Class #1475

Back and Shoulder Awakening

45 min - Class
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Amy Havens brings us a Reformer workout with a special emphasis on back and shoulder awakening. She uses the wooden dowel as a prop to find awareness through the hands and shoulders, as well as to give the body feedback and the ability to feel its upper back and postural muscles. Amy explores fun variations on Footwork, Rowing, Frog, Shoulder Bridge, and more. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box, Pilates Pole

About This Video

Feb 06, 2014
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Hi everyone. I have a reformer workout for us today using the dowel. We'll be holding onto it for a few exercises. Why I want to use the dowel is to just have some awareness of how our hand is holding it, whether it's holding the Dowel, whether you're holding the surface of the foot bar, the straps, maybe even onto the shoulder rest, so it's going to be there for feedback. For one thing during footwork, I'll have us hold it in our hands underneath. You'll see for some external rotation of the arm for shoulder, for back awakening and back work. All right, so let's get started.

I've got a red and a blue spring and I want you to slide this bar underneath you here, right below, below your sit bones. It's in the palm of the hand to hand his face up and you know my arms are somewhat short. I've been told, I don't know if that's true or not, but right if I don't reach my arms it's touching me and that doesn't bother me, but I want to reach it away from my pelvis just slightly. If you're gifted with real long arms, you won't have to do that. But here it is. How are you holding that bar is adjust your index finger and thumb part of your palm. Hopefully not. What I want you to do is rotate your upper arm in such a way that you can actually feel the Pinky, uh, kind of Pinky tarsal metatarsal.

There are tarsal carpal, excuse me, holding on in contact. All right, roll those shoulders back. Roll that collarbone back and here we go. So we're pressing out now. It's probably gonna touch you there. It's okay. Focus on the shoulder rotation with this [inaudible]. I am still reaching the dowel away from me as much as I can, but with this whole of the Dowel, I'm feeling my upper back muscles, some postural muscles up there and her ass and nine pull yourself in. Last one for 10. We're just going to quickly change to prehensile wrap and one, remember you've got to pull yourself in on these light springs.

The reformer is not doing as much of the work for you or the springs. Anyway, breathe and pool. The dowel is also, you know, it's nice horizontal line in my mind, but thinking about that as my collarbone, it's wide. It's long, broad. It can roll back. It can roll forward. Right now I want to keep that collarbone and rolled back nine and 10 and then just a nice easy transition. Heels to the bar pressing out one reached the dowel away from the sit bones. As much as you can monitor any rib thrusting, but you might also start feeling and tapping into some kind of muscles near the armpit and the side of the underarm all around your into your back.

Start to bring that awareness into the abdominals so you've got your back, you've got your stomach, you've got your hips last too. I'm not going to go into a wide second position here with the legs. I do want us to go back into the balls of the feet and more of a high lift and then extend. We'll take three counts to lower the heels. One, two, three, lift two, three, lower to three, lift two, three and now. Yeah, continuing to feel the effort in the wrapping of the hand on the Dowel, stretching your calves, contracting your calves, pulling your abdominals up long and lean and lift. Let's just do an easy walk in place for 16 changes.

Three again, so the springs nice and light. Create that buoyancy in your body. Got that nice sense of lift through my abdominals, space around my lower back, meaning no compression. Last one, lift and come on in. Okay. Feel free to stay with the Dell. If your shoulders are tired, you can place it on the floor. Let's keep working. No, I'm going to stay on the same springs, a red and a blue turnout and take one leg up into turnout in dance.

We know it is the attitude. You can also just bring from the foot bar. Just raise your foot up. Okay, and from here as you extend your left leg, the pushing leg extend also the right knee, so you've got two straight legs. Now just take that leg in touch and lift and rebound into attitude. Ideally the knees are bending at the same timing as well. They're extending at the same timing and lower and lift and come in three more.

So I'm doing five on each leg. Press lower as your collarbone still rolled back. Is your hand the palm embracing the bar lower last time. Okay. And lift and in. Okay. Changing feet. Just step down.

And here we go. Where's your pelvis? Where's your collarbone and ribs? And we extend. So the standing leg nice and strong and reach out to that foot bar. Lift up to the ceiling, making sure that pelvis does not rock forward back, right or left. You're in control of your pelvis ness. You're pressing your leg through the air, pulling it down, pressing it up as if you have a spring right here and you're pulling the spring down with those toes. Last time for reach, lower and lift and in.

