Spine Corrector Glow

I never regret a workout, and that is especially true when I work out with my dear friend, the spine corrector. Won't you join me? Let's do some standing lunges. Let's face the hump of the spine corrector. Stand with your hands behind your head really tall. We're gonna take one foot forward, step onto the dome, and stand back up.

Let's warm up the body with these lunges. Step forward onto the apex, lunge, and stand. I'm really looking forward to this workout because the spine corrector gives us so many ways to connect to our body, open up our extension, twist an arthoracic spine. I've got some treats for us today. But before we get down on the spine corrector, I wanted to add some of these lunges just to make sure we get the blood flowing, we have our connection with each other and the breath.

Let's do this a few more times before we do a standing roll down, standing on top of that spine corrector. One more time on each leg, march it out my Pilates soldiers, and let's do a roll down to take inventory on how we feel today in this moment. Now safely step on to the step of the spine corrector, with your feet parallel hip distance, notice right away the stretch in the back of the legs, and drop your chin to your chest, soften your knees, scoop in your abs, and roll yourself down so you increase the stretch, not only in the legs, but now feeling the stretch in the back, then scoop in your abs, roll yourself up. Now I do a lot of roll ups with this, but with this incline, it definitely forces me to be a little more mindful as I roll down one bone at a time, and it's also very satisfying to have that stretch through the back of my calves that Achilles one more time, soften through the ankles, this third time settling in, giving the body permission to take it all in, and safely come off. And let's do some rollbacks, having a seat on the step at the front of the spine corrector.

So for your rollbacks, Let's set up for success, bringing our tailbone to the front, pulling our abs in, settling our back waist on the hump of the spine corrector, holding on to your thighs for our first variation, round it back as you feel your back waist touch the hump and lift yourself up to a seat. Do that about two or three times so you can feel the back waist. You can hear yourself breathe. And now let's go a little bit deeper. So I'm gonna scoot a little bit forward because I'm gonna be rolling back for that chest lift, hand over hand, elbows point forward, abs in tight.

I want you to expand over the hump, up and over, and then lift your chest, lift your gaze, and come on up. Good. Inhale exhale one bone at a time like a xylophone through the ribs, Oh my goodness. That feels so good. Lift your head, your chest, pull up through the abs. Do that one more time before we try the full roll up.

Exhale, naval to spine, use your abs to lift your chest, lengthen the spine with the hands as well. Great. Option, both legs straight, tailbone to the front, arms, hollow out your body. Arms are up and roll down your spine. Keep your legs where they are as if there was a strap there to keep you in place and extend over the arc over the hump. Arms come up first, then the head.

Pull your abs in and find that hollow body position at the top. Do that again about three more times. Find the lowest vertebra. I encourage the space. And then articulate the movement on the way up.

First the head, and then peel up and over. This is the last one. Expand, grow another inch, grow a few more centimeters. Up and over. Arms up, head up, pulling in and up. Let's go into our series of five.

A little bit different on the spine corrector. I love having this little nook To find this high c curve, as we explore our familiar positions, remember that single leg stretch outside hand to the ankle, inside hand to the knee, make sure that you find a nice little nook. I'm gonna scoot myself a little further forward to get a little deeper into my abs so I can find the balance, single leg stretch, two way stretch, knee to the nose, and stretch and use your abs to pass the legs from side to side. The abs are the control center for the work. One more time on each side. Keep that connection into the hump as you bring your heels together, toes apart, double leg stretch, biceps to the ears, and circle the arms.

Make sure your knees, bend at the distance of your hips, so you're staying in your frame, pull in the abs. Keep the abs drawn in as you two ways stretch away and pull in tight. Let's do that two more times. Imagine when you stretch away that your arms and your legs are being pulled in two different directions. Like a medieval torture chamber, or maybe we can think of a nicer image.

What about a nice tie massage? That's better. Scissors grab at the ankle, not the calf, kick and pull, switch. Pass the legs in the air and switch. I love that the spine corrector forces me to maintain balance.

I notice it's much more difficult for me to lift my left leg, and I don't notice that when I go on the mat with the scissors. So that's telling me a lot that my left hip flexor might be a little tight, and that's why we do our familiar exercises every day, and they're just never the same. Are they? No two scissors are ever alike. One more time on each side. Both legs up, heels together toes apart, start with the eyes and the feet in alignment, lower, lower, lower, lift, lift, lift.

