Creative Balance Reformer

Hi. I'm Misty Lynn Cauthen, and thanks for joining me for this reformer class. We're gonna start off with one red spring. The foot bar is going to be in the low bar position, and we'll begin by standing into the well. We will step carefully into the well, and we'll make sure we have one red spring on, or if that's a little too heavy, you can go to a blue spring. I'd like for you to stand maybe a foot's length away from the forward edge, the closest edge of the reformer, with your arms straight ahead, I call this zombie, find your standing posture, and I'm in pilates stance.

If you need to separate your heels a little bit, that's fine too. Now from here, spread your toes like a duck, and then you're going to just lift the heels up and lower the heels down. As we're lifting and lowering, I want you to check-in with the front of the leg and the back of the leg. Try to feel like everything is working evenly as we go. Big breath in, exhale flex the knees, feel like you're sliding down a wall. And as you straighten the knees, feel the energy going down into the floor as you're standing up.

Let's do one more. Hold. Take a big breath across your back. And then exhale nod the chin to the chest. Find your shoulder blocks and press the pads of your fingertips into the middle of the blocks here. Take a big breath in and let's extend crown of the head and tail to the ceiling.

Make sure you're rotating your armpits forward here. Exhale. Let the gaze come down to the pubic bone as you round the spine. And as we do two more cat and cows here, think of your spine being super long and stretchy, like taffy, not rigid, like a ruler. Let's do one more because this feels so good. We'll scoop around the spine here and hold.

Check in to find your weight balance between the hands and the heels, hands in the feet, and then you pull the carriage in, exhale dragging it in, keeping your round shape of your spine, and freeing the neck. Let's do one more here. Release the carriage without leaning backward. So slide your fingertips along the shoulder blocks to stand tall. We'll take another breath as we lift the heels Keep the inner thighs affixed here, nodding the chin to the chest, rounding over, find the fingertips.

Same places last time. Pull in. I call these pit pulls because you wanna feel like the work is happening in your armpits, not in the backs of your knees. Now we'll go to lower the heels and flatten the back. Keep the armpits rotating forward.

So my elbow pits are pointing at the foot bar My back is staying flat, and I'm bending my elbows like I'm doing a push up to straighten. I'm feeling my triceps engaging. And as I'm doing this, I'm keeping my bottom rib rings neutral. So no arching, please. One more here. And now with a flat back, find your release of the shoulder blocks.

Very nice. From here, open the arms just for a break. Take a big breath in. Exhale. You'll pick up the right leg into your chest. So just a standing knee fold.

Hold your balance here. For a single breath, we're warming up. So you don't need to be aggressive, but you do need to really figure out where your weight needs to be over your standing leg. This is the flamingo. We'll bring the hands down this way.

And then from here, let's just extend the leg straight behind, finding your square pelvis, pulling the knee back into the other knee, and two more spine stays neutral. And exhale pull in. And let's do one more reach and hold. Now, shoulders and gaze stay where they are, pelvis is going to rotate I call this a wink, and then square. As I'm doing this, I can take a quick look down at my standing leg to make sure my knee isn't turning with me.

My top hip is doing the rotating. My top leg is just going along with. And now I'm going to find that round shape to come back into that standing knee fold, check my balance at the top and bring the leg down. Second side. Pick the leg up.

Draw it in and hold. Checking in with your balance. It's okay if your foot is wobbling because that's just your body saying, I'm gonna figure this out. Now bring the knee down for your flamingo. Find your shoulder blocks.

Really, keep your standing hamstring engaged, and we'll take the leg straight back, and pull it back in. Two more, hamstring to heel. That's where the length is coming from. So you're not done until that knees, poke her straight, hold it here, and we'll rotate the pelvis the other way. Remember the shoulders are staying square.

Two more rotate. And when you square, you may have to go a little bit extra to level off your seat here. Let's do one more rotating. And squaring off. Now here's the hard part.

Pull the knee past the flamingo. Pull the knee up to the chest, and then release. Now we're going around the world in this, so we're going to step out and come over to the foot bar, have a seat, and you have options here. So if your hips and knees don't like to z sit, you can keep your free leg either out, or inside of the headrest. If you can z sit, depending upon your height, you may wanna be a little closer or further away from the foot bar.

So starting with a mermaid, I'd like the free hand to come behind the head And I'd like for you to be able to see your inner elbow in your peripheral vision, standing arm is straight. The idea is we're pouring our brains out into the well side bending. And then to come up, lengthen through the bottom side. Get to your tallest height, check-in with your sits bone on the inside to make sure it stays as heavy as yours can stay. At the moment, we'll do one more here, side bending up and over.

