Erika's Go-To Reformer

Welcome. It's Erica Quest, and this is everyday reformer. And when I say everyday reformer, this is literally what I do every day. It could be before or after one of my strength training sessions, after a hike after I've gone for a run, it feels wonderful. And or I use this, even if I'm not doing anything, I get up from my desk and I move. We've got about twenty minutes or so together, so let's get moving, set yourself up for footwork For me, that's three heavies and a medium spring, and let's get on our backs.

And we begin with our shoulders up against the shoulder blocks our heels on our foot bar. Give your heels a check. We are in parallel hip distance apart. That's about two fists distance in between those feet. My toes, my feet or my ankles are dorsiflexed, and we are going to begin to press out.

And in. You can breathe how it feels good for you. I'm gonna recommend to breathe out on an exhale. And in, on an inhale, we're controlling the carriage in every single foot position that we move through. And yes, we're gonna move through several of them.

This is a moving meditation to get our body warmed up. I think we are around 10 repetitions. So bring your carriage back down. Slide onto the balls of the feet. Keep your heels halfway up, not super high, not super low, maybe right in between and exhale, press out. Find your toe mounds here, press through the line between the big toe and the toe next to it, and let's get this done in such a good way. We're tapping into our nervous system.

We're applying the breath to the movement. We are keeping our ankles relatively still right now as we are on our feet. You've got three. And to finding your arm frame here down on that reformer active pressure through your arms. Draw the heels together.

We're laterally rotating and carry on in your v position. Don't let those knees go too wide. Let's try and keep them in line with the shoulders. Keep that control of the carriage and breathe. Halfway for five more.

Two more times. And if your headrest is up right now, I'm gonna suggest that you put it down We're moving into that wide second position stance onto our heels. We're holding here for a moment. Let's begin some spine articulation. Keep that carriage in as we roll up into a bridge position. Again, that headrest should be down. HIP extension at the top and roll down.

First time to move the spine here in this workout, notice how you feel. I like to exhale as I roll up. And listen to my spine move because sometimes there are some little cracks and pops in such a good way. Those are self adjustments, which I love. And I do this workout literally every day. As long as I have a reformer handy, this is my workout, and it feels amazing after I'm done, and it's my go to. You've got one more bridge just feeling that spine move.

Coming all the way down, and we press back out into our wide second position continuing on with our footwork. Feeling like I'm standing on the ground here to the best of my ability again back into that troll of the carriage stretching the springs all the way out and returning down with control. Every ounce of every repetition matters here. You've got three from here. And two and one, we move on to the wide second position on our toes. Again, back into that stability of the ankle to the best of your ability as you press out. If you're thinking about your feet right now, I want you to find the big toe and the toe right next to it.

If you'd like your head rest up at any time now, you can put it up, and I will tell you when it needs to drop back down. You've got three more. We're moving into the upper body here into and last one. Good. Now from here, you're gonna do a spring change. So have a seat. Take yourself down. I'm choosing one heavy and one medium, and I'm coming back down onto my back.

My shoulders are up against the shoulder blocks. My hands are in the loops. You can have your fingers long, or they can be gripping that loop or handle, whatever you have available. And I'm going straight down into my arm lowers. So starting to wake up the upper body here, a little bit of stability through that trunk, maintaining the stability of the core, while we have the legs now in the tabletop position.

And at any time, if tabletop is not feeling great for you today, then just go ahead and drop those heels closer towards your tush or you can pull the knees in tighter towards the chest. Do what feels good and right for your body. Let's go into some circles here as we take the arms open, adding in a little bit more mobility through the shoulders. Our wrists stay strong. Feeling that nice mobility around the shoulders. Remember, you can make this range of motion smaller for your arms if this range doesn't feel good for you. One more until we reverse.

Chest is open facing the ceiling, spine is strong, nice and stable. Again, keeping those wrists strong as well. You've got three in this direction. Keeping your arms down on this last one here, we go into a tricep press. Now let's get and hook into this movement pattern with the arms. We're keeping those elbows slightly off the carriage if we can, and we're just hinging from them.

But let's move this into a little bit of coordination as we pull the knees in, bend the elbows lower the head. So we're flexing now. We're adding a little bit of forward flexion with coordination, and adding in a little bit of a deeper connection through the trunk by doing so. Exhaling as you come up, open, close, bend the knees, and bend the elbows, you've got three more. If you can't lift the head, you can leave it down at any time.

That's not for you today. No problem. Last one here. Stay. Iron cross, rotate the pumps. Open just the arms and close.

Find the finding the arms out at the t position if you can, You've got three more legs are strong. Feel the energy out through the legs, through the energy open through the arms. You've got one more. Bend the knees in and lower down. We go into feet and straps.

