Stretch & Strengthen

Hello, everybody. This is Amy havens here at Pilates anytime. Very happy to be with you giving a Cadillac workout or session. However, you'd like to reference it. I'd like you to set it up and know what you're planning for, what we have planned. We've got a red spring from top loaded below. We've got for footwork, blue and red, my preference.

You can always do just 1 if you need, have your safety chain ready. On the other end, we've got a rollback bar. We've got our leg springs, and you're gonna need a pair of handles because we'll be doing some kneeling arm work. Okay? Full body. We're gonna flow you'll feel your muscles. So let's get set up together with our safety strap.

So I'm just gonna come on this side. I like to loop that in. And then I like a red and blue. Like I said, I'm gonna wanna feel my legs today in the footwork series. But again, if you just need 1 today, you're going with 1.

We'll do some double leg. And then with single leg, we'll take off 1 of those springs. So let's get on down. Back yourself up so your head is right at the top of your mat, we can always make an adjustment as we're going through the footwork. And I'm just gonna slide that across.

So using your hands to help, I'm gonna ask us to go fairly traditional setup with your Pilates V. I say this often when I'm on the Cadillac or the tower, which this class can be done on your tower, is footwork underneath is so wonderful because you can really see what your feet are doing or what you need to correct. If you're rolling in or out supinating pronating, you're really right there watching your feet. Okay. So we're here. Let's level the pelvis. I want us to think about the interpretibrils of spine, all the little muscles from the tail, all the way up through the neck, really, and get those active makes us feel long.

Okay? So today, I want us to inhale as we bring the bar down. Sometimes I breathe the other way, but today, it's an inhale here. Open the sit bones, exhale, engage the back of the legs to press the bar up. Inhale as we're lowering we're endeavoring to keep level pelvis. Not everybody will be.

The tail could be curled up If you're feeling really crowded and if you have a bench behind, you can put some extra length behind your head. Ideally, we don't have to make those adjustments here. You could also take some weight down. But as you're looking at your feet, you're well on all 5 metatarsals. Your ankles are steady and a little bit of plantar flexion.

Your heels are pressed together. You don't really have to know what muscles you're working. You can feel those as you engage the back of your legs to push the bar up. We're going for 2 more as an inhale down and an exhale up and an inhale down, let the sit bones open. The tailbone is down and an exhale and lift.

Today, let's just pivot to parallel. Ankles are still in plantar flexion, inhale, and bend. So now as we're coming down, you may not go as low. It's a hip joint mobility issue. Or consideration. Right? So as you go lower, if you go lower and your whole pelvis does a rocky roll thing, you that's not we don't need to go that far.

I like to think of, I'm continuing to push up against the bar even though it's coming down. That's that 2 way connection that we work on here. Bending down. Look at your own alignment. You're seeing things staying even.

Right? And inhaling down. I'm tracking my knees straight toward my kind of cheek bones parallel, endeavoring to keep the tailbone down here on the mat, We're gonna take 2 more. And with the the concentration of keeping the back muscles long, you will feel your back muscles. It's great. It's a really wonderful way to wake up the back of your body. Okay. Speaking of back of body, we're gonna feel these calves now.

Everybody flex your ankles. That'll be the stretch back here, but I want you to engage to press up. Inhale, lower the spring, lower the bar, exhale, press up. Keep watching that alignment. If things are looking like they're going a little, you know, rock and rolling on your ankles, you just do a smaller range.

So you can just minimize range if you need to. But ultimately, we wanna get deep dorcey flexion, beautiful plantar flexion, Yeah. As much ankle mobility as we can 2 more times. Are you still extending your tailbone? Yes. You are.

Energy through the top of your head? Yeah. Okay. Next position is heels parallel. This is for me, the moment of okay hamstring length. Right? So it really stretches the back of the legs. Try to stay in dorcey flexion.

Amy's making a choice. She's moving up a little bit. I did that because I didn't feel I had integrity with my tailbone. Now I do a little bit better. Okay. So I'm bending.

Engaging the back of the legs to push the weight up. Inhale as we bend, keeping the sit bones open. When you push the bar up, you don't really have to grip the sit bones. There's a natural bone rhythm that occurs in the pelvis. Helvis gets a little wide on the squat, and it gets a little narrower on the push.

