Happy Back Reformer

Welcome to the Happy Back class, and, really excited to be with my guests. Aaron and Aaron makes it easy for me to remember names. And we're gonna be looking at a few basic things in this class. There will be a lot of flow, so we're not gonna stop. We're just gonna keep going. We're gonna look at mobility, distribution of movement equals distribution of force.

We're gonna look at graded load to be able to start creating proper load. But most importantly, we're gonna create that positive movement experience without pain. So let's get started with two reds and a blue spring. We're gonna start with some footwork. I'm gonna step back so you can watch the artist move.

And let's just start on the let's start on the heels about hip width apart. Second toes reaching up for the ceiling and press the carriage out. And on your own time, just come in and out a couple times, finding your flow, connecting to your machine. And typically what I like to do in the very beginning of any reformer class is let people settle into their machines. So I'm not giving them too many commands, too many verbal cues, And then as they move along a little bit here, I want you to feel now as if the pelvis is a large bowl of soup.

And so can you keep the soup balanced as you reach along with the legs? Minimize the sloshing and find that flow. So it's springy. As soon as you reach the bottom, it springs back up. As soon as you hit the top, it comes back down. And so you're anticipating the fluid in the bowl.

And I think of the soup as being more in line with like lobster bisque. And if you're vegetarian, it could be a butternut squash puree, but you could sort of think of that fluid. And now on this next one, when you come down, bring the hills together, feet together. As best you can. Yep. And keep going, pressing out.

And a lot of times, one thing that we see is that adduction is very difficult with a lot of patients that have low back pain or clients with low back pain. And the legs coming together forced the pelvis to tilt forward. So as you continue to warm up, keep imagining that bowl of soup that you're keeping level as the legs are together, you're pushing out. So the abductors are lengthening as well as the hip flexors in your reach. And the other thing you could pay attention to is just the tension in the body. Where is the tension? Do you feel like the length across the front of the body has the same tension as the backside of the body? Let's do two more repetitions here.

And on the next one, that you come in, slide the foot down into that prehensile grip where the toes are wrapping around, and send the heels underneath the bar. So you're reaching for my hand underneath the bar, all the way reaching. And now return the carriage without the heels coming up. That's it. Good. Reach for me with the heels. Push, push, push, push, push, push, find me, find me.

Find me. Yep. From the back. Changing the strategy from one of the front of the thighs to one of the back of the thighs. Thinking of that connected line. I wanna discover, really find that lead with that. The heel doesn't come up.

It's so long to come up. Yep. Good. And then send that heel back underneath. That's what leads the push, not the thighs, but the heels. Yes. Good. What do you feel with that?

Can you feel a little different in the strategy? So let the first thing that pushes is the heel coming underneath, not the legs, the heels. There there it is. That's what I'm looking for. Let's do two more of those. And again, listen to your body.

Now where do you feel the tension? The front of the legs. Okay. Cool. Alright. Rise up onto those toes. And let's press out. Drop the heels down.

Rise up on the toes, bend the knees in, keeping the heels up. Let's repeat that. Out heels down. Hills up and knees in. Out, heels down. Again, mobilizing a little bit of the nervous system now. We'll be doing a little bit more of that. And out, heels down, and up.

And and last one and go right into running in place. Let's go a little bit faster. Pine some rhythm. Not a jog. Just a nice New York walk through the park. Five four three two and relax.

Come back in let your feet and legs still be together, but on the heels on the bar. Let your knees open up wide. Sort of rolling on the side of your heels. You can keep them parallel. Yep. Good. And then bring the knees back together.

It's like a bent knee opening on the reformer. And so now you sort of know what you feel tension wise, bring the knees together, and now just open up the right leg and bring it back up, and then open up the left leg. Still remembering that soup that is balanced inside the bowl. So you're just trying to open the legs side to side, and we're starting off with a regular pattern. So you can find it. Put your hands on the pelvis even if you wanna make sure that the pelvis is not rocking back and forth. Now, we're gonna change the tempo.

So knees are together. It's gonna be on my call. Right leg out, up, left leg out, up, right, up, left, up, minimize the rotation, right, left, right, left. Gonna go a little faster walking in New York, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, and relax. Now what happens is When the tempo changes, stiffness has to increase range of motion decreases. So we'll do it one more time out there and applies any time land. Feel your body.

