Class #248

Whole Body Reformer

25 min - Class
79 likes

Description

In this Reformer workout taught by Meredith, you can work your whole body and have fun in less than 30 minutes. Meredith's class features Footwork, Short Box Series, Long Spine, and Rowing.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

About This Video

Sep 07, 2010
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Transcript

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Okay. My intention today is to go through a, a quick, uh, pretty fast paced Bassey flow workout, um, without a great deal of cuing. Hopefully. But we'll, we'll do, we'll see how I go. You can't ever promise that, but we're going to start just lying on our backs on the reformer. We're all set up with our springs for foot and leg work and we're going to start with a pelvic curl, making sure that the headdress is adamantly down heels in the bar just to warm up the spine just by breathing in, breathing out as you articulate through the spine, finding the backs of the legs, sending the knees out over the toes, creating a straight line in Yale XL. Make your way back through your body so that the arms are long and straight. Inhale, linking one breath to the next XL. Articulate the spine can even work or even weight on both legs.

Exhaling to come down. This is our spinal warmups, so we want to make sure that we get what we need out of it and to get what we need out of it. Excelling to lift. You've got to put in what we need. The breadth assists you in opening up the space between the bones in your spine that the breath and the ABS. Last one picking up one lang followed by the other, curling the head and chest up away from the mat, putting the hands on top of the knees, heading into the double leg strip. Send the legs over the Barbary, then breathe out. Circle the [inaudible]. Inhale, warming up the body, feeling the knees pull in from Justin underneath the ribs. Continuing to keep the chest lifted as the heaviness of the RMS.

Challenges that curl last for [inaudible]. We speed up the pace. You've got to think even more so about connecting deeply. That fourth, I think this is for now. Let's go. Moving on. Let's have hands behind the head. Stretch the right leg out. Exchange legs. Squeeze them towards one another as they pass one another by there.

Perhaps a little higher than they would be normally, but we've got the bar in the way, so work with it. Press the vent thigh towards the chest and the chest towards the thigh. One more turn to the bent leg for the criss cross. Feeling the ribs, rotate the spine, rotate no elbows and um, I mean don't rotate with your Elvis or bring the elbow across the face. Less three to each side too.

And one bring the knees back in. Lift a little higher with the trunk. Lower the head and chest. Place the heels on the foot bar heading into foot. Work here. If you want your head rest up now feel free breathing in. Prepare, pressing into the backs of the legs, extending the legs, looking for flat flexed feet. Bend in and out. So we create a rhythm with our body, but without losing track of what's important, right. The extension of the hips are they'll focus on the backs of the legs, the extension of the knee without overextending the knee or locking inner thigh.

Focus last three, two and last time here, bringing the carriage all the way back to the stopper slides to your toes. Heels are slightly lifted and XL to press. Keep your feet still in space here as you travel back and forth with your legs. For some of us. It might feel as though we have to drop the l slightly as we come in.

Continuing to focus on the backs of the thighs. Yes, on the way out, but also on the way in the hamstrings. Their job is to bend the knee, so let them last two coming all the way back to the stopper. Gently touching, bringing the heel. See together again, the feet. Stay still pressed from the uppermost part of the site and drag yourself back. How much can you involve your abdominals here? Obviously the legs are working and they will I can.

We get a strong sense of powerhouse of a center at an in consistent rhythm, long straight arms. No tension in the neck. Last two [inaudible] come all the way back. Place the heels on the outside of the bar feed again, flexed flat, still innercise. Active. Think of drawing them together as you press out and pull back. This is a energetic inward squeeze throughout the movement. Working the springs in both ranges of motion. Last for relaxing the toes slightly forward.

Some of us tend to flex from our toes instead of from our ankle joint. This is it. Don't move to our toes. Slight lift through the heels. He'll stay still out and back. That's a good place to feel. If you're working evenly through both legs, you feel the backs of both sides of the pelvis, evenly weighted on the mat. Continuing to work through the waist.

Last four here using the CS has some leg work, but also just to warm up the body. Two more. Last one. [inaudible] coming all the way back in. Bring the toes to the center of the bar. Press out for progressive calve, raises. We'd go out down, up here. Oh down twice. When to [inaudible] as you're lifting and lowering your heels. Can you connect that movement all the way to the tops of the hip?

