Class #2211

Athletic Conditioning Flow

60 min - Class
273 likes

Description

This athletic conditioning workout using the Reformer/Tower combo unit will challenge your core on another level. Portia Page teaches innovative exercises, all of which are double weighted with springs from the Reformer and springs from the Tower, which will make your body work in a way you haven't felt before. The abdominals are being strengthened the entire workout as Portia takes you through a series of kneeling, standing, and sitting exercises that will also build strength in the legs and arms. This class is great for strong bodies looking to push their athleticism.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Tower (No Box)

About This Video

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Welcome everyone. I'm Porsche page. This is Eric AQuESTT, better known as p dog and eat dog. We are here today to show you a wonderful athletic conditioning workout on the RTC, the reformer trap ps Cumbo and this is a lot more challenging than you might think. So what I've done is I've tried to make it a simple as possible. As far as set up, we're going to start with two reds and one blue on the carriage. The cool thing about using the ROTC are the reformer trapeze combo is that we can spring the carriage and we can use springs on the trip or half trap.

I should say with that combination, what you get is a very unusual feeling or very intense tingling in the core. Yes. Okay. Ms Erica, you will notice her face will change and the color might rise to the cheekbones and maybe even into her hair as she gets going in the workout. To keep things simple, we are using long yellow springs with a single loop strap at position number five on the half trap. So it's the fifth eye bolt up and that's all we're using. On the trapeze on this portion here. Again, we've got the two reds, one blue, and we're going to start with a favorite position of everyone supine.

Don't let that fool you though because even though she is lying down, she is going to be working her core intensely. So remember, we want you to slide down just a bit and the reason that we did that is so that she doesn't get jammed up into the shoulder rest. Now the best thing to do is to actually help your client into it and there is a way to do this on your own, but since I'm not doing the workout, I'll let you guys figure that out. All right, so I'm going to help her in. We're going to bring this all the way up to the mid thigh above the knee, and then we strap in the other leg. All right, now standard foot work becomes unstandardized here. She's going to start with heels on. Again, she's gotten moderate weight on the carriage, but even with a long yellow here, this is intense weight coming here through the mid thigh.

As she's straightened in, bend the leg. Ben's the legs. You're gonna notice that it looks exactly the same. I can guarantee you though that the feeling is not the same as evidenced by her. A little giggle there. All right. Now as she extends the legs, I want you to do seven more and when you finish seven you can go ahead and stop. We'll move to the next leg position as she extends the knee.

You will notice that with the strap here, this is pretty heavy. It's going to require that she uses full leg muscularity around her thigh. That means the quadriceps, the hamstrings, a little gluteal work there. This is fantastic work for building up powerful leg strength for those sporting activities. Okay. Have you done your? Yes. All right. We're going to move her now to the ball of the foot.

A relatively simple and easy elevation of the heels to not too high, so none of that, you know, five o'clock out to the bar. Okay. No stilettos and no church. Okay, so somewhere in between, again, straightening and bending. Now, I will say that with the weight that there is on the carriage and this weight of the springs coming from above, it is actually very challenging for her to keep her metatarsal on the foot bar with Erica too, with her right leg and her Tibia. She's got a little bit of Tibial torsion. So for her, I want to focus on her really pressing through the first metatarsal here so that she gets the correct alignment of her Tibia. And when you reach your 10 my dear, we'll go ahead and move you into little v. Yep. So this is an incredible amount of legwork here.

Also with the leg work, we're getting fantastic work in the core, which hello, that's what we're here for right now with the turnout. She's going to get a little more deep into those glutes right at that lovely glute fold that we all want to show off at the beaches the summer, right, or anytime of year here. Right. Good. What number are you on, Miss Erica. Oh, okay. See, you'll notice also that she's moving maybe a little slower than you might normally. Usually with somebody athletic. I would move them a little quicker to build up speed with control with the double spring. You can't do that because if you do, you're going to lose control of the metatarsal is on the foot bar. We don't want that. Okay. Was that your 10 fantastic. So now we're going to go back into our parallel position, balls of the feet on the foot bar, and we're going to go into our tendon stretch.

So go ahead and push out lower end, lift the heels four times, two more here. And once you've done your fourth one, bend the knees, control the movement coming back in, push back out again, and now she's going to drop the heels three times. This is really great work. Incredible amounts of core control going on here. She's got a really press down through her arms to keep the collarbone and chest open. I like to say keep that smile on the collarbone like you're on one now.

Right? Once she's done the one, we're going to go into our running good and alternating here. It's takes an incredible amount of control for her to stabilize the pelvis in that neutral position. And we know that by stabilizing the pelvis in neutral, we can work the core a whole more efficiently. So that's what we want. How about you do two more sets, Erica? Good. Get a nice little floaty feeling there. Now can we try a little bit of um, jumping here? All right, so we're going to jump.

Normally I would jump with the whole knee flexing and bending, but we're not going to do that. We're actually going to jump from the ankle joint so we can build some stability and strength in the ankle joint itself. I'm going to have Erica lift her head up. Yeah, you're doing okay. There need to adjust. Now she's got her hands resting on the carriage, but if she can't, I really want her to keep the hands up so that she really has to work hard through the core. And when you're ready my dear, just go ahead and jump off those toes.

This is actually pretty hard because we've got the two reds and one blue. So I'm going to have you do two more. Good. Take a rest and we're going to lighten the weight. Put your head down and take a little rest. Just bring your knees into your chest so that way you can adjust a little bit easier. I'm going to take you down to a red and a blue.

