is not moving the carriage. Go ahead candy all the way up. If you need to adjust your feet, you may. Yeah, you're going to have to, I think. I think that's just, just too close. Oh, she's gone for it. Nope. Yep. Good. And go to your heels. Just go to your heels. It's just too close. Inhale and exhale. Come down. Yeah, that one. This bottom left has a high cramp factor. And like I said, you are on the edge to begin with, so once it's ready you, you join us.

Exhale to come back or to peel. Yeah. Good, good, good. Keep this drawer edge not to ribs. Just this part. So what you could do a tiny bit more Marta, is to, um, what you did the Tuck. Now just squeeze the glutes so it might be a millimeter higher here, but the ribs will not move. There you go. Inhale. And as you come down, imagine taking the hips toward the heels. Major cramp. You want to skip this one? Try One in the middle. Okay.

Definitely do it on the heels from now or I can lower your bar. I'm going to add onto yours, Marta. Exhaling up. Good. Yeah, it's sometimes once they've started. Yeah, it's just gonna stay that way. Okay. We'll be right there. Candy. Inhale a slightly higher here. Yeah, you don't have to tuck any more. Just gently press higher. This part. Oh God. You're going to work hard here.

Exhale. Push out and she's going to go all well, that's it. That's plenty. Inhale to come back in and up. Good, good. Exhale. Push out. As she pushes out, you can actually drop this a little as you go just cause it stays and it will lift back up as you push out because the whole body has to lower. This has to come with it and then re lift up. Good work. So it should feel like you're almost like a piece of plywood going down and up. It looks great. One more time will be good.

And what you can't see is that the knees are staying parallel. So that means she's using an innercise. Stay here. Inhale. And from the top of your throat. She lovely. Hug your knees to your chest. Should we do a hamstring stretch? Come on up. Come on up. All right, so let's take the springs down to where you just have one. We basically need it, um, light for a stretch and by light. You want to be able to support yourself. Um, nice. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll come back onto the carriage. Kneeling. Does anybody want knee pad? Okay, good. And you know what I'm going to do? I'm, I think, I know I should've said this sooner. I'm going to lower the bars. It normally I wouldn't, I would just leave them, but because I don't wanna um, make this too challenging for actually wouldn't it just be to yeah, it just be too short. Um, I think you'll both be a little more comfortable with this. Okay. So you feed her at the shoulder rest. Put One foot up on the bar.

Straight out of the hip. I'm on the ball of the toe or ball of the foot. Yeah, there we go. Not Happening. Okay. So wow, get back here. So instead of doing that, what you're going to do is you happy stay right there for a second year focusing on the hip flexor stretch first can end with you. Put One foot on and lean forward. The forward knee is going to bend quite a lot. Thing to slightly tuck the pelvis and if you start cramping, certainly come right out of it. Are you okay now? [inaudible] okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to stay with you for a second. Marta, you're going to start pressing the carriage back, keeping your back flat. Good, good, good, lovely. Watch that knee reach the tail bone, but don't flex in anymore.

I mean straight into cake. Now you and me straight in the forward leg, reach the tailbone up to the sky carefully. I'll be the leaf. Whoa. You're taller than me. Happy. [inaudible] okay, I'm gonna Move [inaudible] Nice. Come on back in. Good. And you can also come back in and I'm only going to do one so you can go ahead and switch. Let's just finish yours. Yeah, switch feet and then come round. Good, good, good.

So one foot. So we have two things going on here for this first position. Um, you know what? Move your foot left. Okay. So you have the in the kneeling Longy have the needle straight out of the hip to get both. Both though. Starting with the hip flexor stretch. So Candace, you can move your foot more forward. Closer to the leg of the reformer. Yup. Both of you are going to slightly tuck your pelvis. And the reason I say that is because you're going to lift your chest and anytime you're lifting your chest, you bring your pubic bone with.

Now push the carriage back. There we go. That out. Or until you find just looking for a hip flexor stretch. So don't go for the hamstring yet either. We go a little more upper back if it can. There you go. Great. All right. From there, both are going to think about reaching the tailbone, but your whole carrot, everything's going to move.

Focusing now on the forward leg. Yeah. Good. Good. Okay, so here's a tiny little change. I'm going to bring your carriage forward a little. That's it. Now. And here's the subtle one, bringing your left hip back. Okay, good. I'm walking away. I have a check here. Good.

This is really good alignment. Hamstrings are okay, Huh? Yay. Crisis averted and bring it back home. All right, moving right along this, go ahead and grab the boxes please. So you're going to get your short box. Yours is over there. Yours is over there. I'll put the foot bars down. So foot bars go down now.

