Wake Up your Spine

Okay, we're going to do Cadillac class tonight. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to throw at you, but I do have a few things in mind and short boxes, one of them, so I have my reformer box nearby and I think you should too. If you don't have that with you today, you can do a modified version very easily. Do it in math class all the time. So join me. Let's have a seat on the Cadillac and get right into it.

And I'm taking hold of the role at Barra, which is attached to the top of the yellow arm springs holding outside the buckles with the feet and knees together, sitting tall, almost. Here we go. Sit Tall right up on those sitz bones. Stretch yourself out if you need more room for the hip flexors and just to begin, take an inhale letting the bar be up above your shoulders on the exhale. Feel the shoulder blade slide down your back and your spine grow longer until you can apply a little more tension on the bar. It's not a lot. Inhale, allow the bar to go up the shoulder blades. They kind of stay down, but I rethink about dropping them again. Exhale. So this is my sense of extending my arms forward, which in front of me is a window. I'm going right out the window. Exhale, trying to just feel the relationship of my arms to my spine.

I think my neck is a little short, so I'm going to go for thinking about a space there much better. And on the next one just to play a little pressure and we exhale. Tilt the pelvis back, but don't sink. Inhale, bring it back up on top of itself. Exhale, tilted back. Inhale, grow tall. Not really doing anything with the arms, just sort of collecting myself, reminding myself that though I really want to go for it right now. I will, once I'm warm and I've sort of tapped in to all those places this time we'll go further. Exhale, roll back. Keep the shoulders with you.

So I'm just going bone by bone until I get about mid back. Inhale, exhale and common app. Not really overthinking it yet. I'm gonna try not to at all. Sit Tall. Exhale. The hipbones drawback. I'm keeping just a modest amount of resistance on the spring there at the top. Inhale, exhale, come forward to roll up. One more time in here and exit. I'm gonna go all the way down this time.

Leave the knees bent. Feel the Shabaka the shoulders on the mat. Let the springs pull your arms. So just let him pull, but don't let the whole shoulder come off. Look over your left shoulder. Come through center. Look over your right shoulder. Come back to the center, pick your head up, look towards the bar and roll up sitting tall, changing it to a mini roll-up. We inhale, exhale, roll back. So now the arms aren't doing anything other than staying straight. Arms are plugged in. Inhale, as I exhale, it's like I'm pressing the belly button into the spine, the spine, into the mat.

Trying to maintain the curve as long as I can. In fact, I'm going to keep it all together. Inhale down and exhaling up. In a sense, the shape just stays the same as I go back and forth. Not a whole lot of adjusting here cause I've already done that of the pelvis. Actually let's go up a little bit just to make a different point. Release the tech of the pelvis and keep it neutral.

That's where I really want to be. There we go. So the pelvis is not rocking back and forth now. Okay, come to the downward position. The shoulder blades rotate, let's say over to the right. Okay? Nothing's changed on the lower body. Just sort of put a little more pressure on the right lat and coming up that side and inhale down and up and down. Just we can it up. Kind of short. I'll lengthen you in a minute. Come down, pass through the middle and go the other side. Find the lat. Don't push it into the hand.

It'll just fatigue and not where you want to check your knees. Are they drifting off to one side? Try to keep them where they were. One more time. Come down, let your head go down in the middle. Inhale your head up. Roll all the way up. Sit Tall, Xcel, roll down again. Keep those shoulders with you. Changing it a bit, but I'm bringing the knees and close or the feet closer.

I should say do that rotation to the right. Again, this time that dropped the knees to the left, I'm going to swivel just so I can bring my feet a little bit across the mid line there. There we go. Now I don't move my lower body and it's the same exercise we did a minute ago. One, keep the knees still. Don't let them lift as you lift to. Hmm. Feel it very for my arms. Try and my shoulders turned to stay nice and in line with my collarbones.

