Functional Tower

Welcome everyone. I'm Erica Quest. I am so stoked you're here. We're here to do a traditional tower workout. We're gonna throw in some functional creative twists for you and join me in this wonderful workout with Erin today. We're gonna begin seated on the table with the roll up bar. I'll explain our setup in a moment.

Let's get Erin into position. So, Erin's gonna be seated here or you're gonna be seated here with me. With your feet up against the uprights on your tower or if you're working with a springboard or another type of tower, wherever your feet go, just go ahead and place them up against a wall or up against your uprights. We have chosen two short yellow springs here. These are lighter springs.

If you wanna go with longer lighter springs, that is totally up to you. Erin's gonna go ahead and grab onto the outside of the roll down bar or the roll up bar, whatever you like to call it. She's gonna sit up really nice and tall. Give me a little pressure down through the palms of the hands to activate those lats in the back muscles, and we begin with a roll down. So on an exhale, from her pelvis, she's gonna curl under and begin to roll all the way down onto the table.

Once she gets to the table, She's gonna open the chest, feel the feedback of that table and exhale from the head begin to roll all the way up. I want you to notice how your spine is feeling as you're doing this. Go ahead and continue as you exhale roll all the way down. Just a nice opportunity for you to warm up the spine, notice your body in space, keep your feet reaching into those uprights if you can. But remember, they might float away a little bit just depending on your body type. Carry on for three more here.

And then we will pause that roll down and we'll start to add in some upper body work here. Exhaling feels good as you roll up, but just make sure that you're breathing. And two more here. Exhale. Feeling the segments of the spine, roll, and warm up, inhale, exhale as you roll back forward. And on this last one, I'm gonna have you pause about halfway down.

So exhale, you're gonna go into that nice scooped position. Sometimes we call it a c curve. You're gonna hold in that halfway back position. Get the deep abs engaged and give me a wide row with the arms. So exhale row that bar to the chest, inhale forward. But again, just keep breathing. Do what feels good for you. Exhale on the pull.

And inhaling on the draw forward. Now as you're doing these repetitions, you want the arms up, but you don't want them super low. So kind of find a halfway in between point so that you're not in your neck and you're really engaging the back muscles here. Two more times, exhale bend those elbows and straighten the last one here as you exhale bend and straighten out, roll all the way down to the table. This is your active recovery. Now I want you to come halfway back up.

So Aaron's gonna nod the chin to the chest come halfway back up to that position. The arms now stay straight as she exhale presses that bar straight down towards her thighs and inhale back up and power down, press and inhale. Can you get the bar even further down and inhale up and exhale press? You can see how the faces come into play. Now your quads are starting to wake up. You've got two more and exhale press down. Inhale. Lip last one here, exhale press and lift. Again, active recoveries you roll all the way down. I'm gonna give you a little break as you exhale roll all the way back up.

We're switching because we're gonna flow this from side to side. So now I want you to go ahead and turn and face my direction. So, Erin's gonna turn and face you, so turn and face that way. The hand that is closest to the bar is gonna go into the center. You grab onto that bar, you're gonna lie all the way down onto your side and notice that you've got your balls of the feet either up against a wall or up against the poles here. The bottom arm is reaching long. This top hip is reaching away, so there should be a little air underneath this side body or the sensation of tension on that side body, and that's a good thing.

From here, we lift into a side bend on an exhale you lift and inhale lower look at that exhale reaching along through those fingers lifting and inhale lower. You're trying to stay in between two imaginary panes of glass, one in front of you, and one behind you now. Here comes the twist. You're gonna lift up. And you're gonna rotate slice the air, try and touch that bar, inhale, come back around, stay lifted, and lower back down.

And we lift and exhale twist. Inhale, open stay levitated, and then lower. And one more. And rotate will go three from side to side and around and lower back down. Now we gotta get you to the other side. So turn back around and face your bar.

Grab onto the outsides of the dowel with the hands again. Take an inhale, reset, exhale from the pelvis. You're gonna start to roll halfway back. Now we're gonna add that row back in. So come up a little bit for me, and we're gonna add that row back in, but we're gonna add in a bit of side bending and rotation.

So you're gonna rotate and bend on that side. And back through center and over to the other other side and bend and pull. Good inhale as you come through the center and exhale as you row. Trying to keep the hips and the legs facing forward and really taking this from the trunk. So we're starting to pick up different areas of the core here while integrating that upper body into the core.

You've got two more for me, please. As you tip over and you row, and last one here, tip and pull. Good arms come back forward. Center them now pause. Here it comes. She's gonna keep her arms straight. And instead of pressing straight down, you're gonna arc over to one side.