Pretty convenient and extend. Again, bending down. So my range of motion and my hip joints in this position, I don't have as much to come down. With keeping my pelvis level. And that's the style of of knee bend I like to do here.

You certainly can let your pelvis roll up, but we'll do tower quite a bit later while you get that role, and you'll get plenty of spinal articulation. So we'll save it for that. And everybody 1 more time with our double leg, but we're gonna go back up on the bar. Here we go with balls of feet And let's go for just a little walk in place. Just changing the ankles and changing the ankles.

Work on pushing and pulling with both ankles. Right? So you're not just focusing on the stretch. As tempting as it is, the bent knee foot is still really pushing up against the bar. We'll lend you 4 more now and 1, and 2, and 3. And then if you were on 2 Springs like I was, We're now gonna take the lighter of the spring is off. So just hold that bar with your hands, take your feet down.

Now I can do the staying underneath because The safety chain is there. Just take that spring behind you. Okay. Single leg. I'm making a choice. You could do flexed the heel on the bar or the ball of the foot, I'd like to go ball of foot.

I'm starting with my left foot. It's in parallel. And then the other leg extended. So we've got this beautiful open hip. This leg isn't just there.

It's engaged toward the mat, the hamstrings. Take a moment to try to square that pelvis, little bit of ankle extension. Here we go. So 5 times just plain knee bend. Nothing too fancy, inhale as we bend, exhale extend. I want you to be really steady in the ankle. The joints that are moving are hip and knee. Alright? 2 more like that, and then we're gonna add some movement with the other leg.

Some coordination and focus. So and feels good. So the next plie of the leg inhaling down. Now the straight leg is gonna come up. The as you push the other bar up, And you just kind of, like, you touch the top of the foot against the bar, square your hips.

The straight leg reaches as you lower the bar. It's actively reaching exhale and come up. 3 more. Make sure that collarbone is beautifully wide, like the Cadillac frame. Can see that frame above and open that up.

Ideally, the back of that leg will get flat against the table. That's a goal. You can extend it toward that table, and that was your 5. Okay? 5 and 5. Take a moment. Let the stretch come through you square your hips, active straight leg, and we go bending and stretch. When you bend, again, we're trying to avoid any elevation of the bending leg hip.

So it doesn't ride up the side or hike. Like to think of the whole pelvic half reaching to my other big toe. So there's a little bit of an angle on that. 1 more, and then we'll add the straight leg lift as well. Here we go. So it's a bend, straighten this knee, and lift the straight leg up for a moment. There's 1 foot on the ball, 1 foot on the toes, and extend.

And exhale and press up Every time that straight leg comes up is a chance to try squaring your hips. 2 more. And the last 1 Hope you feel your legs. Doesn't it feel so good? Okay. Then everybody, take both feet on the bar.

Let's go to the pilates v again. And I just want you to bend the the knees deeply. Now let's let the tail lift a little bit, even put your hands on the bar, and just pull down a little bit. Now that's a nice way to open up that tailbone and sacrum. Okay. And then we're done with that.

So you could come off down. We're gonna take the spring down. And then we'll come up off of our back, and we'll take our safety chain down. And then we'll be doing top loaded. Okay. So I'm gonna stay at this end of the Cadillac.

I'm short, so I'm just gonna go here. I don't like it hanging. And then the top loaded, red spring is what I've got, abdominals, and some shoulder openings. So Grab that bar. Come on down.

Where I'd like to start with this is similar place is the head all the way at the top. Okay. Arms, nice and straight. Let's do a bent knees and feet out in front of the pelvis. My knees are together.

Couple of times, let's just shave. So bend the elbows, bring that bar right through the crown of the head. You can take the bar through the frame. I'm a fan of letting the shoulders go up into elevation. I want you to stretch your lats.

We need some lats stretch there. Bend the elbows, bring the bar back through. We'll do 2 more inhale bend, trying to get the back of the upper arms on that table. Arms are reaching through and let the scapula glide. Get the last to stretch.

Alright? Because this that's the arms overhead. Right? And we we're gonna be doing that in the big sit ups any second now. Stretch stretch. Stretch. And come on through. Okay. So here we are.

We're doing 2 sit ups. Just raise that head. Think your chest lift. I'm gonna have you think of your back ribs sliding back and then up your back. As you're coming up into your sit up, I wanna take this slow, this first 1. I don't want this to come all the way into extension.

