Class #3535

Athletic Reformer Layering

45 min - Class
364 likes

Description

Have fun with Pilates-based movements in this athletic Reformer workout by Erika Quest. She uses the Theraband to add whole-body integration into each variation. She also uses layering and progressions to increase the intensity so that you can build strength and endurance.
What You'll Need: Reformer (No Box), Theraband (2)

About This Video

Sep 05, 2018
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Transcript

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All right, it's you and me today. Get your hair ready. Get it out of the way, because we're going to be working on the reformer with two therabands. Now here's the deal, my friends, if you don't have a theraband or you don't have two therabands, it's all right. You don't need them. You can omit them from this workout, but if you have them, I'm going to encourage you to use the tension of your choice and tie one to each side of your foot bar. This is how I do it. I tend to just loop it around, take both of the tails, thread them through, make sure that they're pretty even.

You're going to need them while you're on the reformer, and then we'll be finishing with them when you're off the reformer and just make sure that they're tight and off to the side. So you can pick either one up as we get down onto the reformers. So let's talk about this workout. This is an athletic inspired workout. On the reformer is based moves. We're going to be layering, we're going to be stacking and pyramiding having a lot of fun and connecting with the whole body integration the whole entire time.

So I'm excited you're here. Uh, as I mentioned, get ready to get your heart rate up. Have a bit of fun. We have to warm up first. And I would like for you to set yourself up for what footwork feels like for you today. All right. So I have myself on three reds and a light spring or a blue or a yellow spring that might work for you, but do what feels the best. And we'll get started over to the side of the reformer.

So go ahead and stand on the floor, take a look down at your feet and make sure that they're pointed north, south, right? So you want to look at your feet and make sure that they're pointed forward and back. And the first thing I want you to do is just connect with your feet as your tripods of support. So think about your big toe. Think about your little toe and think about your heel and give yourself a little rock forward and rock back and then just sort of start to land with your center of gravity right in between that. From here, I just want to start with a few arm reaches, so soft bend in the knees, you reach one arm up in the other, arm down, and then soft bend to the knee. As you go to the other side, just breathing naturally here, right?

We're just warming up and I want you to think about really pulling back with the arms, connecting with the back of the body. That's really super important. None of us wake up in the morning and say, Oh, I'm going to walk backwards today, right? So we forget about the back of our body and we want to connect to there. Give me two more of these as you reach and Ben and Rory. Shh. Good. Now, arms come out to the t, reach them above the head.

Grab onto one wrist and traction yourself up and over. Taking a nice lateral flection here. Lift yourself back up. Arms come down, bend those knees. Lift the arms traction up and over to the other side and enjoy that. Good. And then arms come down.

Now a little bit of spine mobility as you give yourself a hug and then open the chest and the heart center. Go into slight extension here. Again, connect with the posterior or the back of the body. Come forward, hug yourself, and then open. Inhale, or just breathe. Just make sure you're breathing during this workout. You're going to need it round and hug. Good. And then open that heart center. See if you can lift that chest, even just a millimeter more, one more as you round and hug, and then open that heart center, our spine. I like to call it the epicenter of our body.

So you want to see how that's feeling before we start to move it a little bit more on the reformer. Now let's add in a little bit of balance work. So transfer weight to one leg, taking the opposite top of your foot and bring it onto your reformer. You should take a look down and take a look at your knees. They should be pretty close to one another in the hips pretty even. We're going to do standing balance work.

We're also going to fire up the back of your stability leg. Take your arms up to the ceiling, reach up as you ground down through that foot, feeling that sense of opposition through the body and then come down and touch the floor and then come back up. Good. And again, lower down touch and whoo, reach it up. Notice what's happening with your balance, right? So our balanced starts to decline at the age of 30 that's young. So we want to challenge it in a variety of different positions when we work out.

