Flexibility & Strength Play

Come on in Canada. So we are going to do a reformer workout today. How's your body feeling? Good. You ready for a good workout? Ready? Awesome. So I'm, I'm thinking that I want to play with kind of like opening up your hips and exploring flexibility and strength. Sounded good. All right. I want you to stand facing that direction. Your feet about hip width, distance apart, and then we'll do a couple of roll downs. Just take a deep breath. Inhaling through your nose and with your exhale, peel down one vertebra at a time.

Allow your head to dangle your abdominal stay active. Take a breath, use an exhale to first activate your abdominals and then curl up one vertebra at a time. As you stand tall, lengthen through the crown of the head and allow the shoulders to just slip into your back pockets. Go again. Exhale to peel down. Allow your arms to dangle. I don't want you to work too hard there, but I do want you to dig deep into the core and access the abdominals. Take a breath there and exhale to PLM. Good. We're going to do one more roll down. You Look Nice. Kind of draw your legs a little bit togethers. Thank you.

So your inner thighs or active exhale to peel down. One more time. Beautiful. Keep thinking about drawing your legs a little together so you've got some inner thigh activity. Take a breath there. Feel that inner thigh activity as you roll up. Fantastic. Let's get warmed up. So come have a lie down on the reformer.

I've got Keto set right now on three springs. We're going to actually start, um, with some mat work here. Your legs are straight. I want you to settle in for just a couple moments and really draw those inner thighs active. It's important that you're just a little bit away from the shoulder rest so you don't end up getting stuck on them. Later. Reach your hands up to the ceiling and then use an exhale. I'm going to start over there on that breathing pattern.

Go ahead and inhale to lift your head and chest. I forgot to key that. Use An exhale to go ahead and roll all the way up. Keeping a nice inner thigh connection. Take a breath there and with the exhale round and roll all the way back for me. Beautiful.

I want to give you just that little bit of traction and continue to peel back. Nice. Feel the lengthening through the front of your hips. At this point just take your arms up to the ceiling and help to lift. Use the next hill to roll over all the way up. Give me that nice connection to the legs.

Press down a little bit through your uh, Achilles tendons. Really, um, you can stay around it actually. And then exhale to peel back. So I just want you to feel a little bit of a little bit of energy through the legs reaching downward, which should get you into your hamstrings and your glutes, a hair bit. Lift your head and chest again and round and roll up. Beautiful. So we've got a nice breath pattern and exhale to feel back with a little bit more tempo, just a little bit in how to lift the chest and exhale to round and Rola. Gorgeous Katie. And just one more like that round and roll up for me here. Staying round and take a breath.

You're going to go about halfway back for me. Pause. Really drive down through this left leg. Lift your right leg up with an exhale. I want you to bend your knee and deep in the contraction in the abdominals. Inhale to reach legs straight. Deepen the connection, the connection, if you will, or contraction, and reach out to straight. Do that two more times. Really what you're doing is connecting to the, so as here.

So I want you to think about bringing the thigh slightly inward and on the diagonal, even though it's not really gonna. Do that. Go ahead and lower your leg around and roll all the way up. Inhale here. Exhale to peel all the way back again. Gorgeous. Find that inner thigh connection, a little activity through the backs of the legs. Gorgeous. Lift the head and chest and round and roll. Beautiful.

Take a breath there. Roll about halfway back. Not really even halfway, just a bit back, right? Stay right there. However, this leg that's now your left leg, you're going to draw that leg in on the exhale. Deepening the connection. The connection to the abdominal is somehow, I can't speak today. That's okay. And go a little bit deeper. Feel the inner thigh with the deep, so as beautiful. I think we did four on the other side. So we'll do two more here. I love that. And one last time. Nice work.

Anchor that leg down. Take a breath and then exhale to peel all the way back. Gorgeous. Settle into your reformer there. Qaeda can put your arms by your side. Float your legs to tabletop for me. I'm going to just take your bar up at this point so it's ready to go for footwork when I'm ready for you. But right now I would like you to take a nice little spine twist.

So if you'll take your arms out to the side just a little bit, just a little. And then we're going to inhale and take the legs to the right. And with the exhale, pull those legs back to center. So really the movements coming from your abdominals, it's not coming from your legs. Exhale to pull back to center. The rules here. We're going to keep the legs pressing together.

Lots of inner thigh work and pulling back to center one more just like that. Pressing together with those legs and back to center. Float your arms up to the ceiling. Continue on. Inhale to twists and exhale to pull back to center with no support from the arms is really important that you hone in on the core muscles, but it's also nice to sort of dance on the edge of danger here, right? And find the edge. Since I'm here to help you, I can make sure you can come back to me. One more to the right, followed by one more to the left and then we'll take it home.

Pause with your legs at tabletop position. Take a breath with an exhale. Lift your head and chest for me and hold a nice curl. What are you? Bring your hands to your legs. Lift yourself up just a hair bit more. Now really drop the tailbone down so we have a nice neutral pelvis there. Beautiful. And then set your arms by your side.

We're going to play a little bit. Qaeda, you're going to keep this lift for me and you're going to just rotate slightly. The lower half of the body to the right. Come back to center, rotate to the left. Beautiful. So the movement is kind of small as far as rotation goes because you're trying not to rollover, right? One last time over here, come back to center. Please. Lower your head and shoulders. Let's put the feet on the bar. We're going to call that abdominals warm. We're setting up for some footwork here. Nice neutral pelvis.

The rib cages heavy anchored through the back side. The arm bones are heavy on the mat. I want you to take this feeling of almost drawing your legs a little closer together. I don't really want to change the shape of where they are. I just want the inner thighs a little more active and then exhale to press your legs out with the inhale. Draw that carriage back in. Nice. Finding those inner thighs.

