Class #5674

Classical Full Body Reformer

35 min - Class
70 likes

Description

Join Lesley Logan for a challenging Pilates class that utilizes the five spine shapes to create a full-body workout. This session will include exercises such as control balance and tendon stretch, with options and modifications provided to ensure you can adjust according to your needs. You should be familiar with the Traditional Reformer repertoire, as Lesley encourages you to rethink exercises you might struggle with, like focusing on Kneeling Arm Circles as a leg exercise, to enhance your strength, endurance, and speed.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box, Dowel

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Alright. Welcome to a full body reformer workout. This 1 has all 5 spine shapes that you wanna have flexion extension twist Cybin and a Tallback. If any of those spine shapes are not an option for you, replace what you can't do yet with what you can I believe that's brave and courageous, and we're just gonna get moving and enjoy a whole full body workout together? So for footwork, 3 to 4 heavy springs on, lie on down and take a moment to settle in to your carriage and just notice what's touching the carriage and what isn't. And if it is your low ribs that are arching off, see if you can breathe wide into those low ribs and take up some space. And then with the balls of your feet on the footbar heels, the other toes apart, press out for 8 to 10 footwork on your toes.

We're gonna flow with some zest today. But you are allowed to go at whatever pace you want, and you can skip an exercise and just enjoy the 1 you're on. As you're doing the footwork, try not to judge it too much. It's actually not an exercise you need to be perfect at because it's letting you know how your body is connecting today. Come all the way in, lift both feet up at the same timeline on your arches and push all the way out and come all the way in.

You're hugging those legs tight together. And you're really trying to close your springs yourself. Sometimes springs like to do it for us. So try not to kind of ride those springs all the way home and instead pull the carriage close with the back of your legs. That's key to getting full body work in here.

Come all the way in, lift both feet up, land onto your heels, and push out and in. So I have to remind my inner heels to take up space on my foot bar so that I get my inner thighs. Right? So we have lots of parts of our body that we want to bring into our practice. Some of them come in without invitation. Like, for me, my quads, and some of them need a little coaxing, which will be, like, inner thighs, hamstrings.

1 more, come all the way in onto the balls of your feet. Press out, stay out. 5 times lower the heels. Reach them under and lift. And if you're asking your body to just enjoy a stretch, I'm gonna challenge you to focus on these heels reaching under and lifting up to connect your feet.

To your seat. It'll make more sense when you do like a horseback or a rowing or a long stretch and then come all the way in Get rid of your foot bar and take your handles, and we're going to stretch those legs out on the foot bar arms up to the sky. So you have your legs stay down or they can come up with you in just a second, take a deep breath in. Press the pinkies out of your hand into the handle so you get more upper back, curl up for your 100, and begin to pump. Inhale through the nose, take up space in your lungs, and then exhale.

5 full breaths in. Well, it's 1 long breath, 5 pumps, and then 1 long breath, 5 pumps out. And You know, 10 cycles of breathing, it's kinda like a minute, which is the longest minute. Other minutes in Pilates are not long, but this 1 is long. So enjoy.

This is our first flexion. So footwork was a tall back. Last cycle, lower the head and chest as you lower the legs, lift the arms, and then come on up to the side. I like to teaser ish up, drop off a spring, and drop your head rest down for overhead. If you're not going overhead and go into coordination, or you can do more 100 for sure, arms up to the sky, legs me squeezing together, and simultaneously, legs go over as arms go down, lift those legs up.

And roll it down. Stretch the legs away. Lift the arms. We'll do just 2 more over up. And stretch the legs away. Let's do 1 more, and then we're gonna meet in coordination. Roll the spine down.

Bend your knees, bend your elbows, lift your head and chest up. Heels together toes apart. Push the arms and legs the straight. Open close. The legs bend the knees. So it's really easy to focus on the legs here.

See if you can focus on the arms here. Warming up that upper back. As much as you can. We actually really want that because you're about to go into rowing. You're gonna need a nice warm upper back, bend those knees in, bend the elbows, hook up your handles, and we're gonna sit up drop a spring off, spin around, and we're in a row.