Listen to what it's saying and what has to happen as I increase that pace. Here we go again, right, up, left, up, right, up, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, very good, five four, three, two, and relax. Excellent. And the reason why we do that is because we want roto stability in the spine. That's how we create roto stability without having to rotate the spine.

Just the load itself coming through the pelvis. From here, widen the heels about hip width apart, stay parallel. Drop your head rest down, still on two reds and one blue spring. Going right into our bridging, segmentally, your breath is your best friend, so prepare with a nice inhalation. As you exhale, imagine you're at the beach and that warm water is coming in and rolling your body up off the sand as you roll up into your bridge onto your shoulder blades. Taking another deep breath and as you exhale soften the sternum, soften the ribs back down.

We could also play with the image of being a jellyfish on that beach that there's no bones taking a breath to prepare and as you exhale the warm water just rolls the gelatinous body up. So it's really cell by cell even better than bone by bone. XL rolling back down. Let's do one more of those. And this time, stay up.

Now, from here, drop the chest down about an inch, but keep the sacrum up nice and high. So we're still flat across the front of the hips, and the chest is soft down. Push out halfway with the legs and accent coming in and in, push back out, and in, push back out, and in. And in. That's it. And in.

And in. Keep the sacrum up. Use your breath as is comfortable. Avoid holding the breath. Five. Four. Three, two, and one, and roll down.

Bring the legs close together, feet together, still on the heels, still parallel. Last bridging exercise we're gonna do here, shake out your hamstrings a little bit before we go back up on this one. Roll back up to that bridge, drop that chest down again another half an inch or so keeping that sacrum up. We want this dichotomy here. Yes. There it is. Now, from here, can you march just gently taking one foot off at a time? And back down. And when you have to go that high, just like marching, because we're gonna change tempo in just a second.

Bottom up, we're creating that posterior chain to activate to help minimize anterior tilting of the pelvis, especially for a lot of our patients with low back pain, don't have that relationship. Can we go faster? Right. Left. Right. Left smaller range. Marching in place.

Smaller range. Keep it going. Five, four, three, two, and roll down and relax. Very good. Let your feet rest on the wooden part of the reformer frame. Yeah. About shoulder width apart. Just do a little bit of pelvic circles, pelvic clock. Just rotating around, loosening it, letting go of it, and observe how and if there are any restrictions that might be affecting you in that circle.

So again, if you think of that bowl of soup, let's imagine it's half full now, and we're spinning around and touching the edge of the bowl with that soup, reverse the direction. Very nice. And relax. Bring your knees up to your chest. Grab the back of the thighs. Back to the thighs.

And can you roll up from there? It legs over the bar so you can change your springs. You got it. I'll help you. And let's go down to a red and a blue. Red and blue spraying going to feet in straps, feet in straps. Meet me at 45 degrees with straight legs and legs together, and let's go parallel to start.

There's a reason why I choose parallel in back patients because a lot of times the compensation for weak body, weak pelvis, weak legs is going into external rotation. So they'll walk because they have shortened dorsey flexures, and so I wanna try to give them as much normal as possible in a parallel position. So I really I choose my positions and things that I do very specifically. So from here, and let's Doricy flex the feet just a little bit. Try, let's try like to what you would think is your neutral. Mhmm, and take the legs down as far as you can. Just observing it.

Where does the body wanna pop up? And then come up as high as you can. Where does the bottom wanna pop up? Alright. And then let's see if we can control it between those two ranges where you take the legs down as far as you can without the rib cage popping up. And go up as high as you can without the sacrum coming up. Right? Add the breath to it, exhale as you push down, inhale as you come up. Really trying to explore this neural mobilization that we're looking at right now. So The nerves are continuous, thanks to the facial sheath that surrounds the nervous system.

So many times you'll feel in a straight leg raise or art taking your arms out to the side, you'll create a neural tension. So what we're doing right now is thinking of flossing the sciatic nerve, flossing the lumbar nerves by just coming up and down. Very simple. And sometimes our patients or clients will only get up to 45, 50 degrees. So we keep them in that range The goal is you nick the tension and you come back out of it. You never stay in it.

