Gratitude Reformer

Hello there. This is Leah Stewart here today, and we're going to do another reformer class here on [inaudible] anytime today I'm a theme kind of girl. So today I wanted to pick the theme of gratitude or being grateful. And what I mean by that is having gratitude for your body, for the strength that you have in the body, the ability to move your body and feel good and movement. So that's it. We're just kind of a celebration of our bodies and have gratitude toward our bodies and everything that they help us do throughout the day.

So today it's actually also a little bit of a shoulder III type class. So we're going to be a lot of shoulders. Your shoulders might be fatigued by the end of class, but what's you're going to need for this class is you're going to need at a Dow, any sort of doubt that you have from your other pieces of [inaudible] equipment or a broomstick, whatever you've got available to you, and you're gonna need a theraband. So there's going to be our two pops today and we have our two lovely modals and clients here. We have Francine and Christie's. Let's go ahead and get started. So come on out ladies, and we'll do start with our roll down.

Just want to put this here. Okay. All right, so go ahead and face the camera. Good. Okay. Let's take a nice big breath in and Xcel, go ahead and roll yourself down. So when you're beginning this roll down, you want to just start to, of course, draw awareness into your body where you are, how you're feeling. Take your breath in and roll that and start to kind of recognize the articulation through your spine, through your vertebrae. Good. Inhale, the hinge and the fold at the hips that happen as you go down that kind of drawing in and scooping of your abdomen as you're down that wonderful stretch to the back of your legs, through your calves, the whitening of your feet. Take your breath in and roll. Yes, good. All the way up. Let's do one more and in home and even here in this simple roll down that feels so wonderful on the body.

Just starting to just draw in that sense of gratitude for that movement that you have the ability to fold over at the ability articulate through your spine. Good. Nice. That deep breath. Beautiful ladies. Good. We're going to begin a warm up. We're actually going to sit on the reformer facing away from the foot bar toward the, um, the risers that you're gonna straddle. I'm actually going to bring the long box out so I can kind of demonstrate a little bit for you guys. Um, okay. Yeah, here. Okay.

So I'll face you. So I want you to start and I want you to feel nice and comfortable with your feet on the floor and go ahead and Francine slide back just a little bit. Good. And your hands are going to be on your knees and we're going to start with some pelvic movement here. So breathing in through the nose. With your exhale, you're going to draw the abdominals. And so to roll into a nice post stereo tale, it's good. And then inhale, you're going to articulate through the neutral.

And I actually want you to come into a little anterior tilt. Good and XL drawing it in good. So we love this type of warm up. Good and inhale because it obviously gets the abdominals warm, it kind of opens up. Lubricate that lower back, kind of gets the pelvic floor nice and active. Good. But you can also feel, which we don't talk about a lot, is that movement that's happening in the hip joint. As you rotate the pelvis forward and back, you can feel the femur kind of moving inside the Acetabulum and you want to just feel that warming up of the hips as well. Good and inhale.

And don't be afraid to put a little bit of pressure up against your knees so you can feel that resistance. Good. And inhale backup. Let's do two more Xcel drawing it in. Nice ladies and inhale coming all the way up last one and Gerad him good and all the way back up. Now come to the anterior but then find your neutral position goes.

So watching the rib cage, you're going to take your breath in. The arms are going to come down to the side with an so you're going to extend your legs out and lift your arms up. Good. Let's try that again. Inhale, just rest and Xcel. Extend now feel like you're getting a little bit taller through your spine. You're going to feel your hip flexors kick in, your quads kick in, which is fine and inhale. Good.

This is kind of reminiscent of our horseback exercise that we do, so give it a little bit of adductor squeeze as well. Good and release. Let's do one more and inhale. I want you to hold it now. From here, you're going to twist your spine to the left with the next cell rotates. Inhale back to center, and to the right tool is seeing good. Inhale back to center. Wonderful and feel that that rotation is just purely coming from your waist, from the rib cage, keeping the pelvis steady. Good. Let's do one more time to the right and rotate.

Come back to center and release the legs. I notice his flexors kick in really fast. There. Good. Take your breath in and exhale. Come back up one more time. Now this time I want you to come into a partial roll down and I want you to slide your legs in and I want you to let them just kind of squeeze up against the shoulder rest. Good. Nice. Take your breath in and Xcel roll back up and just come to your straight position. Nice. Breathe in and XL roll down.

Good. I'm going to go ahead and lower the foot bars here for them. Take your breath in and exhale. Roll back up. Sorry. Fancy. So my suggestion would be to take your foot bar down before we began the warmup and XL. Roll down. Good. Get that little bit of squeeze of the ankles up against the shoulder. Rest. Good. Breathe in and roll back up. Good.

Nice articulation through a flat back here. And Xcel roll back to him. Now I want you to hold here. Find that nice s isometric coals. There you go. Nice. Now from here, rotate to the right XL twist and center to the left. Twist. Good. So again, we're doing rotation happening from the thoracic spine, from that mid-back, maintaining stability of the pelvis, recognizing that nice control and steadiness that you have in your body. Good. Let's do one more time each way. Ladies, you're looking great and rotate.

