Class #2384

Functional Patterns Tower

50 min - Class
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Description

You will work in all planes of movement in this Tower workout with Carrie Macy. She focuses on the theme of functional patterns so that you can work, strengthen, and stretch in all positions. She also finds patterns throughout the class so that each exercise prepares you for what is coming next.
What You'll Need: Tower

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Nov 21, 2015
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I'm Carrie Macy Samper and I have two lovely women here today to do a tower class with me with the theme of functional patterns in [inaudible]. Juliana is on my right and Caroline is on my left and we will be going through a workout today that will focus on all planes of movement. So the body is going to be worked, strengthened, stretched in all positions, all sides of the body. And we will start out with the a hundred so lie down with your heads at the back towards all of the gear on the tower units. And the first two exercises, we won't use any apparatus, we'll just, it would be like doing it on the mat. So with your legs long and straight, your arms long and straight.

Take a big deep inhale and a big deep exhale and just let your whole body sink heavily into the mat. And then take another big breath in. And on your exhale, pull your abdominals to the mat, float your head up, your arms up, and your legs up to a comfortable position for your hundred and begin to pump your arms vigorously. Taking a deep breath in and a deep exhale out. Good. Keep going. As you widen the collar bones, as you lengthen through the fingertips and make sure you press your heels together so your legs are activating deep inhale and a deep exhale. Make those arms pump very vigorous and very strong. There you go. Big Pumps, up and down. That's it, Caroline. Nice ladies.

You have four more sets deep. Inhale and press the back of your head back as you reach your toes forward. Keep going. There you go. And one more breath. Inhale, and then exhale all your air really pumped the arms and then lower your legs and rest your head on your arms to the mat. Good roll up to seated for rolling, likable. So just make sure you have enough space behind you.

If you are on a tower and pull your legs close into you, open your knees, shoulder width, dive your ears between your knees and pick your feet up off of the mat. Good. Now breathe in as you roll back to your shoulder blades and breathe out as you come right back up to the top. Go again. Inhale takes you back. Exhale brings you up. As you inhale and roll back, lift your hips, then press your hips into the mat. Very nice. Try to get your head tighter and closer in towards your knees. Two more. Inhale, roll. Lift your hips. Exhale back up. Last one. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, roll up.

Place your feet down under the mat and then lie onto your backs. And we will go into legs springs. So the legs springs on the balanced body units are the Purple Springs and whichever tower unit you're on, the legs spring should should be hooked on a higher setting. So about halfway up the tower, go ahead and place the loops onto the middle of your arches and then place your hands up on the vertical bars. And the further you push yourself away, the more challenging it is.

The closer in you are, the less challenging it is. So I'm going to have you guys push yourselves all the way away. Make sure your arms are straight, your ribs are into the mat and your knees or shoulder with heels together. Bring your legs all the way in. So this should feel somewhat similar to what you just did. Rolling like a ball, right? So we're working on forward flection right now on the sagittal plane.

Flexing hips, flexing knees. Press your legs all the way out to a 45 degree angle. Hold for a moment, push a little more into the strap as you pull your ribs and abs back, and then bend your knees into your shoulders. And again, press your legs all the way out. Draw your ribs deeply down into the mat and bend your knees back in. Again, keep going, making sure your knees never get wider than your shoulders and making sure that you're pushing back with the arms so the shoulders connect into your back. Bend the knees and do two more, a little quicker pace.

Press away and bend the knees in and one more. Press away and bend in. Excellent. Moving onto the leg circles here. Extend your legs all the way out again to 45 degrees. Lift your legs up towards the ceiling. Just shy of 90 degrees.

Open your legs as wide as the frame of the tower. Lower your legs and close them together. Go ahead, lift your legs up by drawing in your obs. Open the legs as wide as the frame and lower where your abdominals can control. Lift up, open and around together. Now lift and let's accent the around.

Lift through the middle and around and down to more. Lift around and down. Beautiful. Lift around and down. Then reverse. Keep going in the reverse. The same rhythm with that opening, a little more dynamic than the closing. [inaudible] work the springs. Keep your shoulders drawn down on your back. Strong, stable arms into the tower and do one more circle and then bend your knees in towards your chest. Nicely done, ladies. All right, the last one here for the legs springs, we will do the bicycle. So from your frog position, heels together, knees apart.

Press your legs out to 45 degrees again and then with your right leg, dry it down straight towards the Mat. Then bend your knee and draw your heel along the Madden in. Then start the left leg going straight down. Then that leg in and start the right leg and make sure the springs are going inside your knees when you bend your legs. So the knees veer outward just a bit. That's right.