And this is one way to do it as well as to get the back of the leg engaged, which is really, really important. Good. Two more. And come down and touch and lift yourself back up. Nice and tall. Last one, and touch down and reach. Now what I want you to do is turn to the side so you can just turn to the side. Flex your foot. That's now on the reformer. You, Nate may need to walk your floor leg out a little bit and we're going to take a little single leg squats. You're going to bend that knee, sit back and stand it up.

We're doing this right now with the carriage stable and the springs on. We will experience this same movement pattern with the carriage unstrung in a little while. So I want you to practice it right now. Give me two more. Sit back, stand up. Nice and tall. Last one. Sit back, stand up nice and tall. Now turn back to your original position.

We're going to transition to the other leg and we will be doing some piking and some planking later, so we might as well do a plank transition, right? So lift those arms up, come down, touch the floor with the hands. Tuck the toes on that carriage leg. Bring the other leg up, find your, feel it and hold it. Push the floor away. Transition that carriage leg back down to the floor and stand it back up. Now you are back with the other leg.

So give yourself a check if you need two micro-adjustments here are totally fine. We're going to take it to the other side. Woo. Don't judge yourself because each side is different, right? So you want to make sure that as you're doing this, you have an active foot that's on the floor so that that arch on the inside of that foot, the medial arch we call it, is really firing up. You can do that by putting some pressure down your big toe. Give me three more. We did six on the other side about, so we'll try and be even here as well.

Last two good. Reaching up and last one and reaching up. Great again. Now we're pivoting over to the side. Flex the foot that's on the carriage and take that single leg squat again, sitting back into that heel that's on the floor, opening up the hip that is on the reformer chest stays nice and lifted. You're looking forward. That was three. Let's take it to six.

Two more, and last one. Good. Now, of course we're going to move on from this, but we're gonna transition through back to the floor through plank. So put those hands down, tuck the toes on the carriage, transition that other leg back up again. Find your plank and where are you with that stability core of yours today, your shoulder stability, your entire core body. Hold this for three more counts. Heat up the whole body, two and one, and bring both feet down onto the floor and roll yourself back up. Now widen out your stance.

Here's your first stack. We're going to progress this up to five. This will get your heart rate up. Take a look behind you. Make sure that the reformers there, because you're going to sit down on, in a moment, we're going to take a squat. You may need to widen out your legs to do what feels good for you as far as the squats concerned. So the first thing I want to do want you to do is sit down, take a squat. You're going to roll back. Find yourself on the carriage and extend through the spine.

Open the chest on an exhale. You're going to lift yourself up into a basic chest lift and you're going to take two bicycles, one, two, and then you come back down forward and stand it up. Okay, great. We took that one slow so you could learn the movement pattern. Now we're going to speed it up and progress it all the way up to five. So we're at two squats here. That'll take us to four bicycles, right?

So you're getting that pattern as we progressed. So you're going to take it down and up, driving through those heels, sit back control as you roll back. Only one chest lift here, teams. So you're going to lift up, but you know where we're at. One and to pull yourself back together and we're at three squats. One good two and three roll back. Take that chest lift and I'm going to encourage you, we're going to six here with your bicycle or three total. There is one, two, and three to start to add a hop here.

Can you for four and three and two and one. Sit back. Bring that heart rate up and take that stretch. Exhale as you lift a bicycles or four total, eight, six, four to hold it. Come down. We're at five go. Five, four, three, two and one. Sit back, roll back with control.

And exhale, lift. We're at 10 bicycles. Five total good. Eight, four, three, two, one. Come and stand it all the way up and you are done with your warmup. You can pure mid Don progressive back down to one if you want to add on that cardio. But for now we're going to move into some lower body and upper body with the therabands as well as your footwork.

So have a seat on your carriage roll on it before you lie down, pick up one of your therabands on each side. So there's two tails and you want to pick up one on each. Picking up both will probably be a little bit too heavy. So just know that we're going to start on your heels. Toes draw towards the knees.

