Stretch with Strength

Hi. I'm Danica Calum de Raulu, and this is stretch with strength. I don't know about you, but when my clients come in and say all I wanna do is stretch today, I instantly take that as a challenge to say, Well, I'm really gonna make you stronger today. Because the reality is when we stretch, we want to be focusing on stretching the musculature versus the connective tissue. If stretching connective tissue, I e ligaments and tendons, That will actually cause joint instability over time and possibly set our clients up for injury. What we wanna do is actually load that connective tissue so that it works under tension while we stretch the muscle under load as well.

So we're gonna get started with an easy rollback, where we're working on articulating every joint in the spine. So all of the deep intrinsic muscles of the spine get their moment to mobilize, have bent knees, feed into the poles with a strong grounding press that allows us to find what we need to come into the back of the hips and then work to stay tall. We don't wanna let this push us into a tilt before we're ready. Take a hold of your rollback bar, and let's just start with a few easy pulls in with a little rotation of the head and easy chest expansion, and this just lets you feel how strong the spring is. Inhale. Give it a turn.

Feel how much work it is. On that spring on your equipment. A straight arm press where we fight coming into flexion or down into our hip flexors. Yes. You will feel your hip flexors because I'm in loaded flexion. I don't wanna give into that.

I'd rather find opposition. But again, we're just trying to feel how heavy your rollback springs are. Now as I begin to articulate and roll, curl tuck, scoop the belly in and up, and look for one bone at a time. Yes, coming to the mat, but think more about pressing away from the poles and standing tall to the back of your tower. Rolling up, chin to chest, ribs closed, you feel that 100 moment. Continue to rise.

And at what point do you need to allow the knees to come back into a bend so you're actually rolling home from the articulation of your pelvis on your thighs. Stack back up. Rolling down, but really rolling back away from the poles as you try and reach down into the grounding of the feet. We could take arm work here as well. It's up to you and a straight arm, rolling up.

Here's what I mean about when you need to bend the knees. Albeit, I have all of this hamstring flexibility. At this point here, I really need to start bending my knees to allow my pelvis to articulate versus hanging off my sacrum and hanging off the flexibility of my hamstrings. Here I've now come into more compression and I actually don't feel the spring because I'm just relying on what flexibility I have in the back of my legs and hanging off the sacrum. I'm gonna reset and show you what that is properly, finding the articulation of the pelvis on the thighs, rolling the socket, on the ball, rolling up There's my articulation, heels reach, knees, bend, and you can see how I'm coming home from the articulation of my pelvis lifting and coming forward.

And stack back up. Now I think it's very important that you really get into that thoracic curve with this rollback bar. So we're gonna take it down to the back of the ribs, keeping head lifted, seeing down the midline. Now I'm gonna contract into one side of the body finding those obliques and press the bar down to that thigh and come back center. And over to the other side.

And come back center. This really lets my abdominals focus strengthen one side to the other, stretching one side as the other comes into work. We could even take that into a full circle up over and around just to warm up that idea of rotation and mobility, inflection, and coming through extension at the same time. I'm gonna come center and roll back up. That would be a lovely place to go into your 100 pumping as well, but I'm gonna save that for just a moment. I don't see enough people work flat back with the roll back bar.

So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna pull the bar to us, then keeping a tall straight spine like we would in short box, press through the legs lift up through the front of the pelvis and the back of the pelvis, come to the mat with your flat back, straighten the arms, and then as you come forward in a hinge in the front of the hips, lift the bar up lifting the whole torso back up, bend the knees to come on top of those sits bones, and you see how much I'm working into my deltoid, down into the muscles of my spine to keep that flat back. And then we're gonna pull the bar back down to the ribs one more time. Going back in the flat back, which is still an articulation of the pelvis rolling on the thighs. Stretch out with the arms. Now instead of pressing down, you're gonna lift up and allow that to help float the upper body as I come into the crease and fold in the front of the hips.

Now, this is an archival version that we see a lot lift and find swan, reach and extend through the legs, tap the head, come back up, find the abs, pull back together to return head on top. One more. Head goes back. Now I'm really using the back of those shoulders to bring the bar with me and let it lower. It naturally will. Yes. Find swan, find extension. And then lift, pull back up return the abs.