So thumbs towards each other, set up nice and tall squeeze those legs together and see how tall you can stay as you pull your waist back. So, again, nice, long flexion here. Open the arms up. Push from the back. Dive in. Still the nice, long.

The longest flexion you can give me as you reach the arms behind you reach a wide circle around. And then roll up tall. You'll see how tall you can stay even as you pull your waist back. That's the challenge. It's easy to sink, but that is not around spine. That's a slouched spine.

And then reach her arms back, circle them wide to the side, and around. And again, lift the crown of your head to the ceiling as you round back, open those arms nice and wide, and round. And lift. Okay. We're gonna do some 90 degrees. So lift your elbows up, sit up nice and tall, and then keep this tall back As you go back, it's easy to extend the lower back, see how long you can be instead.

Reach the palms up, up, up, up, up, circle the arms down, back behind you, and then wide to the side. You're still in a round spine right here, and then you roll up to a tall back. Lift those elbows as you lean back, sit up really tall, and then round over your legs. Reach those arms back. Circle them nice and wide. We have 1 more elbows up is how long can you get versus how low you can go pinky side of the hand up up up, and then you flip at the last minute circle it around.

Hook your handles. Spin around. We have rowing 3 and 4, to be honest. I like rowing 4 over rowing 3, but you know, we gotta do the things you don't like. So hook your thumbs, straps underneath your arms, squeeze the legs together, reach those arms forward, and see how tall you can be here. So as those arms go up, it's kinda tempting to arch. The upper back are let the arms go behind us, see if you can keep those arms in your peripheral vision, so you're staying connected.

So you're staying strong. So you're getting a full body workout even in this exercise right here, inner thighs, outer hips, upper back, flex those ankles, head towards your knees, slide the hands along the mat, lift up. The goal is that the carriage is a move and then open the arms out wide. To the side. And, again, reach those arms along the carriage forward, lift up without moving your carriage at all, and then open the arms wide. To the side. If your carriage is moving, you're probably like a slinky rolling up into place versus a stomach lifting up into a tall back and open it up.

Alright. Chris cross, applesauce, flip your hands, place them behind your back index finger and thumb together. Push the feet down to lift the arms up. And the palms are facing your head instead of the ceiling, and the elbows are wide. So we're getting nice upper back work and not isolating this into the triceps. And then switch the legs because a full body workout means the full body is working in every exercise. Open and close those arms for your hug 3 times.

Awesome. Hook up your handles. So if you don't do the full swan on the reformer, you can swan on the mat or you can do a swan prep. We're gonna add a second spring, and we're gonna grab our long box. And put it on, and you may want to use a pad between your legs And the box, just so you don't slip around every box is a little different. Also, please make sure your box is on your carriage. And then let's put our feet either on the frame or on the foot bar and then put the tops of your thighs on the box and then reach your tailbone now.

Here we go. Big Swan. Turn your tailbone towards your knees as you lift up. Big backbin. We're finally getting some extension in. Lower the chest. Get long here and then little back bed. And then lift your waist to come all the way in.

And again, lift it up. Really big backbend here, lengthen the spine, and then lift the chest forward. Lift your waist to come all the way in. It's tempting this is gonna drop down. Here we go. 1 more.

I actually really love Swan the reformer. I know I'm a little strange, but I think it's really good. Awesome. Okay. Close the spring ish, put your feet onto the frame, on the foot bar or onto the floor as you close the spring. And then we're gonna go down to 1 spring for some pulling straps. Now if you're like, the first extension kinda comes out of nowhere.

That's why we worked our upper back so much with all those other exercises who are nice and warmed up. But here's some more chances to do that. So have your arm straight down, walk up to the straps, spin your inner thighs up, And then start with a tall back. Reach your arms back. And then if they reach back enough, your chest will extend up and forward.

And then lower the arms down and again reach. So sometimes we tend to lift the chest first and then the arms try to pull the arms first and then the chest lifts because of that connection. So we've done 3 of the 5 spine shapes. I promise the other ones will come, but these are the ones that are so important. Slide the hands down.

Let's do your t pull. Open your arms wide to the side. And again, chest is long and low. The arms lift, and maybe that's what the chest reach the arms forward. And, again, lift and reach and the lift. Woo. Awesome. Alright.

