Ed's Go-To Tower

Hi. My name is Ed Botha, and I'm from Sydney Australia. And today, I'm gonna take you through my go to favorite tower class. Right? So I'm gonna walk you through all the different springs and some of the settings I'll be using. Alright? Please feel free to change things up.

If the springs feel too tight or too light, you can go shorter or longer. It's up to you. I'm gonna give you my preferences and guidelines. Alright. So I'm working on a balanced body tower. This particular one doesn't have a headrest. You'll notice I've got a sitting box from a reformer and a moon Botha.

So I've just extended it as a headrest on the tower, and I'm gonna be using that when I do footwork. Alright? Otherwise, I'll end up in a little bit too much hip flexion, and I'm about six foot one. So I'm a little bit taller. So for those of you who feel comfortable in the deeper hip flex position, please feel free to remove the box. Alright. So, firstly, I've got two short yellow springs set up on the roll up bar. Alright? And I've attached them about midway through the tower. Alright? I'm gonna be using that for my warm up. Alright.

When I top load the push through bar, So the push through bar over here, I'll be using two short blue springs from the top of the tower. Right? So I'm just gonna put these to the side for now. When I do hip work, I'm using two long purple springs just with the loops attached. Alright? I often use the long yellow springs as well. They're actually really great for taller people because you've Botha imagine that the longer a spring stretches the tighter it gets.

So these end up being pretty challenging for me, but, you know, that's a good thing today when you work together. And I've got some short yellow springs that I'll be using for arm springs. That's when I'll be working on the other side of the tower, and those springs are the same as the springs that I have on the roller bar. So if you've only got one set, you just may take a moment to disconnect and change the handles to the roller bar. Right? For the footwork, I've got two red short springs, and I'll be bottom loading the tower with those two red springs.

When I go into spinal articulation, like exercises like the tower, I'll probably just be using one of those springs. Again, a shorter body may be okay with. Two. Okay. So first thing I'm Botha do, I'm gonna start in a seated position and I'm gonna take my roll up bar and I wanna find a slight bit of tension on the bar. With the springs, and I'm sitting up tall.

So from here, I'm going to draw into my c curve position. So my eyes are going just above my knees. And my back has gone into a round shape, pressing my lower back slightly. I'm rolling down into the mat, just maintaining my shape. Right. I'm not thinking of forcing my spine down.

And I create a long line. So the bar is obviously giving me some feedback, so I need to draw my shoulders down and back into the mat slightly. I'm gonna inhale up into the chest lift phase. And from here, I've already got my shape. I'm just moving forward from the hip joint.

I keep my gaze looking just above the knees, and I try to bring my eyes forward again, so I finish just over the top of the knees in flexion. I start moving back through the spine again, just maintaining my shape as I roll back, and setting the shoulders into a good position. Inhale. I find the chest lift. I find flexion.

I exhale maintaining my shape. As I'm coming forward, And I'm also paying attention to my scapula. So it would be very easy for me to just allow my scapula to drift forward. So I've got a little bit of activity through the rhomboids that adduct the scapula. So from here, I rolling my spine back down, again, just maintaining the shape, and supine, checking those shoulders every time.

So my natural position would be shoulders rolled forward. So I really have to focus on opening wide across my collarbones. I lift up, head and chest, keeping the scapula stable, and exhale as I'm rolling up and forward, finding my flexion. Inhale, and exhale as I roll back. And onto the mat, I'll do one more roll up.

Inhale. Exhale. So you see I'm moving at the hip joint as I'm coming forward, and I'm gonna pause. Alright. So from here, I'm gonna bring the bar under my legs. I'm gonna just step over the bar, and I'm gonna use the full width of the foot bar.

So I'm actually pressing the outside of my carbs towards the connectors over here. Right? So it means I've got a good balanced bar in front of me here. I'm gonna pull my feet in a little bit, and I'm gonna go into a supine position. So just make sure you don't lose the bar when you roll down onto your back. So what we're looking for to do the pelvic curl in this position, we're looking for traction. Right? So as I'm curling up, I really wanna think of my knees lengthening away from me so I'm getting that beautiful stretch of my spine and opening in the front of the hip joint.

So you start palms at your sides, inhale to prepare, exhale, posterior tilt, and rolling the spine up off the mat, and I'm not just thinking up. I'm thinking of moving away with my knees. I'm reaching my legs away from me, and you'll feel that bar pulling the knees towards the tower Ed. Inhale, and exhale, and now you have something to resist against, rolling the spine down, creating flexion, and pelvis. Back into neutral. So inhale to prepare, exhale, rolling up, and it feels so good to create this length, the traction that we get.