And then we're going to rotate. So turn from your naval, look beneath your armpit, bring that elbow around. Go back into the c curve here, and then come all the way up. Now counter stretching to the opposite side, grab hold of the shoulder block. Imagine your body in a toaster slat.

You're not leaning forward or back. You're staying true to the side. Take your biggest side bend. Rotate over the shoulder block. Get the stretch where you can, then we're gonna bring both arms forward and flatten the back, lengthen up, stretching the outside hip here.

Release will turn around to face the risers. Just as a reminder, we are on one red spring. If that's too light for you, just add a blue. We'll start with the knuckles to the breastbone. You're sitting up nice and tall.

Big breath in here, start by curling the pubic bone toward your nose to roll back, keep your gaze neutral, meaning not up or down just straight away. As you scoop, Let the pubic bone curl without squeezing your buns too tightly. It's not a buns exercise, and then we're rolling back up. Let's do one more here, exhale scooping and curling. Rounding back and will hold.

Starting at the naval, I'd like for you to inhale and rotates of one side, keep the carriage stable, and go the other way. If stable is challenging for you, you may be pulling more with your arms than rotating with your trunk. And let's do one more here closing this out. Return to center. Roll up to sit tall.

Your tallest spine with your gaze again, straightaway on the horizon, we'll bring the arms up, and I'd like to switch the cross of the legs here. Elbows are shoulder height, make fists for me with a tall spine. Will inhale hinge back. Flat back gaze is still straight ahead, and we're coming up. This is not about how far back you can go.

It's about how long you can stay. Can you keep your vertebrae stacked? One on top of the next on top of the next hold here. Biceps curls, we extend the arms to straight, and we curl without dropping the elbows, or losing the spinal alignment. Do one more?

And we're coming up, dropping the loops on the well, second side for the mermaid. Again, You'll see this is my tight hip. It's really hard for me to get this sits bone down, but I'm thinking about it. And one day, my sits bone will sit down, but not today. So the hand is behind the head, and I'm rotating my armpit forward so I can see my inner elbow pit, and I'm side bending. I curl up and over, pouring my brains into the well as I side bend.

Think of your spine as looking like a baby shrimp or macaroni, I might be hungry, as we side bend. Two more here. Really, really think how wide can your collarbone stay? One more here, we're side bending over. And then we're rotating, turning from the naval, looking under the armpit, unfurling to square up. Now if your hip creaked up there, I'd like for you to try to sit the hip down as you return back up.

The free hand is gonna come to the shoulder block. We're side bending up and over, keeping the collar bones wide, keeping the back broad. And now exhale rotate, finally shoulder block with the other hand. If you can't reach, hand to knee works as well. Take a moment's stretch here. On the exhale, we'll just sweep forward, reach the spine long, flat back stretching now the outside hip on this side.

And then we'll release. To transition to our backs, we're going to go to we're doing footwork. So you can go to three springs, you can go to four springs, you can even go to five springs, But I want you to choose the spring load that'll allow you to challenge yourself. Your feet will be wide here in second position, and my weight is on the heel pockets. Spine is neutral and PS.

My arms are alert and alive. They're not limp noodles, not today anyway. And from my under butt through the soles of my feet, I'm lengthening, and I'm pulling back in. The springs aren't pulling me, I'm controlling the springs. And this is a really great time to just go through your checklist.

What's going on in your spine? Are your toes crossing over one another? Where are the tension points and can you let them go? Two more here. Inhale to lengthen away and exhale activate to pull in.

Last one. And now we'll mash potatoes. So will push out here internally rotate from the femur, pull in, close the carriage to turn out and push. It's really important, guys, that we're working through the whole width of the foot We're not letting the ankle beveling do the work. And now we'll reverse it here keeping the knees and the toes touching or reaching toward each other, turn out in the hip joint and pull in.

You'll notice that I'm keeping my pelvis stable, even though sometimes I do wanna let my pelvis curl to make this a little bit easier, but I'm on best behavior today for all of you. Let's do one more just because it feels good, and we're coming in closing the carriage just a single bridge here. So think of pulling the carriage toward the foot bar and the foot bar toward the carriage, curl your pubic bone towards your nose. And think of floating, levitating up and off of the mat, inhale at the top, start at the breastbone, not rolling down, instead think of rolling away, like you're ironing out a fruit roll up. Finding neutral. Now we'll roll up to transition.

I'd like for your legs to be long on the footbar, either all the way together or hip width. If you need assistance, You can grab hold beneath the bar like this or even this way. Arms go up to the ceiling, inhale. Not the chin of the chest, exhale, bringing your breastbone up and over your pubic bone. Find your tallest position. Allow your arms to float up, inhale here. Now exhale.