So on this first position we're going to make sure that we, um, work at a pace that's suitable to get nice and warmed up for Qaeda. Beautiful. Kind of spread the ribs there and heavy up good. A little bit more pelvic floor muscles probably. And really what I want is transverse abdominis. Good. Let's do two more just like that.

And then one more time and then come on in. Put your toes where your heels are. So we're going to play with the the exercise a little bit on this next position. Exhale to press out. Feel the inner thighs alive and inhale to draw drawback in. Beautiful and pressing out and drawing back in. So feel the heaviness through your arms. Just do one more like that.

Pause in the low position and float your left leg to tabletop for me. Now continue on three times. So I didn't change the spring cause I just want to play with Katie's ability to switch back and forth. Beautiful. Come back in. Place the foot right back where it came from. Feel the inner thighs alive and continue on. Three more. Just like that.

Oh I'm sorry. This leg is going to lift now. There we go. And perfect. Beautiful. Give me a little pressure here and one more time. Nice. Put your foot down and continue on with both legs for me. So give me maybe three like that. So we want to feel this sensation of the whole inner legs staying magnetised right, so it's not that I want to to come out of alignment. Thank you.

I really like that. It's just that I want to make sure we're not bowing out or using too much external rotation, which somebody like HEDA attends to do a little bit sometimes. Last one. Come on in. Slide your heels together for a small v. Really magnetize really bad. Draw the heels together and hold them tightly together.

Exhale to press out. Beautiful and make sure you do straighten your knees all the way. I want you to kind of hug the whole inner leg for me. Try to feel that the feet stay kind of relaxed here so that the balls of the feet are spreading along the bar. Beautiful. And we'll take one more like that after this one.

Let's do one more and then gently come on in. Pause. I want you to just flex your left ankle for me and not continue on single leg here three times. So what I'm looking for yet is that nice stable pelvis. It wants to shift a little, so figure it out. Good. Come on in. Put your foot down.

We switched you flex the right ankle and exhale to press out three times. One beautiful. So really working deep to find that deep external rotator three. That was two. Actually now we're on three. Come on in. Put your foot down even at out both legs working equally. Nice work.

Try to heavy up the backs of the ribs. So I want you to avoid this sensation of knitting the ribs together. But think of opening through the front and yes there was and settling in on the backside. Last one. Good pause there. Let's go to your open v position. So the heels are on the bar in kind of wide position.

Now my friend K to here has much more turnout than I myself have. So I want to actually work in her weaker range so I'm not going to let her go quite as far as she'd like to yet a little public floor with transverse abdominis. Beautiful. Perfect. Xcel depress out. So when I give that cue, pelvic floor and transverse Abdominis, I'm looking for that bracing of the abdominal region. So I'm looking for abdominals and some support on the backside as well. Thinking a little bit about just kind of holding the intercourse.

Still do one more here please Katie. And then gently come on in. Hold here. I just want you to float your left leg off. Keep the shape of the leg and continue on this one. The hardest one yet. So now I'm looking for that perfect neutral pelvis and boy is she doing a good job but it's quite difficult to stabilize switch. So now the right leg hovers and we press out three times.

[inaudible] always a little bit harder on one side. So you want it? Yeah, there we go. Nice. And that's three, right? Both feet give me two or three evening everything out. Feel the backs of the ribs settling into the mat, the openness through your chests. Soft, complete, full breath. Good. One more time please. Gently come on in and bring your toes on the bar. Actually, I don't want to forget that toe position today.

I'm a little bit less turn out for me there yet and it's more from the feet that I want to limit. Exhale and go when you're ready. Nice. Nice. So getting you ready meant that you were dropping the ribs into place. Not cinching them, but feeling heavy on the back side. Feeling the support from the core and then the deep external rotators are working here. Nice. I want to make sure that the knee stays in alignment with the second toe so that I know the rotation is coming from hips. Oh, I made you do a lot before we did the single leg game. Good.

Come on in and pause. Just keep the shape of the leg and float the a foot away. Perfect. And exhale to press out. Nice Keto. So easy on the right leg for her, too. Good. I don't know if easy is the right word to is. Right. And then switch. So you're gonna float now that right leg up. Staying connected to the core there. Beautiful. Wow. Good, good, good. Stability. We warmed up into the position quite well.

Three and then two legs. Press out maybe two or three more times. Good. Nice. And one more time please. I love it. Go ahead and bring your feet close together for some calf raises. So I like to stay close together cause I wanna make sure that you're not too wide and that you're more at the mid line here.

So actually I want UK to think about kind of squeezing your legs a little bit closer together. Now again, I'm not looking for out of alignment legs, but I want the knees and alignment with the second toe here. Exhale, depress the legs to straight. Drop your tail just a little. Drop your ribs a little bit. Lower the heels under the bar. That's the inhale and press up on the exhale and inhale to come down. We're going to tether the ankles a little bit as you go up. What I mean by that is I don't want them to splay open.

They're not going to get closer, but they're going to stay connected through an imaginary feather, whatever the space may be, it stays consistent. This is beautiful and press up again. Good. One more time. We're going to press up and when you go into some prances and what I want you to be aware of as you prance is that your weight stays equal on both feet. Each time you press up to straight legs. Good, beautiful, and you can choose the breath pattern that works for you here. Another cue I like to give here is as you bend the knee, the leg that's bending each time, focus on making sure it's coming slightly into center, connecting a little more with the inner thigh, connecting a little more actually with the abdominals are the core there, right?

Okay. Do one more like that, each side and then go ahead and hold the stretch for a moment. So always adjust the foot so it's comfortable. And then as your teacher, if I'm here, I get to give you a little bit more stretch, which feels really nice, doesn't it? First step for me. And then switch sides. And here I go and there's no hyperextending and those knees, Kate, I yay for you. Good press all the way up. Bend your knees and come on in.

