Class #3910

Back Body Reformer

40 min - Class
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Description

You will focus on the back of your body so that you can engage the front side of your body better with this Reformer workout by Kristi Cooper. She jumps right in with a warm-up designed to release tension. She then moves into more traditional exercises, adding in movements to help improve your posture so you can stand taller when you are finished.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

About This Video

Oct 16, 2019
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Transcript

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Hey everyone, it's time for class. Um, we're just gonna jump right in. So I have the reformer already set up even for the warm up on four Springs. This one has five, so I have what we call three reds and blues of it's ready for my foot and leg work in a moment, but for now let's just have a seat. Get our backs warmed up just a little bit. So my foot bar is down, lying down. I have my head rest down as well because I'm going to go into some pelvic curling and warming up to the spine.

Please your feet if you can on F on a firm surface with the heels and the toes resting over the bar. From there we inhale and just exhale and let your body become kind of heavy into the mat. Just let go so we can pick ourselves back up however we want to inhale and I'll bet you could even let your bones be heavier. Let the muscles just sort of drip off for a second. We know that if we head into a workout with less tension, we're going to have a lot more efficiency. So one more of those. Inhale, shake off from the minute the day, the whenever you need to so that you can be here for yourself. And we inhale, begin the exhale, allow the abdominals to sink or fall or even work as we roll the pelvis up all the way up to the shoulder blades. If you're not ready to go that high down, but just check out what your feet do. Inhale and exhale.

See if you can't put yourself back down as heavy as you started bone by bone and just notice what's getting in the way and what your knees want to do or your feet want to do and just try to relax them where possible, but stay connected to them. Exhale, roll up [inaudible] or tension collects. Let it go. If you catch it, inhale and exhale. [inaudible] it seemed to be on a theme lately for myself and practice to focus on the back of the body so I can better use the front rolling up again. And sometimes just the awareness of the bottoms of my feet or the back of my legs can make everything else so much more powerful in front. Inhale and exhaling down [inaudible] I'm doing two more. If you need more, take the time and just pause. Sometimes I'd need more. Right now I'm just kind of moving through and taking, hopefully you with me [inaudible] maximizing the time we may have and finding more space in that time.

[inaudible] last one. [inaudible] what are your feet do when you get all tense? When I do this too much, if I've got to re relax it and put it back where I wanted the back of my legs. In this case, inhale. Exhale down. So now those Walker fee together, we're going to do our supine twist. I like to raise my arms up and just for this initial stretch reach way out to the side, like further than you think your wingspan is.

And then if you do not have posts like I do where my strops are, you can just let the upper arms down. Otherwise go ahead and grab onto those posts. We lift the heels. You might need to bring the toes closer and let's just take the knees toward the front. They're glued together so that means that opposite foot comes up and we just twist from the waist. We're reaching, we're stretching, we're warming up, we inhaled there. Then the weight of the ribs sort of lends itself to bringing the knees back.

Other side. Inhale, reaching the kneecaps side-by-side across the other way and exhale back to center. A sense of swaying. Sorry. Decide. Okay. In half keeping the office at shoulder down. That's sort of your measure. Feeling how the breath can help you engage all your movements. Inhale, stretch and reach. For now, just keep your head straight up. I'm looking right at the ceiling. Let's go again to the front [inaudible] and to the back.

[inaudible] if you ever do this class again or if you want to now you can do, I'm going to do two more. You could lift your knees and do the same thing. I'm just going to keep it here. Okay. Cause it's work. And for me, I even pull a little bit on the, the posts here to give me a sense of traction and two way stretch. Okay.

All right. Come back to center when she even yourself out. Pick your knees up one at a time and hold on behind the knees so the feet don't have to be together. Just kind of keep that part easy. Curl your head, neck and shoulders up. Press the backs of your thighs into your hands. So there's this, um, continuous energy that's happening almost like a ball. And then get a rocking motion. Trying not to really kick your legs once you get going, but the breath helps us exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale.

Keep it flat. You're not rocking the carriage. Just rocking back and forth. Lifting up, lifting down positions, not changing. One more to come all the way up. And there you are hugging it in closer. Now let me use together. We're going to hold onto the leg closest to the front of your screen or to the front.