I challenge you. Move from the pubic bone, not the rib cage. Feel like you are In a poll, you are a synchronized swimmer and you are just gracefully gradually rolling back down. We'll do one more here and change the spring. So big breath, exhale nod scoop, peeling up and off of the mat, gaze is ahead, not down.

And once you get here, we'll go to just two red springs. Find your height. I challenge you to count down from eight. Keeping the breastbone and the gaze on the level for as long as you can. Seven six five four three two, here we are on one, and we're grabbing our loops. We'll do a little bit of feet and straps, so scoop your belly, pick your legs up, put your arches in, And then just figure out where you need to be in terms of comfort and stability. We'll start with the legs straight up.

Find that place where you're feeling the length of the hamstrings without blowing into the backs of the knees. We'll start with boxes. So I'm only opening to the width of the carriage. I'm from my under butt through the backs of my heels, pressing the legs away. I'm zipping the legs together, and then I'm coming back up. Two more like this, really work on the symmetry.

I'm doing this slowly because I want us to have the opportunity to really feel where one leg may want to bully the other and see if we can control it at, reverse. I'm pressing away. I'm opening. I'm floating back up, and I'm closing. Two more like this.

And on the last one, we'll bring the legs straight up. And together, and then we'll bend into a diamond position. Now rather than just having the heels together, I'd like for you to think of the ins seams of the heels coming together. So your feet are flat like you're standing on them. Find the knees beginning over the center of the hip.

Keeping the angle of the knees as we press away, and we exhale come back up. So you may not feel it this way, but there's actually a lot of front body back body balancing happening here. And since the theme of this session is balanced, I'd really like for you to really see if you can sense that between the abdominals and the low back, the push and pull that's happening here. Good. Now we'll press the leg straight away. Open the legs wide.

This is swimming frog, bend the knees without moving the carriage, find the heels touching, press away, split, fold one more. I press away. I split the fold is coming from my knees, not my femurs. So I'm pulling this together, and then I'm reversing. I'm extending through my inner thighs, zipping my heels together, bending two more. And again, think symmetry. Don't let your bully leg take over.

And turn the legs parallel, flex the knees. Now this one could be a little bit challenging. So if you find it to be challenging, that's okay. Use your breath. We're going to inhale. And then we're going to exhale keep the space between the ribs and the thighs.

Just roll over. And then iron your spine down and away back to the mat. Oh, p s. Your arms must be working here now is not the time to wait for the snack cart. Instead, keep the energy through the back body. Keep the gaze straight up to the ceiling. One more exhale scoop. Roll and lift.

Stay here, and then we'll roll down bone by bone until we find the mat. Well done. Slipping out of your loops, bring your feet down to the foot bar, And for this transition, we'll bring our feet to the frame. Arms go up. We inhale. And again, exhale start from the head. Let the gaze inform your direction, curling up, curling up, curling up, I'm gonna get stuck.

So I'm just going to use my arms for assistance. Excellent job. Now we'll grab our boxes. As you grab your box, I'd like for you to really just pay attention to how you're walking through your feet to get it. Instead of plopping, think of your height, thinking of stretching through your legs, will come around, change the position of the footbar to flat. And spring wise, anything from two reds down to one blue depending upon the strength of your shoulders?

Because we're going into some pulling straps variations. To mount, put one hand on each corner, swing one leg up, keeping your carriage closed, you'll float down, bring the other leg up. For this specific exercise, I'd like for your chest to stay on the box. Now we're choking up. We're grabbing long.

And for our first foray into pulling straps, we're just gonna first allow the head and the legs to come down. So to come back up into our start position, I'd like for you to think of lifting your legs from your underbud, right, where your hamstring and your glutes come together. So I'm reaching the legs away and I'm not lifting so high that I arch my back or even feel my back at all. Lakes are hip width, then the head is going to come up to the level. My gaze is on the back edge of the reformer.

I'm making fists because I like it, and it's also better for my shoulders and hands. Opening my chest, I'm gonna pull the arms straight back. I'm going to do a tricep press, and then I'm going to come Back to neutral. Two more here. Bended stretch? Really get through the elbows without locking.

I really wanna be cognizant of my triceps As I'm pushing back, I'm thinking of pushing through my little finger without casting in my wrist, and we'll do one more here. Again, think about your pinky fingers, like, you have like, you're waiting for tea and crumpets. So the pinky line of the wrist in hand is reaching back without break breaking or casting through the wrist, we're strong here, and we're coming forward. Let the head stretch down. In fact, give your legs a moment, because the next one will be a little bit tricky. Okay.

Moment is over. We're going to leave the head where it is, but return to that under butt. Leggs are long, and they're long from the back of the leg and where the glute comes together, not just the knees. Here we go. So this is jumping rope. We're going to pull straight back and come up into small extension.