So I'm going to put this foot back on the foot bar. Similar set up. You'll start with that attitude position. This time is you extend the uh, carriage leg. The opposite leg is going to go out to the side. And just back in, pulling in. So I'm using the thought that my quad, my thighbone doesn't go anywhere. I don't do any more hip flection over here. I just keep the thought of from knee to foot and knee to foot. Last to extend [inaudible] and really think of pushing the air away, pulling the air back in other side. Here we go.

Thigh stays stationary. You move from [inaudible], your knee and your knee and your knee and your knee. Pull the Aerion. Press the air out. Pull the air in. Last time and in and close and parallel. I am now going to move my devil just to the ground I want now to feel my hand fully on, but the shoulder still back. All right, take your head rest down for some bridging arches of the feet on the bar. Borrower in parallel. Breathe in.

Now let's just take herself about halfway up our back, just kinda mid back right at the base of the chest wall here and feel those vertebra very solid on your mat and a big effort here. Bringing that in and up and that curve in the lumbar. The other thing is thinking of a hip bones facing the shoulder rest. So you're really in control of that pelvic tilt from there. Take right leg straight up to the ceiling. Nice vertical line.

Five presses with this leg, not all the way out. One pull into and press pull in three. I'm not going all the way up because I don't want my back to do too much work yet. Last two, push and in and push and in. Now going higher. Take the right leg lower and I'm reaching like an Arrow right out across the room. I want to bring it straight up. And here's the fun Pulliam. Amy, come down to the mat. Flexing both hips. Go straight back up.

Ideally this leg like a telescope going straight up. We're doing five of those coming down, pressing up, checking on the upper back. Feel those muscles holding the shoulders back. Press less to one. Pull up. Lot of work on the standing leg here down and lift.

I want you to come all the way down. If you've pushed away from the bumper like I have, just come on in. It's okay. Other side. Breathing in. Same little baby bridge. First hold. Feel they work. Gesture the left leg and here we go. Five little presses. One.

This is your opportunity to maintain all your checkpoints, deepen their work. Three and four pull in and five. Hold at the bumper. Best you can. Here we go. Up the back a little higher. Reached your leg out a little bit more. I'm thinking leg by leg. Now it's coming up. Pull into that bumper. Flex both hips, lower down in a neutral pelvis and press straight up. Telescope that leg.

There's energy but not force lower. Press three more to go down. Stretch. Be careful not to thrust the ribs to get up. Use your pushing leg. Those glutes and hamstrings. Maximize those. There's your five.

Come all the way down and if you've gone away from the bumper, oh well, okay. Come on in. Practice makes perfect or practice makes better. Okay. One red is what will keep take away your blue, everybody dow time. Okay. Headrests stays down. I have my loops ready. Stick a one end through the other end through.

I have my risers down. I just prefer that long legs first. Okay, so set up your uh, your body position. You want to make sure you have enough space here. I'm okay with this thing up. You can put it down if you'd like. Hands on the outside of the loops. Start with long arms, shoulder with the part just like on the Cadillac or wall unit rolling back.

It's that pelvis. I want you to roll it back. I'm trying to tip those hipbones up toward the chest. Inhale, hold and exhale, roll up. We're just do four basic here. Ah, so you relaxed, you can keep your thighs with the work and those abdominals there though I'm stuck is should really be pulling up away from the legs as we know. Sometimes the legs get bossy and they start taking back over.

Tell them to stop instead, reach the back of the legs long. Maybe you want to flex your heels. That could help you and come back up. We're going to add to that, and what I want us to do is hold the flection now, roll the bar in toward the chest, and then reach the bar forward and row it in. Pull the abdominals back even more and reach the Var forward. Eyes are level. Chin is level.

Now, how's the hand on that dowel? Are you evenly pulling on it? Give yourself one more just to check it out. Is your hand even and roll yourself up. Bend the knees. Now tilt the bar to the right ever so slightly. You should still have the same tension on the ropes. Roll back on that. No Oblique rotation here. Hold. Let's do just two of the chest polls.