Extend the opposite leg as you roll down and you hug that knee in really close as if the other leg was the harder you hug the knee and close to you. The other leg is reaching further. Switch that. Take a second to feel it. Feel it. Lift the front of that hip. Just sort of drop and let's go a little quicker. It's inhale. Inhale, exhale, exhale, pull, stretch. Exhale, exhale. Come on. Reach. Nothing wasted, nothing wasted. Certainly not time. Give yourself another set here.

Pull, pull. Pull both knees in. Hug them close. Curl yourself in so much. You almost touch your forehead to your knees or do lift your butt. It's okay. Put your butt back down. Stretch arms and legs out. Inhale one. Exhale in double X church.

Yeah, your body other than the legs and arms aren't moving. Just keep it the same. Inhale, exhale, squeeze out the air. [inaudible] one more here. Come on, get it. Hold it. It's stretch the top like up, bottom leg to the bar. Curl up into it more. Hold that. Let go first. Switch still in the same position. Press the bottom leg into the bar. Now we'll switch a little quicker. Pull, pull, pull, pull thing of pulling the top look for now and go the bottom.

Find that opposition both legs up. Bend your knees, head goes down. Hug your knees to your chest. Good work. We're going to do the rocking one more time, so just hold on. Either behind the legs are in front. Pick your head up. Find that circle of energy. Make sure you're not right at the edge of the carriage. Start rocking.

Give it two or three. Come up, legs off to the side. Put your bar up for footwork. I'm going to put my head rest up partway. It's up to you. It's just a comfort thing for me right now. So we're touching our shoulder rest. Our heels are in parallel.

We sink heavy into those bones again, including their wrist bones and hands. Heels around the bar. We push all the way out. Take a second, get long. That's enough adjusting. Pull yourself back in. Don't just ride. And off we go. We press out. We fully [inaudible]. See if you could initiate that. Exhale a split second before you straightened.

Start to straighten the legs. Connect yourself to your movement. Four more. Stay out here on this one. Please stay out here on that last one. Get longer. Just imagine more space between the front of the hips. Sometimes that does mean getting heavier in the tailbone. Sometimes it doesn't.

Just sort of play with it. Find yourself in it. Come down both feet at the same time. Slide down to the balls of the feet. All the toes are on. We push out, we pull in. We keep those heels as still as possible. [inaudible] let me remind ourselves that we're not just working one part of the body.

We feel hopefully some sense of connection all the way through. Give it a few more. Have a three [inaudible]. Here's my third. Come back in. Very little adjusting. Just make sure your sacred didn't pick up, that it's still down. Touch the heels together. A sense of wraparound, maybe all the way out.

So and pull back in all the way out. And this one's just a really great for making sure those ankles actually flexy. You do your best to keep your heels in space the same. [inaudible]. Okay. What about three more and really finish it. You know, prove it to yourself. This is three all the way down. Both heels out to the edge of the bar.

A bit of a turnout today or always when I do it this way and heavy sacrum, heavy back of the ribs. Off you go PRS and pull in. Find that infinity sign of resistance so it's not a snap and a release. It is a pressing a pole both directions. [inaudible] the strong with the legs, it's fine. Can you see that? I'm giving this one more here and then I'll switch it to the toes all the way out. All the way in. Same position, but on the ball of the feet. Off we go.

For us, I'll pull in always a little harder to keep those heels stable so you might have to look up and, and it's also sometimes hard to finish the knees and be afraid to straighten those knees. You don't snap them to a locked position, but you do go to straight. Go for more here. Who one? Pull in. Press out to pull in. Resist out three in, one more for ally. Feed back to parallel on the toe or balls of the feet. Press out. Try to get all five toes on there and lower the heels. And before you just push into the feet.

Squeeze inner thighs or maybe sense of wraparound and lift up and lower and lift up and lower and lift up. What's your low back doing? Where are you in relation to your feet? It's all connected. Keep going. If you roll out. Don't. If you roll in, don't try for level. Get the work in the shortest amount of reps. you can have about three more. Lift and lower and lift and lower and lift. Bend the knees, come home. Ah, let's do a little coordination.