Good. And last one. Nice. Back to center. Take your breath in. Scoop a little bit deeper as you come back up and articulate the spine. Nice. I'm going to play with a little bit of leg movement here. Breathing in and exhale.

Roll back down to a point where you feel comfortable, where you feel like you can hold it. Good. Now you're going to take your right leg lifted up and place it in between on the head. Rest. Take the left leg, lifted up and placed it on top of the right and you're going to go back and forth, left and right so we go right legging and left. Ligon and left leg out and right leg out again and right leg in and left leg and nice and left leg out. One more time. Here and right. Beautiful and left and left.

Nice and right. Hold it. Take your breath in and roll. Self up, finding it sitting nice and tall. Good. Breathe in and come back down. Good. Good. Hold it there. We're going to finish with just some little tiny pulses here.

We're going to pulse one and two. Lovely. Three and four. Very good. So feel like you're a scooping and that you're drawing your rib cage down to your pelvis. One more time. Hold it. Take your breath in and come all the way up. All the way. Finally extension, get a little bit taller. Flex your feet for me.

Good. Take your arms up above your head. Go ahead and let's do a little bit of back extension to finish. So I want you to lift the chest up, breathe in, and exhale, bring it back and breathe in. Lift the chest step, expanding the sternum, filling the scapula. Just sliding down your back. Good.

And bring it back to center again and feel that lift. Trying to lift the upper spine toward the ceiling. Beautiful. And back to center. One more time for me. And lift. Good. Trying to get a little bit of more shoulder flection as your arms come back. Good and rest. Wonderful. Excellent.

We're going to take our dowels and what I want you to do here is simply just take them, take the dow rather, and just loop it in between your two straps. So you're going to hold on the outside and you should be on, I have the spring here or a blue with your on the ballots. Body equipment. You want to sit with your knees bent and your knees. Excuse me, your feet flat. Your knees bent on the headrest? Yes. Good. And maybe come a little bit close to your bottom is just there. Yes.

Good. Okay, so arms on the outside. Got It. You're going to roll back with an exhale holding that. You're going to lift the arms up. Good. Exhale. Bring the arms back down and inhale. Rolling up. So we're getting into our shoulders here and Xcel roll back.

Good. Inhale, lift the arms that feel that strength in the shoulders. Good XL, get a little deeper through the abdominal. Just gorgeous and roll yourself back up. Good. Two more like that. And Xcel rolling back. Good. And lift the arms up. Try to get equal pressure both arms. Good.

Bring it back. Yes. And come back up. Last one here. Breathe in XL deep roll. So we're getting that articulation through the lumbar spine and we're holding it solid. Good. Back to center. That looks great. And come back up. Now what I'd like you to do, keeping your pelvis and your legs square, just rotate a little bit to your right. So you're going to dip that bar down slightly. Yes.

Take your breath in and roll down on the right side. Lift the arms up on that diagonal. Yes. Bring him back. Feel a little bit more. Squeeze in that right side obliques and come back up as, stay in the rotation as you extend when do four of them so XL, roll down. Keep that rotation. Keep that angle of the bar. Good. Feel like you're going to draw your right side rib cage closer to your right side pelvis. As you bring the arms down. Yes and come up good.

You fill those obliques. Good. And Go back down and feel those abductors squeezing tight. You're holding them tight, you're feeling that pelvic floor engage good. Recognizing how your body works in unison here to hold control, to produce the movement. Good up, that's beautiful and bring it back down. Love it and come all the way up and go through the center to the other side.

So find that little bit. It's almost like a lateral flection at first. Then as you go down, it kind of shifts into little more rotation and take the arms up with an inhale. Xcel, draw them down. Yes and come back up. Breathe in XL, makes sure you're keeping those thighs drawn together. Good. Trying to keep the squareness of your feet, your ankles, your knees, your thighs in your pelvis. Nice position. They're good and come back. Good.

Chrisia like that. And now you can go back. Remember, you can go as far back as you know you're going to be able to hold control. Don't think of go. You have to get your lower back onto the mat. That's not the goal here. The goal is to roll back into that posterior tilt, into that flection where you know you can keep the integrity of the movement intact. Good. Back to center and roll that, find it nice and come to center board yet. So let's take the Dallas out, set them aside, and let's turn around and do a little bit of our footwork today so you can choose the resistance choice and go ahead and grab your, uh, therabands. Okay. Wonderful. Good. Dress up. Okay, go ahead.

Okay, so we're going to do, we're not going to do all of our, uh, normal Bassi positions, so we're going to actually start on the parallel heels. So let's go there and there. Yes. Do you want your foot bar up? Do you usually do that or just this angle file? Okay. Okay. Wonderful. So I want you to start with your arms up above your head and give yourself a little bit of room, uh, with the therapists. You don't want it too tight here. So what we're gonna do is we're just in expand the chest and start to get those shoulders. Well, they're already warm from our warmup, but start to work a little bit more, a different part of the deltoids here that we're going to be working.