Nerves do not like to be stretched. Let's go right into our circles, out and around and about. I don't mind if you go opposite of what I said, but that's okay. No. It's alright. Aaron's in because she's used to listening to me teach.

You're all good. Just keep the lakes parallel, even while you're doing the circles. And then reverse your circles. You know, there is no right or wrong. It's all about the exploration.

Meet me at 45 degrees. And from here, now you can turn out your legs, heels together, thighs together as best as possible. We're gonna go right into frogs, so just bringing the heels towards the pubic bone and pressing right back out to 45. Let's repeat that four times, bending in, reaching out. Now, what I want you to feel is almost like you're pushing the heels down as you push out. Can you feel my hand there? Push down into my hand as you push out. And each time, let's go a little bit lower.

Fill my hands. Yep. A little bit lower this time. Find my hands. Yep. Ribs are part of that. XL push. That's it.

Last one. And relax. Flip the cuffs off your feet, put them into your hands. We'll go right into our marks. Lakes can stay at ninety, ninety. Let's just go right into the flow.

We're here with a still a red and a blue spring, just straight arm marks down and up. And again, with the arms now, think of where the shoulder girdle is like we thought of the pelvis. Right? So if we can find a nice balance in that shoulder girdle, open wide across the chest. Think of smiles across the front. We're class. We're always looking at tension and compression balance. So while you're doing the armark inflection extension, do you feel a balance between the tension in front of your chest and maybe behind the shoulders.

Go right into your circles. It's funny. I'm gonna have to talk to Rail. All good. Do you know Aaron up in Ventura? Did you reverse circles already?

No. Just reverse circles. Now again, having the legs loaded there and the arms loaded, you can imagine these are the subtle graded loads that we're creating in a workout without stopping that just keep things going and move in the right direction. After the second circle here, we're gonna put the straps back onto your feet, push the legs out to 45 degrees. 45 degrees. Yep.

Got it. And from there with the hands floating off, roll head and shoulders up into a chest lift position just a little bit, beating the arms, breathing in, two, three, four, five, out, two. Four, five in. I love doing this, and even with patients that can't hold the full weight of their legs, is even adding more springs if I have to for them to be able to have the breathing experience, right? This is very important for being able to carry a load for a time, a backpack, a suitcase, a box when you're moving. Keep going. It's not a hundred yet, and we're there almost two more breaths. Nice beats. Love it, soft toes, aaron soft toes. Yep.

And relax. Excellent work. Bend the knees in. Wonderful. So that was a whole supine series that was very subtle and be able to create the connection between the ribcage, the pelvis, the raise from the pelvis and the legs. Let's step out of those cuffs. We're going to change our position now.

And let's go into Go ahead and slide your legs off to the side, and I'm gonna have you sit on your bars. Yep. So we're just gonna go the same thing we've been doing, but now we're doing a seated posture, straightening out the back of the legs, pushing it on the heel, on the edge of the carriage, and pushing it out. And in, toes can come up as you push the heels out. I want the feeling in the back of the thighs, the way we're going, almost like you're pulling down with the arch of the foot into the carriage. Very good.

When you're ready, bring your arms across your chest. Can you find the balance on the sit bones? I dream a genie. Gotcha. That dates me. That's Nickelodeon for you.

You're welcome. So from here, let's try something. As you press the carriage out hinge at the hips a little bit, bringing the knees, the hands towards the knees. And as the carriage comes back in, bring the knees, come back out in the arms here, pushing out, coming down towards the toes, when the knees bend back in. And again, this is starting to build coordination in the pelvis and the relationship of the back and the legs. So we're starting to get some dynamic movement, dynamic control, And if this bothers your back to do the bending forward, just do it with the legs and just do a hinge rather than rolling your back.

Last one. And come back up. Very good. Wonderful. I'm gonna have you go down into a I really wanna do tendons. I really wanna do gymnasts.

So I think we're gonna really do gymnasts. Are you okay doing gymnasts? I don't know if I can do gymnasts. Shoulder. Alright. So you'll continue. This is great. It's alright. We can work with multiple things.

But press the carriage out with your hands and with your heels, your other h word, and push the bottom off with your hands. Yep. Drop down just a little bit. Yep. And then come back up and sit on the bar again. Bend your knees. Okay. And that's half the gymnast.