Give legs a hug into your chest. I'm going to make a string, a spring adjustment. So I'm now adjusting to one red spring. And I'm going to go ahead and be your teacher today and hand your straps to you. You're so lucky. So with your hands in the straps, she's going to scoot a little bit away from the shoulder rest. Okay. And then I want you to first float your legs to tabletop for me. Or next float your legs to tabletop. I should say.

Now really press those legs together for me. And I'm going to take this just a little bit further. I want you to keep the inner legs touching here and I want you to actually just ever so slightly part the feet just a little bit. And with that position, just notice, um, you know, notice if, if it feels a little different than sometimes it does. Exhale and press your straight arms down for me in how to lift up. We'll just do two more like that. Exhale to press down.

Keep the pressing of the inner legs together. Thank you. On the next one, we're going to go ahead and lift the head and chest so the arms come up. Exhale to lift. We're folding underneath the ribs. Inhale to lower down. Beautiful. Exhale to lift, folding underneath the ribs, absolutely gorgeous and lower down. Adding on. Exhale to lift and hold. Beautiful. I want you to stay here for me, k to bring your legs back together. I want you to Tuck your pelvis, keeping your legs still. Feel your body lifting higher and then lower your tailbone down.

Keep your body there. Talk your pelvis again. Heaping yes, yes, yes, yes. And then lower the tailbone down so I didn't finish that cue. I'll say it again. Talk the pelvis, keeping your body lifted, lower the tailbone down and lower your body. Adding on. Exhale, lifting your head and chest for me. Hold their stretching your legs up to the ceiling.

Lower one leg down to touch the bar. Notice where it's touching. Whatever it is is going to be your touch point. Thank you. I want you to give me a deeper fold. Now exhale, switch legs. So each time you switch, I want you to push. Or each time you take your leg to the low position, you're pushing into the bar to get a little activity on the back side.

Really enjoying that force. Couple of the hamstrings and the abdominals. Good. Just one more time, both legs up and gently lower your head and shoulders. You can bend your knees. Beautiful. One more thing here, my friend. One more thing. Keep your arms just as they are for me. Okay, so they're right above the shoulders. I want you to rotate this lower part of your spine to the right, so we're just taking a little spine twist. Now.

I don't want you to go anywhere yet, but I want you to entertain the idea of pushing into the straps and feel that when you push slightly into the straps, you're doing it from your core, not from your arm. So it's a slight movement. Inhale, exhale, feel it coming from your core. Good. One more time. Exhale, abs come just above the shoulders. Legs return to neutral. Go the other direction with your leg. So it's a small rotation. Entertain the idea of moving the arms. Feel the core exhale per ass. So really it's about connecting with the obliques there. And two more, I think makes it even. We did about five on each side. Good arms go directly up. Legs come back to center.

Now we make it harder. We take the legs to the right. Now with the exhale, you press both arms all the way down. Make it front. Come from your core though in hell to come back up. Now the arm on the outside has to go out a little and that's okay. Exhale to press it down again. Deepening the contraction here and when you lift the arms up, don't lose it.

Please. Thank you. And because Katie can do it, I want you to straighten this leg for me and continue on. Good. And with that, I want you to keep reaching up, up, up, because you can. Good. Try to soften down through here and I'm helping you just the slightest bit, but I'm not going to now. And one more time. Gorgeous. Bend Your Butt. You're bent a bit at the Du. Bend your knee for me. Come back to center two with the other direction. Beautiful. Feel that deep contraction connection. Press the arms down.

Exhale again. Notice that the one arm has to go outside of the legs. That's okay. Good. Do One more like that. And then we're going to go ahead and straighten the top leg so we have that extra bit of reach through the toe. Feel those inner legs working, pressing together. We feel the connection from the core. I think one more makes it even nice. The arms come up, bend the knee, return to center, and we take a break. Ah, isn't that nice?

Good. I'm going to give you a blue spring and we'll put feet and straps. Okay. I'd like to start with circles today and we'll just do a handful in each direction. I want to save some energy in your hips to play with some other things. So exhale to press down through center and with the inhale, circle around to the top position. Beautiful. As you press down through center, feel the heaviness of the ribs, the support from the core.

I better get out of Katie's way. I'm going to cue like I do usually. Here we go. So here I just want you to stay here for just one split moment, soften your ribs a little bit and then stabilize a little bit better as you come around to that wide position. Good. One more time like that. So I just want a little bit more core control right at this moment. Thank you Kay to that was perfect. And then we go ahead and reverse.

So maybe handful more here. Feel those inner legs working. The cue I want to give you here. As you inhale and come up, you're going to exhale to come around. I want you to rotate out just a little bit more and really dig deep into those inner legs as you draw those legs back together. Beautiful. That one was beautifully straight, open wide, a little bit of rotation to tap into the inner thighs. That was nice and stable. We'll do two more like that. Good. Soften the rib cage down, just a hair. Beautiful, beautiful. And one more and we'll move into legs.

Leg changes after this. So leg changes. It's one leg is gonna do a frog and one leg is going to do an opening. So you're going to bend your right knee and the other leg opens. I'm going to let the right knee open or leg open a little bit so you can get a little more stretch. Thank you. And then dig deep into those inner legs and pull back to center.

Switching sides. You're going to inhale to Ben. One leg opens, the bending leg gets to open a little as long as the pelvis stays still, and then pull everything back together. Now we're going to go a little brisker, but not a lot in how to open and exhale. Dig deep into those inner thighs. Good. Inhaling to open and we find those inner thighs. Now see if as you do this, you can focus a little bit more on the straight leg is the mover. The bent knee is more, um, the bending knee is more stabilizing your position.

The ninth. Anything else? Good. Nice. Just see if you can heavy up your ribs a little. That's good. Qaeda and last one over here please. Ah, bend your knees, let the bottoms of your feet come together and take a pause there so you can stretch for a moment. Um, depending on the person, some people really like to have their feet low like this and some people like to have their feet high. I like to do a little of both. I want to give you one of my favorite stretches here that isn't maybe appropriate for everybody.