I want you to see how that feels. Good. Fully. Extend the legs out, keeping the toes on the foot bar. Lift the head, neck and shoulders up. Hover the arms and let's go for that again. Oh yes. Much better control. So where you would normally think you might want a little bit more spring edge or weight down here in the carriage, you actually don't because that light feeling is going to make her challenge her core and really work the muscles around the ankle joint and in the bottom of the foot. How's that feel to more and softly come in, bend the knees. Wow. So I want you to adjust yourself. Bring your knees into your chest.

Just take that little stretch here. And if you want to use your fingertips to pull yourself away from the shoulder rest cause we're going to move on into hands into the loops here in a minute. Yeah. Okay. So just take the stretch. I'll give her a little bit of traction cause she's a friend and you're going to help a friend out. Okay. Stay there for one moment. With this one, we actually want to go to a lighter weight yet we want to go to one red because where you're going to take the legs out. Good. Got that.

Their leg out. This can be a bit precarious if you're on your own, but hands are going to go in. We bring the knees right back up above the hips. Give this a test run Erica and just come up into an upper body lift with the legs extended feeling okay there. Good. Then we'll proceed with the hundred but we're only going to do 50 of these so breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Good and again in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Now with the springs coming above. Do three more breaths here, darling. You want to feel this reaching through the fingertips so she feels that connection deepen the core. The legs are reaching out as long they can. The legs are squeezing together. Good. How does that feel with that weight? Yeah. Good. And let's take a break. Bend the knees, bring your arms straight up. I'm going to give you a little stretch here. We're going to move into some more ab work.

The next one is the single leg stretch. Not your standard single leg stretch though. Bringing the knees right back up above the hips. She has to really control. Does the weight feel okay for you there? All right, take a deep breath on the exhale. Lower the arms, lift the head, extend the legs out. Single leg stretch here. She's going to keep the bed steady and just bring it legging and switch and switch and switch. And let's do six more sets.

Keep reaching through the fingertips and four, you'll notice the bed stays really steady. That means that she's controlling everything. Last one and let's go straight into, are you up for this single straight leg stretch? One leg up, one leg down, double breath. Inhale and switch and switch. She's got to keep reaching through her fingertips in order to stabilize the pelvis. If she's pushing too hard to one arm, she's going to get, yeah, it's gonna get all whacked out. How about two more set? Terrika so easy for me to say cause I'm not doing the work, but she is good. Arms Up, bend the knees and rest. Doing all right.

I'm so happy to hear that. All right. I'm going to just give you another deep stretch here because we still have to work a little bit. We've got to go to feet and straps now. Are you ready for that? Yeah. Okay, so one foot. Now we go into a very common move that we do on the reformer and that is feet and straps, but remember we have the carriage sprung one red, we have long yellow springs position number five. This is not ever going to change through this workout, but I will keep reminding you about that. Now she's going to do legs and straps.

This feels really, really different. The thing here is that you have to control the weight of the carriage. All right? And we have heavy springs here, so we're going to do a test run here and make sure that you can do just a simple frog bending and straightening. I'm going to let her move the carriage for the first couple of ones. Okay. This is actually harder than it looks with the movement.

It's very intuitive. It feels good if you let it move too much so you're not controlling through the core. Watch out. You're gonna slam the carriage on both sides. She's doing a fantastic job of controlling it. Now I'm going to ask her to keep the carriage steady, still bending and straightening the legs. I know it sounds weird, but she can do it. Notice how little movement there is in the bed. Now this takes an incredible amount of control and she is doing a phenomenal job of keeping that carriage steady. So matter of fact, should we ask her to do 10 more? I'm just kidding.

I would never do that to my friend. Just, well no, no, no. Cause you're starting to move, so we're going to bring it down to four more. Really Focus. Anchor the sacrum. Yep. Draw the lower belly and really feel that support for the low back. Beautiful job. You can do this. You can do this. Okay.

Steady, steady, seen. I'm going to come down here. I'm down here with you. I'm down here with you. Control. I know, I know and I'm going to ask you to do one more. I know you can do this. Feel this right here. Yes. Feel that work. Yes. Beautiful. Now parallel with the legs. You're going to lift and lower. Yup. Again, movement of the bed.

This is all good. I want her to feel that nice luscious movement of the bed underneath her. The backs of her legs. You don't know it, but they are burning, right? Yeah. This is a good place to be because the backs of our legs get ignored a lot, but they're so important for keeping balanced musculature around the knee joint, which is that inception point or the the the middle point. If you will, between the ground in your hips. So important.

Now can you keep the bed a little more steady? Yes. So less movement, but still flexing and extending the hips. You're going to get some movement, but it's a lot less. Do you feel that now when she does that, what happens is that literally from the heel all the way down to the glute fold, she feels that intense power that is building up in my right. So happy. Okay, one more.

Come on. Yes. All right. Now I'm going to let you move a little bit and let's do some nice circles cause it's still feel good on the hips. So let the legs come up and circle around. Just don't hit me. Okay. Yeah. You'll see here she's got a lot more moving, but this just feels really nice on the hip flexors. It feels good on the back of the hips. She's getting some real length through her legs. Not that she needs anymore.

She's got a lot of height on her. Thanks mom. Now go the other direction. We'll do five in this direction. Yes. What beautiful control. When you guys try this at home, you will feel how much this activates that entire back chain of your body. Even though you are lying on the carriage, you feel your back muscles working and you definitely feel the backs of the legs. Would you not agree? Miss Erica, are you balanced out? Okay. Now we didn't go over this, but I'm going to throw a little surprise in there for you. Okay?

