Class #1794

Freedom in your Movement

45 min - Class
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Kristi invites you to set an intention for yourself in this Cadillac workout. She works on being grounded while lengthening to help you find the freedom in your movement, which may help you fulfill your intention. Enjoy exercises like Hip Opener, Tower, and so much more!
What You'll Need: Cadillac

About This Video

Jul 24, 2014
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Okay. Time to take Cadillac class. Um, I have the Cadillac set up. Basically what I would considered standard. I have my two springs at the top here of blue to red at the bottom using of course a balance body Cadillac. Um, I kind of plan to be all over the place in terms of using all sides. So I do have the arms springs attached at the top of the yellow and then the leg springs. I'm actually going to lower this down just a smidge. That leg springs here on the cross bar. Those are those long purple ones.

Later I'll probably pull out the handles. So for now, let's just take a deep breath. Decide how you're gonna work out and what your intention is and we'll see what happens from, from a standing parallel position. Just root yourself into the ground, grow tall out of the ground, take a deep breath, maybe even look up, extend your upper back a little bit, stretch your abs, let your shoulders rise, exhale and keep that length. The shoulder. Shoulders will come down, the space remains. Do One more and then we'll move on in here. Up Up, reach for it, find your feet, find the sky. Exhale, let it come down and then have a seat on the Cadillac facing the roll up bar.

Um, you're not going to be, oh, it depends on your length, but sit somewhere near the middle. I've got my hands outside the Bucko. Sit up as tall as you can. Try to keep the leg straight, but if you need to bend a little do. And from here we're just inhaling on the exhale. Draw the shoulders down, lengthen your spine. Gently press the springs to open. 'Em Up. Inhale, bark comes back up a little too. Real small. Exhale, still setting your intention, deciding what you're going to do, how are you going to feel when you're done? And exhale, lift and rise. Keep just a modicum of resistance on the springs. Inhale, hold on.

The exhale without collapsing. Draw the pubic bone up. Pull the waistline backwards just a little to fill that low back round. Inhale, sit back up. Exhale, zip up the legs. They're together, they're pointed, they're active and up. Inhale, start the exhale, grow tall, and then let the tailbone tip. And inhale. Just one more. We're just waking up the body. Little exhale and we'll change it a little bit this time. Just inhale. Press the bar down. Grow Tall. Exhale, tilt the pelvis, let the bar release ever so slightly. Inhale, sit back up. Exhale, fully released the bar. Inhale, press the Bardo.

Exhale, pull everything back just a little. It's not very far. Just check your shoulders haven't released. Forward. Inhale, I'm going to hold this one. Just inhale there. Exhale, come all the way back to the start. Lightening up on the springs there at the top. One more. Inhale, press the Bardo. Exhale, pull yourself back down. Sink the head too much. We're not making that big of a curve. Inhale, hold and exhale. Come back up. Taking it a little bigger. Just inhale.

Little pressure on the Barb. We'll go all the way down. Bring the bar with you. Tilting, rolling through the spine. Your head touches spread out. The collarbones. Inhale, pick your head up, look toward the bar or just under and exhale. Curl yourself up. Delay the lift off the mat, and then inhale at the top. Exhale, roll back.

Just trying to place the body into the mat. Inhale, lift your head up. XL resist coming up so it's heavy with where the bar is attached to you. We're using that to our advantage to resist again against the tall. Exhale, roll back. Notice that you only adjust the spine, meaning the upper parts of the spine when you need to let stay here. Pull the bar toward the chest. Inhale one, release two straight arms.

Do it again to try not to arch the back more. Here's three. This'll be at hold a straight arms. Inhale, pick your head up. Imagine pressing the hands toward each other. Exhale, Corolla. Inhale. Set a little pressure on the bar. Xcel doing it again. We rolled. We find our body being placed into the mat intentionally.

Heads are on the ground. Pull the bar three times. Inhale, exhale. One. Inhale, exhale to control your spring and three. So right here it's like I'm sliding my arms toward each other. Inhale, lift 10 and exhale up. We come from here, this 10 bend the knees. You might wiggle forward just a little inhales. Zip up the legs if they're not Xcel. Tilt back this time just to about halfway low back is on the mat, but not quite to the shoulder blades. Rotate to your right, but as you do, try to leave the knees in the center. Just inhale, exhale, come up just a little bit and then change your mind to go back down on the inhale. Same side, pressing the innercise together. Here's three of five.

Three inhale down for the springs. Aren't doing a lot of it. You're resisting against it. Basically go down, switch over to the other side and exhale forward. One off to that left side. Here's two. As my body goes forward, it says if the spine is reaching back, three, two more. Here's four. One more. Five go back down.

