Scapula Upper Back Health

Hi, everybody. So good to be back here at Pilates anytime with you in front of the window ocean. My friends and doing reformer work with you today. So what I've got going on for us is if you're a person that maybe you had a little injury in your shoulder girdle, let's say, perhaps a surgery or chest surgery or a little setback where you're not fully ready to do your full workout, of your full springs and full pushing, full pulling, but you're not willing to just sit on the couch. Right? You gotta keep working out. We've gotta keep moving our body. So this is classes for us.

We're putting a little extra attention on our scapular, humeral rhythm, some upper back strengthening, that mid upper back strengthening. So if you've had a a setback with something up here, This is great for you. So you gotta keep working, right, and build back up to your strength. I've got light hand weights. You can use those instead of the pulling on the springs.

You don't have to use any weight. You can just do range of motion, power of our mind to our body. So if you're not ready to pull and push, Don't stop. Keep moving. Keep doing range of motion. Okay? We're doing full body, though. So we're gonna start with some footwork and some articulation, which I always do through the spine, headrest down. I'm loading my springs, what I'll have for footwork, which is 3 red and 1 blue, one pound hand weights, but settle in. We're going to start with spinal articulation. I think that's paramount.

Heels parallel on our foot bar and just take a check-in here. Where's that pelvis? Really feel that sacrum imprint the base of the rib cage, those 11, 12 ribs that I love to talk about, get those down. The flat shoulder blades and the collarbone. So if you are that person that's coming back, Be mindful. Listen to your instinct.

Challenge yourself, but be safe, and enjoy movement Right? So here we go. Let's breathe together. It's our medicine and exhale as we articulate through our wonderful, healthy, spine. Yeah. All the way through.

I'm reaching my knees forward. Feeling the strength in the back of the legs, the spine itself, breathing in. And as we're rolling down, it's that sternum section by section, feeling the shoulder blades as many of your ribs as you can and coming all the way to level. Keep your nose to the ceiling, breathing in, and your exhale heal slightly pulling down or kicking down on bar. The back of our spine really long toward the back of our knees.

Minor adjustment when you need inhaling and exhaling down. I think all good movement really starts with this articulated quality, right, get motion, and then we get stability. And connecting her breath with our movement. Really feeling the back of those legs, open the hip flexors. And coming down.

Just keep checking in through class. Checking in. Because I can't see you. I don't know if you're ever gonna need to make those little minor adjustments of shoulders and, you know, things. So feel free to wiggle in and out when you need to. I am keeping my head rest down today, everybody, for class, because we're gonna integrate more spinal articulation through our footwork series.

So if you don't mind, just keeping it down. Let's just go ahead keeping heels parallel going for 10 regular leg extensions. Putting breath in and ouch. Nice flow. Love strong flexed ankles, feeling the front of the shin, out, How can you lengthen your waistline in there?

910. So right now, we'll do one more pelvic curl. It doesn't have to be as slow as the first one or those first three. Breathe and mobilize as we come down. Alright. Next foot position.

And before we do it, I want you to straighten your legs right up to the ceiling, point those toes, flex and extend your ankles a few times. And then we'll take those, separate the legs, and we'll put a ball as a feet on the foot bar, a little bit of heel lifted position, and then same thing. Extend and bend for 10. Spread your toes. Use as much of your body as you can.

Yeah. If you've had a little setback or, like, haven't been able to do your normal workouts, it doesn't feel like just your craving movement everywhere? I think use it in your feet. Use it in your hands. Put it in the breath. All of that is medicine for motion. And 2 more. And, yes, we'll do a spinal articulation from the balls of the feet right here.

Just notice what you notice. You might feel more work in your calf muscles, they're part of you. Work them. They kinda come in handy for other exercises. We might see something today that requires that foot to be on the footbar like that semi circle, perhaps.

Although we'll do it in a pilates stance, which will be happening now. Here we go and press it out and in. Out. And in. It's a waistline lengthener for me.

And the inner side connector heal to heal, But even during footwork, we can start to think about the scapula on the back, They're not pinched together. They're really flat. They're wide letting your thoracic spine just settle between this gapula. Couple more. Maintaining with across your chest.