Reach your legs out long and straight and parallel. Now, can you move just one leg? Reach out through the one that's not moving. Now bring this leg down to meet the other one and lift it up three more times. I want you to stay nice and long through the waist. This is extremely challenging because she's gotten movement in the carriage, which is going to happen because she's lifting and lowering the legs, but she's got to keep the length on the right side of the body as she's moving her leg neck.

Keep that right leg down and let's do the same thing with the left. I'm going to guess this side might be a little easier for you, or is it harder? Um, it's all hard. All right. So it was a little wrong on that guests, but that's okay. Reach through your right arm a little bit more. Yep. There we go. That helped a little bit. One more time. And then when you're even, I believe, yes. Now bend both knees. Ah, we'll go ahead and take these nasty little things off.

Who knew that one spring on the carriage could be so much. Alright, let's come into our kneeling arm work. How you feeling? Great. Fantastic. So with kneeling arm work, we're going to be using two red, and actually I think it's one red and a blue. Yes. Uh, yes. [inaudible] kneeling facing. Yup. Let's take the head rest down just so that it's out of the way.

You're going to know that was really a nice sound. It's just her socks on the carriage. All right, so let's give this a test. Oh, sorry. See, I always do that. You're going to do that. I guarantee you're going to do that. You're going to grab for the wrong straps. We want the straps that are attached to the springs on the half trap and you're going to need to help your clients usually get into this. So she's going to start in a seated position and we're just going to work on a little thigh stretch showy.

So as she pulls the arms back into extension, she's going to lift the hips up. Tell me how the weight feels too much. Okay, let's go a little lighter. Try One red. This is a little bit about experimentation because if you go too light, she's going to go flying through here and ended up with the dolphins that might be swimming out there. And if we go too heavy, she's going to dump herself right into the well. So two things we really don't want to have happen. Now I want you to see if you can get a little more activation through the backside of the shoulders here and lift up through your sternum. Yes, there we go. Can you do two more of those? Okay, good. You got this one more time and as you come up Eric, I really want you to think of that opening up of the collarbone and feel that connection to the backside. Yes. Beautiful. Now stay up there.

Good. From here, turn and look towards the camera and then look out to the ocean. Look back to center and sit yourself right back down with control. So we're going to try to hear a little less of the bang and that's up to you as far as timing goes. Use your breath right here. Take a nice deep breath to prepare. As you exhale, extend the shoulders, extend the hips, lifting up through the sternum. Look, look centre and then [inaudible] keep the smile as you sit. Let the arms come up.

I know it's that little kind of sweet spot. Yes. One more cause three three's my favorite number. Okay, up we go. Little bit more length reached the top of that lovely hair of yours. Yes. Keep looking and look. You open up around the collar bone. Yes. And sit back. Sit down. Ah, okay. Now can you come up to that position again one more time? With the arms back behind you or at your hips? Yes.

Now from here, I want you, you're going to pretend we didn't go over this either. So always fun in the air, right? Can you do a little bit of rotation like this? Yep. Okay. And so one arm will go into flection, one extension and a little bit of thoracic rotation. I liked this one because she's got to really work on keeping her core stable. And that means from the glutes all the way to the low abs, her ductors are working, she's working her back extensor muscles to keep upright. She's got to keep that openness through the chest and even yourself out.

I think you've got one more. Yeah. Was that even or do you need to do okay. All right. And take a seat. Very nice. I love it when you're good with the surprises. Okay. We're going to have you now face this direction and I'm going to hold that steady for her. We're going to be using, actually going to do yet, and we have a little bit of half a hug a tree here, if you will. So in this position, I'm going to ask her to drop the tail lift through the sternum and feel the connection in the backside of the shoulders. So there's no tension here at all.

I'm not a massage therapist, but this is usually what I feel like doing with my clients because they always need this. All right, so find the space here and are you going to do this? A very small movement? Yep. You got to work both arms towards the midline of the body. One has this intense spring on it, which is much more intense than you think. Keep going yet, and the other one comes in. You're doing okay.

Is it too heavy for you? Okay, so your client will always tell you we're going to go to a blue spring and you notice I held the bed steady as I did that. Okay, now let's try that better. Still not easy, but she's doing a fantastic job. I want you to do two more here. Good. One more time. Now stay here. Can you rotate to the right with your fingertips touching just a little bit. Back to three more times.

Control the bed you wanted, the lightweight. You got it. Now you've got to control it. Good. Keep the head in line with the spine. So keep reaching up in the back of the neck. That is gorgeous. Now take the strap in your right hand. Again, little movement through the bed.

I'm going to just remind you that this might not look like a lot of work, but you can tell from Eric because glow that it is. So here we go. So we're just going to do a little elbow out to the side and back here. And what I want Miss Erica to do is to feel this openness across the right clavicle and feel that gliding of the scapula right along her rib cage. And she's going to do two more. How you doing Miss Erica? You doing all right? One more time. Excellent.

And now we're done with this side, so I've got to do all that on the other side. But first I'm going to hold the bed for her. Nope, you're going to turn and face the foot bar first. We're kind of going around the world or in this case around the carriage, and I'm going to hand her these again. There's one, there's the other. You've got it. I'm going to let go of the carriage. Now you're doing OK here and I'm, for lack of a better name, I'm just going to call this reverse thigh stretch.

So remember facing the half trap, we did the same thing this time though, we're going to lift up in the same direction and she's going to pull her arms forward. So it's almost like an offering, but she's also doing the thighs stretch, so come back down, sit in. This takes an immense amount of control because there's only a blue spring on the carriage. That means it's all core control and intense arm work. Little bit more clavicle opening and draw the front ribs towards the back yet and really feel the abs drawn to support your pelvis. Good. Can you do two more? If you only knew how much work this was everyone? Yep.