Level out the bar, a little pressure on it from under their shoulders. Exhale will come all the way back up and sit til this. Stretch the legs back out. Flex the feet. Just a few presses here. As you press the bar, point the toes. Inhale, flex the feet. Let the bar up. Just five. Here's two. Articulating through the feet. Here's three [inaudible].

One more time and now it says light point. You've already got resistance on the bar. When should per lift your chest? Lift your spine arch back, reach back with a whole body. Touch the head lightly roll through and come on back up, sitting tall. Press the bar down. Inhale, grow up, arch back. Keep those arms with you.

Roll through lightly from Chin all the way down to the tailbone to sit back up. One more. Press down Archbeck inner thigh inner thigh and roll it up. Can we reverse that? Sure. Inhale, a little bit of pressure you rolled down. Just like before. When you get to the bottom, you list your chest, leave the head behind a little but still under control. You can breathe lifted.

When you get to the top, pull the hips back and roll down again and exhaling. When it's time to inhale, you lift up keeping everything connected so it doesn't feel like it's just upper body and the lower body's doing nothing. It's all working in unison and we'll stay up on this one. Released the bar and roll down without it will hold away. Taking arms up to the polls just on the outside, bringing the knees up and I'm going to say at this 90 degree just to kind of warm up the waist a little bit more. We'll go to the front here in yellow.

I'll say left. Inhale as you rotate, zipping up the knees, so as you look at them, they're side by side. Exhale, center, other side in hand. Now this is a time where it almost feels like there's a separation between upper and lower body. You list the hip, reach it, stretch it, don't hike the hip. Exhale, pull center to the back. Inhale. [inaudible] exhale. It can feel good if it also sometimes feels better with the feet on the mat, like the tip toes on the mat. You could do it that way too.

Maybe try it and see what you like better. It's really about facilitating that rotation. Keep bull shoulders down. I just changed just for fun and I think I do like this version better most of the time. One more to the right or to the back and what from here. Let's just heat up a little bit more with the hundreds hundred so we curl forward. Actually stretch out the legs first. Sorry about that. Stretch out the legs, arms down, and take a moment and press the legs into the ground. Best you can.

Press the arms into the ground so it's as if you've got more gravity on you. All of a sudden now start to sink about lifting the right leg. Don't lift it. Just think about it. What would, what would engage? You don't even have to know it will happen. Think about it with the other foot. Now press both feet down into the mat and now both legs start to think about coming up and they actually do as you curl your head, neck and shoulders up, reaching the arms forward. Let's do a few inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. The legs can be higher. Make it nice and safe and easy on the back end.

Now two, three, four, five in. Can you be longer and yet still in the APPS, out in heating, up and out, in and out. One more. Never been real committed to the full hundred and hope you don't mind. Take everything down, reach the arms back and from here we'll roll ourselves up.

Bring the arms up first. Your head will follow. Just following that curve all the way. Take a stretch so you ride over the legs. All right. Then bend your right knee a little. So just slide that foot closer to you. Flex the left foot and reach through the left foot.

Reached into the foot. Strong flex. It's not just the toes, but you're actually flexing at that ankle and then change it so you pull the left knee up a little, you flex the right side. Try to keep the knee going down towards the Mat and then you long get your spine as much as you can both legs down, soften the feet, try and draw your rib cage up further towards your knees so it's not back here in rounded. Rather you, you might have to come up a little to do that. That's all right. You can come up a little. Help yourself by guiding. You're not flat back, but aiming a little more towards flat back and then you can lay over the legs. Alright, let's go sitting up. We're going to go to a bottom loaded, pushed through bar. So you have to put the safety chain safety strap on.

Now let's do that. Not everyone does this. It's something I really enjoy that I learned to do. It's basically the foot work that we're about to do, but from this bottom loaded position. So we've put our safety gear on and then I loaded up with both of these lower springs, the red short springs. You could do it with one. It's not that big of a difference, but it is different.

So you decide the actions will be the same. All right, come on down. Rev up a bit. Watch your head as you go under, slide back and you know we're going to aim to have the tailbone or the, no, not the sit down the tailbone. Most of the spine on the mat throughout this. So if you know you're really tight, you may have to back up. Um, just see how it goes. So help yourself into the, um, onto the foot bar. And I'm going to start with my heels on the bar in parallel. This is probably the shortest range of motion will get adjusting ourselves, sinking into the mat, let the springs pull on you, let the leg bone sort of rest in the hip socket some.