Keep your pelvis securely pressed onto the mat and keep your heels going right down a midline like both are scooting along the same line. Breathe. Don't forget to breathe. Raise your hands up just a little higher. There you go. Reverse your circle your bicycle. So go down, out and up. And as you're reaching down, out and up with the legs, you're drawing the sternum and the ribs deeper down and connecting your shoulders down your back. Good. Keep going a little bit quicker. Tempo.

This is a brain game as well as an exercise for the body. Finished with both legs extended out, and then bend your knees in towards your chest. Nice for a little stretch here. Just reach up to take hold of the black straps from the inside of your legs. Keep keep your arms inside and pull your feet closer to your chest. Let your knees open to the side.

Hold your right leg there and extend your left leg open so you get your inner thighs stretching and a little more stretch into the right hip. Use Your abdominals to keep your hips stable and your abs connected. Switch sides, left leg comes in, right leg, extends out, keeping the pelvis in the same position. Breathe shoulders out of your ears, back, body connected, and then bring your other leg in. Remove the straps from your ankles and take them off. Good. All right, now a couple more exercises in this range of motion.

We're going to do the tower and the monkey. So if you guys would sit up and first you need to attach the safety chain or safety strap in this case. So it's the item that comes from the top of the tower and on this apparatus, this is a balanced body tower. You wrap it around the bar and I would like you to attach it to the first loop. Okay, so this is here in case the spring snaps or something happens so that the bar does not hit your face underneath. All right? Once you have the safety chain on, come around to the back of the tower, there should be a red spring.

So we're using the strength of a red spring from the bottom. It's going to hook onto the underside loop. Once you're set up, go ahead, back around, lie on your backs. Place your head right at the end, a few inches away from the edge of the tower. Okay, and we can readjust little societ a little forward. Julianna and Caroline a little forward too. Okay, so this is called the tower. Press the bar up towards the ceiling. Please. Your toes on the bar, toes apart, heels together.

Once your feet are securely on the bar, bring your hands back up to the vertical poles. Similar to where you were for your leg, legs springs, except you always want to make sure that your elbow in your hand are in as parallel to the floor. Good. Then from here, straighten your legs to the ceiling once your legs are straight. All right, good sound of the spring. That's why we have the safety chain on point through your toes and reach them long to the ceiling. But drive your tailbone down into the mat. So just find a stretch down the whole back of your body, keeping your torso solid on the mat.

Then bend your knees in towards your shoulders. We'll just do two more of these straits in your legs as your hips go heavy and bend the knees down and one more. Stretch your legs and bend your knees. Hey, now we will begin the full exercise. Straighten your legs all the way up. Then squeeze your glutes and roll up onto your shoulders. Being very careful not to let the bar go past the vertical pole.

Go a little further. Giuliana right about there. Ladies. Hold. Keep your hips still. Bend your knees towards your head. Keep your hips still straighten your legs up to the ceiling and against your kind of doing an upside down frog. Similar to what we did with the legs springs. One more bend and stretch. And as you roll down, keep your legs straight. Roll, articulate through your spine.

Reach your tailbone all the way out to the edge. Once your hips are down, flex your feet and softly bend your knees in towards your shoulders. Good. Go again. Straighten your legs, points your toes. Engage your core and your glutes to push and roll up onto your shoulders. Make sure you're on your shoulders and not your neck here. Then bend your knees towards the shoulders and stretch the legs up.

You can see here that Caroline has pressure. You can come down even a little more right there on her shoulder girdle as opposed to her neck vertebra. Then keep the leg straight on the third. Press up and roll slowly through your spine. Keep pushing up into the bar as you roll down. As you reach your hips out, flex your ankles, bend your knees one more time, straighten your legs, point your toes, roll up good, and then bend and stretch three times. You can go a little bit quicker.

Three bend and stretched to bend and stretch one and roll through your spine. Reach your tailbone far away so we're lengthening and opening the back. Flex the feet and bend your knees. Good. Reach back up for the bar. Take your feet off the pole, let the bar come down. And now slide further off the tower. So be careful. So the other direction, yes, you're going to go off the back edge.

Keep your chin on your chest so that you don't lose your head while you wouldn't lose your head. Come further back. Keep going deep. So your shoulders actually come off the back. You want your hip bones underneath the silver bar. A little more, Juliana. Yep. A little more Caroline. I know it feels funny. Now push the bar up to the ceiling and place your toes on the bar. Toes apart. Heels together. This time you're going to keep your hands on the bar as well.

