Reformer on the Mat

Okay. So let's start standing. We're gonna do a reformer workout today. So this is going to be classic Bassey, PyLadies block system, reformer workout. So, um, to warm up, stand facing, front stand facing front, probably just off your maths to become aware of the body. And the most important part of the whole workout is just sort of checking in. So take a moment and just sort of find your center. So yeah, just sort of, I actually am loving this. Just streak yourselves out a little bit. How often do you do something like this? You ever watch a kid that was in a terrible mood the other day and I started doing this and I actually giggled. I just kicked hold. I was like, okay.

Alright. Find your way back to center and parallel feet. We'll do just a standing roll down to go in, you zip up through the midline of your body. Exhale, rounding forward, drawing the abdominals in an up. As you know, letting tension just flow right off the top of your head. Inhale, shake out your arms down here if you need to. I kind of need to exhale and roll back up. Starting to make some connections from the front side of your body in the back side of your body. Yeah, I'm feeling a little tolerant. Even already. Inhale and exhale. Rounding forward. Yeah.

Reminding ourselves that we're never wanting to collapse on ourselves. We want to always be in a way that is supportive to all parts of ourselves. Inhale and exhaling. And that's good. Just once you stand tall, take the turn the palms out, the arms out. Inhale, rise up with the arms. Exhale, let it go. Or we're going to assume we are on the reformer, so we're on our foot bars.

Take a moment. I'll do it all from the side, but you guys stay as you are. Shift your body weight forward so you have straight legs. Pelvis is neutral, right? So there's no severe tucking, there's no arching. Find Energy through both of the both sides of the body. I lean you forward. Not so much that you lift your heels, but just so you have some engagement of the hamstrings. Okay? That's key. Don't go so far forward that you feel the shins in front doing all the work.

Now shift your weight back. Keep the hamstrings as best you can, almost where you could lift the toes. We want most of the weight on the heels. Okay, now relax the toes and I'm gonna start slow and then I promise we'll move a little faster. You're hindering at the hip, keeping weight back in the heel. So you have to tilt forward. Some of you have to tilt further forward. What you want is to work your glutes right? So from this position, put your hands back there, squeeze your butt and make sure you do not round your back, right? You do not want to. You want to keep it, feel it, love it, and now press all the way up to straight.

Just keep your hands there for one more and down. You can almost relax there. Then drive the heels through the floor. Squeeze Your Butt, keep your neutral spine and push up. Fair enough. Relaxing. The arms are reaching their arms, I should say at f going a little faster and inhale, reaching and exhaling. The feet themselves are quite relaxed. You can squeeze both directions. You can work your upper back a little bit.

This is our warmup and let's go for more enrich. One inhale, exhale, press and two and press. Find the upper back flying the PRI triceps one more time and holding it up. Get that a little bit of a lean. Again, slip a credit card or two under your heels so you have a subtle rise of the heels. Same exercise, eating ham until forward. Exhale. You don't want to stay upright and shift the knees over the toes or beyond the ankles. Let yourself lean to accommodate and reach. If you're gonna use the arms, keep them strong and re down.

It's like the armpits are traveling down your sides of your body and we're doing it this way tonight, partly for variety, but also so you have to challenge the powerhouse a little differently than you're used to on the mat. Do two more here. Expect your feet to wobble. They're going to holding it there. Hold it. Hold a taller, longer through the neck, crown of the head. Reach your heels down for the moment. Pilati stance. Small v Subtle Lean. Don't go so far forward that it becomes a thing. It's just helping you. Here we go. Hover the heels and way forward.

Hold it. Emily. Looks good. Your mind, you, you do. Move them out there digitally. Gonna track over your first and second toe. Now stick your butt out a little bit. Yep. Squeeze and come up. That looks good. How far down it is a little dependent on the person. So how far down? It doesn't have to be big. I mostly want you to warm up and feel the glutes.

So give yourselves about 10 Margo ahead. Um, you can go quite low, but let's, like I said, we don't want to turn it into a major back thing. I'd say just what? Halfway. I think that's going to suit just about everybody. Here's what I would focus on. Semi relaxing the feet and you go ahead and find the inner thigh and glute right at the top. Try to hang onto it as long as you can. Can we do two more and be okay with whatever I originally called one pan last time and I'm stepping wide. So when I say wide, we're going to say just outside the frame of our body. Yep.

