Class #663

Full-Body Reformer

55 min - Class
104 likes

Description

Amy offers a full-body program with smooth, clear instruction and transitions.  This workout will leave you feeling strong, stretched, open and tall.  Integrating a blend of traditional and creative exercises by bringing in supine scapular gliding, more hip hinging while sitting straddle on the Reformer for glute and back extensor focus, varying arm positions in familiar exercises, etc. you are sure to feel your body deeply.  By varying the exercises, you're sure not to get bored and you'll indeed stay tuned into your body's full potential.  Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

About This Video

Mar 25, 2012
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Transcript

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So we're going to do a little reformer workout this afternoon and I have, we have Assad three reds and one blue spring on our balanced body reformers and let's start with our head rest down is a way just a little warm up and heels can be up on the bar, three to four inches of space between. We're just going to warm up the spine in a few different ways before we start our leg presses. Chance to get centered, feeling our body meet the mat. Let's take a couple of deep breaths, trying to feel that widening of the ribs in toward the inner arms, that Nice, strong but easy exhaled connect down into those abdominals [inaudible]. It's kind of settling in. Let's go one more and on this exhale, starting a nice, just a gentle pelvic curl. So feeling the tailbone leave, lumbar coming through around flection.

I'm just going to go about halfway up for myself. Take it where you need to go. Inhale and exhale as we go back down. Chance to kind of check in on your body. Notice where things are maybe already nice and mobile or getting warmed up again. Exhale, feeling a little warmer. Inhale and Exhale, rolling down.

Noticing if you're going down the center of the spine. If you're a little heavy on the right or left, let's go again and exhale. I'm going to go a little further up this time. Start to press a little energy into the back of my arms against the mat. Get that Nice lifted ridge line. Inhale and exhale and relaxing the sternum inward.

If it could go through the body to the ribs, to the back, to the mat, each vertebra coming down, segmental Li and just one more until forget to work that inner thigh connection just a little bit, keeping our tracking honest and parallel so that very long spine through our body, pelvis reaching toward our knees, arms pressing into the mat. Slightly inhale there. Exhale again, soften or sink. That sternum. I'm trying to connect to the idea of widening the back as we rolled down, keeping that sense of width. Take another breath and then just x. I'm going to have us actually put our feet a little lower on the bottom and platform here into yourself, away from the shoulder. Rest just slightly. We're going to do about four chest lifts and just exhale, reach the arms down toward the end of the carriage is that sense of reaching [inaudible]. Same thing with the sternum, dropping it in and then rolling the body back in. A warming up the spine from both ends is exhale and curl.

Sort of broad in our chest in a nice reach through the arms, good level pelvis and we roll it back down. Inhale, slide of the shoulder blades, the reach of the arms, dropping into neutral pelvis and I laughed at myself because it wasn't in neutral. Inhale, and one more time. There we go. Now bring the knees in. Just press down on your shins just a little bit. Roll the hips up slightly, see if you can get a little more deepening into that core and then roll your body back. We're ready for some footwork, so we'll pick up the pace just a little bit. As we're wrapping our toes into the prehensile, I'm going to take our 10 extensions. Inhale. Here we go. Press Return.

Yeah. So we've warmed up the spine, got into some mobility feeling in the back of those upper legs. Also trying to reach the back of the legs down toward the mat or down toward the floor. Heels underneath the bar. Two more and stretch and last one stretch and in, let's do a little transition point. The feet lift, flex heels to the foot bar and inhale, stretch, return. So those abdominals, trying to get them a longer feeling of lifting out of the waistline long all the way around, not just in the front, the sides as well as in the lower back. Okay.

Taking any kind of compressive feeling out of your back like some strength and stretch the last one and and same transition. We'll point the toes, legs to the ceiling, rotate externally and let's do a little flex. Bend the knees to the foot bar. Parallel or slightly turned out. Inhale. All right, so a little more focus coming into the back of the upper leg. Up Higher, maybe the bottom of the bottom. High rear thigh. Hi inner thigh. And that relationship up into those abdominal muscles.