Try and pull that hand down toward yes. That table, inhale to center exhale to the other side. So it's like you're driving a big steering wheel, and you're trying to keep your hips facing forward. One side of the hips might unweight a little bit, but you wanna try and minimize that if you can. You've got three more here. So you go down, pull, and really feel like you're pulling that bar down.

Last one here, as you pull down, come back center, here's your active recovery, you roll down to the table, you take an inhale and you exhale nod the chin to the chest and roll all the way back up. Now we gotta get your other side done. So you're gonna turn and face away from the camera right now. And set your feet up just like you did on the other side. That hand goes about the center of the dowel. Again, energy is reaching long through the fingertips as you exhale begin to lift up integrity on that interior line that's closest to the table. We want intelligent movement here, right? And inhale lower, exhale lift. This is three, but we're gonna do three and a half because on four, she's gonna stay up.

And add that slice through the air and rotate. Inhale, levitate, stay up and lower down. Gore, gosh, standing ovation from me, and rotate, and around and lower trying to keep your hips stacked to the best of your ability. And the last one here as you rotate, come all the way back around and lower back down. Fantastic. I'm gonna take this towel out of Aaron's hand you're gonna reposition yourself now. So turn and face the camera again, and we're gonna set you up for a little side bend mermaid.

So you're in your mermaid stance. And what we're gonna do is have the hand that was forward here, grab in front on the dowel and the hand that's backward, grab underhand on the other side. This bar is gonna now come and frame your face. So you may need to move either a little bit closer to your uprights or further away depending on the the tension or the springs that you have chosen. We wanna try and keep the bar atop the head. As you exhale, you're gonna now bend the opposite direction.

So we were now bending or before, rather, we were bending from the arm side up, and now notice we're really trying to laterally flex down towards the table. That was three. Let's get to six. You've got three more. And keeping this hip anchored and two.

And the last one here, our transition is to come up to kneeling and face the roll up bar. You'll be inside your roll up bar or your dowel. So other direction for me, please, hands are gonna come straight into the center right up against each other. Mhmm. And you're slightly leaning forward if you need to, but we wanna feel the dropping the sit bones and those abdominals engaged elbows are gonna be down and that bar is straight up next to the forehead. As you exhale, you're gonna press into a tricep press and inhale as you bend.

Those elbows are slightly wide. They're not super tight. They're like in that, again, goldilocks halfway in between position. Sholders are out of the ears, inhaling as you bend, and we're gonna do 63 more. I'm kidding just two more here.

As you press out, but we're adding on because, you know, we gotta flow and get you to the other side. Last one here, press and bend. Now hold, we're gonna add a crunch here. So she's gonna exhale. Keep that bar at the head and crunch down with that weight. So she's flexing forward. Yes, and back up. Do that again, and exhale getting familiar with this feeling of using that trunk to really bring the springs into tension and exhale as you crunch. Remember, you can just bend. We're not bending here.

You're really using the core, activating it here. In that kneeling position one more time, and then we're gonna combo back here. Exhale and inhale up. Now from here, give me one tricep press and bend and one crunch. Exhale down. And inhale up and press and bend and crunch and up. Yes.

Press and bend and crunch. And up, I think you've got two more in you, press and bend, crunch, down, and up, last one here, and press, and bend, and crunch down. Super nice. Now you've got your other side with your mermaid. So here's your reward in air quotes, right? You're gonna switch those hands back up frame your face trying to keep those hands right above the top of the head and we go over to the side. And this is a really nice time to see how you feel on your side body because the side body can be a little bit tricky.

It's quite imbalanced on all of us. And so don't judge yourself if you feel one side is, like, able to bend more than the other. That was three. We went to six on the other side. So let's get to six on this side. Last two.

Yes. And one more time, please. Fantastic. You did great. We're gonna switch these short yellow springs into some handles, and we're bringing a box into the equation. If you don't have a box, You do not need a box, but if you have a box, we're gonna encourage you to use it.

So the box comes up, the handles go on, and Erin is gonna have a seat or you're gonna have a seat in front of your box. Again, if you don't have a box, you'll just be on your back. Before we add the handles to the hands, I always like to test the setup to make sure that, Erin's in the right position, or you're in the right position to do this. So the knees are bent. The feet are a little closer to the sits bones. And from here, she's just gonna come up into a bridge and the shoulders and the head are gonna land on the box. You don't want the head hanging off the box, so you need to make sure that you have enough surface area here, for the upper body as well as the head to land there.

