Power Core Reformer

Hi. I'm Jamie. Welcome to this reformer workout. We're gonna start to build our practice, maybe put in a few more advanced exercises. And we're gonna take a look at how shapes in space might repeat themselves across the workout but with a different relationship to load or or gravity perhaps. And then we'll also take a look at how this helps us build some control and some strength.

So we're gonna begin over by the reformer. I want you just stand nice and tall. I'm starting on four springs. You that's four heavy springs. But you're welcome to find what works for you for your footwork.

That's what we're beginning with. So stand nice and tall. Folding our arms, lifting our head up to the ceiling, and then just very gently with control, lower yourself down onto the carriage, and we're swing on to our backs. Feet on the footbar heels together toes apart, and take a moment just to connect, get the powerhouse engaged, so abs in and up, glutes in our thighs, and let's work on that shoulder girdle as well because it's all gonna come in handy as we continue through this workout. So let's press the carriage out.

Draw the carriage back home. Length in your body as we do so. Let's go five more. Last one, press out and draw the carriage home. Onto our arches now wrap your feet over the footbar.

Vise together, let's press out and back for 10. That's it. Keeping anchored as we press out as well. It's not just the legs working the whole body. One more. Bring that carriage home onto your heels now.

Same thing. Stay engaged. Stay connected as we press out and draw home. Scoop the abs to reach out. Engage the seat to draw the carriage back in. Let's go five more.

And on this last one, I want you to press all the way out really feel that length from your heels. So we're working in opposition. Heels pressing one way, buddy reaching the other. Find that length so we can transition onto our toes stay lifted and then press our heels through the gap, lift our heels back up for tendon stretch. We got a nice stretch here, but not just the backs of the legs.

I want the whole back body stretching. So as your heels press in one direction, reaching with the top of our head in the other direction, just a few more of these. We can see how this shape is gonna repeat itself in a minute when we move into the hundreds. So let's do one more of these to stretch the heels through, lift them up, and we'll bring the carriage home. So we'll lower the foot bar. And what I want us to do is to stretch our legs out.

So we're repeating that same position and we're moving into our 100 from here. So the first thing I want you to get is that wrap, that glute connection in a thighs, chin to chest and we come up into our 100. We're gonna pump our arms here so breathing in. Press the air out the lungs. And again, now if this feels like you're hanging in the hip flexors or a little bit too much at this moment.

You can always bend your knees in. But let's see if we can hold that position and pump our arms. Good vigorous pumps. Full breaths in. Full breaths out. So two more breaths.

Breathe it in. Press the air out the lungs. Last ones. And then bring the arms, legs up to the ceiling. Handle into one hand.

Sit yourselves up And we've dropped down to just two springs, two heavy springs, and we'll lower the headrest down. That's important. So moving into an exercise called the overhead. So from here, I want us to think about those same connections. It's a good opportunity to stretch and connect in the back body.

So legs lower away over, and we press up. And then let's bring that down. The slow and controlled as we can. Feet staying over the face. And again, just two more of these.

That's all we've gotta do. If this is beyond you at this moment or you're not feeling it in this moment, maybe practice some more. Hundreds or we can even do roll ups, which is kind of the similar shape just up the other way. Alright. From here, coordination and that nice ball tuck it in, and we reach out wide together, bring the knees in, bend the arms. Two more. Ban the knees.

Ban the elbows. One more to go. Alright. Well done. From here, both handles into one hand. Just gonna move my seat back a little and see if we can smoothly spin all the way around and face the other way. How do we go with that? It's kinda like a fun one.

A little bit like break dancing on the reformer. You reach back. Take off one spring. And normally we'd put Roan in here, but what I'm gonna do is a more broken down version of that, which is actually quite an old school exercise called biceps. So we'll begin with the body shape which will turn into those same shapes in space. Scoop your abs round back, and then sit yourself up nice and tall.

And again, so leading from the naval, draw it in, round and back. Sitting up nice and tall. Now let's get the biceps involved. So we're gonna round back, scoop our abs, curl our arms in, sit up nice and tall. And you wanna keep those elbows up nice and high.