So take your breath in and exhale as you press out. Open those arms. Good. And then inhale, drop back in. Good XL. So you will feel are kind of the posts, fear aspect of your deltoids working here a little bit, but more than just kind of thinking shoulder work. I want you to think of chest expansion, uh, arms expanding to the side. Yes. And start to coordinate that breath with the movement of your legs and your arms. But you also want to coordinate the legs and the arms.

So as your knees fully extend, your arms should be all the way out to that tee position. Good. Bring it in. Let's do two more here. Exhale. Good. Wonderful. Last one. Exhale. Coming all the way in. Let's go to the toes and now you're going to hold and fix your right arm in place. And you're going to take it out just on the left side.

So breathing in and exhale out. You Go. Good. So now you're going to feel that challenge of working those arms unilaterally. It's going to shift kind of the contraction and the stabilization that happens in your torso. Do you guys feel that? And that right shoulder is going to want to pop off the mat or that right arm's going to want to waiver. You need to really hold it solids, send that energy straight up through your fingertips, but also sending the energy down heavy through the back of that shoulder. Good. And it's very tempting to want to do a little rotation of your torso perhaps.

I mean it's might be slight and small, but make sure that you're keeping yourself square. Thank you. One more time. Good. Excellent. Are going to slip right to the small V and we're just going to go right to the other side. So exhale, press good and Jarden. So knees are going to be open just a little bit more. Good. So start to bring in that rotation of your hip. Yes.

Nice. And notice how that kind of stretch of the theraband. I know it seems a little silly for me to say, but to me it kind of creates that like sense of elongation through your whole body. Yeah. Your body kind of mimics that pole and a last [inaudible] of that theraband. Good. Two more and press out. Gorgeous.

Last one, press. Good. Last position we're going to do here, I want you to go on the Open v wide on your heels. Good. And Flex your feet and drive those heels into your foot bar. Good. I want you to turn your palm so they're facing up and draw your elbows down towards your waistband and do a little external rotation. Yeah, there you go. Good. So get the resistance where you want it and as you extend your legs out, you're going to simply externally rotate your shoulder, keeping your palms facing toward you. Exactly. And keeping the elbows in toward the waist. Yes.

So as you're doing this, you have a little rotation in your hip joint. You have, of course, we're going into external rotation of the shoulder joint as we extend out. And so I want you to feel that sense of wide and open through your body. Good. A few more here. Wonderful. Good. Pressing out. Wonderful. Good. Last two here. Lovely. And last one ladies. Hold it there.

Just hold that position. Good. Feel that length. Feel those shoulders. Think going a little more external rotation deep and your shoulders. Feel how opens your sternum, but don't allow your rib cage to pop off the Mat. Good. And slowly bring everything in. I love it. Good.

Let's come back to the parallel toe position. Good. Excellent. Good. Now this time I want you to loop the theraband around the back of your thighs and this works, but sometimes it slips. So just be aware of it because you're going to try to hook the theraband right under your Tishi. Okay, so we're going to do some lateral arm raises with our calf raises and k. So taking your breath in. So you're going to hold it low, like in a v position and extend your legs out. Good.

[inaudible] and let's go ahead into your full plantar flection. Go ahead and keep the arms there. So lower your heels down with an inhale. And as you plantar flex, you're gonna extend your arms out to a t position. So you want to hold wide on your theraband. Yes, and lower down. Inhale. Good. And exhale up. Wonderful ladies. Good and down.

So that therapist should hopefully be hooked right underneath your bottom there and up. They're both adjusting. They're going a little wider. You want to feel that nice resistance. Good. The kind of, the nice thing about this too, we'll do five more is that that the shoulder rest kind of help you keep that slight depression of your shoulders. So you're, but you're not going to be able to lift fully to that shoulder line. So you can say a little bit below. Good. And press up. So keep that center in tact. Feel that beautiful coordination of your whole body. Good.

Last one and hold it. Keep it wide. Good. And come on and wonderful ladies. Good. Let's do one single leg exercise. We're going to do the toes. So what I'd like you to do, I'll change your springs. Christine is place your right foot up on the bar and your left leg up to tabletop position. Good. And now this time you're going to take the theraband and wrap it around that like okay, good. So we're going to do like mimicking like a row, a row with the elbows in.

So holding your palms facing in toward each other. Good. Getting the resistance that you want. Go ahead. And as you extend the right leg, you're going to extend the left leg and you're going to pull your elbows back as if they were going to go right into the carriage. Does that make sense? Okay. So breathing in and exhale, press back, extend. Good. Exactly. So I want, let's hold here for a second.

Let's go out and legs come up here. So think more of a row here and you might have to widen your elbows a little bit just to get a little more range. Exactly. Okay, so here we have it. This is our position. The therabands should be placed right below your knee on your back of your thigh, on the hamstring muscle there. Good. Then inhale, bend both knees and extend the elbows. Good and XL pool back. There we go, we got it. And Inhale Gerad and and Nextel.