Right? Now from here, everybody stay with the feet in this Pilates V and go with your spinal articulation. It might feel different in your legs. It should take a breath at the top. Keep pressing your heal bones together. Let's work the spine.

Keep the feet steady. There we go. I am gonna ask us to do another, straightening to the ceiling here. With the leg. Just open and close the legs a few times to stretch those inner thighs. Okay? And then close parallel and bend your knees and set the arches of your feet on your footbar. I've got a little space between my leg, and let's go for 10.

Working the arch of the foot. Those muscles need it too. I've got a slight feeling of grabbing the bar with my foot as well as kind of pressing down on it and out and in. Keep your breath fluid. Are you long everywhere?

Side of the neck, arms, eyelashes, 9, N ten. Yeah. So spinal articulation here, o cabs, o hamstrings, o adductors, Oh, all of that. Staying there. Breeze. Can you stretch your legs more forward, breathing in, and coming down? Coming down coming down. Okay. We we could go on and on with more of that, but we're not going to.

We're just gonna take her toes back to the foot bar. Parallel. And let's go ahead and push out. Stay in your lifted heel position. Just stay on your tip toes for a moment or 2. Spread your toes, and then let's go ahead and just do 5 with both heels down and up, and then we'll walk.

Just easy. Contract the front of your shin. To stretch those calves. Right? Contract the front to support the back and 2 more contracting the front of the shin Really working to support those cabs. Alright. Walking in place will just do ten and really feeling flow from foot to foot. A beautiful rhythm That's so yummy to stretch and contract the lower leg and the ankles Good. One more each heal everybody. Good. And come all the way in.

Now we won't be doing single leg today. That's fine. You to bring your head in your chest up. Just give yourself a really, really, really big hug. And we're coming up to do a little preparation for when we do work with the straps for some of us who will be or with the hand weights, and it's gonna be with the neck. Okay? So just go forward on your reformer sit with your feet flat a few neck isometrics. I think it's really important to connect the neck when we're doing shoulder work. Okay? Simple. One hand against the heat side of your head.

Other hand on your leg. Shoulder is relaxed. Feel that alignment from head to shoulders. And just lightly press your head into your hand and your hand into your head. Right? And, it's really about the upper back.

Track the muscle contraction, not just here in your neck, but down into your upper back. Like roots of a big tree right down there between your scapula. Alright? And then just relax that other side. We'll just do one in each position so I'm pressing lightly head to hand, hand to head enough. I feel it. I am imagining myself as a big tree and the roots of my neck in my upper back.

I'm an Oaktree today, apparently in my mind, and then I'm gonna relax. I'm just feeling that really nice strength. Hands in front of head. This is not an invitation to judd our head forward. At all. We're just pressing lightly, but you will feel when you engage your head to your hands, hands to head in your neck, the flexors of your neck, your throat, It's so important to keep our head on our shoulders the right way.

Okay. Track your muscles down into your upper back. Yep. And then relax. And then we have one more hands behind the head. The most common one, head to hands, hands to head, and we're scooping the neck up. Right, the head up a little bit. You should be able to see your elbows out of the corners of your eyes right there, and then everyone relax.

Okay. And just good. Hopefully, you feel a little bit of work in the neck. We often overlook our neck, so trying to not do that. Now One spring, I'm choosing blue. If you're not ready for blue and you still need lighter, go yellow. If you don't want any, nothing, You could also use your hand weights. Okay. So I'll demonstrate it here.

If I were supine, which I'll be in a moment, we'll be on our back with our arms starting in this upward position. If that's too much for you, you start here, but I'm gonna go there with my hands and straps. What I want is to feel is the scapula leading the way down the back, the upper arm is in external rotation the whole time, and the arms come toward the body palms are still facing forward. So the whole time The humerals, humerus are both externally rotated, right, and you're scaling through this dimension. We wanna maintain that outward rotation to broaden here much more congruent environment for your shoulder girdle.

With loading your shoulders. Okay? And if it's a lot of words, it'll make sense. So I here I go blue. Now the other thing you can do this with your weights. Please start with some space between your shoulders and the shoulder rest. So you have some room.