Come down, knees come to the center. Switch to the other side so that now you're pressing down a little more. With that left arm and Xcel, press one. You could even have a little bit of downward pressure with the what for me is the right outer thigh. Kind of as it presses down my left lat. Far too many words. Two more. Just find the rotation. One more.

Come down to the center level. Everything out. Inhale. Exhale. We roll up. Stretch your feet out so they align up with the polls. So come closer if you need to and lighten up on your hands in case they've tightened on you. Shoulders down, backstreet, and now again, just those upper arms, the lats, the shoulder blades, however you see it, applying downward pressure. If I do too much in my hands is going to be a little bit more of this. You'll not only be bored, but you're not doing anything, so just keep it down and if the bar moves at all, great.

Might notice if it moves evenly, that'd be more interesting to look at, but it's really coming from the center over the shoulders to be more precise. All right, let's do something else. Roll yourself down. Bring the arms with you. Close up the feet when you get there from here again, the arms are being pulled. I'm going to lift the sternum just so I come up to the back of my head and then I tuck the Chin in a roll back down. The ribs are going to lift, no doubt, but I'm not really doing it from there first and I'm as I'm in my flat position, I think what could my back do to send the chest towards my chin if it's knocking my chin out of the way, it's very light on the back of my head here. Very light. My pelvis shouldn't be moving much, right?

I'm going to try and keep those hipbones relatively stable there. Stay up on the top of your head or almost, it's like the back of your head. It's not quite the tip. It's too or too low. Allow the elbows to pull the bar wide so the elbows are pointing to the side and F and does shape from the middle. You don't have to pinch anything, it's just it starts very light on the upper body, meaning the head. Let the arms go back to straight. Roll your chin to chest. Imprint the body into the mat as you roll all the way up.

Sitting tall. Okay, so from here we're going to turn this basically right where you are. Take hold of that bargain right in the middle. I'm just going to do a tiny bit more with a lateral flection and shoulder work here. Press the shoulder down and actually let's take this free arm off cause you brace too much. You're not kind of see if you're where you might be compensating. So press down and just for fun, press as hard as you can.

See what happens eventually? Don't you start to kind of kick over, stop before then and then the hand can go down lightly. Okay, changing it freehand goes to your head, behind your head. Elbow. Why did she should be able to see it? Don't get so far behind. You press down a little now the arms done moving. You're going to side bend to make any additional move and up. Oh, caught myself kicking my feet. If it's really hard to hold your feet, still put them on a box and just sent them a boxer. Some of the anchor, right.

Without it, you've got to anchor yourself. So my arm's not doing anything. It's just going with my spine. Is it side bends? One more time. Okay. And you're up and swivel around trying to stay at about the same place. If the bar gets all wobbly, it's probably because you're not in the middle with your hands.

So adjust that as you need to. Freehand is just floating in space somewhere. You find the shoulder press down and there was some hand tension, but as it definitely doesn't start there. Okay. And once you kind of have that sense and the shoulders not popping up, you put the other hand behind your head, put a little resistance and then side bend over. Oh, not going to get far. At least I'm not [inaudible] just want to feel the side of my body too. That's all. All right. That'll do carefully. Just set that down.

Let's put on our safety strap for a little bit of footwork. So find your chain, your strap, and you load it up, meaning put it on first. And then what I'm gonna use this to with as a balanced body rights, I'll use two red springs, which happened to already be here cause that's where we keep them. Okay. So if you're tighter in your hamstrings, um, this may not be great for you. What you could do, I'm about to put my head here at the edge, maybe even a little off.

If your hamstrings are really tight and you can't let your hips be flat, I'll show you in a moment. You could put your head on this end and make the angle less right. I think it'll make sense when I lay down, but I'm going to keep moving so carefully. Go under the bar, slide yourself back. I always go a little further back just to make sure, cause I'm not always up for the challenge of this. Carefully push the bar up. Feet come up on the heels. My feet are in parallel. All right. And then I feel pretty good. So what I do like to do is feel the difference.

