Today we're going to do an intermediate reformer workout starting with a couple of roll downs. So, um, I have my reformer set up to do my app, or I'm up with a blue spring. You could go a little heavier if you wish, but blue spring is my preference for what we're gonna do. So standing tall weighed off the heels in the balls of the feet. Shifting forward a little bit. I'm just taking a moment to find my center. I lift a little taller and exhale, bringing the chin down towards the chest, hollowing out through the abdominals, rolling towards the ground, connecting my mind and my body, our minds and our bodies. Lengthen the spine over the legs. Breathe in, breathe out as we lift through the waist, allowing the pelvis to wheel forward, stacking the spine just over the hips and allowing the neck to be the last thing to lift our eyes coming forward. Two more to go in here.
Folding forward feeling elevated light sensation through the body, pulling up through the center to support us as we stretch over legs. Breathing in and breathing out. Just keeping the shoulders held down away from the ears without a lot of tension in the upper back or arms. Last one here, checking out or checking in, seeing how your body feels today. Excellent to come up all the way. We're going to start with some seated roll backs. Again, I've got a blue spring. I like to work on a light spring. I find it the most helpful for me, so I've given myself about six inches of space behind me.
Holding onto the ropes, knees together, spine lifted, starting with an inhale, feeling the pelvis wheel out from underneath us. We roll down through our spine, finding the low back, connecting to the mat and if you go just beyond flat and then rolling back up, setting the shoulders over the pelvis and then inhaling to a flat back. Exhale, flexing the spine. Then bringing it back and in here. And what I mean by that is we come forward to bring the shoulders over the pelvis, inflection and then find extension. And then before we start to roll back, find flection, keep the shoulders still and then start to bring the body back.
Pausing to inhale, exhale to come forward. Keeping a heavy shoulders will neck and align it with this spine sitting tall. Exhale to curl back, placing or pushing the abdominals into the carriage. Excellent. And to come forward. Sitting tall and we're moving on from here we come. Sorry.
Itch. Exhale, rolling back. Find your way down to your lower back. All in this neutral so you're more in like a chest lift position, neutral pelvis, and without moving and carriage months we just think about bending the spine more. So I'm coming up barely and then I'm going down. Although it doesn't look like much or you won't see much movements, feels like a lot. Lot of intensity goes into this pressing their ribs downwards. I'm trying to just work on flexing through my lumbar spine. Two more times.
Arms are just there and one more. Now the upper body's going to do the exact same action as one leg floats towards the air and down. Same leg. Again. Exhale, imagining that the leg is being drawn inward into the abdominals or being held or pulled from deep within the abdominals. One more and then leg down in here, going to the other side, flexing the chest forward, a floating the leg up and down, flex and flow and keeping the neck long. Head in line with the spine so I'm not thrusting forward with my head. Come in one more time. If it goes down, breathe in and exhale. Finding that curvature in the spine and lifting all the way.
Breathing in here, taking a small break by excelling, going into flection and drawing one elbow back in. Hilton's set up and Xcel sir rotate to the other side. As I go through this rowing action, I'm focusing on keeping my knees and center, keeping them still pulling from the upper back in the back of the shoulder, hitting a little bit more mobilization in my spine. After that last static exercise up and back and Ah, annex and longer on the inhale and deeper on the exhale, up and back to center to inhale. Exhale, folding back, rounding the spine, rotating in one direction. Uh, the outside hands coming just over the middle of the knees and now I'm bending the spine. These are very similar to the mini roll upon the Cadillac. That's the action that I'm looking for here. So I'm just looking for deep, strong work level pelvis. I'm going two more times, one more time, and then I'm going look, it's the leg that I'm in rotating towards. It's floating up as the chest lifts.
Again, my carriage is not moving. It's moving a little bit, but I'm not lifting. I'm not letting it [inaudible] move very much. Last two and last one and then coming through center I'm going to come up and center lifting the spine ta then the arms lift, just find a little back extension. Stretch the arms back forward, peel back down the back, rotating to the opposite side. We five mini lifts with no leg. Exhale as we been just under the ribs, turning the ribs around to the opposite hip.
Two more and last one. And now the inside leg floats up and and like the chest and the Pfizer attached by a rubber band with stretch the rubber band going down and the rubber band pulls as become a last to one more leg down body and center. Curling the spine up. Once again, we're just going to take it through a little bit of back extension. Bending me, I was pulling them y lifting the spy and then reaching the arms forward. Setting the straps back onto the hooks and setting up for footwork. Can you think? Three red springs. Then I leave my head rest down for the moment because we're going to start with some pelvic curls and here we go.