Maybe you'll get a sense of the sacrum sort of releasing. Let the springs be heavier in a way from that place we just inhale bend, oh, I don't have a deep range here. Some of you will be able to go deeper, so you should, so long as you're not just automatically rolling the tailbone up and straighten and bend, you're working both directions, right? So it's not just the way that the spring forcing the knee, but it's as if you're pulling your feet off a sticky surface from the ceiling and in an pur you fully engage. So don't get to the top, just hang out and wait for the next Rep. You're still engaged. I could so easily hyperextend here. Some concentrating not to do that. Just one more. Hold it up there.

Adjust to the balls of the feet. Still parallel. I'm about four to five inches apart. Guessing that that's about my sits bones. Distance for a second. Point your leg fully, so you're almost hyperextended in the ankle joint. Release it just to touch. So you have to work both sides of the calf and now the heels don't move. You simply bend the knees. Easier said than done. So watch for that.

You don't want to collapse it. The ankle joint. As soon as you bend the knees, they stay the same. You pull down, you push up, inhale and exhale working through the leg, check it out, right? You don't want just the back of the leg doing nothing. You don't want just the quads working. You don't want everything letting go at the top. It's a continuous dance from exhaling up. Inhaling down. You could change it, but I'll probably keep saying it that way when I say it. Stay up on the next one. Take your hands to your hip sockets or your upper thigh and just swivel externally. Rotate. So the heel touch each other, but just so that he'll touch each other. It's so that you get that full Rep.

Feel your butt working here. It's going to let go a little, not a lot. As you bend, knees will aim towards shoulders and press one Ben down. Press up too big. Squeeze especially right there, the feeder active, but hopefully not overly tense. Use them as your means of communication with the bar to communicate with the inner thigh. Communicate with the glute, communicate with the brain and then kind of as good when it's all working in conjunction like that. Give yourself three more. One bend per us too. You might tap or touch. That was three already, wasn't it?

So let's move the heels wide. I'll finish that sentence in a moment. Heals out to the edge of the bar or close to the edge of the bar. I arrest the ball of the foot on the side here. If your calves aren't able to do that, don't just keep them inside, but maybe mental note to yourself to start working on stretching your calves. Same exercise. Ben Down. [inaudible] up.

I was going to say, um hmm. I don't know. It'll come later. Press and press. Ah, you might want to touch where the glute and the leg meat cause that's essentially where it all starts in terms of the movement. How about one more and then I'll, same exercise. I'm putting the balls of the feet back on the bar.

I'm still in that external rotation. Just for a moment. Squeeze the glutes, Tuck the pelvis, just the tiniest bit so that you know what it feels like when you untuck the pelvis and still keep the engaged a little. It's not severe, but it's there. Bend the knees. Prs ankles aren't moving. They're following. They're actually working to stay that way, aren't they? You feel through the inner thigh, so it's not just quad. You're drawing as if you could actually touch the knees together. You can't, but I don't think if you are, you're probably hyper extending.

So don't just have a couple more feeling the length, feeling it, getting a little easier to be here. You may decide you need a break. If your hamstrings are tight, stay up otherwise and how you'll know is a fatigue. But sometimes if your hamstrings are just burning out, you'll feel it in your low back. And I would say if that's happening to you, you should take a break. Stop altogether or backup more. We're back to parallel balls of the feet. Look at your feet. Are they level? Are you rolling toward the little toe? Big Toe? Can you, can you almost draw straight lines?

Say from the middle to toes to the front of your ankle. Try in your mind's eye anyway. Now flex the heels and hold. Oh, okay. What happens to that alignment? Is it different? Can you adjust for it to try and keep it almost the same? Where do you need kept doing?

Okay if you have the alignment in your feet but your knees are completely inwardly rotated, try and adjust for it a little bit. Don't hurt yourself and you want the kneecaps pointed straight ahead. Theoretically and now point and full x and point and even now inner, not inner thigh. Even now where the hamstring and glute meat is still involved, involved, stretch and point and storage and point. If you can imagine stretching, not just the calves, but the bottoms of your feet, keeping those knees straight without locking. So there's, there's still action in really the whole leg. Oh, how many more should we do? Four. Three, two. Again, if you need a break, you should take it or we're in a high point. We're going to full bend the right knee. Flex the left foot.

That leg is still straight. Um, the right heel is real high, but I'm still in contact with that bar. I'm still working. Then the left foot pushes you all the way up to the straight to change. Take a moment to feel that it's different. Don't let it move. Your hips will go a little faster. Now, both legs up, heel flex both up. He'll flex both up. What's your upper body doing? Is it still connected to you?