Draw docs. I was a little bit down. Yes. And pull it back in and exhale. How's that feeling? Good. And dropped back in and exhale. So again, challenging that full body coordination. Good. Exhale. Nice. Let's go. Two more here to finish. Exhale. Lovely. You're doing great. Last one.

Good. Hold it there. Just feel that extension. Fill that stream. Gorgeous. And bring it in. Good. Let's switch sides. Very nice ladies. Okay. Now this time, instead of going down with the elbows, we're going to go more of a row out this way out to the side. Out to like a goalpost position. S okay. So take your breath in and with your XL, go ahead and drop back in. So as you're doing this work, as we start to layer things like adding props, adding therabands here, or adding a coordination or more movement of the leg extension, we have to keep those foundational things intact. Like the pelvic stability, the hip, this association, the breadth. If those start to falter, then we need to take out some of the fancy things that we add so we have to layer up our work here. Good.

These two ladies are doing a gorgeous job of breathing deep into that pelvis, feeling that full body coordination and control. Two more here. Yes. Excellent. Last one and take it out. Hold it. Good and rest. Good. Wonderful. We're going to take the therabands away. Now you're going to go down to whatever you prefer.

You can do one spring or one and a half spring for our little bit of a modified hundred prep. Okay. So I want you to take your doubt and place it in between the shots. Again, I'll get it for ya and I'll change your spring. There you go. And we're going to start in not a regular tabletop position. You're going to be in like a little clam position or a little diamond position.

So bring your legs up exactly. Your feet together and your toes apart and arms are going to be straight and you're going to need to bring them a little bit more narrow, I believe. Yes. Good. So as you come up into the a hundred prep, you're going to extend your legs out to a wide v and the bars essentially just going to come down in between your legs. Great. So hopefully works with these longer bars. I think it will. So take your breath in and exhale, extend up.

Nice. Good. And then inhale, bring it back and the XL up. Lovely. Good. And bring it back. So again, we have nice warm hip joints, good and nice steady palace. But I want you to recognize that as you move without the abductor squeezing like our normal hundred prep, there's a little bit more tendency to get that instability of the pelvis. I wants you to hold onto it here. Yes, good. And bring it back. Let's do four more and up school wheezing.

Good. And we have two different positions here. Christy's coming all the way through her thighs to the other side and Francine's just right on top of her thighs. Either one is wonderful. You're doing great. Good. Hold onto that flection as you bring that spine up, drawing the rib cage down, finding that deep flection the shoulders connecting. Good last one for me and hold it now just to finish it. Bring the arms up with an inhale.

We're just going to do four of these I symmetric. Hold and draw down. Love it. Love it. Love it. Good. Inhale arms that and XL draw down. That looks great. Two more. Inhale, arms that feel the shoulder connection. Feel the lats connecting as you pull down.

Excellent Position Francine and arms up shoulder connection and draw down. Hold it and bring it back. Good work. Good. Let's take those dowels out and go ahead and slip your feet into your shops for a little bit of fun. Hip Work here. Beautiful work. So bring the legs up all the way toward the ceiling and rotate them out for me.

Good. We're going to play with just a little bit of stabilization. First we're going to go into some hip circles and then I'm going to teach you a fun one that I've called windmill bet. I Dunno if it looks like a windmill, but we'll see what happens. So anchoring that pell was, I want to play with pelvic stabilization here. So very simple. I want you to take your right leg and just take it out. A few are like maybe a foot, a foot and a half. Yes. And then draw it back with an exhale. Good and left leg. So we'll alternate.

So what I'm looking for here is that as your leg goes out, you're going to create this sensation of getting wider through your pelvis. Because what happens is as we take the leg out, the opposite side of the pelvis wants to lift up. So I want you to feel it anchored. Yes. So you're challenged that unilateral work, but you're also really toying with one side of the pelvic floor contracting slightly more than the other. So you're really starting to get that deep. Nice work into the pelvic floor here. Good. And draw back.

You guys feel that detail. That's happening there. Good, good. And come here now take both legs just twice a little bit. Open. Breathe in and XL. Draw it closed. Good. A little bit open. Breathe in. Xcel, draw close from here. We're going to go circles up.

So we're going to take the eye legs open with the breath in and Xcel close them. Good and bring them in. Good. Inhale. Now as you close, I want you to feel like you get a little more rotation at your hip. Yes. And keep that rotation as you come up and really focus on that head of the femur rolling and moving around in the pelvis. Good. Engaging, feeling that rotation. Nice. One more time. And here.

Now hold this position. Four circles going the other way. So bring it up and exhale going down and it starts to recognize those little things in your body. Like when you bring your legs down, your abdominals want to release your back, wants to arc. Naturally your back wants to say, don't worry legs, I'll help you. But you want to say no thank you. Lower back. My legs are fine. They can do it on their own. My hamstrings are strong, my glutes are strong.

Good, nice, beautiful. Now bring the legs about maybe half to three quarters of the way down. Perfect. Nice. And I just want to play with that little movement side to side here in this position. So right leg goes out. Inhale and exhale, squeeze and close. So the hard part is to move and not lose the tension on the strap. Yes, this is going to be more challenging for that stabilization.