Now we're gonna press out again. Drop bottom down. I will help you. Bend down, drop down, bar dip, come up, head goes to toes. There you go. Yep. Press back out.

Drop back down. Yep. Good. Find that head to toes. Yep. Good. One more time is all we need. How y'all holding up there? I'm good.

You're good? Alright. Last one. Okay. And now we're gonna go quadruped facing the head of the former, but we're gonna change our springs down to one blue spring. So reverse abdominals.

It's nice and light, heels up against the shoulder pad, hands on to the frame. Yep. Find the shoulders over the hands and hips over the knees. And then make a parallelogram by leaning forward over your hand. So the shoulder should be a little bit in front of the hands, knees will come a little bit away from the shoulder pad, and draw the knees towards the hands. Just a little bit. And if I put a cup of hot tea, On top of your back, the pelvis is not gonna tilt with it. Yep. Now let the legs go back and pull them forward. You got it.

Very good. Up the ribs up just as not the not the pelvis, but the rib connection. There it is. Yes. Yes. This tastes quiet with a cup of tea on it. Very good. Let's do three more.

Three more of those. Now stay in the quadruped position there. Let the carriage come back. I'm gonna just add a little bit of springs onto you. So I have a yellow and a blue.

And you're gonna clump into high kneeling. Now always the warning with high kneeling is safety. So you're gonna grab the handcuffs, not the feet cuffs now, and lean back on your knees a little bit. And get a feel for that the first couple times of just feel what happens when you tug on the springs a little bit. Yep. It's gonna wanna throw you forward to do a dive.

So listen to it and then let go of it nice and easy, pulling the hands back. You got it. Very, very, very nice and forward. And pull. Now how's that weight feel? Is that too much? Or is that okay? It's alright? Good. Now again, now we have hips and extension needs inflection which lengthens all of the myofascial tissues in the front of the thigh.

The goal is to keep the ribs over the pelvis while we're engaging the arms pushing back. Let's do two more of those. Last one, very good, and place the straps back down. Let's go right into our mermaid position facing let's have right leg. Yeah. Right leg up against the shoulder pad.

Yep. And check the springs for yourself. I think, a red and a yellow is okay. You might want something a little heavier. Got a red and a yellow.

You got a red and a yellow? Okay. So left hand on the bar. On this one, let's go ahead and press out with the hand and bring the right hand behind your head. Yeah, that's it. And what we're gonna do is not gonna push out anymore from the carriage. We're gonna reach the elbow up to the ceiling through the ribcage, really opening up that lateral.

So we're finally getting into some thoracic mobility, and then come back up, and back up and over, reaching, reaching, reaching through, and back up, and up and through. And back, last one to the left, and now bring the right hand down to the shoulder pad, left hand behind your head, let's do the same thing in the other direction. So reaching up. Oh, yeah. Life is good.

So we're creating the space up and over, breathing into the left lung, making that space, increasing the thoracic mobility, And now we're ready to do the full mermaid. So left hand on the bar, let's press out with the bar, come up and over, feeling that same reach that we just practiced, very good, and then come back up and over, and repeat it to the left side. One more time. And we'll catch the other side right mermaid on another variation. As you come in, you're gonna scoot so your right foot comes down onto the floor and your left foot goes against the shoulder pad in scooter position.

Yep. You got it. Very good. So the goal here will go scooter, knee stretch down shift, scooter on the other side will be our series of progressing through that. Right? So we're still a red and a yellow. You could be a red and a blue. I wouldn't really go much higher than that right now.

So in the scooter, press the left leg back, leave the right leg bent. Yep. So you're sort of staying in that position, and now let the leg come back in and press back out. Key here is being able to get that knee and hip fully extended on the left side without losing that nice position and relationship between the rib cage and the pelvis. Let's go a little bit faster. Smoother, especially on that end range, feel that reaching away, opening up and pushing from the back of the hip, not the front of the hip.

Let me give you a little more resistance in the back of the hip. Back of the hip. Good. Last two. And now come on to the reformer in your quadruped position that's facing this way. Yep. And we're gonna go first into a down stretch. So bring the hips forward.