So if you have any knee issues that you're dealing with, you may want to choose to admit this one. If it doesn't feel good, go ahead and press your legs out to straight for me. We're gonna open the legs a little bit wide. You're going to hold the ropes with your hands. I want you to bend your knees for me and guide your feet to the floor. Okay. So Kate has got her hands on the ropes that for safety more than anything, we want to keep this nice and flat.

So I don't want there to be a big arch in the spine here. What she's getting is a good stretch through her hips. So with the feet on the floor, I want you to almost let your thighs spiral in just a little bit. So you get that release through the hip flexor specifically. You're getting a release through, um, a whole bunch of things.

So I'll just leave it at that. That's really nice right there. Again, um, some people may enjoy this better with one leg. I feel more balanced with the two legs. Um, but it is extreme, so make sure it's comfortable for you. So when it's time to get out of there, you're going to support with your abs. Use your arms to assist. As you lift your legs up, find a position that's comfortable to remove your feet from the straps. I think we should do the Jack Knife here. What do you think? So you'll hold your strap sexually and we're going to be on, I'm going to try to stay on a red and a blue right now, but it might, it's actually helpful to have more. Sometimes. I don't know. I May, I may change my mind. Let's see what happens.

So take the legs to tabletop position and the arms come just above the shoulders. So with an exhale, the arms go down the legs. Straighten it about 45 degrees. Inhale, legs are going to come to 90 for me. With an exhale, you're going to roll over onto your shoulder blades, keeping your arms pressing down, heavy. On the inhale, the legs come down to go up. Find those glutes. Ammos abs with an exhale. We're going to roll all the way down with control. Take the legs slightly away from you. Bend your knees as your arms come up.

Inhale, exhale to straighten. Arms go down. Inhale, 90 degree, exhale to rollover. The legs are going to go down to go up. Feel the inner thigh lower all the way down with control. Good. I'm going to give you just a little assist there. Good. Good.

Take the legs slightly away. Draw your knees in. Find that inner thigh connection. Exhale to press out. Inhale, exhale to rollover. Really straighten the knees and press the inner thighs together. Down to go up and control the roll down. One Vertebra at a time. The legs reach away.

Bend the knees as the arms come up. Exhale to press out please. Inner legs. Good. Inhale, take a little pause there. Exhaling, rolling over. Nice straight knees down to go up with the legs. Bam. Feel those glutes working a little more. Thank you. That's it. Qaeda, you have that on your own, my friend. That was beautiful. And on that note, you may put your straps away. So I have one more thing in this position that I want to do, which is a still a little bit of spinal articulation, but it's also quite a lovely hip exercise. So I'm going to take a, I want you to take your feet about shoulder width, so not hip width, but no wider than shoulder width yet the knees and the toes are facing up. I'm still on a red and a blue and I'm going to have you do a pelvic curl.

Exhale to peel up. Good. Now as you peel up, I want your size to relax in a little bit. Now relax in a sort of a silly cue because you have to make them go in. Take a breath there, and with an exhale, peel down one vertebra at a time. Now as you go down, I want you to really make sure you go to neutral pelvis slightly beyond tailbone heavy. Take a breath, exhale to peel out. Don't let your thighs bow outward. So we're going to really find that inner leg, that slight bit of internal rotation, deemphasizes the lateral quad, a whole bunch of things here. Take a breath up there and then as you exhale, articulate down one vertebra at a time. Beautiful.

So just a slight little internal happening here and now we're going to maximize the internal. So exhale to peel up again for me. Good. And once you get to the lifted position, I want you to actually press your together. Now the pressing of the inner thighs together actually provides a little bit of support. You have a little bit more to work with. I want you to hold this nice lifted position. The movement I'm looking for, Kayla, is coming only from your pelvis, so want you to drop just your tailbone a teeny, teeny bit and then Tuck it. But notice what's happening in your hips when you do it.

You have to use your abdominals as you talk and as you lower slightly. But since what's happening in your hips and your legs. Good on the next one. Hold the tucked position. Initiate the roll down from the ribs, one vertebrae at a time. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful at the bottom. Make sure you get the pelvis all the way to neutral to enjoy that release, stretch, whatever we want to call it. Right? So that's the option one.

If you'd like to make this a little more intense, which I know Katie does, her legs are going to go pretty wide. Almost the width of the bar. The knees need to be able to come together in this position, but we'll start with them open. Okay, so exhale to peel up. Good. Don't bow out. Thank you. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. So once you get to the high part of your curl, we do want to make sure we're not going anterior at this point, although we may play with it, but I want to make sure that your support is here, that you're capable. The thighs are gonna come together. Press. The thighs are going to open. The pelvis stays still beautiful.

The carriage stays still. The thighs come together. We press and we open. The breathing doesn't matter to me. Just breathe. I like to use the exhale actually to draw my legs together and inhale to open just a bit or wider. If you want. Hold the thighs together. Keep the carriage at the stopper. Peel down ribs, go first.

Feel the middle back, the low back. And lastly, the pelvis, keeping the thighs together. Assuming your body feels good here. Exhale to Tuck the pelvis and peel up. This is the last one, my sweet friend. Good. Really Tuck that pelvis feel. Feel that wonderful position. Let the thighs open. That's the inhale. As you exhale, feel those size kind of pressing together as the cue.

I like to give offer support. Doesn't it? Inhale to open. It's not easy, but it offers support. How about just one more? Inhale to open. Exhale, bring those legs back together. Hold it. Press and articulate down. One fantastic vertebra at a time.

And you, my friend may come to standing, thankfully, right? We've got some sweat here happening, right? So I'm gonna shift a little bit and have you go into the pyramid cause I'm sure the up stretch will feel really great on your legs. Need a hamstring stretch. So, so let's go ahead and have the heels lifted up against the shoulder rest. I'm on one red spring, although I'm going to change my mind and give Keto a green spring.

