Empowered Aging Jumpboard

Hi, everybody. I'm back. It's Amy Haven here at Pilates anytime for some jump board, endurance, strength, power, and fun. Let's just go for it. We're gonna start with a pelvic curl to warm up our spine. And then we're gonna get right into it.

So I've got myself set up for three red springs. I'll guide you along with your spring changes, full body, but mainly jumping, lower body, power, and I'll queue along the way. You know me. So as we settle in, open up your chest, be happy that you're here, moving your amazing body, very strong. Take a full breath through your nose. And here we go.

Let's sink that tummy and just roll through your spine. So sequence from your tail, your spine. I've got my heels right up there hooked at the top of that jump board. Deep breathe in at the top. And sequencing down, upper back, middle back, lower back, sacrum and tailbone. And again, take a breath.

I'm gonna have to kind of pull my heels down on that jump board and curling up. Just feel like you're getting beautiful sequencing through your back. Use those hip extensors. Inhale. And exhale from the back of that sternum through your ribcage spine, the lower back spine.

The top of that sacrum and all the way to the bottom. Couple more. Arms can be a little away from your body here, people. Everybody exhale roll up. I have to visualize my knees reaching across the room. On the other side of that window is an ocean.

So I'm reaching my knees to that ocean. Inhale and we're coming down. Gather up those abdominals, see if you can get a little more motion or sequencing articulation through sticky spots through that lower, lower back. If you have them one more time, breath in, and exhale. Connecting to the back of the legs here before we get jumping, which will be primarily your front legs, but lots of foot and ankle today too, focusing there, rolling down your spine.

Alright, everybody. So as you're getting ready, so again, I've got three reds to start with. We're not jumping immediately. We're getting a good warm up. I want you to start with your legs in parallel away from the jump board.

And, ideally, if your arch of your foot were on the foot bar, that's about where I'm having a start. What I'd like to do is have us assess a little bit. So how deep can you bend your knees with your foot staying flat? I don't want us to move our foot up the jump board. I really do want you to stay right where you are and get as deep in that ankle and knee and hip flexion as you can.

Then what you push back with, again, engage your rear leg and stand. There's that hip extension again. So patterning it, bending, you're gonna hold, hold, hold, use your back body here hips and glutes to push. Yeah. Your quads are gonna work, but think about it from the back too. Get a good hold. I want you to flex that ankle joint. Keep that heel down, heel to the board to straighten neutral pelvis. One more there.

So it's important to get this deep ankle flexion. When we land these jumps, we're gonna really want that foot flat and then push up to rise. Okay? Now keep engaging the front of your shin, rock onto your heels, and then place your foot flat. And then rock on the heels, lift the top of the foot, and place it flat. And as we're doing these, we can start to articulate the toes as we place the feet down. One more.

And then we're gonna do heel lifts. We'll just take it in four. Right? And heels up, heels down, heels up, and then we'll combine them rocking between the two. So it's here. Heels, rock to the toes. Rock to the heels, to the toes. Heels, I want you to really get that anterior and posterior ankle.

Really well warmed up. Okay. Take a quick peek. If your feet have started to climb up the board, just even come down a little bit, we're gonna do all that again in Pilates v and a few of our placements. So we bend it down. How deep can you bend? Feed flat, neutral pelvis? You're pausing a little three count hold, and then straighten those legs.

Here we go. We bend, hold, hold, hold, back legs, inner thighs, and straighten. Bend, hold, hold, hold, and press energy through your top head. One more. Get deep in that, feel the front of your shin and press. Right? Now we rock under the heels up and articulate the toes down.

Heels articulate the toes down. Rock to your heels. And just kinda get some articulated movement. It doesn't have to be perfect. Now lift your heels.

They're staying together. Lift your heels. Staying together. Heels up. Heels down, heels up. Now the patterns, we rock to the heels, and we rock to the toes.

Rock to the heels, rock to the toes. Two more. Rock to the heels, Yep. We're really waking up that lower, lower extremity chain. And now internal rotation. Take a look. Same pattern. We bend and hold to three.

Push to straighten. Feels a little interesting in internal rotation, but I like getting that deep flexion in this angle so we really warm up and work as many places in that that we can. We won't jump in internal rotation today, but we're gonna warm up with it. Okay. Good. That was our four. Now we do lift the heels, outer calves, and rock to the heels, lift your toes, articulate.

And lift. Interesting, isn't it? It changes a little. Can you get those toes really high and down and rock to the toes now? Down and lift. Down. Neutral pelvis, stomach in.

