Studio Athletic Reformer

Hi. I'm Courtney, and I'm so glad to be back on Plates anytime. Today, I have a class that is going to be challenging and it's athletic in nature, but I'm also gonna take just a little extra time to break down some of these movements. You may have seen these movements in classes with me before this, and we're gonna focus today on the setup, where you're supposed to feel it, and how you can modify it. So just a little bit more information today on some of these fun, challenging, and athletic moves. That you've come to love from my classes. Welcome back.

We are starting with one red spring on, and I've got that foot bar down. Today's class, we're also gonna be doing what I'm gonna call around the world. So we're gonna be moving around the machine a lot. Starting beside your machine facing front with some lunges. So inside foot goes against the shoulder block. So real quick, where your standing leg is is going to impact how heavy this resistance feels. If you want it to feel lighter, you step forward, if you want it to feel heavier, you step backwards, hands on hips to start.

Lean forward and fully straighten that back leg, and then rise to come all the way up. I want you to notice the front knees bending forward. And when I do this move, I like to be really close to the frame of the machine. So I can actually feel my calf on my front leg against the machine. I've been known to use a prop here too.

So you could use a ball or just a cushion, kind of fold it up, and you can place it between your calf and the frame, to give you that tactile reminder of where that knee is meant to track. The back leg is gonna fully straighten, and this is a common correction that I give to my clients. When they get here, I want them to pull up through the front of that back leg, pulling the kneecap up, pushing through the heel and finding that straight leg. Let's add some upper body. So as I go down into my lunge, I reach forward, and then rise up.

And there you can't do it wrong. There's really no specific upper body movement, you can circle the arms, you can cactus the arms, whatever feels good for you today. But I do want you to know that by adding the upper body, you're increasing the challenge, you're adding more coordination, more body parts into the mix, more things to think about. Big push out and rise to come up. The next time you're low, stay low.

Now, if I've got the foot bar up, I'll typically hold on to something, but I really have to use my strength, my core, my endurance, to hold this position as I bend the back knee in and out. When you do scooters, you have a few options. This is my full range scooter, so I'm bringing the carriage almost all the way in and kicking it back. If that works for you, keep going, you could also do an end range scooter. Let me show you what that looks like, so I go to my long little bend, kick it, kick it. And this is gonna work that back leg a little bit in a different way.

Pushing back, I'm focusing on pulling up through the kneecap. Three, strengthening the quadriceps, two, and one. Come all the way up. Keep your standing leg on the ground, pivot so you're facing side. Take that carriage foot, door side flexing, flexing against the shoulder block.

So I can see here that I've naturally externally rotated. This is so I can kind of set up and square my hips. Find the setting that works for you. Hands on hips, bend that floor leg as you kick that carriage out. Now, what's different here is I'm intentionally leaning my my chest forward and sending my hips back and then rising to come up. So I am not trying to stay vertical in this position, I'm intentionally leaning forward in this flat back hinge.

It's gonna give me more range of motion and sit deeper in my squad. We wanna have that same sensation of the knees, traveling over the mid foot, and that same reminder to straighten that carriage leg all the way as you press out. Adding the upper body, if you feel like it's the right choice for you, I'm gonna do a forward reach and bring it down. Lengthen through the fingertips, and bring it all the way down. As I go low, I'm kind of centered in my weight.

I'm not leaning too much to the carriage. I'm not leaning too much too much towards my stabilizing leg. I'm just trying to drop straight down, see if you can feel that in your body. Two more. Big kick and rise. Get ready to hold the next one. Now from here, the only thing that's gonna move is that carriage leg.

And you have those same options. So do you like a big movement? This is gonna present a challenge with stability, flexing the hip, bringing the carriage almost all the way in kicking it out. This is a full range of motion, or that end range is a small bend, and focuses on finding that straight line, pulling up through the knee, four, three, two, and one rise all the way up. But wait, there's more. We're gonna be facing front again for our curtsy lunges.

So it's now the opposite foot that's stepping back. So this outside foot is going to go against the shoulder blocks. And again, you'll see me intuitively kind of shift my body so I feel squared off and balanced. These are things you don't want to overkill and you don't want to overthink. In fact, you might have to move a few times to find the best position. So settle in is what I call it.