An internal lift. Pull up three more shoulders pressed back, arms slightly pressing into the mat. Here's our last one and reach her. Now we'll take a transition up to second position. Peel the toes, extend into as to a little mini straddle. Flex the feet, heels to the foot bar. I'm going to just going to peek up and make sure they're planted evenly. I'm not too turned out and drop. Here we go. And inhale and yeah, just keep evaluating your level pelvis.

Sometimes it shifts a little bit back and forth. Let's keep evaluating if you can lower that pubic bone. Okay. Be afraid to use your quadriceps to help pull your legs up. Hello?

One more and in. And here's our last one. And in similar transition to come back into the end of the center, legs open. Now I'm bringing them up together. Just flex the toes, bend the knees and we're placing high a metatarsal. So we're high on the ankles there an inhale, stretch and return. If it bothers your knees at all to be up this high, you can just simply lower the heels a little bit.

We're used to this high heel position, so we're okay and have you think about bringing the energy in the inner thighs. Now a little more together. Connection back of thigh into inner thigh. [inaudible] just two more and down. We're going to stay out here. We're going to go right into a little prancing series.

Let's drop our right heel, reach it down. Eight little pulses of the heel, not the big poles up. So we have a little one and a two and three for five other side and one both feet though are pressing evenly into the bar. Now let's go to the right for, for down to feeling the feet as wide as you can. Left side one, two, three. Let's repeat the fours to spread those metal tarsals and four. Let's go to twos. One, two oh one two up. One, two, up and one, two down. Just eight singles. Down and up, down and up. Three, four and five.

Six, seven and eight. N Lift. Seal the legs together. Bend the knees and come all the way back. Okay, so let's come up and change the springs for single leg. And I'd like us just to do two red springs, maybe two written in blue. I'm sorry. Okay, down we go again. So the single leg, I want to start with the heel on the butt, right heel on the bar. But instead of having it parallel and in line with our sit bone, move it a couple inches out to the side, the right side externally rotate slightly.

And then left leg is tabletop. So we've got a little asymmetry in the legs, but it shouldn't be asymmetry pelvis of course. So we go, we're going to feel and work a little more on the external rotators that low but high rear thigh. Whoa. Okay. And for Rez and in, what do you have to use in the center of the body to keep that pelvis? The level certainly is not just abdominals, his back muscles, his deep motivity muscle fibers and getting that good hip flection do more using that high rear thigh and the quads. Okay. Same thing. Left heel, slightly open, right leg parallel end Pereiz away reach and yeah, this femur just nicely dropped. Seated nicely in the pelvis, in that socket. Don't forget those arms light, press into the mat and two more pressing out.

And then last one, press and in. Okay to a parallel, right ball of foot, left leg, tabletop pulses. We're going to go right into our progressive pulls. Here we are an again evaluating your level pelvis. Have you started to tip? If you did, just drop your sacrum down and four three, two, one. We're going to stretch all the way out. Just lift that leg flex point and come all the way in. Just a quick change, something to do. And here we go. In inhale, inhale, pump that quad. Use it with the back of the thigh and four, three, two, one all the way up.

Extend, flex and coming all the way in. Okay, so let's come up. Now we're ready for some hands and straps and one red, poor Hanson straps, a few abdominal pieces and some arm pieces and we can this time probably bring our head rest back up. We could've done that all the way through that footwork, but we're fine. Okay, the 100 let's grab those straps. Now we're going to start with the arms, beautifully long, the legs beautifully in Table Top and nice that have heavy ribs so that we don't have that lift happening. There is fuel those bones. Now on the exhale, let's just find a chest lift first, assessing the arms, get the scapula placed, and we're going to take our double pulse rhythm and three four and on the fifth breath sequence we change and hold him there again, a time to evaluate the level pelvis dropping this sternum, go lower the legs a few inches. They don't have to go low, nice long reach a little bit lower with the legs.

So adding intensity with the abdominal muscles. Drop that sternum in, curl over that sternum, last place with the legs and hold them there. Bringing that deep strength into your core and last breath cycle. Now let's bend the knees in. Lift the arms back up. We're going to come into the reaching in and out.

