Athletic Reformer Flow

Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining me for this reformer workout. Let's get started. I'm gonna walk around to the side of the reformer, and I have my spring set on one red on this balanced body reformer. Gonna bring my left foot up to the side of the platform, and my right foot is gonna be pretty close to the edge. I really want my feet pretty much underneath me, not too close together and not too wide apart.

Starting with my hands on my hips, I'm gonna take myself into a nice low squat here, taking a moment to get organized, making sure I've got a little more weight in my heels than in my toes, I'm just gonna stand right back up, trying to keep that carriage nice and steady. Take it down again, squat down into it, Now on this one, we're gonna leave this left leg precisely like it is. Extend the right leg out and bring it in, send it out to, and bring it in. There's a little spirit of a swan with the upper body for, bring it in. We're doing eight. Six and in seven.

Eight, we're gonna hold. Starting the other leg, I want you to think of sending the heel out just a little bit, then push with the left leg and come in. You really wanna keep that foot out just a little past the side of the knee, so it doesn't end up sneaking underneath you. So there's a little pressure out. This is one of those great exercises where the moving leg is not the working leg.

It's my stable leg that's working hard. And six, bring it in. Seven, bring it in. One more, eight, we're coming. And now stand all the way up.

Walk your right foot to about the center of the carriage. On the same spring, slide out. You can even go to where you feel a little sensation of stretch, then come in, hit the stopper and hold their one squeeze a little more two, a little more three, do that five times. Take it out, and bring it, and you'll find the stopper hold against it. Three, two, one. We do that again. Exhale brings it in. Hold one.

Hold two feel the arches lift the little toes anchor. This is four. Bring it in. Holding one. Two, three, we've got one more. Take it out.

Bring it in. Now we're thoughtfully going to rotate to the front of the equipment. Bring the hands down onto the bar so you've got a stable surface to hold on to. Find a similar shape to climb the mountain on the wonder chair, pump the right leg out and in eight times. Two, three, four, really curve that shape of the back.

Six seven and eight. Now send the carriage out again. Meet the other foot back there holding in a nice long, strong plank. Breathe it in. We take it into a pike, nod the chin into the chest. Hold the hips up high. Inhale takes you all the way back out.

Exhale lift up two. Inhale lengthen out. Nice strong plank. Exhale brings it up three. Inhale takes it out.

Nice strong. Plan five of these, up, lengthen it out. And five, lengthen it out. Let that carriage come in. We'll step forward. Come up and get ready for the other side. The feet are pretty much right underneath your hips there. Take one little squat here just to figure out where your weight is distributed, let's get a little more weight in the heels, draw the naval up towards the spine.

Push up, take it back down. Now, keeping the right leg bent, we extend the left, send it out, and two, three, four, so again, my working leg is my stable still leg. Six, bring it in, seven, eight, and we pause. Now the left leg stays still, push the right, but you wanna just barely move that left leg out just a little so that your foot doesn't end up creeping underneath you. It's real tempting to let that happen. So I always think right before I go, I push a little with my left foot.

That's four. Six seven, and eight, bring it, and we're gonna stand right up, walk the left foot to about the center of the carriage, feet are very parallel. Let the carriage just slide out. And then you do the hard work to bring it in. Hold, two, three. Take it out again. Note my pacing here.

Slide it out. Slide it in, and then this is a pause. Don't rush this moment. That's where the magic happens. This is three. Bring it in. Hold it one.

And two. And three, take it out. Four. Hold one. Two, three, take it out five. Bring it in.

Hold. Two, three, begin to pivot. Rotate towards the front of your carriage, hold your hands on the bar. Find that rounded shape similar to knee stretches. I really think this feels a lot like climb the mountain on the one to chair.

I think it's a great place to play with this exercise on the reformer. Five, six, seven, eight. Now let's push that carriage out. Meet the feet out there. Find a nice elongated plank, nod the chin to the chest, exhale rise up.

Inhale lengthens you all the way back down. Two, inhale lengthen out. Three. Lincoln. Four. Take it out.

And five brings it all the way in, step a little forward and down to the floor. Alright. We're gonna move on to a little more warming up We're gonna do an ad series that I love. So I'm gonna bring in my foot bar up, and I'm gonna drop down to a really light spring. I'm on the blue spring here. I'm gonna get a sticky pad too just for a little extra insurance in case I slide around a little bit.

