Class #1361

Fun Reformer Variations

35 min - Class
104 likes

Description

Pilates Anytime welcomes Troy McCarty who brings his wonderful energy to this Reformer workout. He uses great explanations to teach inventive exercises and variations. He also adds a rhythm to each exercise so you can work on your control and flow.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

About This Video

Dec 17, 2013
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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Trent McCardy. It's just a reformer class. Okay, so let's go ahead and just put three reds in the blue on your bars in the middle notch there. And Go ahead and lay down. We're going to start with some foot work. Let's start with our heels right across from our two sit bones. All right, let's think about your upper body being nice and relaxed. Nice and organize lots of width across the shoulders and naval. That's down softly into the spine. Now this, lift that navel up.

Let's take an inhale through our nose. Now the sexy on this. Push the carriage out and stretch one. Good. Now pull the spring back in and press two and Paul the Spring Prac in press three and and press four pull it back. Press five and in press six and in press seven and in press eight and in press nine pull it in one more and press 10 good. Pull it in. Now remember when you're doing your footwork, you're really after both knees, stretching and bending at the same time.

And nothing I like to teach is when you extend your legs out, you want to pull that navel down and up so that the body doesn't go into a static position. So let's move it down to our toes. All right, so let's think about when the knees stretch. We pull the navel up. Let's prepare buddy. With the inhale is drop your heels so they match the gear bar. Inhale and exhale this. Push the carriage out and stretch and lift that navel perfect, and pull it back in and press two and in press three.

Now float that carriage back. Good and four and in press five pull it in. Press six Paul it in press seven and in press eight poll it in. Press nine and N, press 10 and n. Now let's elevate the heels up so we're doing their Relevate foot.

That makes sure that when you raise the hills up that you don't roll over onto the big toe are over. Onto the little tip. I like to see 60% of the weight between the big toe and the second toe and then 40% out through the rest of the foot. So that's a well structured foot and that carries up through the rest of the leg in its placement quality. So let's take an inhale and this exhale and this push out and stretch and reach through your ears. Now Paul, the spring [inaudible] came back in and press two and in press three pull in press four and in press five and in press six and in press seven Pol it in press eight and in press nine and then on the [inaudible] 10 point, let's hold it out there. Impressed. Let's do some heel drops. So we lower the heels underneath the bar and we press back up and down too.

And up and three and down, four and up, down five and up and six good. And up, down seven and up eight and up nine and up. One more. 10 very good. Bring it back in. Return the carriage. Let's put our arches on the bar. Let's wrap the toes around. So Nice Reps.

We really intrinsically use all those muscles in their feet. The stick it in here and it's XL and this push out in stretch one. Pull your spring back, push out to pull that navel up as those knees stretch, right, go three perfect again, up and four and press five and press six and press seven and and eight. Pull this spring back, nine and in and 10 very good and in. Alrighty. Excellent.

Let's put our heels back on that bar. You're going to press the carry job and we're going to go into a rotation. You're going to bring the curious back in and you're going to go back to parallel. All right, so make that movement nice and delicious on the way out. Yes, we rotate on the way out and we rotate on the way back in. All right, so try the time and coordinate that moment so you don't go immediately into turn out and you have nowhere to go. All right, so here we go. And we go rotate out. Rotate back.

Yeah, and knees all been and in good and press and, and and reach. And, and, and press us, do one more and, and, and for us, very good and pull in already. Let's go ahead and set up this change to chew red springs only. Please. Let's lay back down and let's put the right heel on the bar and it's bringing that left leg up to a table top position. So the heels on the bar and let's make sure that that knee matches the other needs so that we have a nice place pelvis. And let's take that foot and let's flex it back. So this flexes back.

So let's just go ahead and do a few. Pushes this, maintaining the nice position of the body. So let's inhale through our nose and this exhale and press out and stretch one and pull back in. Press two and in press three and in press four press five very good and pull back in. Now we did that rotation that in and out. Let's do the same thing with this like and also let's think of that top leg rotating back in without distorting the pelvis.