We're gonna finish this set off with a nice, easy, full lateral stretch, one hand, into the center of the bar, the other hand around the waist, roll down with this one armed roll back. Then we're gonna reach the arm up and over to the other side of the mat coming into our lateral flexion, bring the same leg as arm over, and take a few breaths here where you work that nice lateral flexion and stretch, opening up everything in the IT band down through the leg through the obliques and up through your lat and shoulder. Return the leg. Return the arm and head roll back up. Then we'll do the other arm down, reach the arm up and over, and cross the leg and really squeeze that cross of the legs. Now, the most important thing is is that you really work lateral flexion and resist rotation as much as possible.

Try to keep the back of the ribs and the back of your pelvis on the mat so that you're really focusing on lateral flexion versus rotation. Return the leg, which that bar feels considerably farther away when you return, and then come back up. You could do a cross of the arms, but either way, if you do the one arm variation, finish the whole set off with both hands on the bar. I'm gonna roll back find that opening through the upper back and chest, coming back up. And now my spine feels ready to get to work.

We're gonna go into a tree variation with the roll back bar. You're getting into it. It's a little tricky, but pull back, bend the knees. You're gonna bring one leg up over and fold the knee over the bar. Stretch the other leg out, and then go ahead and roll down. Now the latch of my hamstring curling around the bar needs to do more work than my arms pulling the bar.

That makes me have to therefore find scoop. Like I said, I can let go. I'm then gonna find a stretching of that hamstring where I still keep my leg pressed into the bar This will therefore make my arms take the work, an easy bend, stretch and bend. It helps keep that femur right at 90 perpendicular to the floor, Keep it stretch. Take a little flex and point, and I'm pressing this thigh into the bar as much as my arms are pulling it into the bar. Easy point. Now we're gonna articulate chin to chest.

Curve up, let the bar roll up the calf, which can be a nice massage for a lot of people, roll back down, open the chest. One more. How high can you go? Maybe all the way up to the heel with the bar, maybe into your teaser balance. Roll back down. Keeping that nice length and opening in the front of the hip of the leg on the mat. Here, we're gonna take a circling of the foot where I have to breathe and keep the lift in my waist, reverse, and then we're gonna keep a point of the foot, press into those upper abs, lowering the bar, rolling back to our 100 ribs, taking three pumps here, breathing in, two, three, four, five, and out.

And breathing in, and breathing out. One more breath, breathing in. And breathing out, we're gonna bend that knee back around the center of the bar. Give an easy pull with the hip flexor, adding the low abs, curl up a little higher. Me comes to forehead, forehead to knee. Lengthen back out.

Pull and contract and return. I'm back into that hamstring curl and adding hip flexor and back out. This time, pull in roll up, and let's change legs. And again, it doesn't have to be classy getting that leg over the bar. It just needs to get over the bar. We roll back and down.

We find that hamstring curl really working to keep that spring with us, but then as we straighten that hamstring, our arms will take the work and bend. Two more breathing. And out. Last one. Keep it up there.

Roll up and roll back down. You saw me already take a flexing point on this side. Let's flex as we roll up just to add more moving parts while we move point to roll down. One more up, staying up, circling the foot, getting all that movement in your shin and calf and the intrinsic muscles of the sole of your foot. Rolling back down to your 100 position, three breaths and pumps here breathing in, and out.

Two. Last one. Rolling back up for that extra little bit. Coming back down, bending the knee, curling in from hip flexor and abs to pull and open back up, and pull really working the opening length of the opposite hip as you contract and back. Now we're gonna go ahead and throw both legs over the bar. Find a little bit of a plant in the feet, but you won't be able to keep that much weight in them because of the bar.

Now, really use those hamstrings behind the knees to keep that curl on those thinking of feet to seat, feet to feet connection. Roll down and everyone's hands will have to let go at a different time depending on the length of your arms. Planting the arms, not so snug in that it causes us to compress in the pectorals, but just wide enough that as you push into the mat, you get a little bit taller. The spring is working to pull and make space in the hips. Scoop come up out of that, and you can really feel that nice open decompression feel in the hips.