He on the top of the bar, arms long and straight at our sides. Inhaling, exhale, wheeling the spine, feeling the arms. Press down into the carrots, feeling in the knees, reach out over the ankles. Inhale, hex off the chest, reaches through the arms. We articulate this fine bone by bone, reaching through the lower back and finally coming all the way to neutral pelvis where we start right back up again. Lifting a sense of reaching, long, engaging through the backs of the legs and rolling and three more. Lifting I like my feet flexed, helps me feel my hamstrings more, which is a good thing and Addicks here. Feeling each Bony Leon, mark and spine. Arms long and strain. Exhale, left. Finding a straight back, making sure not to overdo it from behind the ribs. And, and last one here, lifting up and with that, sliding the heels down, preparing for footwork, breathing into prepare, stabilizing the trunk and exhale, feeling the backs of the legs engaging as we stretch it out and pull back. Trying to keep the feet still here, working in both directions. So we lengthened out and then we drag back in and we lengthen out and we dragged back in trying to come all the way to the stop or without losing the neutral pelvic position, keeping the ribs heavy on the mat.
And last one, moving to our wide veto position. I know I live in keeping the pelvis in neutral position
Don't let the springs do that work for us to Siri and for bending. And we're gonna do one more set going to five whole analysts. Cool and prancing. Pressing out high on the feet. Ben, one knee, pull the opposite. Vit down. Lifts onto both feet. Change in pull and little quicker. Keeping them both feet active. So the foot that's pulling is quite obviously active.
But can we find activity until all the balls of all of the bent knee, foot an up and down motion and up and down. Feel the pelvis, Stowe energy through the neck. Nice, long extended neck, long extended arms. Last five up, down and far. Uh, yeah and three and two and one. Just taking what a stretch with one foot like to take my hands on the frame of my reformer and guide the carriage a little bit lower so I get a deeper stretch there.
I mean all the way back down onto our back. Taking a hold of the straps with our hands. Give yourself a little bit of room between your shoulders and the shoulder blocks. Set the arms directly over the shoulders before picking up the legs and then bring the legs into a table. Top Position. Excellent. To lift the chest up, reaching the arms past the hips into the foot bar and inhale to come down the a hundred prep XL.
We will first and an exhale to the left and drawing the abdominals deep.
Continuing to lift up and forward through the chest and Virginia. Do four more pressing back. Three more cooling in two more and one bringing the arms back and lowering the body. Inhaling again. Exhale to pick up the head and chest once again. This time extend the legs the and open the arms and legs and schoolies back.
Keeping the trunk high school hazing back. Feel that arm work that strong back support.
Starting with the frogs, bending the knees, assessing that the pelvis is in neutral and active, squeezed through the heels and then we're reaching out, crossing the legs together and pull back. Imagine you're gliding along us flat surface.
Perhaps keeping the knees just slightly soft.
Getting ready for the hamstrings to support us as we lift the legs to vertical. From there. We go straight up into the lifting, lifting, allow the back extensors to engage and then slowly rolling that down all the way back to neutral pelvis and press the legs down. Oops, I forgot to separate. We're going to do that now. Lift up. Go directly to the sky. Separate the leg, shoulder distance. Heal the spine back down, keeping the carriage still in the spinal articulation portions of the exercise.
Circle the legs to touch. One more time is what makes the exercise so challenging in my mind. So we lift rising up foster care and separating the lakes and healing I the pelvis come all the way down. [inaudible] bringing the legs around together to touch. Bending the knees into a frog position with flex feet. Exhale to press the legs out, pointing the feet. Inhale, keep the put feet pointed in the hips in external rotation as we come all the way into the stopper. Exhale to articulate up onto the shoulders.
Inhale as we bend our knees, he dropped down just shoulder distance apart. Exhale, rolling the spine down, keeping the carriage Stowe, so without letting the knees straight and let the Simons drop down to the body. When you get as low as you can be for moving the carriage, flex the feet, pull through the abdominals and press the legs forward across the top with the back of the legs and reach forward folding in half again, come all the way into the stopper XL to articulate on a high diagonal backwards, keeping the abdominals engaged or maybe even engaging them, nor as we bend the knees, starting to let the chest come through the arms. Let the knees open just a little bit. Me, not quite much further than a 90 degree angle. Drop the knees down towards the chest.