So here we are. Let's take our inhale and then it's exhale and let's push and rotate. One good Paul in and Shoo Paul n and three the pelvis stays still and for Paul. And let's do one more and rotate back and perfect. Let's bring the other leg down. Let's put it up right into that tabletop.

Here we go. We start with that rotation. So we go rotate it out and pull it back in and chew and in and three good Paul Lin and for and and, and five. Very good and, and all right, go ahead and lower your legs. Let's go ahead and reach back and grab our straps. Let's prepare bodies for the hundreds.

Let's reach the hands up to the ceiling there. Below your shoulder it says, bring your legs up one at a time into a tabletop. I would love to see you connect your heels together so you get a little inner thigh activation here. Prepare your body with big inhale. During your exhale is pull the arms down, extend your legs out, your upper body comes up and we're going to pulse animal. One, two, four, five, one, two, three. Shoulders. Slide. Two, two, three, four, five, two, two, three, four, five, three, two, three, four, five, three, two, three, four, five, four, two, three, four, five, four, two, three, four, five, two, three, four, five, five, two, three, four, five, six, two, three, four, five, six, two, four, five, seven, two, three, four, five, seven, two, three, four, five, eight, two, four, five, eight, two, three, four, five, nine, two, three, four, five, nine, two, three, four, five, 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two. Now reach and return your body back in. Very good. Let's bring our elbows next to our body.

Now keep your legs in that nice tabletop position. Let's make a soft fist with your hands. All right. Bring your knuckles all the way back to your shoulders with elbows down next to your body. This is our start position. We're going to do coordination, so we're going to pull the hands down. We're going to extend the legs out. Your upper body will come up one, so go ahead. One. Now we open and we close and squeeze the legs.

We bend our knees, Bend your elbows and stay up there. And two, and stretch and let your elbows touch the carriage open. Close Ben, and return those back. Go three and press. We open, we close, and we been and return go four and press. We open, we close Ben and return.

And we go press five. We Open. We close now Ben, and curl into a ball. Go six and press out open. Closed Ben and curl into a ball. Bring that back. Go seven open. Close Ben, and curl into a ball. One more go. Eight. Now stretch now hole. Take your right leg over. Your left, this switch or legs. Go. Switch in one and two and three and four and five and six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Bend your knees, bring your elbows back in.

Lay your head back down. Excellent work. All right, let's go ahead and sit up. We're going to go to a red spring. We're going to put our bars down and we're going to sit facing the shoulder rest of police, and this place that bar down. We'll do that here. All right, so let's put our feet through and let's make sure a good distance to sit as four fingers from the edge of the carriage. Now with your legs, what I want you to do is to take your legs and press into the shoulder rest. So they're going outwards there. Reach forward and grab your straps and let's take the straps and put them on our elbow joints today. All right, now we're sitting nice and tall. All right, so you're on the sharpest points of your siblings. So we see your ear, we see a shoulder and we see a hip all lined up. So it's a nice strong line.

We see the natural curve in the back, the natural curve here. So we're going to just do a simple motion of opening your elbows out to the walls without moving the body and bring them back in with control. We Open. Excellent. Back in. Let's do two more of these and dress back. And it's this lovely and progress. Very good.

And back in. All right. Now let's hold our elbows there. And what we're gonna do is a roll down, right? So let's take a big inhale. Now let's roll that pubic bone back and roll down, keeping your elbows like that and then not too far back. Stayed right there. That's your body is your back is inflection. Take a sniff of air and XO roll back up.

Use those dominoes and lift that spine up those ears right up to the ceiling. Take your inhale again, XL hollow rule and oppress those legs into the shoulder. Rest good. Take a sniff of air without changing the spine ad. So roll forward. Let's do one more. Now don't go down as far this time because we put some movement in.

Take your inhale XL roll down and we hold there. Now, right there, this opened those elbows out to this side. One pull back in, press Chu and in excellent. Press three pull in. Press four, pull in one more. Press five. Very good. Excellent work back in.