Because then that way we're gonna feel that through the whole body rather than just muscling through with your arms. Let's go one more time. Press your toes away. Whole body engaged. And we scoop our abs sit tall.

Change the legs over, see if we can lift them up, cross them over. If your if your legs fit through the gap and the headrest in the shoulder rest, sorry, good for you. Alright. If not, switch them with me arms by the side and this time nice tall spine for triceps. We press our arms back. Squeeze between the shoulder blades. Lift tall through your spine and again press it back and forwards.

Lift up as tall as you can. Reaching through the crown of your head. Let's see if we got two more. Still with me. Here we go. Press him back.

You see, it's a very similar movement of the arms to what we have with the 100 prior. So everything builds to everything else, nice work. Place the handles onto the pegs, and we spin ourselves around, we'll break dancing if we can. And from here, move your seat back to the shoulder box and we'll sit nice and tall, ready for the shave. So reaching your arms forwards and upwards, thumbs and fingers together and then bring them behind the head.

Let's lift as tall as we can. Reach and press elbows wide. That's it. Lift your spine towards your arms, press up. So it's not a tricep exercise. It's a back body exercise. Like we're taking the shadow off of our back and just pressing it up away.

Two more. And now at the top here, let's pause. Take the arms wide for hug a tree and I want you also to swap your legs around so that we're sitting cross legged but with a different configuration of the legs. Now I'm gonna bring my hands into a fist position here so that I can press my knuckles together. Really find that connection. Adds drawing in and up to lengthen the spine as well.

Press Let's do two more. And one more time. And then bring your arms back and we'll return the handles to the pegs. And that was all on one spring there. So let's step off to the side.

It's time to get the long box. Powerhouse still engaged as we pick the box up, of course. Alright. So staying on one heavy spring, pretty carefully onto your tummy. We're ready for pulling straps.

Now, still think about that length and opposition that we had in the footwork and that we found in the 100. Let's take our handles, choke up on the straps, and I want you to grip straps and handles so that we can work on grip strength at the same time. Think about length. Our position here is we press back. The first few are just gonna be reaching the body long. And then if you feel like you've got that connection in the back of the body, then we can begin to lift the head, chest, shoulders, and return.

And press and lift. So you'll notice the arms move before the upper body. Here we go. So two more. Last one, press it back. Alright.

Bringing that back with control. Okay. Hands come a little lower on the loops. Arms wide now. Pulling straps two or t pulls. Same thing. We're looking for length here.

An opposition. Press reach, and then lift those arms up as we come back. Two more. Okay. Here we go. And then we'll add a little something in there. Pressing back.

Now here's a little tip I learned from Michael Johnson. He said, take the arms back and then bring the knuckles together. And I really like this because this fires up the back body. Gets everything involved there and press. And one more of these, reach and press out to the sides bring the carriage home.

Let's take the handles, step off to the side and add another spring. So we're going on to two heavy springs for back stroke. Alright. So get yourself onto your box, as far forward as you can comfortably, and then we find ourselves in a nice round position. Curled in like a ball elbows wide, creating almost like a magic circle with our arms. Let's begin by pressing up, out, and reach, and I want us to pause here for find that length, opposition again, that connection.

Reach. Stretch it out. Bring it in one more in this direction. Reach reach reach. Bring it in.

With me, let's reverse it. Here we go down the middle, up, and in. Down the middle, pause for that stretch. That reach. Last one.

And bring the handles into one hand. Ready for the teaser. Okay. So sit yourself up. I'm bending my knees here. You can do this with straight legs if you wish.

I like to keep safe. It's a long way down. Don't wanna disappear into the into the spring well. Okay. So find your teaser position and take a moment. Take a pause here.

Just to lengthen and to press the heels together because the secret here is that inner thigh connection and a good back body connection as well. We're doing two teasers and they're both gonna add a little something here. So it's pressing to the handles. Reach, and we lift our teaser up. And from here, just moving the arms to begin with, reach.

