Ignite Express Flow

Hey, I'm Andrea. Today, we're working through an express workout. This is using the theme of sequential load. So that means we're starting with no springs or very light spring with a yellow and working our way progressively heavier adding. Resistance, and load, and really getting into that great work. So the setup for your reformer today, we're using a light set of dumbbells. So if you want those, grab them, if you don't, totally fine.

You can do all of this without. Foot bars in that middle upright position. I've got no springs on, but again, you can use that yellow if that sounds like more stability today. Head rest is down, and I've got long loops attached. And that's it. Let's get right into it.

Hold on to your dumbbells, and then holding on to your footbar carefully step inside of your frame. Step one knee back. I want you to be about an inch or so from the front edge. Hold on to the dumbbells with both hands, so straight arms, palms facing in, start to dive down, hinge your body forward, keeping your knee right over your heel, and then bring the carriage all the way back in, come up to stand tall. And do that again. So hinging forward, just natural breath work at your own pace and bring it all the way back up.

So it's all about control finding that stability in your body. Now, bottom foot scoops the floor in connecting into your hamstring, your glutes, shoulders are backing down. And again, we're going for time on this. So I want you to work at your own pace. And just connect into this control.

Springs are so great with the reformer to find that resistance and connection, but taking them away can really amplify that mind body connection, that proprioception, glued is feeling the heat. On the next one, bring it all the way down, hold it there, bend your elbows in parallel to the floor, bring the carriage up an inch, and down an inch. Tiny little pulsing movement. Small and controlled. Let's do ten seconds here.

And again, focusing on that breath. Five more seconds. On your next one, bring it all the way up lower your arms Go again full range hammer curl, and bring everything back up. Big dive down hammer curl, palms facing in, and extend opening your chest. Flow at your own pace, flow at your own range here. Again, we're going for quality, we're not going for pace.

Shhew. You got five more seconds. And on that next one, bring it down halfway. Bring those arms up halfway again. Little pulse up and down. Up and down. And again, you should be feeling this back of the leg here big time hamstring.

Oh, glute. Five more seconds. On the next one, hold it still. Put your hands on the foot bar and close the carriage. Small, but mighty.

Take a careful step forward, and then bring the other leg back. So again, you're almost to the front edge. Your foot's flat. Arms are down square off. And we go right back into it.

Second side, here we go. Everything down and everything up. This is our full range hinging forward, and bringing it right back up. Now, we're in the second side. The good news about this is, we don't have a third side.

But the other good news about this is, you know what this is. It's a simple movement, but it's so powerful, so connected. So I want you to fine tune your form, square your hips off, Make sure you're breathing. And on that next one, meet me down there. Hold it all the way down.

Bend your elbows in parallel to the floor. Small range pulses up and down. Up and down. So we're getting this gentle endurance of the upper body, holding the dumbbells there, but really hyper focusing in on the box of the body, those hips saying squared off, shoulders staying back. On your next one, bring it down, bring it all the way up arms lower, hammer curl full range. Here we go down, and everything up.

Everything down, and everything up. I want you to try to match the range and the pace from that first side. And if you feel this in your knee, give me a smaller range and glance down quickly. Make sure the knees staying above the heel, make any adjustments in your body that you need to. Hold it down on the next one. Arms parallel to the floor.

Pull sit out again for me here up and down. Up and down. Lighten your grip on the dumbbells. Roll your shoulders back and then wrap your fingers around again. You got ten seconds here. Five more seconds here.

On that next one, hold, hands down on the foot bar, draw the carriage in carefully and step the back leg forward. Now, rotate and bring one knee onto the carriage, you're facing the side now, foot on the floor, externally rotates, turn it out, arms in at your chest, dive everything out, unfold your arms, Fold your arms back and hug it back. Flow through that. That's our movement to begin here. Everything out, everything in. Now, if the arms don't feel like it's it for you today, keep them at your chest and just focus on lower body.

So this is pelvic floor. This is inner thighs, adductors, hug everything in, lifting up through your entire body, and find that balance and connection from both inner thighs. It's small, but I'm feeling winded from this. Everything goes out, hold it there. Draw the carriage in an inch out an inch.

In an inch. Whoo. Now, you wanna add that little arm, pulse up as you push away. Tiny little star lift here. Let's do ten seconds. Tiny and mighty.

That's the theme of this workout. It's not sequential loading. It's tiny and mighty. Five more seconds. On the next one, hold it wide.

Palms up to the ceiling. Close the carriage, rotate reach across your body, open wide send it out. Keep that going. Tiny little movement here. We get the core to engage arms are feeling the heat.

Let's do ten seconds. Rotate. Bring it back wide. On your next one, keep it wide. Meet me there. Everything out.