And remember you have the gas pedal with these therabands. So the more you grab towards the foot bar, the more tension, the more you grabbed towards the tail, the less tension. Nobody's going to judge you. This is your workout. So you do. It feels good for you because I'm going to do the same. I'm your partner in crime here today.

So from here we're going to take one press out and a lateral raise of the arms. Come down and add in some core with a teaser prep and come all the way back down to repetitions with your legs and one teaser. So again, we are progressing on the lower here. One repetition, tease or prep. Knees stay bent. Arms lift to negotiate that and we take it to three lower body strength and power right now as well as upper body strength and balance. There's three. Give me one teaser prep, whatever your teaser prep is, yours, just do it and feel it. Find your balance on your sits zones. Good Ham. Press out.

We are at five I believe. High Hope. If I missed four, I apologize. This is five for me here. And come back down. Legs come up and you're gonna find that final teaser position with the knees bent. Come all the way back down. Rest your arms for a moments lie down onto the balls of the feet. My legs are together to connect through the midline and both of these positions, both heels and toes, so those inner thighs are working hard.

We're going to grab on to that theraband a little bit closer to the foot bar. We're going to start at five and progress down to one. So we're doing a pyramid here. So we took it up to five and we're going to start at five. You're going to take a bicep curl as you push out for five.

Keep those ankles nice and stable. Four and three. Connect that breath into the movement. Two and one. You know what's coming next. You're going to come up with those feet. Maybe straighten the legs this time and take your teaser and come down.

Toes come down. We're out for four and three. Control that carriage in both directions. Two and one come down. Here's your moment. Find your teaser and up.

Actually you've got lots of moments on this one, don't ya? Come down. Get your practice, your teaser alive. Three and two and one. Here it comes. Legs are up and you lift, find that he's reposition position. You make it better each time. I don't know, just try.

We're at two bicep curl one and two come up, extend those legs out and lift into your teaser. These bands are helping me a little bit. Really finding the back of my body, which is really important. Last one here. Bicep curl, extend out just for one and these start to really sneak in on you. In the beginning you're like, oh, I got this piece of cake. But over time that pyramid starts to really feel it. So now Grub overhand on those therabands. Again, you're in a little v position of the feed. I like to call it the pizza slice, right?

So from here we're going to start again at one and we're going to progress, but we're going to take a symmetrical arms. So you're going to take a symmetrical arms for one. Ooh, I need to choke down a little bit. And the position of the feet as you change up your teaser with your arms, right? So this teaser with asymmetrical arms feels very different on your sling system. Press out asymmetrical for two and then here comes your teas or asymmetry on the other side. I find it one arm comes to the year, one arm goes out to the side and come all the way down.

Back to that pizza slice or Pilati v and take it to three and two. You got this and one come down. Extend those legs out. It's your moment, a symmetry. You Woo. One of my slings is not working that great right now, but that's all right. No judgment. I'll figure it out.

It's all about proprialceptive work here and where you're out in space. Good. That's four. Come down, asymmetry and up, up, up. Find it. Find your place. Find your moment. My legs are shaking and come down and last set here for five k down. Four stay in it to win it.

Team three and two. Those arms should be feeling it as well. One last time here, taking it all the way up, finding your moment of your asymmetrical teaser. Maybe lift that arm up and get there and roll yourself all the way down with control. You can let go of your therapy and before we move on to single leg, bring your toes onto the foot bar right up next to one another and extend your carriage out. While we're here, let's take the opportunity for a little active recovery with some ankle mobility. So inhale if you'd like to reach those heels underneath there towards the foot bar and exhale as you rise up onto your toes.

Take a moment here. Now that you don't have those therabands in your hands, can you feel the backs of the arms on the carriage? Give me five more double and then we will jog or plants and four and three. Ask Yourself, is your chest open right now? Feel the backs of the shoulders drawing into the carriage and bend one knee straight in the other, pressing up and switching. Taking these a bit slower here just so you can really identify and feel the full range of fluxion that your ankles have today.