Really feel long through the back of the neck there and a little more relaxed in the upper trapezius there. Good. Get that stretch. Good. Now can you stay up? Can you bring your arms behind you? Elbows behind you? Can you just do a little bit of straightening and bending? Yep. So a little bit of work. I wanted to do this for Erica because it should feel really nice on the front of her shoulders. A lot of us have that, a little bit of that thoracic rounding and the shoulders coming forward.

So I'm really wanting to promote that stretch through the Pec minor and getting some work for the arms too. And some ab work. One more and then we have to go to the other mean side. Okay. All right. So just sit back onto your heels. Uh, hold the bed for her. She's going to turn herself around. Set herself up. You'll notice two, normally in kneeling arm work, I would have clients who, especially of Eric has stature, her athletic prowess, inability. I would have them stand a little bit or kneel a little bit away from the shoulder rest. But because of the setup that we're using here with the ROTC, I'm also giving you a little break for a long time. Um, I am wanting her to come right up to the shoulder rest because she's going to need that for stability along her lateral side. Okay?

So when you get rid of this one, you're gonna take this one and you're gonna go into your half a hug a tree. She's still using both arms though, minimum movement because there's just the one blue spring on there. But she's having to really focus now on the right side of her body. Yes. But she's also hitting the slang on the left side because the advance amount of control that's having to happen in stability on that side.

You're doing a beautiful job. One more time. Now you're going to keep those fingertips towards one another and now you're going to rotate towards the left. Make sure that you do not lead with the head though. So I want you to think about the sternum leading that movement and you're just going to rotate your center, your head around the center. So remember no leading with the eyes. I'm going to have you do one more.

Yes. Okay, good. So I'm going to take this, you gotta. Yep. Take it into the other hand and she's going to do her little half of a row here and the same thing. I'm on the other side now, but I'm going to really focus on her finding some opening along the clavicle so that she feels that nice wide smile. She has a gorgeous smile anyway, but now she's got a nice one planted on her clavicle. I think you've got one more this position. Good. And you can see here the action, the shoulders in the back.

Now you're going to go back to facing the foot bar and we're going to move into our punching series. Yes. Here's your left one. We obviously did not have that time. Okay, I'm going to let go of the carriage. You good? Okay, so she's going to come up to that position. She's gonna if you let the strap stay underneath your yeah, it'll be better. Yup. You good there around the thumbs. You've got enough weight cause we can always add a little bit more. Good.

All right, let's try it. She says she's good. So let's give it a go. Now with this, you're not going to see a lot of bed movement, but there's intense amount of control. And is that your weaker? No. All right. Now can you add a little bit of thoracic rotation with that just a bit? Yes. And you can even look in that direction. And then look over here. Hello? Yeah.

Any whales out there? No. Okay. And no train. So we don't have anybody to wave hi to. I want you to do one more this way. Good. And then one more rotation around, but I want you to really lift through this tournament. Drop the shoulder so you really feel that lift up to the middle of your body. She's doing so good. Yeah.

All right. I'll relieve you of these. Stay there for one second. I'm going to steady the bed. Okay. We go from here to our knee stretch series. So what I need you to do is to step off. I'm going to set these down for a moment because we've got to change what we have on here. So we're going to bring this, I believe Miss Erica, we had it on two reds and a blue, right? Yeah. We're going to give it a go. Just to try.

Now this is a little bit odd to get into. It's a little bit like putting on a core set or, um, what do they call those things that you wear around here when you're getting married? Carter. Yes. So she's got a garter around both thighs. She's already married, so it's not a very sexy garter and it's over her outerwear. So what can we say? We've got two reds, one blue. We're going to give this to go.

She's going to let me know right away if it's too much weight or not enough. I don't think it'll be, um, too. It might be a little too much, but I don't think it'll be too little. Now getting in. I'm going to hold the flip. Hold the carriage for her again. She's going to climb in. This is so sexy. Not so if your clients have any issues climbing, this is a really interesting one. So she's going to, I'm going to let go now.

The carriage. All right, so what we're going to do here is just some shoulder flection. So we're just going to give it a go. She's sitting back onto her heels, going to flex to shoulders and drop into like a child's pose and then come back up leading through the sternum. So we're just gonna do a few of these. So we get some shoulder mobility. Yup. How's that feeling? Carriage weight feeling okay for you so far? Fantastic. She's really glowing, by the way. If you haven't noticed, she's working very hard. How about we do two more of those?

This is a real feel good exercise because the rest of it is not so feel good. All right, so here we go. We've got our shoulder flection. Good. Now we're going to keep the upper body steady, drop the neck and alignment. So I gaze down just a bit. Now we're going to go into knee stretch. So you're going to lift up just a tad big.

I want to give you a little bit of room for the hips. Extend the hips behind you and leave the upper body in the same position. So she pushes out and comes back in. Knees are staying on the carriage itself. Now this is a very unique feeling. Again, you've got carriage weights, springs here, you've got springs coming from here, and it's at an angle that's slightly above her hip level.

So the intensity is at about a 10 plus in the core. When you say yeah, and there is an immense amount of shoulder stability that's going on here. But the uniqueness of this is that with the weight on the carriage and the weight from the spring, we get the two working together to help you bring everything into the core to work even harder. But it provides a very strange sense of support. Right? Pretty cool. Okay, so from here we're going to stay here in this position. Now you go into shoulder extension, so you're going to extend the hips and the shoulders.

