Class #1640

Advanced Cadillac Variations

35 min - Class
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If you want to try something different on the Cadillac, take this advanced Cadillac workout taught by Niedra Gabriel. She explores unusual variations such as "Funky Short Box," and challenges your strength and balance with exercises less often taught like a weighted Series of 5, Flying Eagle, Pull Up Front and Back, and the Traditional Ending, among other exercises.
What You'll Need: Cadillac

About This Video

Aug 06, 2014
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Good afternoon everybody. Today I'm going to be working with Micah again and yeah, and we're going to do a Cadillac routine with some unusual variations. So just a warm up. Michael, why don't you just place yourself four roll back, roll up with a roll down bar. We are with the light springs here. I good. And now drop your head and start articulating back. I want to see that sternum soften a little bit, Mica and lengthen your whole back out on the frame.

More lumbar spine down. Pull the bar into your chest three times one and every time widen the elbows out. Yes. Now lift your head, soften the sternum and roll up. Roll all the way up, all the way up, all the way up to just ironing out your back. Roll down again, rounding through the spine. Soften the sternum a little bit more. That's it to help you get into the lumbar spine and pull three times very wide. Elbows every time to third one. Pull in a hold.

One more time. Pull in hold cause you're a guy and straighten out with the arms. Reach and lift your head and roll up. So just a little bit more of a pause and sit up nice and tall this time. Pull the bar into your chest before you start. Drop your head and roll down. Keeping the bar there. Work a little bit more.

Too Long. Reach the arms in my direction. Pull them back to your chest. Lift your head and articulate. Soften those ribs. Yes. Make that front body work. Work, work. Sit Up Tall, left-hand in the middle, right-hand, round your waist and roll down. Rounding a remember, get that front body to contract. Excellent till your nice and long.

Stretch your right arm out to the side and reach. Now can let can I would know you were fine. Can you lengthen this arm more elbow. Turn your head no palm in my direction and look up at your restaurant. Your head in the opposite direction.

Yes and reach very good. Now sweep your arm back to the ocean. Back to your waist. Bring your leg back, lift your head and roll back up to an upright position. Change hands. Drop your head down and roll down. And when you get to the bottom, please pause for a minute.

Take your left hand all the way out to the side. Reach it up by your ear so you have to cross over. Now slide over to your right. No, no, no, not no. Slide your body. You need to bring this arm over and hook. Reach. Now slide the leg over and lengths and keep that right rib down.

Good. Now bring your foot back to the bar first. Now sweep your arm back out to the side. Bring your hand to your waist and lift your head and chest and roll up. So just warming your body up. One more time. First side again, change. Roll down and keep both sides of the waist on the Mat.

Now keep your legs where they are for. Stick your right arm to the side, but keep those left ribs down. Sweep the hand over to your ear and I start sliding contracting. And let's slide the palm and look up at your wrist and you're skipping my foot. I have this special choreography for you. So keep the left rib down and slide the right heel towards the left heel.

Lengthen from the waist. That's it. So you open the waist, keep your lumbar down. Yes. Now soften the knee and slip it on top of the ankle. And now extend from the waist even further into the ankle. Good. Bring the foot back to the bar, sliding it back out. Very nice. Bring the hand back. Just go through the hoops here. Hand to your waist, and lift your head to roll up. Very nice.

Soften the knees on the way up. Change hands and roll down. Widening through the spine. As you roll back, keep both feet on the bar first and let's get the hand left hand to the side, up by your ear. Recheck up. Turn the palm this way. Slide it over and keep the right ribs down and the left ribs down. So you lengthen. Now take the left foot and stretch it from the hip. Out and across. Yes. So you open up that whole side body, bend the knee, left foot, and then extended again without the right ribs popping. Yes, slide the foot back. Very nice. Bring the hand back, rapid round your waist.

Lift your head and chest and roll all the way up to a sitting position. Very good. Swing around to face my direction for the hundreds. So lying back, bend your knees into your chest and flipped and legs inside the bar and lift the legs up. Curl your head and start pumping. Breathing in. And every exhalation really deepen out. I want the toes soft. That's it. So you work in the powerhouse. Keep pressing the lumbar spine down and broadening the back ribs.