You can push those arms into the mat a little just for grounding. Not for extra work per se. Oh, keep going. Stretch and pull instruction. Pull and stretch. [inaudible] stretch and lift. Next time. Hold it down so that right heel is going into the sky. If you're for it, you can actually wrap your left toes over the bar. Watch it.

You don't hyperextend and pull oh the bar down. To add to that stretch. [inaudible] switch it. Be Nice to yourself. Find the stretch. If you want a little more, you can use your right foot this time to help pull you into a deeper stretch. Sure. Up. And let's bend the knees.

Reach up to grab the bar to help yourself out of it. Right? Take off one spring. Um, I'm going to just do it from here. You may want to sit up to do it. So just take off one and let it hang behind you. Going right back up. Left heel straight up out of your hip.

Right leg is down. Okay. For the foot is flexed. So from here, I'm going to encourage you to first, it sounds weird, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Hike that left hip, the hip, the hip that's of the leg in the air, and hike it towards your left shoulder. So you're kind of side bending that way. Now level out at the foot and then try to d hike or go back to level with the hip until you feel a little bit of a stretch or different stretch from that place. You Bend, you straightened. We'll just do a few bend and straighten. It doesn't have to be big. You could also, by the way, bend your right knee if you need a little more space and bend, [inaudible], Drayton and Ben. We're doing two more. Here's number one up to uphold, bringing the right leg up and I'm not in the middle. I know you can't see that.

We didn't put a camera over there, but it's not in the middle. I'm straight up out of my hip best I can be. I'm going to take the left leg down and watched it. It doesn't splay out to the side. It's also not in the middle. It's just straight underneath me. Hopefully hike the right hip up, take it back to level and maybe a little lower than you think you should.

And then here we go. We bend, we straighten. Oh, come on. It feels good and bend. So here when it's sort of a simple move, I like to just think in terms of what more can I get. I'm thinking as my knee bends, I'm gonna imagine my sit bone is reaching out to the far end of the table. Give yourself four more. Here's one and two and three and one more. Four and okay. From this place, um, I'll give you this transition. Actually.

Let's bring it down. Let's do it that way and I'm only switching this spring so I can be clear with my directions. You don't have to change a thing. Just leave the one on. I should've taken the first one off so nothing changed for you. I just did that for display purposes. Turn onto your side facing in cameras and you can see our face in front.

You're lying right on your arm. Okay. Reach up and press the bar away. I'm going to try to get my foot the ball and my foot is close to center as I can. It's not in the center. I can tell you that it's forward of center and most of us are going to need it that way. If it's real easy for you to go send her, I would. I would still encourage you to be ever so slightly forward of center just so we don't overdo it. Then from that place your hips trying to get them stacked one on top of the other. I am an external rotation. That means the knee is rotated outward, so the innercise facing front other hand is just down from here.

Keeping that sort of same pointed ankle. You Bend and as you do this, it's a sense of leaving the hips in place, almost rotating the knee more, not the knee, the whole thigh more as you aim the knee just behind the shoulder and then straight with two again is bend, sort of a heaviness in the hip sockets. You're not overly holding there and thery and Ben. We call it hip opener four and six we'll do eight seven try not to roll back and eight there we go. From there, just bring it down. Turn yourself over to the other side, right on your side. Stack those hips.

It's easier I think to stack the hips first. Then push the bar up. Oh, this is going to be a little more forward than even the last one. Adjust where necessary. Know that the tendency is going to be for the top hip to hike to the shoulder and do your best to keep the waistline on both sides long. We bet we did eight right and stretch and bend.

It really isn't going to be that big, I don't think, uh, no matter if you're flexible or not, it, it's, it's this idea of just sort of encouraging just a little bit more. The gluteal work, a bed. Here's three more. One stretch. There's two stretch. Nice long legs here. Three already for eight and ring it back. Bar comes down. Go back to lying on your back.

All right. Still with one spring. Um, I'm going, we're going to do what we call the long set up of Bassi and I think that's what y'all it, someone will tell me, um, arms are straight and trying to come almost underneath the bar. Um, if, if you're going to air on either side, let it be to the, that your arms are slightly in front of you. All right, so I have the springs open. Just by have resistance on the spring. I mean arms are straight from here. We're going to push the bar up. The arms are staying straight. I look forward. I'm going to sit up and push the bar up and out of my way up. Now if, if your shoulders can accommodate, you're going to back up. Okay.

From there we inhale, bend the elbows wide, stay tall on your spine. Exhale, straighten the arms and roll it down. On that same exhale, oh all the way. My shoulders felt fine, but it felt like a little more than I needed, so I'm going to back up a little bit so the arms are quite in front of me. Now inhale, head comes up. Keep those arms straight. If you bend them is way too hard. Use the trunk to get you up. That's better. Inhale, grow tall or bend elbows. Exhale, straighten. You're just as tall as you were. Inhale and exhale.