So help yourself up so you can change your spring down to what you would normally do some AB work on. Mine's going to be a red and a blue or medium for AB work. Come on back down. Find your straps wiggle away from the shoulder rest. And before we get into coordination, let's just find her arms and connect into our back. Pick the knees up there together and just again, when I was a lot of energy, just reaching straight arms down and the straight arms up.

Finding what my ribs are going to do to me today or what my breath can handle today. And I think we're good. Let's go up this time into what looks like the a hundred position. Off we go up, we go turn the arms and the legs out and it's not quite coordination is it? We're going to open the arms and the legs and exhale close. Reach right under those side. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. But reach to the foot bar to inhale and exhale.

Mixing it up. Keep your upper body up. Stay there. It's like snow angels, Sandy angels. Find that under armor. Find that side body here. Find the back body. I don't know. Just look for something that feels good and solid. [inaudible] one more time. Bend your knees. Come on down. Push off from the football so you can step into your strap.

Same steam spring tension usually. So our heels are glued together, knees are glued together, and then this would be, it's easy for me to just chill here, right? That's not chill. Let's keep reaching into the straps enough that we feel the back of the legs. It's an intention that we need to have. Sometimes you just have to decide.

So we're going to bend like a frog and as we push out, of course it's not so heavy. So what could you do to find other parts? For me today, it seems to be like a bony landmark day. So I'm making sure my sacrum didn't move, making sure my heel stayed together, that my knees actually come together again. And then I don't really want to do a whole lot more and that's where I'm probably going to get my best work. So that's what I invite you to do.

[inaudible] same thing. We've had energy, we pull and release. We're not just letting it go. Giving you one more. Yeah. And we go into our circles. We go down, we come around, we come together fully, and then we go again. Remember you're reaching beyond the strap. [inaudible] you can accomplish the the shape, but let's get further into it.

That's fine. Places you can cue yourself. What would make you feel like you're stirring up the hip joint? Make you sure you could be under control with the range that you have. How about one more? Going all the way down, around and down. I mean pause at the bottom and pick them back up. So again, you're solid in the center. We're not just letting the Springs do it.

They'll do a lot, but we're deciding when and how and how much energy they get to upon us in relationship to us. [inaudible] make it feel good. Do two more. Make it feel good. Solid, but good. One more. Hold it. Turn the legs out as much as you can. I like to position the strap so it's pretty close to the center if not closer to my heels. As we open wide and we close. Remember you put Ricci deeper further into the straps as if your legs could get longer. Reach out even as they go wide and apart.

Kind of helps those of us who hyperextend to find an image that doesn't allow you to just drop into that joint. In my case, the knees. So for me, if I keep reaching, let's change it going wide. Why did you feel like you can handle it then? That's be crazy. Nothing moves you. Bend the knees. I shouldn't say nothing. The carriage doesn't move until you find the Hills again. Push out to straight, extended frog, open wide, straight legs. You're going to maintain that.

Try not to raise the legs up or down or move the carriage. Did you come across the center to the heels? Touch and push out just one more in this direction or you could do several more in this direction. I'm going to reverse it after this. All the way to straight. Boom. All our bony landmarks are attached. We bring him back by Ben in the nice, stretch it out. Careful how [inaudible] do that frog and we don't lift up or down.

We just come straight across the center line with those legs. Bend frog, stretch it out. No motion in the carriage there. Think long through your bodies. You reach through the legs, touch and last one bend, stretch wide. Check your ribs. She says to herself and vendor frog, we're going into short spine. Put your head rest down. If you've never done that, you really do want to pause and make sure either you have someone teach it to you or that you watch it and understand it more. So we push out two straight legs.

We fold this version were fold all the way over when to find that stuff or we're going to enjoy the stretch. Even though our tail bones may come up a little, we're trying to hold them back. Hamstrings are engaged already. Not because we're pulling on the strap so much, but because we just know how to do that. We rise up without moving and carriage. Oof and Ben to frog. Keep the space here, right? We don't collapse from your throat. You rolled down everything. Well, the feet won't change much here at all for now anyway. Now I've gone as low as I can, but I still want my sacrum on the mountain.