I want you to stay back on your sacrum where there's a lot more work in your abdominal wall not so much about your back extensor extensors. Okay? Stay right there. Now as you roll down, Keep the energy of the arms reaching up so that you really take your time getting through lumbar thoracic shoulder blades and head. 1 more time, we start building these for reflection skills. So when you don't go all the way up, you have to say, Ron, that sacrum, there is stretch stretch in the last and a lot of work in your abdominals, and then roll yourself down.

Keep the energy of the arms reaching up as long as you can, and then we articulate through. Okay? A single leg version. We go. Same thing 2 times. I'm ad ducting, trying to keep the pelvis level, looking right up at my big toe. I'm gonna take a breath.

And I'm rolling down. I'm trying not to just pull the bar. I'm moving my body. The bar is following my role. And down. Again, same thing.

Looking right at that foot, So you're not coming up into your back extension. You should be really feeling the core of your body, breathing in, and then rolling down. In my mind, I'm still kind of pushing the bar up even though I am coming down the other leg twice. Grip that bar with your strong arms. Here we go ahead.

Thoracic. You pass the lumbar, but you're on the sacrum. Everyone breathe, get a little that stretch, and coming down vertebra by vertebra. All the way through. Lots of articulation on the Cadillac.

It's a great place to get that mechanic or the motion of your spine with length and strength. They were coming down. Okay. So we're building into a little teaser. Let's do our knees to tabletop, everybody. So just bicycle the lakes to, tabletop.

Watch this really quickly. This is a knee movement. See, I'm kicking, kinda kicking my knees. Teaser is about opening the hip joint. It's tricky because the legs will straighten, but you can initiate it at the knees.

I'd like us to initiate from the hips. Let's go. We're gonna do 2. So the head starts coming up. I'm opening my hip joint. Yes. The leg straightened, but the hips have open.

I think you could see that. I'm not gonna lose my abdominal work. I'm gonna breathe. And as I come back, again, I'm not just pulling down on the bar. I'm moving my spine. Then as I come in, I'm moving from a hip joint Yes. The knees bend, but it's not just a knee flexion.

K? Again, 1 more. Head, it's the hips. It's the thighs that are moving out. So you should be in a really nice little balance point on your sacrum. 2 times, legs only down, plagues up and you're on that sacrum. You know your balance point and lift.

Third 1, please keep your legs down. Take a breath. You should feel your abdominals. Right? You're rolling on your tailbone. Through the middle of the sacrum, your lumbar, all the way. So full teaser twice. As soon as we start picking the head up, the legs also lift working from the deep center.

Lift lift, lift, breathe. I'm not gonna go back extension. I wanna stay in that. Abdominal work, roll back. Lay that spine out.

Try to time it so that the heels in the head lay at the same time. 1 more time. Get the sense of my root legs reaching to that end of the Cadillac. Little surprise. Single leg and up.

Single leg and up. You can just use your visual system. Look at that end of the Cadillac spot. Good 1 more, everybody. Now hold.

Let go. Let go. We made it. We made our teasers, grab that bar, bend your knees. We need a shoulder opener.

I want you to stretch your legs long and arch your back Stretch that out. Wonderful. Bring the bar up. Bring your body up. I want us to turn around now. And this is a shoulder roll.

I also learned it as parakeet that their feet are gonna be here, or push through with the feet All the names. So I like to put a foot over the the ball of the foot on the top of the bar. The other foot, I like to hook it under for safety. That's just me. I like to get the bar right at the frame. I put my body down, and then I step the other foot up. Safety.

Okay. We were just long. We're long again. Colorbono is as wide as the canopy. We're just gonna start this way, please. Just to bend.

Now we're in knees. See? And then it's hips. And then we hip flex, we knee flex. Keep those feet actively holding your bar. 2 more of these.

We're about to do the full roll up to the shoulders, but I just wanted you to give the stability here and the work through your feet. Now this 1, Let the bar roll across the foot. 2 straight knees without locking. Now we know where the bottom of the spine is. We're gonna start moving from there, so roll it through.

You have to push up with your feet. Push the bar. Lift the seat. Breathe in through your nose. Roll down from the top of your spine.

Don't go too low yet. Keep rolling down from the middle spine. Strong backs of knees. Get all the way. Sacrum is reaching away from the lumbar.