So we're going to be just on one green spring today. Um, I like the green spring for where we're headed. We've got a nice straight back here and we're going to inhale to slide the carriage back. And with the exhale, gently pull back in. What's important to me as you do the movement is that the body stays still so the shoulders are staying supported with the upper back muscles. The pelvis is staying pretty stone. The feeling each time you pull the carriage in is that you've got to really aim the tailbone up a little bit for me. Nice. A little more upper back. Perfect.

Now another cue I want you to work with here, my friends, I want you to actually pull the carriage in and think about drawing your inner legs together and see if that can help you connect to your, so as a little bit better, it's gonna feel like your abs. Sorry about that. Qaeda. Give me just one more there. Please pull the carriage all the way in. Hold for a breath a moment. Think about your plank position. The arms stay still as we come to a plank holding that plank position. We're going to stabilize there for a couple of moments to make sure we've got a real good pelvis position. Nice and open through the chest, Chin and a little.

Now pull forward all the way to the stop or if you can, let's use that as the inhale. Exhale to press back a little energy here, beautiful Qaeda inhale to go forward. Feel how your deltoids and NIST initiate the push back. See if you can really feel those arms actually working. I think a lot of times we forget what's moving here. It's important to know what's stabilizing, but we need to remember sometimes what's moving on.

The next one go almost all the way forward, but not quite. We're going to do a peck. Push up, elbows wide, bend your elbows. Inhale, exhale, press that. Beautiful Qaeda. I want three of them. Good. One more please my friend. Hold for a moment. Look at the bar. Your right foot is going to go on the bar for your full lunch position. Perfect. So we've got now the knee basically directly over the ankle.

You can come forward a little bit more. I want to drop this pelvis a little bit. Perfect. And then come to balance. Qaeda arms can go straight out to the side to begin with. Can you pull your ribs back a little bit? I want you to really feel your right. Hamstringing glutes supporting.

It feels like you have to drop it down a little bit. The pelvis into the right. You have to drop the right side of the pelvis. Exhale to press your leg to straight. Find the gluten, the hamstring here. Beautiful. Inhale to come in. Gorgeous Keto a little bit more there and exhale to press back. I love it.

Good on the next one. We're going into the full split. My friend. Press back and hold. Don't go yet. Straight in the back knee. Drop the hip a little bit. I'll be here just in case you need me, but I don't think you do. Place your hands behind your head. Open your elbows. Press your head into your hands and feel your upper back working. Say Yes. Perfect. Now how low can you go? Drop that right side of the pelvis a little.

Thank you my friend, and then we use both legs to pull back up. Gorgeous. All the way up. Drop into that right hip as you go down. We're going to do three. That was one. Nice my friend. Gorgeous. Find that gluten hamstring and pull yourself back up. Oh, I'm so jealous of that. And one last time. Jealous. Isn't that such a nice word? I'll say envious Qaeda. I love it. Oh my friend.

Come all the way back up. I want you to go halfway down. Bend your front knee. I'm sorry. Yeah. Halfway down. Come up here. Go Bend your front knee. Hands to the bar. Stretch your front like two straight. Let's just really get the full hamstring stretch here. Gorgeous. Nice.

You can drop that heel down a little bit and aim your tailbone back. Perfect. Just play your ribs up. Oh, we're just breathing here, right breathing, enjoying the stretch. Go ahead and bend your front knee. Step back to your plank position. Powerful through the arms. Gorgeous. And we moved back into the long stretch.

Pull forward all the way. That's the inhale. Use the exhale to push back. Find those arms. Push your edge a little if you can. Inhale to go forward. A little energy here. Beautiful. Fine, good, good, good, good. Chin and a little and again. Inhale forward. Exhale to go back. I keep stepping out of shot high. Perion back.

Good. Come half way back and halfway forward. Find your place. The sweet spot for the Pushup, right? Three pushups. Here we go. Keto, one and two. Beautiful and three, press up. Hold left leg steps forward. Find your lunch before you lift your hands. My friends made sure you've got a heavy left side of your pelvis.

Feel that gluten hamstring supporting you and then keep your legs perfectly still as you find your balance. Lifting your arms. Good. I love this. Stay there for a moment. Feel that lengthening up through the crown of the head energy through the upper back. Press the front leg to straight. Three times. We're going to feel the gluten, the hamstring working. Beautiful. Stability here, Qaeda after the third one. We're going to keep the legs straight here.

It's good, it's good. How low can you go? Drop into that left hip a little bit. Why don't you put your hands behind the head. I forgot about that part and then go ahead and pull back up. Nice.

I'm here if you need me. I want you to draw. When I say drop into the hip, I don't mean that in a negative way. I just want the left side of the pelvis to come down. So she's connecting to the correct part of her leg and then pull back up so the hands are back there. So you can actually press your head a little into the hands and feel your upper back. That was perfect. Beautiful little ribs and then pull all the way up. Go halfway down for me. Bend the front knee and come in hands to the bar.

Step back to your plank. You've got one more for me. Lawns. Oh I you. Thank you for not forgetting. See, sometimes it's good when your student has an idea of balance here. It's a really good, we must do our hamstring, stretch my friends. So aim that tailbone backing up a little bit. Good. And then pull these in, lengthening through the crown of the head. I love this. Now I'm actually assisting just a little bit with my knee, although my friend here Qaeda could hold this position just fine on her own.

I just like to use my leg there as a guide. Go ahead and bend your front knee as you come in or come in, step back with your front, uh, that leg. Find your plank one last time. K to go out three times the long stretch. Feel the upper body working to pull forward. Inhale and back.