Good. And then we do the pattern. Ready, and rock, and lift, and rock, and lift to Who's feeling their shins besides being good and lift? Okay. Last pattern, we're gonna go out wide. Here we go. This is probably the easiest one to get deep, deep, deep in your plie or your bend, hold, hold, hold, and push. Really keep the feet flat.

Ready and push. I do accentuate my heel pressure on the jump board just a little bit more than the ball of my foot to ensure I'm getting the back of my legs going. I'd I'd guide that with you as well. Heels a little more. Ready? You rock under the heels and down. And a rock and down.

And rock. Do rock and heels up. Lift. And I'm trying to pull my inner thighs together on that pattern. Here we go. And heels. And toes. Rock do the heels.

And toes. One more. And I think you're probably sufficiently you can bend your knees, aware of from knee to ankle. Right? We're gonna keep going. You'll start to feel a little more warming up, coming up the leg. So we're at the bumper now to start.

I'm gonna take a look in parallel balls of feet, heels a little bit lifted. You don't have to prop them up high. I don't want you to do that and roll out. That's not the point, is to get even across those metatarsals. Little bit of a pattern. We push out straight, heels go down and up.

You come back in. And we push, we lower, lift, and in. Push lower lift. One more pattern. Now you'll stay lifted and we do eight little pulses. One, and two. And three, spread those metatarsals. And five, getting some heat here, and seven all the way out on eight, and all the way down to pause.

Change it to Pilates v. Same pattern. Push out, heels down and up, return in. And I do have my heels touching the entire time to connect that midline focus. One more of those, calf work, eight pulses, and one.

You don't have to go all the way up. You don't have to come all the way in somewhere in between. Here's four, three, two, and one, all the way up, and all the way down. Internal rotation. And out, heels down, heels up, and in. I don't have a lot of internal rotation.

That's okay. Some of you have a lot. Some of us don't have as much It's alright. I'm turned in with my femurs. That's the idea. Pulses for eight.

Again, why you're working different part of that capsule? And four. And your adductors, five. Get the pinky toe down. Seven, last one all the way up, and all the way in last position, heels wide, feet wide, ready for the pattern neutral, out, heels lower lift, in, push, lower lift, calves. So we really needed to warm up the foot ankle for all the landing and jumping that's coming. Now let's pulse.

We'll get there momentarily and four. Ah, and six. But before we get jumping, I wanna do a little bit of ab work with us. So just give yourself a hug, everybody. Don't worry about your bring is we're just gonna turn I'm gonna turn sideways on my reformer just so I don't hit my shoulders on the shoulder blocks.

And come on down. We know these single leg stretch, double leg stretch, and scissors. Pick one of your legs to straighten, one of your legs to hold on to, and we will pull pull. And we'll pull pull. Three. Start to think about more your midline connection, the oblique squeezing into the center line, your lats supporting your back spine, one more, both knees in double leg stretch.

Try not to drop back, reach circle around. Chest stays high. Chest stays high. I almost reach it a little higher if I can with my arms, and then we scissor either leg, and we pull pull. Pull pull. The leg that comes down.

I think about the rear leg. My hamstrings and my glutes. I will leave my hands up there waiting for that leg. Four three two and one. And then for here, let's give ourself a little upper back extension over the edge. Just take a breath or two and curl yourselves up. Okay.

Time to make a little spring change while we get ready for jumping. I would like us to leave two springs on. I left my two red. We're going back down. Now while you're jumping, I will let you decide right now for yourself, headrest, up, or down. I'm gonna lift mine a little bit.

Just a tad. We have fortunate this reformer, of course, has two settings. Okay. Parallel. Now as we start building the jumps and more consecutive, I do like to focus on the landing.

I can't help myself. We start all the way out. We're gonna land and hold. So here it is. We've been will jump and land and hold it. Ready?

Jump and hold. So jump and land hold. That's your chance to really nail that foot ankle knee flexion. I wanted to do four. Here's four. Eight in a row.

Land articulate land. You don't have to jump high. It's about the landing right now. Four more. Three more.

Land. Last one, how'd you do? Oh, straighten your legs. Turn out Pilates v. Same thing. Do a bend first. You gotta bend to be able to jump.

Land and hold it. Jump land and hold. Little give me a little different in ankle joint in this position and hold. Ready for eight. Try to land. With your toe ball arch heel, three, four more, five, six, feeling the strength and power in your legs, hold everybody straighten out.