So I know that's flection. Yep. So Yep. Yep. So here and let's go into now bring your hips in. So let's just do a knee stretch. Yeah, good. And come back up. Bring your chest up, extend the hips, and let's flex the shoulders.

Are you okay there then wait, seems a bit much. Yeah. Let's come down one blue spring now. Chin in. Yep. There we go. So Yep. How's that? Feel a little bit better. Good up. And then sit back. This is a little different than we practice just to FYI. So, but that's quite all right. I like to move into whatever feels good for the client and this really feels good. I can tell I'm very jealous.

I just have to tell you. Good. Can you do two more? Just like that. Yep. And I want you to really think about yes. Keeping the lift coming from the sternum back of the neck. Nice and long. Now flex at the hips and Yup. One more time. So come back up. Good and Oh yes and good.

Now we're down on the two reds. We're going to be okay here cause this is a single arm work. Okay. So let's bring you into the hip extended position. We can get you sticky if you need. Are Your hands okay? All right. Open up across the collar bone there. Now.

She'd asked me earlier if she could bring her hand into the center of her sternum. I said, no, because I'm kind of mean and I really want her to work on this stability because I want her to get into a one-armed pushup one day. She doesn't know that yet, but I do. Yeah, and you're just going to do two more. This is looking beautiful. Disrupt the Chin just a little bit here. Good. And she's doing a really nice job of keeping her torso from rotating. Let's do one more on the other. No, no, no. I'm sorry. The other arm, not one more and just the other arm. I'm so mean. Sometimes I'm anti now on this side, she shifted a little bit towards me, so this is a little tougher on this side for her.

She's finding that the support on this side is maybe lacking just a bit. You got one more on this side? Yeah. You got this and let's take a rest. Sit back onto your hips. Push yourself back into a child's pose. Just take a nice little rest here. Can you do just a little bit? Yes.

I decide I'm going to give you a little bit of a release here. You okay there? Okay, good. We still have some work to do. We have long stretch. Yeah, and a few pushups combo double knee. Remember all this? Okay. Fantastic. So for the rest of you at home, the real work begins right now. All right, Erika, lift through the Sternum, draw back through the shoulder blades, draw the chin down a little bit.

Good to the heads in line with the thoracic spine. Wait. Okay. Here on the carriage. We can't do anything about this way cause we're stuck with that. We said we were going to keep it to that one setting. Take a deep breath. As you exhale, let the legs extend behind you to keep the upper body nice and steady.

So come into your plank position. Nice. Now, long stretch. So we're going to flex the shoulders and come back to actually, let's make it three more good. Keep reaching through the top of your head. Keep reaching back through the heels again. There's that strange sense of support that comes from this, although you still have that stability that you're working on now, come in, stop there. Draw your knees in four times, knees in and press out and in. Lift through the sternum. Good. She's doing a fantastic job. I'm just making, I'm trying to work because she's not letting me do anything.

She's doing all the workers self. Can you believe it? Good and push out. Now lower the knees. Let's take a quick break. Can you do the Combo? Yes. Okay, so we still have combo in Arabesque left. She's doing good. All right, ready? Yeah. So knees come in, push out and flex the shoulders. Good. Come in, flex the knees. She makes this look so easy, doesn't she? It's easy for me.

I'm not really doing anything. I'm here just in case she needs me. She really doesn't. The sense of support that you get from the springs on the trap really help you, but that doesn't mean that you're working any less than the upper body and oh good. You're going to go for one more. I like to keep things even on that four. And even though three is my favorite number, drop your knees and give it a rest. One more exercise here.

This is our elephant and um, Airbus are actually not our best. We're new single leg elephant. So Erica likes single leg elephant better than Airbus. So do we need to bring these up just a bit? Oh sure. Okay. So what we're doing is readjusting the thigh strap so that they come up a little bit off of the kneecap. They will adjust down as you get up and down. So just be sure that you keep them up above the knees so that there's no pain there and there's no gripping because this is a lot of spring edge, if you will.

From the trippy side of things, we're going to start with the heels down flat. She's going to come into as long of a spine as she can with a nice low back rounding because for Erica's body type, she needs the stretch and the length in her lower back and matched by the abdominal control. Here. Now we're staying a you good with the two red. Let's see. Okay, so we're going to stay with to red on the carriage. I'm going to keep my fingertips here to remind her that she needs to keep pressure into my fingertips but not move away from them and go ahead and move your legs and dry. And so again, with the tension coming from the springs on the trap, she's really got to work to draw. And although she does have two springs on the carriage pulling her in, it's really not much help at all because of the springs from the trap pulling her in the opposite direction. So you could probably do a hundred of these, right Erica?

Huh. Okay. So now from here, let's have you come up to um, yeah, one leg up. We're going to keep this foot flat cause just cause I really wanted to work there. Now you'll notice that if you didn't, I'm going to tell you she actually shifted her weight quite a bit onto the left side. So I'm gonna bring my fingertip here and ask you to shift some weight, bring some, um, tension into your left inner thigh. Can you do that so you can shift just a bit more towards me? Can you put a little bit more weight into your right hand even more? Yes.

And then press down. So yes, there we go. Now go ahead. She's going to bring the knee in. So this is a little different. I'm trying to, you need to move up from the ball. The foot. Sorry, did forget to tell you that. So she's coming into a single knee stretch and then up until one leg elephant. But it's really sort of an arabesque foot because she's got the heel lifted. They'd come in. Try not to, um, drop on this side too much.