How's the hand concentrate on how your hand works on that bar? Should feel, even if you've got too much on your son, go to your pinkie vice versa. Roll up to the other side. Little tilt, even tension roll on the diagonal. Two poles in one. So in my mind, I think the pulling of the bar is deeper contraction of the abdominals. When did you each side again. Roll up, turn ready and roll back. [inaudible] you're going to need this diagonal feeling later, so find it now and roll up. Alright to the other side.

[inaudible] so you don't have to go too far back to really catch those obliques pool and in no roll up. What we're going to do next is turn the hand the opposite way. So palm under hold. There is an opportunity or you and your thumb joint more than the pinky finger. Rotate. It comes from the shoulder. Here we go. Roll back. Now I want you to stay there.

If you can have your arms level with your shoulders, fantastic. If you need a lower, that's fine. For curls of your biceps, we have one and open to an open. Remember the stomach can go in more when you fold the elbows for. All right, let's roll up. I'm going to rotate towards you the right. Let's do the same thing. Tilt the bar, roll back. We've got two bicep curls. One tension even on the ropes.

Roll up to the left obliques. Where's the collarbone at? Rolls back a little bit to maintain an open chest and everyone, we're going to take it one more time. Each side, two bicep curls and curl. Exhale, deeper contraction, even tension on the ropes. Lots of feedback from those ropes. Maybe more so with the dowel. Then when you have your poems in there [inaudible].

All right, and last one there. We're going to take this and face the foot bar for some trace that or some, well, yeah, some tricep front. Well you'll see, so I'm going to climb through. Oh, so great. Gracefully adjust. All right and take a moment. Same thing hold and I've got my straps underneath. My arm. Elbow was up on top. Feel the whole, you can diamond your legs or s or cross your legs if you'd like and lift yourself up tall in your back. Push the bar for, let's just do four one from the chest to use that upper back three. What I mean, use it to open the chest.

Here's four. All right. What I want to do, lower down, breathe, and this is like rowing to roll down where your shoulders can you bring them down. Stretch toward the ankles. Now just roll up your spine. Leave the bar shoulder level. Feel it in the palm of the hand. Lift. Now it's okay with me that the straps are on my arms. It does not bother me. If you don't like that, switch your hands in other way.

And let's lower to the hips. Three more. Roll down like you're rolling over the bar. Stomach away from it where your shoulders stretch toward your toes or past the toes. Now where's your hand roll up? Just keep the arms at shoulder level. Now reach out and up a little higher.

Use the back extensors to hold the spine nice and lifted and buoyant and come down last two and round over prs. Now I'd just like to articulate up to sitting vertical. Then reached forward and up and to the hips. One more over the bar. Keeps space in those hip flexors to stomach muscles. Roll Up. Reach out, up a little higher and in, I'm in now going to switch the hands so that my uh, palm is facing front. Now the ropes are on top of my arms.

You see and let's do a little of either salute or from the top of the head or shaving. Okay? Hold your pose. Lean forward a little bit to everybody. Where's the palm of the hand? Really feel? Here we go. Let's do five or five to eight extensions of the elbows to monitoring any attempt or temptation I really should say of thrusting your ribs. Wrap them instead. Okay, elbows back. Let's shoot for four more. So we've got one to let it pull you taller. Three, decompress that spine and last one and four. Okay. Finally, let's come down.

Let's do one more from the hips round over, rolling to basically now it is a little odd with the straps above the arms. Work with it. It's okay. Reach out, do the tail, reach out to that diagonal and just hold. Reach your tailbone back like you could move the reformer backward away from the foot bar because of your tailbone extension. Wrap those ribs lift. I'm going to try to come to vertical. Feel the upper arms. Just sit right on the top of their shoulders.

Breathe shoulder flection. Try five little squeezes. I'm going to think going back a half an inch with my arms. Be careful. One nod into the back muscles. Stop it in the shoulders and three and four and five and rest. Okay, my arms, I mean a little rest.

So put this down on a, the loops there. Put It on the ground. We're gonna move into feed and straps. Now show head rest up. I'm going to go back to, oh, sorry. Stay in one red. That's right. Single leg first. Okay. Take the strap that's on the right.

Put it in the right foot on the right foot. Frog both legs. So this one's got the strap. You may feel like that's where more of the work is going to be. Some of you have seen these variations. It's still working both sides. For me, I feel this side has to go to work. Otherwise I'm gonna over that way.