Okay, so start out by pulling a little bit into yourself. So you really get that deep flection in your hips, your and your knees. Then press the bar up towards the ceiling, keeping your chest on your thighs. So come all the way up, straightening your legs, but keep your chest very close to your thighs. Look up at your toes, point your toes and flex your feet. Point again and flex. One more point.

And then bend your knees, pull your knees into your chest as you round your back down into the mat and give a nice little pull with the bar into the chest. Come up again, lift your head, press the bar up toward the ceiling. Look up at your toes, really point through the toes. And then flex. Keep drawing the shoulder blades down, your back and flex. And then this time point, bend your knees and roll your spine all the way down into the mat. Good. And we will just do two of the monkeys. Go ahead and take your feet off the bar.

Let the bar come down and slide yourself out. You can use the bar to help yourself come out if you need to. This strong. Let's have strong safety chain. All right, come on up. So take off the springs first. Ladies. Once the spring is off, you can remove the safety chain and we will move on. Now we're going to start to work the body more in a neutral position.

So no fluxion anymore, but not quite full extension. And we'll start out with arms springs. So once you hook this back up out of the way and we'll just loop it on top so it doesn't interfere with the rest of the springs. Excellent. The arms springs unbalanced body are the yellow springs, so they're just lighter than the leg springs and they will go on. This is on the fourth hook from the bottom, but it's always on a lower setting than where you had your leg springs. Okay, so come around and lie on your backs.

Let's place your head about halfway through that first mat and reach for the arms springs. Good. Perfect. And then I'll put y'all place your hands right into the handles and your legs can be together and bent or they can be straight all the way out on the mat. It's a little easier to connect to everything if the knees are bent. So I'm going to have you guys keep them bent your arms go straight up to the ceiling, draw your shoulders down out of your ears and you can start with almost tension on the spring. So get ready to Paul [inaudible].

You should feel your shoulder blades, your ribs, and your sacrum heavy in the mat. Take an inhale on exhale, reach your arms forward and all the way down towards the Mat. Hold here and tighten your core a little bit more. Inhale, reach forward with the arms to lift them up. Exhale, press your arms all the way down by your sides. Hold. Stay at the bottom for a moment. Open the chest, work the arm muscles, work the core, and then inhale, lift up. Go ahead and then exhale. Press all the way down. Hold. Press your inner thighs together. Keep the collarbones open and inhale, lift. Keep going. Ladies.

Do two more. And you're working not only your abdominals in your arms, but also a little bit into the back body. At this point, we're starting to work the back side of the body. And one more time. Exhale as you press your arms all the way down. Hold there. And now just bend the elbows to the ceiling and press the palms down. So a little quicker tempo for six and five.

Squeeze the elbows in and down. Four really hug your ribs with the elbows. Three, press your thighs together to keep the arms straight on one. Then go into circles. Open your arms to the side, lift your arms up to the ceiling. Exhale, press your arms by your side. Inhale, open and up to the ceiling. Exhale, press all the way by your side. Open and lift up. And one more. Exhale, press around.

End Up reverse. Open to the side. Come down and into your hips and up. Open. Very nice. Press down and open. Press right into your hips, engaging through the core one more and reach forward. And then let the arms lift and relax. Excellent. Release the springs carefully by your side.

And now we'll move on to chest expansions. We'll do a series of exercises. We'll three exercises where you're kneeling, so come up to your knees, face your tower units, and we will be using the rollback bars. The rollback bars are attached to the very top springs on your tower. Then you want to measure for chest expansion about arms length away. Um, yes. Thank you, Caroline. You probably could pull it from there.

Again to make it more challenging. Scoot farther away, but let's start about arms length and see where we're where we go. So make sure there's a straight line from your knees all the way up to your shoulders. And then on an inhale, pull your arms down and towards your thighs as you open your chest, hold your breath. Good. Exhale. Let the arms lift up. Okay, do it again. As you inhale, the arms are drawing down in, in hold. Your core is working. So as your upper back, exhale, release. Now we will add the head turn. Inhale, pull the arms in. As you hold your breath, look left. Look right, look, center.

Exhale, reach the arms back up. Go again. Inhale, pull the arms down and in. Draw the belly in and up as you look right and left. Good and center. Exhale. And one more. Each side. Inhale, pull the bar, hold your breath, look left and right and center. Exhale up. One more time. Try to hold the bar with your full hand. Yup. And inhale, pull. Good look. Right and left and center. Exhale.

Wonderful. Moving onto the thighs stretch. Basically same position. Just move back about six inches or so and make sure that your legs are parallel to each other, but their hip with the part you can widen your knees just a bit. And what I mean hip say hip width, I mean where your femur would go into your hip socket, so not too too wide, right in line with your bones. Good from here, gaze down at your knee caps. Okay.