But we're gonna sit and lie down on our backs, scoot so that you can hold the edge of the carriage with your hands, and then slowly straighten your legs here. Let's put the feet in a parallel stance, inhale to prepare. And as you exhale, nod your chin into your chest, pull gently on the edge of the carriage and help to assist a nice strong curl. Now we're gonna put the hands behind the head to support the weight of the head. Simply lower your heels down as you press gently up against the bar to create a connection to your center.

Do that one more time as a prep, raise the heels. Then lower them to where you feel the best connection to your center, and you're just do a little series of crunches. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one. We're gonna pull the right knee into the chest. We're gonna twist up to that right knee. Now I'm gonna extend the leg over the foot bar center my curl, that's an inhale. With an exhale, I rotate up, inhale, leg over the bar.

Exhale twist, inhale, leg over the bar. Twist with my exhale. Now I'm gonna surprise you. Foot goes under the bar. Inhale. Let that leg go low, yearn for the stopper, then exhale. Come up, ring that body out. Inhale.

Back to the middle. Exhale twist one more time. Inhale. On this one, twist and hold. Send your leg up. Try to reach your elbow up.

Lower lift your leg three times one. Up two. Up Three, up, put the foot down, center yourself, rest for a moment. We start the whole thing from the top breathing in to prepare, nod the chin to the chest, pull on the edge of the carriage. Give yourself that little assist, and then your hands come behind your head.

Lower your heels down, lift them up. And then this time, find the best position for your feet and crunch. You should be able to just gently push up with your feet on that bar and that pressing up with the feet locks you into that center. Seven, hold up on eight. Pull the left knee into your chest, rotate over to it. Now the leg extends over the bar as we inhale curling through the middle, exhale twist up to that bent knee, inhale, exhale twist up, inhale, exhale twist up. Now the leg goes under the bar, inhale.

Exhale, twist it up. Two, really ring out that body, wrap the body around. Three, wrap and hold, reach the elbow up high, reach the leg up high, lower lift one, and up, two, and up, three, and up, the foot comes down, you center yourself and rest all the way down. Then your knees come on in. We're gonna sit up and get rid of the sticky pad. So I'll throw it in the middle, I'm gonna go to two red springs, get my foot bar out of the way.

The next series is hundred into overhead and coordination. There will be a few surprises along the way. Hold your straps up, reach your legs up, breathe in, prepare. Pull the handles down, curl up, high, pump those arms, inhale, and exhale. Breathe it in, and out.

Using the previous series of crunches and ab work to help inform this exercise, can you find a similar energy through your feet that connects to your belly. Breathe it in. Breathe it out. Keep yearning for that high curl. Two more breaths.

Take it in. Breathe it out. Final breath. We're gonna lower those legs down. Getting ready for overhead, put your head down.

Hit the mat with the hands, take yourself over and lift a little up. Now roll down through your spine. Raise your legs. Sorry. Raise your arms. Lower your legs. Lower the arms. Take it over again.

To and up, roll it down. Arms come up and the legs go down. We do one more time like that. Hit the mat with the hands for support to get over and up and roll down Now, bend your knees and arms, do one coordination, out, open close, bend the knees, bend the arms, put your head down, reach your legs and arms away, hit the mat, do another overhead. Take it over, and up, roll it down, bend the knees curl into it, coordination, out, open, close, knees, and arms, head down, arms up, lower the legs.

We do it again, hit the mat, take it over, and up, roll it down, bend the knees, bend the arms, three coordinations to finish this fun little series. Again, take it out, open close, knees, and arms one more, and rest. You can bring the straps onto the pegs. We'll sit up, and now. We're gonna go through the footwork series with the legs and those straps.

So I'm gonna drop down to just one of those red springs, and we're gonna use this as inspiration for stomach massage. So I'm gonna do this kind of quickly paced, put your straps on your knee thigh area here. I usually like to get the straps closer to my knee rather than up my thighs. So I'll get them real close to the knees, and then you'll lay on your back. Wiggle against your shoulder blocks, and you can just put your hands behind your head for support.

Now, because we're gonna use this as a prep for stomach massage, start in a frog shape, so Pilates v knees apart, breathe and prepare. Curl up with your exhale and really go for the highest curl you can get. Try to pull your knees back to touch your elbows so you will end up in a little tucky butt there. Now extend your legs with an inhale, bend your knees, exhale, extend with an inhale, really curl into that shape. So you're really almost curling into rolling like a ball from the mat work, four.

And five. Bring it back. Now I want you to take a rest. I'm gonna put my feet on the frame. Just taking a moment, and I really wanna get this conception solid in our bodies. So we're gonna do it three times.