Feet are flat this time, but most of the way it's still on the heels watching for hyperextension of the knee. Here we go. Still hindering forward. Hang out here for a minute. So feel the collarbones wide. In fact, everybody to keep your positions for the moment, reach your shoulders forward and then pull them backwards and find the middle ground. And now just little pulses. It's up release, release, guiding with the heel. So it's almost like you're scooping through the inner thigh. Good. Stay low for this one. Good. So now come all the way to the top.

We're not quite done with this when Emily, I'm going to have you turn your feet more forward since you are so comfortable with external rotation. Yep. So now you'll be less of a play and more of a squat as we go. Again, larger range of motion. Here we go. There we go. Beautiful. That's it. And finish the hip extension. So it's almost like you want, you're about to press the hips out in front of you. You won't.

But that's sort of the action down to come up and down to come up, up, down to come up and going for it. Right. You could fake this and no one would know. One more time. Keep it up. Stay up. Squeeze so strongly through the inner thighs. It floats the heels off the ground. Not very high, not as high as it would be on the performer. Here we go. Last, sit down. Hannah, trying to balance your weight through the lower leg and then trying to relax the lower leg. Right. Nice, good. Windy. How do your feet feel, Wendy? Good.

I'm going to relax my toes cause they're hanging on for dear life. It's always about checking in and I'm going to challenge us to go a little lower swimming the knees feel okay with it. Hang out when you get here. And little presses. One so no doubt the quads are working, the tops of the thighs. Good. Nice position, Jennifer. And now slow one and two. Deepen the sense of, but work here. Three and four, maybe just the one side right here all the way to the top. And I was like, okay, we'll put your feet back. Um, let's go fully together.

Okay. Subtle. Lean forward again. So you again, just feeling both sides of the body a little. Yeah. Does that work for you? If you've all of a sudden don't feel any, it doesn't mean anything. Check to make sure that you haven't pressed the hips out in front of your shoulders. It's shoulders, hips, and goal, and it's not that severe. All right. Rising up on the toes. We squeezed through the inner thighs, the feet follow and the arms. Slide down your back and reach the heels down. Exhaling and keep going.

Rising up again. You can expect a little wobble of the feet, but rather don't pay so much attention to what's happening at the feet as much as you do. Thinking about the upper inner thigh, either side of the body. Yeah. If we put our attention there, we tend to be able to anchor more strongly. How are we getting to the high end of those feet up and, and, and as you go down, stretch the waist to get there. It's more image than truth, but not really. I mean, there's a little bit that can happen there. The sense of trying to almost hold yourself up.

And one more time [inaudible] to go. Excellent. Let's just do one set of the single leg. So, um, balance your feet so they're slightly apart. Again, come up on the right toes. So you're a, I should say the right heel is up. Keep the toes down for now anyway. And hands on your hips for balancing. They hips are meant to be level, um, shift weight back into your left heel and we go, you do have to lean forward again. You must stick the glutes out, hang out for a second, squeeze the inner thighs toward each other or really the glutes and then come right back up. Finish this stretch of the hip flexor and driving the heel through the floor. Okay, so what happened was we we're trying to do, and it will be different for everybody, is bend at the knee bend at the ankle, bend at the hip. It isn't just to this. Okay, that won't do any, not much. Anyway, he'll do something, but we want it all working in coordination. All right, giving you five more here. If you want more to play with, you'll let the light come up the end.

Put it down there in the middle and sending the hips back and up here. Everything. Okay, good. One more time and then come on down. Let's just go right into the other side. Just lift the heel only. Ooh, okay. Down. And we come up. Oh, we come up to notice how the upper body really from the hip joint up just kind of goes along for the ride. It doesn't mean it's not involved, but not much changes there. Going one more like this, then we'll add in the knee lift if you want to hear it comes. It's a really good stuff for hip stabilization, right? So the more you can keep the hips level, the more you're working through.

The glute Medius, the more stable you become in other things and getting one more out of the deal. Good. All right. Coming to the edges of your mat, we're going to just have a seat across the top, leg in front or one leg in front, making your arms like Jeannie and then have a seat. So just moving that bottom like out of the way. That's it. And we're here. All right. Going into our hundreds. So rolling down. Take your legs up to tabletop.