Keep sight of your knees as you hinge your body back in a straight line from knees to shoulders only. Go where it you feel in control and comfortable and come right back up to the top. Okay, going again. So look down at your knees. Keep your knees in your sight as you hinge. So pull your belly with you a little bit more. There you go. And then return back up. Strong abdominals. Stay in [inaudible] going again.

Hinge back. Press your inner thighs toward each other as you do the hinge and lift up and do one more hinge back. Inner thighs together. Belly draws in to bring you up. Wonderful. Okay, you guys now turn around. We'll move on to the long back stretch arms about the same placement that you were for the size stretch. So it's about six when you're holding the bar, it's about six inches away.

The bar should be about six inches away from the end, and you can hold the outer edge of the bar. Yes, on these apparatus, there's a place for your hand on the outside of the spring. Some rollback bars. The springs are all the way at the edge, so obviously you would hold on the inside of the spring. Just make it be your shoulder width. Okay, so looking at Caroline, this is how you want to align yourself up in a straight line from shoulders to hips to knees. Bend your elbows. Don't change anything else in your body. Push the bar down the back of your leg towards your knees.

As you keep that line of your body. Take your hands, the bar out towards your heels, and then lift your arms up. That's it. Bend your elbows again. You're basically making a square with the bar. Push the bar down towards your knees. Nice. Take the bar out towards your heels. Lift your arms up again. Then the elbows bring the bar in. As the bar goes down, your abdominals lift up, take the bar out to the heels and up. Reverse. Pull to the heels, then pulled to the knees. Then bend your elbows, let the bar slide up.

Extend your arms out. Pull down to the heels, into the knees. Strong here. Yes. Bend the elbows and stretch out. Very nice. One more. Pull down and in. Bend the elbows up and then extend your arms all the way back out. Wonderful. Remove one arm at a time. Very nice. Okay, so now we've started to turn on the back body a little bit and we'll continue with that. Going into more extension exercises. Okay, so we will do the swan with the push through bar.

So you're going to use the push through bar again, so just take the roll back bar and move it behind and out of the way. We are going to use it again. Then we use this red spring from the very top hook on the side. We Hook it to the top hook of the push through bar. Okay. This in this fashion.

We don't need the safety chain when it's sprung from the top. Go ahead and lie on your stomach with your head here at this end. Okay. Then you have to reach up. So just be careful of your shoulders. Pull the bar down and push it through. Watch your head and your shoulders and you want the bar to be right between the vertical poles when your arms are straight. Exactly.

And I like just for safety to hold the bar with a full fist. Yes. Was your hands wrapped around? Okay, very nice. You guys bring your legs together. You should be in a completely straight line. Press your hips into the mat, abdominals, lift a little bit, and then plug your arm bones into your back. Start to lift your chest, gaze over the bar as you pull the bar towards your abdominals to lift your body up. Great. And then lower down as you push the bar back forward going again.

The arm bones draw into the back as the bar comes into the abdominals and lifts the belly up. Nice. And then lower back down with control. Good. And do two more like this. Inhale as you lift yourself up, up, up, up. Nice Juliana, and then exhale as you reach back forward. Last one. Inhale. Pull your arm bones in. Lift your belly up, draw the tailbone down into the mat, and exhale as you lower. Okay. Now we're going to advance this.

It's also fine to just do that variation to advance it. Turn your head to one side. Bend your elbows behind your head. Start to lift the bar toward the ceiling, and when your body doesn't allow you to go any more, lift your body up with the bar. Press the bar to the ceiling. Look straight ahead. Keep fists on the bar. Push your knuckles to the ceiling. As you lift your abdominals up, lower your head, lower your chest.

Start to bend your arms, push the bar back down and through. Turn your head to opposite direction from where you were. Again, bend your arms, drawing the shoulder blades down. As the bar comes behind you, lift through the abdominals to come up, up, up good, and then lower your head. Bend your arms, push the bar back forward and through. Turn your head. All right, let's just do one more. Bend your elbows. Bring the bar behind your head. This is a very intense extension exercise.

Lift up, make sure your tailbone is drawing down and your abdominals are lifting up. And then lower your head, chest and shoulders. Bend the elbows. Push the bar down and through. Lovely. All right. Be Very careful as you come out of this. So you guys guide the bar back with you as you start to sit up and I got yours, Caroline, and then sit back to a child's pose just to give your back a little break and I will lower the bars. Okay.

The next exercise, one more extension is the Flying Eagle. So in this one you need to take the yellow springs, the arms springs, and put them where the legs springs were. So just switch. So now you have the lighter springs on the higher setting. This is the one exercise in which you do this.