So this is gonna work mostly as our arm work today, which is nice. Good. One more time. We're going to go almost all the way forward, but not actually to the stopper. Keep the carriage. Still is. You give me three pushups. We're doing peck pushups today. Beautiful. This is so nice. Press up, lift your hips high, lower your feet so they're flat and enjoy a few moments in the elephant, please. Oh boy. You get to a level and, and at some point the elephant feels pretty much like a rest.

So if you're doing this workout, hopefully that's the case for you. Slide the carriage back on the inhale. Slide it in on the exhale. Feel those inner thighs. Again, kind of drawing the inner legs together just so that you can sense the adductors, the inner thighs, but also the so as the deep abdominal core. So as is actually a hip flexor, but it will feel like your abdominals when you're using it. I love this. I love that. With that Q dusty, you could do one more time hold, walk to a forward fold and enjoy just a couple of breaths of pure best.

Now if you have a reformer that doesn't hit the stop or doesn't have tension at the stop or you might want to be careful, um, when, when not holding onto the bar, it could feel a little wobbly. So just pay attention to that and then go ahead and walk your hands forward, Cato, finding some support and then step off of the reformer, kind of gently there. I'm going to have you get on your knees facing that direction. We're going to do a version of the reverse knee stretch, but a slightly different version. So I'd like, I like that starting position. The hands are on the wood track.

I want you to bring your knees in just a little bit. So they're actually just inside of the shoulder rest. And then in this position, I want you to dry your inner thighs together so you're in a little bit of internal rotation and keep that energy. Be careful not to push against the shoulder rest here. The feet are now parted a little bit and, and you don't need to go to the point where your feet are off the the wood or on the wood, but, but find them to comfort. They're wide enough to be comfortable. Now I'd like you to start with a nice neutral spine.

So we want to really play with not talking the pelvis. I'm gonna actually have you do just that. I love it. Um, now using, can you walk your hands forward like two inches using your arms, your upper back. Can you pull the carriage forward? Exhale and inhale to go back. So we're working the arms a little bit as well as the upper back and just working to stabilize through the core here. As you continue to do this, can you feel that you're drawing your inner legs together rather than letting them push up against the shoulder rest? So just sense that we'll do one more there for me.

And then I want you to stop in like middle range of motion where your shoulders would be directly just forward of your wrist. Perfect. That's good. Now here, keep the spine still. You're going to draw the legs in toward your hands, but try not to Tuck your pelvis and gently go back. Beautiful. So we're going to keep that nice connection through the whole core. Think about actually sort of spreading. Yes, thank you. Spreading the sitz bones a little bit in order to achieve this. And you almost are drawing the ASX or the hipbones on the front together.

That'll get you into your transverse abdominis. Now Qaeda, as you decide, you can give me a little more range of motion, pull in further, allow your pelvis to sink a little, but don't change your back. Right. And then go back. Nice. So the pelvis sinks because her knees have to bend more. But what I don't want is for the a pelvis to Tuck. Yeah. Just do one more for me here and then stay. You're okay.

Right. I want you now to actively round your back and then actively go back to neutral. Stick the tail out. Two more. Just like that. Beautiful. Round the back and back to neutral. It's so much harder than it appears.

I think you can tell Kate has got a little quiver happening. Come back to neutral and gently come to rests. Okay. So we're gonna move into my new favorite sides stretch. I'm not going to really be so bold as to say it's a stretch.

It's stretching and working. But um, I'm going to have you turn around so that you're facing, um, the clock over there and your knees are going to be right about in the, where the in the middle of the head rest lined up, but together. Okay. So you don't want them forward or back. They're really more in the middle. Go back, scoot back. Just a little more Qaeda right there is good. And then your hands are going to be just over. So if you sort of say like move over a little bit, that's going to be a good starting position.

I'm now going to take the spring off cause you want know spring. So bring yourself over so that you're in a quadrupedal position. Now if you find that you're two, you don't have enough room, you can always adjust your start point here. I want a nice neutral pelvis. I want to try not to go into a tucked helmets. Okay. The arms stay powerful, your legs stay glued together. It's kind of like a spine twist here. You're going to slide the carriage over as far as you can, reaching into a deep stretch and then pull the carriage back underneath you.

Go a little beyond where you started and slide the carriage over. Deep stretch. Beautiful. So this is a great preparation for the twist, the full twist, tailbone back a little good and exhale to slide it over. Reach, reach, reach as you come back through. Yes, that's what I was waiting for. I wanted that nice shift through the pelvis. Good. The best part is the reaching out there. So really enjoy that and go a little deeper. Nice.

And I'd like one more like that big, deep stretch. If you want to hold it for a breath or two, you certainly can feel the energy up through the crown of the head. Feel that Nice. Stretch through the intercostals, through the obliques. Dig deep into the core. As you pull back to your starting position, pull the carriage all the way into the stop or you want to make sure you're mindful of keeping the carriage at rest as you shift to the other side. Good.

So the knees are kind of in the middle, closer to the shoulder, but you need placement should be in the middle of the reformer and then your hands just a little bit over toward the shoulder rest. Then pull the carriage off the stopper carefully cause there's no spring and arrange yourself in a nice neutral position. Beautiful. Now here you're going to reach the carriage out and over. Let your weight shift to that one leg, that one hip, and then pull back and through a little bit beyond where you started. If it feels nice, I like that. And reach over. Beautiful.

Wonderful. And as you come back through, just being mindful, you're now a little lordotic there. Um, what I'm really watching for here is that the pelvis doesn't talk too much. The challenge for those of us who are hyperlordotic or arch our backs too much is that you're gonna want to do too much from your back if you're not careful. So we just want to find the sweet spot that works for you. This is a beautiful, a little bit too. Yup. Back actually. Yup. Yup, Yup. And we have one more after this.