Arms are gonna reach just above your shoulders as if you had straps in your hands. Collarbones are wide. Inhale, exhale to curl up. Head, neck, shoulders, reach, feeling. Before you go any further, stretch your legs one way. Pull the tops of the legs deeper into the body so the feet one way the upper end. Hinder your back. Inhale and exhale. Two, three, four, five and in too sweet for five in, Oh, we got a strong group tonight. Yeah, I love the long breath. You guys are giving it [inaudible] nice and calm. Are seeing some good breast work in Hilty. Three, two more. Full Cycle. Starting now. Two three, four, five, and [inaudible], [inaudible] and out. Two, three. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Draw the knees in, squeeze the inner thighs, and then take the head. Neck and shoulders back down. Coordination, and I think you all know what I'm going to do. The first one, kind of slow it is. Inhale, prepare. Exhale, curl up. Head, neck and shoulders reaching. Check your arms. Reach them toward the hips. Open, close. Bend the knees. Inhaling down. Exhale, curl up. Legs Open, close. Inhale, bend the knees and then take your upper body down. There's the coordination.

Exhaling, open, close. Inhale, so there's the rhythm. Here we go. Exhale, push, pull, drag and down. Keeping it off. Fair, good and pull. Here we go. A couple of more reaching at least a couple more. I'm saying three right here. Dig deep into Billy, nice heron and Duh, Duh, Duh, and back. You can either reach arms all the way back or just stopping.

If you had the straps up to you, good. Gently press the shoulder tips backwards. That's it, Debra. Exactly. Last one. Open, close, bend and down you go. Nice job. Okay. Into our hip. Work. This is the objective is going to change for this exercise. So as if we had put our feet in the straps, we come to a frog leg position.

You're going to see that it changes quite a lot, so pay attention to what you need. If it, it might mean a brake hands. Go behind your head, support your head curl ahead and a controllers up. Squeeze the glutes, but will keep the lower legs relaxed, although lightly flexed XL on a high diagonal emailed. Polling them in and exhale, press out to feeling the powerhouse connections. Reach three and Paul and [inaudible] to pull in.

You've got to work at both ways. One more time, paying attention to your back, reaching out. Point the toes. Raise the legs up a little. Keep the external rotation. It's going to be small. Exhale, lower down. Do not let your low back change. Inhale around and up, down circles and exhale. Inhale down around, up. Exhale. You should be able to feel those glutes where it can keep it relatively small and around.

Okay, finish this exhale right there. Pull the ABS deeper to the mat and raise the legs up open. Exhale, down and around. Squeeze the inner thighs. Inhale up open. Exhale and healing up open. Exhale. Wow. Your back is firmly planted in the mat by curling up one more like this, bringing the legs to 90 degrees. Let your heads come down from here. You're in external rotation. Squeeze the glutes, keeping your a you can rest your head on the floor or a slightly hovered is fine. Legs are turned out. Inhale, stretch them wide. Take a moment, flex the feet, push a little further. Exhale, squeeze from the glute inner thigh area.

Bring it back together and point you nail the feet. You can point or not point. It's up to you. And what you want to encourage is turning the whole leg bone out to the side and, and if you find that it's hard to straighten your legs, you can bring your hands just under your hips and slightly been these that would be appropriate to reach and have. Can we do six more, a little faster? Reaching out and pull up and total control. Shh. One more. And bend the knees. Hug them to your chest.

Work. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Sweet. You can support for [inaudible] anywhere. Okay. Bottom left. You know, or part as if you're going to do a pelvic curl. So that means you've got the sitz bones distance. Yep. Good.

Now to make it a little more interesting as if you were on the reformer, we're going to have you first walk your feet as tiny, little tiny bit closer than you're used to. Just a little, not, not much. Then lift the heels. Yes, your you're and make it so that you can balance. So that might even mean you have to walk a feed and closer than you are. Okay, so right from here, spreading out the collarbones, we inhale, we imagine we're on that light spring and we exhale to roll the pelvis up, finding the hamstring glute connection quite early. Continue all the way up, encouraging sort of the base of the pelvis coming forward toward the face or lengthening through the back. Inhale and exhale, roll back down. Leave your heels up. Try to leave them stable and balanced.

Big total little toe all the way down. Release the pelvis at the bottom. You inhale, think inner thighs gang. Exhale, roll up, leaving the legs apart. You can imagine you're hugging the entire inner seam towards the other one. Finding the long length. Inhale and exhale. Some of us tend to roll out on the ankles and that would be more likely at the top there, so be mindful of that.