Just a subtle difference of what would it be if I were really tucking and my hits came up versus as I continued to push my feet up, I allow the other end of the leg to gently reach down. Hey, I don't continue pulling. I don't want you to do work your low back while you're here, let it rest, arms are down. You look at the alignment of your feet, it's all straight. Knees over ankles, toes are easy. And we inhale, pull the bar to push it away on the exhale. And so it's not that big of a move, especially when the heels are on. And some for some of you it might be more surely, but I kind of run out of space and that's okay.

I'm just feeling this length through the back of the leg. My back feels good. There's no pressure changes. I'm just going up and down a couple more. And uh, so now that I'm there, just switched to the balls of the feet. Alright. You get long in the ankle. Notice if you're rolling in or out. That's one of the beauties of the Cadillac.

You can see if you don't have your instructor there. Right. So I'm in and I'm out. So I go through my face as if who I'm watching on is anytime I watch everybody, but I'm really into Brett. I'm sorry, Brent Anderson Right now. And he's always talking about not using the muscles, which is interesting coming from a PT, I think. And so here I feel the bend at the knee.

I feel the movement in the hip joint and I'm not so concerned about what I'm working and I'll tell you, I get better work out of it. So what his classes, he knows how to say when I'm trying to go for one more. Hold it up there from the hips. Just swivel those leg bones out until the heels touch. Okay, you got your heels touching. Can you make the whole leg bone touch? Not just the knees. Try for that upper most inner thigh. Make sure you didn't talk and now allow the knees to bend and they straight, they bend and they straighten.

Sometimes it's good to just, if you've done this kind of work or any of it, just to look for a way to make it feel different. Not Harder, not easier, just different. If you're used to, Oh really? Tightening, relax it a little and see how that feels in your body. You're still getting good work. Even if you're not straining, it's probably better. Actually. Stay up on this one. I'm moving my feet out to the edge so I'm back on the heels so I will be, my calves are okay to put the ball of the foot on the sidebar here. If you're as aren't, just go over the top. That's fine. All right, so I'm dropping the way to my leg bones into the hip sockets and now I just resist the bar coming down and I think innercise on the way up. That's just how I do it. You might think I'm pushing to the ceiling.

I'm pulling to the floor. I don't know. Make it feel good. I'm going to do two more here. Feeling evenness in your body. Stay up. Go back to the bar with the balls of the feet. I'm in a rotation, external rotation, so the legs are turned out not super significantly, but not enough. And we keep the ankle still. That's one of those joints that is not moving in this one. I mean it's going through space, but it's not changing, right?

It's the knees and the hips to get all the good stuff. If you collapse on the ankle every time, you're going to lose all the good energy. So if you don't feel it, that's probably why you get three more out of this one end pulled down, press up too. And there we are on three. I'm going back to parallel balls of the feet. My feet are apart just straight up from my hips from here. If you could imagine the feet wrapped around the bar, don't wrap them, but pull the bar, the tops of your feet to your knees.

Try to keep them straight and then from your sit bone start to elongate. The leg is not going to see anything until the toes point. Pull the tops of the feet to the knees or to the stomach and then straight. So there's just active work both directions. Good place to watch her alignment. Let's go up and down and really trying to feel an articulation through the foot, even though there's not a floor for the whole foot [inaudible] for those of us that hyper extend the knees, we got to watch it.

If you push into the back of the knees and boy it feels good but it's not good. So have some action in the back of the legs so that you don't do that. I'm going to do two more. One stretch to now take this, I'll say a left leg, press the heel to the ceiling. And this time I actually do want you to wrap the toes, particularly both really, but it's long over. Don't grab it and scrunch the toes.

Try and stretch them over the bar and then pull. So if my right foot is pulling gently down as my left pushes out through my hips stay level and that's good work. I'm going to lighten up on this right leg of the bent knee and I'm going to push with the straight leg until the foot all the way up. They're both straight. And then I'll change that. I'm not going to do a big running here. I'm just taking this stretch.