Awesome. So what you can do, the leg, that thing fixed, you can reach out with that leg. Yes. One more time. Each way. Really good job Kristy. Holding that external rotation in the hip joint. Love it. Beautiful. Now three times only open both legs. Good. And Xcel squeeze you feeling that Dr. Work Good.

Open. Now draw that energy into the pelvic floor. Yes. Let that coordination of adductor in pelvic floor where a cap in here and transverse abdominis work. Good. Okay, now we get to the fun part. So open your legs wide and flex. Okay, so you're in a stretch here. I think it's fun. But what you're going to do is you're going to rotate your pelvis. So what it's gonna look like here is you're going to rotate your pelvis to the left and think of dipping your left foot down toward the mat or toward the floor rather than Xcel drawback to center. Yeah. Do you feel that?

And then rotate the other way? Yes. And back to center. So I'd want you to imagine those abdominal muscles crawling across your body on that diagonal and then twisting back. So consider this like a fancy spine to a supine that we normally do in our Bassey warmup is the same idea, the rib cage in the shoulders I fixed on their mat. And you're getting that rotation really at the lower spine initiating from the lower spine and into the pelvis. Good.

And then we add a second challenge to it. So we're going to go over to the left. We're going to finish our hip work here. So to the left here, so you're open kind of this l shape. You're going to circle and close your legs in the center and get both sides of the pelvis down. Exactly. And then you're going to open the legs and go back to that rotation. Yes.

Good and Xcel engage and draw both back. Your hips are going to be down in the center. You can see how they're coming center. Then inhale, think of getting wider and longer as you go out. Yes, I love that. I remember when you out in that position you're in the rotation of your pelvis, so in this case your right side of your pelvis is up off the mat. Yes. And XL drawback and then we're going to go right to the right side and inhale.

Open out to the right. Now this time the left hip is that good and exhale. Now can you feel that coordination of adductors and obliques here go. I keep that top leg rotated out a little bit more like externally rotated. Yeah, there it is. And exhale, drop back thing. Nice and long. Right in the center. Excellent. Good. Yes.

Don't be afraid to get that twist and the secret here too is to keep equal tension on both straps. Last one, open. Lovely and exhale. Excellent. Good. Hold it there ladies. Lift your heads up and for those of you doing this, take your head rest down please. We're going to go right into three long spines. Just a short spinal articulation here. We did a lot of articulation in our warmup, so inhale to 90 degrees. Good.

Now keep that inner thigh connection. Xcel roll up. Good. Find it, find it hip extension. Beautiful. Open the legs, boom and XL. Roll down. Now if you are constant indicated to do long spine and you're safe to do short spine, you can do short spine here. If you're not doing shorts, fine, go ahead and do like a bottom lift with your feet on the bar. That'll be fine. As long as we get some sort of articulation and roll that up, find it, find that extension. Now feel that upper back. Connect. Open the legs and roll down.

So we're going to do this actually two more times and I talk a little bit more about the sequencing that happens through your body as you're doing your long spine. So in Hilton 90 so first we start with a pelvic curl. So we get that pelvic curl. The pubic bone is coming forward towards your face, more pelvic curl. Then we have the hip extensors and the glutes kick in. And the last thing is that upper back extension. Yes. Open the legs and now roll down and feel that softening through your throat and through your sternum. As you articulate that spine down slowly. Beautiful and close. One more time. You're doing great friend scene.

Hold it now. Start with your pelvic curl. The pubic bone always coming up and over towards your face a little bit more, a little bit more. Now feel the hip extensors in the glutes. Good enough. Fill the upper back. Yes, open, good and roll down. So feel those hamstrings and those glutes. Stay intact. Massaging the spine down and close. Gorgeous.

Good. Bring your legs parallel and flex them, or flex your feet and not your legs. And grab onto your straps. And I just want you to do a real, just simple little stretch here, just to stretch out those hamstrings. Beautiful work. How'd that good? So remember that sequencing of abdominals, abdominals, abdominals, when you're about halfway up through your long spine, you got to re engage into that pelvic curl sensation thing, your hip extensors kick in. And then the last thing is those upper back extensors. Good. Beautiful. Okay. Up Become, we're gonna move onto some full body integration. One exercises.

Okay, let's start with um, our stomach massage. Do you want stickies for the stomach massage? Okay, let's grab those. So we're going to start with the really just one of our, um, versions of our stomach massage series. We're going to do a little bit of rotation in the spine here. Thank you. Okay. So if you need a little sticky pad, go ahead and set it on your reformer.

And we'll do about one and a half spring here. So we kept our, our spring the same for hip work, our spinal articulation, excuse me. And now for our stomach massage. So Small v on the bar with your toes and heels together. Good. Excellent. So we're actually going to take out the round back. We're just going to do extension. Yeah. Okay.

So let's start with just the arms up into the reach. Go ahead. Go ahead. So trying to fill as in that, can you bring your hips back a little bit? Yeah, that we can get really nice and extended. I want you to feel that your lower back is lifted up out of your pelvis. Exactly. Now that's hard and I want you to feel that your waist is two inches longer than normal. Let's do three sets here. So taking your breath in. Exhale, squeeze out.