Dorsey flex the feet pole through the abdominals and the hamstrings and the legs come across the top and forward. One more time,
Inhaling and exhaling, keeping the back extensors working. From here, we're going to bend the front knee, coming back into the hip flexor stretch holding that. Now that changing the upper body or the position of the hands extend the back hip. So the knee extends and we go to a straight leg and then we drop the knee back down. Excavating to extend the back leg. Look for a straight leg, but bias, continue to buy us towards the post. Cheerly tilted pelvis. One more time, finding a straight like keeping that leg straight and then reaching the front leg back straight again. So we go into a deeper stretch. Breathing in and breathing out.
Yeah and and, and bend the front knee, drop the back knee down and bring the carriage all the way in. Carefully stepping out and coming around to the other side. That's a pretty big stretch for me. Um, one foot down, one knee down front, leg bent, spine, long and straight post here, a little tilt in the pelvis, abdominals engaged, just talking while I hold my stretch and breathe. And then from that place you're just stretching the front leg out, keeping the pelvis level, flexing their front foot biasing towards an extension in the spine. Here are an anterior tilt in the pelvis.
Rebranding the front knee, placing that foot back down, keeping the spine long and straight and extend the back knee, pressing back through the leg, looking for a straight leg. So you come into like a high lunge position, I suppose that back like stray. You do that one more time, reaching back and from there going out through that front leg, lengthening the body down where it's breathing in and breathing out.
So with the feet right up against the shoulder blocks the hands on the bar, spine in selection. So I like to set up like this, just sitting down on my feet. Then curling the spine to hover that pelvis off the feet, set the spine round, keep it still. And these now go back and underneath and back and underneath the objective of the exercise, his trunk stabilization muscle focus. We're thinking about our dominoes, thinking about shoulder stabilization. The emphasis is on the inward movement on the Amer and movement.
So we're bending at the spine last two times and one more. Bringing the carriage all the way in, flattening out the back for the flat back. Inhale. Exhale, focus on inner thigh engagement. Press back with the backs of the legs rather than the front of the legs, keeping the spine stable and stall last four tried to come all the way to the stopper and all the way to the stop. Last two and last time, I mean all the way in, I'm adding a blue spring for the knees off, hands on the bar, rounding the back look into, just hover the knees up off the character and [inaudible] and, and India and my spine is so rounded. My knees are just hovering off the reformer and we're going and Paul and for an emphasis in an emphasis and one coming in, dropping the niece carefully down.
I'm gonna remove the Blue Spring for the Cobra. So from our round spine when it first flattened my back from there, extended the hips, pressing the pelvis down, lifting all the way up away from the bar into the down stretch. Carve out the abs hall of the belly. Reach back towards the heels and flatten off the back. Extend the hips, press the pelvis down in their place. Pull from the upper back, lift up off the bars. We come all the way into touch. Curl back, hovering off the heels end. Inhale to a flat back reaching out. As we exhale, dropping the hips down in heel. The head leads. The upper back is strong and active.
Excelling needs to be curl back and heel the back lengthens. Repress out and down through the APPS. Exhale. Oh, I lost my breath cycle. But anyway, here we go. Let's do one more. Flatten out the back. Press down. Exhale. Inhale till left. Coming all the way into the stopper all the way. Try to go a little lighter on the bar and then exhale to come all the way back and release. Okay.
Just going to sit down, turning around for a seated arm. Work. Start with the chest expansion, one red spring, arms down to my sides. Inhaling to prepare. Exhaling down with the arms and back into the chest. Expansion down with the arms and back as the arms reached down. The spines get a little longer, a little taller leg stays strong and stray. Taking it four more times.
Reaching up and to biasing towards an external rotation of the shoulder, bringing the arms forward straight out in front. Upper arms. Stay still for the BICEP, exhaling in and inhaling. Drawing the shoulder blades down, keeping the upper arm stuff, keeping the elbows parallel to the shoulders, keeping the spine straight for my focus is on my upper back supporting this shoulders. I last one, the arms back straight, taking the elbows and placing them of the straps, bringing the arms back up the front [inaudible] I was just in front of the shoulders, palms facing in continuing to lengthen this fine. We opened the arm that keep that 90 degree angle in the shoulders and avoid as the arms reach out, thrusting their ribs forward so he just able lies a shoulders.
Thinking about as the arms reach biasing towards keeping the elbows forward of the hands usually helps to feel the correct position. Feel the correct movement of the shoulder. So as you take your arms out, maybe have a quick glance. Make sure the hands are directly over the shoulders. Feel the spreading of the shoulder blades away from one another, keeping them up. I'm going to do three more here. Alliance, strong back support
When we come all the way forward, allowing straps to come back, turning around to face front end to take the bar down to this sitting right up at the back of the a former right up against the shoulder blocks and still in a red screen filling the length of the spine, grabbing onto the straps, coming into the hug a tree. So we hold the spine tall, we compress the arms towards one another. All of those are pretty straight. Maybe a slight softening but not a bent arm as the arms come forward or draw the abdominals back. So feeling that the movement comes first from the trunk and as the arms reach we keep the shoulder blades still. So I think about reaching the arms away from one another, broadening the back and then pulling back, reaching the arms away from one another, keeping the back broad. I mean a really lovely time watching the sunset while I do this last one that's gorgeous.