We just wanna make sure that they're not elevating here. Okay? Okay. I'm going straps. And where I'm holding my strap is actually way up at the top right before it meets the d ring. I'll start there and or you can go way up on the tape. That's probably the most challenging place.

I'll kinda show you in between places, and then I'll ramp it up. Knees are up in your tabletop. So here you are in that high v position without moving anything, make sure your upper arms are externally rotated Scapulas start moving downward. The roots of that neck right between the scapula are engaging to move your arms. Branches of your tree and arms go back out.

Okay? Yeah. And you can exhale. So what we're working quite a lot here, mid trapezius, lower trapezius, latissimus Dorsey, rotator cuff. All that yummy stuff. So if that's feeling good, you want a little challenge, edge it up onto the tape.

I'm gonna do 3 more there. If you're working your arm weights, good for you. If you're doing range of motion, great for you. K. We're gonna build this, everybody. Build into this.

Chest lift now. We'll do 4 reps. We'll take a chest lift. We'll take it down. Remember, even if you've had a little setback, You're not off the hook.

We still wanna work safely. You don't even have to do weights. Or straps. Okay. We're gonna keep the chest lift going, add trunk rotation. I'll come to my right.

I'll go back down to the left. We'll do just alternating a couple rounds. Fuel the relationship of the obliques now. From the sides of the back all the way through the sides of the ribs to the tummy. Scapula come down the back.

Right? I'm gonna add a little single leg stretch to that. Single leg stretch. And down. Start at the scapula. The roots of your tree right between your shoulder girdle engage those down your back.

And down. We have one more here and release and place your feet down, place your straps. And just, again, I love to notice what you notice. Hopefully, you feel like, okay. Yeah. Things are waking up. That's great. We'll come on up.

Keeping on that light spring, if depending on how you're feeling, I'm gonna keep my blue. You could always change it down. Get very close to the foot bar edge over your mat, everybody, your carriage. Place your hand on your bar. Now if you're gonna need weight, I'll demonstrate that when it comes time.

Hand on your bar. Check that your upper arm's externally rotated. Your shoulder's low, and we're just working a press. It's not just a press. This is key for, oh my gosh, so many movements in our work. Right?

Scapular stability, upper arm strength, shoulder loading, push ups, This is a motion of push ups. When we bend your elbow and you straighten your elbow, you'll see some in a few minutes. Alright? So we can set a push up tone here. I love being able to do a push up.

One more like that. Alright? Yeah. And then take your strapper going into external rotation of the humerus. Here we go. I like one hand on the knee. So it's a nice frame. Make a good fist on your strap.

Remember, you're moving from that upper arm. It's externally rotating and dend and return. Shoulder blade. What's it doing? It's not gripping the spine, but it's not away from the spine.

It's kinda snuggled up on the ribs back there. Snowgal. I'll do 2 more. So that'll be a reps of 6. All of these could be done kneeling. I just chose a seated position today for variety.

Okay. That's external. Internal with the other hand. Important to work both our internal rotators of our scapula, shoulder girdle, and the external. This is much easier for most of us. How we do tasks all day are coming in front of the body.

You could do all of that with a hand weight. Okay. Now single arm hug tree with this hand. So, again, check-in. If this is starting to feel a little bit too much, just use your hand weight just to single arm with your weight. I'm gonna go ahead and do it with my strap. Disarm on my leg.

Make it have some form and pull. It doesn't come any more across the body than right in front of the sternum. Lift your waist, exhale. So, again, if this is feeling good and you wanted to add more weight, If you're ready, you can. Don't rush.

Don't need. Alright. One more time when we turn around and we do All of that on the other side, but we have one more to do. And that's this both arms moving. 1 has load. 1 has nothing. So it's taking the arms above the head.

Overhead reaches are pretty challenging, even without a slight setback or need to reevaluate. Wanna keep both sides of the waist lifting up, keeping management of that shoulder. Last one Oh, yes. That feels good to me. Easier on the knees, by the way. That one. Okay.