Hook up your handles, and we're gonna hop up to the side, add a second spring for some back stroke. I love a good back stroke. I also like to do 3 in each direction. And if you're like each direction, you can do 6 in 1 direction. So hands are in the handles behind your back.

Hips are at the edge of the box all the way, and you lie back. Make fist over your forehead. Heels the other toes apart. And now get your chest curled up. Reach those arms from your upper back.

Circle everything around. Hold. Open your collar bones. And bend everything. And now this is a tough part. Can you curl higher as you bend in, up, open circle, and curl higher to come in, up, open circle?

And then reverse it. You'll bend in first, then reach out. And then you have to close the spring as you circle your arms around, which means your arms circle behind you as you curl your chest up, which is really mean and quite hard and then rest. Handles in 1 hand, tees are on up, drop a spring off. If you're not able to do that because your box is higher, just hit pause, hop off and do it and come back down and meet me here. Alright.

So this teaser is straight up normal teasers, okay, and you can do whichever 1 you want. First, we squeeze the legs together. We start in our extension Marcewan, and we roll up into our teaser. Toes in line with the eyes. Sometimes they like to get higher, and that's a little cheaty. So try to get them in line with your eyeballs and then lower and lift the arms 3 times.

Roll it down. Everything goes down without resting. Come right back up. Hold it here. You can either do the arms up and down, or you can join me with the circling pinky side of the hand up. So really, they're more like ovals. They're wide to the side.

Pinky side of the hand comes up, up, up, And then we roll it down, take a nice reach into extension, not rest into extension, and then roll it up hold it here and then circle those legs up around and together with the pinky side of the hand up, reverse it, They can go as big and as high as your chest doesn't move around. Whoo. Come all the way down. Drop those off. Holy moly. Here we go.

I'm obsessed with us working our hamstrings, so at a second spring. And then sit on your box. And the reason is full body really does mean full body and pa especially the part of the body we're not looking at. So take your straps the loop goes through the handle, and then you cross your straps 1 time, look at which strap is on top, and then move your hips away from that so that you can turn towards it, point the toes, bend the knees, and flip. Alright.

Slide yourself forward so your knees are at the edge of the box. He'll see other toes apart. If you wanna do with 2 springs, you can. I'm gonna do it with 1, so full permission to join me on this single heavy spring. If that's easy though, then you gotta put that spring back on. Okay? So 5 with the knees apart, heels together, and then bring the knees together.

Hands can stay here or go behind your back 5 hugging together. If together is not an option, holler at someone to bring a ball between your knees. And that way you can get your inner thighs. Okay. Now, we're gonna do something a little bit more mean, but again, full body, here we come. We try to do a single leg. 1. I promise you I just did 1. 2. Or doesn't it do 3 each side? 3.

Oh my goodness. That was impressive. I am a I got a lot further than I thought. Now we'll switch sides. That's 1. My hamstring is threatening to cramp 2 and 3.

Woo. Now you can shake them off and stand up to Yuri for horseback, or you open your knees wide, you straddle your box, and you slither forward more than you think, then you've kind of flex your feet so you hang on your straps, reach down, take your stirrup off. And the other 1, boom, horseback. If you didn't slide forward, you will fall off to a fly forward. Alright. Hands in your pockets.

Squeeze the box. This is to help stretch your hamstrings out after that almost cramp. Right? Squeeze tight. We're gonna do 1 horseback, 5 circles. So point the toes reach the arms forward, and 5 big circles, seeing how much you can round your back, how much you can keep your pinky side of your hand up, Last time, flex your feet and rest. Oh, okay. So I like to hamstring curls because a lot of us have imbalances in our hamstrings to our quads, and that is why knee surgeries are so common amongst people, but especially ladies. So we gotta balance those muscles out, guys.

We're new long stretch series. It's gonna be fun. Head rest up, sticky pad on, 2 springs and then foot bar up. So if you need to come down at any point, you can. If you wanna eliminate anything, please do, but it's a fun little party you're about to have. So hand hand, foot, foot, 3 times long stretch push with the legs. So we've done tall backs. Okay. And we've done round backs.