With that, we're gonna take a little bit of a pelvic clock. Whereas if you think of an analog clock, 12 at the top, six at the bottom, we're gonna go around clockwise, and roll, and the bar will move, the springs will move, but using that opposition of the spring in my core frees up my hips to easily roll on top of the femurs, and a nice easy length and stretch in my low back and my low abs as I work now counterclockwise coming around. This moment here should actually open your abdominals Whereas when we curl up to 12:00, we'll close. You could even just do tilts back and forth if the clock is a little bit too much to figure out. Either way, we are now gonna pull the feed in a little closer and allow the spring to help curl us up and start to lift into our shoulder bridge.

Get where you can go, inhale reach the arms, exhale pressing back down, rolling back down nice and easy. You really can feel the scoop as the springs pull sits bones up and out to the knees, reach, and back down with the arms roll. On this one, we're gonna come up, lift the arms, try to keep the hips high, press the arms curve up into your 100, and you have one more set of pumps here breathing in. You'll take a slower easier pump so that we're not bouncing the upper body or the spring. Just one more good breath and exhale.

Keep the curve of your upper body. Roll down ground the pelvis, keep curving till you can come back to get ahold of the bar, bring your legs together. Now, you'd prepped tree one leg, double leg, stretch and bend and stretch and bend, stretch and hold teaser time. But the springs are on our side. On an exhale. Find the pull of the spring, press the legs away, curve up, fight for it, fight for it, fight for it, fight for it, lift the chest.

Roll back pulling the back of the pelvis away from the springs, as you push legs into the bar. We can almost get down to feet at eye height. And here we go back up. Feeling the pull, let the springs help you. Here's where the fight begins, where I have to really put the work into the back of my legs so that I have the odd opposition to lift up. One more.

Rolling back and down, pressing legs into the back of the bar, toes can make it almost eye level. And then as I come up, this is where I really discover how heavy my upper body is in relationship to my legs, roll up Dismount with style, maybe not a whole lot of class because it's very difficult to get around the bar. Now let's talk about leg springs. We've already warmed up a few things in the legs. But we haven't really gotten that full orbit of the thigh bone in the socket. We're gonna turn around, and I've got a table strap here. We're gonna slide one leg under the strap.

I'm gonna roll back And this is my right leg. I'm gonna use the leg spring on the opposite side of the body, bring the foot in, stretch it up to the ceiling, and find a press into the poles to connect your upper body. From here, the spring is pulling in a way that when I AB duct away from center, it increases the spring tension. The spring is on my side to help me come across the body and get a stretch in the outer hip. As I come into the load of the spring, the outer hip has to work and pull on the inner thigh.

Then the inner thigh gets assistance as the outer hip gets the stretch. One more of those. Now the heavier your legs bring, obviously, the more load to that outer hip, and the more pull into the inner thigh that will help you stretch. Now I'm gonna bring this leg down with a hamstring, ideally hoping to cross it right on top of the ankle on the mat, coming back up. This really makes the hamstring pull more of that eccentric stretch that's happening in the outer glutes and outer thigh.

One more, bring it down, and then open it to the side coming up around for a single leg circle over. Now how big to make it? There are many people who would say stay inside the width of your mat. However, we've seen many in archival video where we see legs of dancers going way up out, and then the work to have to pull everything back across. If your clients use this range in their activities, let them use it here as well. Yes, we can reverse the circle to challenge the different parts of the hamstring, but either way, the real magic is in the a, b, duction to the a, d, deduction. Then we can actually, if you can, grab a hold of the spring, give an extra pull for a stretch, and then we're gonna slide the leg out and change legs.

Now, the table strap really secures this leg, allows me to keep engagement and opening in the front of the hip. If you don't have a table strap, if you have a leg weight or anything heavy that you could set on top of the top of your ankle, just to give your mind that proprioception of grounding and standing into this leg. I'm gonna bring the spring from across an opposite into my left. And up, hands to the bars, and this is a pushing action, not a pull. And your clients are always going to want to pull first.