And then, we made it bend and straighten through. 2 more. I'm gonna keep it simple, but deep and roll. I'm pushing the bar toward the frame of the Cadillac. I'm lifting the back of the lower seat, breathing in. I'm going to roll down.

On the next 1, the third 1, we will do 3 leg releases with each leg. Okay. But we're not gonna do single legs today. Last time, Hello, feet and roll yourself up. I don't have a preference which leg you start with, ready, and 1. And 2, and 3. That's it.

Stabilize the second leg. And 1, Keep your hips up too. That's a hard part. And 3, and we roll down. Keep pushing the bar forward.

Take your time. The mobility is really important and healthy. Ben your knee. So the same dismount as I go into mounting it. I hook a foot under I do a sit up like this. And now everybody, I want you to bring the bar into your hands. Keep this foot on the bar. But the other foot right against the push or the upright pull.

Okay. We're gonna do a little hamstring stretch Now we can work the attempt of extension of the spine. Alright. So this is challenging if you have some tighter hamstrings or tighter back muscles, but work it. We're here to work that. So I'm dragging my shoulders down a little bit, lifting my chest up, try to keep that foot flat. And now let's go this way.

You're gonna bend this knee and push the bar forward. Just feel like it it's a little you know, out of balance because you've got 1 leg in parallel and 1 leg on the side of the bar. Got it. Lift. Try to square.

And this reminds me a little bit of our climate tree on reformer work. You know where you've got that 1 foot, 1 leg. Doing something different. Stretch or to pull up from the base of the spine through the crown of your head. How about a breath?

And you go through flexion. Okay. Get down there low. And change legs. Keep your hands on that bar, and you know the drill. Okay. So now the leg is gonna come up wiggle into position, try to get the foot into a little bit of extension, and raise the spine.

Shoulders go down and your chest lifts up. That's a breath. As you bring it down, you are using your arms a little bit, but I'm trying to use the trunk flexors, which are abdominals, to stretch me forward. Bring the knee toward the chest. You'll see that a little later again, and we're coming up.

The other foot should stay flat against the frame. This extension and using the abdominals to move that bar. When I did all the teasers for this 1. Lift. Lift. Lift. Lift. We have 1 more everybody breathe in. And then an exhale, we're coming down.

Yeah. And stretch. Okay. Just take that foot off. Give yourself 1 more forward push through just even things out and then come up. We're gonna take this push through bar down for now and head down to the leg springs.

So let's just undo that. So leg springs, where I have my leg spring set up for now, because I'm going to also try to have us do hips in the air for a couple things, but I've got my put the my bar here right at shoulder level. This is balanced body. So of course, we have the option to slide it. If you have yours in fixed position, that's what you get. Alright. So come on down.

1st or supine. So we're both feed in same time. And on the polls, put him down on the mat and then to the polls. That way you know your arms are even. Sometimes our hands are back here, and we're not even. So We don't wanna not be even. Right? So hands down in, then push. If that does not feel comfortable, you can go up a little bit, but try to stay even is the trick. Okay? You push The arms are just as important as the legs without locked elbows. I want everybody to come into a frog position.

Tailbone is down. We're gonna pattern this. We're pushing forward. We'll take both legs open, go as wide as you feel while you wanna go, bring them together and back into frog. For more of the pattern.

It's a push. It's an open pull and in. Push the legs, open the legs. I like to flex my feet through this pattern. My knees feel happier with flex feet. Feel like, I mean, a little more 2 way stretch from my head to my heels. Back is down.

Let's take 1 more and push and open, and then close and stay closed. Okay. Roll the legs to parallel. 4 times a, b, duct the legs. Separate the legs. Is wide as you can go in parallel, you'll know, and then close.

Open close, outer hip, inner hip. Last 2 in parallel. And then we'll do 4 in external rotation. You were already there. So it's gonna be probably easy.

Mostly, you'll have a wider frame to go to. More range of movement. The hip joint has more range when the leg is turned out and 2 more So it should feel pretty good and open and close. And the next transition through a frog, bring your legs in. And then they'll come up to the ceiling. Parallel.

Okay. Just pull on the springs. Take your legs down and up 4 times. This is parallel with a deduction. The legs are really close together.

Think of it happening mainly in the upper inner leg. Front of the leg back of the leg. Okay? Now the next pattern or movement, I want you to take your legs into external rotation and cross 1 ankle over the other ankle. You'll have to navigate your heel around the foot strap Don't worry about the feet so much. It's about the the adduction and the cross of the legs.