So do you flex your feet as you draw your heels to your glutes, you're going to get that sacrum down at the same time. Push out. Here we go. And he'll fold. Letting the stretch happen. Exhale without moving the carriage. You rely on that relationship to your straps. You bend to frog in the air like so, and you rule roll. Get as low as you can.

Stay somewhat in a frog position, some of your super flex, flexible bend and bring it over and again, take it over. So in other words, I don't want you to roll down to your legs are straight. You want to keep it in frog position bent and frog here, and this is where I'm talking about it. You come down and bring the thighs with you. Bring the shape with you. Get that spine down, flex your feet, draw to the glutes over again.

Stretch finding more space each time. Ben the frog role. It's massaging your way down. All right, now we'll take the handles again in a tour. Hands and knees at 90 now we'll do coordination. So hands are right above their risks in this version.

Excellent to the a hundred position. Stay their legs open. Close. Bend the knees way in arm. Straight. Head goes down. That's your inhale. So long breath. Exhale, open, close. Ben. Now start inhaling as you take your body down. Get up there though. Stay up there. Exhaling and nail down.

[inaudible] open, close Ben. Stay up. Stay up. Push into it and down. One more time and down we come. Okay, feed on the bar. Handles back on the post. Help yourself up for a little knee stretch. I'm going to keep the same spring. Some of you may want to lighten it. Some of you may want a little more, so mine is still on the one and a half, which sort of suits me for all of these. Placing your feet at the shoulder blocks best you can get your heels right up against there if they don't stay there. Now that's something to work on.

Might take you 15 years if you're like me, but that's something to work on. All right, hands on the bar. Shoulder distance, scoop device. So if you can sit back onto your heels from there, that's where you're gonna get this curve of the body, the trunk itself. Then hover it however your hips off your heels. But keep that shape from there.

It's pretty much all legs and nothing else changes you push out. Remember that resistance that you're going to create. Exhale, bring it in. It's almost like your shins are driving the character forward. As you get to round your back more, let's go five more quicker. One, two. We're not changing the spine.

[inaudible] last one. Hold it in. Takes practice. Even feel that one, but keep doing it. Flat back. Same version. So now again, back doesn't move. Your legs can stretch out further. You just want to stop before you change your spec your spine and pull in and in. Look forward in inner thighs are engaged, so not touching arms or just solid form or one out and two at out and three and four hold it in.

Glue it to the stop or you're going to shift forward. Stand up for a pyramid or upstretched position. Heels are somewhat up the shoulder block, so I should, not even halfway from me, but it could for some ears right by your forearms. Inhale, just push the carriage back a little bit as if the Springs weren't there. You draw the belly in. Lighten your feet in a way that the carriage has comes home.

Push it back in here. Just a few of these to get that sense. See your feet here. All toes are down for now. [inaudible] one more time. Nice. Long back. In this version, we're changing it. We're going to go from here to a plank, so you simply rotate around the shoulders. Inhale to plank. Go right back where you were so that means your buck goes up and your body goes back towards your thighs. Arms don't really move. You're rotating around them.

Inhale out. Exhale, bring it in. Get light on those Springs. Let the Springs work for you, but not do everything open. Inhale and exhale. One more time. This time we open out. Same thing. Open it up, ride forward. And even though you're going forward, you're thinking of connecting to those shoulder blocks from once you get to the stop birth, lift your hips up, you're back in the pyramid.

So you inhale open out to the plank, you ride forward. You can breathe whenever you want to, but I typically exhale right here to go back to the pyramid. Once I'm on the stopper. Inhale, plank forward. Exhale, lift. Let's do two more of those instead of reversing it. Yeah, great. From there, we're going to lower to our knees.

Okay. And step off the front side. One foot right up against that shoulder block again. So you're just off on one side. If you're on the lower reformer that doesn't have legs, um, you could actually just do this off the reformer altogether.