We've done extension. We still are working our way up to twist and side bend. Why? Is it taking so long because we need as much strength as we can going into those. It's so easy to cheat on those. Now stay here. Lift 1 leg up.

Out and in 2 to 3 times on 1 leg. It's not gonna go very high, but you're gonna quickly feel which 1 of your legs is doing your long stretch for you. And by all means, you can always repeat on the side that needs more attention extra. Lower your knees down. See into your shoulder rest.

Down stretch. Hips forward. So 3 times with both legs. Yeah. I said both legs because there's a single leg, and we're gonna play with it. So you take 1 foot and you rest it on top here and you push with 1 leg.

Part of understanding your full body workout is understanding the asymmetries you have and which leg is doing all the pushing switch sides. So foot up, chest forward, and reach. And my right leg is like, oh, this is so easy, which means it's the 1 that's been doing it. Up stretch, There is a single leg up stretch, but I'm gonna tell you right now. I'm not gonna make you do that with me today because that means I have to do it too.

So half of your body weight in your arms, half your body weight in your legs, 3 up stretches or more because I do wanna do 2 combos if it's in your practice. If it's not, stick with the up stretch. Half the body weight and the arms push with the legs, bring it in a nice round back, and then the up stretch combo push out. Pull through into extension, reach out an extension, drop the head and round. And again, push with the legs, pull the chest through, push with the legs, head in.

Heels down. Half your body weight in your arms. I know you wanna put back in those heels. But, unfortunately, with your elephant, you have to push your own heels down. You don't get to shove your weight into them. Just 2 more.

And then take 1 leg back inner thigh up so that leg is quite parallel. It might even feel internally rotated and then switch. Awesome. Alright. Slide that pad down.

Quick little summit massage. We're gonna actually start with the arms back. If you're like, oh my god, but the round is my favorite. You can do it. I'm gonna start with my arms back, though. So 3 springs on, hands back, chest up, push the balls of your feet into the foot bar.

And use those hamstring curls to push the carriage out. And, and we're just doing 5 of these heels go down and up soft elbows, lifted armpits, nice lifted chest, and then come all the way in. Take a spring off arms forward. You can let your arms come wider if you need to so that keeps your chest nice and broad. And guess what? Here's your first twist.

Reach 1 arm around, but the back twists you. So it's so tempting to use your flexibility of your shoulder. But have fun using your spine to twist you around because it's 1 of the first spine shapes we lose, the ability to twist. And it's really key. You know?

It's kind of an important 1. Come all the way in. Hop off. Alright. Fun little tendon stretch. I will show a prep so you don't have to skip this 1. You're also welcome to elephant again.

Heels off. You're still on 2 springs, hand. Heel. Drop those heels down. Let your head hang. You're not gonna do a somersault.

I promise. Reach 1 arm forward, other arm forward. 1 arm back, other arm back. If you do this with your heels down and your ribs up, I promise 10 and stretch will feel a little less scary. Arms back, lift the ribs, push with the legs.

5, tendon stretch, And the more you can close the spring by lifting your ribs up, the more you're controlling the springs and so the spring's pushing you around. Close the spring step off, the bar down, short box. You know, you used to really hate the short box series. I used to prefer stomach massage, which I think is really funny because no 1 really, really prefers stomach massage. But I actually really like the short box series because we get truly all of the spine shapes here.

So please do the ones that are right for you. Sit on the sticky pad. Use the strap around the base of your foot where it meets the ankles. So if it's up by your toes, it's really easy to hang off the quads. And we want the back of the legs that outer hips to be working here.

Now you don't have to go into full extensions with me, but if it's in your practice, let's do it. Here's our full body work. Ready? Push the legs down, push the strap apart and round back. Maybe you go into extension, then head lifts, and you round up. Ideally, you're not sliding around. If you are sliding around, you're kinda hanging off some muscles and some limbs versus working your entire center, round back, extend, round up, and Some days, my body does not go all the way back.