So this bent knee foot is kind of gently pulling with those, not just the toes, it's the whole leg, hamstring and then using the straight leg push up until there together. And one more, just kind of quick and switch La. Okay. Bend the knees and I'm going to take off one spring, so I'm just gonna do it from here. You may want to crawl out from underneath it to do it, but I pulled the spring forward and undo it and Wallah, it's done. Push the bar back up. I use both feet to help situate myself.

I'm going to put the left heel on. Straight up out of the hip, not in the middle. Okay. And then for starters, bend the knee the other foot to put it on the ground. Pick your head up, look at it and make sure that this hip didn't hike up toward the shoulder. In fact, even if it didn't, I want you to think of, well, since it's pretty reaching, let's say the sit bone of the left leg toward the right ankle. It's a low if that's okay and you want more, you then start to stretch out this other leg thinking, not just down, but long without changing the hips. So if that's all we did, we got some good stuff. Yeah. Okay, here we go. Bend and straighten and bend. If when you bend the knee, the whole pelvis rises.

It's not the exercise for you or it's not the version anyway. [inaudible] just for ones not about the weight. It's about the action. Two or three change sides. Otherwise I got straight out of the hip. Go through the whole drill again. Check your hips well, right.

If it feels okay to straighten the lower leg you do, and let's go up and bring it down. Most of us roll in or out on our feet or ankles, whichever you do. Put some attention to the opposite side, doesn't mean torque. Anything just means look at it. Maybe become aware of what you're doing. First. First principle for us awareness. Just get two more [inaudible] and good. All right, let's bring the bar down. Put your hands on the bar.

I'm going to do the long setup with a little variation on it. You may end up adjusting as we go, but ultimately I want to end up straight up, straight up in a vertical position, you press the arms to straight, so already there's tension on the spring. From there. We inhale, pick her head, neck and shoulders up. We roll up on this. Exhale all the way to upright. Straight from here. Grow Taller in your your back as you allow the elbows to been twice one and two. Inhale, exhale, roll down. It's like you're pushing the bar forward in a way, but without letting the shoulders come off your back. Head touches. We go again.

Inhale, stay tall. Inhale Ben. Exhale straight. One and two. Inhale, start to roll and exhale, rolling down. I'll change it a little. Not quite sure how yet. I'll know when I get there. If we go in. How bend more. Feel your low back long. No, we're going to inhale and roll back just to that point where you, you can lift the legs and if you're not sure, go a little further back. Start the XLA, reach forward and float up. Inhale, they go back down. Exhale to finish it. So if when you lift the legs, it threw you back or you weren't forward, you weren't in the good, good spot.

There is a sweet spot so it shouldn't be super hard. You have to be under control though. Exhale. When you're ready to come up, find your long spine. Inhale, stay long. Inhaled looking for the sweet spot. If you're not sure, you could always bend the knees, but it's like it's, it's a sense before I even lift, I know I'm there because I could lift just by thinking about it. I'm like, okay, I'm there again. Actually I lost one. The good part. Inhale, bend. Exhale, straighten one and two. Inhale, find that spot. Yeah.

And Dan, fabulous hands on the pulse. Slide yourself down until your arms are totally, completely stripped. Put your feet up on the bar. This is a, I'm going to do tower prep first and then tell her, keeping your arms overhead not to pull. If anything you can push, but just keep them there. Um, if you can put them on the mat, great. But if you can't, that's okay. All right. With the tailbone down, we flex the feet. My feet are parallel point.