We don't want to be so high that we can lock the ankle out. Here we go up. One more time for a little change all the way. Keep finding it, dragging those knees out over the chest. Okay, it's going to go like this. Take your right leg. Your hips are not to move at all. Reach it out a little bit. It's not going to go to straight. You're just going to reach out further on the mat. Touch the frown floor gently, barely dragged the leg right back into place. Same leg again.

Reach out like you're trying to grab something that's just too far away and roll it back to and reach out and pull in the whole time you're pulling in. You're encouraging the hamstring and a little more tuck of the pelvis to bring you right back where you are. One more time and bring it in. Hold it there, balance yourself out. Take the other side, reach out a little bit further, touching the ground and drag it back in. I'm not pushing hard on the floor, but I am definitely acting like the only way I'm going to get to what I'm trying to reach for there is via the hamstring and glute. Two more and one more. Oh, all the way back in. Still in that high tucked position. Let your feet go down, press your hips a little higher, lift the heels back up, tuck a little more if you can, you, you won't move much, but you'll press the heels down as you press the hips up. Yeah. And then re lift the heels. So it's just an intention tech. Press the heels down, hips up. You're not gonna see much.

Just feel it and heels up again. Press the heels down, hips up, hold it there. Inhale and exhale. Roll down. Cool. Yeah. Okay. Taking one knee into your chest. Stretch it up long.

Yeah, we're reaching the tailbone down. This is a prep, believe it or not. So enjoy slide the other leg out onto the mat. [inaudible] we played with last week. Um, freeing up the hip joint a little. If you recall. Um, the act of trying to pull straight down, pull the leg bone straight into the hip socket can free up those hip flexors quite a lot. Not to mention the sacred, it might mean you have to hold more at the thigh or maybe just beyond the knee to pull straight down. Once you've done that, then you've guided a little bit more without so much of a pool. Just for some people that feels good. Curl head, neck and shoulders up.

Looking straight ahead here, we're going to press the calf into the hands. That's how I'm doing this. I'm pushing that way and I'm going to use my abdominal. So we're going to roll up stopping the leg at about 45 to walk up. Yeah. Okay. I think you know where I'm headed, but not yet. Change legs roll all the way down. Stretch it up.

Huh? [inaudible] so just a gentle stretch. It's okay if it's bent a little bit, a lot. You'll still feel a stretch if as long as you don't round arch your neck or pull your hips up off the floor. And then what I like to do for myself, and it's up to you if you want to, I just back off the stretch a little. I lower my hands closer to my knee, but on it and pull my leg straight into the hip socket. Just gives me a little freedom that isn't always there in this position.

And then I guided back in a little bit. Okay. Looking towards your legs as you use your abs to get the ball, the ball rolling so to speak. Leave your elbow somewhat bent, but you're right. Go ahead and keep rolling up. Watch the shoulders, watch the shoulders and take a little additional stretch. Gorgeous. Nice. All right, so heading into the short box series, I'm going to say let's have the knees bent together, feet flexed, everything's glued up, and then stretch your legs out a little bit. Yeah, cause we're gonna want that lever. That's great. All right. For him over for him again, sitting tall and let the arms be just about midway down so you're not holding them up. They're just sort of resting actually initially. All right, that looks good. Inhale on the exhale, pull the hip bones, the ribs back and the arms kind of get left behind for a moment and then down we go. Good. Just to the shoulder blades, we're going to keep the curve.

Press the heels into the ground a little bit for opposition. Exhale, keep the curve as you come forward. You're going to land with your shoulders over. Hips in the forums are probably somewhere around the knees somewhere, and then inhale, straighten back up the arms fall back to the ribs. Good. Exhale. Pull the hips away from the arms or ribs away from the earth. That's in Emily. That's it.

Good, good. [inaudible] hold. Inhale more inner thigh, a little more glute, nothing severe. Exhale. Keep your curve over and any longer. Finding all sides of your body a little faster. We go. Exhale, roll, Duh. Let the arms go up on this. Inhale, stretch the lats. Exhale, bring in forward and come up. If you need to separate the hands a little to do that last part you can.

We're going to do one more time. Inhale, straighten up. Exhale, roll back. So if you feel like you're going to hit yourself in the forehead, just separate the hands a little to give yourself more room. Exhale, bring it home and upward. Come and straightening up, right. Slide the legs out. Actually I'm going to have you cross the right leg over left and I'm not even, I'm, they're both not anchored. I've got just got one leg on top, right on [inaudible]. Hands behind your head. Good, good. Okay, so this is flat back. Make sure your back is in fact flat, not neutral. Initial. Suggest a little arch of your low back. We want flat, so there is a subtle tuck of the pelvis and then length up just like that. Exactly. Okay. Inhale, hinge back. There's no rounding, nothing. You can ang, you can use your ankles. Exhale to come back up. Do you know what I mean by that? Right. You can pull one to the other. Okay.