Once they're there, lie on your stomach with your head facing the tower unit. And if you're doing this by yourself, you're gonna want to move back enough so that your toes can hook over the end of the tower and you have a little bit of traction there where you can hold on with your feet. If you have a friend, let them help to spot you because it's much more satisfying when someone can actually hold your ankles. Um, so I'm going to hold Caroline's ankles here. So from this position, you press your feet, hold your toes Giuliana firmly on the mat, pull your shoulders out of your ears, drive your arms down toward the floor. As you lift your chest, keep driving the arms down in behind you. Circle your arms up and over your head. Reach forward and then lower your chest down. Go again.

Drive your arms down to the mat, lift your chest, circle the arms behind you. Reach forward with the arms and then lower yourself down. Good. Now let's reverse lift your arms straight up. Circle behind you. As you drive the arms down, lift higher, up and lower. I'm going to go spot Juliana. So drive your arms down.

Oops, sorry. I did the wrong direction. Let's do it again. So reach your arms up to the ceiling. Circle behind you. There you go. Draw down as you lift the hair, Juliana and lower yourself down. Gorgeous. You guys released the springs. Another child's pose. Sit right back onto your heels.

How are you feeling your back snow back then the friend. Good. Okay, so now let's kind of combine it together. We'll do a few exercises in sort of a combo of front and back body. So flection and extension. We'll start with rolling in and out. So you come back to your knees again and you're going to use this roll back bar.

Find this same placement you were in for the size stretch. So that's about six inches or so away from the end. Your legs are hip width and parallel. Okay? And you are going to move through a thigh stretch in this exercise. Step one bend forward and just put the bar in your knuckles down on the mat.

So you create basically like a rounded box. Keep your hips where they are. Slide the bar into your knees. Once the bar gets your knees, which is ARD, sit back towards your heels, bend your elbows, slide the bar up your body. Go into extension, take your chest back and your hips are off your thighs. [inaudible] straighten your arms and then bring yourself up. Good. The first one is often like the first pancake, right? It's like, hmm, that's not quite right. So let's start again then down.

Put your knuckles on the ground. Now you guys know where we're going. Slide the bar in towards your knees. As you sit back to your heels. Don't sit on your heels. Stay off. Bend the elbows, slide the bar up your body. Go into extension, arch, back. Stretch your arms forward. Let the bar pull you up. Yup.

Now go a little quicker so it's a little easier. Go down, pull it in, rural back. Slide the bar up your body. Go into extension, stretch the arms and return up. Move back a little further, Juliana, that will help you. Okay, now reverse. So you start by going back into extension. Then bend the elbows, Chin to chest. Scrub the bar down along your body, along your thighs. To your knees and back out and then lift up [inaudible] and go back. Head leads towards the Mat. Then your elbows, Chin to chest, scrub the bar down to your knees all the way to the mat.

Shift forward and roll up. So nice you guys and go back one more time. Arch it back, then the arms into the chest. Move the bar along your body, iron out the front of your thighs. Then shift forward hips over knees and then roll yourself all the way on. Lovely. Okay, so now you get to lie on your back. Again, you will use the roll back bar and we will do what's called rolling stomach massage.

You do need a sticky pad that will just drape over the bar because your legs are going to hook on the bar and you need some traction. Before you hook your legs though, measure the distance from the bar. You need to have straight arms. So push yourself all the way out. Yes, once you're out, then hook your knees on the bar. It's harder to move once your legs are on. Yup.

And your legs are together. They really squeeze the bar nice and strong, and then reach back and hold the Poles. Okay, from here, curl your knees towards your nose and lift your hips to the ceiling. So we're back in a rolling like a ball position. Then take your knees to the ceiling. With your hip stings. Still Pass your hips with your knees. Touch your toes to the mat so you're in basically a shoulder bridge, and then roll down through your spine all the way into the mat. Beautiful.

Bring your knees to your chest. Roll into yourself, hips to the ceiling, knees to the ceiling. Pass your hips with your knees. Touch your toes in a shoulder bridge and roll through your spine again. Knees to chest, hips up. Lift your knees to the ceiling hip. Stay up. Pass your hips with your knees. Touch the mat and articulate your spine into the mat.

Now reverse it so toes down. Roll your hips up. Lift your whole body up to the ceiling. Curl your knees into your ears and rural your spine down into the mat. Touch your toes to the mat. Lift right up to shoulder bridge. Lift your whole body to the ceiling.

Draw your knees into your nose and roll down through your spine. One more time. Toes touch, hips lift, lift your whole body off. Then your knees and and rural down where you whispering how amazing this felt. All right, carefully reached for the bar and remove your legs from the bar. Okay.