And the bar gives me beautiful feedback. So I know that I'm giving equal pressure through both legs, inhale, and exhale. As I roll, back down, and you may wanna take a moment just to pop your head up in between and check is your bar still level. And that's pretty good from where I am here. I'm gonna go back down and exhale.

So posterior tilt, rolling up through the spine, pressing down into the palms, extending the shoulders, and the hips, inhale at the top, and then exhale. Articulating the spine down, and releasing back into my neutral position. Inhale, and exhale. So, again, finding my flexion, This is my last pelvic curl, rolling up, up, lengthen, inhale, and exhale coming back down. And release.

So I'm gonna take my arms overhead, keeping my palms facing the ceiling, lifting the arms up to the vertical, and coming up into a chest lift position. Reaching for the bar. Alright? So we're gonna find out if the springs are too tight. If the bar pulls you up to sitting, you know, the springs are a little bit tight, you may need to scoot down a little bit. So from here, I'm gonna bring My left leg tabletop, my right leg to tabletop feels pretty good. I'm gonna reach both legs up to the ceiling, and from here I'm putting some pressure down onto the Botha.

And I'm ready to go into the hundreds. I'm gonna inhale to prepare and it's in 234522345 in 235 and in two, four, five. We'll just do one more. Two, three, four, five. In two, three, four, five. Right. Now depending on your legs, you may be able to lower down a little bit but you don't want the bar to hit your thighs. So it's just gonna give you a little bit more hips and abdominal. So we'll go again out to three four five in two three four five and out to four, five, into three, four, five, out to four, five, into three, four, five, do one more cycle, two, three, four, five, into three, four, five. Bending the knees hurt, and we'll just use the bar to roll us up all the way up into a sitting position.

I'm gonna take my legs out again, popping out, holding, shoulder width apart on the bar, Stacking your spine up nice and tall there. From there, we create our c shape, and I'm gonna roll to the chest lift position, just pulling my feet in towards me a bit, and I pause over here into a mini roll up. Again, I've already got the shape that I want. All I need to do is lift my spine up off the mat, but keeping the curve in my spine. So I just need to stay round one. I inhale. And two, and inhale, and three, and inhale, and four, and inhale one more for five.

I'm Botha take my right hand to the middle of the bar, left hand behind my head, and I'm gonna stay square with my shoulders as I go down. Right? Trying not to rotate. So I'm actually using my right inner oblique to help stay square, and I'll do five more. One. Two, it actually wants to rotate me.

Three really deep abdominals for one more and bring it up all the way. So I'm changing so hand behind. So this exercise is not done in rotation. There are variations of this. Where you are actually rotated, but here I'm trying to keep the square position as I go down. So I'm counter, balancing to the rotation.

So I shoulder blade down and little lift one two, three, four, and up for five, and coming up into sitting. Great. So I may just remove the roll up off for a sec, so I'm gonna detach my two yellow springs, and I'm gonna set up for the footwork. Right? So when we work with a push through bar and we're gonna bottom load, the first thing I wanna do is attach a safety, and I'm gonna hook it through, and I'm gonna go pretty high. So I'm going on the top loop. Right?

You can keep your safety attached as well and just slip it over the side in the sessions. I find that's pretty useful just to keep a little bit of flow. Once I have that attached, I'm gonna go for my two red springs from the Botha. I lift the flaps up. That's to protect your vinyl of your equipment to the other side.

And we're all set up. So this is where the headrest comes into play. So I'm gonna scoot myself in there in the supine position. Right? So I wanna get as high as I feel comfortable that when my legs are straight, they are almost perpendicular to the mat. So that's what I'm looking for for the setup. Alright? I feel anatomically that's gonna be the best position for your hip joint.

So I'm gonna scoot up just that tiny bit there, and that feels pretty good. Now I'm gonna start the position where my legs are bent. I'm in maximum dorsi flexion. I've got my sacrum as down as far as I can, and I'm in no more than 90 degrees of hip. Sorry. Of knee flexion. So I'm gonna press the legs up. And inhale and two.

And the feet should feel as if they're holding the ceiling up. Three. So they are flat to the ceiling at all times, and four and exhale for five. So I'm articulating at the ankle. As I bend my knees, my ankles have to flex a little bit more. As I press the legs up, they can relax. One. I'll do another five.