I love that. I love that. I love it. So on this last one, you'll hold the stretch for a couple of breaths. Maybe just one breath, but Ooh, doesn't that feel lovely? So we're lengthening up through the crown of the head, enjoying the stretch through the intercostals, through the, um, the obliques and maybe a little bit in your it band perhaps. And then come back through a whole bunch of things are stretching, bringing the carriage all the way in. And I'm going to adjust the spring load here. So we're going to move into a little bit of short box where it Keto, why don't you go grab the short box and I'm going to set your springs for you. Whenever you're working with the short box, you want to make sure that you've got a fully loaded carriage for safety.

Um, that's perfect. So we're putting the short box right up against the shoulder rest. And then why don't you have a seat? We're going to tuck both feet in the straps. Now I like to arrange the feet so that you can, um, rest your feet on the or something. I, I was, I was hesitating for a moment because all of the different reformers are slightly different, so you may not get to rest your feet, but if you can rest your feet, that's ideal.

Let's take your arms just out in front of you. You're going to hook your thumbs for me and then close them or close your arms over your body. Take a breath, exhale round through your low back. First hinge back second. We take a breath back there. We round and roll all the way up. We stay in that rounded position and then we sit tall.

The arms come down with the exhale. We're going to round through the low back first. You can come a little forward with your shoulders, beautiful. And then your hinges back. Really, you're like letting the hips out slightly or lengthening through the hips. Keep the roundness of the spine as you come back up.

Gorgeous and sit nice and tall at the end. Bringing the arms in. Just one more. Exhale to round and roll back. And retreats, retreats, which when I say reach, I'm looking for this lengthening through here. I know that's kind of an odd cue. It's working for me these days and then sit up nice and tall. Let's place the hands behind the head. Press the head back into the hands.

Open the arms a little bit. Thank you for the ribs. Lengthen up first to hinge back. That's the inhale. Beautiful. And with the exhale we pull back up. Your doing gorgeous press. Inhale to hinge back. Chest is open and exhale to pull back up. I just want to more there and we're going to move into a variation on climate tree. One more please.

Beautiful Qaeda, and so we're sitting nice and tall there. You're going to remove your right leg and you're going to hold your right leg in your hands, your right hand skin to hold the instep of your right foot and the other hand is kind of going to brace your foot. You're sitting up as tall as you can hear and you're going to give me a pulse for your hip here. Three, two, one. You take the leg out to the out in front of you rather not to the side yet. Hold Yours, hold your us strap.

You want to make sure you have a strap for this particular chronic climate tree. Now we're going to around through the back. As the leg comes up, we start to peel back one vertebra at a time. The leg goes out. Kate, I want you to keep the rotation external rotation of the thigh there and really focus on pressing your other pelvis, the other side of your pelvis down, lengthening through your right side. Now take a breath, use your abs to round and roll up. So I could give you this whoop to do where you get to enjoy the going back part. But I want you to focus on the stability of the pelvis. Bend the knee and draw it in. Three, two, one reached for your strap. As your leg goes forward, it's a little hard to do standing here and round and rolled back.

Get that low back to touch and then the leg goes out. I want the pelvis to stay super stable here. Good. Take a breath back there. Nice work and round and roll up. The leg comes back to center as you do. And one last time we're going to find the stretch. Three, two, one.

Reaching forward. Take a handle as you peel back. Beautiful. Nice. Take the leg out only as far as you can. Gorgeous my friend and then round and roll back up and we'll switch sides. That looks good. Ah Right. Okay. So then we're holding the um, foot, the instep of the foot with the, um, the hand of the leg we're using. The other hand is just there for a brace and we pull in three, two, one. The leg straightens out in front of you and then holding your strap here.

You're going to exhale to peel back for just about everybody. There's going to be a little bit of a challenge with keeping the pelvis neutral. The leg starts to go out as you go a little deeper with the body hold for a moment. Slight more external rotation. Thank you. And then with the leg comes in as you can round and roll up. Good. And Ben, one, two, three, straight in the lay good. Start the movement back.

The leg goes out. Nice. A little wider. I think you've got it now. There it is. Needed that stretch and then bring the leg back in and rounded. Roll-Up one last time. So we pumped the leg, stretching the hip, the hip stretch to three straight in the leg in front of you. We've got a nice hamstring stretch and external rotation using the ads.

As we peel back, we start to get into the adductors. Taking that leg out to the side. Beautiful. Low back is touching the box, but we're not going over. Bring the leg back as you roll up and we can ref that. Nice. So step off the box for a moment and I'm on my bad.

We can go right into side over is actually side over. So why don't you put your right foot in here and I'm a little picky about the setup for site overs. However, um, I like to really play with it as well. I'm going to put the headrest up. So keto has a place to put her hand her other hand. Her right hand is going to be behind her head.

Draw their shoulders away from your ears. A couple of things here. First, I want there to be pretty severe, severe. I want there to be real energy through this supporting leg. So you're pressing up into the strap to try to access a little bit of glute lengthening through the front of the hip. When doing so piece too, I want there to be a really heavy leg so you're not gripping. You're actually waiting it into the box, which I really like. Lengthening out through the crown of the head and lengthening out through the side of the side. You're beginning on that. That's up.

So we want to make sure we're not squishing here. Perfect. Now, once everything is imperfect, perfect, perfect position, then only then do we lift the bottom arm up and nothing moves. Perfect. We're going to inhale region over and down. Nice big stretch. Exhale to come up to that straight diagonal line. Lengthening a little more. Thank you. That was perfect. Go down again. Beautiful. With the exhale we come up to that straight diagonal line.

A little more upper back. Go down again. What I mean by a little more upper back is can you push your head into your hand slightly without changing anything and feel those upper back muscles. Gorgeous. One more like that. And then my sweet friend, we're going to hold this for a moment. Straighten your arms by your ears. Good. And then do two more. I've got you. And exhale to keep those arms close to your ears. Katie. You can do it.