So no internal rotation. So instead of that, we'll go hip with parallel, and then we'll do wide. Okay? Ready set. Ben. Jump land and plie. Really land it.

And land and land, eight in a row, just go. Focus on how you're landing. I keep saying it because it's important. Four. Three, and two, and hold, straighten.

Alright. One last position in this particular series, feet wide. And do a bend? Will it all jump land hold? Jump land hold, jump land hold. One more. Let's go for eight to row.

Quality here. Three Keep it neutral here. Ask for support from your stomach. And six and seven. And one, land in the middle and just give it a little rest with your legs straight.

Everybody. Great. Come on in. Shake your feet up in the air. Shake your hands up in the air and do it like you just don't care. Okay. Like hug yourself in. We're gonna move into some arm work.

I could not help myself. One blue spring. Facing back for some arms. Okay. So in between some jumping, I do like to kind of sprinkle in this kind of interval in a way. Right? So you also get to challenge yourself being up integrated and active in your legs.

Let's put their hands through the straps. I'm gonna hug on to the tape here, crouch down, shoulders are set, and let's get those rear arms. We're gonna tricep kick back. Looking right past the back edge of the reformer. Gather up your stomach.

Blue Spring is fine for me. You can always tag in more attention. Control deflection five. Four, endeavoring to be in a long, flat back, two, and one. Okay. Coming up on high kneeling now, You may be able to keep your hands here.

I'm gonna slide my hand back a little bit and just put it on the top of the loop. I need a bit more room. Okay. I would stretch your arms. We're in for that rear deltoid again. Remember, you don't have to have your arms too wide.

Want you to stay organized in your upright position, feel strong in your back. We'll take four more times. Just look out at that horizon, tailbone long to your heels, nice light head on your neck. Last one, and then everyone lower your arms. So this is a single arm pattern.

You can keep your hands here or you can slide back into the loops. I'll go there. Want you to start with one arm, chest expansion, but the other arm's gonna be loose. Don't you worry pull that one arm and add some trunk rotations. Pretty nice and return. Shoulder down arm long, turn.

Now we wanna focus on the pelvis, though, staying facing front, the rotation really more from your sternum. So you may not be able to turn as far. It's okay. So that's four. I think we can probably handle a couple more. On each side.

We'll go for six. And six on the other. Ready? Organize, single arm, trunk rotation. It's kind of what the body does when we walk. Right? And we have a nice zesty walk in stride. The arm swings behind and the trunk rotates.

Kinda nice to pair that with couple more with our jumping activities last time. Alright. We're gonna lower the straps down. I like a good bicep curl on some heavier weight. So I'm gonna ask us to add on a red that'll leave you red and blue. I'll give us a couple options. You can start down, kind of in your toe sit, little crouch, and elevated a little above your sitting bones.

Let's start with our fists, hands around the strap and the fist with long arms, collect your abdominals, and then bicep curl here. That's quite nice. You can stay down low. Or if you wanted to go a little bit up more level up, I guess. You could say you could crawl all the way up and bicep curl. I do think this is a bit more challenging to stay organized in your torso and your legs.

All the good things. Let's go for four more of these actually four. And three, how are we doing? Good. You guys. Strong, powerful, building our endurance, having fun. We'll have more fun with a little more ab work. Facing back. Okay.

So this one, we're doing lower lift, criss cross, and a little variation. So come on down, knees in, hands behind your head, legs up a little Pilates v. We're gonna lower toward the window. And pull it up, reaching long. We're trying not to drop that upper body and no overly pointed toes. Last two was a beautiful thing that just passed the window. Okay.

Chris Croft. Tou twist. Up and twist. Up and twist. Again, think about the rotation from the sternum.

The sternum. Four three To, everybody make a ball shape, make a ball, make a hundred shape, make a ball shape, make the hundred, make the ball, And hundred ball. Hundred one more to go. Alright. And then everybody rock right up.

We're getting ready for some single leg jumping. So I'd like to keep it on a red and blue. Okay? Let's go on down. So the single leg stretch that we do in ab work, we're gonna do single leg stretch legs here. And progress it to some straight leg scissors.

So pick a leg to land on the other one to bring up, then and push and start to jump. Let's not worry about repetitions right now. Find some endurance, find some pace, concentrate on how you're landing, articulate right through that sequence, toe ball arch heel, toe ball arch heel. So it is always up to you when you're taking classes here with me and anybody really do what you're asking your body for. If you wanna jump higher, if today's the day, go for it. Be safe about that.