So essentially you would just be doing a runner's lunch type stretch. If you have the reformer though, you're stepping pretty close to the forward leg there. Start with that sense of, I'm going to stretch my hip flexor as the goal, but I'm not going to drop into my low back, so I'm going to keep my pelvis as forward as possible and I'm going to send the thigh bone back. So your, that's all just do that. It's the idea that you're not dropping into your low back, that you keep the pelvis forward, your energy is almost more up than back, but you the deed or pushing with the back leg. Yeah. [inaudible] and then to add to that, you could have lowered it if the Springs are heavy, please do otherwise then just shift right into a hamstring stretch.

And so for this who really tried to level out the pelvis and straight in that forward leg. So it's a sense of really pulling the hip backwards. It's also okay if the knee state stays a little bit. Let's come forward again. Let's do it again. I'm going to, I'm going to drop my blue my half spring on this one. Now that I feel a little stretched out. Oh yeah. That's like really up to you, right?

You don't want it to be so far back that you're already spread out. The forward leg is really your stabilizer for the first part anyway. You're light on your hands and then when you're ready you're just going to start to shift back. You could keep the back leg as is and straight into forward like or if it's hard for you to find it like that. Sometimes it's hard for people to find the hamstring on the forward leg.

What you could do is pike the hips a little bit so you kind of feel like you're sticking your tailbone out or up, but out. Maybe it's another way and then you may not have to go nearly as far and you may not straighten the leg. That's all cool. As long as you feel that hamstring on that forward leg. Let's go to the other side. Same thing. If you want more resistance, put it back on.

I'll just leave it for now myself foot, feel that connection to the foot. I'm on the staffer, I think about, all right, I'm up. I might not need to even go anywhere with it. Hands around the bar and then I just push with my foot to move the carriage. But the pelvis is working in opposition. Jeff, find that stretch [inaudible] and then straighten the leg. You can pike the hips a little. I think I have two on this one for various reasons. Who knows? Spinning planet, I'm not sure, but the point being I want to keep the hip back so I can feel a lot on this hamstring. Yeah, and we'll repeat it. Just flatten out that forward foot. Come back in and up.

If you're not sure of it, you might have to reset, but it really feels like the whole trunk is going forward and up, but the leg wants to go backwards. That's how I kind of think of it. [inaudible] letting the body settle in with it and then here's that hinge back for the hamstring. Working toward that front leg. If you really struggled to find it and you find yourself on a full split and don't feel anything, I encourage people to bring it back, bring the carriage back, square off the hips, tilt the pelvis more and then go from there. If he needs, if he's still need it.

Cool. Come on in. It's time for arms. [inaudible] I'm going to challenge us today. It's not going to seem like it may be. If we're going to fit, we're just gonna sit and do them perfectly upright. A one spring ought to be enough. You can put your foot bar down or not. It's up to you.

I'm going to put it down cause I don't think we'll need it at all. Sitting at the back edge of your carriage. Now you may need to elevate yourself on a box or a towel or a pillow or something that might be necessary. You could also bend your knees a little bit if it starts to get too hard on your hip flexors. But that is where the challenge is, is can we be upright, work? All this posture stuff we do and get some are more.

Get it while we're there. So our hands are in the middle of the strap, not on your fingers. Reach forward. Sit tall. It's like your head is trying to reach it. The front of the room and we pull down and back. So your hands are skimming the frame, then you have to reach down and forward in order not to collapse. Right? So you're still upright and [inaudible].

If you struggle with this being on your fingers, I would encourage you for this one anyway, you could put it on your wrist and that kind of gives you the better sensation of where you want to be working. And it's really postural muscles. Yes, the triceps choose to do not. I keep saying do not do keep your arms straight. If you bend your elbows, you'll be here all day and board. Keep them straight, dig for it. Get taller and opposition to the length of your arms and I am not going all the way back to release. I just let the arms go a little bit in front of me, so I keep that resistance the whole time. We can do three more [inaudible] one more. I'm trying really hard not to push against the shoulder rest for help, but you can. It's not a bad cheat actually arms out in front of you at shoulder height.