Start to roll up. Exhaling as you go. You must have energy in the back of the legs. Not Significant. Well, it is significant. Just just so it's not all in the front. Inhale, pull that bar too. I said I was doing the prep and completely forgot to, so here we go. Exhale down. You're in it, the tower all the way. Flex the feet. Point. Exhale, pupils you up. There's contact. Feel the contact of that bar. I know you do, but be aware that you feel it in heels like those bird feet. Again, you could pull the bar to you. I don't want you to wrap your feet, but it's the sensation that you are exhaling along down the Mac. Flex. Inhale, still inhaling point, peel up. Inhale, bend, exhale down. The breath matters, right? We don't want to be holding my breath through this. All right, a little fun. If you've never tried this with one leg, I don't want you to just to go straight to it. I'm going to ask you to take the one foot off and put the top of the foot into it, so use that. That'll tell you if you're ready to do this or not, and I'm going to do it that way too. We flex, we point. I'm pushing gently into the bar with this right leg peel up.

So I've still got both legs working. That went, okay, leave that right leg up there as you've been the other. Don't let your back change Repin it. And down we go. Flex point. If that was no big deal, you just take it off, but you gotta be careful with that flat. The choreography is, it's really all the same whether you got one flitter or not, you just have to control for it and down. Here's a change that whether the leg with touching or not, let that leg go to the mat. [inaudible] flex the leg in the air. Oh point. Bring the lower leg up when it's there.

Then you roll up Ben and straight downward. When the pelvis is on the mat, start to stretch the other leg down. Flex the foot that's on top. Now let's just stay down here. Switch legs. Okay, so now you're going to take your left foot or the other foot and place it on top. It's different to each sides. I don't think you've mastered it. If that was the first time and it was okay on the one side, you got to pay attention to both flex point and up. We go with both. I've got the top of the foot pinned against the bar.

You could bring them both with you if you're not sure or just leave that other one up there. Skim down the Shin and up and down we go. Watch the hyperextension. I'm talking to myself and flexing point, either touching the bar or not, but you're close. No matter what. Inhale bend up and [inaudible]. I don't know if I'd put the light down on the one that I think I did. So they're like those down flex point.

Draw the leg up, peeling up and bend body long. Exhaling down, stretching the leg all the way. Finishing with the flexed foot, right? Okay. Help yourself out of there and let's do that short box I was craving. So grab your reformer box. You can put everything else down in terms of the safety strap and you are going to need your strap. So hope it's there. If not, you're going to do a mat work version.

I don't think I need to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm just cause like this is how I store the strap. It's already hooked. I'm just gonna get this out of my way in case I want to do something with my arms. Probably not. Okay. So sitting on top, um, this is a sort of a fundamental way of learning it. Um, and I like it so I just keep doing it even though technically I'm supposed to be able to do it. The more advanced, the normal way that most people do it. But I like this version so I'm going to stick to sitting at the front of the boxes. What I'm talking about, my feet are anchored and you know what? One of them here, you don't have to have this, but I'm gonna use it cause I was right in front of me. Just a few of, we've done a little bit around back. So we're, we sit tall.

I get that action every time. Then draw the hips back to roll back here. Some I do, I press these slides down. There's the energy I need so that when I go over it's, it's not easy but it's not painful either. Chin to chest, my ties were still pressing down and up. I can't. One thing I could do, move my strap a little bit. Do it again. Inhale. Exhale. We roll back so I'm quite supported as I go over. You don't have to go over, but I'm kind of feeling it during it. You could stop before this. Inhale roll up. So don't lift the back without rolling.

The Chin first has a tendency to do that. How's that a rollback? This time I'm going to let my arms go to cause my head's already down and supported. I bring the arms up, I real chin to chest, then I start to come up. Okay, sit tall. Arm Straight up. Really the, if you don't have room for it and inhale, hinge back. Exhale. Inhale hinges back. Now it is not an art.