And I share that because if yours didn't today, it's okay. Tomorrow's a new day. So flex your feet, push out on the strap, grab your pole, hold it wide. Get it between your eyes and your ear. So it's not back here. My hypermobile folks, right? Get it where you can kinda see your peripheral vision.

Look at the tip of your nose and lean back. And it's tempting to take the arms back to lean back, but what if you had to move from the tailbone to the crown of your head only because that's actually where you should be moving from. So the legs are pushing away, and your torso is leaning back. Stay up, tall. Here's your side bend.

Up and over. And when I mean up and over, I really do mean up and then over. And if you can try not to wrinkle the side of your shirt, your side bending too. So it's not how low you can go. It's not the most satisfying side stretch.

I'm sorry, but it's actually the longest side stretch. And then we twist and we reach and we come up. And this twist and reach is not a twist and side bend, although we kind of want to sometimes, just twist and stay in this nice, tall back. My legs are really working hard, so I can go as far as I can in my spine, which gives us a full body workout. Okay. Side setups.

So we're getting another side bin here. On the reformer, there's some side bins. There's not as many as, like, you might find on another piece of supplies equipment, but it's so good when you can get to them. So turn to the side. So you have 1 knee in line with your hip, foot in line with your thigh.

Get tall first. Find that tall back hands behind your head, interlace them, push right into your hand. So you could just hold this. Or you side bend down and you side bend up and you side bend down and you side bend up. 2 more. Last 1. And then a fun side, Ben, Take your arm down towards the floor.

Take the other arm up overhead, and then it is a side stretch ish. You still have to be working the bottom side. So both sides are working to as long as you can the side bend and then come up other side. Alright. Knee in line with hip heal up. If you put the toes up, you're out of the full body workout and you're into your, like, hip flex or workout, hand in ladies with the other hand, push the head into the hands, and then sideband down and sideband up.

5 of these and then reach the bottom arm down and then side vent up and over. You're still trying to lift that bottom waist up. And it might just be energetic. Nothing might actually happen in in to your mind, to, like, the physical eye. And then come all the way up.

Alright. Fox away. Bar away. We'll do a little shorts fine. If overhead isn't in your practice, you can roll like a ball.

You can do something else. It was a nice little challenge for you. We're on 2 springs already, so you should be nice and set up. Take your handle, loop it through so you have your short loop on, and you really want those 2 heavy springs on. And then double check just in case your head rest made it up by a little Pilates Gremlin, put it down, take your straps into each hand, and then see if you can lift your hips up simultaneously into your straps. You can pull the straps a little bit to get there.

That is a good sign that you can lift your hips up. Right? He'll see other toes apart, arms down by your side, push out, and then hips first. And then see if you can stand in those legs to take this over, bend the knees with the hips up, and then you can dismount with the legs bent. All the way down, that's a little bit more strengthening for the hamstrings. Or if you need a stretch of your hamstrings, you bend the knees, leave the feet there.

And stretch the legs out. It might depend on the day. Right? So having the autonomy to decide which discount is right for me today. And today in this workout, I need a little more stretch. Those hamstring curls.

2 more. And the knees and roll the spine down. Last 1. Ben those knees and roll. Wonderful. Alright. Little Chest expansion, thigh stretch is waiting for us.

Those are just some goodies. You kinda can't skip them because they're so full body, so you should be on 2 springs already. And then knees into the shoulder rest. If you wanna hook your feet off the back edge, because you know that, it just makes it harder. So that's kind of up to you.

This is hard enough for me. So you can make it a little harder up here by squeezing your legs together. That's gonna challenge your balance. Reach your arms back, look both ways, and reach arms forward. If you wanna make this even more full body, just double check that your legs are hugging towards each other even if they're not touching and that your wrists are straight.

And I say that because the wrist you can't see was totally cheating and bending. Back here. And it's kinda funny. Even after all these years, like, 1 side's like, I'm just gonna go rogue today. Alright. Vice stretch, which is 1 of my absolute favorites.

I just really love it. You wanna have 3rd spring on there. You can do this with your legs together that is gonna make it harder. I'm gonna separate minor hips distance apart. Walk the hands up your straps.