And I will help you get out of that and now you guys need to sit up and one more time. Change the springs to the leg. Springs are back to the legs. Spring setting. The next exercise we'll do as the airplane, which is very similar to the one you just did. Okay? So the rolling stomach massage prepares you for airplane. Airplane is the same with straight legs. Now so you lie on your back, you measure the same distance with long straight arms.

Then you put the legs, springs on your feet and remember they're back at the legs. Spring Height, which is the higher level. Place the strap right in the center of your arch, a little bit more towards your heel and go back into your frog position. Just like we started with the legs springs, so there's even patterns within the workout. From here, curl your hips to the ceiling by bringing your knees to your ears and your hips up. We're enrolled like a ball. Then shoot your feet straight up to the ceiling. Keep your hips there. Send your feet past your hips, catch the springs, and then articulate down as you still reach your legs out. Beautiful. Bend your knees in towards your shoulders. Curl your hips up to the, extend your legs to the ceiling. Past your hips with your legs.

Reach out so much, but you still do. Just articulate down. It almost looks like you're just going down in one piece. One more. Bend the knees in. Curl your hips up. Press your feet to the ceiling. Push your feet past your hips, catch the springs, and they help guide you all the way down. Bend your knees in reverse.

Press your legs or ride out along the Mat lifts straight up from shoulders to heels. Bend your knees into your ears and roll down. Okay. So this one is a little weird because when you get up to the top, the springs will actually release. So you lift all the way up. Bend your knees, roll into the mat to go a little slower. Press your legs all the way out. Very low. Hold here ladies. Push your feet further away.

Push your arms back and try to live from shoulders to toes in one piece up. Pull all the way up. Good. Bend your knees. This one's challenging and roll down through your back. Fabulous. Okay. Go ahead and remove the springs from your feet and then let them go back. All right, very nice though. How were those Combo exercises? Okay. Okay, so come on up. Now we're going to move to the side body.

Starting with the mermaid. You need the push through bar and you need again the red spring from the top. Just Hook it right up. Okay. And why don't you face in this direction and you can have your legs here.

Just gonna sit like this. [inaudible] it's nice to have the towers because you can actually have somewhere to put your feet. Okay. So place your arm up on the bar and you can be a little bit closer. And we're going to do a version of this where you do bend your elbow rather than keeping the arms straight. Okay? Your arm that's not doing anything, just goes to the side. Sit Nice and tall. Draw your ribs back so you have a flat spine. And then with shoulders drawing down, just bend the elbow, pull your elbow towards the Mat, then start to push down on the bar without teetering your body the other way.

It's kind of challenging, right? Bring your free arm to the ceiling, glue it to your ear and bend over. Push the bar with your torso, right? Hold for a moment. Make sure both hips are evenly glued and that your shoulder blade is drawn in. So your arm bone is really in your shoulder socket.

Come up with control and then bend the elbow towards the ground as you guide the bar back up. [inaudible] good. So start to bend the arm, pull your elbow down. This uses a lot of your side body, right? And then over. You guys make it look easy. Good. And then come back up. Open the right arm, bend the left elbow and stretch your arm up. One more time. So really stay straight, Juliana. Pull the elbow down. Try not to bend into it at all. Yes, right arm up and reach. This is kind of an anti movement exercise on this part.

And then Ben, more stability. Great. Now you have to turn around, do the other arm and look out at the ocean. Okay, Ben and the parking lot. Bend your right elbow, pull the bar down, staying very straight. Push the wire through and then bend over towards that arm. So remember your arm bone draws into your shoulder and your hip stays anchored. And then come back and bend the elbow to lift to go again.

Mm. Try to keep your body straight. Nice. Stretch shoulder on your back. Okay, nicely done. One more time ladies. Good. And then the elbow. Push the Barth through. Nice. Juliana.

Bend over to the side, keeping your hip even, and then bring yourself back up. Elbow Benz and arm reaches up. Lovely. All right. Come on up and now remove the spring from here and we will do the side sit ups. Okay, you'll need your roll back bar again.

And why don't you guys start by facing in. Your feet are going to be towards the end of the tower sitting on one hip [inaudible] and your, I'll come around over here. So your bottom leg goes, your foot, your bottom foot goes on the front bar, your other foot goes on the back bar and have your knees a little bit bent. [inaudible] and then yes, your arm closest to the tower. Your hand is holding the bar right in the center of the bar. So Julianne, I'm going to help you get, yeah, there you go. All right, so you want to be able to really press your feet into the Poles. You don't want to be like away from the Poles with your legs. OK?