Inhale hinges. Eyes are relatively low here and exhale so that you noticed up a millimeter before that. And in here, eyes are straight ahead and exhale Tacoma and fall. And in here it's abdominal stabilizing back extensors, working and hip flexors. One more, even if I said it, here we go. Long back. Nice Emily. And okay. Keeping the cross as it is. I'm going to skip tilt for hip flexor purposes.

You're going to rotate towards, sorry, will you to go left leg over just so we all can see good and it. And when do you have left? Over, right or right over left. Right over. Left, right or left. Okay. Just so you can come towards me. Inhale, rotate. Now using, if you needed inching back on the diagonal. That's good. Come right back up. And I'm just gonna stay over here. So let's go again. You know, whole body lean and keeping weight equal on both hips.

That's it. Doing three to go. Inhale. That's it. Yeah, that's it. That's it. An exhale. So you're looking for obliques and back extensors. The little ankle being on top just gives you a little bit of a strap. Feel. Last one, right, and center changed across the legs. So you'll be going the other way, right? So you're going to rotate first. You're still vertical. Then inhale as you lean, don't have to be far. Exhale to come up.

What matters is that you don't arch as you go. Just staying on that side and exhaling up. Good. Little bit straighter in your low back. So think of lifting. Good, Jennifer. Good man up. Yes. You know, can you almost feel that side? You're rotating towards lengthening as you come up.

It's pretty much already there, but is that five? One more just in case and back to center. All right, let's do this. Free up your legs so they're apart and bent and s uh, slightly apart. Rolled down. Drag your legs in a little closer and one pelvic row rolling all the way up, all the way up so your knees are straight ahead. Then take an inhale.

Exhale, roll halfway down. So primarily just the ribs go down, both sides of the ribs. Go down, recheck your pelvis. Let's focus on stretching the front of the legs even more. You might, as you go up, go ahead and exhale up, maybe go a little further than you normally would. So you go just beyond starting to arch the low back at tiniest bit and then inhale free that up and exhale, roll all the way down. Once your Tayeb on hits, slide your feet away from you a little bit. Feet are flat though. Theater, flat curl, head, neck and shoulders up and roll up.

Yeah, Jennifer, you're getting strong. Classes are working for you. Wow. I mean that's a short amount of time. Big, big difference. Nice Hug. One need please. Let's take right in and um, bat this. There's a lot going on in this one. A lot. Mostly abs. But let's for now, think of back extensions back extensors. So you're right up on the sitz bones as best you can. If that doesn't work, you run out of room, you can lean a little, no problem.

Now we just hugged the leg in closer three times too. I'm doing little exhales. Three, hold the back extension. Do the best you can to keep the back as is. As you straighten the leg, you may not straighten the leg. That's fine. Now pull the hipbones away. So I'm actively tucking my pelvis but not dropping tucked and I squeezed the glutes.

I brought the leg back to about 90 we walked down and remember how we pressed into the calf or the leg earlier. There's a little of that going on right now. Let go. Circle the arms around, but keep your eyes forward. Find your leg and walk back up. You can press the lower leg into the ground too. I had recommended inhale for length, gorgeous. Rebound the knee and we go. Exhale. One little quicker, two and three. Inhale, stretch. Pull the ABS in, but don't collapse the chest. Walk down. Two, three, let go. Inhale, circle.

Find your spot again. Walk Up. Minimize the arms now when you can because you'll be surprised. You'll be able to inhale long, lifted back to exhale, fold war and two and three. Stretch. Bring it back a little. Now all rolled down a one and two and three. Circle the arms round, finding it. Relax the leg in the air a little bit.

Deepen from the middle two, three and up and bend and change sides right away. Exhale, pull one. Situate yourself square two and three and stretch it up. Be Nice, be gentle. Bring it back to about 90 and walked down into one and two and three. Letting go. Inhale, circle. Think inner thighs, inner thighs, even though they don't probably touch because of the position they can try.