However, if the spring is very heavy, As soon as they engage it, they will get pushed off the tower. So that is one reason for having a push of the arms. The other reason is if you were to do a handstand, you would push on the ground. Not pull your head into the floor. So I'm pushing myself tall and long, and we go into the low to the spring to the outer hip, let the spring help to the inner thigh to get the stretch in the outer hip.

Engaging into the load, inhale come across and over. I like to inhale and exhale at both parts of the work so that your hip stays engaged the whole time. Down across and a little bit up and down and up. And now we come down across and opening that circle to the functional range that your body or your client's body needs down around and up. This is actually my favorite way to do single leg circle for myself and my clients because this really is one of the hardest beginning fundamental exercises, and the spring really helps you figure out where your joints are and where your center line is. I'm gonna take a hold of the spring, whether I can get the clip or the loop or even the strap and give an extra pull, and then come back. Now whenever I do anything with one leg or one arm, I again wanna finish uniformly with both sides.

So we're gonna put both feet into straps and just do an easy frog. Hands to pulls, and now I'm gonna come down the mat just a little bit. Because with two legs moving, I've got a little bit more strength pressing seat to feet through the knees and out. The magic of the frog is actually returning into the hip flexion and knee flexion, against the stability of the lumbar spine. If we allow the flexion to tip the pelvis, we will miss the eccentric stretch of the hamstrings and deep glutes.

Because everything has now become about tip the pelvis in order to actually lift it. That's not really what I want for just a basic frog. What I want is a full squat that allows all of these posterior muscles to stretch and my back stay nice and strong. So that when I go to press back out, I'm going to engage all of the seat muscles and hamstring muscles, press towards the feet, squeeze inner thighs to come together. Inter thighs take an easy opening, and they don't need to go wider than the springs too much because we're not trying to say ballet dancer out.

Now, this is a very specific stylized variation called prayer feet that is used a lot for dancers who really need all of that external rotation. With this, It challenges my ability to let all of that posterior musculature stretch. And now it is much more load as I go to press back out into the springs and maintain that connection into center and pull back in. This variation is not for everyone. As you can see, I need to have ankle flexibility as well as hip flexibility for this, but it really does help give all of that nice external that some of us do need. We're gonna go ahead and take our feet out.

We'll just do a little easy sway side to side. And I'm gonna take my feet a little bit wider so that I can really allow a turning in and back open and rotate in and back open, getting my thighs ready for some lunging and some stretching that needs to happen through the anterior part of the thigh. We're gonna go ahead and sit up and now we're going to bring our push through bar into the mix. Bring your push through bar towards you and find your push through spring. We have a red here and clip it on and push your roll back bar just out of the way.

Sometimes it can get a little annoying. If you wanna take it off altogether, go for it. We're gonna start with an easy standard push through front. Knees can bend. If you've got a lot of hamstring flexibility, go ahead and start with your legs straight. It's a little bit more advanced. Pushing the bar up.

Instead of staying vertical perpendicular, we're going to come into a pitch forward which really is a pull and engaging of the hip flexors in the front of the hip, lift up tall. Curl tail, scoop the abs as the arms press into lats and into the upper abs, we keep that tail sitting out into our heels so we can find our spine stretch forward, bring us over into the push through. Curling from the tail. The initiation here is really important. If you do not initiate with the hips, you're gonna end up at a point where you're gonna get pushed back by the bar.

That is not what we want. We wanna keep a constant connection into the spring up over into the load, curling the tail, moving from that articulation of the pelvis, maintaining your abdominal connection so that you keep your flexion of your spine curling that tail, then lifting up with the spring. The joy of the spring above is it's helping us come back up into space and up into gravity. Whereas when we work spring below, we are working the compressive load of gravity. One more easy peasy standard push through, and I forward.

You have the option of dropping spring weight, if you need to, if you have a blue spring. And if you wanna go heavier, by all means, find yourself a green spring, up nice and tall. Now I love being on a raised mat or being on the Cadillac for the push through front because it allows us to make the stance a little bit wider. And on the raised tower mat, we can actually ground down into the floor. Giving us more of that lift.