One heels go down and they come up. Inhaling, exhale, squeeze and down and up. Inhale. Then last one is squeeze and heels down and up. Good. That looks excellent. Now Palms face up, take your breath in and you're going to go XL, rotate to the right. Keep that rotation. As the heels go down, they come up and draw it in. Good XL, twist and down and up.

Drawed and good XL rotate and down. You guys are getting the sequence that looks good and I'll keep the back extension intact. Good. Keep the shoulders just flowing as you do this movement. Yes. And draw it in one more and twist. Good. Now we're going to hold it. So rotate to the right and hold.

Hold in that extension, your implant reflection of your feet. Good. In this extension, I want you to bring the arms up. Um, yes. Both arms up good and open them. They just keep the extension of the knees good. Bring both arms up, get a little bit more increased at that rotation and open three times here as you're feeling the challenge of the back extensors, the rotation, the legs good and back to center and come back all the way. Beautiful. Breathe in at cell to the left.

So the goal here is to keep that height of your body and lift up. Get a little bit taller, feel like that waist is growing good and open. Remember you're thinking gratitude for your body. It's stable is in rotation. The shoulders are moving, is looking beautiful. Good, lovely. And back to center. Woo. So just take a moment here and just feel okay and just feel your spine.

What w how does it feel? Recognize how it feels. We've articulated, we s we've stable lives. We've done all of this beautiful movement. Yeah. Does it feel good? Okay, good. Let's go ahead and stand up quickly ladies, and you're going to take your foot bar down and we're going to go down to, let's try a blue spring, a half a spring. You're more than welcome to try this on a full spring, but just for beginners, we're going to start on the half the spring. So you're going to come onto your knees and hands are going to be here. You're going to start in your quadruped head position. Okay.

You're going to push out taking your chest down, and that's going to be our opening position. We're going to do a couple of deep shoulder presses and then we're going to roll up like a cat, stretch through the spine, shoulders over the wrist, and then articulate back to the flat back. Okay. We're going to call this kneeling cat up stretch. Thingamajiggy okay, good. So it's kind of a marriage of our stretched too and our cat stretch. Okay, so knees are open. I'm actually gonna you don't have to touch this shoulder now.

That's a good point. Yeah. Don't worry about touching your feet on the shoulder rest. You want to begin in this beautiful straight spine. Now the idea is to keep that Koch and traction as you press out with your arms, your hips are going to go up and your chest is going to go down. This is our up stretch position. Yes, in this position, keeping your hips up, feeling that opening and your sitz bones. Bend your elbows in and Xcel.

Press them out, gorgeous and bend your elbows. They're out to the side, over the edges of the reformer and then feel that tricep, that shoulder, that rhomboid work as you press out. Good. One more time. We're going to do three shoulder pushes. Exhale, feel that stretch now from here. Take it from your lower belly and roll up. Take that pelvis into a big poster. Your till slowly.

The carrots will start to come in as you roll up. Go all the way to where your shoulders are over your wrist and then from there, articulate to the flat back, so don't worry so much. If the carriage comes all the way back into the stopper, that's fine. Go Back Down with an exhale. Good. And we inhale, bend the elbows in and XL, press good. Reaches Sitz bones out. Feel that opening of the pelvic floor as, feel that closing and that narrowing of the shoulders down through the waist.

As you extend, hold on the third one and roll up through your articulation. Good. Come into a big cut stretch. Let's at cast. Come all the way up into your thoracic spine and then articulate to your flat back. Yeah. Isn't that nice? Let's do two more XL. Press it out. So [inaudible] tracting I want you to get your back extensors here. Yes, and in hell bent. And notice how Christie's hips are directly over her knees. That's what we want. Good.

And inhale and just watch for a little rib cage flair. There it is. Yes. And Xcel. Good. One more time. I love it. Feel that natural movement of the Scapula as you bend and extend those elbows. Hold it. And a big roll. Nice and juicy. Good. And come into the extension.

Let's do one more to finish it up and press out. You guys still need shoulders? Yes. Good. Yes, good. And bend fencing, hips back, just a little bit more of your knees. There it is. Good and nice and wide. And press. Remember we have back extension, we have co contraction, we have shoulder work. Good. And then we have this deep deep abdominal work.

Yes, good fill. There's a bleak still that rectus abdominous coming into the flection and back to the articulation. Hold it. Good and rest. Wonderful ladies. Good. Let's move into our couple of different uh, exercises. But um, again for arms and for shoulders, but not like a traditional arm series that we normally do. So we're going to start with a pushup position. I think we have enough space there. I think you might. Yeah. Okay.

And we'll go on this end here. Good. Let, let's do that a little bit. Yeah. Just so you don't run into it. Okay. So again, you can have your choice of using a half a spring or a full spring, but one hand is going to go on your platform here and the other hand is going to go about a quarter of the weight into your reformer here. And you're going to come into your plank position. Okay. So you want everything intact here in your perfect plank position, hips are down, you have that slight diagonal line of your body. We're going to start by inhale, bend in the elbows into a pushup, a wide arm, push up, Xcel accidentally elbows out.