But yet this inner thigh work has to really come on so that I keep my leg center. Okay. Five frogs. One, pull it in. Press out this inner thigh, staying to the midline. Three. There's so bleak side, very active for okay. In five. Now soften the feet. I'm going to come up. Why don't you also join me two vertical here and then take down the opposite leg. The non attached leg there with the strap. Now hamstrings it, band glutes, hit that scissor slowly change. We'll do that five times. That was one pull down too. Again, this leg has to stay working toward midline four. Oh, this feels good and five and scissor lifts.

Return to frog. Take it off and change sides. Okay, you can place your feet. We'll come back to both feet in the straps in a moment. Make that, get that frog get centered. Here we go. Frogs for one. Ooh, different leg too. And ideally, once again, just like in footwork, the knee should extend at the same timing. You might think that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Obviously Amy, but you'll notice this sometimes there might be a little zigzag going on just due to the strap. Okay. Now up to 90 heavy sacrum, long tailbone, lower the free leg ready and coast through nice and smooth.

[inaudible]. This might be an opportunity to go back to what your shoulders were doing during footwork. What was the upper back doing? Holding that chest. Very open for and five and really reach the return into a frog and hold. Okay, I'm gonna release this foot and come up and add a blue along with that red. And I want us to take both feet in head rest down for short spine. Let's roll out that spine and even our, our sense, just a little bit, three repetitions. Here we go. One parallel.

Lift the hips, make it smooth. Open up the back of these vertebrae like big eyeballs taking a big look. Flex the fee. Come in place. Put the knees near the shoulder rests. Do your version of roll down. You know what I mean? There. I'm going to bring my heels with you, with me for that one.

Let me do that again. If you don't know what I mean there. There's so many versions of the coming out of that when I bring it with me. [inaudible]. Alright, maybe three. Same exact thing. Lyft, how high can you go up on the shoulder blades? Not Straight knee the neck.

Maybe go a little higher in yourself through your waist. Keep that sense of lift as you bend the knees to come down. Roll and roll. We're going to go into extended frog. So place a pelvis neutral. You can adjust your head rest if you'd like. I'm going to stay right there. Open. Now here's that thing.

Just like in the foot work, my thighs should not go anywhere. No more hip flection. Bend the knees. Heel should come straight across to each other. And that is the frog. No more. No. Okay. Push Open. Feisty here. Use Your hands if you want to.

Use your inner thighs and your hamstrings. Those are what help bend our knees anyway. Band extent open and, and the center line and push. So if you want to challenge it, you can go lower. That's just a little different work in those abductors. I'm going to take two more presses out. I'm going to challenge a little wider straddle. Whole the thighs.

No more hip flection. Last time, press and in. So let's reverse it. Six repetitions, five steady knee extension, hip motion, hip and knee. Knee. Yep. You get it. And Bend now, make it fun and fluid with the breathing and open using those strong legs. Last three, no one ever said this. Couldn't be fluid. Right? You needs to be, it's one of our principles, but we don't want to dilute the precision. That is the issue there. Okay. That should do it.

I'm not even going to do leg circles. Do them if you want to. I'm going to move on. Let's put these straps down and take off the blue spring everybody. So I want us to take the long box up, put it up, and I'm a creature of habit. So almost the time, well, that's given. Okay, so this stays up. So my habit would be in it right now to put it down.

I want it there for the next exercise and what we're going to do something a little bit of some teaser work with the dowel. So lying on the box, and this may seem a little odd, but resting your calves on top, but it's not like we're going to bare weight down on them. Ideally, if we've got that sense of lifting, the leg may not feel so heavy down. Okay, that's my thought anyway. Now I'm going to put my shoulders near the back of the box. Make sure I'm pretty square on it. Hold onto the devil once again.

How was your hand on it? I'm going to enjoy arching my upper back over the the edge of the box. If you have a contour box, it probably feels a lot better. Okay. Even let the ribs go a little bit. Now control those ribs. Get 'em in. Get those shoulder muscles working. I'm not going to tease her yet.

Roll Up. Lift a little bit up off the bar. I'm okay that my carriage is moving. I'm okay that my carriage is moving. Breathe into your back. It's okay. Don't worry about that carriage move your body. Okay. Little less rib arch this time a little more upper back extension.

