Long Stretch Series

Hi, Melissa Logan, and I wanna talk about the long stretch series. It's a whole series. It's got a lot of parts to it, and it's really easy to kinda get in the wrong places and not get the good stuff out of it. And there's so many exercise on a reformer that if you can get the long stretch series in your body, it opens up a bunch of exercises for you. So we'll start with the long stretch. Remember, the whole series is done on 2 springs. Sometimes I see people play with this to go to one spring that does make it harder.

And you may need, depending on your body, to do a little bit heavier of a setting. So you wanna make sure the springs are something you can work with, but they don't push you around. Know my first time doing the long stretch, I thought I was gonna get flown off the reformer. So that was a good sign that I was in my arms and not in my legs, but we'll talk more about that in a second. So we're on two springs. And set up is key.

Set up of the hands is key. Cause if you set the long stretch up incorrectly, it's going to kinda set the rest of it up. Not so great. So you wanna get those hands on the front of that foot bar where your wrists are nice and straight, and then you take one foot up onto the headrest, And then you take the other foot up onto the headrest. If you are coming from down here into the long stretch, what I tend to see is it compresses the lower back even for an advanced practitioner for myself, I just felt like it was really in my lower back. And we wanna have a long callback.

Because that is key for where we're going. So then with my weight into the balls of my feet, and I'm pulling this foot bar part that allows me to get into my upper back even more, then I can push the carriage out only as far as I can do it from my legs and my center. So I'm never pushing the footbar forward. Instead I'm kinda pulling the foot bar apart so that my legs are pushing the carriage out and in. And I could advance it by taking a leg up.

That's pretty common when you're ready. Then the next key is to go into the down stretch from a transition. So you pull those knees down as opposed to dropping down. And then you place the feet into the shoulder rest. Now I know it's difficult.

We gotta get this foot bent. Alright? It's very good for stretching the bottom of your foot out. This actually will help prevent a lot of foot stuff. Like a plantar fasciitis, you wanna stretch that foot out. So you wanna get that ball, that foot stretch under, and then you want your heel into the shoulder rest. If you have tight Achilles here, you could put, like, a pad that's gonna give your heel something to which is gonna give it something to reach into.

So if I was on my long stretch and I transitioned got my feet there, then I can just pull my hit points up and my heart forward. And, again, watch those wrists. A lot of us like to go back here This is gonna lock out your elbows and you're gonna push me your chest. Get those hands on the front and push with the legs. So, again, we're not going very far because we're using the arms to push us out. We're using those legs to push us out. You should feel really long in your extension.

So we did tall. We did extension. Now we're gonna do some flexion. And so from here with our wrist nice and straight, you'll drop your head and lift your stomach lower your heels halfway and put half the weight in your arms, half in your legs. Too often, we see up stretches up heat, like, way back here, and it's It's not gonna work out well for you. You wanna get that weight here half into your arms and then leave your arms exactly where they are.

So push with the legs as far as you can. You end up in a round back. Kind of upside down 100 is how I learned it, how I like to look at it. And you set yourself back up again. You push with the back of your legs, sink double straight leg stretch from the mat, and then you pull this all the way home.

So the arms will move when you are closing the spring, you'll kind of end up forward of your footbar. And then you lift your waist up, you land back to your start position. Alright. There's an up down combo, which if you're rocking your long stretch, you're down in your up, you can do. You push out. You go from long to down. Then push out in the down, your head goes up and your ribs go up, but you have to be doing this from your center and from your legs.

If you're pushing with your arms, it's gonna feel like the carriage is gonna push you off. Okay? And then from there, we go into elephant, which is so fun. I learned it as a nice round back. So if that's an option for you, do that so that you can actually work just this little move of the carriage while your ribs are lifting up. So, again, we're not back here doing it with the weight in our legs. You want half that weight on your arms, half in your legs. It's gonna set you up for a lot of exercises. Elephant does have a single leg.

I know there are some people who like to do it in arabesque, but most of us are human. And so this leg just reaching out somewhere between parallel to the floor and the shoulder rest is going to set you up for some amazing exercises like tenant stretch single leg back. Control balance off. Right? It's tree. All of those things are in there. And finally, long back stretch is part of your long stretch series.

I know none of us really love it, but it's so good for us. So the same thing goes. My hand goes on with a straight wrist. Then I place a foot. I place my hand and then foot.

So you don't wanna sit down and then push yourself up. You wanna set up from this position, and then you do a little bend of the elbows you push with your legs just like you did in long stretch and down stretch and up stretch and elephant, and then you lift the hips up and you pull it in. So those arms are there kind of like a kickstand to hold your upper back up so you can use your legs. And you'll do usually 3 in each direction. Now it's not the easiest of exercises.

And if your shoulders and upper back connection is on the weaker side or the newer side, or doesn't have the endurance, it's possible that you might leave long back stretch out until you build that stamina up. But please, please, please keep those wrist straight. Move the series with your legs, and you'll find your whole body gets a workout. And you'll start to see these exercises in the series in other exercise on the reformer and everywhere else you do your Pilates. Thank you so much.

Have an amazing day.