The arm that's not holding the bar like these two ladies are, is flat with your palm down. It stays on the ground for the first three repetitions, press your feet into the bars as you lift yourself up sideways. You just like kind of slide the right arm in and then go back down. So when you press your legs into the bars, your legs are going to basically straighten, right? You just want to have enough leverage to do it. There you go.

Can you straighten your back leg and lift your foot up here? There you go. Okay. So press your feet in as you lift up. Straighten your top leg. Push. Yeah, and lower down. Okay, so pause for a second. The key to this exercise is that you're pressing through your legs and then you're also lifting and lengthening. You don't just want to kind of bend into the movement, right?

Push away and then lift up. Exactly. That'll work your side better. Gorgeous. You guys. All right. Now that you've got it there, turn your palm up. Keep your arm on your head, and this time you'll lift up with your arm. So you really have to use your legs in order to bring your body off. That's a Giuliana. And then lower back down.

This is a light spring for you on this one. So you have to work hard. Lift up. Yes, and a little length and due to our length and to lift up, use your legs good and lower. Bring your pubic bone to your belly button. Use your abs to help you. Straight arm and lower. Oh, all right. Come up carefully and turn around the beauty of exercises with two sides as you figure it out on the first side, and then you got it for the second side. Just make sure the next time you do it, you start on the other side. Okay, good point I need to make, is that the back leg? It should actually be higher now. This has little knobs everywhere, so I would come there. Yeah, it should be a little higher than your hip.

You don't want your leg over crossed. It should actually be, if anything wider than your hips. All right, so a softly bend your knees a little bit, Juliana. Initially. There you go. Yeah, there's lots of hooks. Palm is down. Then press through your legs to lift yourself up and you use your hand on this one to also guide you lower back down with control. Press through your legs so you get lengthen the spine to lift up and lower back down. Very nice. One more press.

As you lift and lower, turn your palm to face up. Keep your arm on your head, press through your legs. Lift the entire body on your arm, up and low or with control. And again, press through the legs to lift and lengthen your arm. And then lower. Nice. Two more times for us to lift up. Beautiful and lower. One more. Bring your pubic bone to your belly button.

Make sure your bellies working to lift you up and lower back down. Wonderful. Come up to seated carefully and turned to face the tower. Okay, so we have gotten most every plane of movement, right? Only one we're missing a little is your transverse, your rotation. So we'll start out with the um, reverse corkscrew your feet.

Go on the bars and you do have Ben's legs slightly bent legs. Yeah, yeah. That's okay. Since there's little hooks, I'm going to have them turn their feet a little to the side. Yeah. If you don't have any thing in the where of your foot, you can put your foot flat straight. Hold on to the rollback bar, right on the edges and sit up tall. Okay, so this is called the reverse corkscrew because instead of moving the legs like we would in a normal corkscrew on the mat, we're going to move the upper body in a twist. Okay, so tilt to your right and bring the bars so it's in line with the vertical pole of the tower. Good. Then roll down, curve your spine, roll down on the right side of your back, all the way onto your back. But just keep your chin on your chest. Go over to the other side, bring the bar in line with the other vertical pole. So right arm up, left arm down and roll up the left side [inaudible] and then come back to the center. Reverse. Go over to the left. The bar literally lines up with the pole roll down on the left side of your body, scoop through your waist, roll around and over to the right side and then roll up the right side.

Lovely. Do that again. Over to the right shoulder blades. Draw down, scoop through the belly, massage through the lower back over to the left, roll-up the left side and one more to the left. Tilt over, rural down through the left. Tip around the right and roll up the right side. Great. Okay, now come center. We do basically the same thing, but the bar goes the other direction so it's a little more challenging for your upper body. So as you tilt to the right, the bar goes the other direction. Okay, so your left arm pushes under, then you roll down onto your back, come to the center, then take your right arm, punch it under an over, roll up the left side. Yep. And Back Center. And you do that again. So the right arm goes under. As you lean over to the left, roll down through your back, draw your shoulder on your back. There you go.

Now use your left lat to draw the bar over. Good. And then roll up. That's it. And then go again over to the right. Roll down shoulder blades, draw down. Take that right arm, bring it over to the left side. Good. Lean over to the left as you roll up. Nice ladies. One more to the left over shoulder blades. Draw down. Roll down and drive that left arm across and roll up and come back to the center.

Brilliant. I've never had anyone just do that perfectly. Like you did. Wonderful. Release the bar. Gives you more work up here. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so now our uh, we have two more exercises. We have the teaser push through with corkscrew legs, so there's some rotation there. And also a nice ending stretch with a twist. So we need to again attach the push through bar firm with the red spring from the top.