This is really critical ankle mobility as well as stability. But here we're focusing on mobility for so many things that we do for activities of daily life and six more, five, four, three, two and one all the way up and bring the carriage down to the stopper. Great job. Let's transition. So bring yourself up to the seated position for a moment and drop a spring. I'm going to stay on two heavies and a light, so two reds and a yellow, and I want you to turn onto one side of the body.

Your head's going to go down onto the headrest and you're going to grab one of the tales of your therapy. And again, your bottom arm can just stay supported right here up against the shoulder rest. This will help you so that you don't slide up in and your top foot is going to come onto the foot bar. Give it a check on your heel with an externally rotated hip, right? And now here's the deal team at home. My friends, when you're giving yourself a check, make sure this hip doesn't roll back right. Keep it nice and stacked above the other hip and don't just hang out here team.

So really feel like you're lifting this interior lateral line into your body so that you have some recruiting of muscles of the core of that lateral line of the body. Give yourself a bit attention here. Extend the bottom leg out nice and long. You can flex here or you can point up to you. I enjoy a flexed foot. And then exhale as you press out and reach. So you're gaining again, some tension into that. Theraband while you're externally rotating at the hip and feeling just a different position and working through your single leg work.

We're not going to progress here. We're not going to pyramid. We're just going to get some repetitions done. And last three, make sure that they are quality and lasts. Two, we'll take it to about 10 and one bring it all the way back down. And as you guys know, with my sessions, when we do two sided things, I always say what? Lather. Rinse, repeat. So we're gonna turn over and take it to the other side. I apologize, my back will be to you for a moment. So coming onto the other side, again, picking up that theraband, set yourself up. Remember the setup is really the most important part.

Before we move into that movement pattern, gained some tension. Try and be as close to where you were on the other side and we'll take it to 10 here as well. So pressing out for 10 and nine hip stays stacked interior lateral line is engaged. Good. This is for you're gliding that carriage and fuck you got five more here. Five getting some upper body strength and balance done some lower body strength and power all at the same time.

Two more and up and last one here and up. Great job. Let go of that theraband. Turn back over onto your back. But before you lie all the way down, you've got to change your springs out. So I'm going to ask you to go down to one red and one blue spring in a lie down onto your back. And we're going to pick up those loops that are back on the pegs.

Press out and load up those feet. So we're going to do some nice feed and straps here. Nothing fancy, just going for some hip mobility. Whenever I add in something new into my own body, I always like to balance it with something that my body already knows. Not that that makes it any easier, but it's a nice way to bring your brain back into a kind of comfortable position. So first you just want to lift and lower. So take some dynamic flexibility through the back of the legs, maybe a little through the low back. Enjoy this again.

Now that you're on your back again, I want you to feel the openness of the chest. Notice your heart center smiling towards the ceiling. Notice that the backs of the shoulders feeling slightly heavy on the carriage, the backs of the arms engaged. You don't need to actively force them, but just notice it so that you're not just hanging out. Three more of these fleas reaching into the loops and pressing away and down and to make each repetition work here and one, taking it into your down circle, so you're going to circle around the hips and come back to the ceiling and do that again. Now remember, here's the deal with your pelvic placement.

You want to keep it relatively stable, right? You want that pelvis to not be rocking and rolling a ton, minimizing the movement in that area so that you have some support. Last three, breathing as you're doing this, don't hold your breath. And two, we're going to move into those up circles in just a moment and one and let's go ahead and reverse directions. As you open out and exhale, press down into the midline. I use a term oftentimes and I say comfort creates confidence.

It doesn't mean that we always need to be in our comfort zone. We certainly need to push out of that, but sometimes it's nice to come back into your comfort zone to really see where your progress is, to see how mobile your hips are, how supple they feel today, as just feels great. Good two more times. And then we're going to drop that headrest and exhale coming through last one and open and down and to the mid line from here. Lift the legs back up, make the feet parallel if you were in external rotation, meaning Pilati, Zvi, and then go ahead and drop your headrest down for some spine articulation.