So you push the carriage out to the side. There you go. Push up into extended elbows. Yes. And then bring it in. Good. So bend the elbows down. So as you extend the elbows out, you're gonna push up Christy. Yes, there it is. And then squeeze it and that's beautiful. So Inhale Benz, XL, push-out. Inhale to the end of that. Push out and then exhale, come back in.

So it's a to breath or here are to breath pattern. Bend XL, keep the abdominal wall and push, push, push, push. Come up. Let's do one more and then, so notice how both arms are pushing equally. Extend those elbows, Francine, and then squeeze it up and rest. It is tough. It is challenging. Yeah. So you have to have your full body stabilization intact. If for some reason you're just not going anywhere, you're not pushing, don't worry about it. Maybe just do halfway out. Come back in and up, bending halfway out in an up so you don't have to think about that whole push of the arms. Let's do the other side.

So the breath is into your pushup with an exhale. Excuse me. With an inhale, inhale, you extend the arms out and extend them straight and then drop back in with an Xcel. Does that make sense? I say that right. Okay. Let's go into this. As you go down into your there, they're close here. So as you go down into your push up, you're gonna pull your abdominal wall up even more. Inhale, exhale, push. Inhale. At the end of that push and Xcel brewing it in. Nice, beautiful Francine. And inhale down and XL, keep it and keep it and keep it and come up and draw it and that was the better sequence there. And go down. Keep your body moving is one solid piece and press it out.

Go with those shoulders, go with the shoulders and draw it in, squeezing together and last one bend and take it out. Good Christy and up, up, up, up, up. Draw it in and rest. Yes. Good. You get some good arm work. They're wonderful. Okay, let's do our next exercise. We're going to come back on the other side of the reformer. This will be incorporate shoulder tricep and a little bit of rotation, which is going to be really nice. So you're going to come, you're going to take your arm, that's a way on the opposite side of your shoulder rest and you're going to place it heel of the hand into the top of the shoulder, rest your other arms, and then come down underneath and you're going to look okay.

As we twist, we're going to rotate and push the carriage out. So we end in this position. Yes. And then you're going to thread the needle. Bend the elbow and twist here. Think of the twist on that work, how you twist underneath your body. That's what you want here. So as you rotate, you push. We'll do that a few times. We'll hold on our last one and we'll do some tricep extensions there. Yes. Again, you can do a half a spring here to a full spring, whichever you prefer. So come on down, take the arm.

That's a way on from the shoulder rest. Good. And slip the other arm underneath and look exactly. So extend that arm and here. So you want to see that the trunk is spiraling there? Yes. And then just lift that arm up a tiny bit. That was beautiful. Good.

So take your breath in and with your Xcel as you push through and thread that needle and rotate. Good. So let's find this position. You have that rotation, that deep squat good. And then inhale, thread the needle back in and come in gorgeous and Xcel push. Yes. How's that feel? That looks great. And draw back in one thing. I want you to be mindful as as you, as you twist, try not to take your body from side to side. Try to stay right vertical and just feel that rotation. That's it, Christie. That's good. There you go, friend. See Nice and rotate back to center.

Good and XL twisting. You're getting that really nice deep hinge in your hip joint, which is really wonderful and lovely for that hip health and come back in. Good. Let's do two more and feeling that rotation. Now you should each time to getting those obliques to twist that spinal little bit more. Good and back in one more to finish and XL rotate.

Hold it here. Now bend the elbow in and XL. Extend. Bend the elbow in. That looks gorgeous and XL. Extend. Love it. Bend the elbow in and XL. Extend two more in and keep that rotation there. Last one in and hold it good.

Bend the elbow and slowly take the arm down and roll up through your spine to finish. Yes, that was good. That was beautiful. Good. Other side. So we're doing all this rotation. Next we're going to do a lateral flection and we'll wrap up our class here. Go ahead. So coming down hand away, that is a way good and threading through. So feeling that extension now reaches this bones out and keep equal weight on your feet. Yes, breath comes in and Xcel rotates.

Yes and come back in. Yeah. So it's going to be plenty of challenge on that. Half a screen friends seen much better with your stabilization here and back to center. Good. So this really neat interplay going on with your pelvis. The back of your pelvis image is very open and wide, but yet you're kind of closed in the front in the lower aspect of the abdominal abdomen here. So you're getting that open toward the back of the pelvis.

This is bones, but that close and narrow toward the front. Yes, twisting. Good, keeping your breath, coordinating. You should feel beautiful here. This is a really nice kind of juicy dancer s kind of movement. This is one for gratitude of our bodies, just being able to move and look. Beautiful. Good. So hold it there, find it, and bend elbow.

Inhale, exhale. Squeeze the why zoos, extend the elbow out. Good. Feel that same, same scapula opening. Yes. And execute that shoulder away from your ear and press one more time. You got it. And press hold it. Bend the elbow. Bring the arm down and roll up with your articulation.