And two and in and three and in for one more time for five, and then I'm gonna bend again to change. So I wanna change under load. I go to the balls of the feet or just above in that little joint there, so I don't slip. I've got a moderate point at my feet. And as I exhale, as I press my legs and they go vertical, I'm getting to my maximum plant deflection here. So you should feel all the lateral muscles around the shins working and obviously your calves.

Now as I bend the knees, you can see I'm gently releasing a little bit of tension out of the ankles. So the angle of my ankle is changing very slightly, but the angle of my foot stays consistent. So just like footwork, on the reformer, I'm keeping consistency there. And plantar flex slight softening. And plantar flex and slight softening. Otherwise, I would end up working in this locked position.

And when I get down to here, it feels like my feet are gonna slip off. I'm also losing the work around the shins. So here, I'm very clear that I'm getting this work happening in my plan to flexes. I'll do one more. And up, and back in, and pause.

I take my feet into the v position, and it's the same ankle, movement, maximum plant deflection when the legs are straight, slight softening on the ankles as the legs come in. And press and in, and that's is really what makes your footwork relevant. So once you get strong enough and you've adapted to the strings, then the legs aren't gonna get much more overload with regards to the muscles. So we are working those smaller intrinsic muscles of the ankles. And that's what keeps this work interesting.

And press and in and press plant to flex. Slides softening one more time. Press and slide softening again. I'm gonna change to parallel. Press both legs up maximum plan to flex, and we'll go into our cards one and up.

And full dorsey flex two, and a big stretch, three, and four, five, and reach and flex six. Seven. This I'd love to do 10. One two. Last one.

And stretch and press back up into my prances. It's inhale. Exhale. And inhale full range through the ankle, exhale. It's easy to cut the flexing short, the dorsiflexion, exhale.

And inhale and exhale. And we can just hold a little stretch there. We'll give it one two, three, four, five, I'm gonna change. I lift. I switch one, two, three, For five, I'm gonna press up.

I'm gonna bend my knees. I go back to my heels parallel position. And you may wanna take one spring off if you feel it's too heavy. I'm gonna go into my singles, but I'm only gonna do five on each side and each position. So I'm taking my left leg down, right leg stays up, and you'll see I'm not as deep in my hip flexion as I am when I do my double legs. Because otherwise the tendency is for the hip to hike, and I press up one and flex.

And two, again, always that small articulation three happening on the ankle joint, three, and four, and five, and bend. Keep the bar as quiet as possible as I change. And other leg down. So here I'm getting this beautiful stretch of this hip flexor. So you see I'm actively plantar flexing my foot, and I'm pressing one. Two, three, four, one more, and five, and bend.

To change. So we keep the bar stable. Go to my toes. So because I'm in a plant to flex foot, I'll be in a bit of a deeper hip flexion here. And one. So full plantar flexion. And then as I bend the knee, I soften the ankle slightly.

And two and slight softening. Three slide softening, and four and one more, and for five and bend. Good. Keeping the bar stable. Other side, so bar stays stable, leg goes down, and maximum plant deflection one when the leg is straight. Slight softening of the ankle.

Two, three, four, one last one. And five, and I'm gonna bend the knee, and pause. Alright. So I'm gonna just gather my bar, take my foot out, and this is probably the best place just to detach your springs and place them behind you. Alright? So I won't be needing the Ed again or the box.

So if you wanted to take it away, now you could. I'm gonna take away my safety, and I'm gonna bring my two blue springs, and I'm gonna attach them from the top of the tower. Alright? So I'm using two blues from the top. Some of you may wanna use if you're a little bit lighter and you feel it's too easy, you can cross one blue spring over to the opposite eyelid. Alright.

And I'm gonna set up supine. So I'm gonna go down onto my back and reaching for the bar. So I've got a little bit of tension on that bar. I want my arms in a more or less vertical position, bringing my legs up into the tabletop. I go into my spine to a supine. So I'm gonna inhale as I let my pelvis rotate, exhale.

As I bring it back into the center, I just may move my microphone slightly forward so I can get a little bit more rotation. Inhale. And exhale, bringing it back in, and inhale so we can go a little bit further, and then exhale Bringing the legs back to the center. Inhale. Now once my legs have dropped over towards the right side here, I'm pulling the bar towards my legs, exhale. So I use my obliques to bring the legs back and I go over.