Here's the thing to watch for here is your collarbones are meant to be wide. If they're in front of you, you're off to a start. That's just not going to be helpful. So pull those collarbones real wide. Then it's simple. You just leave the upper arms where they started and you've been the elbows bend 'em all the way and let them go all the way to straight [inaudible] and it it, it's one of those things you almost have to think a little bit of shoulder blade action. Cause if you don't, you might find yourself just hunching when you don't even know.

Think a little bit to the back of your body. [inaudible] okay, next one's gonna go like this. It's the wrong boat action. So you're going to take your arm through the strap, up to the elbow. You still on the farm side of things, pumps face your face and then again, reestablish. You're sitting up tall. If you have to push against the shoulder blocks, fine.

From there you just separate. I'm not really going for pinching the shoulder blades. We could later, but let's see if we can just move our arms from right in front of our shoulders to the side of our shoulders or to the side of the body without thrusting ribs hunching in fact get taller and I'm pretty sure you'll see the point of this. I called it arm work, didn't I? But it's a lot of posture work but that's sort of why we're here too. [inaudible] if uh, you may not, if you're doing it, you know, we S we started with the palms facing our face but they themselves never changed. So when you go to the side, they're facing your ears not cause you turned your wrist.

They just never changed. I'm doing a few extra cause I like them. [inaudible] one more time. [inaudible] fantastic. Let them out. Turn yourself around. Hang onto them though so that you can regrab for the other direction at this point. Either keep your leg straight. If it's getting to be too much, you can hook your ankles. You could again sit on something. You could sit cross legged sort of six of one.

Like none of them are using my opinion so I'm just going to hang out here. Straight legged arms or why'd you call the hug a tree and it's really like hug a block cause we're not going to round too much. We are just coming just in front. Right and open. Wide, wide, wide. Keep those elbows kind of pointed up rather than down. That's something to watch for.

[inaudible] feels like start getting heavy. It's just information really. There is some work that could probably be done in holding more in the middle and less of the legs, but you know. Okay. Otherwise just hang on for a couple more. Okay.

You could stop there or you could join me in the little salute where in this position, what we do is take the thumbs kind of right by the forehead. I always used to call it moose like antlers. It's not quite behind the head with this version, but it's the same idea generally. So here, thumbs at your temples, your shoulders are down, you're kind of in a funky arm position, your back is straight and you just press ahead and rebound. Get tall. [inaudible] straight ahead.

Getting ourselves ready is almost a teaser. You can feel it if you know the move. Generate more from belly, if that can make any sense to you. Look for it. [inaudible] there's also a subtle bit of shoulders dropping down right before I go out to straight. One more. Cool. All right. Put it away.

Grab your box for a little side overs and back extension and we'll call it a day. Easy peasy. Let's go. [inaudible] site overs for a lot of people, most people are gonna want to cover the shoulder blocks. Um, I don't cause I'm not that tall, so that's how I'm going to do it. Um, you could put on more Springs just for the sake of holding the carriage still. And I'm going to give you a couple of options here. I'll show you the one I'm going to do most, which is we've got the top leg under the strap and you're gonna wanna make sure that it's real secure. It's bottom leg is you're comfortably sitting on the side of your hip, so we're not totally upright. To start this version, we're on the side of the hip and I'd like to come out onto the headrest to really position it so that my other leg is airborne. Okay, so from here, first version is to wrap the bottom arm around and hold fingers into belly.

You're going to go down and up like that. Second version, hands behind your head. Third version overhead. I'm only doing five. I'm doing version one. Ready? Here we go. Inhale, you dive down. Now when you come back up, it's not all leg, but it's a lot. Feel the breath. Feel the abs like we've been doing and just come up to the diagonal one. [inaudible] let the breath start the move to go low as you want.

Use that leg three. Make sure you stay sideways, right? [inaudible] four out of five just like that. Go for it. Awesome. Go ahead and let yourself down. I'm taking my elbow to the head rest and stretching over. You might be able to reach for the floor, but the fun part is really reaching the leg, even though you're not pulling up on it so much, you can reach it through that strap.