Do a couple, step a little bit forward or a little bit back, and find that positioning where you feel solid. The same foundation supply. So bending deeply into my front leg, fully straightening. And I want you to be aware of that in your own body. Is that back leg straight? Here's a question you ask yourself.

Can you straighten it more if you soften the knee a little bit? And you straighten it, did you get a lot of movement there? It should be all the way straight. Let's add those arms when you're ready. It's an overhead, and bring it in. So I was saying earlier that anything with the arms goes This is a progression.

It's more to think about, but it's also more activation through the core and through the shoulders. If this is messing you up and you feel like you're not able to focus on what's happening back here, keep the hands on your hips until you're ready to add that next that next step. I love this one because again, I can feel the frame against my calf. It really helps with alignment on that front leg. We're gonna stay low. And we have those same two options.

This is a full range. See how it's coming all the way in. This bigger range of motion is challenging my stability. It's making me feel more wobbly. And then you have your end range, and you can pick which one you love, or do them both.

Baby bend, focus on straightening, lengthening, pushing energy through the heel, energy through the crown of the head. We're gonna do something special coming up here. So don't rise. I want you to do two more and hold. Hands go down one to the platform, one to the floor. This front leg, using your core, is gonna come up and cross behind.

From here we pike, lift the hips up, drop the head, bringing the carriages close to home as you can, and lengthen out to your plank. Exhale to lift, and inhale to lower. As my hips come up, my shoulders stay over my wrists, This is a red spring, so I'm getting a lot of assistance on the lift. Three two what a way to wake up? This is just the warm up folks.

One more. One, see if you can get that foot back down where it was when you started, and rise up with control. Those awesome. Okay. So here's the around the world part. We're now coming to the front of the machine facing back.

Let's take the same leg that was just kicking. So for me, that's my left foot. Toast go on to the carriage, and I'm standing really close to that foot bar. I can even be touching it again as a tactile cue, to help me with alignment. Keeping your heel lifted high, hands on hips, push the carriage all the way out, and bring it in. Now, right away, you're gonna feel two things.

You'll either wanna lean forward, it'd look like this. Or the carriage spring will make you wanna lean back. It'll look like that. So your goal is to stay as vertical as you can. And one trick to that is anticipating the sensation of getting pushed.

So I know the spring is gonna push me backwards, so I fire up that front body to stay as straight as I can. And you have to do it a couple times to have that anticipation, right, to know what to expect. So that's why we have that settle in process. Add the arms reach up. Bring it in.

Reach up. Bring it in. I'm really strong on this standing leg. Reach it in. Two more. Reach up. And on the next one I want you to hold.

We're gonna flex our foot, so there's your door side flexion. But as you do that, rotate towards the leg. I'm doing my best to keep my hips pretty square, and I'm actually trying to pull this hip back a bit. And then plantar flex. Okay. So I'm gonna push There's my stability.

Flex and open. Try not to lean back or forward and bring it in. And you're gonna do a few. And the more you do, the more you settle in, and bring it in. So pushing down into my stabilizing heel, flex open, pull this is all core work.

One more time push. Flex, and pull. Pivot the body 90 degrees. So that foot still stays on. You're nice and close to the bar.

Use it if you'd like. And then flex your foot against that carriage edge. Use what's around you to help build proprioception and spatial awareness. Especially if you don't have a trainer there with you, this is a great way to use your machine to help you with form. Two things happen. Standing leg is gonna bend.

Hips drop low. This is very similar to what we did. Facing side. Bring it all the way in. Kick it and rise. So my awareness is dropping my hips back, leaning the chest forward, loading up the glute on the stabilizing leg, and rise, straightening the carriage leg all the way as I push This will come in handy later when we're doing quicker dynamic movements, incorporating this lunge. So we're building the awareness and the muscle memory pattern to push, find that straight leg.

Let's add those arms. Reach and bring it in. Play with different arm variations, and bring it in. Push. This is all core work.

So we wanna get out of that narrative where we have to lay down, put our hands in the straps, and use supine abdominals to strengthen the abdominals. Right? This is an awesome way to strengthen the core functionally, three dimensionally, and dynamically. The next time you're low, let's stay low, and let's add that skater press. Open your arms to the t, adding in that rotation. So every time you kick, rotate away from the leg, and away from the leg.

This is not that different than our skater standing on the platform. But from the floor, we might be able to have a little more confidence Get a little bit deeper, increase the weight, find your edge, and push yourself a little bit more. Three, two, And then last time like this, push through the heel, bring it in, bring it up. Okay. There's more. It's the exercise that never ends. Rotate.