Arms will circle around, and as they come forward and down, civil your head. Again, we're pulling down as we're lifting up, opening the collar bones, stretching around and down. Check-in with your low back on this one. Make sure that as you're lifting here, The extension is from the neck and the upper back and not from the low back. We're reversing. This is tough. So I'm going to open, lift, stretch up into my extension.

Come back down, gently resting the carriage to come right back up. One more for good measure, straight elbows pull, And then we'll come back down, closing the carriage, slipping the loops onto the pegs, and stepping off carefully, of course. We'll remove the box, And sometimes it'll suction the carriage, which is fun. It's a little extra to your workout. I wanna go into one thing here.

We're gonna go back to two red springs or red and a blue spring. We'll lie back down, and we're going to grab the loops. Now we just did that work for the upper back. Can we maintain it when we're back in supine. So let's just do a few arms reaches and pulls here.

Thinking about the wide collar bones, the connections from the middle back through the armpit through the fist. Now we'll go into an ab curl as the arms come down, hold, legs will extend to your low position. Keep curling the breastbone up, iron cross, the arms will open wide, and then come back in. Two. We'll do one more here.

Open open open, open, and then when you close, see if you can curl up a little bit extra there. And we'll go into bat wings here. So my elbows are staying in toward my side body. I'm maintaining my abdominal curl, reach long, flex the knees, come back down and close the carriage. Slip the loops back on your pegs, grab hold behind the thighs, look at your naval and rock up to sit up.

And now we're going to bring the foot bar back up carefully. And let's put it on the middle position for lunges. Your back foot is conform to the shoulder block as much as you can while keeping your toes down. So if you don't have the flexiest toes, you may wanna grab a towel or put something behind your arch and up against the block. Your shin will be up against the foot bar here, find your level pelvis, your good, tall standing posture here, and allow your back leg to push the carriage back?

And pull it back in and press from the under butt through the arch. Pull from the quadricep through the top of the foot. Hold it here. Bring one arm up. Same thing, gaze and breast bones stay level.

Two more. Think of keeping the pubic bone curled a little bit more towards your nose here. Both arms go up. Same idea pressing back and pulling not in, but up. How tall can you be?

I for one will be five eight by the time this exercise is over. Now I'm coming in cartwheeling my arms down, finding my good grip lengthening through my elbows and rotating the armpits forward. Now this is a glute endeavor. Use your cheeks. We're going to press back to lift the back leg. Pull it under. Don't let it rest.

Two. One. One more for good measure. Push back. Come in with straight legs. Now the bar can come away from the platform, step the leg forward, switching legs, find your platform, and with grace and dignity, float the leg down.

Double check your posture, your standing leg, and foot should be in alignment, so don't leave the foot too wide. Finding your foot bar. Finding your foot pressing into your shoulder block, pressing back. And pulling up and in. You'll notice that one side is a little bit more flexible, resist the urge to give in to that flexibility.

I still want you to think of the energy going up. One arm goes up. Same idea. I'm getting taller as I reach back and taller still as I bring the Caribbean. Let's do one more here.

Pulling up and in both arms are up, we're reaching. Same idea. Pulling up, up, up, keeping both hip bones looking at the wall in front of you. Let's do one more. Close the carriage gently.

Cart Willie arms around. Hold, remember the glute endeavor. Here we are again. We're going to press back and now pull the carriage in. And two more, working the front of the leg and the underbud at the same time, Pull it in, good measure, push it back, drag the carriage in and up, and stepping back, keeping both hands on the footbar step off.

Now we're in the final stretches. We're going to step back into the well carefully. As always, we're revisiting what we started with to see How did we land? How did we fare? Do we feel stronger? Are we tired? I'm tired, but we're gonna make this work.

So just a few exercises from this series that's returned to the zombie arm position, Pilati Stans. Bending the knees sliding the spine along the wall, straightening up through the back line, two more. P s breathing is fundamental. Don't stop breathing now. From here, without too much of a rock forward, Dom the arches to lift the heels up and float them back down.

Two more, lift, and lower. One more lift, and lower the heels. Round your spine, find the shoulder blocks, open your back. We're going to go into that wink right away. Like, it'll go back behind you, finding your balance, Wink. Oh, nollie. This feels so much better.

Two more. And we're going to add on this time square up, pull your carriage toward you. And two, and one, bring the knee under you, round your spine, dome it as much as you can without compromising your shoulders. Lengthen through the spine to a flat back, pull the knee in, take the leg back, behind you, find square, and then wink. Keeping your standing leg straight and your standing knee straight ahead.

Square, one more, keep the ribs picking up into the back, and pull the cares toward you three. Two, and one. Round the spine, dome your arches and roll up, up, up, and we did it. Thank you for joining me for this performer session.