And then back to the center. And this time, I'm gonna go over. Hold there, release the opposite arm, see if you go a little bit further for your stretch, and bring it back to the center and rotate. Release the arm, go a little bit further, into your stretch, and let's go back into the center, bringing the legs back down, one at a time. Okay. So from here, we'll move into our teases.

So some of you may feel you wanna go a little bit lower or a little bit higher. It's gonna depend on the body position you get when we are lifted. Alright? So but I generally find with this configuration, a vertical arm works pretty good. So legs are going together. I wanna lift both legs up at the same time, and I start lifting up, trying to articulate still. So I don't wanna rely purely on my hip and my back, and I wanna push out into a long line.

I'm gonna roll my spine back down, and this time I've gotta hold the legs out in front of me. So I'm inhaling as I lift up, just creating a diagonal through my spine, and exhale as I roll back and inhale, lift. Yeah. Good. Feels good to teaser and exhale and inhale and lift, lift and up and exhale.

Shoo one more time, and lifting. So go through flexion. So I don't wanna just pop up. I'm trying to stay flexed for as long as I can. I go into my long line, and I'll do five lowers.

One, two, three, four, fifth one, hold up as high as you can. Hold. Keep the legs, roll the spine till you get to the shoulder blades, and then bend the knees, and we'll bring the legs down. Good. So you could just use your bar just to help you to pop up into sitting. Make a little switch to our hip work. So I'm gonna pop the springs off, the two blues at the top, and you could leave these.

Here we'll use them again. And I'm going for my long purple springs. So I'm setting these up about three quarters of the way, up my tower. Again, it's also gonna depend on how far you're lying away from the tower that's gonna give you your attention. Alright? So I'm going into my supine position.

So just a bit of advice. The taller you are, for higher up I would be, especially if I'm using the tighter springs. Alright? So I go into the strap. One, and two. So I wanna be in a position where I can keep my arms bent, and I've got a little bit of pressure into the poles.

Heels are together, and I'm bringing my legs to the frog position. So the way I could find my frog is just to find a tabletop and then open the knees, shoulder width, and then the feet can just respond. So what we Botha remember about the the springs is they're trying to lift my pelvis up. So I'm working hard to maintain a neutral pelvis, and I want my feet just to press out. One, on the horizontal, soft, dorsey flexed feet, two.

Always thinking about squeezing the heels together. Three. I'm just trying to move those heels more or less on the same line. Five more times and we'll do 10 of these. One. Beautiful adductor work.

Keeping the heels. Two squeezing together. Three. Four. One more time, and exhale straighten the legs out, bring them back in, and then go to that tabletop again.

So from the tabletop, I'm just lengthening my legs up to the ceiling. Taking my feet into the v. So you can see, I I don't want my springs to lose their tension, but at the same time I'm not pressing into the springs. I'm hanging softly into the springs right now. K? So you can, again, you can have your arms over the top here or next to your sides, and I'm going into my circles.

So I'm pressing down the midline, opening and drawing together. At the top and two, opening round and drawing together. And three, round and together. For so it's just like you're stirring with your hip joint. And unlike the reformer, we've got this downward pressure, so you're working harder through the back of the legs, and harder to maintain the pelvic position there.

So exhale press and round. So I really wanna try keep that feeling of creasing and I change direction. And so here, I don't wanna just open and lose my tension. As I'm opening, I'm pressing down into my resistance and lifting both legs up. So as I open, I'm pressing down into my resistance, Making sure I hit that midline heel squeezing together and lifting up. Opening and pressing down into the resistance.

Hit the midline. Lifting back up. I don't clank the springs. I'm just hanging into them. So one more time, I'm gonna press into the resistance, touch, bring the legs back up, turn to parallel into my walking. So it should feel like you are kicking your feet in a bucket.

Right? And all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna move the bucket down towards the mat and then lift the bucket back up. So if you any of you are swimmers and you swim freestyle, well, it would be a very similar kick. Right? So from here, it's just little flutters, So I'm kicking my feet in the bucket, taking my legs down, bringing my legs back up with the bucket. Moving the bucket down, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, so I'm continuously moving on both legs, really pressing down through the back of the legs, hamstrings, inner thighs, lift, and pressing down. The springs also wanna pull my legs apart. So I'm brushing the legs past each other and down. Little flutters and little flutters.