Now we're going to take some long spine. So let's do one of these where we don't split the legs so you can just sort of test the waters and negotiate what I like to call your tight rope walk and we'll talk about that once we get into it. So from here you're going to hinge at the hips, bring the legs up pretty close to where you can so that the bodies in about a 90 degree angle. And then exhale as you curl the tail, engage the abdominal press into the palms of the hands and come up trying not to move the carriage and opening the legs. And here is your tight rope. Walk on the way down. Can you walk, not move the carriage as you roll through that spine, keeping adequate engagement. Oh, of the hamstrings of course, as well as the abdominals. As you articulate that spine, press you the palm or the soles of the feet and lower back down. Great job. So there is your test.

We're going to now come into a hinge position. We're not making a circle at the top anymore. You're going to roll up, up, up, up, and you made it. Now can you with control, lose tension in one woo. One leg. Reach that leg back, keep it back behind you as you roll down and keeping one leg engaged and coming all the way back down. Sacrum touches down to the mat. Feet marry up and now take your circular pattern. I'll give you one circle here, lower down and of course we got to do that other side.

So come up finding about that 90 degree angle of the body. Roll it up. Remember which side you released before so that we can do the other one here. Release. Woo. And notice for each side is different.

That's my technical term for wow. This side is doing something very interesting today and that's okay. That's okay, right? Our bodies are not made by Mattel. Here comes your down circle. We are not barbies, we are not GI joes and every day is different in our own person.

So just know that. Let's try two more here. As you come up, making that hinge, exhale as you articulate. Can you make this one better? I don't know. I'm going to try and from here releasing one leg. Remember which leg you're releasing because you're going to do the other one on your last repetition. Coming down, down, down, down, gaining tension in that leg that released you get one circle down and around. Enjoy it and up and take it back down.

Here's your final one is you hinge. I'm going to try and make this side even better than my last one. The last one wasn't so great and release back, back. Ooh, I need that hamstring on my left side so much more. And roll down bone by bone, by bone, by bone. Okay, and take that down. Circle one last time and come up to the top.

Bend those knees and take your feet out of the loops. One at a time. Reach for that foot bar, come back, you can place your loops back onto those pigs and bring yourself up to the seated position. Congratulations, a little spine articulation for you, hip mobility, maybe some fun and releasing that leg. And now we're going to go into an area that I call speed work. And you're going to say speed work. What are you talking about, Erica? Well, the reason why I call it speed work is we're going to lose all of the springs on the carriage. So we're going to a completely unloaded carriage and that makes the carriage move a lot faster.

So be very safe and very careful as you do this, the carriage is going to float away from the stopper and you're going to step inside of the rails. Okay? I want you to do me a favor and take your foot bar down now as well. So drop that foot bar down out of the way. And as a reminder, this is definitely the fast lane, right? You're out here passing people with the speed work. This is no springs loaded on the carrots, so be safe.

We're first going to start just with a little lunge, so place your hands down onto the rails. Bring one leg back onto your reformer than me can anchor here. That floor foot is again north south, and just take a nice stretch through the front of that carriage leg. Shoulders are out of the ears. You're pushing down through those rails with your hands and opening up that hip flexor. Bring it in a little bit straight.

Now that leg that's on the floor and then take it back out and see if you can increase that range of motion on that hip flexor. You might be able to, you might not, no judgment either way. Okay, just breathe. One more cycle. [inaudible] great standard on up and let's take it over to the other side and then I'm going to talk to you about where we're going next. So from here, the floor, knee bend, the knees tracking over that ankle and you're going to open up the hip flexor. On the other side, chest is lifted again, pushing those rails away with your hands and breathing into the back and the bottom of your lungs. Really getting nice oxygenation. Come up out of that, straightening the floor leg for a moment, and then take it back in.