This great to me. So let's go ahead and add the load to the hands. So from here, we've now added handles, and she's gonna bridge up into that bridge position, and she's gonna come back down. What I want you to notice is that she's really hinging from her hip. So it's like she's hinging up. She's going into hip extension here at the top, and then she's going straight back down.

Once you've gotten this into your system, we can start to add on here with the arm. So on this next one, on up into your bridge position, and then press the arm straight down next to your sides. Bring the arms back up and lower the butt back down. We do it again. You're gonna bridge up, hit, and press, and lift and lower. You're feeling the flow. We go up and press and lift lower down.

You've got two more and press and arms lift and lower. Notice the tracking of the hip alignment here, which is so nice as you want the hips to be about hip distance apart. Now let's add a row. So you're gonna come up and bend those elbows and row, reach the arms forward, lower back down. He bridges up or you bridge up, you bend the elbows, you reach forward, and you lower two more times, and then we're gonna stay up in that bridge position, and row and forward and lower. And because we switched to handles, you row, you come forward, we can actually go unilateral.

So holding this bridge position, you're gonna now row with the right arm and lift your left leg into the tabletop position. Yes. And then you're gonna lower that leg, release the arms and switch sides. So you're taking a march with the legs, a unilateral bridge, if you will, and a unilateral row with the upper body. So you can see this diagonal line of pull that's happening through the trunk and you and Aaron are doing a great job because the hips are staying lifted. You're staying square.

The trunk is staying stable and you're working really hard on that hip and that glute as you lift that leg up, the other leg has to really create the demand to keep your body lifted two more times, please. And last time here, Great job and lower back down. Fantastic. Let's go ahead and release these handles. We do need to switch back into that roll up bar, but we're done with the box and you're done with your handles. So As we move on to the roll up bar, we are going to bring you into a standing position on the floor or on your table. So safely stand up onto the table, You're gonna hold on to the outsides of that roll up bar, and here's where we're gonna test the waters.

We'll see if you're in the right position. And if you're not, we will talk about it. I like the feet a little wider than hip distance apart here. And we're just opening up the base of support so that you have the opportunity to take a deeper squat. The first thing I want is for you to just take a row. So you're gonna bend the elbows and pull the dowel into the chest and notice how that feels. You come forward and you exhale pull. So I want you to get comfortable with this first because now you're in vertical, you're in gravity, and that changes a lot of things being in a totally weight bearing position. So if this feels good to you, what I want you to do is grab onto that tension, so bend the elbows, and start to bend your knees and sit back through the hips and take a squat.

Great. You're gonna stand back up out of that, and you're gonna reach your arms forward. Now this looks good to me, but if you need more tension, I want you to take a little step back. Or if you feel like this tension is bossing you around too much, you just need to take a very small step forward. So do what feels good for you as you're moving through this workout with us and stand back up and forward as you're squatting and as you're standing, I want you to think about your heels here. You should be able to wiggle your toes at all times, and I want you to feel like you're really pushing down through those heels to get the glutes and the hamstrings activated.

So this is a row into a squat, lower body, trunk, and upper body all working in harmony. Good. You've got about one more here. That should get us around 10 to 15 repetitions. Bend squat down. Yes. Beautiful.

Stand up out of it and arms come forward. Alakazam, all we're doing is releasing one spring. Now I want you to turn and face the camera. From here, that bar goes vertical. Notice that your outside arm is going on the top and your inside arm is going on the bottom. Okay?

You want this bar to stay vertical at all times, and yet again, I want you to move the body if you need more or less tension. The first thing you're gonna do is not move the core. You're gonna inhale bend the knees and squat down into a sumo squat. And stand back up out of it. Inhaling as you squat, and exhaling as you stand up.

This looks great. And so if you need to widen your legs a little bit, because you're going into a more lateral rotation squat, that's totally fine. If you need to open up your base of support, that's fine too. I like to use this first one as an opportunity for you to find where you need to be on the table. You've got two more here, and then we'll start to add in a bit of rotation. Last one.

Good. Fantastic. From here, you're gonna squat down. You hold the squat and now from your trunk, you're gonna twist the bar over, twist it back, and stand all the way back up. That's great. Here we go down, and twist. And center and stand.

We go down and twist, beautiful center, and stand two more down and twist and center, and stand last one and rotate and center stand back up. Great. So now we're gonna turn and face away. So that dowel comes in front of you, and yeah, you keep only no, leave that off. Only one spring because it's going to be the same exercise that you know and do and love all the time, but with one spring. So let's see how that feels. Depending on where your springs are hooked, you can either go underneath or above the arms, so just be safe about it, and we'll move the body as needed. So from here, about hip distance apart, and you're gonna exhale, give me a chest press.