Up, and one more time going down, keeping the flutters going, and bringing it back up, up, up, up, up, up, up, all the way to the top. Again, without losing the tension. Into the bicycles and the reverse. So here, I wanna reference reference an l shape with my legs at all times. And the other little the rule I have is I never want my knees to bend more than 90 degrees. Right, at knee flexion. My hip flexion can change, but my knees are gonna stay quite consistent.

So I'll start by pressing down. Right leg goes down. Touch the heel. Bend the knee. No more than 90. Start lifting, pressing the other leg down, reaching.

There, touch the heel, bend the knee. So I'm working pretty slowly today, just so we can focus on our control. Bum. You can see my springs really shaking as my legs are working hard in these purple springs, press, bend, work with control. See the angle of my knee, so not there. So that would also change the position of our spring. So press, bend the knee, bring the leg up.

Last one I do in this direction, press down left, bend the knee. Lifting back up and pause. Now I'm gonna go with my left again. I'm gonna change. I bend the knee no more than 90. I press down. And lift.

Bend the knee. Press down and away. And lift. Bend, press and lift. Bend, press, and lift one more on each side. Bend.

And lift good. I wanna do one more on this right leg. Bend. And press the leg away, lifting up. And from there, both legs return, you can see I've still got that little bit of tension. And now there, I lose it. Good. So we'll pop the legs out of the spring or just and I'm gonna bottom load my push through bar, the right, for spinal articulation.

So all I do is you see the safety. I pushed it to the side, and now it's really easy. I can just slip it back on, and I'm gonna use one spring from the bottom. Alright? Some people manage to do this with two springs, but just be careful with pressure on your neck and your lumbar spine. Right?

So this is a spinal articulation exercise, and we might follow it up with a little stretch. Let's see how we go for the lower body. Alright. So I'm gonna have myself a straight arms distance away. Which makes it pretty challenging for us taller folks. You can do this exercise with bent elbows, but you don't get the same stretch in the thoracic spine and the lats. Right? So I advise you set yourself a bar and a position where you can have your legs. Straight?

Doesn't matter if your pelvis is lifted. That's not a a prerequisite to keep it down. And I'm pushing into my arms. Now from here, I'm gonna roll my pelvis up all the way up onto my shoulders, bend my knees, Again, I articulate at the ankle. Lakes are about 90 degrees.

Press, roll the spine down. And once I get to the bottom, flex, long inhale, point, exhale rolling up through the spine. Inhale, bend the knees and straighten. Exhale as we roll and, and so this is the best part. I'm getting this beautiful overhead stretch and flex and point and exhale. Yes. I would always encourage you to try and do this with the arms straight Ed, bend, straighten, and roll pushing away with the arms not pulling.

Flex, big stretch, point, and up again, rolling up through the spine. Man the knees. Straighten and rolling down down, flex point. Let's go one more, push into the arms, dropping the sacrum. So that's our starting point. Now using the abdominals to press, good control through the legs, bend, articulate at the ankles, it's just like you're doing your footwork and rolling back down. Our last little stretch and flex and point And if you up for it, we're gonna take our left leg down.

We'll hold for one. Two. So beautiful position to stretch her. You can see I'm still active through my foot three, four, five, you can use your hands to help wedge your hip down. And then we can do our change, so you don't have to have your arms overhead for this. And try lower this leg without this hip hiking up and anchor. Try press that leg down.

So beautiful stretch. And I get this right in the belly of my hamstring because I'm in plantar flexion. Two, three, four, and good. And then we can just take the bar and carefully bring it out. Cool. So I'm gonna take away my spring here and reload the two blues from the top. So I'm popping off.

The safety. And you see, I just slide it to the side. It makes life way easier for me, and then I'm gonna take one. And two, and into tall kneeling. So I'm gonna go into a bit of a cat. Alright? So I wanna start with my hands on the bar shoulder width apart, and I do wanna start with a bit of tension on the bar.

So I want the bar at shoulder height. So that depends on you, but most of you, if you're a little bit shorter than me, you'll have a little bit more tension than I will, which will be a good thing. Right? Now from here, I'm looking for about a 90 degree angle. At my elbow. So if I was too far my arms would be too straight, or this would be too close, but about a 90 degree angle should set us up for good things here. So I'm gonna inhale as I press the bar down.

Exhale rolling from the top of the Ed, trying not to sit back with the pelvis. That's the most important part here, and I'm keeping my shape. So you wanna see I'm staying round. For as long as I can, then right at the end, I want you just to elongate and think of lifting your sternum forward. So there's a lot of weight on your arms here, abdominals are still drawing in.