Help yourself up and do that. Not by yanking with your foot, but put your hands on the frame. Walk yourself up, turn yourself around five more other foot in the strap. Make sure you're on the side of your hip and not totally upright, but I line up with the head rest with my hand. So essentially I'm not trying to come all the way to up, right. I just want that long diag and already pick your hand position either in front of your waist, behind your head or arms out. Straight off we go for five.

Inhale and exhale. Don't come too high. Hang out in no man's land there. When you get on that diagonal. Number two, fill the breath and the abs help you. Here comes three. Sometimes it's hard to keep your head. Here's four half to say 'em out loud. Keep your head in line with your spine. Last one and finding your elbow to the headrest or hand to the floor. Take that stretch, reach the foot through the strap, enjoy it. You can even roll back or forward a little bit, whatever you need or feels good. We're allowed to have that too.

And then it's about time to help ourselves up. So you use your hands on the frame, the head rest in the box. Turn the box. So step off, turn the box lengthwise and we'll just do some polling straps and be done. [inaudible] so again, I have it on the front side. I think most people would want it that way and I am making sure I'm on just one red or full spring.

For some reformers it's appropriate to have to test it out. Should feel kind of heavy, but not enough to hold you pinned. That's kind of the way I look at it. Lying face down, facing the back of the reformer, so away from the foot bar, chest, maybe just over, maybe not. That's a little different for everybody on this performer. I'm grabbing a hold above the buckle and rapping yet again so that I have a little more to hold onto. And also a little more attention at the start.

So much like we did our arms posture stuff earlier, we're going to draw the shoulders down. Our legs are already engaged in straight off the box, so they're not just hanging out that it just doesn't work for us. We initiate this from the shoulder blades. We keep the arms absolutely straight as they skim or past the frame right up to our butt or higher, but our backs are still level. Okay and then reverse it, but you don't give up on reversing.

Reversing is just as good. So we go again. That means we don't have to do as many do twice in one rep. If you want to add a little extension, you may please do. But let's do it consciously. You look forward, you send the chest forward. It's not about getting your feet higher, it's not about even really getting your chest a whole lot higher, although it might. And again, pull down, hug those arms and close the upper arms. Touch your body as much as you can.

Okay. It's not your fist that do. They may too, but talking to the guys there, the big lats hugging in close, squeeze those shoulder blades and and also those of us who'd like to bend her elbows. That's another clue. Reach through the knuckles just like we were reaching to the strap in the very beginning to more long body. One more time, go, go, go, go. Stay strong. Stay strong and richer. You can unwrap your hands if that's how you had it. Put the things back back. Hang your head just a moment. Let your feet rest on the bar. Shake it out a little bit.

Be careful when you get up a fair amount of backend posture work today. Stepping off the side, we'll do just one little stretch here, which is if you grab one side of your box or your reformer or even a wall and just bend your knees and hinge back. Round back. I should say, I'm just rounding my spine essentially just rounding back and then from that round position, I don't really mind what you do with your arms. I actually like to drop my elbows into the rear end out. My knees are bent, very bent to find a flat back and then straighten the legs around the body to come on feeling the ground again. Filling yourself up, right, filling the support you just gave yourself. Turn your arms out, look up, feel upbeat, up. You just did that for you. Inhale and exhale. I'm going to do one more.

I just want to grab it. Here we go. Inhale, and we are done for the day. Thank you. Let it out. Enjoy.

Pilates with Kristi Cooper: Reformer Workouts

Comments

Thanks, Kristi. As always, just what I needed! :)
Becky C
Loved it!  Exactly what I needed this morning!  Thank you!
thank you Kristi! Just what I needed this evening! :))
Oksana P
What a nice start to my day! Love your cueing (I say "butt" too when I teach -- good to see I am not the only one ;). Thank you!!!
Loved this class, it reminded me of 16 years ago in your teacher training class!! 🙏😗
I love your classes, Kristi!  More, please!!! They always just feel so
good.  :)
Great session :):):) thank you !!!!
1 person likes this.
Love the clarity of your direction. 
Just joined you for this one Kristi and my body feel loads better than it did 41 minutes ago! ...many thanks
Felt great and flew by! 
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