Tendon Stretch

Hi, I'm Benjamin Degenhart. I'm here with Mary for another reformer tutorial. We're going to take a look at the tendon stretch and one of the things that I've feel often gets lost in performing the exercise is we're losing the actual tendon stretch a little bit for the pullup action. That is obviously part of this exercise too. So there's a really nifty way to get into the exercise, really honing in and feeling that tendon stretch before starting to pull up action. This is straight from a the original works. I'm not making this up. Um, we'll see this in a lot of the original footage of Joseph [inaudible]. He's working on the tendon stretch and I think it's super useful for the exercise.

So you can tell that Mary already sits on the foot bar and not just on the foot bar but slightly in front of the foot bar because in a second the spring tension is going to push right against her and that'll push her into the foot bar rather than catapulting her above the foot bar. We have two spring set up on this grads reformer and they're on the outside. So that her feet have a spot to drop into. She's going to bring the heels down as far as possible while she stretches her legs out. And this is the moment where you can tell where you need to be on that foot bar so that it does support you and you can be pushed against it by the spring tension rather than again, sliding over it from here.

She been turning his back in and goes right back out. So you can do that a few times. When I really like about this preparation, in addition to just giving you that tendon stretch because you can allow your heels to really drop on the extension is it also gives you a sense of how much spring tension there is coming at you before you begin to invert and go into that pike position. Stretch your legs out one more time and this time stay there. Allow your heel to really drop so we can feel the backs of your ankles, the backs of your calves really begin to stretch, right? So the 10 stretches really apparent in this position.

We're going to start from there. She's tilting her upper body forward. She has a strong grip with both hands on that foot bar. She unweighted her hips off the foot bar. She tries to keep the heels drop as the spring tension pulls her in and in. She will have to do the very end of that to come all the way home. From here, she goes back out pushing the arms back and the feet forward and pulling the center up through the window of her arms to come all the way back in. Nice.

Even been through the spine. Let's do one more here. Press it out, arms push back. This is reminiscent of our long back stretch facing the other way on the reformer. We're going to add on on this next one. All right. If you need to take a break, you can always take a seat here. We'll go right into the next variation. She's pushing back out this time with the arms behind her.

She continues to just expand those arms back to find extension in her spine. Rounds the ends of the spine towards one another again and pulls up through the center to come all the way back home. Let's do one more like that. She pushes out through the heels, presses the arms behind her fines, extension through her spine, hip creases. Curl under head drops center lifts her right back up while the heel state drop. Adding one more thing. Press back out.

Find your extension at the end. Looking straight ahead. If your hips clear the bar, begin to bend your elbows. Four mini little tricep dip. Here we straighten the arms, Chin over, chest round your back. Paul yourself right back up. Hips over feed. Last one. Press it away. One more. I've run this, says the last one. Open through the chest, little Ben through the arms. Straighten back up, Chin over, chest.

Lift yourself all the way up to the top and then you just bend your knees to take a seat and that is your tendance stretch with two legs. Now we can go to one leg as well. We're not going to throw the full variations that are available with one leg, but I think even just playing around with a shift of balance from two legs to one is really beneficial. Here are you game you'll try. That's all I can ask for it. Go ahead and find your start position again by being in front of the bar, stretching your legs out to straight, letting your heels drop, letting your body come forward.

Rounding yourself all the way up into your start position. Again, I really like starting it this way because at this point your body has an understanding of how much spring tension holds you in place. She's taking her right arm threads it in between her legs to stick her right leg out to the side and even just this little shift from two legs to one is going to really challenge her body to maintain squareness. Even Wade on the hands from here. Try a little tendon stretch, push through the left heel, lift yourself back up. Think that your right leg is just as actively reaching out to the side as you go into one more gorgeous, and then the center poles you all the way back up. We're going to make our way to the other side.

Now this can also go all the way back behind you, out in front of your, we're going to keep it simple for now and just play with the side variation. The left hand goes right through the legs to the foot bar. Replacing weight on the left. Third. Yeah, take your time. Needle those assistance there. There we go. Good. Now try to keep your hip squares. You set this up.

Push the root of the right heel, both arms, and then lift your left leg and your center up to arrive back to star. We'll take one more here. Pressing out. Nicely done. Lift yourself all the way to the top. Bring your leg back towards the carriage. Take your hand out to the other side of the foot bar. Take a seed, bending your knees and lift yourself back up. Awesome job. That is your tendon stretch on the reformer.