Three sets of five. So bring the knees back up, still in Pilates v frog, curl up, and we go. Inhale, exhale one, really pulling the knees to the elbows and the elbows to the knees at the same time. Five, bring it back, take one more moment to rest, and now I want you to process on this third set how we're gonna make this connect to stomach massage. So curl back up, Think about that stomach massage round shape.

Let's do this exercise, inhale, exhale pull from the belly. Two, three, deepen through the center. Four, and five, bring it in, and we'll sit up and take a rest. So take the straps off your feet, and before you lose your focus and concentration, turn around and get your foot bar set to the stomach massage level. So it's a lower bar setting. I'm gonna do it on just two yellows. I mean, I'm sorry on two reds, and we'll get the sticky pad too for insurance purposes as well.

And then sitting at the front edge of the pad, put your feet up on the bar. Today, I want you to start with your leg straight. We've done a couple of things that are gonna help inform this today. Earlier, we pulled up on the carriage to help assist our curl. So I wanna start sitting tall for a moment and breathe in. As we breathe out to find our curl shape, bend the elbows, and be inspired from the earlier ab work for the pulling up and the connections of the c curve. Now think back to the previous exercise where the straps were on our knees. Bend your knees to come in and pull yourself in with your core. Go out again like that.

Come in. Now we'll add the lower lift. We go out, down and up. Two. So see if you can really get close to that stopper, but the closer you get, the more you feel the connection of knees to arms, arms to knees. One more.

And let's take one arm up and go back. For the nice chest opener variation, open through the chest, there's still a little pelvic tilt, and we go. Trying to find a similar connection to the belly. It's not easy, but it's something to maybe distract you from some of the reasons you may not like this exercise. Don't worry. You're not alone if you don't like it.

This is seven. One more is eight. We'll bring it in. Now, reach your arms forward to the twist. In nail, open the heart and the chest, exhale brings it in. In nail grow tall. See if you can find a little spirit of swan at your further reach and bring it in, and lift out of their zips, bring it in one more set, right, bring it in, and left, bring it in. We're doing tendon stretch later.

Let's warm up for it. Send the carriage back. Round the body, stretch over, dig those heels under, starting to prepare, our hearts and our minds for that tendon stretch will be doing in a moment. Bend your knees come all the way in. We're gonna grab the box.

Long box is next. So I'll put the sticky away, grab my box, and it's going on longways. Just to go ahead and warm up our extension, I'm gonna bring the foot bar up a little higher. Go to one red, just a little swan, nice and easy, stretch the arms straight, and just float right up. Warming up the body, four extension, exhale, take it down. And again, inhale, and let that exhale guide you down.

One more time. Ben the arms to come in. Stand up on the floor for a moment. We're gonna get the bar out of the way. And I'm gonna add a blue for me today.

So I have a red and a blue. Now you probably need to, like, play with your springs at home on this. The first time I worked on this, I worked a little lighter, and I've built up to slightly heavier. The prep looks a lot like breaststroke, but we're not doing breaststroke. You're gonna push your hands while standing on the side of the frame.

Get your hands to the corners of the box that is admittedly heavy and a little awkward promise it gets better. You're gonna lay on your stomach here. Now I like to get a little bit forward on the box for this, so that, my ribs are at the front edge of the box. So that when I straighten my arms, I actually have a little pulling on my arms that's gonna inspire my movement in a moment. I'm gonna start here pretty straight and bicep curl. So I'm gonna pull and reach six reps. Three, Five and six. Now reach the arm straight and hold.

Let the equipment rise you up into what is going to eventually be pulling straps but you're being assisted by your springs, bicep curl in that position. Two, opening through the heart and the chest, let the equipment help you. That's what makes pulling straps so hard as there's no help. Right here, we'll finish with our sixth one. Hold really let that equipment guide you up.

Put your hands on the corners of the box and stand up. Let the carriage get guided back. Hook the straps on the poles. Drop one of those springs, so you only have one spring for pulling straps, but you're going to use that as inspiration for making pulling straps feel a little more successful. So on your stomach, reach up, bringing your hands up onto the ropes, legs are strong and lifted.

Now just as easy as the last exercise, inhale. Lift. Now exhale lower. We go again, inhale lift. Exhale lower.

It's a little surprise on this third one. We're gonna lift. We're gonna hold. It's a tricep extension. Three reps.

One. Two, three, lower that down. Do that one more time, inhale. Lift it up. Tri set the extension.

One, two, three, lower all the way down and release. Go ahead and hook your straps on the pegs. Stand up. We're gonna grab our sticky pad once again. Again, you don't always need it, but sometimes it's just nice to have it there just in case. I'm gonna put it at the front of the box, and then I'm bringing my foot bar back up to my higher setting. I'm gonna drop back down to that blue spring again that we use for the crunches, and we're really gonna try to think back through all of the work that we've done so far today.