And because of where we store our foot strap, I am moving the spring bar in a little bit, but I'll move it back when we're done. No. Um, in fact this is might be a little different, um, short box, but we're also going to pull it forward of the shoulder rest just a little bit, cause the position might be a little different than you're used to. Yeah. And by a little bit, I mean about three inches. Um, I've, I've loaded up the carriage just so the carriage itself doesn't move and that they can get to their footsteps. So have a seat facing front. This is the short box series or at least part of it, you're sitting good feet under the strap and always check your equipment gang. Um, and I'm checking theirs because that's my job. Reach forward. And by reach forward, what I mean is I'm going to have you sitting on the front edge of the box. So get there.

Then you have your feet together and as far up under that bar as you can. So it's from, okay, I've got reasons for it and mostly it's that I actually want you to kick in your hamstrings a little bit. Shouldn't send you in a cramp, but just a little bit to take some of the pressure off the hip flexors. So here's the version of round back. I'm giving you arm over forum. I'm going to take you in and out of this flat back start. It's an inhale, actually. Arms down my fault. Inhale, prepare on the exhale. Lead with the pelvis. You're gonna roll back, leaving the arm sort of out away from you. Yep, keep going. Good, good, good.

You can go as far as you want for this first one, let's stop a little short because I want to make the point about the feet. You do want to maintain contact in this version. You can even press the back of the legs down toward the box. Then when you inhale, exhale, pull the abdominals backwards. As you come forward, bending the knees as it feels natural and then inhale to street and back up.

Arms will just fall. Exhale to roll away from the forearms. There you go. You use the back of the legs. If you want to go over more, you're welcome to resting down plenty. It's up to you. Inhale, exhale to around, forward. As you go forward. The hipbones try and hold back. Good. Keep going, keep going. And then inhale, straighten your spine. Exhale, pull the hipbones deeper into the body to start the move. Very nice. Very nice. And inhale. Can you go further? Let's just do that. And exhale. Chin toward chest. Totally. Lots of options.

And inhale back to the start. Last one looks great. Exhale, inner thighs, right, right. Yes, yes. Lovely. Good. Now, right here, both of you, even the positions you're in, think of gently tucking. And I'm only saying that because it's always going to be about the ABS. When you're ready to bring it back up, breathe as you need to. I left you there a bit long and then straighten out your spines.

Taking your hands behind your head. Okay. You could use a pole. Same thing. What? I want to see what I want you to feel good. We go back where you just were a minute. Okay. So instead of that, um, we're going to come to straight, but not even neutral. It's a little bit of a Tuck. Tiniest bit of a Tuck. So you feel the pressure just behind the sit bones from here.

Eyes remained forward. Okay, inhale to hinge back. Exhale to come up. Good. Inhale, hinge back position basically stays as it starts and exhale. Just look here and I'm talking to Candice. [inaudible]. Good, excellent. X. Hey, so this is one of those places where you could really tense up and you do have to stay strong but don't completely tense the whole upper body. Let yourself relax where possible. Again, you can use the bottoms of the feet and the back of the legs in this version. That's enough of that going right into the tilt. So the, it's going to seem small. So bear with me. First of all, check shoulder tension.

Okay, pull rib cage in and subtly Candace took your, there you go. That's all. All right, going to your right. It's an inhale to lift up. Keep both hips anchored and exhale, bring it home. Other side, inhaling ups and basically staying in that coronal plane and exhale other side. Good. I'm sorry, XL center and so it's this, sorry, finish that breath. I just interrupted you. It's an inhale to lift up and over.

Both sides are engaged and exhaling back. Inhaling up to go over. You look good, you look good and exhaling back. It's a tough one cause I'm not letting you do any of that rotation. Good. It's like the is going up and pulling it back. It's like you're a slinky getting stretched and then recoiling and one more per side and actually that would be your last one to make you even and Walla.

Okay. Arm break. Makes Sense. Kinda. That one's a tough one. I think really tough. But when you do it, try to feel first engagement on both sides. Then as the one side tightens or shortens a little bit, try not to collapse. Do it. It's as if you're trying to keep them both engaged. Okay. For the twist, same start position. Uh, the sense of not really talking but pulling the abs in as if to your right.