And what did you don't grip in the toes. Keep the energy in the center of your body. Now bend the knees and reverse a position. Extend and another 50 so let you count. Keep broadening the chest in the back.

Can you lift your chest more and push into that bar and keep your done? Very, very good. Okay. I would like you to come up to kneeling and chest expansion. So facing the bar on your knees is just a warm up the lats. So before you start your, have a very rounded back here. I want you to bend over, move back with your knees because you are nice and strong. Bend over for a minute and bring your look down at your navel.

So you fill up in here. Let's have the knees a little bit wider apart just a bit. Now really feel into my hand. Yes. Now lengthen your body back up to an upright vertical position. Trying not to over short and in the lower back. Lovely.

Now pull the bar down towards your size. Head to the right, head to the left. Look straight. Release the arms. Keep this long and again, pull and broaden that chest even more. Head to the left. Don't let yourself art. Head to the right. Look straight. Release the arms and again pull down long back body pull. Head to the right hand to the left. Very good. Straight.

Release the arms and last one. Open under the collarbones without shortening the back. Head to the left, head to the right. Look Straight and release the arms. Very, very nice. Let go of the bar and let's have you swing around this way. I have the two arms springs here, so yellows, yellow, spring tension hooked onto the lower hooks here. Different Cadillacs have different takes. No, we're actually doing rollback again, so I would like you with your legs against the Poles.

Have the hands outside so we have a little bit of, let's have the hands down by your sides. Let's do this. Let's see, because you're going to have to pull the arms out. Can you bring your feet inside the spring? I think. I think this is going to work. Yes. Okay, so sitting up nice and tall to start with, right. Pull the spring back. Drop your head and look down at your chest and roll down.

Rounding through the spine, but keeping your back long right now. Take the arms, reach them away from your body, pulling out to work into the lats. Bring the bat arms back in towards your body. Turn the palms to face the floor and lift your head and push down and back with those arms as you roll up to sitting position and all. Anchor your feet and sit up. Nice and tall. Good works. Okay with the springs like this in relation to your feet. Okay, nice. Lift.

First of all, really lift up at the lower body and pull back with the arms as you drop your head and work the lats. Articulate the side body nice and long. Good. And then pull the turn the hands of face the body. Pull the arms out. Bring the arms back, lift your head. Pull down with those arms. Soften the sternum. Yes.

And Roll Up. Roll Up. Now sit up tall and broaden the shoulders. Last one. Pull back again. Round through the spine. As you roll down, roll down, roll down. Turn the pumps to face a Cadillac. Take the arms out, bring the arms back, lift your head, pull the arms down and work the side body and sit up nice and tall. Awesome work. Okay. Relax for a minute. Enrolling like a ball.

So just let's toss these to the side. Bend your legs and just roll back and forth. Just to massage your back now and come up and balance and roll back and come up and balance and roll back and come up and bounce and come back up. Come back up and I like beating you up. Micah. VT. One more time and up. No, come all the way up and balance.

Let's have you lift your legs to teaser just for the fun of it. Lift your chest up, soften the knees. I want you more out of your lower back, longer, lower back, longer, lower back and bend the knees and relax. Okay, series of five with these arm springs on the lower hooks of the Cadillac, we have yellow arms, spring tension springs here. Depending upon what kind of Cadillac you have, you may have to improvise, giving you as much information as I can. So lift your head and chest up, reach long with the arms and we'll start with a simple version. Just switch one leg long and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch. Bring both knees in, bend both arms and drop your head back to rest a second and then curl your head and chest up. Keeping your arms in table top.

Extend your right arm down and your left leg out. Reach. Now switch and that's it. And switch and switch and switch and switch Bryn. Both knees in both arms, up and expand. Switch. And one more time. Curl your head and chest up the arms.

Go down together and come back in and extend and come back in. One more time please. And come back and drop your head back to rest and double leg stretches with the arms going out and down. Curl your head and chest up right and reach the arms and legs away. Big Circle with the arms and bend the knees in. Good.

Reach the arms up and back. Big Circle and curl in. One more time like this, reach deepening into that powerhouse. Curl in. Drop your head down to rest for a minute. Put your feet on the mat for a minute. Let the knees open out just to release the hips. Bring the knees back, curl your head and chest up for scissors so you reach into those arms.