So twice pull both legs down, bring both legs up. Both legs are working. The top leg for me is pushing against the other leg. My bottom leg is pulling both legs down. Okay? Now do 4 regular changes.

1, 2, 3, 4 that we know regular. But we're gonna do the my new part again 2 times. Legs are crossed. And both legs pull and both come up. Both legs pull.

Will face come up? And what I do is take the top cross leg and go behind first and up. 1 more round. That's all. Cross tight, deep work here, and down, and up. And, down, when you bring the legs up, try to keep the tailbone on the mat. And the legs cross 2, 3, 4 and up 2, 3, 4. And, of course, we have to do the other side.

So now I have this other leg crossing over. My heel kinda has to navigate the strap I'm fine with that because I feel the work up in my upper leg springs are a little open. Twice. Pull down. Notice if it feels harder or easier. Right?

Often there is an easier something feels different and then cross. 1, It might be that's the weaker leg that you feel like you have to work harder. Who knows? And down. And, Just discrepancies or imbalances. We all have them. Thank goodness for Pilates where we get to identify those and correct them.

And up for 4. We have 1 more pattern ready and down and up and down. And these just feel so good. And cross 2, 3, 4, and then all the way up to 3, 4. And once again, frog for a little rest. Okay. Bring your arms down, give those a rest. Lake circles instead of our regular.

We're getting some variations. You've seen me do the snowman circles before on the reformer. We'll drink them here. It's kind of fun. Same idea if you don't know the snowman circle.

You have to visualize this snowman real quick. Okay. Small head, medium sized body, big base on the ground. So from here in the air, you're gonna do a small leg circle outward, out for the middle circle and a big 1 at the bottom, 2 legs come straight up. I'm in turn out the whole time. Here we go. A small little head a medium body.

A big base, if you can go really low to the mat, wonderful. Start again. A small a medium and big. So each circle should grow in size. 2 more, small, medium, large, and small head, medium body, and then stay at the bottom. We're gonna reverse it small. Medium and big and small.

It's about control. Concentration, something new for your nervous system. And that's always really fun for my brain. I like to offer that for people to okay. That's enough there. We have bicycles to do.

Bend those legs just quick here. And then a bicycle. I love to think up and out, brush the foot, up and out. And I'm not satisfied until I feel that foot, meet the mat. And I drag it in. And I drag it in.

You certainly could have other things to think about I like to feel it that low on the mat. 4, 3, 2, and pause. Reverse. Now feel the mat and push it forward and push it forward. And push. I'd never get anyone to buy if I was going to slow, that's okay. I want my Cadillac. I don't need to go too fast.

4, and 3. You've got it 2 more. And then we all get to come up. And if you'd like to join me, we're gonna try some hips in the air. Okay? Just a few little bits. So with hips in there, I know I need to raise my level up here. On the balance body Cadillac, we have the option of sliding this bar up a few inches.

I've just probably gone up, I don't know, 6 to 7 inches. That's helpful because it helps pick my body up, but it also gives more challenge of pulling those springs down. Okay. If you don't have that option and you wanna stay where you were, it could be challenging, but that's it's okay. Alright. Same thing, everybody, with your hand. Feel the corners first. Push your hands on the frame.

That might be feel fine in your shoulders, or you could climb your hands up a couple inches Again, we're trying to stay even. Here's what we'll start with is 2 things. Push your arms strong. Start to push your legs forward and at the same time, raise your hips. Think feet down and hips up goal.

Feet down hips up. Just hold. Beat the heels. Keep thinking hips up and heels down. If you need to pause, pause regroup.

I'm not coming down. I'm gonna stay up here. Pause for me. I'm gonna do little frogs. And I continue to think hips up and feet down. Then they're little.

4 hips up, heels down. 3. 2. Got a lot of push with my arms. Last 1, And then I'm gonna do small circles for just 4. They're outward circles.

3. I'm on my upper back. 4, the other way. 1, hips up, heels down. 34, and then little shuffles in place. 4, 3, 2. I'm cooked. Parallel.

And then roll down. Let your legs go back with control. Oh my. It's always humbling to have the hips up like that. So good. Tuck your knees in. We're gonna move away from the legs and get into our arms.