Hands to your chest. Now keep the carriage where it is. I don't know if you can see me shaking, but I'm shaking. Lift your heel off the floor, set it down. Lift your heel off the floor, set it down. So again, so much control here.

Abs are in. Sholders are back. You've got ten seconds. Work at your own pace. Five more seconds.

Keep that heel high. Stay there. Out an inch with the carriage in an inch. Whoo. Tiny grand finale here. The inner thighs, the adductors are an underutilized part of the body in terms of how we train, but we use them for everything in our daily lives, our functional daily movements. So we're using the great benefit of the reformer to really fine tune and build that strength there.

On your next one, hold it wide. Stay there. Lower your heel. Hand down on the foot bar for support. Close the carriage. Okay. Let's do the other side.

Both hands on the foot bar, turn carefully step into your carriage and let's do the other side. So your knee comes down the foot on the floor externally rotates, turn it out, hands at your chest, dive down, unfold the arms, hug it right back into clothes. Here we go, big opening of the chest. Hug everything back in. So you're flowing through this at your own pace, your own range, again, thinking shoulders back abs in.

We stack both sides back to back because same muscles working, This is working endurance. It's time under no tension, which is a really interesting way to ask your body to find that work, not the springs or the reformer. On the next one, hold everything all the way out there. Just the carriage comes in an inch, out an inch, in an inch, out an inch, maybe add that little pulse of the arms, pulsing up and down. Ten seconds.

Five seconds. Hold it out wide, stay there, palms up, close the carriage, reach across toward the shoulder blocks, untwist open wide, press the carriage away. Close the carriage, reach across the body, and press it out wide open wide with the arms. We're flowing. Here we go. Ten more seconds.

We're going for time versus reps because you're focusing on yourself your own quality of movement, the pace that suits you best for that. On the next one, hold it wide. Stay out there. Hands at your chest. Lift that heel off the floor.

Set it down. Lift it off the floor. Set it down. Could you keep that carriage totally still? Ten seconds. Deep full breaths.

Five seconds. Keep the heel high. Grand finale out an inch in an inch. Tiny push and pull, scoop the abs in, shake out your neck, relax your jaw, and give me ten seconds to finish. Tiny movement here.

Oh, five seconds. Hold it wide. Your heel goes down. One hand to the footbar for support. Close the carriage and take a careful step out of your reformer. Okay. We're feeling that. Yeah.

Close the carriage. Now, let's add on one spring. I'm going with a blue. This is for single arms. If you wanna go a little lighter today, do this on a yellow. Otherwise, meet me on a blue. One of these dumbbells is done.

Set it down to the side, carefully climb on, facing your shoulder blocks. Working our way up the body now adding weight. One dumbbell goes with the loop and you stack them together. My feet are just hanging off the back edge here, square the shoulders off and sit halfway to your heels. Free hand is on that shoulder block. Straightade arm press back, resist slowly forward.

That's your movement. Here we go. Now as you start to move here, if you want more stability, come a little closer to the shoulder blocks. If you want more tension, then bringing yourself on a heavier spring, one setting heavier, which might be a red. We're adding the dumbbell here because I love a good prop stack.

We're adding extra weight and resistance. We're adding bone density. If that's not the choice for your body today, put the dumbbell down and do this without. That's how we normally do it anyway. Lots of great benefit to that.

You've got ten seconds. Working into the back of the arm, the tricep. Five more seconds. Reach your arm all the way back, hold it there. Bend at the elbow straight and kick it back, end in. Kick it back, and in.

Now, that hand that's down on the shoulder block, that side's working. Don't let it round forward. Open your chest. I like to think about pulling that shoulder block in toward me ten seconds. Five more seconds gazing just past the headrest. Now, lower your arm all the way down, close the carriage.

Climb your body just a little bit forward. Get your toes on the carriage and sit back. ARM forward. Flip your grip. Free hand works like a tabletop underneath the arm. Absence bicep curl in and out.

So as you flow through this, you never wanna let that arm go all the way straight because we don't wanna pull from the joint. We wanna keep that muscle connected the entire time. So it's bicep here right in the front. Ten seconds. Chest is open. You're almost lifting up off your heels Give me one more best one here.

Big curl. Extend your arm out. Close the carriage and lower down. Let's take that loop, hook it. We go right into the other side.

So loop and dumbbell stack together if you're using the dumbbell pop up slide back just a bit. Feed off the back edge. Square off. Here we go. Straightade arm back. Straightade arm forward.

So again, the reason I love to do time for lots of these is so you don't feel like you have to keep up with me. I want you to focus on you. Square it off, focus on your form. And every moment that you're connected into that form, that's where the work happens, that's where the change happens in your body. So keep it going. Whatever pace you set for yourself, keep that consistent.

Keep it moving. Give me five more seconds. On the next one, your arm goes back. Bend at the elbow, tricep kick it back and in. Back and in. This is your endurance moment.

