Knee Stretches

Hi, I'm Diane Severino. And uh, the niche stretch on the machine on the reformer is a very interesting exercise and uh, it has a complexity to it, so we all tend to not really want to do it so much because I think it's a little elusive. Is it a, what's it four? Where am I supposed to be? It's something that you really don't do a lot of exercise you don't do in everyday life. That's why we exercise. But this one specifically. All right, I want to start on the machine. We have two red springs and uh, I'm kneeling on the machine. Well, you could see that, can't you? All right now the feet are important. I have a very, uh, a sticky s not flexible fee, but I still work on them.

I'm charting to slide the ball of my foot and real. Some of my clients, my students over the years, they have marvelous feet they can get and I want you to try to, they can get all of their toes on the walk with their heels against the shoulders. If you can do that, you working your feet, which are really important part of your body, right? At the same time, you're getting that flexibility. I'm going to do, I'm going to slide the other foot against it. All right, so now I got my feet as good as I can. All right, you're going to have your hands not gripping too much. All right, but you don't want your hands to be such a focus. It's it's, it's really a wonderful quad. Strengthener wheelies. Awesome Thea thighs. All right. I have two red springs on. All right. Here I am in a flat back release. The first movement of the series is a contraction or around back.

All right, so starting at my pelvis sound again, getting around back the pelvis, pubis bone tilts towards your face. Now I get to my waistline. Now I get to my shoulder blades and my head [inaudible] neck and head last, right? Notice there's this gentle curve, right hook. That's the position. Now what I think is hard for people as we start the movement, which I'll demonstrate with the movement, is if you're not familiar with it, it's just the knee stretching. All right?

It's just the knee. It looks fairly simple, doesn't it? It ain't. It's really complicated. First of all, you know what? The hardest part of my students is to find out where your hips are in relation to your calves. So sometimes I'll have them sit like this and here's me smoothing my skirt. Sorry guys. All right. You're wearing a kilt. You smoothing your skirt under.

Look, I'm really close. I'm like four fingers from my hamstrings to the base or the start of my cap. If I keep this contraction and then I reach my body towards the machine, that's how low my hips are to my calves. You keep that position as you push the knees back and exhale scooping back and exhale in this round shape all quads. What I see a lot of in this round back position is see how my butt just lifted.

And after a while you're just going to keep your buck there. And it's like, what's does the exercise for? Well, with the way you're doing it, it's not doing nothing. All right, but again, let's sit on the heels. Tuck you skirt under full arm extension. You gotta ride through your hip. It ain't moving. Just your quads are moving. You don't bring your knee past that Rod.

Get it and shoulders are pulled away. Are you quads talking to you now? Why not? Now we're going to take the same thing with a flat back release. You tailbone you waistline, it's always an order, right? And so there's a nice straight line from the crown of your head to the tailbone.

The other thing you've gotta be careful of, we're going to do a few in the flat back release again, the knee just comes underneath the hip. All right? There's a rod. Okay, right? Get it one more. Okay. Now we're going to go back to the year round contraction again. And I have a prop here. Every roll of toilet paper.

I know there's a lot to think about in your eyes and twirling, but, alright, I got your attention again. Worked with the toilet paper. Well, you all have one in your house, right? Alright, here's wound shape. That round shape. Wow. You keep that pelvis tucked under and that pubic bone, look, you're the wrong man. No, you have to. Wow. And, and we're, and, and I know it's funny, but see, all right, I'm gonna drop the toilet flat back again. Here's the flat and here you're pulling up now in some of the early, uh, uh, um, Joe [inaudible] pictures, he's, he's actually in sort of his tiger post. He's actually more extended. It's, it's acceptable. So you'll see some of his pictures like here. So the arching, which feels good too, but for our purposes, we'll take it from the toilet roll.

Tarboro on waistline, shoulder. All right. Back and forthright. It makes sense. See if my hips sit and live. The other thing, this is it knee stretch. That's pushing and rolling with your arms. See this is a big tendency to want to do it because you want to get it out of your quads because quads are hurting you right now, but in a good way. All right, and your arms are wanting to take over the work.

Now remember we're not doing high sets of repetitions. 10 in each position. You're out of it. We're not talking, you know, but this is wonderful for the hip mobility. Now if you know injury people, we do, we do not this, you know, cause you, a lot of your students can't or you students can't lay on your knees. But even if try just kneeling cause see how this curve, this is good to stretch those quads here and this position, I find the round back more challenging. You know, I just took my hips, my knees back too far. I have to self at it cause I always have to train myself. Very hard to do. Here's me taking my knees too far back. You know why everybody does that.

Like I just did cause my thighs are getting a little tired. It takes it out of my quads. You keep it in this little range. Here's my hands again, just halfway and keeping that four fingers from your hamstring. Just small to that. And it's no small, powerful quad exercise one. And then sometimes I'll just stretch up, ah, and just get out of the back tuck back stretch [inaudible] this is actually an exercise in bonus movement.

So you pull up and chest opens straight and it kind of feels, Joe knew what he was doing. He was pretty much a genius. So we have to do all that round back like Ah, ah, ah, feels delicious. Uh, pull back. Nice going. Don't cheat this at, your body's going to want to cheat. No, no, no, no. Don't [inaudible] it's eyes are going to thank you. Thanks.