Yes. Bending in at working strongly in both directions. Meaning don't let the springs pull you under. You pull yourself under. That's for yet and here's five or go into six is our last full range of motion through the ankle joint and in your six. Same strong through the center. Always Ben engineers and come in, press straight, back out and alternate the field line and Change.

Lift high through the center of the foot as you come through that place. Last three pressing up and then down. Lift to lower. Lift up both feet. Bend your knees and come home. Come up off the mat, grab your box. We're going to set it for the short box series.

Okay. Far Down in greeting the springs and accessing the strap. You have enough space. It's a good idea to try to position your feet so that they can actually press down into the bar, bringing the arms crossed, the thumbs over the elbows. Drop the arms down towards the body. Sit Tall as you exhale. Start from the pelvis rolling away from the arms, so it's a sense of trying to leave the arms where they are, but move the spine away at some point or eventually they'll have to come back with you. Here's our inhale. Press down with the backs of the legs. Exhale, reach forward.

Stay round until your shoulders reach your hips or over your hips. Inhale, sit tall. Exhale, we go again. The shoulders are heavy, the neck is long, the legs are active. Inhale, [inaudible] up and tall and again, so again, there's no resting in between movements. It's all part of the flow. One of the tenants of holidays. As soon as you finish inhaling with that extension, you're right back into flection on your next exhale. Inhale, dig deep. Let's take it all the way over to the back for too.

If you're not interested in that, don't. If you are, make sure the backs of your legs are helping you. Support Yourself. Drop the spine back. Head goes back, Chin comes into the chest, and then we curl forward. Oh, that felt good. And then sitting till the last one, just like that. Curling is that adamant. Tucker, the pelvis. Keep talking so that the lower back flattens into the box and then extend the back over the box and coming up in the in healing to sit tall. Let's bring the hands behind the head.

Interlocking the hands. Don't push the head forward. Pull the head back for the flat back. Inhale, hinge. Exhale, Lis. Lift Taller. As you sit up, squeeze your bottom. Squeeze your inner thighs working in a flat plane in both directions. Last two, heading straight into the twist. Inhale, twist, hinge back on that diagonal. Exhale, lift and unwind in. He'll turn the body, knees, stay lined up, hinge back on the diagonal. Exhale up and unwind.

So it's one long breath cycle. Suppose to, if we count the sides last time, every movement counts, including the rotation back to center and the turning to the opposite side. Don't want to let anything go and back. Lower the arms downs to the climate tree. It doesn't matter. One leg in, hug the knee into the chest. Look for a flat back.

And then it's a pulse inwards. The yes your arms are holding. Yes your arms are perhaps working. But try to pull the leg away on pulse and already just talking while I pull. Try to pull the thigh away from the um, hands. Lift up the leg, holding onto the ankle. As you exhale, start from the pelvis, bring your leg back to a vertical position. Walk down it so you have a couple of choices here.

I'm just going to hang onto my leg and illustrate. The first one had can go all the way back or you can stay around an inflection. Walk yourself up your leg, finding a long flat spine. First. Bend the knee and pulse to, sorry, what? Dolphin?

No, I don't see him. I'm rolling now. I'm looking at [inaudible]. All right. I'm sorry. Looking for dolphins. Here we go. Reach the arms back if you want to. If you want to hang onto your leg, you do so reach him around to the side. Holding the back of this. How you two three. Finding along straight back first.

This time we're just going to bend the knee, put the ankle on the opposite knee and lengthen the spine forward. Just because, give me a chance to look for the dolphins again. Okay. I can't find him changing. All right, so you started, say you set your spine long, you pull your abdominals in and then you pull. Thank you. I don't think they're real. This rolling, bringing your leg back.

It stops it vertical and you walk down and you can either say inflection. You can extend over the back. That's totally your choice. But make sure that the pelvis is level walking back up. Pull the side bone deeper into the hip joint to extend the spine and pulse we go again. Stripes, delay, curve the spine away from the side, bringing the side with you. As you move walking back, I'm gonna let go this time. You make yourself happy.

Well, wherever you are and whatever you're doing, you must be supported by the front of the body is specially if you're going through that big back extension. Here we go. Bend the knee, put the ankle on the opposite knee and extend the spine forward rather than round. Nope. Hmm. Okay. And I said we're going to take the boxes away. A gesture springs for hip work.

We're counting that as our domino block and our stretch glass. Making your way down onto your back, placing your feet into the straps, starting with fraud, getting it done relatively quickly. But when we go see faster, I, I think I said before, let's not lose precision. Let's find, here's something I've been working on in this exercise. How much can you pull back on your abs to then allow the legs to press forward so it's an oppositional pulling. Last three, squeeze the heels together tightly.