[inaudible] lie on your backs with your head at the end of the tower. When you grab the silver bar with your hands, it should be pretty much above your chest, between your chest and your collar bones. You can move forward a little bit more. Stretch your legs out straight on the mat in front of you. Okay. Shoulder blades. Draw down your back. Bend your elbows very wide to the side.

As you pull the bar back and through above your head holds. Stay here as if you're trying to Elongate your entire body. Push your arms back as your toes. Reach forward on your ribs. Go down, and then bend your elbows wide to the shied shoulder blades. Draw down. Stretch your arms up to the ceiling. From here, lift your head and your toes. Roll up to a teaser. Oh, what is the a his workout without a teaser and then roll down into the mat.

We'll just do that one initially. Bend your elbows, pull the bar back and through above your head. And again, bend the elbows wide. Stretch the arms up. Lift your head on your toes. Roll all the way up. Find your teaser and hold it there. Now corkscrew your legs to the right, down, around, and up to the left. Good. Go to the left, down around, and up to the right. Keep the arms stable again to the right.

Push up with the upper body and then to the left. Full hand. There you go. Good. Now Roll your back into the mat. As you push up and lower the legs, then bend your elbows and reach the bar back and throw it. We're going to do that one more time. Here we go. Bend the arm, stretch them, lift your head in your legs, roll up to find your teas or circle the legs to the right around an up to the left, around an up again to the right, around nice and dynamic to the left, around and up. Hold. Release the push through bar and reach to your toes. Find a teaser, then boomerang the arms behind you. So take your arms behind you.

Hook your thumbs, reach your head to your knees and float forward as you circle your arms around and onto your toes. Good Rola. Turn around and face the tower for the push through and we're going to add a little twisted, twisted twist. Stretch in there, a twisted stretch. Hold onto the push through bar, straight legs. And again, if you need to turn the feet to the side, that's all right. You can also have it parallel and straight. Start by pressing the bar up to the ceiling.

Lean forward and press up. So you have a straight line from tailbone to head. You should think of the crown of your head pushing the bar up so that you can keep the shoulder blades drawn down. Now round back, curl your tailbone under. You try to bring your lower back all the way down to the mat. Staying way back there. Push the bar and through towards your feet.

Use Your abdominals. Use Your lats to do that and stretch forward. Go ahead and then roll back. Draw the abdominals and get your lower back down on the mat and then extend the arms. Press the bar up to the ceiling lift. So instead of leaning so far forward, come out of that a little. Yeah, and just lift that [inaudible] and round back again. Are you okay? Push the bar down in, through.

That's it. Push down and through. Good. And then round back and lift up. Do One more and then we'll add the twist part. Rounded back. Push forward and through. So still resist that with your ribs. A little. There you go. And then around it back, push through the heels as you roll back and lift the bar all the way up.

Keep the bar pushed up. Take your left hand off the bar and reach across to the right vertical pole. Grab it. If you need to bend the legs a little bit in order to grab it, totally fine. Grab and pull with that arm as this. As you push up with the other arm as you also keep your hips even. So you're trying to get uh, even long spiral, not kind of jutted out with your ribs. Good brief.

And then come back to the center and switch sides. Press op with the left arm. Reach across to the opposite pole with the right arm and then press up with the left. So give me a little more lift out of your back. Bend your knees a little bit. Yeah, lift your back. There it is. And then twist. That's going to be better rotation rather than having it bend [inaudible] and then come back to the center, release the bars, and then come standing up so you can stand right at the edge facing in towards the room and just take a big breath in. Lift your arms up, legs together, feel the front of the body, feel the back of the body. Exhale, arms to the side. One more time. Inhale and exhale.

You guys are finished. Well done.

Comments

3 people like this.
Great class! Thank you Carrie and PA for having more tower work. Your variation on reverse corkscrew was very interesting. Also the explanation of placement of springs, and which are being used is most helpful, along with your specific cueing.
1 person likes this.
I just love your cueing! Thank you so much Carrie!
Awesome! Thank you both, Hydie and Avishag!
1 person likes this.
Happy to see Carrie Macy again. I hope she will do more mat videos soon!
1 person likes this.
loved the cueing in this - you are amazing Carrie!
Cheryl, don't worry! You will get your wish :)
Caroline, having a beautiful mover as a student just makes me look good ;)
1 person likes this.
Thank you for this awesome class! Great cueing and so challenging!!:)
1 person likes this.
Thank you PA for this tower class. Challenging and well taught.
Thank you, Anne-Marie and Bonnie! Glad you enjoyed.
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