So now you're facing front. Make any adjustments you need to, the narrower your stance, The more your balance is going to be challenged. Keep those hands on the hips. Press out and rise up. Again, I'm using the machine. My calf is touching that bar.

I can feel it. On my hamstring right now, rise to come up. I've got my hands on my hips. I can feel if I'm staying square or not and rise to come up. Straightening the back leg all the way, is kind of a theme here. We got three.

I love to work somewhere around eight to 10 repetitions. For me, I'm waiting for this aha moment. It's like I got it. I feel it. That's it. And then that is my green light to add on something more here at the arms.

Reach and rise. Reach. And rise. Some arm options, cactus, looks like that. Chest expansion, pull the arms back open.

Looks like that. One more time, and stay low. Not so different from what we did on the side, a little bit more tricky hands go down again, and that leg has to come around. There it is. Onto the bar. Hips come up, head goes down.

There is that pike lengthen it out. X heal up. And inhale down shoulders of a wrist. Big scoop. And take it down. Three. Two.

And one more time, pike the hips up. Let's see if we can get that leg all the way back. All the way back. It's almost there and then rise to come up. Alrighty. Let's do that same thing again on the other side. So we started with the most basic of our floor lunges.

One foot on the ground, one foot back against that shoulder block, hands on the hips, kicking it, and rising. And the real work here was teaching our body to find that length through the back leg. Not only am I strengthening my posterior chain, when I find that straight line, But I'm opening up through the front of the hip on that same leg, adding the arms, reaching them forward, and back. Notice how I lean forward. So you could do a lunge in one of two ways.

Lleaning forward will use your body weight to load the glute on your standing leg like this. Staying vertical loads more quadricep, and it requires more hip flexibility like this. I love to target those glutes whenever I can, so you'll typically see me lean forward. But one isn't right, and one isn't wrong, they're just different. Hold it.

Back leg. Do you remember our options? So full range about stability control. Mid range is about finding the straight line, pumping it back, pushing through the heel, pulling up through the knee, four, three, two, one, and rise, pivot, and settle in. So I'm a bit turned out in my standing leg, door safe flexion in that carriage leg, foot right against that shoulder block, bend into the standing leg, kick it out. There's the adductor stretch rise to come in. Push.

If something doesn't feel right, it isn't. So change it. Push. There's nothing wrong with pausing, resetting, and coming back into it. Adding the arms, leaning forward. Leaning forward allows me to get more range.

I can drop lower, send my hips back. Pushing all the way up. This is a whole body move, lower body, upper body, core balance, heart rate getting up. Let's hold the next one low, and you got big or full range of motion, chest is forward hips are back. You also have the option for your end.

It's kind of the same as what I said before. One isn't right, and one isn't wrong. I'd like you to pick what do you wanna work on today? Focus on straightening, focus on pulling up through the front of the leg, really working those vasties, or challenging stability and balance. One more time, and rise.

Here's our curtsy, So foot goes to the floor. It's the outside foot now that's coming against that shoulder block. And as I bend into that standing leg, carriage goes back. I can feel the frame against my leg. It gives me a little bit of security, a little security blanket, but a reminder of where my body is in space.

That's one of the beautiful things about working with this machine, is you get those reminders of where you are. There's no mirrors in here. A lot of the studios we practice in don't have mirrors. If they do, you have one angle, right? So we want to build this awareness. So then we can take the Pilates principles that we learn in our class and apply them to everyday life.

Kick it back and rise, adding the arms, big reach, and sweep. Find your breath pattern. That's something we haven't talked too much about. Generally speaking, we'll exhale when something feels challenging. So when you exert or hit the gas pedal, that's a good time to exhale.

Full range, or mid, or excuse me, end kick it out kick it out straight leg, push it out. Four, three, two, let's try that pike. So the hands go down, but they're staggered. This is gonna create a stability challenge in the upper body. One to the platform, one to the floor. The floor leg comes up, crosses behind.

Exhale hips come up, head goes down, inhale. Hips go up, head goes down. Inhale lengthen shoulders right over wrists. It really helps if you drop the head look towards the belly button, or look towards the toes. Three Two, one more time.