Pull Poles, which pulse? Pulse two. Pulse pulse three. Pulse, pulse four. Pulse, pulse five. Keep going with flexed feet. Two, two, two, two. Last one, three, three, three, three legs up. Bend your knees. Drop your head down and rest. Take a breather and lower lift. Reach the arm. That's how the arms to the ceiling. And then as you pull the arms down, lift your head and chest up. And if the legs to the ceiling, so reach good.

Lower the legs away. Lift them up. One, lower them away. Lift them up to five of these. Lower them away. Lift up three, two more times. Lower them away. And for one more time, lower them away. And Five, bend the knees in. Put your feet down. Drop your head. I know you're working hard. So here's a little towel break. We're stocked up. Okay. You know what, Mike, I'm taking the towel away because it may grab into the hook there. Sure.

Crisscross being the head and chest up. Bring the knees into your chest. Extend your right leg out long and extend your right arm it across and reach with both arms. That's it. And then bend the knees in and do the other side so you reach across the obliques. Good and reach and curve into your stomach. Good and back and curve into the stomach and back.

Try to keep the shoulders away from you. It's one more time and stretch and last one and stretch. Very good. Drop your head down. Relax. Let go of those springs. You did. Bend the knees into your chest, roll back and forth a few times to massage your back and bring yourself up for spine.

Stretch forward. So I know there'll be four. You're going to go to this. We're going to stretch out your hips. Bring your feet together, moving these out of the way for right now and just start walking your hips back, keeping the knee straight. That's it. Make sure the hip lift every time and back and back and back. That's it. Just keep walking back. That's it.

Make try to get the foot and the bottom up. There you go. I think you have about one or two more and now come forward again. Yeah. Yes, yes. You have become so much more open in the hips now because of this work.

This is awesome. Okay, good. You've got two more. Hey. Yay. Okay, I'll write. Okay. Spine, stretch forward with the legs apart to hold the bar. Let's have you sitting way up. I want you to fill up this part of your back and now stretch up through the crown of the head as high as you can. No scoop the navel and press the bar forward to reach towards the parking lot.

Pull the bar down to the mat right to the bottom. Lift the arms up, filling up this part of your back and roll yourself back up to a straight position. Lift the navel and bend forward. Reaching long with a long spine. Good. Push the bar down, deepening into that powerhouse. Lift the arms up and sit up nice and tall. Excellent. One more time. Lift the back first. Reach forward scooping the spine. Press that bar way down.

Lift the arms way back up and roll up to an upright position. Excellent. Bring your feet together. We are going to do another variation. I think I would like your a little bit back now depending upon how much your hips are open, your the ideal is to get the bar beyond your feet. I'm not sure if we're up to that. Let's bend your knees a bit, just a tad and first time. I actually would like your knees. A little bit of parts.

It's a little bit less grippy into your hip flexors sitting up tall. Now we just far forward with that bar as you can. All the way over. Now push the bar down. Press good. Micah, lift the arms up and roll back up to an upright position. One more time like this. Lift and reach forward. Push the bar way down.

Stay forward like this and lift the bar up. I'm sorry. Roll back up. Now let's have one leg straight. Good. Same thing. Reach forward. Push the bar down, lift the bar up and roll back up. Do the same with the other leg. One knee bent, 20 straight. That's it. Lift and press forward. Push the bar down, down, down, down, down. Lift the bar up and roll back up. And last one with both legs straight and lift reaches far forward. As you're able to push the bar down, lift the bar up and roll up beggar. Let go of the bar.

Just grab your ankles and bend over. So you're just doing a stretch. Yeah, it's really opening up all this back and spine, stretching everything out. Excellent work. Roll up to an upright position and let's have you, first of all, let's set you up for Swanson to begin with. Now let's have you bend your knees a little bit. Just bend them with the legs, muscles relaxed. Just here for a minute. Oh, you're already doing this so well.

Want this sacrum super duper long and long here. Now float the legs long and down to you. Gliding them on top of that bar, keeping the lower back long. Now live from the center of your shoulders to the top of the bottom of your skull. Lift your head up slightly. Keep the arms long and start bending above my arms only, and then lengthen down again. Now lift the arms.