There we go. Really connect one more time. Get the head in line with the upper spine. There we go. Good. Now hold there. Could you bring your knee in just a little closer? 10, nine, eight. I did not tell her about this one. I know. Five, four, three. She's going to hate me. I think I'm going to really be mistreated later. Okay, one more leg. Ms Erica. Kay.

So again, she shifted pretty far close to me, so I'm going to ask her to put weight into the left hand and try to lower the left hip. Okay, so I'm here so that she can support against me, but I'm also here in case she falls away. All right, and go for it. Good. I think of really lifting through the sternum and reaching the top of the head away as the hips lower and you really feel that contraction and through the low abs. I'm going to count on you to go do as many reps on this side as you did on the other and I think it's one more right? Reach through your right arm a little bit more. Good. Now hold here. Ten nine, eight sternum, left, reach long.

Talk about building strength and power for the entire body for whatever athletic activities you might do. This'll do it. Nice work. Oh, okay. Getting out of this is just as precarious is getting in. I'm going to stabilize the bed for her. She's going to drop down to the knees and she's just gonna back out. Kinda like she's crawling out of a box you ever see in cat or a dog do that.

Eric has much more graceful foot than that. Alright. How are you feeling? I know you're making me sweat and I'm not doing anything. All right, now we're gonna move into some standing work. So she's in the, well now she's going to come out of the, well let's show your backside first that your best side. Okay, we're going to go to one red. We'll do our abduction work first. Okay. So she's going to be working her right outer thigh and the arm at the same time. So remember for this when you need to step a little bit more this way cause she's going to be working her right like so we're just gonna get her set up into the position first. So let's just have her do a few without this connection.

Because what we normally see, the reformer is lifted up a little bit when we put the leg up, it hikes the hip. So what we need to see here is stability and leveling of the pelvis. Now push out with your right leg and can you keep the hip down easy. Now you might be a little bit too far over when we actually get into the work with the arm. Nope. This way, just about an inch. Yep. Okay, now you want to try it with the arm. All right, so actually this is same arm. Same leg to start. Yep.

And you're going to do a little bit of that internal rotation. Now we want the hip. I'm coming behind her a little bit because I want us help to stabilize her pelvis. There we go. Now I'm gonna let go and we're going to look at what's happening in her standing layer. I want you to do 10 of these. I think that was four. Okay. So we want to make sure that her left leg is not hyper extended and we want to see weight across all five minute tarsals in both sides of the heel.

And then that energy needs to come right up into the hip as she's pressing out with the right leg. This is excellent work. We're normally working the lower half of the body, but she's now working on the rotator cuff of the right arm. Doing okay there. I want you to do more with the leg and now work the other arm. So we're going to, can you do a little yep. Switch hands here. And we're just going to do I think six here.

Now when you bring the left arm in front of you, try to keep the shoulder back as much as possible, so make it a little bit more action to the left there. Yep. And if it helps, you can reach that right arm out. And then we want to drop this hip here a little bit. How's that feel? Good. Good. So again, we've got one red on there and this is working abduction of the leg and we're working the upper quadrant as we're working the lower quadrant. It's intense work. Okay. Alright, now we're going to have her still facing the same way. We're going to switch the weight on the carriage to one blue.

Okay. Now we have set up her right foot so that it's about where the loop is or the metal, um, carabiner is on that, the carriage strap. And it's going to be arbitrary because everybody that gets up here is going to be completely different. Erica's a couple inches taller than I am, so I would be standing at a completely different position. You just gotta set it up and work it out. So let's do this again first. I'm not going to hand you the strap yet.

I want you to just feel the inner thigh working. Yeah. So this is standing ad duction work really critical because what it does is helps to build strength in the standing leg while we are working the inner thigh of the moving leg. It's intense work because the legs lifted. It's really hard to stabilize the pelvis. Now we will work. Um, I think, yeah. And so what she's done, just bring your hand over here. She stuck her thumb through the, um, the yellow part of the spring and then she's just slit her whole hand through the risk or through the wrist and she slid her whole hand through the strap and now she's ready to work.

Some internal rotation here again. Okay. So again, a little bit more rotator cuff work, which is just fine endurance muscles so we can do lots of reps, lightweight. She's closer now. So even if she might've pre fatigued on the leg abduction work, this is so confusing sometimes. Then she's still getting, um, work in the internal rotation and the rotator cuff, which is really great. Yeah. How about what number are you on? Oh good. Let's go to 10. 10? Yes. Alright, fantastic. Ah, and you know, if you wanted to add more of a challenge, she could have them doing something with the free arm, but we'll let her be at this point since she's already working hard enough. I'm gonna come around this side and thank you, Miss Erica. All right, good. So I can step into the weld cause I know she's not gonna move that far.

Yup. So first I want you to start with just the work in the leg first. Okay? Now you might see a difference on this side depending on where her strengths and weaknesses are. So let's ask Erica, is this harder for you or easier? Easier on the standing leg and the working leg on the working leg. Okay. How's the standing like doing what? Standing like.

There we go. All right, so I'm going to step through here and let me stand behind her now and just help to stabilize her. She's working so hard, I'm not doing anything other than guiding her. I need you to drop this hip just to, yes, there we go. Maybe she wasn't in the right position. So let's try this again. Now we feel the work, so on the end range of that push out, I can feel her whole body wanting to shift to the left here. So what I need her to do is really tap into her right inner thigh, the right outer thighs so that she's got the column of strength up that leg, solid and strong. Good.