We're gonna stay with that theme of opening the front of the hips. How do your springs feel? You're still on a red and a yellow? Do you wanna change it or is it okay? Let's give it a try. Yep. So the the more springs you use, the easier it is. Right? So a red and a blue makes it a little bit easier, brings you up so you're not hanging so much on the anterior wall of the body.

Let's press back and really it's just a shoulder exercise at this stage of the game. Maintain that nice long arch all the way up through, really feeling the hands pushing down to open up the front of the chest and still keeping the rib cage connected, legs are open. Two more. On the next one, when you go out, stay out, we're gonna go right into knee stretch, body stays long, hinges in the hips, accent is on the end. So it's an in, and in, and in. Good energy on the end.

Fill the elasticity. Reach out a little bit further and in, and in. There it is. Nice. In four, three, two knees stretch on the other side. So left foot down, right foot, adjust your springs. If you wanna go back down to red and a yellow, are you okay with the red and a blue? I pretty much do everything on a red and a blue or two reds in a blue.

Alright. Same thing here. So we're doing scooter. Now we're gonna make it a little bit harder on this side. So get used to fill what you fill, and then we're gonna eventually remove the hands altogether from the bar. And just see, and it doesn't matter if it's right or left, we're just gonna remove the hand so that we're engaging the rotation around the standing leg. Right? We're strengthening the left leg rotators in the hip. This are like in the chair.

This happens all the time. The leg, the gesture leg that's on here is not really doing the work. It's the standing leg that's preventing the pelvis from rotating, that's doing the work. And that's what we wanna do. We know that A lot of people with low back pain have weak rotators, weak weak abductors, and weak hip extensors.

Two more times. And when you come back onto the carriage in your quadrupeds, Yep. Now what we're ready to do is to go up into elephant. Right? So we've got a red and a blue and a red and a blue over here. Yep. So let's start with that.

The energy is drawing the carriage back in. So as you press the carriage out, fill that energy drawing up, the toes lifting up as the heels dig in also changes the orientation of where the work is taking place. Very important that we find that place of work that really deep sort of drawing the carriage in through the heels, the back of the legs. Two more, and we'll go right into plank. And we won't waste too much time.

We'll just do a few of them. We've been building up to it. So he'll come up now, and let's keep the shoulders over the shoulder pad over the over the foot bar. So as you press the bottom out, Yes. Good. And then hinge back up.

Press back out. Fill the lower ribs lifting up as you bring this the telephone down too. Right there. That's the connection. It feels too vulnerable with back pain if you don't feel those ribs pulling up as the pelvis drops down. Another way you could think of it. We got two more is sending the tailbone away really posteriorly tilting almost that pelvis away from the spine. Last one, and relax.

So nice. How are you feeling? Great. Alright. We're about halfway there. Alright. Doing good. Alright. Good. Good. Good. Good.

We're gonna go back up into that position in just a second. I'm just giving you a little breather on your hands. We're gonna do long stretch. So we're getting the connection now through the front of the shoulder girdle. So we combined down stretch with plank, and now we're gonna add it to long stretch. And if you still got a little bit in, you will do a little up stretch too.

Alright. So here we go. Pressing out into plank, go forward over the hands, past the hands, press back as far as you can, pike up at the hips, drop the head down. And repeat. Press the pelvis out. Go forward over the hands. Press back long and pike.

You're holding up there okay, and press out. Long stretch, and back and pike. This time, we're gonna add the up stretch to it. So you press out in your plank. We'll just do one beautiful up stretch, come forward, drop the head down, roll the ribs up and push it back.

Push the legs back. Drop the knees down and bring it in. Good. Doing alright? Yes. Let's get the box. Let's change things up a little bit.

Let's go short box. And we'll put all the springs on for short box for safety reasons. I'm looking to see my safety straps are here. So that's good. Both of them have safety strap. There we go.

Alright. So sitting on the box, feet in the strap. Now sometimes the box is intimidating. We're gonna make it very unintimidating. The goal here is sitting nice and tall.

We even have our arms across our chest if we want. And what we wanna feel is that the head doesn't change its position. Right? So the pelvis is gonna roll back as far as it can without the head changing its position. It'll be a little bit.

It's not gonna be a whole lot. And then roll it back forward again. That's where we're playing. So we wanna find that space, right, where we're opening up that lumbar. Come back up.