Can you get the arms longer? Yes, yes. Same thing again from above this arm. Lift your head and chest up, back of the neck as long. Pull the armpits back and come a little bit higher and lower back down. Good. And again, I'm moving down a bit. Lift your head and chest lengthening. So I'm keeping your lower back nice and long and not allowing you get to get too short there and back down. Yay.

And again, lift your head and chest. Try and get the bend up there. There we go. And lift that sternum even more and lower back down. And now on your own, I want you to really distribute this bend evenly and you will bend all the way from the hip flexors up, up, up, up, up. Beautiful work all the way down.

I've got the bar. Sit back into your hands. Stretch your back out. So now let's have you do [inaudible] Flying Eagle, same principles. So the arms will be long. I would like your legs out so that you're not as grippy in the hip flexors. And we can get, my goodness does your back look better now.

So from here, pull the arms down and back and lift your head and chest without shortening this lower body lift. Take the arms up and out. Up and out, and lower down. Very good. And again, pull down and back. Bending from above my arm, Bob. Lift. Reach those arms. Up and out and down. One more time. Same direction without my help. Let's see if you can keep that quality going. Take those arms out and all the way down. So now you're reverse.

I want you to press this part into the mat. Yes. And here we go. Lift your head in chest and pull back towards your hips and bring the arms down. Good, wide, long back and lift up and bring the arms back towards your thighs and down. And one more time. Take the arms out, lift up, lift the stomach, lift the stomach a long back. Good, lower back down. It's really, really getting better. My car, you know, you're not gripping so much in the lower back. Let's have you been unison.

Lengthen the Ti, the sacred [inaudible] down. Yes. And the hip flexor down. I want that whole part. And you want to feel this flat front body. Can you grab your feet easily? Just give the quads a bit of a stretch. Just not keeping this long. Try to not grip in your back muscles. Yes, that's it.

So we just get into those ties a little bit. Very good. And then stretch the legs out and sit back into your heels for child's pose. So I know because you had that car accident in October was wasn't. Yeah, your, your back is still delicate, but it's amazing. Absolutely incredible. The improvement of what happened. Yeah, and detailed work, isn't it?

Sometimes injuries are our best teachers. So we're going to do funky short box next. So let's have you sitting. Oh, here's a pad for you so you don't slip. Let's have you gripping the feet in towards, towards the box and start rolling back for round, back, roll back, roll back. Roll back. You going halfway. First Time in. Curl up. So this is a thing, I know you're back. Super flexible in the lower back. I want you to Elongate your lower back and seat. If you can keep the lumbar on the, on the Cadillac bed.

So when you go into your back bend, it's only upper back. So you have to control the lower back and the waist area and the obliques back. You Go. Yes. Really get that lower back in. Now can you keep going into a back bend with only in the upper body. Yay. Lovely.

Lift up and roll up. So Nice. This one is for fun. You just get to go back. Take your arms over your head and have fun. So back you go stretch. And at the back go. Can you bring your hands towards the floor or towards the wall? That's okay.

Bring your hands back to your waist on the way back. See if you can reconnect to that long, lower back and really articulate. Upper back, middle back, lower back and over. Very nice. Okay. Flat back. Awesome. So hands up, make sure the fetus supporting you. Now before you go back, I want you to fill up in here. Yes, there's your beautiful long. We're back. Okay. Lean back, keeping that length and come back up. And again, lift up.

Fill up the lower floating rib area so it doesn't overarch. One more time. Tall, tall, tall, tall, and up in bend. Forward, relax, down, round your back. Let everything open. Fabulous. Side to side. I wish I was doing your workout, so nice lip. Broaden that back so it's biracial. I want you more open in here and up and other side. Nice and open in those ribs and up.

Now Micah, just before you go again, bring those elbows forward. Four minutes for me as you do it. I want you to feel the shoulder blades widening and wrapping around your ribs and fill up. No, don't go into backbend yet. Fill up my hands now. Just feel length through the spine all the way up through the crown of the head. The head I think can be taught longer now.