And then we want to keep the opening here across the front of her chest and the scapular is nice and even there. Good. Now grab with the other hand and we do our little rowing. Yes, doesn't she look good? So she, if she was going to go out tomorrow on her paddleboard would do so well because she's working all of the muscles that she needs to be able to get up on that board and hold her balance without falling into the ocean. Although maybe you want to fall in the ocean and play with the whales. Good. You're doing all right here. We can also have her do something with this arm maybe to help stabilizer and we want to keep reaching down through that sit bone. You're counting for yourself.

Okay, good. Nice work. Good. Now I'll take this if you don't mind changing your spring. Yep. And she's again going to move herself so that the toes are lined up with the the Caribbean or that's on the actual reformer itself and she's lining up the big toe. She's gonna find your stability first. And I'm going to ask her to drop now the right sit bone so that she levels the pelvis. Now you, I don't know if you can see this, but with this side, yes, it's a little tough on this side.

She's getting a little bit of thoracic rotation as she's pulling that right leg in. Much better. So what she did was she shifted herself a little bit to the left. Correct. Just so that she could find a little wider stance. I want you to do a few more here just to make sure that you're in the right position. This actually is a really fantastic exercise just by itself, but if you have this now we had the upper body torture.

Yes. So again, she puts yet her hand through the strap, her thumb through the yellow part of the spring. Got this. I know. It's like, there we go. All right now. Nice tall posture, openness to the chest, drop your right hip, just a bit. Good. Maintain the length here in the torso. And this is an incredible amount of work on the standing leg.

And because I know that sometimes we don't always have the weight across the metatarsal. I'm just stepping on her foot a little bit to give her a minor there. Drop this hip just a little bit. There we go. You're doing a fantastic job, Miss Erica. Little tolerant through the back of the neck. This is such great work.

I can't wait for you guys to try it at home. Good. All right. Undo yourself there. Alright, now we move on to, we have got seated work. So let's actually do our, um, and no, let's actually do hip extension first before we do the seated stuff because then we go into the plank work. Okay. So you're on this side. Let's stay on this side. Um, and we're going to go to one red.

So again, carriage on one red. This is hip extension work. So go ahead and set yourself up. I believe we brought the foot bar up for you too. Or is it okay down here? Media thinking up. Yeah. All experimentation with a new client. Yes. All right. So first, um, we're gonna go into, I'm going to do the movement without anything strapped here from the trapeze just so you can see it. So standing like straight hover the bed, knee off of the reformer. Good. Come back here. Good.

And we're just going to do hip extension. So actually what I'd like you no, no, no. I want you to stand up. Stand up, let go. Let go of the foot bar. Cause we'll use that in a second. Now stand up. Yes. And you're going to move back cause you, I want you to extend the hip to remember this is like a scooter. Okay. We'll use the foot bar in a minute. So you want me to move this foot back? Yes I do. [inaudible] and you're not holding onto the foot bar.

You're standing up. So Ben and straighten your left knee. Right knee, stay straight. So just get the movement pattern down of the lower body first. Okay. And then we'll add the straps. So this is a common move that we do a lot. I would probably do a lot more weight on this for standing. We're looking for the low back to stay nice and strong and straight. Good. It's actually harder with less weight.

But now we add in upper body. So you're actually going to hold no, no, no here. Yes, I remember now. Yes. Okay. Now she gets this very unusual coming together, if you will, of the upper and lower body. So she's going to bend and straighten. So the elbow bends, the leg straightens, and she's doing a really nice job of keeping her lower backs draped long here.

So she's getting Nice gluteal action. Great Hamstring action. Some bicep action, some stretch in the front of the shoulders. It's just an all around fun. Good exercise. Well I don't know if I'd call, I might call it fun. I'm not sure that Eric has calling it very much fun right now. But number Jaan can you, I think you can do two more and one more. Excellent.

Now inner intermission here, take a seat. Um, I think we need this down though. We said we wanted the foot part up, but I'm going to give you a little intermission on the other side first. Cause you're gonna do your seated stuff cause this is hard work. And then we'll finish with the other side. Okay. Just a minute. So with the seated work we have to read, she's going to take a seat right on the foot bar. Now first off, I just want to tell you that for some people sitting on the foot bar is not all that comfortable.

I'm actually kind of happy about that because I don't want it to be comfortable. I actually want you to come up off of that foot bar and feel the length of your body. So we're just going to do a few again, extension exercises or movements with the lower body so that she gets used to the exercise. Now this part, sitting on top of the foot bar is not easy, but the fact that the foot bar is not all that comfortable on the sit bones, it's gonna make her kind of lift up and make herself a little bit lighter. Okay, now we add the upper body. I know you love this one. Oh, got it. Now I'm going to stay here to help support her. She's only going to move the legs again. Okay there.

And I'm just providing her just a little bit of support. So I made sure that she stays perched up on top of the foot bar. Can you draw back or upper back? Just a bit. There we go. Nice. When she did that, she got even more deep core, deep lower abdominal contraction. Now just the arm work.

So straighten your legs. You gotta straighten your legs I think. Yup. There we go. And pull the arms back. So I'm gonna stay right here behind her. Just make sure she's not going anywhere. Just two more here. And then we're going to combine. So as one up either upper or lower Benz, the other ones straightened. There we go. So in opposition they move and as she pushes the legs out and pulls the arms, she gets this really great feeling of support and ease.

Right Erica? It's a good thing. I'm not looking at her. I think she might, you know, be making a face at me. Can you lift up a little taller? Good one more time? Yes. Okay, fantastic. I will take these from you. Let the carriage come back. Nice and easy. Good. Stand on the, I know, don't forget you have another leg. Yep. And uh, we, we go to one red standing.