Finding that shape that will come and repeat itself later on in the workout for sure. Press into the handles as we lower ourselves down. Back to the box. Take a moment. Don't take too long though.

It's like pausing on the couch before you go to the gym because you just won't come back up for that second teaser. So let's not delay. Let's come all the way up and reach. Now do we feel about something fun here? Take the feet to one side. To the other side.

We go one more time. One and two. And then lower down to the box. Take a moment. You've earned it. Alright.

From here, not too long for a moment. That's the thing. But don't get too much time to rest, do it. Let's move in for some horseback now. We'll do a couple of horsebacks just to regain that shape, that flexion. So arms by your side, we're still on the one spring and just reach your arms forward squeeze your thighs, hug them into the box, lift the seat, bend your elbows, come back in. And again, scoop your abs. It's kinda like a spine stretch forward.

I was reaching into the handles. You lift a little higher? Scoop a little deeper and return all the way down to the box. From here, we can drop the handles. We're done for the moment with the long box. Let's step off to the side.

We'll turn the box around for short box. I'd like to add two springs, two outside springs for stability. I'm not gonna use a bar for this one. I'm gonna do this without the bar. I'm gonna see why in a moment. Okay.

So stepping on. Hook our feet under the strap. And move your seat back. So the goal here is we're gonna keep that strap as quiet as possible. The idea being that in doing so, it's gonna create better connections.

It's not just about lots of noisy straps making irritating noise around the studio. It actually has reason. So from here, pull your toes back, press your heels away. There's that back body connection. And also, let's get some abduction into the strap as well. And that's gonna make these next exercises deeper connection with them into the abdominals.

Hands behind the back of your head And I'm gonna bring my elbows forward. It's almost like a a little bit of a neck pull here, and you'll see that shape in space repeating itself from having been upside down with the overhead. And then from here, abs scoop, and let's round back. We go back a little ways, curl them back up and give the head just a little pull towards your knees, keeping the strap tight and quiet. Here we go. Rounding back.

We can take it a little further this time, and then scoop grabs all the way up. Leading with the abs. Rounding back. Just going a little further. Curling up and a little pull to stretch the back of the neck. Two more.

Still pulling those toes back. Pressing your legs out. I'm sure you're feeling it. Like right now, you'll get a little deeper into the abs a little lower. All the way back.

Nice stretch here. Come all the way up. And then from here, just stack your spine up nice and tall, and now my elbows are going wide. Nice flat back long spine. Squeeze your seat as we hinge back, and we lift back up tall.

And it's all great if you go a long way back, but that's not what we're looking for here. We're looking for height How tall can you get your head all the way up on the ceiling? And for me, my big challenge is kinda keep my ribs knitted in. Let's do one more of these. Alright. Hinge forward. Let's get some stretching in there.

And I side to side. And I like alternating between doing it here with the arms and using the bar. Just gives a little different feel, a different stretch in the underarm. And it's nice to experience different things. Alright. Let's sit nice and tall.

And from here, just twisting. So anchor, anchor your seat down as we twist through the torso, twist the other way, inhaling to lift or exhale deepen your twist. And again, let's go one more each side. And then we'll twist and reach. So from here, a little scoop this time, twist. Take your elbow back, sit up nice and tall through the center to the other side.

Still looking to anchor. Your sit bones down and find length at the same time. I'm giving you lots of things to think about. If it's all too much, just choose one and give that your focus. Here we go. So we're done.

Twist and reach. Now, we're gonna turn that into a full round the world. So we twist. We reach. Can you go all the way around, up the other side, lift tall through the center. And again, other way. All the way around.

Get into obliques, fire it up. Take it a little deeper. Twist. Reach all the way back. And around. Last one. Still with me.

I hope we twist reach all the way around up the other side. Sitting tall at the top. Pat yourself on the back if we're still going. How did we, go with the strap? Did you keep a quiet strap? You can give yourself like marks out of 10 for that and each time you come back to it, see if you can get it quieter and quieter each time. Alright.