So I want to have an inhale here up to the 100 ah Openreach in. We reached back out and we come down to repeat and there's a rhythm. Another chance to watch that pelvis feel and see it. Level one more of this pattern. Beautiful. There we go. Now keeping the head and chest down lower.

Just the arms bend at your elbows, keeping your scapula well-positioned on your back. Check that you haven't popped the ribs. Extend the arms and then straight arms back up. So for more of that pattern, so we have arms, elbows, elbows and shoulder joint. It's a differentiating, some joints and extended long energy and long.

It's really feeling those muscles around your shoulder blades. One more and triceps and whole. Okay, so I want us to open the knees a little bit, somewhat of a diamond as well as open the arms toward a t. We're going to come up to a chest lift. Again, arms will be coming to the body. We'll do a little show Jamal with the legs. So let's breathe in first you get the exhale, come all the way, stretch the legs, squeeze those arms into the body and we cross the legs.

Four, three, two, one. Open the diamond, open the arms, chest down. And Ah, four, three, two, one diamond and open. Two more to go. Ah Huh. Four, three, two. Looks good. Really Nice. Broad chest. Our last one. And Ah, stretch, stretch, reach. We do the fingers, diamond and open.

Knees that Gyn elbows in. Okay, good. Now let's move away from the shoulder rest a couple inches so we're not against them. And reach up to the, I'm going to hold on the very part of the topic. Canvas rope or the strap by the d-ring and open the arms to a v a high v. We're going to bring our legs back into a tabletop. So this is very much about Scapula, really just sliding those Scapula, the shoulder blades on the back, but without bending the elbow.

So we want to stretch those arms and again, evaluate the ribs. Where have they gone? Where should they be? Let's take a full breath. I'm reaching out toward the sides of the room. Arms coming down by the body. By the time they're down, palms face up. So you're getting that external rotation of your upper arms.

Scapula plugged into the ribs and we go back out. [inaudible] full breadth to come in. [inaudible] full breath to go back out. [inaudible] so muscles mid back, low Trapezius, external rotators of the shoulders going back, open. [inaudible] let's go one more. Just the arm part.

The scapula part without adding the chest coming up. But what's nice about this one, we'll add a chest lift and you'll start to feel more oblique work with it. So we are coming up. Ah, feel the wrapping of those obliques right in the sides of the body. Feels good. We open and the re more.

You certainly could start adding some variations. Getting creative with where to put your legs. Let's do two with legs going extended just to experience that variety. And our last one. Shoulderblades first body legs. Good. And all the way in. Yeah.

All right. So let's hook these on and we'll come up off of our back and I think stomach massage is calling her name. So seeing on her one red eye per today I'm going to lower my foot bar to the low bar. And you can attach that Wifi. Yeah. Alright. So we're at the low bar, could do high bar and we're gonna set ourselves up where our shoulders are kind of in line with pelvis rather than pelvis in front of the shoulder girdle, right? And then let's find a nice round, see curve and light touch with the hands at the front of the reformer. And then take just a minute, narrow the knees, lift the heels, and then where can we pull in to? We're back. So I'm thinking that lower back again.

And let's just do four with the regular choreography. Inhale, exhale, heels down. Inhale, heels up. Now as you come to the bumper, we're trying to think more hollowing of the abdominals and a little more c curve. Inhale, press, heels under, heels up and pulling our body in. So we only have the one red spring, which is a little different. We have to pull ourselves in more than the springs pulling us in to get a wide open c shape in the spine. Now I'm going to have us take our arms forward and do a little variation. So reaching the carriage back, bring the body up, arms coming with us.

Arms are going to go out to the tee or sides and then contract to come back to the front and again, push. Oh, that's fine. Arms float. Open Up. Can we lift internally more as we see curve? Two more to go. 4S and up. We've taken the heel drop out of this pattern and lift to come back in. Last one. Prs. Reaching ourselves away from that spring up.

Now open the arms. I'm going to have us change position. Fingertips behind us. Propped up. Come back into the stopper. Yeah, so without, I don't have any hands back variation here. Bend those elbows to open up the chest and prop up. Get up out of that low back so we press back into the heel, lowers down, lift again, zip up and return low lift and come back.