Here we go again. Arms and wrap the rib muscles in on those ribs to hold that flection and around color. Bone back poem is steady. I'm going to take one more roll up. Long legs reaching real nice, open hip flexors and last time up, reach, reaching the knuckles forward. Okay, now let's roll back about halfway, not even halfway. Get into your sacrum and there's that little happy place on this sacred. We can stop. All right now float the legs in. Arms Up.

There's your teaser. Shouldn't have to be too much harder than that. Raise the arms about an inch or two and lower the arms and inter and arms up in an inch or two. Well, it's definitely more than an inch or two and up. Now let's take everything down. We're going to roll up into ATS or now, here we go. Reach the dowel toward the ankles. Hold here. Lower the legs. Now down. Ah, so I've got the Dell here. It's helping me to reach my energy forward.

It's from my back to my abdominals too. Out here. Rolled back long, long, long. We're going up again. The length in here. No grip in the legs. Breathing in. Reach the arms from the back. Okay, I'll twist the lips. Excuse me. Rotate the arms to the left legs to the right a bit lower the legs, lift the arms, hit the other side.

Come to center version two other way. Arms to the right leg to the left. The legs go down. We prepared for it. Lift and center each side. Again, we did the obliques to warm up. We raised the legs, we've lowered the legs. We've moved the arms last one and up and Oh and center and roll all the way down. Let yourself go into a back arch. Let your belly puff a little bit. It's okay if you can get that dowel to the a frame.

More power to Ya. I need more shoulder flection. I'm getting there. [inaudible] and here we go. Moving on. We won't need this again so you can tuck that away. It's coming. Stretch this out for some swan. So staying on the red. Come onto your tummy. Chest right at the end of the box. Hands on your bar. Forehead right above.

Take a second and squeeze your shoulder blades together for a second so that you don't do that again. Widened them. It's as if this, you're pulling this bar wider my mind, and I think that's like a theraband that I'm pulling wide at all times. I'm going to push back, pull in five of these. We had legs are active a little bit just so that they're not dragging my stomach's up, but it did a lot in teaser. I don't need to really overdo my belly and wanting to get long. Here's the last one. Now this stretch is going to feel really nice.

Adjust the collar bone and shoulders. Lift, lift, lift. We all know our swans feel lift lifted. Now I made a little bit of my low back right now. I can feel it. I want to lift and almost put more weight onto my size. That's okay for me. I'm going to come down, bend the elbows back to the bar.

Five total. So I've got four more. Press. Yeah, upper back and lower and in press only go up as high as you feel you have. Control of the lumbar spine. Press might even be just a little one like this. It's fine. Last time or a larger one and down. Okay. And in, so let's turn herself. We're still on a red.

I'm going to keep the high bar up. Turning back around. Same thing. Shoulders at the edge. We'll look in there. The Schindler on the foot bar, lift him up a little so they won't drag. You've got to use your legs. This is just three repetitions of a pulling straps combination.

I do fairly often pulling strips one into the two and down. So you kind of get both things in one exercise here. Now open externally, rotate those arms. We warmed up with it already pulled back in and lower all the way down and just two more and knuckles to the ground. Knuckles to the back wall. Chest is open now rotate the arms, feel the strength here. Use the upper back, use the triceps, use the back control in. Last one.

Chest broad. You don't have to go very high. You were just there. And Swan, let this be about this. Strong shoulders pull back and lower coming all the way down. Okay. Hook up the straps and come up onto quadro pet. Lot of arm work. So we're building some strength. Um, if you feel sweaty, get a towel or sticky here. I'll be okay. I think now I'm short so this works for me to touch my toes here on the edge of the foot bar.

Feel free to make this adjustment or leave it out if it doesn't work for you. Ideally we have pelvis above thigh, shoulder above hand. I'm going to do some hip extension, so I'm going to just push on the bar square. The hips come back in. [inaudible] the challenge for me, many things is too, when I come back to the foot bar, not to get cozy and stigma but back, but I want to stay as if I'm looking right out over that headrest [inaudible] I'm going to take the opposite arm out too, the side.