Especially the crunch series. This is gonna be teaser on top of the box using the foot bar as a little assist for our teaser. It's a wonderful variation on this exercise. Scoot your seat to the front of the sticky, bring your feet onto the bar. Extend your legs out, and the most important thing to remember is your heels need to be down.

Do not be on a tippy toe for this exercise, heels down under the bar. You're gonna raise your arms up, and then you're gonna find teaser shape with your back. Now that you're in your teaser shape, this is start and this is stop, we never go higher than this. Breathe in to prepare, breathe out, and start to articulate through your spine, bringing your back down, open through the heart and the chest gaze back. Lift your head, look forward.

Now you're digging your feet up into that bar. Find that little off balance teaser shape. Take yourself all the way. Down, bring yourself up again. Inhale.

Guide yourself up. Add three arm circles. Inhale. H exhale around. Inhale. H exhale around.

Inhale exhale around. Teezer down again. Using the feet on the bar to connect deeper to the belly, and we come up again. Teezer up. Here's the reverse of the arm circles. Inhale, exhale around, inhale, around three.

We gotta go down one more time. Link them back. Teaser right back. Up again, then to come in. Alright. We're moving on.

We're gonna go ahead and take the box away. Going through long stretches next, I'm gonna go ahead and load up a little more spring. Today, I'm gonna use two reds. So, do what feels right for you at home. Bring your headrest up, and I like a sticky pad on my headrest for this Stepping up onto the equipment, hand foot, hand foot for long stretch. We establish that Pilates v stands, connect to the belly the same way we did pressing up on the bar by pressing down through the feet.

Inhale takes you back. Exhale brings you forward. Inhale two. Three. Two more like that. Last one, now come forward.

Take a moment. Without changing anything in your shape, pick one leg up. Do three with that one leg in the air. One, two, Three put that foot down. Other leg comes up. Nothing else changes.

One, two, and three, bring the foot down, walk the feet to the shoulder blocks, up stretch, close your spring, round your shape, inhale, carriage opens, exhale hips lower, inhale over the bar, exhale curves you up. Inhale, open the springs. Exhale lower the hips. Inhale over the bar. Exhale, we do one more today.

Open the springs. Hips lower. Over the bar. Nod the chin, bring it up. For an a variation on Arabask two, open the springs again and hold.

Put your right foot behind your left foot, get strong and stable through both arms. Sholders are squared, inhale prepare. Exhale, raise your leg into the air, bringing the carriage to the stopper, lower the leg breathe in. Raise the leg up to keeping the body where it is, close the legs back behind you. Lift three.

Bring it down, walk your foot to the other side. Get ready for the other side. Breathe it in. Breathe it out. Notice my pacing.

I'm still working the closing of the spring. Then open it up. Exhale. Don't rush it. Get it all the way to that stopper. Bring it down one more time.

And bring it down. Walk the foot out, roll the carriage in. We'll step forward and down to the floor. Okay. As promised, it's time for that tendon stretch next. On the same springs, have a seat on your bar, and play with this variation with me.

We're gonna put half of the foot on, half of the foot off. Scoot to the front of your bar as far forward as you can without actually falling off of it and then push the carriage away. So we're gonna kind of establish a really strong position of the feet, but I'm I'm sitting against the bar there for support. Holding my arms nice and strong, breathe in to prepare, and lower the body down towards the legs, starting to play with your shape of tendon stretch. Now let's sit back up and do it one more time, and I want you to focus on your strength getting you into the shape rather than your flexibility.

So breathe in to prepare, breathe out and think my abdominal strength, my arm strength, my leg strength gets me there. Now you're gonna simply stand on your hands and pick your bottom up, bringing the carriage under you, and then sending it out. Exhale brings it under you, inhale sends it out. This is three. We're doing five. Send it out.

Four. Send it out. And on five, we lift and hold. Sit down and take a rest. I hope that variation helped you a little bit. It's a really nice way to build strength up to being able to start from the standing position.

So play with that at home, and now we're gonna move on to a fun little flow. So I'm gonna put the sticky pad on the, front edge of the carriage here, and I'm gonna lighten my spring down to the blue. Now, again, you're gonna need to play with the springs a little bit at home to figure out what your sweet spring is. This is going to be starting with a elephant t combination. So I also call this twisted elephant sometimes, but you're gonna step up, establish a position with your feet where you feel strong. My left hand is on the bar.