Inhale back. Good and toll one and two and three and walk down to three. Anchor that bottom leg. Circle around exhaling to three. Watch the shoulders. They're gonna want to creep up. It's just normal. And Ben, last one, pulse one and two and three. Looking good are getting looser and down. One C, three circle, man. Up, up, up. Oh, I tossed that last one. Good. Inhale and exhale. Take a moment. Stretch forward.

Lots of time. All right. Carrying on with full body integration. Come to your hands and knees please. Starting with our knee stretches, things start to get a little more interesting right about now. So a couple of ways. I'm going to teach this, um, first hands pretty comfortably, comfortably near your niece.

So not in our normal hands position, but we've pulled them back a little bit. Curl the toes under, so we're about to put some weight on them. Then all we're doing for now, and I'll, I'll make sure you guys can all see in just one second, is to exhale, scoop the pelvis so that your front of your hips, if you look down or what I would call open as opposed to hinged or closed, you've tucked to do that. Press the hips forward. Okay. From that place that's my knees are not together. Thank you. Know they're, what's its bones? Okay, so there we are. We've done the tech, but there's more to it, right? That's just the low end of the body. Gently press the upper arm or armpit towards your hips and your head's down.

By the way, I know I keep talking and lifting it. So it's as if you're trying to bring your shoulders closer to your hips, your hips closer, your shoulders. Yeah. Okay. Now Aaron and Jennifer minimize your upper back rounding. Yes. And now go more in the lower. That's perfect. Good. Good name. All right. From there, inhale, it's going to be small.

It's not going to even look different. You exhale and deepen that contraction. I'm just doing it again and slight release. Do it again. Exhale. Good, very good. So it's looking the same. All we're doing is on that exhale, bringing his shoulder and hip closer. It's as if you could bend more at the waist. You would, but you're pretty much, you're all there. Okay, so you can stick with this one and I think that's a pretty powerful contraction. The next version, just keep, do one more of those exhales and hold it. Now Hover the knees. Heads down. You keep that open hip.

Hey, come back down. Back your hands up a tiny bit except for Aaron, everybody else and I didn't quite see yours, Wendy, but I think you'll know. [inaudible]. Inhale, scoop the belly. Pull up the waste so much it floats your knees off and down. Inhale, shoulders down. You got to Redo it every time.

Exhale cause the arms do bear quite a lot of weight and down. Okay. Again. Exhale, hover those knees. Good. Excellent. You can either keep that going or I'm going to add a single leg to it. Xcel to lift up. Point one foot position stays the same. Inhale out. Exhale, pull in four. Otherwise you're doing the other version.

Just exhaling it to pull that new way up to the nose. The Ri, backstage rounded change legs. Inhale, reach out. Exhale on heads down. Pull deep with a belly. Very little to do with the leg. One more time. Toes down. Lift your hips up. Walk your hands forward a little. Yep, so you're in a pyramid or I mean upstretched stretch one, right? All right.

Lift the heels up a little. Just a little, not a lot, and then reach the tailbone to the sky. Trying to find a bit of a back stretch right now and a hamstring. Once again, my feet are apart a little bit. Same distance they were for knee stretch. Okay. See if you can lower the heels wrapping the armpits almost around the front of your body. Good. Excellent. All right.

With that, come right back up on the heels. I'll come back to that one in a moment. Walk your hands forward into a plank. So you're in the long stretch position. That means your body's long, your hips are in line here on the diagonal line, you'll can get windy. Just check your elbows. They'd look a little bent. Good, good. Ooh, lovely. All right, so from where you are, point your toes. As you inhale, exhale, flex your feet and travel backwards. A little, kind of using the lats to help point the toes. Inhale, you can turn your hand sideways if you like, or it can be done on the wrist. I mean the fist. Exhale back and stir retching forward.

Don't forget all those connections, you know, meaning the abdominals, the inner thighs, et Cetera. Back extensors. Two one more. And from here we lift up again to the pyramid shape. Place it so that you can get as close to putting your heels flat as possible. Okay? And again, slightly apart with the feet. It's about hip distance. If you go too close, it's going to be a lot of I it band. All right gang, here's what we do. Our, leave your head heavy, pull the left leg so deep into the body.

You can lift it off the ground without rocking much step forward. A big step. Your low back will probably around. Do the same with the right. Pull that femur deep into the hip socket. Let it travel forward. Do it again. Keep going until you get all the way up. You've got to look down a little more as you travel.