We're carving out the tricep, the back of the arm, lengthening out from the top of the head. It's so easy to wanna look down at the body, lengthen out full body connection here. Five more seconds. Lower your arm down after your next one close the carriage. Slide forward. Sit back. Let's get the front of the arm.

The bicep. Flip the arm. Table top. And here we go. You know what that movement is now, so get right into it. In and out. Now the first thing I do when I go into this exercise is I almost see if I can lift up a little bit off my heels.

That keeps you from wanting to kind of collapse into the movement. So lift it up. Even think about this when you're driving in your car. Could you lift up from your core and not collapse down into the low back? Ten seconds.

Big curl. Five more seconds. After that next one, extend your arm close the carriage and bring that loop back onto the peg. Hook it down. Let's get rid of the dumbbell. Set that dumbbell out of the way, carefully step off to the side.

Let's go heavier still. So we're working our way up. I'm going on one red spring or one medium heavy spring. My blue spring is coming off. So again, one spring on Have a seat feet on the headrest, facing the shoulder blocks.

Let's take those long loops and slide them up above your knees. So they come all the way up. If at any point, this is not it for your body today, you feel it in your back, do it without the loops, you're good to go. So sit an inch or so from the shoulder blocks and with control lie down on your back knees into your chest. Table top your legs, hands behind your head, little crunches up and down. So before we add any movement here, any distal movement, let's just connect into the core.

Big active curl up from the entire upper body. Make that a full unit. Tail bone lengthening forward and away. Let's do ten seconds like this. Tiny little flex up.

Five seconds. Hold it up on the next one. Need slightly apart. Extend your legs out to a high diagonal and bend them right back in. Extend it out.

And in. Now keep this going. If you wanna hold on gently behind your thighs, do it. And remember if you wanna do this without the loops for your body today, take them off and keep going without them. So we're adding this load from behind here. This is one of the best ways to get into those deep transverse abs, this reverse loaded crunch here.

Let's get ten more seconds in. Deep natural breath. Five more seconds. On your next one, bend your knees in now go out an inch in an inch, little pulses. Remember, in Pilates, one inch is the equivalent of about eight inches. So just keep that going and keep that scooping.

It's about control and staying connected into that resistance of those ropes here. Five seconds. On the next one, you keep it all the way in, legs up to the ceiling heels together, little diamond shape, lower that shape down, and lift it up to the ceiling, and down. Scoop and lift. And down. Remember, always option to hold on.

The focus on this is actually not lower body. It's upper body. If you start to lower the abs release, so keep that active curl And then whatever happens in that lower half is just challenging that curl, ten seconds here. Five seconds here. Keep your legs all the way up to the ceiling on the next one. Take one hand reach cross your body for the opposite angle, little pulsing reaches going up, and up, and up, ten seconds, wrapping into the obliques side body here, five seconds, Hold it up high, hand behind your head, rotate to the other side, lower and lift. So hips are squared off. Again, it's your own range, it's your own pace, and you've got ten seconds.

Five more seconds. On the next one, bring it up, reach across your body, a little reaching pulses, going up, and up. Keep the shoulder down. Make the body do that reach. Ten seconds. Five seconds.

Hold it up there, hand behind your head. Come center. Now draw your legs into your face and back to the ceiling. Maybe give me a little tailbone scoop and lift up and down. Scoop lift up and down. Ten seconds.

Whoo. Five seconds. Hold your legs to the ceiling. Let's crunch it out. Lift and lift and lift final 10. Five more seconds.

And everything bends in big hug, carefully rock your body up, come seated. Sitting up is always the most challenging part of that exercise. Carefully take the loops off your legs, close the carriage and set them down. Now, turn yourself around. Let's keep it on that one red spring, so put yourself on a red if you weren't already, and sit facing your foot bar. So you square off, you're pretty close to the front edge there. Hands go shoulder distance on the foot bar.

Push out. Let your feet just kinda walk with you. Dive your chest through your arms big stretch. Now tuck your tailbone under round your back, let your feet come with you and close the carriage. Holding on gently to the foot bar, open your chest, give me extension back. Children's opening, stretching out the core.

And let's do that one more time, chin to your chest, press everything back. Opening your chest, stretching out your lats, your traps. I like to rock side by side to side. I just can't stop. Hold it there. Take one hand, thread it under the body and across to the opposite frame, then give yourself a little twist.

Bend your elbows look under your armpit. Untist, bring that hand back. And let's do the other side. So opposite hand threads under across to the frame, little bend of the elbows and rotate stretch. Bring yourself back both hands down, tuck your tailbone under, round your back, bring your feet forward with you, Take your arms off.

Give me a big shoulder roll up back and down, and then reverse the shoulder roll forward, and around and down. My friend, we are all done with that express workout today. I hope you feel amazing. I'll see you for the next one.