From here, I wanna be vertical, and now I'm gonna take a bend of the elbows as I take that push of the bar forward. Then I'm gonna lead with the head, Find a spine stretch forward. And at this moment here, to keep moving the bar, I'm gonna reach tail back and chest forward. Curntail sits bones down, stack back up the elbows bend, and the bar comes back up. Here, I can take that same pitch. This now really challenges the flexibility of my inner thighs.

And you really have to feel the ability to roll across the front of the hip, making sure that your hip flexor doesn't actually lock on you. So we're gonna come back up tall, vertical to the floor, pull the bar, press it away. Now we start the articulation of the spine, changing from around towards a flat back, maybe a little extension, curl back into the grounding of the pelvis, coming back up to bent arms, and then pitch forward, adding that stretch across the front of the hips and inner thighs. This is actually a much nicer position to take the twist and reach into the bar as I pull on the pole, bringing the whole rotation, and I can even look back under this arm. This allows so much more of that pull across the opposite hip and coming back up.

And it just feels good. Now I am still very much pressing down with my feet. I'm not relaxed and sitting. I'm pressing to reach up. Coming back center.

Now we're gonna add a little bit of the idea of a horseback here. As I curl tuck, lift the legs and squeeze the mat with externally rotated thighs to really feel that inner thigh work. As I start to curve into the bar, I'm gonna find that idea of horseback, find a little bit of lift. Sit back down and bring the bar back up. Pull it into you.

Diver forward. Find the wrap and squeeze to and then sit back down and come back up. One more. Find that curve, lift and pull. Can you keep it and sustain it? Elbows bend and straighten and bend and straighten. Last one, bend and straighten.

Sit it back down. Bend the knees. Take the bar up one more time. And then return. Scooch back away from the bar a little bit. Now if you've got this mobility, I'm gonna inwardly rotate my back leg causing me to have to twist and it brings that back leg up.

Let it turn back out and roll. You'll see that better with this leg. I'm gonna start to internally rotate it, bring my pelvis and waist, and bring that leg up. Let it turn back out and come back down. If you don't have that much flexibility, simply bring up your feet and go back to the easy turn in sway. Turn in and sway.

Turn in and sway. It's a wonderful way after being so open to come back and get that movement of the thigh bone. If we do if you do have this flexibility, you could even take a curving forward and doing an extension and then bending of the knee, getting that hammy, glute, and hip flexor opening because of that work. Wonderful way to promote hip mobility, using the table. And I know that horseback seems very wide, but once you then go onto your long box, you're gonna feel so much more into center having put that strength here. We're now gonna come up kneeling both hands on the bar.

You saw me go into a little bit of cat, flat swan. I do not like to say cat cow, because if you call me a cow, we will have a problem. So we're gonna keep tall, stay on top of the knees, dive forward into the spring, and then find hips initiate to change the low back Here's the flat, and then I reach open the chest to the swan. Curle the tail through the cap, roll back up, making sure that it brings me back up into the opening. Now if you have a table strap and you're having a hard time getting into that hamstring initiation, you can use the strap over your feet to help keep you secured. One more time, press down. Curve forward, reach out. Great stretch for the shoulders here.

Pull back up and in, and up. If you don't keep the connectivity, then when you go for that shoulder stretch, it will be very uncomfortable, and it will look as if you are hanging, which has a very different look and a very different feel from engaged and reaching through space in two directions. One more time. Hanging, working. You want the work.

Curle the tail coming back up. I'm gonna bring my knees together. I'm gonna take one knee forward. This should be where you get the most concentrated stretch through the front of this thigh. Keeping engaged in the back, opening up. Now the front knee, if you can keep it parallel directly in front of you and have your hips square. Fantastic.

Some of us need to open the knee and foot over to the side a little bit so that you're square. Then when you're here, you're gonna dive forward pressing to a little bit of a lunge, not too much, because I want you to be able to bend this knee, and then I want you to be able to press up into your lunge, press up into a long front knee, pull back forward down in the knee and roll up. One more. Over. Now you can't let the bar get too far away from you because now I'm hanging and dropping.