First, no handles on the, yellow springs. We'll use our rollback bar I wanna lower this down a little bit and then bring the rollback bar up Okay. Flection. Think cat. Okay. Get a cat image. You're round back, you're on your knees.

Make a good fist around your or your handle. Hold this position for a moment. Today, please bend your toes and put your heels together. If that does not feel good, you can pull your heels to parallel. You could do this. But in a moment, we'll be doing a knee stretch movement where think of reformer knee stretch where your toes are up. Okay? So first, take a breath.

I want you to round forward. Get the knuckles to the mat. I'm pushing my arms. I'm gonna just hold the shape. Engage the lats down now as we lift the bar, stay on the tips of those knees and roll back.

To the top. Breathing in. Lot of abdominal. So it's the lats, the connection of obliques, go into the abdominal deep, deep, deep. Hold. Try to get more flexion of your lower back and roll all the way up. Let's do another 1.

Take a breath. Rounding forward. Okay. It's about to get interesting. You could keep doing what you were doing. I've got my knuckles on the mat.

I'm gonna hover my knees now. Everybody hovering the knees. And just put him down. Yes. It's some weight bearing on my wrist.

It's okay. And lift the stomach. We're gonna roll our body up. If you wanna join me for the next part of that, you can. You don't have to. You could just still work the roll down.

Forward, alarm should be right underneath shoulders or a close as you can. You're in a nice c curve, lift up on your knees or lift your knees up. Bring a knee to a chest. Place your foot down. The other knee to chest and down. Do the first leg again.

Need to chest. Down. Need to chest. Down, place your knees down, roll it up. We're gonna do 1 more round, a little more Furiation. Okay? Get my hair out of the way.

Take a breath. Rounding down. Shoulders are low. On those knuckles, we'll hover the knees. Now, neon, just go through extension. Flexion.

Extension. Flexion. 3rd 1 and step down. Gotta go kinda quick on that because it's a lot of work out and in Step place. Connect your hamstrings. Take a time.

Roll up. Roll up and roll up. How'd you do? I'm losing my breath. It's good, solid work. Okay.

Now we need our handles. Change out the rollback bar. Keep breathing. I'm huffing on huffing. And then we'll also need to move the level down where the attachments are.

So I'll probably put the roll the bar right at shoulder level again, and then move my leg springs out of the way. Keep your breath going. Back will be facing the springs. Okay? Some kneeling armor. Alright. Most of us know the options.

When your body is closer to the springs on your kneeling arm work, it's a little easier. It the farther away, it's a little harder. So choose what you want right now. I'm gonna have us bend those toes again. I like the heels together.

Really feel the open extension of your hips. Hands by your hips. Unlock elbows. We're doing up circles. We're coming forward.

Control the timing. This is so much about I think the control, keeping the spine shape, all the curves of the spine the way they should be, and arms working uniformly, meaning to me the same timing up circles. 3 each way is fine. Now we go the other way. I'm going out, but slightly forward.

And I'm coming around. So there's some external rotation of the humerus upper arm bone at the top, arms come down. Hamstrings that get engaged. Spine is long. Abdominals are engaged.

Easy to feel all that. Let's hug our tree. With hug our tree today, lean forward a little bit, everybody, and do 5 gaze forward, not down. 2, feel that strong chest wall. And 3, shoulders.

And 4. And 5. And then take your hands to your shoulders, your fist, and we're gonna do single arm punching or boxing. We can pick up the pace a little bit. Little bird's flu.

Good. I'm gonna count us down for 3 legs are active, 2 in 1. And then please take both arms out to the side. Butterfly. I'm surprised there's not 1 out there today, but lean forward. Now I'm gonna come toward you.

It's a spine band of this, lateral reflection. This bottom arm still pulls the spring, this top arm has to glaze up and you're opening your wing. I think about opening my back. And then you come around through center. Other side, this outside arm, open your back.

The other arm is still holding the tension ideally pelvis stays front. And, again, up and over look out, You could also be a bird, I suppose, but it's really the bird or fly showing its wings, 1 more each side. Maybe check your tailbone, and then it's not sticky outy. You're pulling it down. Front ribs in. Back is long.

And then join the other arm ups. You have 2 arms up for a little swimming. I might have I don't love my swimming mat. When my face is down, I like to swim with my arms up on my knees. It's not really swimming, I guess.

Good and 4, 3, 2, and 1. And let's sit back. Good, everybody. Come off your feet. Just rest yourself down for a moment. We're gonna go back down to the push through our end, and we're gonna put that red spring back up And a full movement.