You'll feel your inner thigh muscles work more. Squeeze the outer hips tightly. You'll feel them work more. This is it. Bring the like straight up externally rotated from deep within the hip. Press down, circle out around enough, down, linking one movement to the next. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. You see how the full rotation of the Femur and the hip joint last two last one. Taking it around the other way so we open, we reached down and squeeze tightly. Keep the tail Bandanas, the legs, travel upwards. Think about pulling the legs towards you from guess what?

They abs and are reaching around. Big schoolies as the heels come together, like an exclamation point. For those of you who hyperextend your knees like me, try to get the heels together rather than the knees together. Okay. Last time we're drawing a straight line along the horizon. Now, no up, no down. Just out and back and and feeling that both legs work evenly.

Feeling a sense of not just pulling from the legs, but definitely lifting up. It's almost as though the legs could potentially relaxing. It's never going to happen though. This one's a tough one, but we're more we can put into our waist the better off we are. Last too. And one way Christy for the long spine. Okay. Head rest down for the long spine. Externally rotated in the hips. Inhale, bring the legs to 90. Exhale lifts, straight up, no movement in the carriage. We're reaching up, up, up, up, up, up.

Separate the legs. Exhale, roll slowly down again. No movement in your reformer, keeping the backs of the legs active coming down evenly on both sides of the body. Once the tailbone touches the leg, circle around in touch. Let's come up. Pick any excess straight out using the springs for support, but not allowing them to just hold. Just still, uh, that was bad. Queuing. Use the hamstrings enough so that the carriage stays still, but not so much that you're pushing your carriage around. It's better. Circle the legs to touch and how things that are important. Hamstrings, abdominals, back extensors, shoulder extensors. And separate and Xcel to come down and then come around together.

Ben Janiece please to take your feet out of the straps one foot at a time. We're both feet at the same time and then we're coming up again and do the knee stretches round back then flat. I'm going to do one spring. You can feel free to make spring heavier if you wish. My personal preferences when, because I feel that it helps me connect into my abdominals more.

So I'm going to sit back on my feet. I'm then going to curl my spine, rounding my lumbar spine, pressing into the bar with my hands and then it's inhale. I keep my trunk stable as I move my thighs first away and then deeply in focusing on the trunk stabilization and the abdominal activity. Not to mention upper body stabilization, long neck. I'm thinking about pressing back with my hamstrings, a little in glutes. Last one, positive, the bottom. Extend the spine, press out, colon and n. N.

So again, primary importance is the stability of the trunk, not rounding and flattening the back. We're not over arching the back. Last two, one more. Bring the carriage in, press your hips forward. Once you've got a really deep tuck in the pelvis and start to move the hips, so in front of the knees or above the knees, then lengthen out through the chest, reaching away from the bar for the down stretch. It's exhale. Exhale out. Inhale, lift away from the bar like you're coming up in against an imaginary wall.

Exhale, press out. The extension of the spine stays consistent. An XR reach up through the top of the head, up through the breastbone, back through the shoulders and tumor fluid movement, linking breath to movement, linking mind to body. That's that. Take your car down and turn yourself around for the rowing. So we're sitting on the reformer. I like my legs together, but if you don't have enough space, it's perfectly fine to cross one over the other. Um, little bit of space behind you.

Starting with straight arms and a straight spine. It's an inhale to bend the elbows and exhale to Tuck the pelvis or curve the low spine rolling down in. Inhale to keep the carriage still as you turn the hands out to the side. And exhale to bring the body forward, the arms all the way behind you to touch with no movement in the carriage. Inhale, arms go up. Shoulders stay down. We rotate through the shoulder joint, bringing the arms all the way back to parallel XL to Rola sit and tall.

Inhale, bend. Work your upper back. Exhale, roll back. Inhale, open up internal rotation. Exhale, pull back, fold forward. Reach on shoulders. Reach down, lengthening the spine as the arms come all the way toward one another. Excelling to roll up. We do that three more times. Bend Rolling back. Opening. Yeah. Folding forward. I lied. Last one.