And then pressing the lower back up to the ceiling again without sitting back. Tall spine, and only at the end. Do I bend my elbows and again just to shoulder height? So I'm Botha inhale to press, exhale as I roll. And this is an exercise where It's really hard to feel where you are. So sometimes a mirror can be helpful. So if you look to the side, feel like you aiming your sternum forward slightly, I don't wanna collapse, so just into a horizontal, and then drawing back in, using the abdominals, keeping our shape, and up. So a lot of weight on our lats as well.

So I press down, inhale, exhale rolling from the top of my head. Abdominal is engaged. So I keep my curve. My c shape for as long as possible. Otherwise, I would just drop. So I'm holding, I'm holding it, I'm holding it, and then right at the end.

I elongate, sternum going forward. And then I'm gonna come back up and roll up through and bend elbows, and I'm gonna come through to sitting. So keeping the same resistance, feet pressing up against the poles, and I'm just sitting upright. Alright? So, common thing here is people get the bar and the first thing they wanna they wanna push into the bar. Well, I just wanna find my tall sitting position here. And then I just think of bringing my arms round and placing them on the bar.

And wherever my arms are straight, that's where the bar is gonna be. Right? As I exhale, I draw my abdominals in. I'm going into my sitting forward, and I create this c shape position again. I'm in my deepest posterior tilt. I can't go any lower because that's where my arms would run out. Again, I have a little bit of retraction of the scapula. Now from here, I keep my shape, and I press down with my arms, so using my shoulder extensors.

Now I can't press down with my arms anymore. I use my trunk to flex forward, and I'm trying to get the bars to line up. So you see how I've lined up the push through bar with the frame of the tower. From here, I'm gonna keep the bar still as I lift up through my chest, and then I'm gonna undo the shape. So I'm going round.

Keeping my c shape for as long as I can. The bar Ed starts lifting. I'm not pushing my shoulder blades forward. And then at the end, I'm gonna sit back up. So exhale as I go down and back.

So I create the curve. Now this part should be tough. Right? Especially if you've got the two from the top, or you may, like I said, have a blue spring crossed. So I use my straight arms. I keep flexion, and now you should be able to push down on the bar without moving your spine. And then you're gonna run out, and then we have to use our hips and eye abdominals, and then we're bringing it through.

So again, important, I'm just gonna let go with one hand, is that I'm lining up over here, flattening the back, and then coming back through, rounding the back. Rounding the back, keeping the flexion, allow the bar to lift, and coming up tall. And one more time. So again, I'm not leaning. I'm just using the length of my arms to determine where the bar is.

We'll go one more time. I'm going down into my lumbar flexion. Press, so I keep my abdominal scoop. I press down with my arms rolling through. Lining up.

The frame with a push through bar. Is it good? It's good. Should the blades are stable, elongate your spine, so from the crown of your Ed, lengthening and then we're going back, shape, bar comes up, and up to the vertical. So from here, I'll go to my saw. So same thing. I'm gonna go find that same first position.

Exhale. As I sit up, I release my right arm in front of my right shoulder. I get up to the tall vertical. I rotate on the vertical. This time, I'm gonna push into the bar, and I'm reaching forward, and I get into rotation here.

My hand is reaching past my little toe, and this, I'm gonna allow my head to turn a little bit, pressing into that bar. Elongating at the same time. I use my back extensors to lift up, and I just pop my arm back on the bar. The side I exhale as I go into lumbar flexion. So be very Ed. Hand comes off.

So lifting up, find your vertical longitudinal axis. So all my rotation happens here. I rotate, and then I'm gonna push, and I'm just gonna reach and I create a little bit of rotation here. This shoulder blade, you want it to be stable. So I'm trying to avoid elevation here. And I get this little bit of twist, then you can turn your heads like.

Lift up through your back. All the way up to the vertical, and then we rotate. So we'll do one more on each side with a little flowy exhale, up, and rotate, and reach. There, you can twist a little bit more. And lift up in rotation.

Hand goes on. And down. Round. Hand goes off as we lift up. Rotate and press. Get your twist, arms pushing up, use your back extensors, and bring it all the way out. And then relax.

Right. So I'm gonna remove my two springs from the top. One, and two, and I'm gonna do a standing back extension or a hinge. Alright? So what we wanna do, you've got some options. You can go if you're a little shorter. You can climb under the bar.