1 of my favorites, not just push through forward and lats stretch up. This is, I learned as circle saw, Circular saw. It's got it all. It's got flexion extension side then rotation. It's delightful.

Okay. So hands on your bar. 1 regular push through of your choice. Just get a push through. Bring it back. Bring it up and stretch your lats.

Okay. Now I want you to lean back first. Get a good grip. Lean back. You're on your tailbone. But now let's change the spine to flexion.

So I've just kinda scooted my sacrum underneath me. I'll do the facing side, to you first. I'm letting go with that outside arm, but nothing should change in my body. So let go. Now this arm I'm looking at that hand. My feet are solid on the post.

I am rotating my spine I'm gonna keep my eyes on that hand. My body goes, following, it's amazing. The body's going into a side bend. Now I'm coming up on my sitting bones. I look straight ahead.

The other arm pulled the bar down. Now we have to retrograde it. Look up at that hand. Your spine will follow along just fine. Watch your hand.

Get your Sacum under, though. You are in posterior rotation. Looking around. Not amazing how that just happens. And that hand goes to saw.

You can put it on your ankle, you can put it on the bar, do what you would like to, make sure your ribs aren't flaring, and you're still long. Okay? How'd we do? Should we do the same side again? We should. We're gonna go back, get your tail under, or your sacrum. Ready? Maybe a little more flow. Look at that hand.

Open your body. Take up space. Take up space. Bend the other elbow. You're right up on your sitting bones. And we take up space, and we take up space all the way through saw.

You'll probably have more range It's amazing how the body does that. Fascinating to me. And come back, lean first, flex. Get position. Solid feet. Other hand leaves.

We'll do 1 slow and 1 a little quicker. Try to stay eyes on the hand. Your spine will follow you. I promise. I promise.

Start to bend your push through arm, look straight ahead, reverse, get on your sacrum and post your rotation, look up at your hand, The spine is going through rotation side bend. You don't even have to think about it. Just watch that hand. I think a lot of us will say the spine will go where the eyes go, and I do think that's true. Ready to go again.

So regroup. Look. I just had an adjustment in my spine. That felt really cool. And I'm just going around.

Oh, I gotta pull the bar down. I'm up on my sit bone side bend. Then I look I get on my sacrum. Take up space. It's a really open gestured exercise, for sure.

I feel so good. And lift it up. Okay. We're nearly ready for tower with no springs. I love a tower with no springs, especially as the end. And I do know that towers generally done with springs.

You don't have to always do things. The way you learned them, dare I say that, I just did. We get options. Also, I'll do say my body's changing. Sometimes the spring doesn't feel good.

That's what I know. Sometimes no spring I smile in my body. Sometimes the spring, oof, not so much on any given day. It's just what it is. Okay. The way I set it up, those full straight arms, there we are again.

We've been there a few times. It is really interesting though with no spring because It's like a reflex. Guess what has to work hard, though? Your feet, the connection all the way because you have no spring to help hold you here. Quite nice, I think. Okay.

Parallel, bend those knees. I'm going to peel up rotating. I really wanna get on my shoulder girdle. I need to do some wiggles into position. I wanna get more of a dial of my pelvis So my sit bones aim toward my heels.

There's my lower back stretch. Come on. And then 3 times, we extend and bend and stretch. Kinda neat how I've done no spring tower before, so you've all seen the filter. Now when we start rolling down, push with your arms, see how much space you can take up on the mat. You're not fighting a spring.

We could do 3 total. I'm just doing 1 more today with us. So feel that tail get all the way down. There's a little more tailbone. Little more tailbone.

There it goes. Flexanese, and we curl. There. And 3. And 2. We've just built a beautiful tower. We've built building a beautiful body, strong, fluid.

Take your time. This is the last exercise. Take your time. Wait for your Pilates to show up or finish itself through every nook and cranny. They're all important.

There's a little more effort there. The tailbone stretch. Gosh. Take your arms down. To finish, just take the bar, use your hands, place your feet down on the mat, everybody. Just take a moment. It's a gratitude moment.

Our bodies are fascinating. Honor every time you work out. Honor every time you come to your session or your class or your workout because your body is different every time. Acknowledge that and have fun. Let me know how this felt for you, and I'll see you soon. Bye.