So added balance. Now to keep the pinky toe on the foot, bar three my left arm is reaching to the window for, feel free to go to the full pointer if you want. And five and in, I have a little transition of threading the needle. Oh, just rotate and up. Stabilize, get ready. Left leg is going to be the pushing leg ready and one so you want to stay evenly weighted on your hands and the supporting me, sorry, excuse me. Some people take off money for that. I've heard studio owners take off a quarter.

Anytime they hear their reformers getting banged around, I should employ that four, five just with the leg. Now stay with that if you want or take the opposite arm out. Have a little fun with your balance to keep squaring those hips. Three pinky toe on the foot, bar four and stomach is up and in five and in hand on, and let's do a little thread the needle. This hand goes under. Just stretch the side of that shoulder and come all the way up. Okay, let's turn sideways. I'm going to face you.

Come down on my elbow now onto the head rest and it's straight shoulder right above the elbow. Now you can also do this from your hand up here it, but your ha, your risks might be a little tired by now. This is also a little bit different just with the the abdominal work. I'm going to have this to feel free to adjust your head if you need to, but I want you to start with your head reaching long. If you need a break, you can bend, but I may not feel that hot. Okay? Look down your body. See your legs. You should be able to see them. If you're not, can't see your hipbones. They might be behind because you're arching your back.

So give it a squeeze and bring your hips forward a bit. You want to be right on the side. Just like in Mat work course. Here we are. I've got a lift on this side, just enough that I'm not resting on the box. So I want to keep my thighs where they are. Again, just like I did in some of that strap work, Ben, the knees bring the heels toward the bum. So in regular mat work, we know double leg kick. Think of that.

We always cue that the pelvis should stay flat on the Mat. Lift your size. Well here's the mat. Pretend I'm bringing my heels to my bum. Okay. So I'm going to do that total of five times and here's three. Use The obliques are working for us. What? I want my hamstrings, my glutes are working fine for one more time for five. Now keep them back, the heels behind.

See if you can raise your thighs and lower five little extra deeper contractions of those obliques down. And last two, three, one. Keep the feet behind. Four and last one eye and that's it. And rest. Okay. Sweep the legs around aside. Bend [inaudible]. Just a nice transition. We'll do each side, nothing fancy. And then face the other way down on the elbow. Start with your legs extended.

A little lift in your support side. Not Too much. You still want to have evenness on this side as well as the side legs, extended contract, those low glutes. Just a little bit to put those hips into a deeper hip extension. And then here we go. One extend to lengthen Ben Lincoln.

I'm thinking from my abdominals, even actually from my ribs to my abdominals. Yeah, and for stir. Rach, hope you're doing great. I can't see you. Here's five. Now you're going to keep the legs behind. Try to lift the legs a little higher by contracting your waist, not shortening it. Just lift the thighs down and lift like there's a little string from the obliques and the knees and three and four and last one five and down. Swing the legs around. Place yourself on the box side, bin toward the foot bar and then away.

And then we'll be taking the box away. Okay. Just an easy transition. Let's do just a little bit more weight bearing. Uh, UB stretch three is a name. You could give it a little plaintiff pyramid. Hi, I'm head rest up and let's go with a red and a blue. We're nearing the end of this workout, so hope you're ready. Let's climb up.

We're on the balls of the feet. Heels are back. Really feel again. Steady foot. And here's that hand on the bar. I really counts here so that we're not rolled in in those shoulders. Rotate. Feel the palm even, right? The whole thing. Just like you were holding that Dow Wall and you're not too flexed in your wrist. Lift those up dominoes. Lift your hamstrings.

So I'm going to push out to the plank position and lower my hips and let my chest open. It's going to be back away from the foot bar, not vertical over it for by any stretch. I'm going to hold for a minute. Feel now what comes in. Kerogen stomach goes up, hamstrings, go up, strings come up, five of those. Here we go. So you've got use of those obliques, those abdominals, those back extensors, your legs, your hips, everything last too. Okay? Push the bar away from you as you bring the carriage under you so that you really stay in command of how your hand is on that bar and lift.

And that's that one. Now put the right hand in the middle of the bar. Keep your left where it is. And I want you to take your right foot. Need a knee first and then come up into arabesque with an open hip. Open it up for a purpose. Okay, now I don't want us to do arabesque that open.