Just that the elbows float wider to the side without losing it. Yes. Now fill up my ribs, my hands, I should say. And as you bend over, bend to one side and keep touching my hands. Don't collapse this rib inwards. Fill it up and come back up and lift. Feel into this rib as you bend over so you don't let it kind of fall away and up and last one, lift and go out over you. Go pressing this hip down, opening up the side, body and up and other side, pressing down, going over. Come back up. Very nice.

Bend forward. Relax down like your back. Loosen and just give up the work. Look how nice and loose you become. Come back up for twist. Is this the one you need to be anchored with your heel? Sometimes a little bit. I think so. So I'll be the strap.

Make sure you're gripping in here. Lift up, fill up the back ribs. Good twist to one side and over you go both hips. Stay down and up. Lift and pull in. Now I want to keep that lower back long as you go over and up. Lift and twist. Bring this rib around there and over. Yes. One more time. Lift. Bring the both with, that's it.

And last one. Excellent. Okay, Ben, forward. Relaxed down. Okay. Tree. So bend one knee in, right? Okay. Now my car, instead of sitting like this, I'd like you a little bit more like a yes. Just like that. Just like that. So you feel the connection of the front body. Nice and long.

Two and three flexing point. Work the foot. One, two, three. And here we go. Hinge back. Pull the lake with you. Walk down the leg, open everything out. Close everything up. Climb all the way up the leg. Two more times like this back you go. Keep this foot pulling into yes and come back up. So this contraction here helps work into the hip.

One more time. Keep this leg working. The tricks I learned from hanging from a bar in trapeze class is how much power is in this leg. Good. And very nice. Let's have you do the, the hip flex. I would like both feet. Flex strike now. Yes. And bend over. Just give yourself a nice stretch. Good. Come back up. So other sites. So there is a lot of CIF that happens in the leg muscles when you're actively pulling in and it allows you to stabilize your hips in a very, very intelligent way. We don't usually even think to do.

Just a little bit of filling up. There you go. So think of length without Oh yes, flexing point right now. Here we go. Good. Um, climb back up. Now this like this in the air has a tendency to be turning inwards.

Get it external other way and keep that left hip long as you go back better and come back up. Lift out of that lower back even more. Oh, there we go. One more time back. You go and climb back up. [inaudible] lifting up out of the lower back. Excellent. And then bend the knee and bend forward and relax down nice and long. Now here we go. So big lift up.

So we're doing flat back first. So I've got my leg right into your back. Now I've lost your waist. That's it. Now really lift without losing my leg as you go out and up. And again, big lift. Fill up into that lumbar spine to traction. Good.

One more time, even more. Lifting up and Wong in that back and then relax for a minute. That is coming along so well. Now side to side is next. So arms will come up. Here's my leg. Broomstick would be even better, but oh, hold on a minute. I need to adjust this. So it's in the hooks we go.

It was just, the hooks were fine. Funky. So big lift way up and off to one side and back and lift. So much better. And lift for a sign and lift even more. And last one big, big, big lift.

Fill up your lower back into my leg even more. Give it to me. Thank you. And lift and other side. Good. Relaxed, hoard and down. Good, good, good work. Nice length coming in here. And one more going into the twist. Here's your Cape. Your Cape of honor. So big lift. I would like to shoulders broad for there. Let's do something unusual. Micah, can you bring your hands inside the hooks? I know, yes, that's it.

Now first of all, I just want to give cause your elbows are very tight still. Okay, here we go. Let's try it here. Lift up and twist and out you go. Yes. Good. And lift. Twist. Okay, let's move the hands out again.

Big Lift. Hold it. I've lost you. Big Left and reach. Yeah. And one more time. Lifting. Okay. Bend forward and relax down. Now as I'm pressing forward, I want you to take your right leg and lengthen it out.

Just stretch it a little bit. Bend it back. Oh and take the left leg and stretch it out and back. And are both like see if you can lengthen them and give up the fight. Okay, good work. So pull ups. Oh, pull up variation.

We'll do pull up fronts and pull up back, right one foot and lift your hips up. So I won't even more lift here before you make a step down for a minute. So the moment you're already up there, it's real easy to be a little unnatural. You know you have a vague back bending back. I'd like you as you take your leg back to lift the stomach and the lumbar spine away before you even put the other leg in.