And then bend the arms for the salute come just forward of the eyes. Spine is straight and the arms press forward as the shoulders draw her back in here and reach. Well, lot of trunk stabilization necessary to keep the spine in a straight. Yeah. Why? Keep energy through the whole back. Feel the upper back working as the arms. Press away from the forehead and we'll do that three more times and two more times. And when am I allowing the arms to come down? All the way.
But I think this straps back and coming, stepping off the side, heading into the splits, the sides splits and then the skating. Kim stepping up onto the frame of my reformer first. I'm bending over to hold the reformer, still stepping my opposite foot up. I've been practicing for a long time, coming all the way up to the shoulder block and just that's too far away for anyone. You should do what works for your body. Once there we keep the reformer still and lift up, rising out of the floor, finding alignment, stretching the arms up and then we inhale relaxing down into this stretch, feeling the pelvis in alignment.
Maybe it's a good idea to check if you're not sure. And then pulling up out of the ways rising up towards the ceiling and we open the legs on them just to reach, reaching the arms in the direction that the legs are moving and we will lift up out of the way. Yes, and again, opening maybe going a little further each time, but make sure you can get out of it. Last two heavy shoulder blades. I don't. One more time. Once I get all the way into the stop or I'm going to bend the leg that's on the frame. Slide my foot in for skating. Single leg skating today.
Uh, the, the f carriage foot is held on a diagonal hands on the pelvis. From there I just assess neutral pelvic position, bend both knees, bringing the body down evenly, shift the entirety of the body weight over the supporting leg and then just extend through that leg, that carriage leg. So what I focus on is keeping the weight over my supporting leg and not pushing or shoving the carriage, but really focusing on that glute medius and relaxing the leg. Sometimes I feel if we try to push too hard with the leg, we don't get any work at all. Last four, the body stays up right until I don't want to bring the light back in. Shifting over both feet to stand up and step off and then coming around to the other side. Same process on the side.
[inaudible] setting the foot on the carriage first and then it's important that when you set your opposite foot, you make sure that your feet are aligned and holding the carriage still with my hands once I'm ready to go. Squeezing with the NFS so the carriage stays still in rural enough all the way. Arriving at the top. Arms stretch out to the side and then we inhale, go into the side splits. Exhale, lifting up, lie it off the legs, reaching the trunk out of the pelvis in healing to heaviness in the shoulders, but all the lightness through the arms, squeezing all the way and maybe going a little deeper each time. [inaudible] three more energy through the fingertips. Energy through the spine. [inaudible] calm in the rest of the body.
Calm in the mind. One more. Alright. Bending the leg that's on the frame. Sliding that other leg in. Adding into the single leg. Skating, hands on the hips, checking for neutral pelvic position. Check the alignment of the feet. Bend the knees, keep the body up right. Shift the entirety of the body weight without shifting the pelvis on the supporting leg.
And then we just reach and its opposing action by seam towards the work through the heel. Continuing to stand up, right. And we're each relaxing the leg out in space. Last for three and two and one reading the like backend shifting over both feet, standing up and stepping down, setting up for the mermaid. Just the next exercise I'll be doing, we'll be doing together. So I'm using one red spring sitting down on the carriage. I see one hand on the bar and finding that arm straight, so with a straight arm and with that supporting shoulder down the back, we inhale bringing that arm parallel to the ground and the opposite arm just floats up on the exhale. Roll around that shoulder, rotate around that shoulder, keeping the carriage adamantly stuck in.
Inhale to come back open from that position and exhale to rise up out of the hips. Working both obliques are both sides of the body. As we come back to a sitting position. Inhale to reach out, keeping the pelvis level Xcel spiraling around the shoulder joint. Inhale, opening back and excelling to come in. The arm that's moving through space is just free. It floats up to come just opposite the shoulder and then it comes with the body.
As we focus on the rotation in the trunk rather than the movement of the arm, we opened back out. Then come in [inaudible] take us through a couple of variations on this exercise. Here we go. And healing over excelling to find rotation. Put that hand on the bar. Let the opposite arm shift so that now we have stable in square shoulders.