Holy moly. Without the leg support in the front of this fine corrector, I am feeling my thighs. Oh, baby. And I promise I would do eight of these. So I'm gonna do three more and I'm gonna breathe through it. And know that each moment, every workout is a gift, even when we shake and start to cry a little bit.

Chris Cross. I see you. Twist. Reach. Less neck. More thoracic.

Use the hump of the spine corrector to go up and over and twist. Allow it to give you some feedback to press against and to roll off to articulate the movement one more time each side. Before we take a moment, rock yourself up. And this is just the warm up. Let's go for a teaser facing front.

Important that the tailbone comes to the front of the step, roll yourself back and find your teaser position, eyes in line with the feet, arms in line with the legs. Let's begin with teaser one, upper body, down a little up a little just two more times. Down a little. Up a little. I'm shaking. Down a little. Up a little.

Stay here. Lower lift the legs three times. Two times. Three times. Upper body, arms to the ears, lower yourself down as much or as little as you want today. Arms up first. Head comes up. Lift yourself up. Two more times.

Roll the ribs over the arc. Bring the arms up. Bring the head up. Lift yourself up. One more time.

With control, bring yourself up, feet down, amazing work so far. Let's go for some side sit ups, find a straight line from the foot the hip, the shoulders, we're getting long and narrow in this plane of field here. So cradling the head, let's try our best to keep that bottom leg down as we cradle the head up and over, exhale, up and lift, lengthen through the pump line through the crown of your head, up and over, exhale lift. I love the idea of melting my ribs down, and then peeling them back up. There is no better exercise that gets the waistline, the side profile, the obliques. Nothing hits quite like a side up.

Especially on the spine corrector where it really helps us understand that side flexion, ideally, what it would be without. One more time, up and over. Keep your chest open. Stay looking at me. And we are going to add a porta bra.

So come a little forward so you've got space to roll back. You're gonna take both arms overhead, hook the thumbs, and then circle the back arm around to come forward and lift. So we go up and over, circle the arm behind you, circle the arm back where you found it, and lift two more times. Up and over. I feel like I'm synchronized swimming here. I love when Pilates feels like a dance.

Up and over, expand the thoracic spine, find that rotation. Some of my favorite exercises on the spine corrector today. Great job. Let's do side two. We'll begin with those side sit ups. So again, negotiate the perfect place where the heel, the hip, everything is stacked, everything is long and narrow, pull in your center, cradle the head with both hands, elbows point forward, and let's melt over the barrel.

Up and over and lift. And the idea here is that we transfer this information, this rehearsal from the spine corrector, we put this into our side sit ups. On the reformer, on the ladder barrel. Keep that bottom leg down as if you have that strap, we've practiced with that before. Up and over.

Let's do three more. Stretch. And lift. Last two. And then my favorite, that beautiful porta bra, both arms reach. Now make sure you scoot a little forward, especially if you're taller like I am.

Gonna circle that back arm, luxuriously sweeping it back to that lateral flexion and lift. Let's do that three more times. Up and over, circle around, back, and lift. Last two, roll through melt like butter one more time, over, breathe, expand. And lift.

Let's go into our classic leg series, bringing ourself just at the front of the apex so we can roll safely onto our back. Onto our shoulders and back ribs, and let's find a sweet spot. Once we bring our legs up, we'll know if it's working for us. Both legs are up, heels together toes apart, sacrum, right on the top of the apex, We're gonna start by squeezing the legs in for our beats in, in, in the distance of the mat, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, three, two, one, hold it, reach the legs a little bit lower, a little bit longer, abs in, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, five four three two one. Lower the legs just a little bit lower and see if you can get those beats a little more percussive, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, breathe.

Hold it, bring it back up a little bit, make sure that low back still is on the top. And let's beat ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, or three, two, one. Back up where we began. Let's see how these beats feel now. In, in, in, in, there are those inner thigh muscles in, in, in, in, three, two, one, bicycle. Take your right foot.

Brush the arc. Brush the step and lift. Left foot brush the arc and the step, and let's keep brushing. I remember the first time doing bicycles on the spine corrector, and my mind was boggled It really does give you the tools to perform this exercise because you have to roll through both the barrel, the step, and then press through, but then having to alternate always a challenge and always encouragement to get that full range of motion to make sure your bicycles, whether you're performing them on the side, whatever bicycles you are doing in your life, that they get that full range up and over, up and over, and all the muscles can benefit. One more time, both legs up for scissors, lower one leg at a time, reach that leg long out of the hip, squeeze to come back up. Lower the left leg, sweet, squeeze to come back up.