Trying to stay decompressed. So difficult. This is a tough place. Good. We're going to keep the legs going. Just start reaching the arms forward. No more heels. Let's just keep going. We're reaching. We want something in front of us. Pull ourselves away from it, but we reach toward it again and now adding a little rotation, but from folded elbows.

So to the left, press n rotate. Return d, rotate lan, rotate. So being able to rotate, staying vertical in our body without leaning back, leaning forward. Lot of work, of course, not just in the abdominals, but our friendly back extensors. Let's change arms two west. The legs are nice and glued at that straight time. Squeeze. And then heels haven't dropped.

Twist in and rotate and in. Now let's go ahead and put the hands on the bar. Walk your feet wider. Yep. And then push the carriage back. Lead with thinking of the stomach, back, stomach, back, stomach, back, and head through the arms. If that does not feel weird on your neck, it doesn't feel weird to me today. So I'm gonna let my head go down a little bit. Now again, play with your feet.

Paz, foot position. I'm gonna drop my heels a little one. Didn't enjoy the calves the whole while though. I'm still pulling back through my middle. Now as we bend our knees to come to the bumper, lift those knees up toward the sides of the arms and now is where we could get a little bit more of that lower back curve. I'm going to walk my button a little bit and then pushing back stomach is leading me, lowering my body even lower this time trying to enjoy some more hamstring stretch. Inhale, exhale.

Leaving the belly back a little more. C curve. Let's take it one more time. Getting lower, enjoying that stretch. Breathe and exhale coming forward all the way. Relaxing the shoulders and let's come up to a vertical. Okay, a little gumby moment. Now, a non gumby mode. Well, it will be in the hip so you're going to move ourselves back away from the front. We've got about a foot probably there that might be a little generous. Okay, and let's just look at feet for a moment.

Very easy to overturn the foot at the ankle. We're not looking for that with the foot. It's more of a hip opening exercise so you can actually modify the foot angle. Technically we're looking for that knee over second toe. Yeah. And you can bring your in to the reformer frame. That's fine.

Or you can actually have a little space. Whatever feels best because really is good at, you're going to be feeling here. Muscles will be feeling are in glutes. Okay. And your back. So let's do a little check fingers on Asi es ribs with the thumb. And we're going to take a breath in on the exhale is a hinge right at the hip joints without disturbing this relationship, this line.

And how far can you hinge is the question. And keeping the knees open, keeping the body long, the abdominals zipped. Oop. And coming back up. Good. Just a couple more there. So on the way down or forward with the chest, can we use the glutes and back extensors more you'll get, it's about that length from tail through the tip of head long, flat spine and return. Does that feeling okay? Good. Okay. Yeah. And again, so probably be our last one, just preparing for it.

So I'm gonna have us lightly put our forearms on the bar and I'm gonna have this. Take those hands back up to palms face up to Rayanne. Reintroduce the external rotation. Now let's do a percussive rhythm, squeezing the glutes, trying to press her thighs back. [inaudible] oh my gosh, good. Zip up the belly and squeeze [inaudible] and eight, seven, six. I'm thinking muscles squeezing to move more. Turn out now holding that work.

Let's reach the right arm forward and up a little bit and find that relationship of moving the shoulder blade down and then bringing the arm down other side forward with the arm up with the arm and down. Let's do a single again. Exhale, [inaudible] and lower. We may do a little rib check. Okay. Single-Arm is not as hard as two, so we'll add our two arms reaching forward and up and a forward and down total of four. Now what I would like to encourage before we do the last to unweight your butt a little meaning, stand into your feet a little bit and try to more as if we were going to do this. Standing with an inch of our space underneath us like that. We won't today. Let's hold. Could we hinge a little more?

Open the hips, dropping their shoulder blades. Let's hitchhike the thumbs for a little rhythm. [inaudible] and for lift the sternum. Last one. Now hands behind head. Take a breath. I want you to exhale. End his round for a moment.