I want us to bring that right side of the back around so you can keep your leg externally rotated. But try to square your trunk. Okay, hold on. Feel how your right hand is on the bar. Is it embracing? Can you wrap your right rib cage around you a little bit more? Can you wrap it a little bit more? Try One more effort.

Those left hamstrings should be nicely stretched. We're not going to do anything other than hold this, contract the glutes and try to go half an inch higher or an inch. If you're like me, you want to go more, go, go, go bend the knee and put it down other sides. So stabilize the right side. Gets centered, left to right. My left is [inaudible] in the middle of the bar, right is on the sign.

I'm going to go knee. I'm going to open the pelvis for a reason. Just get it out of the way. Open it up. Okay. Cause some of the fun is merging into this squareness so I'm trying to bring my left back toward my left hand, if that makes sense. But keep the leg extended. I'm trying to touch the rafters with this left foot. Even weight in the hands, wrapping the ribs, contract the glutes. Go for like a half an inch more, one inch more full breath, and let's bring it down.

We're going to come off of the hands and we're almost done. We're going to do a side split. I'm going to lower the bar. Finally, I'm going into one spring back on the red and putting the foot up on the platform and then halfway out for me feels right. Feel free to go further over if you'd like to, and all I want to do is first just open the carriage up. Just open it up and hold.

This feels stillness for a minute. All right, and then I'm tipping over hinges at the hips. I want to put my hands on the frame and just hold there. If you can challenge yourself to put more weight forward on your hands, Eh, trying to hold a carriage steady without rotating or supinate and pronate in the ankles is strong from your hips. Take one arm and rotate toward the ceiling. I want to try to keep my crown on my head facing you, although I don't want to drift toward the foot bar or over there to the shoulder rest.

I want to centralize my access toward you so I may not rotate as much as my mind might want me to and I'm going to bring it down or my body rather. Other side, some feeling as though I'm trying just like that. Dow will, I could rotate the Dow while I'm trying to rotate my trunk. My spine and center carriage stays. Still. Pull up through the abdominals. Roll up, roll up center, come all the way in. I'm going to bend this knee. Step backward. We only have that on the other side. Stay with me. Come on up. Foot up, glide out. Hold first. Feel real solid from your hips to your ankles and flex forward.

Hands on the edge of the mat or the, excuse me, the frame. Hello and then one arm, Ahmed you my carriage foot first. So as if I could put my head right out in the water outside, I would feel good. Carriage is still as possible as you've returned that arm. Hold on. Here we go. If you'll even weight into the legs, even work into the legs real even on your feet and come home.

Breathe in. Last one. Exhale, Rola. Carriage stays. Still. Use those hips. Roll Up. No hyper extended knees. Glide the carriage in. Want you to step down and then just give yourself closure with the standing roll down. Take a breath. Here we go. And now, easy knees. Hope you had some fun. Come back for the next one.

I'm always trying to do things slightly variations of theme, just to keep it interesting. Let me know what you think. Thank you.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Let you know what i think ? I loved it, Amy ! Awesome ideas, great cues, thanks for the treat :))
Let you know what i think ? I loved it, Amy ! Awesome ideas, great cues, thanks for the treat :))
love this! enjoyed every second :)
I think it was a wonderful workout after a lonnnggg day of teaching! Every bit of me feels worked. The dowel at the beginning was a great shoulder opener. I think my neck even got longer! And time flew, I was shocked when you said it was almost over. Thank you as always, you rock!
2 people like this.
Can't believe how fast this went! So good! Loved, loved the single leg in strap frogs! And....the teaser with the dowel. Thank you Amy for all of your fresh ideas!
1 person likes this.
Great workout, as always!
Fantastic! Thank you.
Eddie
Great workout !!!
Wow! Fabulous workout. Great explanations and cueing. Nice pace. Love the cues regarding pinkies, palms, etc. I feel like so much of my clients shoulder issues could be coming from wrist and hand instability/weakness/tightness and that those cues you mentioned will help.
Thanks, Amy!
1 person likes this.
I thought it was a fabulous workout wth helpful cues. I tried using the dowel for footwork with a client of mine with Parkinson!s Disease, and she felt that it helped her a lot with keeping her chest and shoulders open, as well as feeling more in control. Thank you so much !
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