Stay on my hand. Just roll back to there. Yep. That's it. Come back up. Yep. Good. And come up even a little bit more forward now. Roll back from here.

Yes. Good. And back up. Let's see it Aaron and Aaron. Yep. Now, from there, let's go a little bit further. Let's add a few more segments coming down about halfway there.

That's perfect right there, and then roll back up. So we're just going down maybe to the bottom of the thoracic spine. Still prepping with the roll of the pelvis first. I always think of the pelvis like the little round weights, the sit bones, and they're just rolling back. And that's what initiates the movement.

So rolls move back, pelvis rolls back. Yes. So this ensures that the hip flexor is stable as you go back further and further. So we're gonna go back another quarter distance that's gonna be as far as we go, but trying to feel almost open in the front of the hips and then roll it back up just the same way you went down. So make sure it's segmental. Notice that when it's segmental, the amount of load on the tissue is much much less. Make it about the segmental, not about the abdominal work.

Roll roll roll. Slent. Now from here, as stay up tall, rotate just a little bit to the right without dropping the head, roll back and do the same thing. Just maintain this relationship, just a small one and come back up. Yep. Do that a couple times.

Find that position. Make sure that the spine opens up to that side. Can you feel that? Yes. Yep. Good. Good. And let's do the same thing to the left.

So rotate to the left, make sure the left is opening up. And again, our goal today is really creating movement experiences that you might think that somebody would low back history couldn't do, but they can do. We can get them sweating. We can get them working. We can give them that positive movement experience without having to be afraid and we're building it. So, you know, this is no stress, but now we go back with the rotation to the right. Roll back this time. Go to the middle of the thoracic coming down.

Yep. Come back up. Rotate to the left. Rotate to the middle. Roll back up. Rotate to the right.

Add another quarter length of the spine coming down to the hip, almost feels open to come back up, and twist and down. Come up. This time, we're gonna do around the world on it, rotate right, roll back, rotate left, roll up. Come back up, rotate left, roll down, beautiful, and up. I love it, and relax. Nice. Yeah. A nice way to progress things to move.

We're gonna turn it into a long box. So we're gonna go long box. We're gonna drop the spring, set down a little bit. And I would say long box, I would go with like a red and a blue still. See how that fills.

We're gonna go prone on the box chest just right on the line of the box so you can just have that off legs out straight behind you. So head will be this way. And let's get the bar up to a place See. You're okay. Don't want it to be too high.

I'm gonna put it on the bottom rung for you so it's not too uncomfortable. Yeah. Good. So from here, let's just do the overhead press. But before we do that, if you think of the toes curling under, and you were straightening out the legs from there. Yes. Good. And then then point the toes from there.

Keeping that relationship. That's it. Now, from here, just press the hands. We're just doing an overhead press, no extension, just an overhead press. The reason why I helped Aaron engage her hip extensors with that is because it takes a lot of the pressure off of the low back. And that's what exactly what I wanna do.

And we're just working in that long, long, almost dart like position of the spine. Now, with the arms extended, stay out there. Yep. And from here, just roll the collar bones up. Keep the arms straight. That's it. That's all I want, and then come back down.

Roll collarbones up and down. So we're just getting that very upper part of the thoracic spine to roll up and then come back down. Right? Lakes are still a little extending. Yes, good. One more time.

And on the next one, we're gonna feel the connection of the leg extension and allow the carriage in the springs to come in. So you're gonna roll up, keep coming up, and feel like you're lifting the pubic bone off without increasing extension anywhere, and then push back out. Come back up, hips are engaged, right up onto the femurs. Yep. Nice, Aaron, Aaron, and Aaron. Air in one and air in two.

It does make it easier, but then it makes it harder sometimes. Last one and relax. Very good. Let's sweep around on the carriage. City on the long box feet on the headrest.

Grab the strap so you can reach them before we get going here. Alright. I think the springs will be good for you. It should be fine. We're still red in the blue. Yep. Alright.

Alright. Well, we'll see. We'll we'll test the waters. Palms open and think of almost pushing the index finger into the strap as you go back. So a little bit of an internal rotation and back forward. How's the resistance feel okay?