Remember that very first exercise we did from the tilt to the pelvis. Let it bring you down. Head touches three to go. Inhale, head up. Exhale. It's not an arm exercise. Arm has to be functioning and stable. I bent and I straightened hold. Inhale, exhale down. But if you bend here, just too heavy for the arms, for the position, and inhale head. Exhale. It's the spine. Peel yourself up. You're tall. This part should be easy.

Inhale, bend, exhale straight and hold. Inhale. Imagine sending your feet off the other end of the table. As you rolled down, you can almost push the bar forward. Last one. Inhale, head up. Exhale. Up we go. You're tall. Do you feel how tall you are so you can bend and it's no big deal. Straightened hold, inhale and exhale down, down, down while I yep. For the tower. Sure.

So take your hands on the Poles outside that spring and slide down and see your arms are completely straight. Okay. If you aren't up for this, you might try a rollover. If you don't, this is one that's high on the shoulders, so it's not for everyone. You could also do a pelvic curl for the spinal articulation part of why we're doing it. All right. Your arms, just straight balls of the feet. On and we'll do a prep. First of all, you get your tailbone down or your sacrum down as much as you can. If it's up a little as okay, just don't automatically go there and hang out. You've got that bit of a stretch goes like this. Flex your feet, point your feet. Now it's as if you're pushing into the bar.

You are pushing into the bar with the balls of the feet. Actively use the hamstrings right here. That's what's bending your knees to pull your hips up. Notice the bar doesn't move a whole lot. I bring myself into that curve and then we're just going to roll right back down from there. All the way to straight legs.

Flex point, bottoms of the feet, pressing into the bar, forces the hamstrings or at least helps them to contract. Peel yourself up. Lots of space between your thighs and your chest. Inhale, exhale, burning it down. Imagine stretching your spine out a lot further than where it started. Legs straight. Let's do one more like that. Flex point. Push into the bar. Flex. You've got to have hamstrings.

If it's just bending your knees and I highly encourage you to make sure for lots of reasons and take it down. If you just bend your knees, it's going to be all pressure on the back. You active activate the hamstrings and it feels to fabulous. All right, the full deal. You Flex, you point, keep the legs straight as you peel up this time, still have to have the hamstrings. If that's too hard to find with the leg straight, you should go back. Keep the body nice and still bend the knees, hamstrings yet like the bar, super heavy and then back to straight and Xcel. Roll yourself down all the way. Flex point XL, peel up, hamstrings working. Yes, Christie course. Ben like you're wrapped around the bar, pulling it towards you straight in and down.

Oh watch the hyperextension last time. If your hamstrings are really working, you probably won't hyper extend. I just caught myself given up on one leg just to have it. Inhale, bend, exhale, straighten and down, down, down and with a nice long flex tailbone. Reaching into the mat and then bend your knees, let yourself off the bar and let's go to the other end for spring work with the legs. I'm going to just get rid of this for now cause I don't want it in my way. So I take the spring off and undo the safety's job. Okay, so we're coming on down, lying on our back. Awesome. That's good.

Where are you positioning yourself as really depended on where you left. The leg springs hanging. Mine were a little higher than my shoulder height. Maybe higher than that, but I'll just adjust on the mat if I don't like what I did. Putting your feet in the straps. Keep this nice and simple. Just yourself about arms length away and heels together.

All right. Press the heels really firmly together, but practice doing it not from um, so much your strength below your lower legs and give it is coming from your inner thighs trying to come together. Even though we're in a frog like position, feet flexed, you can take the arms down or leave 'em up at this point and just stretch the legs out. Pull the legs in, stretch your mouth, pull it and stretch. Let the springs kind of help you here. And by that I mean when they pulled back on you let them let them only use what you need. So they kinda support you as at the same time they work, you reach it out. Can you pull it in stretch longer as you press away, can you imagine the belly going upward? Next one, stay out there. Softly point the toes. Start at the top of g. Let the legs come up as high as they can to 90 without losing tension.

So you may have to adjust there. Um, I'm in a bit of a turnout, not much. We lower it down, open out. You can go wide today if you want. And exhale, enjoying that. Just sort of freedom or look for freedom in the hips. Now it's like, let it spin around in there. Try and loosen up any little creaky parts. I'm just going to do one more down.