If you're a little bit taller like me, you can climb over the bar. Alright? So what we want is I just want the bar pressing against my thighs. Alright? And all you gotta do is you've walked out a little bit away from the tower, and we wanna work on a little bit of a hinge. So rib cage stays soft.

So for the first one, maybe just hold on to the bar just so you feel safe or if you need a you'll find out shortly if you need a a sticky mat, and we're gonna hinge forward. At the hip joint, Think of just creating that traction through the spine. And then from there, you're gonna lift yourself back up. So using the extensors. So we're hinging down and forward.

So I just feel the bar. It's just pressing into my thighs. And lifting back up. Hands can go behind so I'm just gonna lift my bar up a little bit higher. There.

So hands go behind your Ed, fingers interlaced. And we're going down. And we're lifting up in the extensors. And we're going down. So hinging.

Now think of pressing down through all 10 toes, reaching from the crown of your Ed, lift up find hamstrings and gluteals as well. So reaching down, reaching down, reaching down, and press up through the back of the legs, lift up into your diagonal, and inhale hinging at the hip joint. Now squeeze the back of the legs, engage your glutes, reach from the crown of the head, and coming up, and we'll go down one more time. So we find our hinge, and we press up And then we can go down into our final little stretcher. Your arms can come down, and you can just find a little bit of traction. I'm just gonna bring the bar up a little bit there. And it feels good to stretch out the back.

And then just carefully bring yourself back up into standing. Okay. So I'm gonna just hop out of here. And what I'm gonna do next is I'm gonna walk to the other side and use the other side of the tower. Alright? I've set up my two short yellow arm springs, up on this side, the outside frame, and I have got my springs at eye height. So anything from your chin up to your eyes would be a good setting.

You know, the main reason I've moved to this side is because I'm taller. You can absolutely do it standing on the platform side as well. Just, you just wanna make sure that again that those springs are kind of in this area, that would be fine. And, obviously, if you have a studio where the towers are against the wall, then that would be the option. Alright? So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go into my chest expansion. So I'm starting in a position facing the tower. I've got my shoulders in a little bit of flexion.

And what I'm looking for is that I can pull I can feel this is already gonna be a little bit tight, that I can move my arms equal distance from the front of my body to the back of my body. So, again, you don't want too much tension for this. So we're standing up tall. You're just in your neutral spine. You're gonna take a breath in and exhale as we press into shoulder extension. And then I'm gonna inhale, bring it back into the same amount of shoulder flexion.

And so getting the lats to work and and the most important thing here is that you're trying to keep those arms close to your body, exhale, and inhale and your arms as straight as you can without rounding your shoulders as you go into your shoulder. Extension, which is the arms behind. Right? So what I need to tell myself is I think of a little bit of scapular adduction here. So my shoulder blades coming together ever so slightly so I don't round. And and these springs, they get a lot of tension really quickly.

At. Let's do another two. At and one more time. At. Exhale, think of those shoulder blades coming together slightly, and then arms forward. So I'm gonna take a bit of a step back.

I'm gonna go into the squat variation. So this is a a full squat. So I'm gonna go down to what we can call rock bottom or my bum going down to my heels. With my spine as straight as possible. Right? So I'm gonna turn my palms up and my arms are shoulder height, and you'll see there's a lot of slack in the springs. And that's really important because otherwise it's gonna get really tight, really quickly.

I'm gonna bend my elbows, so I've got a 90 degree bicep curl. And from here, that just gives me enough tension so I can squat down, get as low as possible. And then I'm gonna press up through both legs to come up to standing. From here, I'm gonna take my arms out to the sides. I wanna lose tension. I'm gonna hinge forward, reaching my right leg behind me, and I'm coming down into a scale position.

Right? If you feel you're comfortable with this balance, then we're gonna open the hip joint a little bit. And then close the hip joint going all the way towards the opposite side with a pelvis so you get a little bit of stretch of that lateral glute. So we're gonna open again. Open the hip joint, and I'm just using my springs for balance, and closing the hip joint, getting the lateral stretch on the glute, coming back to the squared off position. And from here, I'm just gonna step back up. We're gonna go to the other side.

So we're gonna go bicep curl, squatting down, And this is really a beautiful stretch for the lumbar using my upper back extensors, and I'm gonna drive up through my hip extensors quads. Arms come out. Just enough tension so I can balance. I'm hinging forward. So I just call this the scale position here. Alright? Or it's like a little airplane, but don't use too much tension.