One, same foot that was down comes down. See if you can rise up. Nice. Alright. Let's come to the front of our machine. So I now have that opposite foot forward.

For me, it's the right. Toast go right onto that front edge. Hands on hips so I can feel where I am in space. It's a whole different leg. So I want you to consider it as a whole new exercise.

Chances are you're leaning a little bit forward. Right? Cause you now know it's gonna kick you back. So you're like, oh, I don't wanna go back. I don't wanna go back. So you end up leaning a bit too far forward.

So let's just visualize. Shoulders over hips, and hips over heel. Good. Pull all the way up through the front of that leg. Two more like this.

One more time. You ready to add on? So door side flex. Carriage leg, rotate towards the leg, and open the arms. Pull that hip back, get a nice little stretch, come back through center, and bring it in.

So we're pushing, dropping, lifting, bringing it in. This choreography is not that dissimilar, from stomach massage kind of There's variations of stomach massage where kinda like this, totally different muscle activation, but choreography is not that different. Okay. One more time. Push, drop. Pull and bring it in. So the legs kinda stay.

The whole body pivots. Right? These transitions will help create more efficiency in your classes as well. If you're a teacher in group Pilates, reformal classes. So just by pivoting, I can get there faster. So I'm gonna lean into it, extend the leg all the way, drop straight down, and rise to come up. Push and rise.

Energy through our heels, both on the ground and on the carriage, adding the upper body when the time feels right. Rise. This is also a really fun place to stay and hang out. So if you like adding on, you could hold, do a little swim, and rise. Great way to activate the glutes, glutes are part of our core.

We haven't done any crunches today, but we've been working our abdominals this entire time, and that's so cool. Let's hold the next one all the way out. And then here are your options again, big, in, out, stability in that opposite hip, abdominals engage, core tight, back on, or end range. Kicking, kicking. So I'm keeping that tension in the spring.

Four, three, two, and one come all the way in. Okay. Nice. So again, we keep the feet we rotate the body. Makes it really easy when you're in a room with a lot of people, so we're now all on the same side. Use the machine as your guide. Same options. Where do you want the torso?

Your forward lean will weight the glute on the front leg. It'll create more length than the lumbar spine. So if you feel tight in your back, you might prefer this, but you won't stretch the hip quite as much. If you're staying in a vertical orientation as you go down, more quads in that front leg, more extension, the lumbar spine, and more stretch, and extension opening in that front hip. You got options, two more like this.

Back leg all the way. Or end range. Kick it. Kick it. You know you're going down. Might as well visualize yourself going there. Three, two, hold. The hands go down.

So this is gonna take some core You gotta swing that leg around. This is a little better a time. Sholders over wrist, hips up, head down. So the carriage is assisting this pike. This would be more challenging if I was on a lighter spring.

Three two, and one. See if you can bring that leg all the way back and rise. I love those challenges. Can I do it? I don't know. It's different day to day. Okay.

We're gonna make two changes. One is change your spring. You were on a red. Now you're on a blue. The other one is you'll bump your foot bar up to whatever your footwork setting is.

So mine's ready to go. Let's do some more kind of around the world stuff. So we'll start in a quadruped kneeling facing back position. Grab one rope and the higher you hold the heavier it's gonna be. So your options would be to hold the loop, hold above the loop close to the knot, or you'll work your way even heavier. It's really important that you find the right position for you because I want the exercise to be impactful and effective.

We're only gonna do about eight to 10. So if it's not heavy enough, you gotta choke up on that rope. I've got one blue spring on. Here's my four point kneeling position. So exhale straight arm pulls back, higher than the hip, inhale forward.

As the arm goes forward, maintain tension in the springs, so stopping right under the shoulders perfect. If you're somebody who likes to add the balance coordination part into it, go for it. Sometimes we have the option of training strength or training balance. So if I want the weight to be heavier, I probably won't introduce the balance. Does that make sense? If I'm training balance, I'll keep the weight a little bit lighter.

The next time the arm is up, hold it up, bend and extend, let's do eight. Now for me, every time I straighten that elbow, I'm reminding myself of a couple of things. To reach through my toes and crown of the head, finding that straight, long line, to keep my core tight, and every time I straighten the elbow, I engage more abdominals, and to pull my supporting shoulder down away from my ears. Last time. Bring it in and bring the knee down.