I finished down and now going up. It's up and around. Make the heels come together, up, out and around. Touch heels. Notice tension. In other places where you may not need it and get rid of it or don't get rid of it. Just let it go. One more. Alright, coming up, go to parallel. Now, this is such a good one for those of us who hyper extend our legs and just get a little walking action. I'm not traveling it yet just to Duh, Duh, Duh. Right? Left, right, left, right, left. Okay.

If you do hyper, extend your knees, I'm going to encourage you not to just soften your knee, but to physically try to bend the knee and add more strength to the exercise. So a slight bend that does not change. It doesn't bend and straighten. It just stays going to be a heck of a lot harder for us that want to hyperextend so desperately. Now let's travel it up to three, four walk down to get to the mat and up to three, four. If you don't hyperextend, you can keep a straight leg, but actively use at least the hamstrings up, up, up, up and down, down, down. Let's do two more up, up. I feel it a lot funny. You know, you just can't back off. Things like that.

If you back off keeping those hamstrings strong and you hyperextend, you gotta do it again. You gotta get back to practicing. All right, let's do it. We're going to bring the right leg a lot, stretch it up for a bicycle and then the left, let's go. One you might want to hold on overhead. Kinda just going easy, kind of fast. I'm trying to stay parallel. So the spring does hit me right on the knee. If it bothers you, you can do a slight turnout, but I think you can handle it. Reverse it around around switch, reach, slice. Let's go. Four, three, two and one both legs up.

Bring yourself to a place for you to get them off and set them down. Just sit yourself up. Go back to your push through bar and top. Load it this time. So safety strap doesn't need to be there. Okay. Um, all in place still. This is going to be a little kneeling cat, so let's come in close enough where your arms can be bent. I'm going to bring it down the bar down just a little and I'm thinking to do it from the whole shoulder complex, not just my hands or my, I dunno my arms, but the whole thing slides down. That'll be my start from here. We inhale, get taller in your spine. As you straighten the arms down, your eyes are forward for the moment. Before we go anywhere else, make sure you're not sitting your hips back.

I am not doing enough because once again, I can't show my hamstrings. I want to, I want to draw my pelvis so far forward it almost kicks my legs up, especially when I get down there cause that's what's going to keep this all balanced. From here. We, we've already inhaled Nellis. A exhale, don't back up. You're just peeling yourself forward. Starting to extend the spine until it's nice and long. Inhale on the exhale from the back. Start Rolling. Don't let the hips get behind you and you can see them right now, right?

You have a straight line across the front of your hips and then when your spine is straight, you can bend the elbows. Let's go a little quicker. We inhale arms straight. Exhale, rounding forward when you don't, can't round anymore without piking backwards. Start to unfurl and let the top of the head go towards that bar. Inhale, hold, get longer. Exhale. Start climbing your way back up, right up over those hips. Up the shoulders if you need to. And only once your head is up. Do we re bend the elbows in Hell. Press down to straight arms. Exhale round over. We'll go.

Go stretched yourself nice and long. Watch the elbow contraction that you're not hyper extending. Re Round and come up. Last one. Inhale, reach down. You're tall. Now you're diving forward and down. Now you're elongating. Oh yeah. And then as you roll back up, broaden your back. Broaden your back.

Wrap around the front and up. We are. Okay. I want to do one more here. So have a seat. Since we're all loaded up here, have a seat at the bar with your feet at the polls. Let's do a little seated. Push through with the, um, well you'll see. Sure. I'm here. I'll be, I'll try to be clear. Keep the arm straight this time, right? You're going to draw back just like we did before.

Sending those heels into the Poles. Exhale, round forward. You're going to stay basically round as you stretch forward, even in this position. Think to pull the hipbones backwards. That's what initiates the next part, which is to roll back. Keep curved. Please slide past the tailbone and then extend your spine up. You can even push the bar up if it feels good. Again, we round back. Inhale.

Before you go any further check to make sure you haven't just lean back. You have very much connection from the heels to the waist. Exhale forward. Inhale, bring it back to your almost hanging on the bar. Cause will you need that in a moment. Come up and forward. Here's where it changes. We round back, we peress through keeping the curve round back again where you're hanging on the bar. Bend the knees.

You might have to lift your butt a little to actually slide toward the bar. Head down. Start to peel the hips up, up, up, getting the legs to touch the hands, and then as you roll down, I like to pick up my head up a little sooner than when the hips get down. So that's what you're going to see. Head comes up and straighten the legs again. You might have lift your butt a little flex in, hinge forward again, inhale, round, back sl to seated. Push through first. Exhale, curl and round. Full. Take the stretch. Keep the connection to the middle. Inhale, roll back.