Take a sniff of air and an Exa. Bring your body back up to that nice tall sitting position. That's the rest of moment. Yeah, just relax the moment. That was excellent. Yeah, we're going to do it one more time. We're going to add one more element in there. All right, so elbows back.

They're reaching out. All right. Now as she wrote down, I want you to open your elbows. As you roll back up, you close your elbow so you have two movements that you're coordinating. Take your inhale please, and Xcel. We roll down and we reach the elbows we rolled down and we bring a back up. Roll down in the elbows. Go loud. An excellent and back up. Now, not too far. I want to see the backstage in its fluxion. All right, and ruled down and back. That would be good right there. Perfect.

And roll back up. Now let's do it again, but let's open the right arm only. Here we go. We rolled down in the right arm, all Benz perfect, and bring it back up to do it one more time. And the right arm opens. Good and back up. No switch over to the left arm and left. Arm Opens. Good and bring it back up and left.

Arm Opens. Good and you bring it back up. Excellent work. Go ahead and slip those strips off. Let's turn our bodies around. We're going to sit the opposite direction. So let's grab your straps again carefully. All right, let's make sure that our body is centered. Your legs are straight out. Now you've got some options with your legs so you can bend them.

We can Chris Cross them or you can sit with them straight out. All right, and let's bring the arms out and let's come out to the sides of the wall like we're going to do hug a hug a tree here. All right, so here we are. We got the shoulders down again. So I see scanners are down. I see the arms in front of the body. You don't want your arms back here cause you're going to distort your shoulders. I see a ear, a shoulder, and a hip lined up and they see this lift to a spine.

Now we're going to take our inhale and during your exhale you're going to close your arms. One like you're pulling something in. Now you're going to push the walls out and [inaudible] back out. Now this movement is coming from your back. So let's feel like you fill the hole room up with your back. All right, so here we go. And one good. And you press back out.

Lovely and chew and press out. And three, push your arms back at four and back out one more. And Fi n back out. Lovely this, bring our arms down here. Now your palms are here. It's like we're holding something here. All we're gonna do is we're gonna extend our arms out one. All right, and you're going to flip your palm.

So you're going to go down and touch next to your fives on the mat. Now hold that spine up. You're going to bring your hands up all the way up to the ceiling. You're going to open them out to this side. You're going to [inaudible] bend your elbows and bring it back in. Now remember, when you're doing this, this big arm movement, you're keeping that spine up nice and long.

You're sitting on the sharpest points on your sit bones. You're not letting the spine and machine control your spine. Here we go. And we press the arms out one. Now we lowered down. Now get taller. Lift that body that. Keep that body lifted and up. This is lovely. And bring it around again and reach and, and up o round and you reach, you're down, you're up a round.

Here's your last time. And reach and yeah, and up. Excellent work. Uh, around. Very nice. Already. Good. Go ahead and Hook your straps up. We're on one spring. The stay there with one spring. Let's go ahead, lay down on our back and you're gonna put your right foot into the strap. Your left leg is going to be free. Now that leg extends up to the ceiling. All right, and it's here and you want to pull down. So we get the pelvis square.

This free leg is bent and this knee is right here with the foot hanging down. All right, now we've got a body that's placed, we got lots of with across the shoulders. My one bag slow. Yeah, you got your arms reaching down. We've got our scapulars down in our knuckles. All right, so the scapulars are sliding down to those knuckles now, keeping everything stabilized in your legs together. Let's us pull the strap down. One good. And we bring it back up. Good.

And pull down too. That's it. Good. And back up. Pull down three. Good. And move that other leg with your leg. Okay. And this connected and this does a little and your foot, my tap, the spring. But that's all right. And then back up.

You know that's a good place to stop then and go for good and back up. And we go five. Very good. And back up. Now let's take this like this in a strapline. Make a circle, right? So small circle and we know what's going to happen. We're going to keep our pelvis absolutely stabilize. All right, so you want to feel like that promise is that bullet punch they keep on referring to. We want to keep the punch inside the ball, so we want to keep that, that bull absolutely stabilize.