Oh re and Xcel reach back and did that extended hinge position. We're going to stay in then hand. That's beautiful. Lift. Inhale. Now let's exhale. Rotate toward the left, keeping that right thigh pressed open. Beautiful. Inhale Center. So a lot of activity in the butt. Twist in heal center and again, axial to West's center. [inaudible] and no, I think about it four more times.

We're left shoulder blade initiating a little rotation back of head pressing slightly into the ham. Yeah. Two more. One each side. Lifted inch twist and center. And once again, let's round lower your hands and walk your feet narrow and just come up a little. Yeah, I don't really wake things up. Good. Okay. So we're gonna stay on our, um, we're actually gonna change to blue spring. I would like us to lower the bar and we're getting ready for some long box. So here we go. So taking some uh, pulling straps, little variation.

So I'd like to set myself up a little different. I'm not as far out over the edge. I've got my underarms right in your, in the corners. Hands are again really on this rubber grip. You can certainly go up to the rope if you want to go that high unless you can a little hamstring connection and check there. Dropping the chest over. And once again, that scapular warm up a moment ago. We're going to put it to use here. So first thing, scapula drawn down the back.

I want you to bend your elbows now, pulling those elbows quite up to the sides of the back. Begin these swan or the upper back extension as we're going into that, the arms can extend. I don't think you need to go too high. Think about equal work of going high and reaching long and then bend the elbows and lower the chest all the way forward. Okay, go ahead. I need to do a little hair check. That's fine. You keep going. Long extension. Inhale, bend and reach forward.

Beautiful. Again. Elbows pulling right into the mid, the sides of the body. Enjoy reaching your chest forward long and down. [inaudible] and then join yet for two more. Let's see if that we can stay and elbows. So the upper back extension invites the elbows to extend and return. Okay. Last one.

Yeah. Stay up there. We're going to move into the t press. So opening the shape, arms are wide to the sides. Palms should be facing the floor. You can have a palm open or closed. Try to widen your shoulder blades. Even here. Five repetitions is exhale. Bring the arms in. Inhaling open scapula first. Okay. And open thinking. No. Lifting that chest phone.

Two more. Last one just to seal the deal. Five tricep, little bend of the elbows. Yep. And five times extending back. One scoop up those abs supporting your lower back too. Three and for, and the last one in five arms can be straight and come all the way down. Okay. Goodness.

So you can look the straps over the posts. We are going to flip over to our back and I want us to set up, we're not gonna use the straps for backstroke, but we're setting up as if we would be ready for that. Exercise and shoulders are right at the edge. Knees up. We're in our little dead bug position, so backstroke, arms and legs, open arms and legs. Now the legs are going to go forward. Arms are reaching toward the shins.

Can we pull that sternum and can we go a little bit higher? Now stay up there. Pull even more in as we return. Inhale, arms and legs reach. Go a little higher and back down. One more and open. I'm going to have us pause and reach almost like we're coming up for teaser, but not quite. Now bring your right leg towards you. Left leg down. Stay up with that chest. Lift, square that hip, and let's do a little scissor pull. Pull.

So the leg that's pulling down, we want to feel and work that hamstring. Little Low glute [inaudible] good. And four and three and two. Last one. Let's come in and rock ourselves up. Okie dokie. Good little short box.

So we're going to turn it, turn it. Okay. And all the springs. Just because rob our strap, you're going up for climb a tree. Okay, so kind of tree. Let's work our right leg first. So let's uh, take that right foot out. Even that as a chance to evaluate where is the pelvis? Can we sit evenly on those sitz bones? We've got our hands behind her thigh. And once again, just almost like we were in our stomach massage.

That's real lifted sitting posture. Let's check into our flexibility and extend our leg and knee. And then each time we lift, stretch the knee. We want to think, can I get taller in my posture? Last one, press walking the hands down. Calf or ankle, little flex and point. Inhale and exhale. And how about one more? Flex and point. Okay. Bending the elbows, getting that leg to come closer to the trunk and then straighten the elbows, lower the leg and lower again. All of that really beautiful, lifted strong back that we have. And our last one, I'm going to have a stay here.