We'll spin around, and we start with our single arm push. Hand on your bar slightly forward of your shoulder. Arm is an external rotation, other hand on your knee, and we press. Get a little closer. So, again, this is the movement when we go through push ups, right, that being able to push your weight, keeping your torso steady and organized, shoulders are low. Feeling that nice work on the side of your back and all the way through the back of that shoulder.

And one more now? Alrighty. It's external rotation. So grab that strap. It's in the hand that you just did the pushing with. Grab a hold.

Other hand on your knee, have a have a little form and shape, and then you're moving from your elbow and taking that arm across. If you're using your weight or just your arm motion, We do 6. One more to go. Okay. Internal rotation. Switch hands, other hand on your knee, elbow by your side, and you're just bringing your palm across the front of your waist.

Again, a much easier move for the body. Building that strength last 2, and then it's the single arm hug. Here it goes both arms lift. Oh, this one was on the lap. These fingers come right in front of the sternum. Check that nice little shoulder.

You want good form here, everybody, which is healthy function in the shoulder. Yes. Last two. And then the other arm comes out to the side. Palms are face up. Shoulders come low.

And we pull one side has tension. The other one doesn't. So what we're after is trunk stability as well. We do not wanna pull down on one side of the waist. Good. Building that strength and the last one and lower and then place your strap down.

K. Good. How you feeling, everybody? We're gonna do low kneeling tricep work. I am gonna choose to stay on this lightish spring right now. Come on to your knees. You can always change it up or down, play around. Okay. Let's go back to external rotation upper arms.

Elbows are gonna be doing this. We're building a little push up skill. Hands here. Now it's it's this would be fine. Just bring your torso flat like this.

What I'd really like is to get us more underneath the bar So I always imagined a jump board here. And if my elbow was right up against the jump board, it requires some looseness and length in the triceps, actually, to get the arm underneath. It's a little interesting. Wiggle into it. You'll find your way Now the other thing that will happen here is most likely the thoracic spine will hump into that curve.

Let's not go there. That's not where we want So as we address this upper back position, my knees are apart. I've got my elbows reaching forward. I want to engage the roots of that neck. Right, pull down in between the scapula.

That's a lot of work for this body. For some of you, it won't be that much work. That's okay. Right? And so we're just, again, building that skill of pushing back and forth, rebuilding some range of movement here, Every time you hit that bumper, try to lengthen that thoracic spine. Get that upper arm externally rotated and reach the elbows forward.

Yep. Interesting, isn't it? Yep. 3 more times. It's a great way to stretch the tricep stretch the teres and the lats, all that good scapular muscle. Get a little thoracic extension there and in in Bend. Okay. So if you're somebody who's been away from your practice a little bit because of, you know, a surgery or a setback or something, that thoracic spine will get a little rusty. It might be like, oh, because if you've been hurt or, you know, you're not using that.

So you're building. You're rebuilding that posture and that strength up there. So now everybody, we need more spring I'm loading all of my springs. Why? I don't wanna move the carriage. Come up on your hands and your knees. We know down stretch.

I want you to get in your down stretch position. It's not down stretch. We're not pushing the carriage back and forth. Get a good connection in your shoulder girdle, that external rotation, your glutes, your hamstrings, your abdominals. You are in a plank.

Believe it or not, You don't have to have your knees up to be in a plank. You're in a plank. You can stay right there. You can start to very slowly bend your elbows. But I'm here to help you.

Let's go a little bit bigger. So I'm gonna go down just where I feel my elbow at the side of my body and then I'm pressing back up. Right? You are doing your Pilates push up. No one ever said you have to do it from a plank position. You could do it here.

So when you're lowering your body weight and moving it, we don't wanna lose the integrity of our spinal position. The length Where are the roots of your neck? I'm gonna take 3 more. And 2. And 3.

How'd you do? And come on back into her little respose, wiggle a little bit if you need, and we're moving away from some of that weight bearing for now. Okay? Great. We're moving into stomach massage. We need a little bit of that. I'm dropping down to two springs. Please pick up your weights.

Even if you haven't used them yet, place them right there at the front of your reformer or in a place where you can grab them easily. I like to start with Pilates stance on the bar, I like to push the carriage back first, get kind of in the position Hands are at the edge and you're pulling the carriage up to flare your lats. Lift your waist and pull the carriage in. Here we go. Back and forth, pretty traditional position. Press lower lift the heels and come back in.