Making this just a little bit more dynamic with your flexibility and a little less static, meaning holding, holding the stretch is fine too, but it's nice to move and out of these flexible moments as well. Great. Nice job. So now coming back in, what I'd like for you to do is you're going to keep your hands relatively in about the same spot on the rails. You're going to now put one foot, about two thirds of the way back on the carriage. And remember, what do we call this? I call this speed work for a reason. No springs on that carriage. So things get a little complicated and that's okay, but you're up for the challenge.

So from here you're going to release the other leg and find your plank position. Remember we planked in warmup for a reason. So now you're here, you're at your moment in a drop your Chin and on an exhale I want you to pike, pull that carriage in, send it back out and then give me one knee bend. Inhale and Exhale, press pike up for to Pike. That's repetition number two. You're going to give me two knee bends, a one and two. You're going to pike up for three. Here we are progressing again and you're going to give me three minivans and who and all, oh my.

You're going to pike up for four. Can you get there and for knee Ben's team and press and you're like, well how many are we doing Erica? Huh? Well we're going to go to five because you got this for five right now. Pull it in. I'm there an out and you got five, four and three.

Good control and one all the way out and safely take a break. Shake out those wrists, smile and breathe. You made it. Congratulations. We're turning around. We're going to face the other direction in a moment. But remember in warm up, I said we were going to do some standing lunges without the springs on the carriage. We had it loaded before. Now we're unloaded. So you're going to stand if your carriage just floated away a little bit too much, just grab it. You're going to bring again that foot out.

Remember how we were externally rotated and flex before? Same thing here. Now the carriage goes with you. Woo. You going to take it out and pull it back in? I got a little aggressive on that one. As you can see, so this is your workout. If it's a small range of motion, it's a small range of motion. It can be a knee bend right now. It does not need to be a single leg squat or lunge, whatever you want to call this. Just be careful. You got one more. Okay, and bring it back. I promise we're going to get to the other side, but we're going to transition in between by facing the carriage.

So have a seat on your platform. Bring your heels up and on to your carriage. Again, you're at about maybe two thirds, maybe about halfway onto that carriage and you're going to bring the other heel up and on as well. Bring your tuition off. So you're here, you're going to come out to your plank position. No Springs, you're going to exhale. Pull yourself back into the stopper and inhale, flight it away. Uh Huh. And exhale as you pull it in and inhale as you slide it out and exhale as you pull it in. You got one more finding that beautiful reverse plank position and pull it in.

Now can you slide it out? Hold it here. We won't progress on this one. All be nice and give me some me bands in and out and in and out and in and out. I'm thinking don't hyper extend those elbows. Erica, am I? I don't know. I'm trying not to get me one more for five and extend out.

Lift into your plank position. Find your moment. Draw in and take a step back down onto the floor again. Shake out those wrists. I'm going to turn around. So are you so other side, think about where you were when you set up yourself on the other side. Again, finding that external rotation of the hip a little bit on both feet and you're going to take that single leg squat or lunge. Remember no springs right now, down and up, drop into that heel that is on the floor.

I want you to really feel that pressure as you drive through that heel. Good. Give me about three more that should keep us about even from side to side and inhale as you drop down. Exhale, press drive up, stand up nice and tall. This is your last one I believe and all the way up. Good. Both be come back down safely.

Step on to the outside of your carriage. Awesome job. So we're bringing the carriage back into play from a spring perspective. I would like for you to take your yellow spring or your lightest spring on your reformer and load it up. You need your foot bar to come back into the equation. We're going to do a little bit of seated arm work here, but it's going to be high version of seated arm work.

If your foot bar locks in, make sure that it's locked and you're going to do me a favor. Pick up your loops with your hands and come and have a seat on your foot bar with your feet too. Do you see on the rails so your feet are up on the rails, your hands are in the loop, you are negotiating where your sits bones are on that foot bar. You're sitting up really nice and tall. Shoulders are out of the ears. Let's start with a narrow row. Palms face towards one another and on an exhale, draw in and inhale forward. Nice and controlled.