She can take the pelvis with you. Exhale up, get that little tremor going. You could also put your hands behind your head almost better cause you know where you are in space a little bit too to go, you know, inching back. Those hipbones coming with me. I get taller as I come up. Hopefully one more from here. It's the tilt, keeping it very small. Can almost show you this way. I'm going to cross my legs just to have something to hook it up long and rather than going forward in this version, I'm just going up into the right or left I suppose for you and center. So I'm not shortening, I'm trying to go both sides over there. Hey, hard one to find. But once you do it just feels very nice. One more.

Okay. I need Mr app again. We're doing the twist. I'm keeping my arms here so I don't hit the Poles is it's a flat back right so I'm not neutral so there is a little sense of rounding in my mind but I hope the appearance and for you, your own appearance of yourself is long in the back. Okay. So we are going to rotate, hinge back. Keep the long fine. Come back up in the rotation and then center, so it's an inhale rotate, then hinge back, long exhale to come up.

And then center knee alignment should stay side by side. So that's not changing. You know, rotate and lean. Still Inhale, exhale up center. You now rotate to Li to come up and sent her one more each way. [inaudible] you could even consider rotating more as you come up. Whole strain to do it though. It's just a thought. Okay.

Now the real reason I wanted to do this, which is short box. I'm sorry. Climate Tree, same thing. Same setup. Just put some a little, all right, picking up that right knee. Sitting again from me. I'm sitting at the front edge. You could do this straight leg like you're used to. That's fine. I just said, I told you my reasoning cause I went to you're tall and I'm hugging and close.

This is again just a way of doing it because now when I do that, when I get my thigh and as close as I can, it kinda rounds my back and I can feel it and I don't want that. I'm going to keep my thigh here and now try to slide my ribs or my stomach or whatever up my leg to feel the length of the back. Just kind of pulse that three times. Be Gentle with the knees. It's one I feel my back too. I feel my back through. I'm gonna keep the back extension even if I can't straighten my leg. Oh, I got lucky today. Keep the shape. I'm leaning back right about here.

I start to draw the hipbones in or tuck until the leg is at 90 Preston on the opposite side down. Walk down the leg to three. I'll leave my hands on the box to go into that extension. Oh, and there's the Mat Roll Chin toward Chesley. The leg where it is. Walk up effortlessly. One, two, three. Get up tall. Sit right back on the sit bones. Find the flat back and pulse one pulse two three get along or in the spine, blending the breath if necessary. Down to three. Reaching back.

I'm just going to reach to the back of the mat here and then I'll bring it forward. Chin follows up to three stretch. Inhale, let's do one more like that and then I'll take it outside. [inaudible] and by that I mean the leg, not, not the workout. And walk down one, think of reaching the leg through the ceiling. Once your head is down, if you want to reach the arms back, but you know, relax here, bring it around. Chin to chest, walk up to three and take the stretch. The next part if you so choose, you can do two more of those if you want. Or what I've done is I just turned out cradle from underneath.

So like that top hand takes a thick, a nice firm grip. You're gonna want that and it goes like this. I'm sitting off and getting a nice stretch here on this hip and I'm just gently pulsing in two, three taking the leg straight up. It is rotated out. Oh, that's a straight as up as I'm gonna get today. I lean back just like before. Now as I go down, I'm going to let the leg go out to the side and I'm going to free hand, grab the box. Hey, that's what I'm doing. So we roll down. If you need to grab underneath or hold underneath, that's okay too.

Or let the hand slide. It doesn't have to stay on the arch. Don't roll off to the side. Now Chin toward chest. Here's the real trick. Everything comes together so the fire comes to the middle as you roll. That's the coordination part. There was our stretch. Turn it out. Let's do one more. We pulse the one we pulse. Two, three. Stretch it up.

Take it back to that 90 degrees. Find the box with the opposite hand. Open up the hips. The hips are down and level. Stretch. [inaudible] Chin to chest, everything back to the center. It doesn't always have to be on a reformer. Change sides. You could stretch there, but I'm not going to the other side.