So we're going to take the leg over. It makes us small circle. We pulled down and around and we bring it back up over to and around and back up over three and around and back up over four and around and back up. One more in over Fi. Now let's reverse that circle. So we go out, down and around and back. Up and down and around.

You doing a lovely job keeping that Publix absolutely stabilized. Three and back up we go for good and back up and relax your hands. Relax the shoulders and go five and back up. All right, good. Now let's take our hands and grab the pegs behind us and now hold onto them. Okay. And you can kind of bring your elbows into your peripheral a little bit.

Let's take this circle and make it larger now. And it's okay for a hip to come off, but it's not okay for your shoulders to come off. All right, so we're doing the same movement, but now we're making it larger. We're going to fill this whole room up with this movement. So the foot goes over, the hip comes off and you pull down and around and up and over and back up. Lovely and go over down a round and backup that really timed it with your, your leg that you're not going to clip yourself with the strap so you don't have to make it too big.

But let the hips kind of come off and think about using that oblique muscle to pull that hip back down. Good. And go forward. Let's do one more and then we'll switch over. Excellent. And away you go. Five. Good, perfect. Let's try the other way and go. Hip comes off, you go around, the shoulders stays down and too good around and up. Go three around, then go for a, then I go five. Oh Brown.

Excellent work. And back up. Very good. Let's go ahead and release the pigs. Go ahead and switch your strap. So your other leg hands are down beside your body. Your foot is up to the ceiling, the other knee is connected. And just let that foot hang down. All right, so let's simple just down and up with your leg. So we'll go down softly one and we go back up and down, two and up and three and up and four. And up and five and up. Alright, let's make a little circle remembering that your publicity's absolutely stabilize. Here we go. So we go over one. Excellent. And back up and two and back up and three and up and four and up.

One more and five. Excellent. Let's reverse and oh, down around, back up and shoo. Good. And three. And for one more and five. Very good. Let's go ahead and let's put our hands on the pakes and stabilized.

Set up her body. So our is bigger now you can let your hip come off. Shoulders stay where they're at. Here we go. We go over and pull around this. Watch. You don't clip yourself with this strap and too good and around and three and around and four and around and five and no round. Let's reverse and out, down, around and up. Out, down, around and up. Three down, around and up for down around one more and five down. All around.

All right ladies. Very good as glad. This is about your leg straps now. All right, and let's go ahead and let's put a blue spring on with this red. So we have a red and a blue spring and we're going to stand up on the floor and I'm going to talk you through how to get onto this. Sorry. So we're going to start by kneeling on the carriage, your hands, or against the shorter rest. Here you put one foot on the to start, you push out, and then you place your other foot. So we're going into a plank position. All right, so go ahead and get into your position. Swerved down. The hands are against the shorter rest. You put one foot, you're on your forearms. I'll grab that now go ahead and place your other foot.

Push out and then plank your body right now. So the shoulders are in line. So we have a ear, we have a shorter, we have a hip, we have a knee, and we have the ankles. We're in a nice long line of the body. Now what we're gonna do [inaudible] push the arms forward one, pull the arms back, push two as just your arms moving. Nothing else is moving. Go three. I see lovely, neutral spines.

I see well-placed bodies go for and back up and press five and pull it back in. All right, let's bring that right knee back to the carriage carefully. And let's go ahead and return the carriage. All right, now let's take this movement and Kinda twist it around a little bit. So let's take both hands and go to one shoulder rest, right? And your feet stay exactly. So you're getting shorter risk this way.

There you go. Now your right foot is on the bar. Push out. Find your balance. First. Your left leg goes out, the tailbone comes down. All right, and we go push one. Pull in. Push two pole in. Press three Paul Lynn, press four Paul in one more. Press five. Very good. Bring that knee back onto the carriage. Stabilize your first, then bring it back. Let's try the other side.

And here we go. We press out, we reach. All right, and now play step body. I see a lovely spine and we go breasts, Paul in and to pull in and three and in and four and then and five. Lovely, very nice work. Bend your knee, bring the carriage back in. Oh, key lists, change that red off. Let's put up this. Keep the blue here and let's take our box. What I want you to do is let's take the straps and put them down on the floor so they're out of the way.