Exhale as you pull and inhale forward and now I know what you're thinking at home. You're like, Erica, this is kind of light and I'm like, I know, but you know we're going to add in some rotation and we're going to lose tension. So that's going to double the tension in just a moment. Last three and we'll open up the chain by taking it into a wider row as well and to pulling. And last one, focusing on the backs of those arms, the upper middle back. Now from here, palms come down, open up the arms to a wider row. Now inhale as you come forward and exhale as you go wide. Again, don't lose that postural awareness. Sit Up nice and tall. Your core is involved here. Your stability core, meaning you're not in Zoomba class right now. We love them, Simba, but we're not going to Zumba class right now. Last three and wide.

Get ready to rotate and two, you got one more and one and now you're going to lose tension in one arm as you row and rotate and then other side. So you're going to get a bit of rotation around the spine, but really focus on trying to keep the hips facing forward and the knees facing forward and pull. Good. Inhale, exhale as you pull. Give me four more here, team and four and three. Good. You got two more and twist and last one and rotate. Great job from here. Go ahead and grab your loops with both hands safely.

Put one foot down onto the floor so that you can let the carriage come back into the stopper. Those loops go back onto the pegs and we're going to finish you, but we're going to finish on the other side of the foot bar with your therabands. All right, so we're going to finish on this side of the football. You guys are doing great. We're almost done, but I want to take advantage of the fact that we've added these two therabands to the end of the foot bar. Why not? They're fun. It's different. It adds a different feeling to your work on the reformer. So again, I want you to pick up the form, the front one with one hand, and then you're going to reach back and grab the back one with another hand. And now this back one, the arm just stays anchors.

So you're going to bring that arm and just anchor to your hip. The front one, I want you to make a soft bend of the arm and keep it isometric or just static. For now you're in a v position of the feet. You're standing up nice and tall and all you're going to do is not take the harm into a draw sword yet you're just going to step out and in with the legs starting to negotiate actually the lateral line of the body, meaning the side of your body, right? So we have many aspects to our core. The core is a super hot term as it should be and one of the aspects is your lateral line and it needs to be balanced just like everything else. Three more. And then we're going to start to get a little bit fancy with this.

Two good and one. Come in, take your step and take it all the way out into your draws sore. Now. Now negotiate that return as you come back. So you're bending. Woo. That outside leg again, my wounds are the technical term, right? For who? I'm figuring it out too with you. Progress, not perfection. Variety of programming. Super important to life. Good. Two more.

Come out and last one. Come out, stay out. Now lift your band up and just take a nice stretch, allow it to traction you and getting into a nice bit of back extension here and then pull yourself back forward to draw a sword and reel it back in. We've got to do the other side, but let's transition and face your foot bar. Again, stay in that V position. If you'd like to. Slight pizza slice here, stand up nice and tall and just give me some triceps as you press back. Chest expansion, it's also called, but just firing up the backs of those arms.

Nothing fancy here. We're just trying to transition through to the other side and get some bonus arm work happening and give me four more and three. Remember no Zumba class right now. Everything is turned on as far as your stability core is concerned. Last one grade and then turn face the other side.

Set up your pizza slice and set up your static arm that's anchored and your other arm that's out in front of you. And the first few we're just going to step out and step in again, noticing what's happening on that side of the body. Really both sides of the body if you want to be honest, but or if I want to be honest cause I am, but really the side of the body that's closest to the foot bar right now is having a really kind of Whoa, figure it out. Two more. And then here we go with draw sword. Whoa. Last one. Got a little aggressive there. Here we go. Draw a sword, reach good. Come in, hit that position each time. Make it strong. Boom.

Hit pull it back. And this is about four. Let's take it to eight team, give me four and one and three. Good. You got two more. And then we've got a little bit of back extension and one. Hold it. Lift that arm up. Let that Ah, beyond attraction you come into to slate the rassic extension.