Finding that knee and close. Softening through the front of the hip. Find the back extensors and we pulse. One, two, three. Stretch it up. Be Gentle. It's a different leg. Make sure you know, take it to 90 walk down one. Use the support leg almost more than anything. And Chin to chest. Inhale there and somewhere around here I started exhaling to help myself back up.

I literally just pitch forward to get onto my sit bones and re stretch the back long and number two of three. Stretch it up. Tilted back. A rule of back I should say, and walked down. Walk down, walk down, reach back if you want to circle around and become one, two, three. Getting close to it. Enjoy. Sit Tall. And one more like that. Pulse one. Get long in the low back too. It's not just the neck and upper back stretch. Take it back, walk down, walk down, walk down. And what's your support like doin a lot. And I've become, take the stretch, bend the knee, rotate the knee outward, grab the sole of the foot and cradle underneath and then we just gently add to the stretch to three. Stretch the leg up in the rotation.

Lean it back, find the box. I'm doing it in slow mo this time. Take it out, Chin to chest. Everything folds together. Back to the top, sitting tall and bend two three stretch it up. Take it back to 90 with the straight leg. Start to roll down and open and find the box and use it. This is the part like inhale chin to chest. Exhale. Okay.

And Ben, good, good. Might as well say over, are we getting there? Got Room. I don't really expect you to look into the bars when you go, but it's kind of a nice measure of are you in fact laterally flexing or are you rotating? You might know if you are, if you can reach and you would hit the bars, that would be kind of interesting. Okay, so here's the deal. Sit on the side of your hip and for the moment, take your hand to the mat. This top leg is reaching and you want to use the strap of course. Right?

Try not to turn the leg out. Okay, so use that hip. All right. From here, if we're all set up and squared away, when we take this arm off, it doesn't matter, right? You don't fall, you're ready to go. So let's do it. Reaching long to go down. Maybe your elbow touch and think of, you don't want to bring the elbow in closer to the box, right? It's out there and up. I'm only doing five if you wanted to check your measure, but don't look around much, you only get one more. Hold it, press your head back into your hands and then take your forearm to the mat.

If you're really tall, are you going to have to move it out? Right? You might even have to, you might get two, I should say stretch long with both arms. Trying to just enjoy the full length of your body, where it is [inaudible] and then my favorite stretches. I just helped myself up. Turn your body, your trunk to the Mat. Oh, is that an idea? Shoulders are down. You still reaching that other leg? If it's on the mat, that's cool, but to keep reaching it and then actually I have to come up to my finger, to the, I think I'm trying to get some extension in the upper back and truthfully just giving me a lovely stretch. Sort of wrapping around the body spiraling. Do you think that's my favorite? Let's change sides. Five we did Kenny up on the side of the hip chick, right?

Don't you have to go through a little checklist of everything? I think you do. Hopefully it becomes automatic but still worth looking. Alright. If you're reaching and reaching both directions, you should be able to take your hands up and we go inhale over and I'm moving my foot more underneath it cause I'm hanging onto it with my toes and that's not going to be good. Go ahead over and come up over number three and up. You could try it with straight arms too. Over. You're tired. You could leave your arm down one more [inaudible] and up and hold it. Can you be any longer in thought? And then the hand goes down, the arms go down for your stretch directly to the side.

Rest your head. If you can can hang a little bit, you might have to help it back up, but using your arms to help you of not, don't just type them ads to get up. That's not a good place to come from. Turn trying to keep the hips stacked still and then reaching. Okay. Yeah, that's not very good. Arms down is better for me.

Your tips, if you need more room. [inaudible] okay. Getting soft on myself. Let's move, get of the box. Okay. And you know what, come back with your trapeze does have it nearby. That's start making that transition. Yup. We're gonna, we're gonna do our arms and our back extension in one shot here. So put your trapeze on. Okay.