Yeah. Okay. Let's do about six, seven of those. And again, I'm always trying to come back and think of the areas of weakness that we have is that upper thoracic extension, hip extension, range of motion where we lose it is hip flexors, ankle dorsey flexion, and thoracic chest. So we're opening up the chest with this move, and now I'm gonna have you choke up on the straps and cross them over and we'll do a pull with the elbows into the row, into the chest. That's it. Let me know if I need to change your springs. We're still red in the blue.

How we doing? If this was too much, you could certainly go down to a red and a yellow or a blue and a yellow. And the place that I want to work, yes, the arms are working, but I wanna feel the extension happening in that thoracic spine, the chest opening up two more repetitions. And now uncross the straps, we're gonna put them in opposite hands and turn around so you're like riding the horse forward with the straps from around your back. You got it.

Yep. Yep. And I want you to feel like you're squeezing the carriage a little bit with your caps. Yep. And we'll test and see if the strap if we need less springs here too. Let's see what it feels like. Bring the hands into the side here.

And all we're doing is just serving the platter. And back in. How are we doing? Hey, heavy. You wanna go down to a yellow? We can do yellow. So, Aaron one is going down to a red and a yellow.

Aaron two, how you doing? Red and yellow. You'll take advantage of it. There we go. Alright. Let's do the full kit and caboodle here on this next one.

We're gonna go forward. Drop down to the side and a little bit of a v. And come back up with straight arms, bend the elbows back in. Serv the platter, bring it down, throw it in my face, and bring it back in one more time, and down. And up and in.

Can you push it out? Turn the palms out and bring it to the head for a salute. How are we doing on resistance? Do we need to go down to just one? I'm gonna take you down to just a blue on that one. How about you? Single red, single blue.

Alright. So we're on a single spring now doing salute. And again, now we're filling that connection coming from the arm. Cross the chest into the hips. I still want the thigh sort of squeeze a little bit of adductor work going on while you're reaching through there. Two more times.

And relax. Let's get rid of the box. We're gonna go into ease lunge or a long lunge. We're gonna start with the let's start with right foot on the shoulder pad this time, left foot on the floor. Bark can be nice and high. Yep.

And let's go with a red and at least a red and a yellow, if not a red and a blue. You choose. Right? And we're gonna go out for a long opening on this one. So this is more about opening up versus the scooter that we were actually looking more at engagement of extensors. So from here, push back with that leg, drop down, bending the left leg down into your lunge all the way. Now, in that position here, this is our chance to open things up. Right? We've already practiced it on the on the box is open the collar bones. Yep. Without losing the hinge in the low back. Yes. Good.

Nice correction. Yep. Hold it there. Breathing. As this rolls back, this lifts up. Mhmm. Right? Can you feel that relationship between it really is coming from the inside of the thigh up to about the middle of the back.

That's what we're trying to find. Drop the knee down onto the carriage, come back in. Yep. Let it come up. Alright. Let's go the other side because we're getting ready for some fun stuff in standing. Alright.

Take it back. Drop down all the way. Find the rolling of the clavicle. Think of the opening. Even pushing a little bit more on the inside of the heel here. Yep. Across that because it's this feeling that we want to find. Mhmm. Good.

Breathe into it. That looks great. Very good. Alright. So bring it in, we're gonna take the same exercise up a notch with a foot on the wood.

Right? So going up into onto the bar, we're not gonna go on the bar yet. That's just can you get enough foot surface on the bar there? Okay. And come up into a lunge position. I'll be your guards. Yep. You hold my hands. This tells you that Nicole's design was okay.

Alright? So now press the carriage back. Are you okay with the you might want more springs. You want more springs? You're okay with it. Come back up nice and tall. Press it back into a lunge.

And up, and out, and up, and out, and up. Last one. And come in, bring your hands down to the bar. Switch feet. I hear a shaking. If the muscles could talk, they would be singing.

I I I I I love it. And this is the thing that I find in my healthy spine class that, especially as they've been with me for a little while, they're afraid not to be in the healthy spine class, And so we just make the healthy spine class harder, still safe, but make it a little bit harder for them. Last one. And relax, bring it on in. So we're gonna drop the footbar down.

We're gonna do side splits. This would be our last exercise series here. And I think we're good. Let's go with one red spring for side splits. Yep. Thank you. Yep. And let's start with straight legs. Yes.