That's your upper middle back and come back. Hit your draw sword and drop back home. Nicely done. Turn around face away from your foot bar. Stay in that v position of your feet. Grab the tales of your therapy on. Let's do some shoulder mobility and some back extension here. As you inhale, allow the arms to float up and the spine to extend and then exhale as you allow the arms to come wide and all the way down. If you don't have this range of motion, you can make it smaller as you come up. Inhale, lift the chest and exhale as you come wide and all the way down.

Filling the front of the arms here have to really activate to help see those fingers in your peripheral vision. Good. You have one more and then we're going to take it into a roll down and the lift. Feel that sense of floating as through the body as you reach and then come all the way open wide and down. Let go of your therapy hands. Find your feet again.

Let's end where we began. Your feet are about hip distance apart. Parallel where the tucking north-south toes forward, heels back. Find your big toe, find your little toe and find your heel rock back rock forward. Notice where your center of gravity feels in the most neutral. Let the arms come down by your sides naturally and inhale again. Allow the arms to float.

Feel that nice little waist or your ribs just floating a top your waistline. It's like you're a, it's like you're a long lamp and your lampshade is just lately on top there. Exhale as you roll up and over a big, big beach ball. Allow the shoulders to feel heavy. Allow the head to feel heavy. Feel the whole back line and the body lengthen out.

Deep drink of air into the lungs. Here you earned it. Exhale, pick up the navel into the spine. Visualize yourself rebuilding yourself. Bone by bone, joint by joint through the epicenter of the body, which is your spine. Crown of the head of the last thing to reach through the ceiling. Arms lift. For those of you who watch these and do these all the way to the end. I always end with a flex of the risks and appealing open and a heart center lifting and you are all done team. Nice job.

I'll see you next time.

Comments

Tina A.
2 people like this.
Great Class! Great Flow!
2 people like this.
I never know what to expect when I hit the start button of your latest video, Erika, as there seems to be no limit to your creativity !! But I'm always sure I'm going to love the class, and this one was no exception. Thanks a lot :))
Theresa L
1 person likes this.
Loved it! As the comments mentioned above- always a surprise on the next movement and such great flow and strength work. Thank you 👏🏻
1 person likes this.
WOW! So creative and fun! Can't wait to actually get on a reformer and try it. Sweating and shaking just watching the workout:)
Thank you Erika for sharing your energy, creativity and fun. Love your classes!
Lori
1 person likes this.
Always love your creative workouts and will be trying this one shortly.

I have one question. I struggle mightily with reverse planks so will be doing that portion on the floor. My question is how to build up to reformer with no springs after floor. Should I start with one spring, two, etc.?

Thanks! Can’t wait to try this.
1 person likes this.
I love cardio reformer classes! I also love using the therabands! Thank you for an awesome class!! Got my heart rate up and feel strong!
1 person likes this.
Super creative. It's always great to be able to reinvent a Reformer class!
Erika Quest
Catherine Anne-Marie Tina A. Theresa Anne P. Stephanie YOU ALL ARE SO AWESOME! I always know when my latest PA class releases, because my email gets filled with great comments I have the pleasure of responding to. Really appreciate you taking this session and I had a lot of fun DOING it with you. Much love, Erika
Erika Quest
Lori Thanks so much for your sweet comments and enjoying my classes. It's an honor that my 7th year of classes are coming out on PA!

As far as your question is concerned, I would suggest definitely adding a heavy spring to your reformer and perhaps placing your feet all the way up against your shoulder rests for support. Then, you can safely try and put your hands on the rails of the reformer and lift up and down a bit. Don't try for the full reverse plank at first if you can't get there, and also know that the carriage may not move as much, but that's okay. Removing springs obviously makes it much more challenging, so be safe about it when taking these powerful moves to the reformer. Much love, Erika
1 person likes this.
Thanks for the great class Erika Quest !! Some great ideas for group class work, can’t wait to share with my students ;)
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