Inhale as you rotate and lean back on the diagonal. Good. Good, good. Exhale to come up in the rotation and finish center. Here we go. Other side. Inhale, rotate and lean. Nice inner thighs. This is where if I were you based on the way I set the box, you can use the bottom of your feet rather than pull up on the strap, push down on the bar and good start that exhale, feeling that side to come up and sent her an email. Rotate and Lee exhaling up. Good. You felt that pace change. Did you last to inhale, rotate and lean? Yes. Lovely. Taking your whole body with you. Exhale up and send her. The best advice I can give you last one is to take the hipbones with you.

Do not leave them behind. That doesn't even feel good. And exhale home. Great rest. Um, I'm gonna leave it at that today. Just for Sake, let's go to, um, put the boxes away please back where you got them. I'll be adjusting your springs. So we're heading into an arm series, so I'm taking them down to one sprain. Back on that first gear. You may decide to go a little lighter than that. We don't need the foot bars.

I'm so sitting at the back edge of your carriage facing the back of your formers. Good. Okay. Reach forward and grab your straps. Yeah. Once again, strap in the middle of the hands. You're sitting tall.

Think of this almost as a spine. Exercise. Palms are going to be down and it's the chest expansion, so it's an inhale. Prepare, tighten up to the powerhouse. It's an exhale as you pull down and back with the arms. Inhale as you reach down and forward so the arms will come a little bit in front of you. Maybe get a little bit behind you but you don't go to full release.

Good. Most important is that you're thinking about lengthening your spine as you go. Good, good, good, good. This is one of the places. Do you guys just keep going? This is one of the places I think that the breath really can help. If you start that XL just prior to really pulling, you can allow your body to be tall. Give yourself just two more and what you're both doing well is on the return.

You're not giving up to have to start over. You're working just as hard. Last one to pull. Good job. Feel that band coming around the ribs come forward. Turn your palms up, or sorry to take your arms up to shoulder height and turn your palms up. And Marty gonna Watch this. Hyper extended elbows by contracting your bicep. Thank you. From here, exhale to bend. The elbows.

Collarbones are still wide, so right that just barely pull the shoulders backwards. Barely. That's all. Inhale to straighten him and exhaling forward, resisting that temptation to lean back and inhale to straighten. So it ends up that our arm work is all about the back. All about the shoulder girdle. That's good news. You'll get some arms out of it too.

But that's why we don't need this bicep to be really strong because that's kind of the least of what we're going for here. Okay, so back to sort of early cues. Relax the arm as much as you can. Contract from the middle, and then go. How about one more? Good. All right, go back to, uh, let it out.

Take the strap now and put it all the way up to your elbow. So this is a slightly different version, or not a slightly different version. It's something that's not done that often. So you're going to take your arms to 90 degrees at the elbow and at the shoulder. That's good. And then kind of relax them from there. Great. From here, you simply move your arms from where they are in front of you to the sidewall. Okay. Try not to use your shoulder blades to do it just for these first few, then bring it back. So in effect, I want you to hold the position you have in your body.

See if you can take your arms out to the side without pinching the shoulder blades at all, and then return what kind of working on stabilizing the Scapula here. And then what we need to do here is get that wrist over elbow gently. Good, good, good. Whew. I know it shouldn't be that hard since I'm telling you to relax, right? Pull the chest forward as you go through. Yes. Good.

Imagine your chest coming forward as you go back at. Stay right there. We're going to watch it. The elbows don't. Um, what tends to happen is as you come out here, you stretch out. So we're going to keep that just one more. Please. What? What? Careful. Careful. Careful. You're a tennis player. Don't, don't do anything crazy. Uh, you're done with yours. Okay. This is it. Candy. All right. Turn yourselves around. You put the rack, your, your straps first and spin round so you're facing the other direction and your hips are up against the shoulder rest though you're not going to rely on them once you get there, sitting up tall. If your hip flexors get tired, you can bend your knees or you can sit yourself up on a little boxer towel, grab your straps again and reach your arms out to the side. Okay.

This is how good tree, and I would like you to hug this tree with pretty much straight arms. Having said that, there's probably, I don't know if that were straight. There's probably a little bit there. All right? It's all about the trunk. So inhale, prepare, exhale, bring it close together. And it's Kinda like hug a box the way I'm teaching it. Good. Inhale, open and make the wingspan longer and exhale.

And we do that by actually not straining. Inhale to open and exhale. Yes. Inhale to open. Good to God. Yeah, I need a little more lift out of you here. Good. Right there. Yep. You can touch the shoulder rest. Just don't Laura lie on. I'm almost there. Nice job. One more. Good.

That's great. That's great. I just want to see if I can stretch this arm out of its socket a little bit. Oh, okay. Last one for you and we'll go to, actually that's enough of those. I'm going to move on. I have one more of that you get next time. Put those away. Back extension. Okay. I'm going to have you, um, go into actually the shoulder push instead for back extension today.