Once you can pull on the bar, Do you slide your hips forward, peel yourself up. Maybe this time you go to the top of your head, you got to use your hamstrings, right? Have I said that enough? Round Chin comes down, head comes up, slide back out to the street and hinge forward. We'll just do one more. Inhale, hinge. Those of you who know a more advanced version, go ahead. I'm not going to, but you can. It's time. The same. Inhale, roll back. Bend the knees, slide yourself in. Either roll up to where the legs touch the bar or the top of the head touches the bar, or you got to use your legs. If you're doing anything else, roll down.

Push yourself back up and hinge forward. And just for fun, let's round back one more time. We're not going anywhere from here. Your rounded back. See that nice long curve. The forward our left arm, let's say it's gonna come off both fields equally connected to the bar. Reach that left hand for the opposite pole behind you and deepen your curve at the low back. Oh, both knees are straight too, right? Yes. Keep the curve. You can just bring that left arm through. When you get near the bar, you're just going to take it to the forward opposite bar and push the other one out of the way.

Both heels on the bar rather than going forward with this. Go up with it up with it. It's about the spine, not the shoulder girdle. Alright, round, back, last stretch like that. Find it. Yeah, you can hang on the bar. Don't let the shoulders get pulled out of your back.

Right arm comes off deep in your curve. So we're not arching here. You could. It's one way, but I'm, I'm wanting to stay rounded in the lumbar spine. Yup. Reach, reach, reach, slice back through staying curved. Come across the body to the forward front pole and twist. If you are pulling like I am, do it again. Not to Roto Torque, the twist.

I'm actually kind of using it to pull down to lift me up more rather than spin me around myself more. Ha Good. Okay. So now we'll take that off. We're going to do a little arm work. If you have handles, you're going to want to get them. If not, I'm going to get mine and we'll be right back. Okay. So I got my handles and I'm putting them, I took off the bar and I'm putting them on those yellow springs. I'm just gonna leave my bar here and I'm moving him down to the cross bar.

So these are your, what I call the arms springs, where the short yellow. Um, you could do this with leg springs. If you don't, if you have handles, you'll just be stepping out further than I am. So it's really about finding that sort of fine line between almost too heavy and almost too light as it positions change. This is our arm series. I'll take the bar down just a little bit. It's usually I say shoulder height, but I actually like it a little bit above that because I want to do a bit of a lean in a little while. So here we are, feet parallel, sit phone distance apart and it'll take me a second just to figure out exactly where I want to be. But it's that place. Arms are straight. I have the handles in the middle of my palm, not on my fingers. And as I pull back, I rise up in the chest and forward and backup a little bit more because I can handle a little bit more, not much, but a little and the senses that I'm reaching down in, back on, I'm reaching down and forward.

Okay. How about an exhale on the way back three? Either way, it's fine for, and it's just the sense that you're not starting over with each rep, right? You're reaching and pulling, reaching and polling. Let's go one more here and hold it. Hold it. Can you rise up on the toes? Keep reaching the arms back, the whole arm, not just the hand and lower the heels. Lower the arms.

Turn yourself around. So with the strap on each hand, and this one we're going to pitch forward on a diagonal doing the hug a tree. So same foot position. Make sure you're actually centered on your Cadillac. Uh, arms a little bit in front of you. Get the lean in. This is that place. It's almost making me want to fall forward cause it's light in this position. And then it'll be heavy if I go much further to secure that. So it's forward and my arms are basically straight as opposed to this curve.

So you have a little peck action there and open. Inhale, exhale. Keeping the body still. The lean is coming from the ankle, right? Not from the hips. It's from the ankle. Get that lean out there, stretch the arms wide. I suppose there's a small elbow bend in this wide position. It's a great neural stretch from me being on the computer a lot.

Hopefully it feels good to you too. Next one, hold it forward from there. Turn the palms down, reach the arms up alongside your ears. Same lean involved. Open to the side and come across like that last position. Inhale up open. Exhale, connecting your arms to the belly, arms to the back. Whichever way you need to find the connection, but feel how the feet are rooted to the ground, not clinging to the ground. There is a difference. Last one, come to the front.

Hold reverse and go to the side. Let the shoulders fall as the hands reach up and open up. Paroled. Open Up. It's a three part move, right? So how are we supposed to breathe? Well, however you want. I usually do a longer inhale. Here would be my exhale.

Inhale side and up, and I blow it all out. And if I'm not done, I o eight inhale, side up and exhale, reaching, reaching, and last one. Hold it to the front. A strange physician, sort of. You're going to bend the right elbow, right to the thumb, comes to your shoulder. Okay, notice I'm not taking the elbow behind me. I'm keeping it in front. Fingers point forward, switch it. So the left arm is in not behind. And the point of that is that now when we're going to focus on not rotating the trunk, it's just, it's like a tricep extension straight in front of one. Let's go a little faster. One, two to three.