You wanna feel the spring pushing up into you so that you can split weight between the legs. Press up into. Bend, come back down. Roll back up. Let's change legs.

Now I'm okay with keeping it forward and in line with my hip. Again, if you need to open it a little bit, that's absolutely okay. I'm gonna curve forward. Find the back toes tuck. As I let the spring help feed my core work, I come up into the back of the pelvis, come back forward and down, and stack back up. One more going forward, tuck the toes, lift, come back down, and up. And I'm only doing two maybe three reps because now I'm gonna turn side on for a little bit of mermaid.

With two knees down, press the bar, easy side stretch into that spring, which very much is pushing into me coming back up. Now outside leg from the bar comes up into a kneel. We now are gonna get more work and stretch through the adductors. Press the bar curve over and actually now press hips away from the bar. Come back on top of that knee, stack back up.

One more. Over stretch out away from the bar, loading into that inner thigh as it stretches, coming back over and up. I'm gonna go ahead and let the bar come up. Turn around to the other side. Both knees down, easy mermaid coming back up and bar returns. One more. And we've already warmed up this stretch with what we did with our one armed work with the roll back bar.

Take that leg out to the side, press the bar down, going over, and then letting the pelvis press away from the bar into that inner thigh and hip. Press back up and return, last one, and over, and up, and return. Coming back around, I'm gonna go ahead and stand up to give you a standing version of that, which actually feels really, really, really good in your hips. So in your stand, a little bit of external rotation, so that we have hip mobility accessibility. Hand to the bar, arm goes up.

Keep your pelvis still and quiet. Just go from the waist over and come back up. One more. Now this is a longer stretch for your side and come back up. Now go over, allow the pelvis to come away from the bar. You have to bring the pelvis back up under center as you come up And this is where I like to take an oppositional stretch coming up over, press the bar, add the hip and pelvis, come back up, and an oppositional stretch the other way.

We want the pelvis to be able to move in all directions on top of the legs, and sometimes we do not allow enough of that to happen when we're working our lateral work. We're gonna turn around to the other side. And press the bar down, keep the pelvis still. Like so many of us are taught to do with all of our lateral work. Don't move the pelvis and back up.

However, If we really want full range, we need to let the pelvis mobilize and be able to return one more over and come back up, and take the oppositional stretch to the other side. One more time. Press the bar down. Side bend over. Allow the hips to press out away. Return and take the oppositional stretch the other way.

Return. We're gonna come forward, take the spring off and carefully lower the bar. We're almost done stepping down, have a seat. We're gonna get a really nice final hamstring stretch and an opening in the front of the opposite hip. I've got this is my right foot. Let's place it on the table, and I'm really sitting off the table with this sits bone.

Opposite hand left hand grabs ahold of the bar. My right hand is holding the other side of the table. I'm gonna take a contraction, and then I'm going to lift and slide the left leg back. Already you can see the idea of front splits on the reformer. And just an easy bend to that knee and press, lifting abs, stretching hamstring in the front, quad and thigh in the back leg, and then here a little external rotation, and back to parallel.

A little bit of external and back to parallel. One more and in. I'm gonna draw that leg in, but then I'm actually going to fold this front knee, move over into the mat a little bit. And now we're in an easy pigeon where again I can stretch back into that back leg and have an easy supported twist to really get at all the muscles in the back of his hip. Let's go ahead and take that all over to the other side, scoot over, left foot into the pole, right hand grabs, left hand to the outside, slide the leg back, And just as we did on the other side, I'll be it. You may not be able to see it. I'm going to bend that back knee and straighten it and a bend and a stretch.

And then a little externally rotate that thigh, come back into parallel. It's okay. If it twists the pelvis in low back, it actually should. And then we'll return, find the fold of the front knee, move over just a little bit, stretch into that back leg, forward into your pigeon stretch, add a twist towards that thigh, and get that final opening in the back of that hip. Deep breathe and exhale. You've gotten a great stretch for all the muscles of the hips and thighs.

You've articulated and opened up all of the muscles of your spine and core. And you were also able to get a good elongating stretch in the shoulders, all under load so that you're getting stronger as you stretch.