Um, so any reason we can't be on her knees. Okay. If for some reason we couldn't be on the knees or if we get going and it doesn't feel well, what you would do instead is pull the box up the long box and you do this exact same exercise lying on your stomach. Um, and I don't know if I've taught this to you before. I think I have. I have. Okay. So you're on your knees, feet right at the front edge of the um, carriage with your foot bars back up where they were in the foot and leg work. So high bar for most people it's going to be high bar or high bars going to be fine I should say. So there at the front edge of the carriage and then sitting down, put a arms are almost the width of the bar, but definitely a little bit wider than your own shoulders. Now to get into this, and I am going to be specific, I like exactly what Candice is doing, which is straight arms first so that you can tap into the lads.

Now push yourself out until your chest is resting on your thighs. Then the next piece of this, and I'll, I'll do my best to cute clearly since you're heads are down, is to find a flat back. So for you Marta, it's going to mean a subtle difference, which is to suppress the shins into the carriage and move the carriage back a little bit and keep your chest down. Yeah, there we go. We just had to give you a little bit more room. Now bring your head up a little bit, little bit more. You'll feel my hand went. Okay. There you go. And the only, I know you're, you're more flexible than the exercise calls for good.

I'm going to actually move you just as little spit and now just think about lengthening, not rounding. It's more forward than anything. Okay. You okay with that? Stay there. Good, good, good backs are flat. That looks good. Maybe you can push out just a little with your feet. Okay. All right there. Alright hands. Uh, they're fine as they are, but I'm going to suggest you try it slightly angled inward from your bending the elbow. Stay low on your legs like that. The elbows are, go directly to the sides of the room. Then to get going again, we're still on one spring, right? Exhale to straighten cause those are the mechanics to get fully straight through the arms and inhale rebend good.

And tendencies to go up a little higher than we need to. So I'm just going to do one more and I'm actually gonna put a little bit of spring on. You don't have to, but I think these two can take it coming closer to me. Sorry. A little closer. Okay, good. Come on home. I'm gonna give you, so I'm putting them now on one and a half springs. So all red and blue base, that's the same. Okay. Get out in the same way. So straight arms to get out there. Sorry. Straight arms push out. You now know what you're looking for.

The muscle focuses the upper back long bodies. That looks good. Here we go. Inhale, bend, elbows to the side. Take a moment where you relax the shoulders and yes, and initiate from under that shoulder blade to push out to straight. Oh, it's heavy, isn't it? That okay. It looks good. A Marta, think of taking your armpits towards your chest. There you go. That's where you want to be. Ooh, that was a good cue for you.

So you're definitely working triceps too. This is looking good. You feel all right for one more time progressing out. And then when you finish your last one, come up with straight arms to your head will come up your upper body and just bring the carriage home with those straight arms. Okay. Feel it might be one of my favorite exercises with your shins. Press out a little more with the shins. Just a little bit more length in the back. Good.

You think you're out there that that really was just a hair more. Okay, good. Very nice. Good. And it's, and I'm glad to hear you say that because I think you're right that it's, you think you're there and it's not really a leg exercise, but it's just giving yourself the room to open up here is all it is. Great. Um, so there we go. So I'm gonna have you just come on this side. You can come on this side and just to sort of integrate it, we did a lot of detail cues with, with the workout today, I think. And I wanna just let you have a second to absorb whatever you can. So maybe just face that way so you can do a roll down with the feet. However you feel most comfortable. I usually do parallel on apart, but if you prefer a plotty stance, that's cool too.

And reminding ourselves that you did so much of the work where you weren't gripping with the feet. So no need to start now. Shift your weight forward just the slightest bit from the ankle and inhale on your exhale. Let your head fall forward, your upper back. Allow yourself to round. Let your arms hang in that they just are loose, but they're not falling off your back completely good and just go with where it feels good. It's all about kind of feeling good about the time you took for yourself and inhale on your exhale. We remind ourselves to engage the back of the body a little bit so we roll up.

We let the extremities be easy. We let the neck belong, we stack our spine knowing that we'll we're under control. One more in here and exhale a little bit of Ab support. Go ahead. Yeah, don't overthink it. Now. No time to do that. We just want to feel good and we want to feel integrated and inhale.

When you're ready, you roll up stacking the hips over the knees, the ribs over the hips, the shoulders over the ribs, and finally your head comes up. And let's take the arms forward and up and exhale and inhale will come straight down the front with the arms this time and you are done. Good work. Thank you. Yeah.