So you're already locked into complete plank position as your start. So that's it. Lift the tip. You can lift the hips even more just to and lift the stomach more. Now, step up with the other leg. Yes, lift this even more now, here we go. One, two, three, and lengthen. Okay. Down at three pull-ups from here. If you can't, one yes, and two and three and hang out and just give yourself a stretch. If it feels good. Beauty. Oh, look at that bend coming in here.

This is so wonderful. And then come on out. Very nice. How does that feel on your back? Awesome. It feels great. That's terrific. You know, are you up to doing that one more time? Sure. I'll tell you why. The first variation is the only one I want to investigate. You're still starting it. Archie, can I just demonstrate for a second because I think you're not setting up the right way. When you're going in. You're just, you tell my spines a little bit here.

I want you so curved up that you see now I'm in a, you're here. So when you do that first part, you're not in an arch at all. You're completely locking the trunk. So here we go. That's better. Yes, yes. Keep that. Now go forward and back without losing that two three. That's exactly it. That's what I was looking to have at the first part. The second part, you go into a back extension, so it's slightly different.

Okay. Yes. Okay. Pull ups back. Yes. Good. So come up to plank. Go into your backbend. Open that a high chest. Come back to plank and three pull-ups. One, two, three.

Scoop the Navel and hang out. And you can even pull this back. You can even bend the knees and pull them in. No, don't flatten your back. Be like a round little monkey. So when you come in, you round your back. Yes. And Len lengthen. And then lift the plane. So do regret. Okay, here we go. Pull all the way back.

Come to plank three, pull-ups, one, two, three. And then let yourself hang out and you can soften the knees and kind of round your back even further. You're going to come up to plank position. Bend your right knee into your chest, bend it and keep the hips lifted and twist the leg away from me and reach the foot way down. So you give yourself a twist, then bring the waist back, put the leg back, keep the hips high and twist over. So you keep the body in a plank and that's it. Then back, stretch your legs out. Bring, yeah, let yourself stretch and then step down. Fun.

Isn't that? That's an interesting twisty one. So let's do our lovely traditional ending, which is a superstar version, which is so much more fun once you are up to doing it. Let's have you standing at the front. Hands are on the inside of the Poles. Now before you walk forward, I want you to really appreciate all the space you've been creating in your lower back. That's really good. So open up that chest, leaning forward. Yes. And then with control, bring the hips back and sit down on the Cadillac and lift your legs up to teaser. So from here, right.

And then reach the arms up and hold the Poles and you can bend your feet down to the floor, bend the feet down if you want to, and then hike up and over. Go into pike. Yes. Bring your feet to the Cadillac and press your chest forward. All putting that chest. Beautiful. And then come back into pike with controls.

Sit Balance. Good. And then bring the hands in front of the Poles. Lower the legs down. Okay. You can hold there and then stand up and open the chest and stretch all. Okay. Micah, I think you've had an elegant sufficiency. This was awesome. Good work.

Comments

great class
Niedra: I am with you. Mica is so inspirational. For someone who has been in car accident no less! Wow. Tell him he is awesome. And off course you have given him your excellent guidance along the way.
WOW! What else is there to say?
Niedra Gabriel
Right? Micah is awesome and such a wonderful person and great teacher. You can tell - I am a fan too. So happy you all enjoyed him.
Nice variations, Niedra. Great hands-on cueing, as usual. Nice job, Micah.!
Heidi D
Wonderful cuing Niedra. I really enjoyed all of the corrections. Micah is obviously strong and flexible I could see how he was able to find length in his back and more movement in the upper spine and ribs. Great job to you both!
Niedra,
It is always a pleasure to watch your video's. Mika the end finale was awesome. Totally enjoyed this one!! Thank you both

MJ Iacono
Niedra Gabriel
So glad you all enjoyed this lesson. It is always a pleasure to work with "Micahs" as they are so capable and able, and show the brilliance of this method.
W O W Z A !!! Gulp! Simply Marvelous!!! Both of you!!!!
Niedra Gabriel
I am laughing - what a great comment Mary Liz.
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