It's time to climb a tree. And this challenge is us more now with the strap. As you can see, we just got the one leg in but let's keep it as quiet as we can still. So lift up tall through your spine, hug the thigh in and we'll straighten and bend this three times, and then walk our hands to our ankle and we take that shape back. We're gonna rock three times, but not big rocks.

Just a little each time. Going a little deeper, and you'll start to feel a bit more stretch into your hip. And let's climb down our leg, climb back up again at the top opportunity to take a little stretch, climbing down a little deeper each time, using your abs to come back up, taking a stretch. One more. Down we go.

And then keep the legs still. Keep it pointing up as we stretch and lift. Lift taller, and then we'll change legs there. We're done. Alright. How do we go?

Drive your arm under your thigh. Take hold of your wrist. Reason I'm doing this, I want to lift my spine torn, pull my thigh in. And no daylight here between my thigh and my torso. And the reason being, yet, it's gonna inhibit how high I can lift my leg.

But it's really gonna prime up our hamstring for when we do want to stretch it. Let's go one more, walk our hands up to our ankle. Same on this side. Just rock back a little ways. Go a little deeper.

A little deeper still, and then we can begin our climb down, and our journey back up using our abs, lift, take a stretch. Down we go. We return. One more time. Keep that leg at 12:00 if you can.

All the way back up, take a stretch, lift that stretch taller, And now the beauty of having gone around the world for this workout, we get to skip side sit ups, but if you want to put them in here, now's your moment to jump on, press pause and do that. We step off to the side ready for our long stretch series. So pick the foot bar up. We stay on two heavy springs. Place the pad on the headrest, headrest halfway up, and the box goes back to where it was before. Okay.

So add a little strength work in to keep the workout strong and long. So hands on the football, can you keep the carriage quiet as we step in for our long stretch position? And then pressing out. Do we recognize this shape? Is this very similar to where we started? With our 100.

And pull that carriage all the way home. Press him back. Pull the carriage back home. And I want you to close the carriage fully. It's a challenge, but it really works the abs.

Let's do two more. Last one, bring it in, and then press your carriage out to where you feel comfortable that your shoulders are over your wrists, three push ups. I know you've done all that work and I'm still asking more of you. Here we go. You can do this one more time. Alright. The feet come to the blocks, knees down to the carriage for down stretch.

Hips and heart forward. I'm gonna take the head up. Try and find that swan position. So we press the carriage back. Lift your heart, pull it home.

Just one more of these. Alright. And we're ready for up stretch. Now, for me, I like to gear out for up stretch because that allows me to not feel like I'm going over the handlebars. You'll see what I mean. So let's press that out a little bit and we'll find ourselves in our up stretch position. Okay.

I'm I'm about six two. So if that gives you a reference that helps then use that. Still on two springs, press out. And then pull the carriage home, home, home, and we're pressing the heels away. As we do so, press it out.

Pull it home. Into the stopper if you can. Pressing my heels into the shoulder blocks. It's almost like I'm resisting bringing the carriage home. Two more.

Last one, pull that carriage in. Got really work. Pull it all the way in. Alright. And we're ready for elephant. I get a break because I get to change my gears, but maybe you're already in your elephant position.

Alright. So press your heels down, lift your toes and pull your navel up. So you'll notice we're already back in that horseback almost almost horseback position. A lot of these shapes really starting to repeat, and you can see we're just in a different relationship to gravity, working the body in a different way. Press the carriage, and then scoop your abs, press your heels down to pull it home. That's it. Keep working. Make it active. Don't ride the springs.

You make the springs work. You'll be in charge of the movement. Let's do one more of these. Okay. Let's try that with one leg now. Arabic two Still on two springs, reach your leg back and see if you can still make all those same connections on one leg.

Just three of those. It's changed legs. And as you're pulling the carriage home here, see if you can create some opposition by pressing the extended leg back behind you. Do one more. Alright.