I'm gonna take my right hand, exhale deeply, and try to reach back for the back of the foot bar. Now I can't touch it, but I'm yearning for it. Now with an inhale, I'm gonna roll the carriage out and find a t shape here. That's my inhale. Then exhale keeping my hips as squared as possible. I reach back. Like, I'm gonna try to touch the side of that foot bar.

Inhale. Open the spring. Exhale, reach the arm up and under. Inhale, takes it out. Three. Exhale.

I bring it under. We're doing two more of these. Four. And then five and bring it in. Now we're gonna flow into a jumping lunge series. So turn your position put your left foot on the shoulder block, right foot on the floor, and find a nice low lunge.

The knee is off the mat. We exhale, pull the knee up into the chest, inhale take that down. Two Now I know this spring is light, but we're really trying to work from the middle. We're pulling that knee up four, reaching it out. Five.

Now it's a three point exercise. We come up, touch my right elbow. My left elbow, my right elbow, I bring that down. So I hover right, then left, then right, bring it down, and lift it up three. To the left elbow, to the right elbow, bring it down.

Up four. Over in, bring it down. And five. Over in, I bring it down. I'll roll the carriage in, and we set up to do the other side stepping up, reaching the hand for the foot bar, and reaching back for the backside of the foot bar.

Breathe out, think elephant here, then inhale. Send the carrot out. Find that nice t shape. Exhale. Strong controlled breath.

Inhale. Sends it out. Two. Exhale. Reach under. Inhale. Three. This is four.

Draw up through the middle reach back for the side of that bar, and last one is five. You're gonna turn. Step back. Step down. Find your lunge, your knee is off the mat.

Need a chest. Inhale. Pull it up. Down. And again, that spring is light, which is just so much fun, four, and down. Five.

Here's our 3.1. To the right elbow, back to the left, bring it down, and left, right, left, down, bring it up, up. Up and down two more. One. Rotate. Back. We have another one.

Take it up, wrap, and bring it down. Roll that carriage all the way in. We're gonna get this sticky pad out of the way. And now, bring your springs to I'm gonna do two reds and a blue. This is gonna be a parallel variation on bottom lift.

So lay on your back. Place where your arches meet your heels on the bar and get your headrest down if it's elevated. First thing we're gonna do is find our c curve shape, breathe in to prepare. And as you breathe out, draw the belly and curve the tailbone up, and find that high position. Your upper back is down.

Your low back and bottom are off the mat. Now we're gonna stretch the springs with an inhale, and we probably have lost our shape a little bit. No big deal. As we come in, we're gonna work to recreate the best scoop of the belly and tuck of the tail we can. So we take it back again, breathe in. Now as you go through the next six reps, See if you can facilitate the movement more from your center. The hamstrings and the glutes are a given. I like to let my arms give me a lot of support here.

So as I press into my arms, it helps me to find that better shape in my back. Two more here, inhale, exhale brings it in, and out. Bring it all the way to the stop, roll all the way. Down. Now we're gonna sit up and grab our box for a really fun variation on mermaid. So bring your box to the side of your reformer.

So I'm gonna line the edge of my box up with the edge of the carriage. And then I'm just gonna go for a light spring. So I'm gonna do a blue here. You're gonna sit on the box with your right leg extended out beside you Your left hand is I know it's a little behind you, which is slightly awkward initially. Try to sit as squared off through your shoulders, nice and tall here.

We raise our right arm up to our ear. As you exhale, you're gonna bend your body over to the side, stretching. And then with an inhale, guide yourself back up. Go ahead and lower that arm down. Lift it back up, breathe in.

And as you reach over, reach an opposition, right leg pushes away from the right arm, inhale guides you up. That arm comes down. Do it one more time. Take it up. Take it over. This time, add a little twist. Scoop the belly, tuck the tail, find that rotation.

Come right back to side bending. And guide yourself all the way up. Mercy, that feels so good. I love that variation. So we're gonna bring the box around to the other side.

Again, I'm just lining up the carriage with the edge of the box. And to bend the knee, hand comes a little behind me here on the box. I'm gonna try to square off through the shoulders here, reach my arm up, breathe it in. And with an exhale, I'm breathing out. To bend that body over. And with an inhale, I come back up, lower the arm down, raise the arm up, take it over, roll that carry as far as you can, and bring yourself back up.

Bring the arm down. Inhale raises that arm up. Take it over and now exhale to find that rotation and that twist bring yourself back to the side, guide yourself all the way up. And that is gonna cook you for today. Thank you so much for joining me for that reformer class.

I'll see you next time.