Inhale XML, flex the tour. So toward that leg. Check it. Take a moment to sit on that right sitz bone. Okay, breathe in. Now, here we go. We're taking our shape back, round the pelvis under. I need to scoot that hip, but on the way back I'm also thinking and reaching that Sitz bone out toward this front wall. Enjoy this for a moment. Also, this wonderful quality of stretch across this hip flexor and quadricep. Okay. Now if you felt like going any further, maybe just to hear just hands to the upper back leg and pull the shoulders back. You don't have to go into the upper back arch, but if you wanted to you could put your hands on the side of the box.

A little safety check. I like this actually to open up my sternum and my chest. Breathe the exhale, the chin to chest. Drop that a sternum in and walk up. Now I want you to flex that foot. Pull on in a little bit and trying to get your body closer to that leg.

Let's go back again and you're getting a little more limber, reaching that sit bone forward here. I'm going to go all the way to it. You can take your hands back if you want a little more reach, they can circle and walking out. One more. Let's walk down. I'm going to do the first version again. I love this. Just press my elbows a little bit into the Bach for that upper back extension and who walking up close to that trunk.

[inaudible]. Okay. Same leg externally rotate your femur. I'm going to have a spend our left knee a little bit there and there's hold onto the foot. We've got my left hand on the heel of my right foot and we're flexed whenever you want to do with the other hand. I feel like I just need to pull on my toes a little bit and this whole that.

So a lot of things could we could be doing. I'm just going to have us hold and breathe into the stretch. Maybe think of pressing this femur down a little more. Feeling the strength again around the shoulders into the back and then taking that ankle onto the knee and going even further. Good old classic. Figure four can experience it with your arms, a little lower, relaxed if you want. Well, then of course our left leg. So up we go.

Okay, so hands behind the left thigh tall in this posture. Here we go and extend. And then sitting taller and stretch. Really feel in those hamstrings. Lengthen. I feel a little quad work to support that knee. And then hands to the calf or ankle.

Evaluate your posture and flex and points. Pressing the airway. Healing the toes. Last one, I can. Good. Bend the elbows. We bend. Pull that leg in and lower. Exhale. I think it those abs to help. Last one.

And we're going to hold the bend. Flex the torso. Inhale. Now we'd come coming back on the exhale, stretching that hip or reaching. Flex the other foot on the ankle strap. Got It. And let's just take a second. Yeah, you need to make adjustments. I think so common. Most of us do.

I'm gonna go a little lower. I'm gonna try just hanging out here for a moment to get the pelvic tilt and more stretch across the quad. Hip flexor. Okay. Now walking down little lower. I'm gonna put those elbows again on the edge of the box and just lean or arch into the upper back a little bit. Try to radiate that top leg up to the ceiling. Inhale, and here we go.

Exhale, Chin to Chester's sink in, curled close to that leg. Join the stretch of the hamstrings. Inhale, so the abdominal, it's close to the leg as we walk back. Now the second version, we did a little release of those arms reaching back toward the ropes. Circle. Chin to chest, close to the leg. One more and down.

Once again, press those elbows, open that chest and curling up. Okay, let's go into that. US hear form us so you can bend the knee. Heel is flex. Yeah, just holding on to the foot. Can you do to press that knee a little lower? Sitting up a little taller, a little more shoulder blades on the back connection.

There we go. And then all the way down to the leg and allowing the torso to come down. Good. Oh right. So let's go ahead and bring our body all the way up and we'll fit. Since this leg is available to to come up on the box for short a side overs, we'll go there. So you, if we flex that foot and what I think we should do with their arms, so many things we could do. Let's take our right, the right arm down by our hip and the left arm up underneath toward the ear here. I'm gonna yeah, palm face up.

So find that lean a little to your left, but not really going any lower than that. So we've got this established really long waist on both sides. Now. That's what we come back up to. We're going to allow ourselves to go down a little. You can let your arm go down, bend the top way so it should feel pretty delicious.

This top stretch and then ends. We exhale, reach with both arms to come up to that diagonal. We'll do five of those. Inhale over like listening to the floor with my ear and exhale, reaching and over. Listen and lift. Two more to go and over we go both arms. Reaching is going to help get us to lift up. What is nice.