Now this is the same strap you're gonna use, but make a switch so you're holding the short loop if you have it. Your whole body will rotate towards that strap and I'm back in that quadruped position. You have two options, rope behind the elbow, or rope in front. You won't know what you like better until you try. So let's dive into it. Rotate towards the risers. Rotate towards your foot bar and extend the arm and all the way back through.

The rope should not feel like it's about to decapitate you. That would be an indication that you're reaching that arm a little too high. Just straight out in line with the shoulders exactly where you wanna be. In a four point kneeling position, you have a great opportunity to lift the sit bones, zip up through the deep and low abdominals. So you're activating your core in this very long, spine position. Three, two, One more time here.

This is another around the world series, so we're gonna keep working, but in a different orientation. One, hold that rope, could be short loop, could be long loop, and bring both hands to the front of the carriage. Once you're there, it's pretty easy to pivot. And then you have two options, legs can be together between the shoulder blocks. You're gonna choose this option if you're pretty sure you're gonna go into a balance.

Or you're gonna go wide legs like this. And you're gonna choose this option. If you're not gonna go into a balance, maybe you've got heavier tension, and you're focusing on power and strength. So choose, and let's go. Opposite arm to leg is up, I'm pushing straight forward and bending in.

Soldiers can be tricky. So if you're feeling discomfort or stress, play with palm position, palm in might be better for you than palm down. Lower the height, use the long loop or reduce the tension, and you can do this move without any strap at all. Four I will say if you're adding that balance, be intentional with that back leg. Three, two, one. The arm comes down.

Now whether or not you have that back leg up, pick it up now. So we're all gonna meet here Stabilizing knee between the shoulder blocks, back leg lifted. Sometimes I'll adjust that stabilizing leg and move it back. So do you do you? Eight push ups? These are kind of unique I want the back leg to initiate the movement, so I'm going hip extension, and that's queuing to my brain, drop the chest. So I'm feeling that whole back body.

One shape down, One shape up like a boomerang, you'll notice my elbows are wide. That's just my preference for today. You could do narrow elbows, narrow elbows targeting more triceps, Wider elbows targeting more pecs, last time, and bring that back leg all the way forward, placing it down. So now we're in our proposal position facing front. And I love this position because the possibility of falling forward or falling backwards has really decreased substantially. Now I'm wobbly side to side, but I don't feel like I'm going this way.

This is a great position if coming up onto your knees is newer for you. We're gonna go right into triceps, so lean into it, weight that front heel, and kick it out all the way. Now if this resistance is feeling heavy, you got options. I would say leave the spring as it is, but choose the long loop or take both hands in, and you could do this with both arms like this. So it's very accessible no matter where you are today, pushing all the way out eight to 10.

Three So not unlike the standing exercise, I have to anticipate it's gonna pull me back. Two, that's why all of this is core work. That's why we love Pilates. One, bring it all the way around. The hardest thing in this whole flow is hooking this drop up. Let's see if we can do it. If you don't drop it. Okay. Cool.

So from here, hands go on to the foot bar. Back leg is gonna come all the way forward onto that platform. Now, you know this coming into that lunge position. Like comes in, leg comes out. If you want to stop the video and get a platform extender, pause.

I won't even know. What feels good for your foot is good for me. Mine's working just fine here. All the way out and in. So we've worked this position.

Let's add that upper body reach. Now we're doing it on the machine, more stability, more challenge. Full range here. Four three, two, And one. Hands come down. The foot that's on the platform goes down to the ground.

So we practiced our pikes already in two positions. Now we're doing them in a different orientation with less assist from the machine, more work from the core. I'm just wasting time, not jumping into it. I'm stalling. Let's do it. So the hips come up.

The head goes down. That's that pike, and then lengthen. If your carriage is hitting the back, you can either land your landing foot a little more forward, or Move this back foot more towards the center of your carriage. Hips go up. Three, head goes down.

Shoulders over wrists. You know it. Two. One more time. One.

Well done. Bring it in. And let's do the same thing again. Reverse order. So knee down.

Foot forward. There is my switch. Here we go. So I had to choose if I want my foot to go on the inside or outside of the spring. You might have the same decision to make. I don't think it was a bad choice.

Score off the hips. Here is the pike. Hip set and land it. Same move we just did, other side. Sometimes it's nice to do something right after like left side directly into right side.