Your arms are a little higher up. And then it's tempting to sit back here. So see if you can move those hips forward, which means I could choke up a little bit more on my straps. And that makes it harder because now my feet wanna lift to go back, and that's okay. My hamstrings are working. And then lift it up. So, again, I look at the tip of my nose so I can get a nice tall back here. And then if you're ready for extension, you go to the place you can hold your Tallback, extend, come up, and lift it up.

Just 1 more. Helen it back. You can skip the extension. It should not be in the neck. It should be in the upper back. The neck follows. Okay?

Alright. Nailing arm circles, not many people's favorite drop down to 1 spring. You can do this with these with hand weights, by the way, if, like, 1 spring is just too heavy for you. Put your feet back. But if you use your whole body, it makes it so much easier.

I promise. So here we go. Dig those feet back, push back, hug the legs together, pinky side of the hand up arm circles, 3 in each direction, and then reverse. When I discovered this was a leg exercise, I found so much more full body strength. Didn't feel like it was just, like, shoulders. Alright. A little snake little snake. If you wanna do the twist, I'm gonna do the twist on the last 1.

So here we go. Foot turned out very important. Heel is touching something. While all the foot is touching something, hand, hand, head drops down. And now we're combining spine shapes. So we gotta twist, and we gotta round. And then we're gonna roll that through to an extension, head in, lift the waist, 2 more like this, and then maybe on that fourth 1, a little twist.

Push out halfway if you're twisting, and then your hips to this little twist. And then head in, lift it up, close the spring, come all the way. You feel like, but your hips didn't go down and make this Instagram able picture if it's true. They did not turn the foot out. Honestly, because that would mean I'm hanging off my shoulders. So you wanna stay up in your strength.

Place your hands, let your head drop down, turn that top foot out, and then you push with the back leg. So the arms don't get to push this carriage out. It's my leg and my center. My arms are just reaching from my back. And then twist is like a TikTok.

So if you've done TikTok, it's the same thing. You halfway out and you twist the hips. And then you lift the hips back up, you come all the way in, close your spring, and roll up. Oh my goodness. It's so good. It's so good. Okay.

We're gonna hit our knee stretches now. So 2 springs, foot bar up, I never skip these because They have 3 spine shapes and a whole heck of a challenge in here. So sit your feet back into your shoulder rest, hug those legs towards each other, round your back. Pull the foot bar apart. 5 to 8 knee stretches round.

And I say 5 to 8, just in case you're not doing the arch back or the knees off, feel free to do extra reps here and then reverse the curve. So even arch in the upper back. So try not to stick the booty all the way up. Right? Try to reach your tailbone towards your heels and open up that chest and then head in knees up and 5 knees off with those knees nice and low with the higher they get. The more you're cheating. Oh, close the spring.

Step down. Add your springs for your running and pelvic lift. So 3 to 4. Why I'm back? And before you go right into your rolling, just take second to lift your head rest up and notice how your body feels. I'm 30 minutes into this.

What's touching the carriage? And then press out with the heels up, 1 heel under, 1 heel up. And you wanna work the feet pushing from the back of the leg versus hanging off of the Achilles here. So you stay in this full body workout. Whew.

Letting that heart rate come down 2 more. We do have a grand finale, so we're not done yet. Unless you need to be. That's fine. Close the spring. Lift the feet up.

Turn the feet slightly out onto the arches. Lift just the hips. And press and pull it in. So it's not about getting straight legs here. I find that if I go to straight with my legs, I'm kind of hanging in my lower back.

It doesn't feel really awesome. But if I go out, like, 80% of the way, I stay in the back of my legs a lot, and I can feel my whole center working. Let's do 1 more. Alright. Come all the way in. Lower the hips, sit all the way up.

And then if you're equipment gears out running gear up for control push ups. And if you don't do those, the long stretch series is your friend. So I need to take all of my springs off for this 1. And gear out, put in the stopper, please use a stopper if you have 1. And then it's 1 to 2 heavy springs on. Okay? So you wanna take your hands as close to the edge as you can and then foot on. And then you lift up into an elephant, and then you push that into your long stretch.