Keeping the upper back active throughout the entire movement. Pulling the abdominals back as the spine travels flow are reaching up and around. Arms in front of you. Shoulder distance apart. Shoulder height. Inhale, bend the arms. Exhale, Tuck the tailbone and around the spine back dropping the arms next to the ribs. Inhale, pause. XL start to come up, reaching the arms up, up, up, extending through the spine and dropping the arms forward as we sit tall. Inhale, bend, exhale, curve, and elbows drop slightly down towards the waist. There's an inhale to pause, just said, slight inclination towards flection and then reaching up through extension in the spine, dropping the arms, sitting tall. Inhale, bend the arm. Exhale, rolling back. Breathe in.

Pass. Pretty that an extent. That's fine. Yeah, next hell that treating this as back extension as well. That's it for that. Let the sprayed straps go down. Perfect timing, Mr. Train turned around.

Here we go. When Hook your thumbs, you want your straight back straps underneath your arms and here we go. It's exhale to raise the arms forward. Eye-Level. Inhale down and up and rotate around. I clarify the breathing. Exhale. Inhale and exhale. Bending the arms. Carry today. Still reaching forward and touchdown. They internally rotate at the shoulder joint. They externally rotate.

Catch the straps and reach around. Last time down. Legs are strong. Back is strong. Folding the elbows in Xcel to reach forward and heal to simultaneously length in the spine and extend the arms. Xcel to sit up and drop the arms to the sides and helpful the knees or elbows. Those are elbows. Exhale, fold. Inhale, lengthen out spine and arms during the internal rotation. The shoulder joint here. Sit up externally, rotate the shoulder and bring the arms around last to bend. I'm with you, Christie. Lengthen, supporting that back extension from the front. Here we go. Last one.

Lengthen out. Reach the spine long. I'm going to ask for you to hold their shoulders down. Just reach into a little bit longer. Spy. Let the streps help you find that big stretch through the back for me. Anyway, it's a big stretch set up. Circle the yams around and set your straps down. Oh, I'm warm and we are almost done.

We're going to do the shoulder pitch for the grand finale as back extension and you get to see me at my, I'm not the best at this exercise, but it's a good exercise nonetheless. Yeah, I read in a blue, a red, depending on your strengths, I think are red and a blue is appropriate for most people. Had this level. Hands on the bar. Stretch out your spine, bringing your chest close to your knees. I'm an hover my all this a little bit cause I need you to get a flat back. If you can keep a flat back with your chest on your thighs, go for it.

Bend your arms, straighten your arms. There's the basest of movements. Now as you stretch your arms, feel your shoulder blades draw down your back. As you bend your elbows, pull your elbows wide, your shoulder blades wide. Press your arms straight. Bending and stretching. The spine stays straight, and just because you're resting on your thighs doesn't mean your stomach is resting on your thighs. It should be pulling up, supporting the spine, supporting the work. Last three, pressing two more. And this one coming back towards straight arms. Press into your palms. Extend your spine up. We're going slow.

Just sitting down on our feet. We're coming up through back extension. Here's where it's so important that we support from the front, pulling the chest forward, yawning through the front of the body, and we're in just stepping to the side. Let's do two roll downs. One roll down. Just finishing. Breathing in, thinking about length, exhaling. Allow tension to drip out through the top of the head as you fold forward. Keeping the shoulders on the back in healing, excelling to a little girl back up. I think one's enough here, but what we are gonna do is just raise the arms up, lift up onto the toes, and then you're going to bring your arms around to your sides.

I'm going to bend mine cause I don't have space, which is actually feels good. So if you're bending like me, pull your shoulders way down your back and then draw. Relax the arms down. Leave the head where it is. Lengthen the spine so long that the nothing drops is the heels come down to the ground. That felt good. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Perfect for when you're in a hurry but feel like you'll go crazy if you don't workout.
1 person likes this.
Boring. Exept dolphin.
Great class! Quick workout, good pace.
1 person likes this.
I'm in recovery from surgery so this was just enough. Thank you!
Thank you for the feedback Marijan. As a teacher I am always striving to be better. If possible, could you be more specific about what made this class boring for you. Was it the pace, my tone of voice, the selection of exercises......? Having this information would allow me to make changes and hopefully provide you with a more satisfying experience next time.
2 people like this.
I didn't think it was boring...at all
1 person likes this.
Great class! Short enough so that I can do it before work in the morning.
2 people like this.
Really great class! Definitely not boring and at a great pace to feel the work in such a short amount of time.
Thanks everyone! We had fun that day.
1 person likes this.
Great class....I love your verbal cueing, so detailed yet not so wordy! Thanks!!
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