So step out, put one foot in safely, step into that loop and load up your other foot. Arms go back down by your sides, legs are nice and long. Again, your headrest can still be up here as we start lifts and lowers, and I'll let you know when it needs to come down before we go into inversions. So now feeling a little bit of a change here, some dynamic flexibility on the backs of the legs with the hamstrings, getting a nice stretch. Keeping the tailbone down to the best of your ability trying to keep the stillness through this pelvic region if you can, two more. I'm inhaling as I'm lifting, and exhaling as I'm lowering.

And now we're gonna go into some circles. We come up, we open, and we circle. Up. So we're adding in some mobility around the hips here, circumducting, getting that nice circular motion, but again, trying to maintain the stillness of the pelvis. You've got three more. Enjoy this.

And last two. And one. And as we come up to the top, we'll go ahead and reverse that circle as you lower. Circle around the hips and back to the ceiling. I'm in lateral rotation or my hips are turned out.

If that feels good for you, great. You can also do this in a parallel hip. Both are okay. So do maybe a few in one position, a few in the other, and see what you like for you today. Last two.

And one headrest needs to come down now. If it's not, bending those knees, coming into your frog position. We're going up into an inversion. If inversions are not for you, you're gonna omit that part. So you're gonna inhale as the legs hinge, you hinge at the hips.

You pause here if you don't wanna invert. You come with me if you do. You exhale roll from that wheel of the pelvis up. You inhale bend the knees and exhale roll down. A nice short spine here.

Find the backs of the arms in that arm frame. And press away. Inhale hinging. See if you can get that carriage down to the stopper a little more this time, exhale roll up. Inhale bend the knees and exhale roll it down. You've got three more. Nothing fancy here, right? This is fancy enough with this exercise.

Just really getting some nice inversions and articulation of the spine and using that load as you roll down, last two times, inhaling as you hinge, exhaling as you roll up, inhale, bend the knees, and exhale roll down. Last one and inhale. And exhale as you roll up, inhale bend the knees, and roll all the way down out of that exercise. Good. Take your feet out of those loops. Put one foot on the foot bar.

Take that other foot out, hang up your loops. You don't need them for a little bit because we're headed into some knee stretches together. So we're gonna be kneeling. I'm staying on one heavy and one medium. So for me, that's a red and a blue.

My feet come up against the shoulder blocks, my heels of the hands, go on to the wide parts of my foot bar. I'm gonna sit back on my, my with my push to my heels here to get started. I wanna feel my toe mounds, and I wanna feel my feet in door reflection, and I'm gonna roll myself up into a round back position to get started. If round back's not for you today, just please take flat back. Inhale out. Exhale in.

Upper body stays nice and stable here for three, for two, hollowing, and one, and then finding your flat back position. That you've got four and three and two and one standing up into your elephant position heels come down onto the reformer. Most of the weight is back on those heels. If I asked you to wiggle your toes, you could come into a flat back position with me. Really feel that stretch in that arm frame framing the face as we go out and in. Good.

You've got four and three. And two, and one, come up onto your, toes now with the heels halfway up those shoulder blocks as we take this into your up stretch. So you inhale, press it back, finding a nice plank position draw forward. As much as you can, try and get the carriage to the stopper as close as you can, and then all the way back up to your starting position, and out and pull, and up. And breathing how it feels good for you.

Don't hold your breath here. That's the most important thing, two more. And out, we're only going in one direction. If you wanted to extend this workout a little bit, you could reverse it out. And last two and all the way up. You got one more with me, please, and pull forward.

Nice whole body integrated movement and all the way up to your pike position. Great. Go ahead and come back down. Take yourself down to one red spring as we turn around for seated arm work. So we warmed up our body a little bit earlier with some arms, supine. Now we're gonna take it to seated.

So you're sitting up really nice and tall. Your hands are in your loops. We begin with everyone's favorite chest expansion. Exhale as you press back into those arms and inhale forward, wrists are strong, spine is tall, and you're reaching down with your arms as the spine grows taller in the opposite direction. Legs are as straight as you can keep them, but if you need a soft bend of the knees, feel free to do so.

You've got three. And then we're taking it into your biceps. And two, the pace of this workout should also be picking up the pace of your heart rate a little bit and also getting you a little sweaty, which isn't a bad thing, exhale as you bend those elbows into your bicep curls. Keeping the elbows up and strong as you bend and draw forward working with that spring tension in both directions, and three more before we do some rhomboids or some reverse flies. And two, we're getting it done.