And then let's step down. Long back stretch. Okay. Stepping our heels into the shoulder blocks. And from here lifting tall through your spine, so we're all going on, and we're bearing that weight through our through our hands, our wrists, our shoulders, Just press it out a little, lower down, press out, and lift to bring it home. And it's not just right in the springs home, either.

I want you to press those heels into the shoulder blocks. And that's gonna involve using your back body. Push with your seat. And let's reverse it. Press out down and lift.

And there's a good opportunity if you're with me on it for this last one. Gonna add a couple of dips at the end. So right here, three dips, and then step down to the side. Nice work. Let's bring the, pad forward at a spring. I'm going to three heavy. We're doing stomach massage.

So I don't wanna go too heavy for this because then I get the tendency of muscling through with my legs. Whereas I want to make sure that I'm anchoring down with the movement as well. So find your stomach massage position. And then from here, it's the legs doing the work, of course, they're driving the exercise But I want you to almost feel like your abs are drawing the carriage out. So we pull with the abs, anchor the sit bones down. Press it out.

Pull it home. We can get a little further in each time, which works our hip flexion as well. But it's a long rounded back. Big capital c curve. One more. And then from here, take the hands back to the shoulder blocks.

Same exercise, different spine position. Lifting tall, and it's a challenge because we're lifting tall through our spine, but anchoring down through our seat at the same time, opposition, two way stretch, Two more to make this the last one and bring it in. Take one spring off. So down to two springs for reaching front, sit as tall as you can and we'll start by pressing out and back. See if you can do this without slipping backwards on the carriage and when you've got that anchoring, you can add the twist, anchor and twist, lift and tall.

Twist. One more each side. It's not too many reps, but a lot of shapes, a lot of movements, bring the carriage in, And that's a real love hate exercise. I know that. So learn to love it. Some days I do, some days I don't.

It's okay. Alright. From here, turn the pad around. We're still on two springs. For tendon stretch. When I studied with Alita, she would call this the gymnast. And I kinda prefer that name because we've already done one tendon stretch, and this actually looks a little bit more like a gymnast on the bars perhaps So find your position.

Do you notice we've got that elephant again? Yep. But just a different connection through the back body, a little bit more demand this time as we press, carriage out, abs in and up to pull it home. One more. And then from there, we can step down. Let's lower the pad to the floor and we get to lower the footbar down, ready here for our short spine. So, let's lower the headrest down.

I like to prep my handles before. If you've got ropes and loops, you're good to go. But otherwise, put the loop through the handle. Still on two heavy springs and onto my back. And short spine.

Yep. It's the one that we all love. So with that in mind, you know, us polite teachers. We we love an exercise. So then we think, how can we make it less fun. Alright.

So let's see if you can get your feet into the straps without the carriage moving. And then let's take a little moment to pause and connect. You can even take a stretch here and press your thighs out, but I want that good, strong, arm connection into the carriage, abs connected, of course. So let's do the first one as as we might all know. So we're gonna press out hinge at the hips And then from here, this is all connecting.

This is connecting. Let's lift up. Bring the carriage in, bend the knees. Lower down. I want us to get a hamstring stretch to stretch as far as you can. Then pull the heels in, make a diamond, lower your back down, and there's a moment again to pause. Now from here, let's get a little more back body connection and see if we can lift our seat and our hips.

Before the legs come overhead. So rather than hinge in here, press away. So it's gonna take some of this, a lot of this, and plenty of this, and those are the technical anatomical terms for those body parts, bring it in, and down, and then heels to seat for the pause. And again, let's do three more. Lowering down, keeping those hips as high as you can for as long as you can. Moment of pause.

Two more. Last one, lift, reach. Keep those hips up as the knees come down, and then there's the stretch stretch stretch heels to seat And once again, let's just take a moment just to pause, stretch the knees out. If you want, you can even grab the straps and pull the feet in. And then from here, just very carefully, lower the straps away, and we're ready for semicircle. So feet on. For me, I put them on the footbar.