We just work on the hip extension first. So stand up. Perfect. Keeping the low back nice and long. We're looking for that work through the glutes and down through the hamstrings. We're looking for the upper body to stay completely stable again with one red spring. Normally this would not be enough. I would want a little bit more weight on there.

It's just to get the patterning down in the body before we add the arm. Here we go. Okay. This side I think is going to be her harder side. So if you need to take the arm away from hip, do whatever you need to to keep your balance. Now connect more here. There you go. That better.

And you're a little bit rotated to try to bring your left short. Yep. That's it. You counting good. So this site's a little tougher for her. You'll notice that there was certain exercises there were, there's one side that's going to be a little tougher than the other. And with this kind of work it's always difficult to say which side it might be because we do have muscular imbalances. The work with the spring on the carriage and the spring from the trap makes the work a lot different. So you're in, you're never going to know really until you actually do it. Okay.

So we have our dynamic stretch. Are you happy? Okay. So with our dynamic stretch, I think we went to to red, but I think that might be a little heavy on the upper body. So let's try one red. Okay. And do you want to know? Yes. So you can reach back there. It's the strap now is going to go onto the outside thigh.

Yup. So it comes above the knee and then we, now we might want to bring the foot bar up. Yes, I knew he had it up at some point. All right, so first we'll just, let's go into a nice little stretcher cause she deserves a stretch. We're very close to the end of the workout now and right now I just want to give her a little bit of stretch. So from here, just come down a little bit lower into the stretch if you can push back. Good. And now even lift up this arm, it's lift up this arm just to give you a nice long stretch. Bring the eyes down just a bit. So here she's getting tension from the front. It's actually helping to pull the femur bone right back into the hip socket and line the knee up in line with the hip.

Really great work cause sometimes on lunges, you know form is not always that great. And when we're here at the end of a workout, we need form to be perfect. Now from here she's just going to get a nice little hamstring stretch. She's um, nick align. Yep. Good. Let's do the sternum a little bit more. Nope, not the chin, but the sternum. Good. Now we're going to actually, she's not quite done with the work so I'm going to let her come. Can you come down into your lunch first? So lunch first and then as you come up, you're going to lift the carriage knee and the the land, the land leg. I like that land floor. Wherever she is. I don't know.

The ocean's right there. So good. And can you do three more? Let's make this five on this one. This is actually easier than it looks right, Erica. Much easier than um, another exercise. I know that she's done to me now. Hold. I couldn't have wanted to make this any harder. Now could I have, can you draw that left knee in towards your chest? Just one time. One. And since you did that, so what can you do two more?

I had to get her back. [inaudible] and now she can lower that leg down. Yes. One more stretch because she deserves it. Lift up the right arm. No right arm up. Yup. Eyes forward. Yep. Drop the shoulders. Okay. And I'm going to help her get out of this. Ease the carriage Beckin for yourself back.

You lowered down and out and come to the other side. Oh, outside legs. So don't forget, this is the outside like that get strapped in. Comes above the knee. Yup. Perfect. Excellent. Starting in the stretch drops the hips.

Can you lower your right hip just a little bit here Erica? Good. And lift up your left arm. Get a nice long stretch. Good. Back in the neck as long shoulder glade. Straw back. Good. And now let's go into the hamstring stretch. Sit back. Keep lifting through the sternum.

So I want you to keep this nice long line here. Lower this hip just a bit. Yep. And a little bit this way. There we go. Ooh, that should feel nice. Good. You also might want to, she has on toe socks with the stickies underneath them. If you didn't have anything on your foot and your foot was sweaty or slippery, then you might want to put a sticky underneath the foot. Especially when you bring that leg straight that's on the floor cause it can slide very easily. She wants to get this over with. Can you tell, I guess I'm being too much chatty here. Huh?

You got to do couple more. Good. She's doing a really nice job. Good. I think this is your last one. Good. Now you're going to hold this up and you're going to bring the knee in, in, and press out. Good Sternum. Lift back of the neck. Nice and long. There we go. She looks so good doing this, doesn't she? Good and down. One more stretch. Bend a little bit more into this knee. Yep.

Pelvis. Steady eye. Gaze forward. I'm man. I'm telling Ya. Quite a workout. So ease the leg back. I'll help you out of this by releasing the pressure. Excellent. And let's come forward here. Should we take a nice big long stretch? Inhale.

Since I didn't get to do anything, I'm just going to do a little bit of a stretch. Stay right here. You're going to reach right arm up and then the left and the right and then the left. Now lift both shoulders up. Look up, let the shoulders descend down. Eyes look forward. Float the arms and shake it out.

Comments

1 person likes this.
YAY! Unseen even!
Z A
Oh my god....... I will write a review when i feel mu breath again;)) thank you very much.
Erika Quest
Don't be fooled!!!! This is Erika as the model. This session is SO HARD! PDAWG killed me, in a great way! Great class!
Z A
1 person likes this.
Erika and Portia, this really was great but VERY hard. I liked the Whole session very much. Thank you very much ladies and PA!
Michelle Perkins
Arms and legs shaking, but feels great. Thanks for a fab combo workout!
1 person likes this.
This was fantastic!! More! more! and more! of these combo reformer/tower workouts! Ladies love your style and your team teaching - with all of the classes you do!
I liked this workout very much I look forward to share with my students
Portia amei!!! Minha classe favorita...
Parabéns!!
Wow!! I love these combo classes and you ladies are awesome! I had to modify a bit because I don't have long yellow springs, just the short ones. I had to use my long purple leg springs! So yes it was hard but I loved it! Thank you:)
Leelee
Loved it! Thanks
1-10 of 37

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Move With Us

Experience Pilates. Experience life.

Let's Begin