And inhale as you bend. Now, Erin, this looks great, but I feel like it's step forward a little. Yep. So remember, if you need to change your tension, you're not changing your spring here. You're changing where the body is positioned. And those little micro adjustments are meaningful. We're working the front of the body here.

She's really having more demand on this left side as that is where the spring is linked, but we're not wanting it to pull her around and rotate her body. So she's really having to stay stable. Three more times. And three. Beautiful. And last, two.

And last one here. And because I'm here, I'm gonna hook up the other side, and we will take off the other spring to do that on the other side. So stay with me. Let's stay facing this direction before we go to the Sumo squat. So just for to be in sync, you're just gonna automatically go to that other side finding your sweet spot on the table or on the floor for you and exhale as you press forward and inhale as you bend. Now just like the rose, remember as we're watching Erin and as you're doing this with us, We want the arms up for sure so that you can get a nice work through the chest, but not so high that the shoulders are starting to inch up into the ears.

You've got three more. Good. And it's fun to add lunges to this if you want to, but we're not doing that today. Last one. Great job. And now she's set to turn away, and you're set to turn away from the camera. So turn on away because you know your road map, you know where you're going.

You're coming into that nice wide stance. You've got one arm up at the top, one arm down at the bottom, and you're gonna start that sumo squat and trying to keep the torso nice and upright. So inhale feels good as you squat down and exhale as you come all the way up. Really trying to keep the chest lifted here. You are getting a little flexion or bending hinging rather at the hip, but not a ton.

It's different than that squat to row that we did to start this whole series. You've got three more. We might be doing a little bit of bonus repetitions on this side. Usually I'm good at counting, but we will see last one here hold it. Now let's add your rotation.

You're gonna twist and center stand it up. We go down and rotate and center, and stand, good, down, twisting from the trunk. Right? You're still trying to keep the hips facing forward for three, and twist, and center stand up last two, down, and twist, and center, stand up. Last one here, down, and rotate center, stand it up now. For a little bit of my triple c, which if you don't know, that's called comfort creates confidence. We're gonna do a common exercise and link up this spring back to the other side so that you and Erin can feel their nervous system down regulate. So all I want you to do is do a chest press facing that way. You're gonna be back inside, and this is an exercise that we're all familiar with.

We all know and love. And so we just wanna do a few bends and straightens with that chest press so that your body and your nervous system is like, okay, cool. I get this. I know this. I've done this before. It feels good. Or maybe if you haven't done it before, you feel confident doing this because you've got both springs on the roll up bar. You've got two more?

And last one here. Great job. You are done with the roll up bar. So let's get this out of the way. We will move it off the tower, and it's time to get into our leg spring section. So we begin in the supine position, and you will notice that these long purple springs are set very high.

That's because we're gonna eventually have you go into a magician and a very challenging exercise called the airplane. So feet come into the loops. We wanna always test the waters first. Aaron's gonna grab onto those upright. So if you have something behind you, go ahead and use that so that you have an anchor point.

And the first thing we wanna do is just lower the legs and lift the legs. Noticing the weight, right? This is the opportunity to check-in on the body, check-in on your weight. Is it heavy enough? Do you feel like it's going to be heavy enough for where we're headed. If you need a little more weight, you're just gonna go up higher. If you need less, you're just gonna go a little bit lower. This is where you would wanna change the angle of the spring.

Now to see if we're ready, We're gonna press down. You're gonna press down. You're gonna lift up and levitate. Okay. You're gonna lower back down, and the legs come straight back up.

So you press hamstrings and glutes. You lift You lower, and then the legs lift back up. You've got two more as you press down, lift the body, levitate, lower, lift the legs. And we are in x internal rotation of the hip, you can do this in parallel of the hip as well. It's just a choice that we're making. Whatever choice is good for you is good for me. From here, we're gonna go into a lower of the legs, a lift of the legs, Now, Erin, can you bend your knees into frog and straighten the legs out and then lower the body back down and lift the legs? We're adding on for a reason.

Lower, come up and levitate. Take one frog. And one straighten and lower the body, lift the legs two more times, lower. Body comes up, bend the knees, straighten the knees, lower the body, and lift the legs, last one here, lower the legs, lift the body, take that frog, straighten the legs out, lower down, and lift the legs. Why did we do the frog? Because the airplane is coming, and that requires a frog position and a roll over ish to start.

