Classical Reformer Setup

Hi. I'm Lassel Logan. And today, I wanna talk about how to set your studio reformer up. So it sets up a little bit more like a classical reformer does. This way, if you're doing a classical exercise or taking a classical class, you can be feeling the same things ish that we're feeling on a classical reformer, allow you to really get to understand the exercises in your body and sometimes make it even more possible. And we'll talk about that in a second. First, I wanna actually talk about the foot bar. So on a classical foot bar, it's at a more of a lower angle, and we only have 1 angle.

That's it. That's where it's gonna be. Okay. So with the Phabar on the Superform where you have 3 settings, most people use this middle setting, and it's a good setting, except for that it tends to put your footwork and some exercises more into the quads. And so if you were trying to figure out how to feel the back of your legs, What I highly recommend is especially on footwork and stomach massage, put it on this lower setting. This lower setting is gonna give you lot more range. It's gonna put the exercise, especially footwork and stomach massage into the back of your legs. I promise you you'll love stomach massage more.

At this setting. It's not gonna select, you're gonna tip over. Now if you're tall like me, you can do your long stretch on this setting as well. However, if you're more fun sized for a long stretch, you will probably wanna go back up to that higher setting just so you don't feel so far away from the frame. Alright. But I love that low setting when using the foot bar.

Now the next thing we need to do is talk about these straps. So here's the deal. If you can see the classical straps start inside the frame of the reformer. They're much lower, and that is actually gonna cause a different angle of the strap hitting the body. Right? So especially on teaser and rowing exercises, that strap hits at a different angle. When the strap starts higher, then it's it's just like math, science, you know, those classes that we like to pretend we don't know from teaching boys, it puts the angle higher, and it can feel like it's in your shoulders, And then you're telling clients, get out of your shoulders, but, really, the straps being higher make it a little bit more challenging. So what I like to do is take these straps and put them all the way down on your risers, low as you can go, type Met up.

And then you wanna take these straps, and a lot of people work with the double loops, which is fine. I understand what the purpose is, but if you have the ability to switch these out, I would. So I would switch them out for the handles. You probably can find them on your springboard or your tower, put them on And, if you want, you can even put, like, a single loop on these as well, or you can have these single loops just hanging out on your a peg here so that when you go to do your feet and straps and your short spine, you're ready to go. So now that we've got our handles on, which is gonna give us way more to make this so lovely. I promise you, you'll love rowing, you'll love teaser.

Anytime your hand is in the handle, it's gonna make for a better connection. We then need to make these straps longer. So you wanna pull on this strap so that the ring of this handle is in the front of your shoulder block. And then once you know it's in the front of that shoulder block, then you can tighten that down, hook it on, do the same thing on the other side. And, of course, you'll wanna make sure that your carriage is closed. It's easy when you're pulling on these to open your carriage up.

And then you'll hook that in. Then you can just measure them out to make sure that they're the same. And now you're set up. This handle setting is gonna be great for any time your arms are hands are in the handles. And the setting is really great for when you're doing feet and straps, like frogs and circles or long side massage.

So you can simply put the loop on for those. However, when you're doing short spine and hamstring curls, that's when you're gonna want to shorten your ropes up a little bit so that you can actually still have that tension. So it's the only exercise. It's gonna be a little bit tricky by switching the handles out. Now thank goodness. If you're watching class on pause anytime, you can hit pause for those things and then pull it back in. It's a little annoying, but it's also a much better setup if you have the handles than if you have these double loops.

If you have the double loops, here's what you do. You'll have those on, and then I'll show you how to measure. So the measurement is still going to be with this ring in the front of the shoulder rest. So we're pretty much set up there. Now this short loop will be for your, for your hands, right, that's gonna be really great when you're doing your hands because it's not too long. And this long loop is gonna be for feet and straps you can play with your short spine and hamstring curls in this shorter loop. I still think you're gonna have to tighten the ropes for those just because you won't have the tension you need, but it's an option if this is what you've got. You just wanna make sure that when your hands are in they're really in it, and that pinky side of the hand is working its way up, especially in your in your teaser, arm circles, things like that.

Now let's talk about springs because we cannot set up forget about those. On this reformer, your former, we have green, we have red, we have yellow, we have blue. Right? Depending on what you have, you have at least 3 of those colors. When you hear, in a classical class, they say, all the springs They mean 4. So you don't need to put 5 on unless you have a lot of light springs, but 3 to 4 is really good for when it's footwork running pelvic lift. And what I like to play with is at least 2 reds, sometimes 3 reds and a green, sometimes 3 reds and a blue, And depending on your where your practice is at, maybe it's 2 reds and a green, but you want heavy springs for your footwork. So if you need to add the blue or yellow in there to get that, that's that's great. But, again, make it heavy for those.

If it's too light, it is not as supportive as you need. And you're not able to get that zesty footwork you need to have. Right? Then when you're switching to, exercise on 1 spring, I like to play with the red spring for 1 spring exercise, especially if your straps are this long, it's gonna be a perfect setup. Now if that feels too light and you feel like you're not able to connect into spring, you just switch to the green. I promise you there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with your equipment.

We all have different exercises that are strong for us or a challenge for us. The important thing is that the spring feels like it's working with you. So for 1 spring exercises, you'll use a red or you'll use a green. 2 spring exercises, which there's a a lot of exercises that are 2 spring, I would do a red and a green. So 1 heavy, 1 medium is gonna be a great setup.

Now if you're more on that fun size, 2 rands might be just enough, 2 greens can be really heavy. So unless you're on the taller side, you probably don't need that heavy of a spring because what I don't want as the character to be pushing you around, especially in the long stretch series. So if you can play with your springs and you've got the setup of the foot bar and the straps, I think you'll find that you can flow with your equipment more you can flow into a classical class more with this setup, and you're actually gonna feel the exercises in your body in a really unique way. And you probably won't have to say shoulders down so much. Which is really a really nice treat. So try this set up and then let me know how it feels in your body.

Have fun.