What are the scapula doing? They're wide and low. The collarbone is wide. You're still working that upper back just in a different range. One more here, everybody. Okay? Now next one is hands back.

Let's see where we're at. You do not have to put your hands all the way up. If you're coming back from something, this may feel a safer position. I'm on my fingertips. Fingerhips pretty close to the hips.

Check it out anywhere through. Open things up. Ready to go. And we push it back. Heels down. Lift and come back in.

I'm trying to keep my shoulder blades together on this one back and forth. Couple more. Alright. And then when you come back into the front this time, reach forward, grab your hand weights, reposition, push the carriage back, and then just simply reach your arms forward a little bit higher than shoulder level. Check that your scapula aren't thrown forward, but you're not pinching them back. There's that really organic place that we all have where they're set.

And then just keep them there. Move the legs. We don't have to do the heels anymore. Feel your back The big trunk of the tree. You are the trunk, right, and push. Okay.

Starting trunk rotation. Don't move your arms. Move your trunk. And if those obliques, we did earlier in supine, holding the straps, move your torso, move your torso, and twist and twist one more and then some real fun coming. You get to stay at the bumper, and I know it's a hip flexor thing.

Don't worry. Circle. Oh my goodness. Keep the roots of your shoulders in your tree down in your or your roots down. I mean, k? Roots of your tree down and down. Circle. I think you know what I meant there. Okay.

We're gonna challenge this. Open your arms a little wider and circle too. 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, other direction, 1. Tuesday lifted as best you can for 3, 2, 1, and put those weights down. We need a monkey stretch after all that.

Place your feet wide. Hands on your bar. Ease yourself in a stretch. If this is too big for your shoulders, you place your hands back. I want you to take some time to breathe here.

Bend your knees to come in. Keep your body towards your legs. And monkey stretch. Let your heels come down now. That front of the shin contract, and heels up and come back in.

We have 1 more monkey stretch everybody out. Feel free to take your hands across the sides of the footbar. You might be able to go a little bit lower in that stretch. And then we'll come all the way. Okay. How you doing? I hope pretty good.

We're going good in our long box now. Alright. Long box. And the long box work, again, you know, You still have to work your abs even if you've had a little setback. I'm gonna put our blue spring on and take off those reds. We can put the high bar up because we'll need it in a moment right here, but I want us to sit at the back.

Sit at the back and get on your back. Now I do know the bars there. Don't worry. Bring your pelvis forward so you're really right close to the edge, hug your knees, hug your shins. So go ahead and analyze this or assess, where's your head? And I I don't want your head completely on the box with your pelvis off the other end.

We all should fit fairly easily here. My oxaput, quite honestly, is at the edge of my box. I feel supported, but I'm I'm on the slope going back a little bit, but before we go there, we're not gonna do abs. We're gonna come up here curl up everybody. Of course, we are double leg stretch.

And coming in. So if your shoulder's not allowing you to do that, Mister Pilates showed this kind of double leg stretch. Right? And in. You're not out of the woods. Stretch forward.

Pull it in. I'll keep showing that version. Breathing in. Freezing out. Couple more, and then we'll take single leg stretch and scissors. Okay. So single leg stretch.

Let's pick up one knee. Place your hands on that shin. The straight leg. Squeeze your booty. And just change.

We'll just do 10, and 9. Now this is where the head comes up. Pull yourself maybe out of the roots of the tree up and up and up and 9 And and this leg is gonna come up. I want you to flex your feet today. If your hands need to come lower, I'll show that.

And pull pull. Pull pull. Feels nice to change the angle of the feet from time to time. 3, 2, and 1. And then now we get to rest in and come on back. Wonderful.

Hey. Cross the feet. It's okay. They don't have to be tabletop all the time. I want you to feel comfortable here bring your arms up to the sky. I'm gonna take one hand to that opposite arm and just get that external rotation again. There it is. Bend that elbow a few times.