So you begin with the legs and frog and you really need your arms here. So from here, you're gonna start to roll that pelvic wheel up, and you're going to lengthen the legs up towards the ceiling. Now, I'm here and you're gonna reach into those loops and catch them as the legs come down. And lower all the way down. Great. Bend the knees in, and you curl and lift, reaching. Extend out. Catch the weight.

Lower. Yes. And bend the knees. Now you're on your own. Pretend I'm not helping you. You're gonna come up, reach, and lower down, bend the knees.

Now I promise you're on your own. So give me a hold on. Give me a little more curl and lift up, there you are, up, up, up, reach beautiful. Now you're gonna go. Here we go. Catch that weight, and now you're on your own. As you come all the way down, great job, bend those knees.

Let's take your feet out of the loops, get rid of those leg springs, and move on to our push through bar. So you'll notice that I have this blue spring hanging out, waiting for its turn. The leg springs have come off our push through bar comes up and we go into one blue spring. This is cat kneeling with a little bit of a twist, not a physical twist, but a little bit of dynamic nature. So I want you to have a seat with your butt on your heels, and I want the bar to start up and you to be hinging forward.

So taking a nice beautiful stretch here should feel wonderful. Now as you rise up into your high kneeling position, the bar is gonna press down. So you're gonna rise up and press the bar down. Now you're kneeling nice and tall. You can head into your cat from the head wheel rolling down and through, taking that beautiful extension.

You inhale here. We talked about this in my workshop as you move from the wheel of the pelvis. Roll yourself back up and then as the arms come up, you sit back and take that stretch. It's yummy. It's lovely. Enjoy it and do that again. Come on up to that nice high kneeling.

The head goes. And the head really takes you in the rest of the direction as you go into that back extension. From the pelvis, you're gonna wheel down and rebuild everything all the way back up and sit back with the hips and reach up with the arms. Good. You've got two more. Press that bar down.

Naw the chin to the chest roll. I'm gonna give Aaron and maybe you a little cue here to keep those hips stacked above the knees. The pelvis starts the movement. You roll. You restack bone by bone. The arms stay straight.

You sit back, reach. Now Aaron's got really good flexibility in your inner shoulders, you may not have that, and that's fine. Last one, rise up and roll through. Beautiful. So nice. I'm jealous.

This has gotta feel great. Enjoy it. Inhale. Exhale round, roll back up, and then have a seat, and take that last final yummy stretch. Great. We're gonna straddle now the table. So have a seat. The legs are gonna come out off the table wide.

Mhmm. And I want you to be in a dorsal flexed ankle to start. Yes. Now we might be set up properly or we might not. I don't know yet. We're gonna find out on an exhale. I want you to point your toes and give me a half roll back. You're hanging off the bar.

I feel like we need to move you forward a little bit. Yes. Because what I want you to do is lift both legs up and tap in the center. So both legs come up, teaser tap. You come all the way back down, and then you lift all the way back up, Dorce of flexing the ankle. So we're adding an ankle mobility here as well.

So point those toes, roll halfway back. Give me a teaser tap. Boop. Right? It's like your feet, your your feet, your your toes are like your wand. Sit up tall and you go into that half roll back and teaser tap, bing, and all the way out and up, take that stretch one more time as you do that half roll back and tap those feet and wide and lift all the way back up and stretch. Final thing to do here to finish this really fantastic tower workout is just prone swan. The reason why is begin because we're gonna do another exercise that feels really wonderful on the nervous system. I'm here if I'm not in your studio, which I'm not with you right now.

Be careful getting into this with the push through bar. So the bar comes down, you're gonna grab onto that bar and hold on to it. Do not let go until this exercise is complete. Your legs can be together or a little wider depending on what your lower back likes. But I definitely want your pubic bone going in towards the mat to really get the abdominals to pick up into your spine.

From here on an inhale, you're gonna begin to lift up into your swan position. That bar is gonna draw towards you as you press down into it and then lowering all the way down on an exhale. Inhaling as you come up, feels great to lift up on an inhale, but really just breathe. Don't hold your breath right now. This is the final exercise to really reorganize the body, open the chest, stretch out the whole front line of the body, and just feel good when you finish this session. Three more times, please.

And lower, you're really trying to move from this middle back section and stay out of that lumbar region. It might come into play a little bit, but that's not your focal point of the exercise. Last one here, as you lift up into that beautiful prone swan and lower. I'm here. I'm gonna grab onto the bar, Erin. You can go ahead and safely let go, take a child's pose or a rest position.

I'm bringing the push through bar back up, getting things out of the way. And we say thank you very much for joining us for this traditional with some twists tower session. We hope you enjoyed, and we'll see you again soon.