And one more. See she thought she was done. Stay for just a moment. Give me a pretty picture. Yes, I love it. And you may rest. You can take the stretch. I wouldn't deprive you of that today. That was so fantastic. Oh, while we're here, let's actually play that stretch you're in right now. Okay. So what I'd like you to do is come up a little bit.

Put your hands on the shoulder rest for me. Okay. And really press up through this right leg. Find the glute, and then really rotate around. Now option one, the shoulder rest, it's a little easier option to put your hands on the box and actually straighten your arms. Beautiful. So you're getting like almost a mermaid stretch. Now Bend your elbows to round and roll over. Good. And straighten your arms and come up. So keep the pressure in the leg. A little bit of glute work. Wonderful rotation and extension, right supporting with your arm.

Now if you really want to give it a little more juice, you can do a lot less with your arms. But I'm going to ask Katie to keep her arms down today. Oh, doesn't that feel good though? And then you can come up and ease yourself out of that. That was beautiful. All right. It'll be so much more work on your part, but such a better angle for me to help you on this side. So there you go.

You're not gonna get as much help on the side. My sweet friend. So here we are. We're pushing up through the leg here. So I want that energy in the glute, but length through the hip flexor. So we've got a real support system. The bottom leg, it's pressing down. So there's actually energy in both glues. Okay? And then the other hand is there to kind of help you find perfection. That's beautiful. Nice. Press your head back into your hand just a little bit.

Don't change anything but feel how that gives you some opera backward. And now here is this. Okay, where my elbow is, you're going to bring your bottom arm up and keep it. You're going to reach down and over for me. That's the inhale on the exhale. We're going to find that same perfect position. That was good. Go down again, trying to get this a little bit more and pull in. Good. Think of dropping the rib back. That's what I was looking for. Good.

Not In, but I'm back. Yes, yes, yes. Good. Oh, okay. To, I love it. I think we have one more after this, right? And then the straight arm one. Yes you do. Yes you do. Hi, we did five and then we did two more. Good. Hold here. Straighten your arms. You're good. Really keep them close to your ears. You've got two more for me. Go down.

[inaudible] well that red back lift back up. Gorgeous. Nice. And one more good one. I love it. And lift back up. Stay good. Gently rotate around for the stretch. Nice. So take a moment to relax like we did on the other side and then we'll do that little exercise, which is kind of a version of a mermaid, I suppose.

So option one, you can put your hands on the shoulder rest. You still want the energy through this glute. So this leg is reaching up into the strap and then option two, they hand goes to the box. The other piece that I failed to mention on the other side is that you really want to keep this leg weighted, which gives you a little stretch through the hip. So as you bend your elbows, you round down through your back and then as you come up and we keep that leg weighted, we get a little bit of back extension. This is gorgeous. And again, we get to round down all the alignment here is just so lovely. So lovely. Oh, and one more.

I believe we did three on the other side. And so you'll want to come out of the extension slightly and then step off of the box. One final exercise before we cool down Qaeda, we're going to turn the box around for long box. And this is kind of a modification on a pulling straps exercise that I like to do. Um, we're going to use not the straps but the railings as our, um, as what we use to pull with. So you're going to lie on your belly with your, um, I like to be, uh, the, the box to be kind of underneath the breast line, but, but not totally underneath it. So you kind of have to find comfort here. I'm going to say move back a hair Qaeda. There you go. So her arms are just reaching forward and straight.

Now here's where I'm going to be a little picky today. I really want those legs pressing together. And when you do this, I want you to turn the knees in slightly in your mind so that you're not external. Feel some glue and some hamstring work. And then give me a nice bit of extension so that those adductors are really involved here as well. Beautiful. Now I don't want you to think about lifting to extension. I want you to think about actually being heavy on the front of your body, specifically your ribs and the flat spot just above your xiphoid process.

So as you pull forward, the elbow stays straight. The ribs get heavy. Yes, Qaeda and lower down. I forgot to mention that we were on a blue spring here. I actually prefer a yellow. So if you happen to have a yellow, use it. Keep the elbow straight. That's the key.

And it is hard to keep the elbows straight when you're on a blue spring. So on the next one we're going to pull forward and we're going to hold right there. So this is gorgeous Qaeda. I do want you to go a little deeper, but I want you to really think about keeping that flat spot down and feel that the deeper comes from extending your upper thoracic spine a little more and go a little further forward. For me. Yes, I love that back position. Everything's perfect. We're going to work at the elbow, stay straight, and it's a tiny movement forward and back with the arms. What we're thinking about here is really keeping the heaviness of the spot of the front side, really heaviness of the ribs, kind of a heaviness of that flat spot just below the sternum while extending the upper back a little more, one more Qaeda, and then you can rest that allow your head to hang forward for a moment. Allow your legs to relax. Oh hmm.

Gently step off of your reformer and we'll finish how we began with a couple of roll down. Yes. Oh, you did a wonderful job. So have your feet right underneath your hips for me. Take a breath and with an exhale, peel forward. Head goes first.

Beautiful. And just relax your head, neck, and shoulders. Feel free to bend your knees here if you need to. You might even just want to bend and straighten them a little bit. Yeah.

When you're ready, take a breath. Use An exhale to stack your spine, one vertebrae at a time. As you come to standing, lengthen through the crown of your head. Feel the openness through your chest activity in your entire spine. Sorry, I almost knocked you over. Peeled forward again for me. Exhale. Beautiful.

Revisit that cue of of the knees slightly soft for you and the thighs, kind of drawing together a little, not a ton of work, but some. And then exhale to peel up. The thighs are drawing together and just stand for a couple of breaths. Allow your knees to bend the arms float up. Inhale an exhale. Feel that your jaw is saw. Fill your body centered. Feel as you bend your knees, your ankle joints are moving since that your hip joints are moving.

Since the calm of your breath in the calm of your body and stand still for a moment. Chest Open. Okay. Spine long [inaudible] and I thank you for playing sweaty. Good, great job.