If you wanna put them on the frame, if you're a little shorter, then that can work too. But a good press out and reach those arms away. Find this position. Now, this is not my favorite exercise or my best exercise, but that's why we have to do it. Right? We gotta love the exercise we're with. So let's lower those hips down, articulate through the spine, clean the springs with our seat as we go out, hips lift up. Pull the carriage back.

And again, articulate down. Seat to springs, press out. Lift all the way home. So the whole body is working, pressing the arms away from the shoulders, seat is working to lift the hips. Let's reverse the movement. Oh, and there's a stretch for sure. Bring that in, lift, press it out.

Lower last one coming up, and then we'll add a little stretch, not because I enjoy it. But because I need it, so let's bring that in hips lift up. I'm gonna come halfway back down the carriage just for security and stability and then see if I can get my ankles. If you can't quite reach there, use a strap and I like to press my hips as high, and as long as I can, and a little move of my legs from side to side. Oh, just turns that stretch up. And then I like to pull myself back between the shoulder blocks and just take a beat just with the knees in as well. Just to give yourself a little bit of a counter stretch from here. Okay.

Let's carefully stand back up. So we fans of the semi circle or not semi circle, semi circle, whichever you want to call it there, but we're ready for thigh stretch and chest expansion. So let's take our straps again. And this time, four chest expansion, just kneeling, hook your feet, and this is gonna demand good powerhouse connection. If you don't, then we're headed into the well.

So hook the toes, engage the inner thighs, everything engaged the whole body, and of course the back body as well. So let's begin just by pressing those arms in. If you're feeling strong and steady here, we take a look and then we look the other way, center, and the arms return. And again, press back, inhale. Hold the breath as we look one way, look the other, exhale.

Return the arms. Two more of these. Press the arms back. And we look and look and center, exhale. One more time. Pressing back. Hold.

Look and look, and center exhaling the arms forward. Ready for thigh stretch. So for now, just place your handles on your pegs, and let's add a spring. So we're onto three heavy springs. Knees up against the shoulder blocks now.

And we'll do the first one without the straps, because I want you to really find that connection. And if you can do this without the straps, then you'll be good to go when the straps arrive. Arms out in front. Lots of back body. It's not about arching backwards.

It's about lengthening. So it's just lengthen and reach back. So it's almost like we're being pulled in both directions and then lift up nice and tall. If that felt good to you, then let's pick up those straps again. Next one, just holding the arms out, thigh stretch back, reach, reach, reach, reaching long, and then lifting tall. One more of those, reaching back, back body engagement, lifting tall. And then for this one, let's turn it up a little more, press the arms into the hips as we hinge back lift the arms, return all the way back up handles, come back to the pegs, and we turn around for our kneeling arms series.

For this one, we're going down to just one heavy spring. Just take a moment to reconnect everything. All those same muscles we have for the previous exercise, kneeling tall nice and strong. No sudden movements, everything controlled press the arms in front, bring the arms back. And my challenge to you is can you keep your handles horizontal? Let's go a little higher.

Lift. All the way to the top. Last two, and then we bring in some arm circles. You can make your arm circles when we get there as big or as small as you feel comfortable. Start small, build big.

Here we go. Let's press and circle the arms around. Reach whole body switched on to hold the shape because we're moving our limbs, but from a nice stable base. One more. One more for luck. Here we go. And then if you're feeling strong and ready, let's reverse it. Up and over. Up and over. Reach.

Pressing into the handles the whole time. And then bring them in, bend your elbows, sit back to our heels, and we can drop those straps away. Step off, and we're ready for the snake. So still staying on the one spring. I've got a nice pad on this footbar.

If your footbars are a little slippery, it can be useful to place a a grippy pad on there as well. But from here, let's step into our snake, and we're looking to find some shapes in space. So you can either go fist here or hand. It all depends on what you prefer, but when we step up, let's not let the carriage move at all. He said, adding challenge for himself.

Here we go. Alright. Nice round shape. So there's our elephant. We press that out, find our swan, and then find the elephant. Before we draw the carriage back in, let's do one more. Round to go out, lift your heart lengthen into your swan abs deep scoop, round your elephant to pull it home. And of course what we do on one side we have to repeat on the other.