We're not using momentum with the arms. Here's our last one and all the way up to do the other side. That's a little wicked, Huh? Alright. That got me more than I thought it went. All right, so our long underneath arm long established the reach coming back to this position and in Halo are an exit. Inhale and oh, open without collarbone. Three more. Inhale using those obliques, feeling to work all the way around. Two more now and last time up and rest. Okey. Dokes let's put our box back and we're going to enjoy some feet in straps now.

And I'm gonna put my head rest up for the first part of it. A springs. Let's go to red. Yeah, we should be fine on to red. [inaudible] well no, in a moment. I think if we have to switch them and we'll start in a diamond. Okay. And diamond on the lower, the low part of the diamond. So again, just feeling those feet being supported in the straps, the rotation across your hips level. The pelvis. Arms are down again, just like we started our footwork. Now let's start moving from the hip joints. So we're bringing the legs up relatively.

The femur is like 90 degrees of flection. Now it brings us down, not tugging on the feet here, here to press and inhale, making a little arc through space with their feet and our legs. It's also what's happening with the FEMUR head. It's arking in the socket. It's rolling back, rolling forward and rolling back. Inhale, three more. Last one. Okay. It's going to get a little more intense. So that was, that was hip joint. Now gip joint will make a goal to keep stable.

Now it's the knee joints. We're going to extend the knees. This is a very kind of understated little straddle stretch and then bend at the knees to bring the feet back into diamond. So we're not going any more hip flection at this point. It's just nice and nice. Inhale, exhale.

Wow. So adductors quite a bit. Helping to bend those knees. Lower Hamstrings. How's that feeling on to red? Are We? We're good. Okay. One more time. And then actually, I'm sorry. One more time to open. Now flex the feet.

We're going to do just six here. Pull in with straight legs and opening. Go a little wider on this one. Let those Sitz points. Pony out. Point out. [inaudible] get that stretch and contract. So once again, trying to establish that level plane that the legs should go right across. No higher, no lower open.

Yeah. In. And let's take one more open close, and then we'll head into circles. So first circles is roll the legs to parallel. Point up the middle. We're going to go open circles first. Just a little wider than the reformer. Slightly externally rotated down in and Oh, doing six each direction. Nice glide flow, even quality, have sake room.

I'm trying to get that 90 degrees each time and left that sacred lifts of course. And if we lose that contact, now let's go the other way. Just stop where we have that main contact of level pelvis. So it really could be here for your, you know, depending changes, sometimes day today and open around three more adductors, hamstrings, you'll those abdominal still efforting, pulling up inside away from the pelvis, way from those hip sockets. Take one more circle and then we're going to head into short spine from a diamond position. That's why I think I'm, we'll see how the two red fields, so if you find your diamond and take that head rest down. Okay. And I want us to start from a press down. So we're down here, we're going to establish the diamond shape and angle and not deviate it at all.

Okay. So that's really spinal flection and we're going for, so breathing in, exhale. Here we go. At some point, the sacred [inaudible] has to leave the mat. Of course, coming all the way through. I just feel like you can bend a little more in that thoracic. Now inhale and exhale. So I'm connected, fired into those glutes, that Nice, deep, strong abdominal connection, feeling each bone one at a time, all the way down to that diamond. We'll do six total and exhale [inaudible].

And of course historically known as short spine massage. Not this version. We know, but it does somewhat feel like a massage. Sometimes we use that Mat Shiatsu on yourself. Press into it, feel that level pelvis, press the legs. [inaudible] dropping the sternum, widening the back down. Let's just take one more, Eh and lower.

And then to finish that, I want us to take the legs extended into parallel. Just a nice clean finish. Reach in, take the straps off the feet and let's come in for hold. Mermaid. I'm going to go one red high bar, right hand on the foot bar to start. Right. So what we can think about on this is that right the foot hooked around the back of the shoulder rest and I'm going to have you flex the foot. Just play with a flex left foot back there. Yeah.