It's a learning opportunity. Into the lunge, controlling that landing, Notice that my hands are wrapped over the bar. So I'm rarely opening my fist, maybe for a quick wrist stretch, but the reason my hands are wrapped is I wanna use the entire arm including the forearm to hold my weight up. I don't want my hand to slip, but I'm also not pushing just directly down to the wrist. I'm squeezing my fingertips up.

Let's do two more, see if you can feel that. One more. Bring it up to the platform. Use the machine to help you find your balance. We've already trained our body We know what it feels like to find that full range of motion.

We know how to anticipate a dynamic balance and stability challenge. We meet that challenge, lift the arms. All the way out lengthening, actively engaging the whole body. It's a whole body move. Four, three, two, One, bring it in. Hands go down.

The platform leg steps back, and you're now ready for the other side. Grabbing the strap. We use the short loop So we wanna recreate. It's in the opposite hand of the leg that's forward. So if you ever have a hard time remembering that, just put your hand on your leg.

If you can make that connection, you know you're in that proper cross diagonal position. I am leaning forward, abdominal stay engaged, bend and extend. A few mantras that are going on in my head, I'm trying to sequentially activate. So instead of just powering that arm forward, I'm thinking shoulder down, then power. I'm thinking abdominals engage core tight then power.

I'm thinking weight into my front heel, then push. All of these little seeds that I'm planting, they help to build stability and control in the move. And then you get to the point where they feel more intuitive, less of a conscious thought, more of just in activation. Three. To last time.

And then from here, the hands come down, that front leg extends back. Take a change things up, adjust. We're gonna go into those push ups. So reminder, the back leg is lifting, and that's gonna cue drop the chest. And there's some more traditional moves that we do on this machine where we wanna find this connection of hip extension to initiate the movement.

So this is a great place to dial it in, to feel it, to learn it, to make it familiar in your body. Once we're familiar in a move, we can really dive in to the nuances. Right? So give yourself some grace. Do these moves, tens, twenties, hundreds of times, and you'll get something different out of it each time. Alright. One more.

And then you can choose to keep this balance alignment or both knees down. Both are great options. I just wanna remind you if you're working heavy tension, take the balance part out. So choose balance, or strength. You can change and exercise really easily by just using those two concepts.

Four three. Notice my hands wrapped again. So it's not an open hand like this. Using the hand, using the forearm, using my lats. Last time, hand goes down. So you'll pivot so the whole body turns 90 degrees.

And then switch that loop so it's in the other hand. If you didn't try the difference between strap in front or strap behind, try it now. So I encourage you you just have to find what's gonna work for your body today. I intentionally rotate in both directions. So I'm rotating my chest, looking at the riser, rotating my chest, looking at the foot bar, and I'm not trying to lift my hand really high.

Shoulder height is exactly where I want it to be. Four, three, Two, one. Awesome. The whole body rotates. This is where we started. Seems like it was so long ago.

Where are you gonna hold? Low, medium high? High is heavier. Wrap the fingers, knees are wide, and then straight arm pulls back. When I lower the arm right below the shoulders where I wanna be, If you are in a balanced position where your challenge or stability's challenge, keeping tension here at the start and beginning, and at the end is gonna help your stability. If I go all the way to no tension, and back up to tension, that's what really makes me feel off balance. So if you wanna go into this, you wanna remind yourself, keep tension here and push.

Keep the arm up. Go for your triceps. Every time you straighten the arm core tight. As a teacher, I love this variation because I know I'm gonna do the long box variation at some point with my clients. So here, we can really talk about the co contraction of the abdominals with the arms, the lengthening through the head and tail.

It's very relevant. If I don't do those things, I feel wobbly. So if I learn them here, I'll do them when I'm on the box one more time. Bring it all the way in, and bring it down. Okay. Let's bring this kind of to center to close. So we did a lot of unilateral work all the way around the machine. Coming into center, let's do elbows connect or palms connected elbows wide, pressing out to those long legs, heels together toes apart, You know what you love it, hips up.

Now what we wanna feel is after all this work that we did, this dynamic flexibility. My hamstrings feel longer. My spine feels more mobile. And if you wanna push this just a little bit more, you can walk the feet up. I'll tell you why this is more challenging.

Two things. As I lift, there's more weight onto my upper body. Here as well. So more shoulder stability required. It also requires more range of motion in my hamstrings and my shoulders to get that scoop. So one's not better, but there are two different variations one more time.