So see, that's where the long stretch here is it's a good replacement. And then you can just reach the arms forward and back like a reverse chest expansion. Or you're gonna reach 1 leg up and the other leg up from all that single leg work we did. 1 more time each side. And then lift the waist to close the spring, step to the floor.

Yes. We're doing the other side. It's not it's not my favorite, but it's so good. So hands on the front of the shoulder rest, ball the foot on the foot bar. And then other foot, other hand. And then you can just reach the arms back. The hips stay where they are, or you reach a leg forward and up.

It doesn't matter if your leg is to the ceiling, work that leg forward to your hips stay where they are. And then if you want, fun little dips 3 times just for extra credit and then close the spring step to the floor. You're gonna need a gear back in. We have 1 more thing. So take your stopper out.

If you have 1, gear this in, 1 spring on foot bar down, splits. So stand on to the carriage and then place your foot onto the frame, and then make sure your feet are parallel and then heel toe out as far as you can stay in your strength. Sometimes I can get to the shoulder rest and some days I can't. So It's not about how far out you can go, but just be parallel and your inner thighs are working. Arms wide push with both legs. And squeeze both legs together.

So it's really tempting just to use 1 leg. We are doing both legs as a full body. So I like to think about my chest lifting all the crown on my head and my tailbone reaching down in opposition so I can move this carriage out and close the spring. And then 1 little fun thing, lean out over the edge of your former, round or spine, then drop your tailbone between your legs lift your chest up, maybe a little swan, palms up, close the spring, flip your palms, you could do it with this carriage close, how lucky for us. And then arms down and then roll it up.

Oh my goodness. He'll toe all the way in. If you're like me and that carriage started to, like, go out a little bit. This is something to work on next time. So spend around Frame foot first, heel toe out with the other leg, make sure your feet are parallel, arms out and push with both legs and bring it in and push it out and bring it in.

And then you can do what we did before or fun for us, maybe twist. So as I reach my left foot, I lift my right hip. Open up, twist. Lift my left hip as I reach for my right foot. Open up close. Holy moly. Here we go. We got this. Close. Twist.

If you're shaking, so am I, and twist. And heel toe, heel toe, and close your spring step to the floor. Pat yourself on your back, give yourself a high 5. You did a full body workout, all the spine shapes, Just notice which ones felt easier and more possible today and which ones didn't because that's where curiosity or practice exists. Come back to this workout and compare yourself to yourself. Thank you so much for moving

Comments

SUCH a pleasure. Thank you, Lesley.
Lori Anne Thompson yay!! Love to read this! Thanks for moving with me xx~LL 
Jamie F
1 person likes this.
A lot of great information in here. Thank you! 
Jamie F yay! So happy to hear this! Thanks for taking with me xx~LL 
Pamela S sorry to hear that. This is an advanced class so I focus more on keeping the class moving with some important concepts. I do have some other reformer workouts that move a bit slower if you prefer. But also, luckily there are other amazing teachers on PA for you to enjoy xx ~LL 
Robin S
2 people like this.
5 Stars in all areas. Thank you for that awesome well paced workout. Sweating and feeling very tall. This will be a go to for me. 
Robin S YASS LOVE LOVE LOVE this! Thank you for sharing and can't wait for you to do it again xx~LL 
3 people like this.
Holy moly, Lesley! So good for advanced practitioners to hop on the reformer and a get  sweaty, full-body workout in just over 30 minutes with all the exercises we love and love to hate. Amazing. If you are intermediate without a strong advanced practice, I would strongly suggest watching this first. The pace is also advanced. Cueing was spot on; didn't look at screen once. Bravo.
1 person likes this.
Wow so much packed in here - def challenging - I would like to take the class again in slow motion - but I know there is a value in flowing from shape to shape quickly- how would you explain that? I intuitively know it but can’t articulate. Thanks! Great class 
2 people like this.
Awesome. I am struggling at times to efficiently articulate to my advanced clients why having the most instagrammable (not my body ever), most creative, most unique exercises in every class is NOT necessarily optimal (nor is it how I teach). This was a fabulous 30min of hard work, precision, advanced work yet using some of the familiar exercises which... when precision and focus is applied, are still very advanced especially when reps are low and focus is extremely high. THANKS!
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