And then taking the left arm out to the side. So push away from the foot bar a little. We don't either. One of us have a lot of room to push. Now take the arm up, left arm up, and he'll sit very tall. Try to route that left. Sit bone down and side bend toward the bar and I'm just going to have a seat in the side bend. And so we give a little chance for our left QL or left sits bone muscle and in the lower back to lengthen. Breathe in there.

We're going to rotate toward the foot bar. Exhale, put that hand on it. Walk the other hand open so that we're relatively even on both hands. Now let's come in for back extension. Pull your chest forward through the arms. Lift the chest nice and high. We're going to push back and I'm feeling my the back, knee and foot reaching to those shoulder rests.

Let's take two more. Lift up through the sternum. Should feel a nice stretch on those obliques and pushing back one more time and coming up. Trying to stay even on the hands. Hmm. And pushing back halfway to where we were. We want to change weight. So right hand to where the left hand is. Rewind. No. As you go to the side, Ben reached the hip for the mat to get that hip down. Get that hip done. There we go.

And then keep reaching it down as you come all the way up and counter stretch. Hold the shoulder block, right arm overhead. And I'm going to think of less of a side bend, but more of a diagonal reach. And now I'm going to take my left arm and assist that reach is reaching kind of up toward the ceiling there. Good. Okay. And then lastly, the other side, all right, hand on the bar again, trying to get that foot back around that shoulder rest arm coming up.

Push the whole torso in as nice side, Ben. Inhale, exhale, rotate the torso and that right hand is gonna meet the bar secondhand to the other side. Just take a moment to rotate into that twist feeling even this in your hands. And then coming through in extension, I want to check the ribs. We breathe in and exhale, oh, bleaks going to work feeling the knee. Now I'm pressing my knee back into that shoulder rest a little connection and lower part of the body. That's it.

And coming up chest is open. Even if the elbows need to soften or lube bend a little bit and back a long gated rotated spine and up. Can you lift more? It's the last one for the day and progress. Now we had to move hands to west. Now take a moment. There's that hip.

Try to get that right. Sitz bone hip down, hip down and body up. Find that shoulder block. Lift the torso side bend. Using that right hand and assist. Here we go and finish. Let's just kind of wind up with the standing roll down. Okay.

And you can just stand wherever you'd like. I'm going to stand right there, your breath in, feeling even as on the feet. And here we go. Rounding Down [inaudible]. Well, we got our major muscle groups involved. Let's bend our knees today to do a roll up to standing. Take a nice breath and just feel the nice looseness of the arms or restacking gently opening on that chest and ready to walk through the rest of the day. Okay.

Thank you very much.

Comments

2 people like this.
Perfect session that covers it all. Thanks for reminding me of the side overs - crazy for those! Just need a springs translator - from Balanced Body to Peak ... Thanks Amy....you rock!
Pele
1 person likes this.
Nice and mellow as most of your classes are. Great variations on the usual which were great.
Awesome Amy! That was a great class. I always enjoy taking your classes. Your variations are so wonderful. Thanks!
Jennifer.....thank you.....yes indeed Side Overs are good for us and changing the arms just a little can bring in a new sensation don't ya think?! I haven't worked on Peak so I"m not sure what the equivalent wiould be. Let's try to find this out for you.
2 people like this.
Hi Pele.....thanks for your comments. I always appreciate hearing from you. Thanks for taking class!
Hi Tamara.....thanks for taking class with me and I'm happy to share the variations on theme with everyone! Variety being a spice of life, right?!!
Paola Maruca
Amy is great as always...I had the feeling she was behind my back the whole time since her cues were just right to help me doing some corrections thoughout the workout. Loved the variations, especially on the stomach massage series and... what about the 'hip hinge???' wowwwww...felt awesome during and after. At the end I was flying doing the standing roll down without the minimum effort....thank you Amy :)..
1 person likes this.
Paola......I hope we get the chance to meet in person someday! I so value your feedback and comments, thank you for being so incredibly positive!! Glad you enjoyed the hip hinge section....AND there's more where that came from!
Another fabulous class! :)
Thank you Aliza....and thank your for taking class with me that day!
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