Open the hip joint. So you're opening and stretching the bottom leg's adductor, squaring the pelvis, and then going beyond square, stretching the glute. And I'll go one more time. So I'm gonna open the hip joint. So I'm getting that beautiful stretch through the adductor of the bottom leg, turning back, squaring as much as you need to to get your outside hip stretch back to the square of pelvis and then coming back up into standing. Alright? So I'm gonna turn around.

Facing away from the tower. Now I definitely wanna be a little bit closer. So I'm gonna take my arms out to the t position, and I'm gonna create a little bit of a lean. Into the springs. Very slight.

So I should be able to keep my abdominals in rib cage soft. And from here, I need to press, and I should be able to adduct my shoulders without being pulled backwards. And I'm gonna inhale, as I open, keeping my scapula wide across my back, ribs stay soft, and then exhale, pressing in with the arms. And inhale, arms out. So find your peripheral view with your arms, exhale pressing back in.

Inhale. Opening out, so the abdominals just to recheck yourself, you should feel like you're leaning into those springs ever so slightly. So if we took the springs away, you might feel like you're gonna fall and pressing in. And opening out. Right. So on the next one, we go to our circles up.

So I press inwards. I turn my palms, I lift the arms up, keeping the ribcage down, and I'm circling my arms all the way out trying to touch the outside of the room. I press my arms in, turn the palms, lifting both arms up going up to the ceiling. So try to get your arms up in line with your ears, reaching the arms out to the side, touching opposite ends of the room. And we'll go one more in this direction.

So add duct. So I'm not going beyond shoulder width. Turn, lift the arms up, and then arms all the way out, and we finish in the t position, and we reverse. Up with the arms, so we find this candlestick position, press down to shoulder height. Without pushing the shoulders, opening the arms, and up, and press, and open, and up and press, and open one more time. We go up, and we press, and we're gonna keep it out here. I want you to find your attention Keep your right arm out in front, lift your hands to eye height, bend your left arm.

Good. Sholders don't rotate, and we're gonna punch. Aghale, exhale, inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, inhale, inhale, bringing my hand to my eye every time next to my eyes. The and there. And punch and punch without rotating the trunk. And punch and punch and there.

And there. And I'll pop both out. Bend both arms in and bring the arms back into the t position. So for this, you may wanna walk back a little bit. I'm going into my butterfly.

So just a beautiful exercise rotation, lateral flexion, just a all over feel good move. I love this because I'm a surfer, and I feel this is a got some similarities to some movements in surfing. So I'm gonna bring my arms out to my t position, so maybe a little bit more tension for me. I'm gonna go into lateral flexion without losing my spring. So I go lateral, And then from here, it's like I'm throwing a ball over my head, reaching, squaring my shoulders off towards you. And flexing my spine, both arms are pressing forward.

That's where I get my stretch. I keep pressing forward into the springs. I come out of lateral flexion. And back to the side. So go pure lateral flexion here, and then reach this arm over the head.

So I have to actually elevate this shoulder blade to pop the arm over my head And I'm looking down next to my Botha, not flexing at my hip joint. I'm flexing in my thoracic spine, and I've squared my shoulders off. So quite similar to the saw, shoulder position on the mat, and then I'm Botha, de rotate, and laterally flex back to the center. And there, swivel so we can add a little bit more flow and there and back and there and through and there and back and over and flex the spine trying to square my pelvis as much as I can and back and through, but it has to adapt. And open and close the body and open the body.

Add. So I'm gonna let my arms come through. I'm gonna take another step forward getting a stretch of my shoulders into flexion. Oh, sorry, into shoulder extension, and I'm stretching out the elbow extenses, which are my biceps, trying to keep the arms exactly where they are. I in a little bit of internal shoulder rotation here, which is correct. So extension and internal rotation of the shoulder.

And then we're gonna bend at the bicep. One. So the elbow joint is closing, getting your stretch, two, and little stretch, and three, And there, and the more you stretch to start the tougher the curls gonna be. You may need to lean in a little bit and see my body's adapting slightly to lean. And there. I'll do two more. One and out.

And last one is two and stretch out. Just be careful that you don't get pulled back rapidly, and you can take a step back, and just let your springs dangle, arms down next to your sides, and we'll finish with a roll down of our spine so we take a breath in. And exhaling, just nodding the chin and rolling the spine down. All the way down. Let your neck go at the bottom. Inhale at the bottom.

Exhale, restacking the spine up, and up into tall standing. And thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed moving with me. See you next time.