Let's bring the box onto the wood-frame and I like to see the box about five fingers away from the headrest. All right? Now make sure you send her that box cause you're going to put some weight on to it. All right, we're going to kneel on the carry tray and you're gonna put your knees against the shoulder rest and you're going to put your body back onto your forearms again. All right, now this is a very light spring, but it's gonna get tougher in a moment. So we have a neutral spine here again. All right, so you have a shorter bleeds down. Then let's just lean the body forward just a little bit like that. You got lots of width across the collarbone. You have this neutral spine. Again, you've got a dominal that sock without distorting the spine.

Very simple movement. All I want you to do is pull your knees forward, one without changing anything in the body. One good and pull back in. Go to excellent. There you go. Now just keep that body forward. There you go. Go three and in four and in Press Vive Paul in six. So it's just your legs moving. Seven Paul.

Then one more and a very good and pull in. Now let's take this movement and provoke it just a little bit. Okay, so we're going to take your right hand and I'm actually let's use the left hand. So the left hand goes down right here. Now as you move the carriage back and forth with your knees, you're going to take your right arm and you're going to slide it out like this and you're going to bring it back down. So the arm slides against the box, it comes back down. So you're at that moment of stabilizing on one arm.

Lots of stability in that Torsa. All right. All right, here we go. Body leans forward, whine, good and pull back in and press to good and in. So it slides across nice pole then and for Paul. Then press five. Excellent in six, two more.

Seven back in one more eight. All right, let's try the other side. All right, so place your body. Think about what your shoulders are going to do here. I think about that with shoe. You're not curling them forward. Body leans forward. Here we go and we go.

Press one back in, press two. Back in, press three. Back in press four and in five in six. Good work, seven in and a art. That was lovely. Very, very good. Let's go ahead and take the box off now and let's go ahead and put it back to where you had it. This come back to our springs.

We're going to put three red springs Zine and you're going to bring your bar back up with the bracket in the second notch. Our next exercise is a spine articulation and a spinal articulation is so healthy for you because you are moving those bones one at a time and putting them back down at one at a time. Very healthy, very good for the spine, lots of string, some good abdominal use, and lots of hamstring use. All right, so let's go ahead and lay down. Your heels are on the bar right across from year to sit bones there. Your arms are reaching down the upper bodies back into that very organize position. Repair your body with the inhale. Now let's exhale in this. Curl that pelvis up slowly, one bone at a time. Think of your thighs reaching forward, your shins, reaching over your ankles and your knees.

Reach into that wall right now. Relax that next. Relax that shoulder. Take your inhale here. Keep that reach and acts hell. Soften the chest. Melt it down and let those bones touch one at a time. Each vertebra gets to say something. Each disc gets to say something, right? You know, I've been telling my classes, make this movement chewy and Nice, chewy movement. All right, take your inhale. Exhale, roll up through your spine.

Slowly, thighs reach forward. Lovely Shins reach towards me. Knees cert, reaching over those toes and it's a long reach. Why no shorter is relax that, soften that neck. Take your inhale here, Axa hollow out and wall that spine down. Let those bones touch. Try to get that pelvis above that loom. That was a lovely lower back down. Very good, and bring it back in. Good. Let's try it one more time.

Prepare your body with the inhale. Wide Breath to that back. Exhale, curl the pelvis up solely bone by bone. There we are. Take your in. How here? Accele wall down through your spine. Slowly bone by bone. All right, let's take her legs and go out to the sides of the bar.

Just a little bit of external rotation. All right. Not Too much that we go in 12 fallout. We find that good medium point right there. We're going to take another inhale and during your exhale you're going to roll your pelvis up slowly, bone by bone, lots of width across the shoulders. Nice presentation of that neck. Take another inhale during your Xcel this. Push the Carytown in.