Bring it all the way in and bring it down. Let's do a bridge. After you do a long one-sided series, I think a bridge is a really smart option to help you find center again. I've got one red and one blue. That's my bridge setting.

If you tend to cramp in your hamstrings or you want more support, do two reds, heels of the feet on, hands are down, hips come up. So find that alignment, knees, hip shoulders, arms straight, range of motion pushing out pulling in. Now we could play with range here the same way we did in our lunges. Full range of motion looks like this. End range, you stay out, you come in a little, push.

Push. The work is to find that squeeze in length for three, two, one, bring it all the way in. We're gonna go into a march. This again is about anticipating a weight transfer So I know one leg is gonna come up, and I have to activate the opposite hip to stabilize. To increase the tension, I can take the arms here, or increase the challenge, I should say, or or I could take the arms here.

So I'm reducing my contact onto this mat, and therefore I need to work more through my core and my center to stay stable. We're gonna do a press back march. It looks like this. So pushing back one leg comes to table as you come in the foot comes down and the other. Now you'll start slow and steady But then as you build confidence and spatial awareness, they're kinda hand in hand, you might pick up the tempo.

I cannot see the footbar. You can't see the footbar, but my body's remembering where it is. So I feel a little more confident to move with flow. Do you see the difference? That's why we don't give up because we know reps one, two, three, four, five might be rough, but that is part of the learning phase.

One more each leg, bring it all the way in, hips nice and high, and then roll it down. Alrighty. We talked about not doing that loaded flexion. Let's just finish up with it because there's nothing wrong with it. So we've been working the abdominals this entire time. We've been working them in a vertical position for a lot of the moves.

Now we're in that supine alignment. We know what it feels like to open the hips to work the inner thighs and back body to engage the core. Take a big breath in for the 100. As you exhale curl up, extend the legs. Arms are straight.

You love it. You know it. Take a big breath in five pumps and a big breath out inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. So the pumping is coming from your back. Chest is wide, drop the legs to intensify, and reach through the legs. Since we did all of this lower body flow in the beginning of today's session, we can really feel us firing up through those legs.

So now's the time to activate that lower body. Fill it up. Two more. Last time, Hold everything steady and rest. Figo in the straps.

I always love finishing the hunter with a hold. It's almost like a mental thing. That's like I cut it on one more step, but I'm not going to. Alrighty. Into short spine, we go. So parallel legs, lift the hips, find that 90 degrees.

Then we allow the resistance to deepen, deepen, deepen, deepen deepen, and my goal is to close that carriage if I can. Sometimes it depends on how long these ropes are. Then we roll up. Carriage is closed, weight on the shoulder blades, bend the knees to a small diamond. My knees are no wider than the shoulder blocks, and my legs are parallel to the ground.

And I'm gonna keep that shape as I drop down, but I'm gonna keep my hands out of the way because I want you to see, like, roll upper, middle, lower. But this is not where I push my legs. Watch my hips. I wanna get my hips down, and then I'm pushing, kind of find that same position I've just in for the 100. So we go up, deep in the stretch. Everybody forgets this part because they wanna just fuse momentum to roll up.

It's because you're uncertain that you can roll up. So you're like, let's just do it. But you you can use your arms, press down, bend, upper, middle, lower, but don't push the legs yet. Sensation is the sit bones pressed down, and you're pushing through the legs and abdominals. Do that two more times. 90, deepen, roll.

This exercise feels like an infinity sign. There's no end. There's no beginning. You just keep going. Push out.

Lift, deepen, roll. There's the bend, upper, middle, lower, sit bones down. See that? Push all the way out. Bend the knees to come in.

I always drape my legs over the bar. I get off the machine with intention And in this case, it's gonna be five or formal roll ups. So do it with me arms to the sky, exhale all the way up you go. Inhale down. So this is a mat pilates exercise that we've adapted on the machine. You keep the scoop shoulders down. Last two.

And then one more time. After all that work, we did this actually feels really easy. I hope it feels good for you too. Right? We've unlocked the body. Unilateral work is like magic. I hope you feel great.

I sure do. Thanks for joining me. My goal is that we got to get a little bit deeper into some of these moves. So if you see them in other classes, now you have these little tricks and trades to get even more into your body, feel more confident and secure so you can push yourself a little bit more. I'll see you next time. Bye.