So the rules here are we're using our abs to pull the carriage back in rather than just hooking with our foot and pulling it in that way. So it makes it a very challenging exercise. But if you're with me, I know you've got this. Let's go. Let's press it out. Find this one.

There's just snake. You can hiss if you want. Big hiss. Pull the abs in. Pull the cabbage back.

One more. Elephant, swan, and that makes the snake. Let's pull that in. Step down. Walk around.

And we're gonna put the extenders on now. So I'm going to two springs. That's two heavy springs. I'm taking my extenders. If you've got the ropes and the loops, then you're all set.

What this would ask for is for you to put your feet into the longer loop. But if you're out in your extenders, now is the moment, I feel like Joe Pilardi's was ahead of his time, and he's getting us working our our thumbs and fingers ready for all that texting that we that we do these days. So there's one. Let's get that hardware to the outside, and we're not using these immediately. First thing we're gonna do is without them, but I like to have them there ready to go.

There we are. Place them on the pegs. Head rest is down and meet me on your back on the carriage. For the joys of corkscrew. So you'll notice we've already gone overhead. We've been upside down.

We've found all those shapes and connections, and this exercise is a great culmination of that. So let's start with one circle nice and small in one direction. Circle back in the other. That's just to prepare you, feel anchored, feel connected, back body, inner thigh, all engaged. Here we go. We go down.

Around and center and lift. See, there's our overhead again. Lower it down, and we go in the other direction. Left. Let's go.

One more each way. There's one. And down the other side, finish up here, resist like someone's pressing down through your feet, resist all the way. I'm gonna take a little stretch to one side, back through the center tick tock stretch to the other, and center. And now we can bring our headrest up a little and take our loops.

Now, can you put your feet into these loops without the carriage moving? You've been upside down, overhead all sorts. That should be fairly easy. And we move into frogs. And just because this exercise feels nice, you know, we're gonna have feet in the straps.

It all feels easy. Don't give up on the rest of your body. Keep yourself doing pilates. Whole body engaged. Everything working.

Still an opportunity to reach into the straps. Connect down into the mat. Just do two more. The lower you go, the more back body work there's gonna be leave the legs out there for leg circles. Up out around and press long into the straps.

And again, Let's do two more in this direction. Reach your feet away and cut down through your upper body. So your upper body's nice and quiet. Just the legs moving. Let's reverse it.

Building up range of movement. Two more One more time. And then just take a moment just to press into the straps, a little bit of a stretch. You can take as long as you need here. And then we'll take those straps off and just drop them into the well behind us, step off the reformer again.

And then from here, bringing the foot bar up. Ready for knee stretches. So we're on two heavy springs still. And we'll keep it fairly straightforward with this. Just looking for a nice strong, well connected knee stretch series, 10 of each, a nice round back, abs scoop him, holding that upper body nice and strong and still.

We see once again, there's that body position that we've been in a lot, and we're just moving our legs, accent on the in. Pull it home. Five more. And then let's transition into a flat back, same exercise, different spine position. Two more.

Now round your back. 10 really powerful strong knees off. Here we go. Lifting up and press out and home. Bring it in. Pull the carriage in.

Two one, and then stepping down. Ready for all the fun stuff now. Okay. Running. So I'm gonna keep on my two springs. Onto my back. I know you can do this with heavier springs and get a little bit more of a stretch, but I like with two springs, we have to connect and make the stretch happen ourselves, which I really like.

So it connects us a little more. Demand a little more to our powerhouse. So press your heels through. Find the stretch. There we are.

Long body. Don't just give up and work through this one like that. It's it's still a pilates exercise. So find that connection through the whole body, reach in lung. Let's do one more on each side, bend the knees, bring it home, and take your feet wide onto your arches for pelvic lift. Two heavy springs. That's all we have.