Okay. So planks and push ups We push our body weight usually with our body facing down, but we do certain things also with our hands behind us and above us So I want you to place your hand on your foot bar. My palm is down. Elbows are pointing straight up to the ceiling, and play with how wide your hands are on your bar. First of all, I'm going right into the corners.

Could you press your carriage from here? Give it a little press. If the answer was no, don't push it and just have your arms above you and try to do just straightening your elbows and bending the elbows. Okay? But if you're going for it, it's can we press Can we lengthen the lats, the triceps, all of that tissue, the spine, keeping the ribs on the mat, Right? Overhead presses with your body weight, slightly supported with the box. If that's too easy, bring your hands more narrow. I'm gonna go there.

You can have your hands under the bar now and press. And return. And press and return. Keeping your ribs against the mat, right, especially rib 1112. Keep your upper arms in that external rotation.

Couple more presses. I hope this is feeling good to you like it is to me. Hold that stretch. Yes. My scapular upwardly rotated. It's so healthy to do that.

Push your weight. Everybody pushing stretch. And then come all the way down. Wonderful. Okay. Pick up your head.

We're gonna come off of our back. We need to lower our footbar. And we're going all the way down with that foot bar. We're on a blue spring. We're gonna do a little rocking swan. Okay?

You can do it. So if you come on down and if all of a sudden you say, there's no way in heck I can do that, don't do it. You can just do a regular swan. If you're feeling pretty good like this, come on up. Hands on your foot bar. Pell this right at the edge of your box.

We are not bobbing the head. That head shouldn't do ponytail whips. Right? I'm really thinking sternum that direction the whole time. When I lower my chest, I'm gonna bend the elbows. Like, I'm pulling the bar apart a little bit with my strong thoracic muscles and I'm starting to lift the legs. It doesn't have to be big. Something that's kind of fun is to try to do this with very little arm engagement right, a regular swan without much arm engagement. But if you're feeling pretty good, of course, we wanna go for it.

I want you to use your legs. Gotta use that body. Pull the thighs up. Lift your sternum. Wiggle into position if you need.

We want straight knees. Reachers turning forward and up 3 more Carriage will move a little everybody. 2. And the 1. Yay.

And open the legs, move your body back into a little cat back, walk yourself up to seated. Okay? How are you doing? Lot of back bending backward. We're gonna backbend forward, which is forward reflection. If you need your weights, Here's a place you can take them. Horse back.

It can happen. Fist width behind your pelvis. Bend and stretch your legs just a couple times. Just give your knees a little bit of movement. So horseback doesn't have to be too scary either.

You know, I have to pull the straps. Did you know that? You know, you can use your weights too. What I want you to do first, everybody is take your legs up. Squeeze your box, palms up. You know that basic exercise called serving that we know? That one, we're gonna serve while we point the toes, lift the hips up off the box, and pull the stomach back away from the serving tray. Pull back.

Pull back with your hips. Flex your feet and slowly sit on your box. Get another tray. Take a breath. Squeeze point.

So it's that pelvic curl, posterior rotation. Reach your arms forward away from your navel, your navel away from your hands. Stretch your low back in a c curve and come on down. You could keep doing it with no weights or put weights in your hands. 2 more times.

Breathing and pointing and squeezing and lifting. I should say 2 more, but they're the second of the 2. There's the circles of the arms again. So, yes, my arms are my scapular reaching forward and up. Here we go. Adding circles, everybody. If you're not up that high off the box, don't worry. It's hard.

Challenge yourself 1, 2, 3 the other way. 1, 2, 3 and sit on down and relax your legs. Just swing them again. Okay. We're almost there, everybody. Go ahead and put our hand weights down. We really won't need them anymore.

Come across your box. We're gonna put the box back out of our weight, and we're gonna come around for semi circle. Semi circle We'll get that head rest up. Yep. And I want you to make a decision right now. If you don't really wanna do full semi circle, I will understand.

Because it's got that full arm overhead with weight. You would just do pelvic curls again, supine, just like basic bridging, or Give it a try and listen in. Right? But I'm gonna choose a red and a blue spring. So I've got a medium resistance. And I am gonna go with the regular bar position. A little high bar here. Alright.