Reach your ears one, pull the spring back in and reached two and in reached three. Pull in reach for Paul in reach five nd reach six. Pull the spring in reach seven and [inaudible] reach eight and in two more, reach nine Paul the back, reach 10 pull it back. Let's take another inhale. Xcel, we roll down Kito shoulders wide. That was it, and lower back down. Let's bring our feet together. Base of your toes in there, right across from your sit bones and we're back to a parallel position we're going to do running again. Running is a great way, it's a cool off on the body, but still it's a great way to work in the lengthening of the spine, maintaining the pelvis and really giving that good opposition articulation through the feet against the foot bar. So let's here. Let's take the inhale and exhale. This push the carries out.

This make the body as long as possible. You got your ears reaching back, you got your feet reaching, one heel down, one heel lifts, and we want n to not make the carriage float back and forth. Press and press and push reach Shen, reach Shin, he'll up, he'll forward, he'll, that's it. Lots and lots of articulation down there through the feet per RSN, per RSN. Press seven push Shannon, linkedin, then Linkedin, Lisbon, or knees. Let's bring the carriage back in. Let's go to one red spring and let's finish our lesson today with a [inaudible] stress. All right, so you have your foot against the shoulder rests. All right, and your other foot's on the ground. Your hands are on the bar, so go ahead and stand up on the floor. There we go. All right, and just bring the left foot right against this shoulder. Rest here. Now the foot on the ground. Go ahead and you're kneeling.

This foot wants to come forward. All right, now you're squaring your hips in this. Bring your hands to right here. Square in your chest. Pull up in the waist there. So this is our start position. Your hands are just resting. Let's take a big inhale and exhale this. Push the carriage out. Elongate the spring right now.

What I want you to feel is this. This knee is reaching forward as that needs reaching back. You're squaring your hips, you're pulling that naval up and you're letting the shorter blades roll down the back. So we get a nice hip stretch. We get some stretch back here. Bring it back Yan. Let's try it one more time. Big Inhale and exhale. Let's go down again.

So the body should make a lovely arch. Excellent. And You bring it back in Australia, other side. Okay, and just hop over. There you go again. We our foot. Now make sure that when you place the foot that it's a good placement of the foot against the shoulder. Rest with the toes. Curl forward, so it's a nice strong foot. So you feel that connection with your reformer. All right, we've got the shoulders down and I love to see my clients, my students, this rest their hands on the bard, not a grip.

We prepare our body with the inhale. Think of lifting your ears up to the ceiling and exhale you lower down softly. You pull that naval, then you press out. Now give me that opposition in that need, that front knee, forward this knee back. You lifting that spine. You're feeling that delicious stretch.

Excellent. You bring it back. Yeah. Let's try one more time. Big Inhale. Exhale on Lord, Duh. Perfect. Bring it in. [inaudible] and you're done. Fantastic. Good work. Thank you. Thank you.

Comments

Paola Maruca
I hope to see more of Troy on PA. I took a group reformer class with him during Pilates on tour in DC last August and I loved his creativity and his way of teaching.
Hi Paola.
Thanks for the comment. Hope to be able to work with you again.
2 people like this.
Thank you. Loved the variations! Hope to see you again!
1 person likes this.
Fab Class ~ Thank You
loved the single leg in strap variations & the plank work
quite dapper with your scarf too ;)
Hi Yugonda:
I love teaching that plank series. Im happy you liked it. Also happy you like my scarf too.
Thanks for watching!!
2 people like this.
I had the pleasure of taking Troy's class at Pilates on Tour in DC. What an experience. I hope to see more of Troy's classes at PA. Thank you.
Working with Troy was wonderful for us too! Happy to say we have a few more classes on the way! Stay tuned! Thank you Troy!
1 person likes this.
Hi Evelyn:
Thanks for taking my class in DC and thank you for taking the time to watch my class on PA. I had a blast at PA and look forward to doing some more!!
Erika Quest
YAY, Troy! So nice to see you on PA. Welcome to the family. Loved the class and hope to see you soon.
Pele
2 people like this.
Super variations. I always like something new. Liked the energy of the class and the flow.
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