So we'll do five of these, and then we'll turn the challenge up a little. So from here, just keep your carriage quiet. No moving. Just the hips lift. And you should feel that right here if you're doing it right.

Press it all the way out abscoop seat lift, pull it home, out and home. One more, and then bring it all the way in Hold it in, lower down with control, quiet carriage. Okay. Sit yourselves up. Take off one spring. So we're down to just one spring. If you wanna turn the challenge up even more, you can go even lighter.

If you have a half spring if you're feeling really brave, be careful, but if you're feeling really brave, no springs at all. Here we are. Carriage quiet again. This is gonna really connect us to our glutes and our hamstrings. And we pull that carriage back in. Yeah.

I can definitely feel that. Working my back body. Out and home. Let's do two more. Gotta close it fully for the rep to count.

There it is. One more, abs, glutes. Pull that back home. Close the carriage. Keep it quiet. Keep it closed. All the way down vertebra by vertebra.

How did we do? Did you keep your carriage quiet as you lower yourself down? And then from here, we're moving into our side splits. So we can lower the foot bar down. We stay on the one spring. And I'm gonna use a pad here so that I'm nice and safe, carefully stepping up, and then step your foot out onto the frame. I've got a nice wide frame here. But if you wanna put a grippy pad there, then do that. And then from here, we're gonna heel toe out, but the challenge once again is to keep your carriage nice and quiet as we do so. I've moved mine already. See, here we go. We're gonna step out.

As best we can, remember it's practice not perfection. Right? So arms reaching nice and wide. So we're lengthening out to the sides. We're lengthening up. We're reaching down. We got four points of the compass that we're stretching through, and we press the carriage out, hold, draw it in, and hold. And again, pressing out, and hold zip it up as we come in.

Let's turn that up a little, and we'll do two more with the saw now. So reach opposite hand as you press out to little thing, little toe, and reach. And as we bring it back in, we return. Let's go to the other side, reaching out, and stretch, and up as we return. Heel toe your foot in, we're gonna turn around.

So step onto the carriage, nice and stable, turn around, and we repeat same exercise facing the other way, heel toe onto the pad. Reaching in both directions. We press out. Hold. Zip up. Bringing in and hold.

And again, and hold. Zip in. And hold, add in the saw now as we reach out, stretch down, bring it in, lift tall to the other side, reach and stretch, and lift. And draw that back in heel toe back, both feet to the carriage, and then step carefully down. Okay. We're ready for front splits and our lunges to close this whole workout out. Okay? So bring your foot bar up.

Add a spring going on to two heavy springs, and I'm placing my pad, my grippy pad on the headrest there as well. From here, let's start hands on the footbar feet to the front of the carriage. And then once again, trying to work on keeping the carriage quiet. So we're showing the element of control as well as the strength that we've shown plenty of through this workout. Place one foot between the hands, and then let's heel toe back until our heel drops into the groove between the headrest and the carriage, good energy out through our heel, and we press out. Stretch it out. Draw the carriage back home.

Let's do a few more of these. One more time. Bring it all the way in, lower the knee down. Stay around here. So we're still scooping the abs, pressing back through our legs. I like to work on getting the back leg straight before I straighten the front leg.

So it's actually about the the back hip rather than the hamstring at the front there. Let's do one more. Pour that all the way in, lift your heart. Still a couple of pulses here. And then just lift in right arm up with the right leg stretch, and that just brings that stretch all the way through the body.

I'll let you decide if that's glorious or just not so much fun. Each stretch is unique to the individual. Let's do this as smoothly as we can. Step down. Step through.

Heel toe back, keeping the carriage as quiet as we can, and same again on the other side, energy out through the back heel and the outside blade of that back foot. Still one more. Lower our knee down. Same again. Press him back for our lunges.

Last one. Bring that all the way in. Lift up tall three pulses. And then a big stretch up. And then simply from here, we'll step down, present pat yourself on the back.

That's great work. Hopefully, you felt those connections recognized some of those shapes in space and are leaving that workout feeling strong and well connected. Okay. Well done, everybody. Thank you for joining me.