Feel the squareness of the shoulders as we bend the elbows going into this shoulder. Push drawing the shoulder blades down away from the as lengthening the spine. Now Inhale, Tibet. Exhale, stretching the body long and in Hilton bent and stretching the arms along and from here into a rotated down stretch, pulling the spine, keeping equal weight on both times. It's not actually true when I will feel heavier. So right now it's my left arm. That's my far away arm.
It feels heavy and I'm using my left arm to push as I pull myself more straight with my right arm. Arm closest to the camera. Last time here, rising through the chest, lowering the body back down, taking this left-hand or the first hand back to the center of the Bar, unwinding into the mermaid position and coming all the way in the carriage with the shoulder down that I'm up and take a stretch to this side. That was pretty heavenly. Yes. Okay. Let me just do it. Do the other side to spin around shins right up against the shoulder blocks. I'm straight on the foot bar, opposite arm and straight down resting on the headrest and inhaling and exhaling flexing, rotating the spine around, keeping the carriage stuck.
And here we open back. Exhale, we rise up out of the pelvis. Make sure your weights over your sit bones. Lots of us like to shift forward off the pelvis and Karl around the house and open back and coming up [inaudible] that's a really nice when to focus on the breath. So the movement happens as we inhale or the Downer movement, they are around. Movement happens on the exhale and we ring up the spine in yelling as we open up the body again and excelling to lift up.
Here's where we go into our variation. So we inhale again. Exhale, turning around towards the bar, finding square arms, our arms squared with the shoulders and then pulling the elbows wide to the side, reaching the arms forward, pulling the elbows y to the side, reaching you is flowers. One more like that. From here, let's the chest through the arms using the arms to help steer ourselves through a square chest and then down, keeping the abdominals pulled off away from the thigh and lifting that rising chest up and going down. Last one here. Listing, reverse articulation through the spine, pressing down, bringing in the right hand or firsthand, back to the center of the bar. Stabilizing and supporting. As we were reached out to that side position and coming all the way back in, letting that hand come down and just reach that free. I'm up on the, on, it was on the foot bar up and across. Okay. Coming all the way out. I'm going to get my box and uh, firstly taking the foot bar down. Nope, not keep this up our ad. Take the box. Put it on long ways.
You didn't do the breaststroke prep and then a variation retire. I really love, which is the same exercise, the breaststroke prep, the exercise with no springs. It's an interesting way to, I feel the exercise, um, quite differently and perhaps more intensely. So we lie in the box just as just off the edge of the box and the hands are on the foot bar, legs together, abdominals in and the legs are actively just as high as the blocks not hanging down and not lifting higher than the box. Start here by pressing down into the hands and lifting through the middle back. Just coming into that slight back extension and then we press the carriage away and we pull in. This feels strong, good, strong work. Keeping the shoulders down away from the ears, pulling the elbows apart. That idea of pulling the elbows apart or another way I think of it as stretching the bar will come into play when we take the springs away. I'm going to do two more. Feeling the shoulder stable, letting the elbows extend smoothly and just once lets rural the spine.
Oh only lift as high as you're comfortable. Stay strong through the abdominals, lifting the chest and then let the body just slide back down onto the box and bend the elbows to bring the carriage in. Reach down with one hand and take the spring off. I have to be more careful here. Don't push, I mean you have to move your arms, but if you push, there's no tension, so we've got to create work so we feel the shoulders down, almost having to hang on with the upper back cause the arms lightly extend and from there feel that same sense I just talked about stretching the bar, pulling the bar as you pull the elbows wide, keeping the elbows level and bringing the carriage back in and we let the carriage float out. Feel support through the upper back. That's where the movement's coming from.
I'm just holding my back in a slight back extension throughout, not going up and down high or lower. I'm just trying to focus right above my bra line, the middle upper back. Feel how strongly that you can create significant work in that place with very little tension or no tension at all. In fact, I'm going to do that one more time, Tara. I in the body in and then letting the body float back. Saying, supporter, we're gonna rise up into back extension again. Allowing the head to lift, feeding that into the upper middle back. Pull yourself in this time may not be able to come up quite as high and then allowing the body to this roll down the box and pulling one last time energetically and with control and with good focus all the way back in and then holding the carrots. So reach back and put a spring on to keep it stir. Stepping off the box, we'll finish the way we started.
Finding your weight balanced on your feet, I feel are one I feel a little bit more grounded. Inhale, exhale. Let the headphone let the spine fall. Support through the front
Lifting up through the center of the body, feeling the heaviness of the head as the spine, as pulled down into the ground and healing. We pause and exhale to lift up, rising up out of the hips, sending the arms up
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