Don't rotate. Three, reach further for four. You're arching your back. Or can you feel the long line from the back of your head down to your heels? Let's do it again. Reach, reach, last one. Reach. Reach both arms in front. Help yourself up. And let's take a big step forward.

Leaning again from their elbows are high. Uh, you, you, you're not trying to pinch the shoulder blades together. That'll throw your palms out to the sort of, uh, out to the side. Ghanim right underneath you. And then bend and straight bend and straighten. Bicep curl, elbows theoretically going straight back.

So you get a nice open chest. Feels good. It's a great way to work the Bicep, keeping it nice a long if it's not heavy enough, step further forward. If it's too high and it's pulling your shoulders up, you may have to lower that cross bar or lean more. Let's do five. Stretch it all the way. Four. Stretch it all the way. Three, two, one more time. One. Oh, I love it. Okay. Almost there. Let those down. I actually am gonna move my bar, so we're going top loaded again. This will be our back extension doing some drone work. So come on the table. Face down. You might want to take the bar with you. Oh, that's heavy.

That's good news I guess. Okay. I wrapped the sums around centering myself on the table. Looking down. You can even put your forehead down. I'm not going to just for the sake of the mic. Well maybe it will. All right. First things first, shrug the shoulders and then d shrug them and let that float your head. Just a little shrug. Again, let them go and bring it back down. Try for feet together. Now we go.

We're going to start by lifting your head up. There's a subtle downward pressure on the bar, but not a lot. I'm lifting my head up. If this bar were stationary, if I would almost try to pull myself forward, pulling my chest forward. That's all. If that feels all right, you can keep coming up. I am kind of pulling up our I and then set yourself down further than where you picked yourself up one piece at a time. Again, you'd allow the shoulders to be down, not overly, just sorta, not up by your ears, a little downward pressure.

It's the back muscles lifting you back muscles lifting you only what you need to press down on the bar up and then reach your spine, your chest, everything forward. Last one, he inhaling up getting longer, more space. You're not collapsing on the low back. You're lifting the whole body and down. Next version four heads down. You bend the elbows, let the bar get beyond you. If you can leave the head down for a while, do start to rise up and then straighten the arms overhead. Almost ending in the same position you were in with regard to your spine.

Now you drop the head on, drop it, but place your head down. Bend the elbows when you need to wide and press the bar forward. Bend the elbows wide. Let the bar start to pass your head. Leave your head. Take that lovely stretch. Then you straighten the arms. You look forward enough lining everything up.

Try for feet together a little bit apart. As all right, head goes down, elbows wide and pressed the bar forward. Changing it one more time. This time lift your head. Look forward. Rise up to the point where you think you can hold it and then bend the elbows and take the bar overhead. Body shouldn't have moved. Keep the body still. Even now as you bend gracefully placed the bar in front of you and down you go. Last one. This is it. You start to rise up. Feel the muscles working.

Coordination don't go so high. You're going to drop when you bend the elbows. Oh, what are you going to hold onto everything? Rebound, elbows, plan for this. Don't let it snap down and down you go. And with that one hand comes off. Help yourself up. Let the bar up and take a stretch. Trying to round the low back. So it's not just a hip stretch.

He can push on the mat. You can separate your feet, your knees, and then we're going to end this like we started it asking ourselves, did we do what we said where we're going to do? Yeah, of course we did. We always do a deep breath. Inhale, stay tall. Exhale, press the arms away. Find what you need to finish off. Last one. Inhale. Thank you very much.

Comments

Make me want to get on the Cadillac right now, esp with that bottom sprung work:)!
1 person likes this.
Thank you so much! I always look forward to your classes!!
Thank you both! Elayne, I felt exactly as you describe the day I decided to do this workout!
1 person likes this.
What a great class! My body feels amazing now. My spine/pelvis literally adjusted itself (loudly) twice during the sprung-from-below footwork into tower. Big thanks for that!
Wonderful Stephanie! You're welcome!
Love the instructor 'guided' workout, the honest feed back as you are doing the work Kristi, I find extremely helpful.
I enjoyed your flow of words and the clarity of instruction so very much! Inspired to practice!!
Thank you!!
Bottom loaded footwork is my nemesis. Truly humbling. Thank you for making the thing I hate to do the most completely enjoyable and worthwhile. I loved this workout. Thank you!!!
Annie and Jennie... thank you.
xo
Amazing flow..love the combination of the reach and saw together, I definetely agree with the other comment that says that this session makes you want to try it right away.
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