Knowing the farther you jump, the bigger your landing is. Right? So you gotta control your descent. I do like to kind of push mine a little bit, make my body work. Alright. Now keep going.

Go into some Pilates v, just a couple, and then pick one leg up to scissor. Just kinda had to get you in that transition. A little scissor, I'm slightly turned out. Land. Push land.

Where's your breath? God. Keep going. So stamina, endurance, take breaks if you need to. We have a little bit of single leg patterning coming. So I'm gonna count us down just to be clear for four. Here's four.

Three two, one, land in the middle of feet together, and then just straighten. Okay. Good. Feeling that heat. So separate your feet again, hip width parallel. Stay on one leg, bring the other leg to tabletop. Here's the deal.

Four on one leg, and then we alternate four four. Four on the other and alternate for four. I count on the landing. That's why I kept saying concentrate on the landing, not the jump. Ready? I'll I'll guide you. So here we go. Land one.

Land two. Three. Four. Make a change. Land on the other. Here's one. Alternateate, two. Other sign.

Three, and four. Land on the other, we count for four. Four. Three. Two. One should make the change. Land one alternate.

2. 3. You got it. We're gonna do it again in the fours. 2. 3. 4. Make the change.

Land on the other. One alternate. Two. Three and four. Keep going, guys, land on the other for four.

Three. Make the change. And 4. I'm gonna keep going, but go into twos. And here we go. First leg, land one.

Two change one. Change two. Change two in a row. Change for singles. One more round and change and change singles. One more round and two and two change for singles.

Meet in the middle with both feet on the board and pause good. Okay. Bring the carriage in. Shake your limbs. Okay. I wanna do one more jumping series on a little lighter tension. I'm gonna keep my red and drop off my blue and come on back down.

Stretch your carriage out. Step your feet as wide as you can on your board. Some of us have a smaller board. Out stretch your arms. We're going to jump and bring everything to the midline together and land apart.

We'll also be doing some crossing legs and crossing arms. I'll cue it. It'll when we do crosses everybody, it'll be whatever leg is on top, arm on top. Okay? Here we go. So Ben first, if light, be ready, pull together, land apart. Pull together. So I'm parallel adduction.

Arms come by my sides. And Three more eight nine ten. I don't have a preference what leg starts. But before you do, go into turnout, just a few jumps in turnout, Ready, we're gonna cross one leg over the other, arm on the other, land wide, alternate, cross open, cross, and use those inner thighs. Make them work.

Coordination a little fun. Good. 10 more. Four. Oops. I didn't really get those legs. I just kind of kind of did it there.

Four. I'm asking you two. I better do myself. Last to you. Last one. Okay. And then pause.

Good. We're doing great. Right? It's fun. Okay. Last little two little bits. Don't get too crazy. But get a little more something, personality. I call it freestyle.

Free style meaning, jump, gesture, kinda make it yours, be smart, be safe, but just go. Just go. Play. Play. Play. It's good for your brain to have some changes.

It also is good for your brain to have patterns. And for us teachers that work with clients and give them opportunities like this, it's people start giggling. There's this joy that happens. It's like it doesn't really matter what it looks like. It's jump, land, be safe.

Okay. About ten to fifteen more seconds or so, whatever that means for you. Maybe we should do this. Stay with me, jump. Kind of two or three more random free plays there.

Freestyle's, and then start to kinda comment down both feet together in the middle. Yeah. Smaller. Smaller. Smaller. Maybe no more jumps, just easy stretches. And bends.

Good. I can actually tell that everyone's smiling. I feel the smile already good. Exercise should be fun. For me, the jump board is like the most fun, as you know, come on one more time.

And the last thing we get to do together is a easy little stretch. So just find yourself up off your back. Get cozy here and ankle over a knee. If you're inclined to lean forward toward your leg, you can to kinda deepen the hip stretch. It does feel quite nice. And just kinda calm when you're breathing.

I love the jumping. I love the contact of the feet on this board. Really mimics how we can be buoyant in our gait. In our hiking and our dancing, you know. That's a beautiful partner here and change sides.

And even just the very beginning section, of the foot and ankle and that heel rocking, I use that a lot too to get people more adapted to keeping that ankle mobile. Right? We want strong front shin, so people don't drag the feet. Couple more rocks. Yep. And you could've, you know, do it again. And if you wanna take that class and add some hand weights, that'd be kind of fun. Maybe another time.

As always, I just thank you so much for joining me and leaving comments and having fun moving and being part of our community. Super important. Thank you everybody. See you next time.