So loop your knees over your bar, slide your pelvis down, and Get cozy. You remember my right? And then you're taking your hands back here. Technically, you could even just do this and just start to prep for it, but If you're coming along, just like we did earlier footwork, let's go pilates stance, knees about shoulder blocks away with lift your hips up, You've gotta get that push of those arms. Knees are not too wide. You should feel a pretty nice quadriceps stretch. Okay. So what I'm asking us to do is really give that push.

Upper arm is externally rotated. You get the drill. Now the elbows are straight. Breathing in. Everybody. Start to drip down.

Maybe the roots go deeper, deeper, deeper down your whole spine to your sacrum. I want you to feel the arch of your spine. Okay. Use those feet and push yourself back. You will not lock your knees. You're gonna pause with a little flexion.

Get a nice posterior rotation of your pelvis, flexion of your lower back, get up into that high point position of your bridge, using your hamstrings to come in, breathing in, keep the arms active, pushing back, giving space for those thoracics to mobilize, nerves to flow through, Press yourself into that beautiful arch, breathe, and push. Posterior rotation, lumbar flexion, tricky. Getting up in that high bridge position and come on in. One more time here, and we'll reverse it for 3. Beautiful flow. The arms just never lose their active quality on this exercise lift. Now the reverse, stay at the bumper, breathe in as much as you can.

We're gonna push ourselves back. Hold that you're not fully straight with the knees. Keep your hamstrings active. Keep the arms active. You're articulating down.

Let's go for that big arch. You get a lot of space for your diaphragm to move. Come as close to the bumper as you can. Articulate up. Right?

Pushing back, articulating down. Remember, active arms. I would like to pose a challenge maybe to anybody out there watching. And if you're somebody that has a little shoulder restriction or chest direction. Try this without the arms active.

I'd be kind of curious if any. I'm just gonna throw that out there. I'm kinda tempted to try it, but I don't wanna lose my rhythm here. I bet it can be done beautifully and and fully connected because it's your spine actually moving anyway. Right? You wouldn't need your arms fully. Okay.

Come back up. Now before we come up to standing, I want you to just notice what you notice, place your legs over the bar together and just for a moment, just go, oh my gosh. That's a lot. A lot a lot, but we have one more, and that's with the legs, the glutes and the legs, I am a big fan of keeping your lower extremities and your hamstrings, your glutes, your thighs, really strong because if you have any limitations upstairs here, You know, you gotta use your legs to get you up. We only need a red spring. So try not to hold the bar.

Another challenge for you. One foot against the shoulder block. Outside leg is straight. Thighs are perpendicular together. Hip hinge, of course.

Push the carriage back. Get a full straight knee. Feel free if you need to wiggle that outside leg a little to get into position. And then come right back up. Let's do it again.

Hip hinge and push that carriage back. Really go for that push. Alright. And hip hinge and push. Balance work You absolutely could hold the footbar. You don't need to trust yourself.

That was 4. Let's take 2 more. Okay? 5. And 6, but stay right there. We'll go with 6 regular pushes. 1, 2, blast a little more effort. 3, 4. My knee is hovered, 56, and in we go. Alright.

Other side whole body, little more emphasis of thoracic and upper back, but our whole body is uniform and unify Right. Here we go. Hip hinge and dive forward. And coming tall. Thighs perpendicular, get that beautiful hip extension, everybody, standing tall. Arms wherever they feel best for you.

Good spinal alignment as you take that hinge. Couple more, we stay down on the second one and do 8 more of those pushes. Are you ready? Here we go. And in and push. In and push.

3, and push. 4, 3. Alright. Last two, everybody push full hip extension in and hip extension. And in and then use that hip to come all the way up. We are gonna finish our class together, which is a nice, easy standing roll down. Okay?

Always a nice way to, I think, put a a period at the end of the sentence or closure of the chapter in the book kind of thing. That's easy. Feel yourself real forward. So, again, thank you for playing along and pushing yourself through if you did with weights and springs and your knees. And if you're coming back slowly, just come back slowly. You can do this class a few times and build up to it.

Ask questions, handful of answers. Almost the time. Thanks, everybody. How's you next time? Bye bye.