So with one red spring, there's just enough to stimulate a little bit of abduction, but there's enough freedom to also get the adduction on the way back in. Turn your feet out just a little bit. So we're not flat footed or or parallel on this one. Yep. Let's go ahead and take it out. Open it up and bring it back in.

And out. If you got your balance good, if you need me, I'm right here. Don't touch me. Let's do two more there. And then we're gonna go into a double, like a squat with both legs bent.

Yep. And stay down low. So pressing out with both legs. Yep. Both legs come back in. So what should happen is head height doesn't change. Yep. It's just the legs opening underneath.

Yep. And try to bring a little bit more vertical on your legs. Yeah, right there. Good. It's almost like the sit bones open up a little bit more, so we're really getting to that hip. Now, this time when you come in, stay on your frame leg and skate out the carriage leg. That's it. That's it.

Skate out the carriage leg. Stay down in it. Push it out. Fill the abduction, that whole connection. Right? That right leg is coming right across to this shoulder, and your left leg's coming across to your right shoulder. So fill that cross diagonal as you push out.

And now let's switch it. I'm gonna give you a little hand, but you're gonna stay steady on the carriage leg and push out and skate with the right leg. Same thing now. So left foot on the frame leg is gonna go to the right shoulder for you. Right foot on the frame is gonna go to the left shoulder for you. That's it. Fill that almost pushing from in here.

Right? Can you feel it pushing right up from the shoulder so you can get a full extension on it? And then let's go right into skating. So we're gonna take right leg out, left leg out, and then back in. Yep. So it's gonna go like this. Yeah. So we're gonna go out, out, in, in, out, out, pelvis can move. Yep.

There you go. Out out. In, in. Yep. Let the body rotate with it now. So look at the direction you're going. Look away. Look back in. That's it.

Very good. One more time, and then we're gonna switch sides. And relax. Step off the machine and change sides. It makes a difference. It gets rid of the fear of So we start with straight legs a little turned out.

I also found where the coolest spot in the classroom is. There's right underneath the air condition. This is my my new spot. Alright. So on this one, really feeling like you're on top of the legs, careful not to feel pitched forward.

You know, feel like the pelvis, almost like you're driving the sacrum forward without tucking. Can you feel that? Like, if I was just put there you go. Good. That's it. Alright. That's it. Good. When you're ready, we'll go down into a squat.

Both legs squat. Both legs straighten head stays the same height. If we can go down a little bit lower than that. Yeah. Let's push it. This is the last exercise, I promise. And when you're ready, go right into your skate.

We'll just go opposite sides. The legs already know what the single leg is. So we go push, push in, in, out, out, and that's it, and put a little more body into it, like you're really ice skating across the lake, in Ventura and the IC Lake. Very nice. Last one or two that it feel good to you to move. We got the rotation. We've got the stability.

We've got the connection, all the things we wanted. Couple advanced exercises and relax. Alright. We're gonna finish up with a full squat. So you'll set your bar up all the way because we're in this l shaped angle, you guys gonna have to get a little creative. And I'm thinking you going straight back on this one would be fine.

And I'm gonna stabilize yours Aaron, so you can go out to the side, but you're gonna grab the bar and go down into the full squat, hanging on to the bar. Yep. Good. And try to stay forward on it. Right? Yep. Just to where you can, knees are over second toe. And take in a deep breath into the sit bones.

So feel the sit bones really open up as if we were ballooning the pelvic floor, chest is up. As we don't get enough of this deep squat in our world, in the Western world. And then from here, come on up. Yeah. Stand right here. Stand right there.

Just take your right leg and shake it out. The left leg, shake it out. Both arms shake them out. Whole body shake it out. Face, shake it out.

Deep breathe in, reaching up. And down. One more time. Deep breathe in. And now just stand quietly. This is where we get to observe what changed in our body, what are you feeling in your body right now?

Good objectives for us right now is do we feel alignment? Head over thorax over pelvis, do we feel the balance between tension, front and back inside, and rotation? Do we feel like there is more mobility available for strategy of movement And most important, did we have a successful movement experience without pain? I hope you did. Thank you both, Aaron, for joining me on this class. Thank you, Plates, anytime.

Always a pleasure. We'll see you in the next class.