Let's go. Beep, beat, and lift, lower one leg, beat, beat, and lift that extra beat demonstrating control, connecting deeper into our pelvic floor. Again, the benefits here, we get to isolate the exercise, taking it out of our back, putting it into our low abs and allowing us to connect deeper to our pelvic floor. One more time on each side, burlesque legs. I always mention showgirls or burlesque performances at some point in class. Right leg up left leg out, circle the right to the right, left to the left, and scissor up, passing the legs.

Do that again. Circle right to the right, left to the left. Just a variation on our leg circles today to spice things up. You know, I love to keep your attention. Let's switch directions left to the left, right, to the right, up the center line.

Boom. Inhale deeply, exhale deeper. Circle left to the left, right to the right. Let's do that one more time for the ultimate burlesque leg performance lubricating those hips ready for battle. And place those feet onto the step, lift your hips and push away the spine corrector so you can get a nice reward with your legs resting on the barrel.

The arms laid out. And take a moment just to scan the body head to toe and notice how you feel. And let's go for some prone exercises on top of our spine corrector. So roll to one side, bring yourself up, swan dive, One of my favorite ways to do this exercise because the spine corrector will, again, reveal everything we need to know. So abs are gonna go right on the top of the apex, The hands are gonna come out and right away make any adjustments because our goal is to lower the chest and lift the legs in perfect connected harmony.

So abs lift up legs lift, chest lowers, and lifts. I'm gonna come a little forward. Everyone's got different proportions here. So find what works for you. Chest down legs up. Much better for me.

How does it feel at home? Down up? Good. And try to find a little fun friendly flow here as you breathe. As you keep your low back long, and supported with the use of your abs.

The spinae erector muscles act as two columns along the spine supporting us. These are our back abs at work one more time, and let's go for swimmers. A very difficult exercise, always a challenge. Let's begin with bird dog. So one arm out at a time, opposite leg preparing for swimmers.

Now last few bird dog as we prepare for swimming, Imagine something you're scared of in the ocean. And imagine you have to swim away, but with perfect control and connection through your center. So everybody find that place between the hit points, just in front of the apex, arms come up, legs go back and start swimming opposite arm and leg. Breathe swim. Breathe swim.

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Three two, and one. Great job. Bring yourself up for a little decompression, rounding forward, and then slowly rolling yourself up.

With all this newfound powering connection, I'm ready for some push ups. I don't know about you. But let's come to the front of the mat. Bring your arms up and round it forward. Walk your hands forward.

Onto the spine corrector and give me three of your best push ups. Inhale down, exhale up. Exhale push one more time. Hinge back, walk your hands back to your feet, and slowly roll yourself up. We're gonna do that one more time.

I love having the spine corrector feels really good on my wrists here for the push ups. Roll yourself down. Also giving us a little bit of an incline to work with shoulders down the back, long neck, work the abs, work the whole body down and up. Inhale down, exhale up. Let's do three more.

Push two, adding a few extra push ups. Oh, yeah. Pike the hips back, walk it back, roll it up. As your reward, we're gonna finish with the arm series. So roll come down and let's roll our back onto the barrel.

The key to success here is to find the perfect place. So when you roll back, want your chin up, but you want to be able to breathe. You should be able to sing. You should be nice and comfortable now. See if you can find even more connection by melting the ribs wide shoulders, straighten out the legs, arms reach up to the heavens, reach back for circles around and up.

Enjoy having the support with that upper body extension here and then circle the arms the other way, circling down, around and up, continue to press through the legs, squeezing the legs together, pulling the abdominals in and up as you enjoy the circles. One more time, one arm up, one arm down, find the two ways stretch. Imagine someone's pulling you in two directions. One more time. And of course, we finish with a hug.

Wrap one arm over the other. Give yourself a well earned hug for hit and play. Open your heart exhale. Give yourself another hey, hug for being a pilates anytime member. And one hug to each other.

I love working out with you. Arms up to the sky, lift your head first and round yourself up and over for your final stretch with me in our spine corrector workout. So proud of you. Thanks for working out with me and my little friend here. Let's do it again sometime. Great job.