That was great. Good. Stay on your half of spring. Let's go ahead and sit on the carriage with your legs crossed facing forward please. And we'll take our doubt. You're going to place it back in your straps here. So you're going to face the windows here? Yeah. Good, good. Okay, so what I'd like you to do is sitting in that position, you're going to hold onto the Dal.

You can hold wide and you're going to come to the side here. So we're both going to go to the left. That one's it. Gonna slide. You might have to put your hands on top of the yeah. Straps to hold them steady. I'm sorry. Straight. Well, it's going to be wrote to the of what you're gonna do is you're going to rotate and laterally flex across. So it should, is it gonna work? I think, I'm just not sure exactly how I'm doing it. Yes, exactly. So you're going to kind of take your, your um, bar to the front here, and it's gonna be straighten this, there'll be slack in the straps. Then as you pull a cross over your body on a diagonal, you're going to come to a lateral flection on the other side. Yes, exactly.

And then you're going to draw it back in, in and around. I mean not getting it to work here. Okay. And Xcel. So you're going to rotate and laterally flex. So look at Christie here. She has this nice lateral flection. Good. And then you draw back to center.

You guys feeling those obliques? Good. And again, obliques and shoulders. Now even though you lose a little bit of slack or you get a little bit of slack, rather in the straps there, try to keep your elbows both nice and straight and exhale, go into the flection. So what we're discovering here is that your hands need to go on top of the straps so that they don't slide and exhale. I Izzy, I usually do it with the roll-up bar. So the notches, keep it in place. Yeah. And exhale. Go into that lateral flection, find it, find it, find it, find that twist and come back. Good. Let's do the other side. Good.

If for some reason you're getting frustrated with your dao, which might happen, you're more than welcome to just grab onto your stops. With two hands, it's going to be a little bit different sensation, uh, in the muscular response to pulling two separate entities, but as opposed to just pulling on one, but it'll still get the, the job was still get done there. So taking your breath in, exhale, the arms cross around and you go into that lateral flex, you know, tried to get your arms back even with your ears. Yes. And then inhale, bring it back. Good. And XL going over to the side. Lovely. And draw it back.

So try to keep the pelvis nice and steady as you bring the arms around and into the lateral flection. Good. And draw it back. Let's do two more here and laterally. Flex. Go, go, go. Feel the shoulders. Nice, Christie. Good. Good. You've got it, Francine. And one more. So it's a rotation into the lateral flection. Hold it, find it good and bring it back. Yes. Good. And Go ahead and release those straps. Good.

Good to finish. We're going to do just this simple back extension. Okay. So let's bring our long boxes and place them on top of the carriage. So I'll get this home for you. I want you to stay on the blue spring with some of these exercises. The blue spring goes a long way. So your half the spring, you're going to lie facing the risers on the reformer chest, just over the edge of the box.

And you're going to hold onto the outside of the reformer. Okay. So legs are nice behind you. Good. And lift them up a little bit. So you're in hip extension, loss of energy going out. So I want you to lower your back to where you're completely flat. Good. So I want to get more shoulders involved here, more lats.

So we're going to do like a pulling back with the arms. As we lift up into the extension, the carers will move forward. So breathing into prepare XL, draw the scapula down. Feel the lot's engaging as you pull your arms back as if you were going to extend your shoulders and lift your head, neck and chest up. Yes. Then inhale, reach long as you go forward.

Lengthening that spine. Good Xcel the shoulders. Initiate drawing the scapula down, pulling the arms in. Beautiful Francine. Field that lift, fill that rise. Fill the pubic bone heavy into your mat. Then inhale, get longer as you go down. Reaching energy out through the legs. Yes, and XL.

Head, neck and chest. That reverse articulation. Stern a mood, lifting up, feeling the rise. Don't let it stop. Let it keep going and then bring it down. The energy stays intact throughout the entire exercise, the app and the down and lift with your exhale. Good. A little more. Head Up. Good. Feeling strong, feeling powerful, grateful for those strong shoulders, those steady shoulders and down that gorgeous. I think that was probably good. Nice.

Let's come up on the box into a rest position. Stretching out, good the back, good arms forward, arms back, whichever you prefer, whichever you prefer, and let that weight at that tailbone. Just drip over your heels and let's do a couple of deep breath hair, feeling the rib cage expand laterally and relax and feeling the rib cage expands and relax. Go ahead. [inaudible] feeling that nice warmth of vibration and energy radiating through your body, maybe particularly your shoulders, your spine, maybe your hips. Good breathing and roll yourself up. Good, good and engaging.

In one of my little things I like to do just internally. Tell Yourself, oh dear body, I'm so grateful for the fact that whatever you want to fill in the blank with our bodies are beautiful, magical, powerful, wonderful things, and Polonius is our tool to keep itself, to keep it healthy, to keep it moving, to keep it full of life and energy. And thank goodness we have [inaudible] because we love it. Yay. And I love Francine and Christie. They did a great job. Thank you guys. Wonderful. Thank you.