Last one here, arms are straight as we go out towards a tee position. Inhale forward, exhale wide. And trying to keep that trunk nice and stable here. Don't let that spring tension boss you around. That's about four for me. Well, let's get to eight.

You've got four more. Four and three. And last, two. Beautiful. You've got one more here. One great job. Go ahead and put those loops down for a moment. We're gonna go into some reverse knee stretches before we turn around.

The knees come up against the shoulder blocks, the hands go on to the wider parts of the rails, thumbs are out of the way for safety. From here, let's begin in our round back. Take it from the wheel of the pelvis or that container first round from the pelvis. Let the rest of the spine respond and here we go. Exhale, pull forward. Again, upper body is stable as you're hinging from the hips and you're trying to wrap that body or the trunk around a big gigantic beach ball right now.

You've got three more. And two. And one. Let's switch into a little bit of side body by taking one hand over in front the other hand, you may need to slide that other arm back as you exhale pull. We haven't picked up too much lateral side body yet, so we're there, obliques and side body, again, upper body is stable. Last two.

Whoo. These are challenging. Last one, we've got our other side to go. And again, if this does not feel good for you and around back, feel free to go straight into your flat back position. Inhale, exhale pull. Oh, different side for me, different side for you.

I don't know. Don't judge it. That was three. Let's get to six. Three more.

And two more. And last one, notice I've left my foot bar up for this entire session for a reason. We need it again at the end. Have a seat. You're up against your shoulder blocks. You're using them, but you're not abusing them.

You pick up your loops back behind you on the pegs. It's now time to work the chest in the front of the body since we've worked the back of the body. Exhale, we draw forward. This is hug a tree. We know it. We love it. I'm choosing longer fingers here, but I really want more than anything my wrists to stay nice and strong to not be locked out in my elbows and to feel this link through the whole front of my arms and my chest here.

I'm sitting up as tall as I can right now, and I'm trying to keep my legs super duper straight. If you need to be on a small box, that's fine too. Two more. And one, we go into salute from here. Exhale as you reach up. If you need to give a slight lean forward from the hips, it's okay, but try not to round forward unnecessarily.

Working the triceps, the tops of the deltoids, And just really total body with those legs involved and the trunk stabilizing. You've got three. And two. And last one here, we're gonna finish with a little mermaid, some down stretch, and then we're done. So turn to face me. Let's set up for our mermaid stance.

For me, shin is up against those shoulder blocks. My hand is slightly forward of center. It's not directly at that center point on the foot bar, I'm gonna inhale, come out to my side bend, reaching down through my opposite hip, reaching over through through my fingers, and exhale, I bring myself back up. So we started with that nice side bend, inhale over and exhale back. One more here, and now we'll add rotation as we inhale take it over.

Exhale rotate. You can go to the foot bar. You can go under what feels good for you. Inhale come back around and exhale draw back up. You've heard me say it. This is my everyday reformer, so I'm coaching some of the breathing here that feels good for me, but do what feels good for you. And if you're just breathing right now, that's completely fine and reach over and rotate down.

Good. Come all the way back around and return all the way back up to your starting position. I'm gonna turn around and get the other side done before we finish with some down stretch. So I've turned away from you, but you can hear my voice. So stay with me here. Set up your other side for success here.

Your hand is slightly forward to center on the reformer. Your side bending first, inhale feeling opposition from your fingers to your hip. Stretching out that whole upper side body, exhale the carriage returns to the stopper. Inhale reach. This is two. Remember on number three is where we add rotation. And three, you add rotation now.

And return back. Good. You've got two more like this. Inhale over. XL rotate. Inhale around and exhale lift one more. And rotate, come all the way back around and return all the way back up. If you'd like to, you can add a half of a spring right now that is not necessary.

You're gonna turn and face your foot bar one last time as we take the spine into extension with the down stretch. The heels of the hands come onto the wider parts of your foot bar. Again, you're in that knee stretch setup position where you're back with the heels close to the seat, if possible. You're gonna pretend that you're going into your round back for your knee stretches, but you're gonna carry it through. Press the pelvis forward. The hips extend. And now the back follows the journey and you come into back extension, you then press the carriage out and come back in. Exhale as you press out, if that feels okay.

Inhale into back extension. Two more times trying to keep that shape, that back extension shape the same, at all times. Last one here, Good. And then from here, go in the reverse direction of your spine. Sit the seat back towards your heels. Take your arms, drape them over your foot bar and go into a modified rest position or a child's pose on the reformer. And breathe with me three cycles of breath, inhale, and exhale. Let it all go.

Whatever you're thinking about right now, it doesn't matter. Thank you so much for joining me. That is my everyday reformer. I hope to see you tomorrow.