You might want a sticky mat too. I'm going to skip it. But if your hands get sweaty, easy, he might want a sticky mat. And as far as where the bar goes, we're going to do basically an Uber prep for hanging front, um, with some biceps, pull-ups and things like that. Okay. So here's the deal. I'm going to take your right foot, maybe your ankle, and put it into the canvas strap, not on top of the trapeze and practice. Put your hands wherever you want so that you don't have pressure on your low back. Cause I just want you to practice engaging this leg while it's strict.

Okay? If you, if you push down on it and the knee bends, you're gonna lose the point of the exercise. Ultimately we're not going to do the full exercise cause I can't, but um, I can practice like I'm going to Sunday. Okay, so your leg is straight. So the point being is I'm pushing down on the strap but more to the point is I'm pushing or reaching or pushing through this trap. So it's almost going more away from me than it is towards me.

I didn't tighten up the strap, the grps cause I'm not sure I'm going to leave it here. It should be fine. From there with everything tight, I'm going to bend the other leg, taking the arms almost down to straight or maybe even straight. And then from here, relying more on my arms, then my leg, the legs tight, I'm going to try and pull up. Oh, okay. So it was a good spot. I'm going to tighten my thing up now I know. So now I won't travel and I can still use it.

[inaudible] because the point is is how much upper arm strength can we use. While we're in this extension or arm strength, I mean to try and do a pull up so you could just use your arms and leave your foot on the mat or you can try and pick your foot up off the mat as soon as you can and travel up and soft landing, travel back, travel up and back. Still letting those shoulder blades slide down your back and back. One more for, for up and back from here. If you, if your foot feel stable, you can just leave it where it is. You might have to slide to your ankle to stretch the forward leg. Right?

Walk down the bars in front of you. Hands on the mat and stretch. Alright Ben, in that forward knee, help yourself up carefully to change sides. Try to do it about the same spot, right? That's a leg up. It's worth practicing the straight leg thing cause you won't know.

It's a weirdest thing. It's like when you straighten your arms, your shoulders go up. You been, you know, it's one of those kinds of things. So I'm just PR, I'm just practicing just so it happens in the window. Turns into a mirror at night, so it's worth kind of glancing over. If you have a mirror to see is your leg straight? If you can't see a mirror, look at it. It might surprise you. All right. I'm still feeling good. Come down to arms. Almost straight notice there in front of me.

I do that for a couple of reasons, but for now, just here that we are traveling forward when we come up. All right, here we go. Rely on your arms more than your leg. Either one. [inaudible] and stretch three and stretch four and stretch last one. Okay. And stretch. Okay.

You know where we're going before you straighten the front leg. If you're going to walk to the bar and hands down as you straight and now instead of rounding the upper back, you'd be better off bending the forward knee a little and extending the spine. Then if you still have room for the stretch, you take it. Yeah. Hmm. Comments? I've been in that knee back there. Alright. Coming forward, let go of taking or take a foot out of the strap.

Balance Your feet parallel and rural yourself up. Okay, I think that's enough for one day. Let's take this down because it's part of the deal, isn't it? Putting your stuff away. Take it down. I just want to finish with a roll down. Well better take a deep breath and exhale and just sort of root yourself into the ground.

Now that we're upright, can you feel your feet as you did on the bar? That sense of my feet are going one way and the rest of my body is going the other. Here's the roll down. Inhale, exhale, draw the chin toward the chest and then you feel the sternum sort of sink back, but you don't fall back yourself. Allow yourself to just drape over the legs and then while you're there, push the arms around. Just get them both going in a bit of a circle, but other than that, they're dead weight and then the other way, freedom of the body, right? This is good. You can really let your body go in places you didn't know. It could go or wanted to go, and then it gets there and it's kind of cool.

And then just settle. Let your head be heavy. And from the ground up, start energizing yourself from below. Feel it coming up through the leg, spiraling up the spine, out each vertebra radiating up through your heart, down your arms, certainly at the crown of your head. And then just spirally arms outward as well in handling up and exhale. Keep the energy even as you let it go. Thanks for joining me.