Trying to limit how much you shift. There's your elephant. Yeah, free up your hands a little. Once you get there and we rural, yeah, in here we're going back down. Exhale, find your hands to the floor. If you need to bend your knees, you're welcome to. Or if you need to lift your heels, that might even be a better idea. Okay, everybody. In fact, I am going to do that and this is not quite a direct translation, but it's the same point. Hands are a little bit in front of your feet, but basically you're in a shape that is as if you were standing. If you had four legs from here without leaning forward much at all, you are to exhale. Pull the ABS in so much that you can point your toes and round at your waist the pike. Inhale, lower the heels peeling down, and just for fun, let's go to our fists. That'll give us more range and easier on the wrist, right?

So pull those shoulders down your back, even though you're hanging upside down. Pull the ABS in. Exhale to peel up. Make it come from your abdominals, not your feet. Your feet will follow. Inhale, squeeze the butt on the way down. Flex. Squeeze it the whole time, just a little and exhaling up. Lots of space between the neck and shoulders and now and one more like that. Way Up, good and down.

Okay, from here, just stay on your fist. Walk your feet back, keeping the connections head down. Head down. It's going to get easier as we go. Adjust your hands back to the palms and come down to your knees. Going into the combinations that way. Back in this one, I'm going to let you decide what you prefer. I prefer my toes curled under, but that can be more pressure on the kneecap. So if you prefer you can leave the feet flat, maybe try it feet flat first and then if you want to try the other way. Okay, so here's what we do. You're going to Tuck your pelvis from warrior. Just continue looking at your mat, Tuck your pelvis, start to feel the abdominals and glutes and you're going to shift your body weight forward through this rounded spine.

You come over the knees and eventually you have to start pressing the hips forward to start to arch your back, to lift your head to find the upper back extensors and the hamstrings. That's it Jennifer. Just keep going. Press your hips forward more. Start arching your back and looking forward. Now as you continue to press good now in this position you must be using your glutes and hamstrings. That's why I like my toes curled under cause I can push it into the balls of my feet, tuck my pelvis and then lift my back or chest. Inhale. Nice Wendy, and then pull from the top of the ABS that your background.

Take weight out of the arms as soon as possible. And I don't mean pick them up, but just minimize any tension there. So that's the action. One more ever. So slightly slow tuck lift start to roll forward. Unfurling the spine until you come into an arch, but not a collapse at the back. You're lifted. You could almost take your hands off the floor, not really. And then pull the ABS in and now you're almost could as you roll back.

Okay, we're gonna go faster now, but on a on one breath cycle, we inhale as we tuck, lift and stretch forward. That's all email. Enjoy. Exhale to recommit to the abs to round and tucking. Lift in here, trying to do it with as little arm pressure as possible. That'll mean you're more in the powerhouse. The last two in inhale. I'm not suggesting that your arms could not be involved cause that's just not the case here. We can dry last one and do good. Take a rest briefly.

That's brief enough. I've got a stretch coming. So let's take your right leg forward. Yeah. All right. Take a moment before we go any further and where we're going to allow the hips to sink forward. There's a subtle bit of, as my chest lifts, my pelvis has to follow. Okay, you're welcome to leave the hands down too, but if not, you can come up. There's a big difference between supporting your back and doing this or lengthening your back and doing this versus hanging out on the joint. Okay.

You probably wouldn't even feel the stretch as much if you just rested on the joint rather back away from it. A little try for a bit of a Tuck and the whole position is supported. I you could almost lift out because you've got equal weight almost. I mean you could, but we don't need that much attention even if you want it or use the arms up, but include the whole back, meaning your little lengthening everything and then exhale. Use the forward foot to push into the ground to lift up, to come into a hamstring stretch again. You want a flat back.

So if you need to bend a knee, you should. Good. You can also take your hand and physically move the leg. I know that leg lengths make a difference on how easy it is to get into this. So bend your knee just for a second. Debra. The right knee, it'll locked. Good. Sorry. And then it's going to come from here. So, so flat, flat flat.

Then bend this more cause the reason I say that is because you're missing the upper end of it. There we go. You need, you need like something to put your hands on. Don't you? It those long legs. Yeah, I remember that now here we go. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Cause now you get that other backend. Cause if anyway you get the point, let's just go ahead and transition now that I've got you finally set that aside. But that's a really important part.

Your Wendy's probably close to to needing something for her hands cause she's got long legs relative to anything. Gorgeous. Okay. Protecting yourself, supporting yourself. Breathing deep. Now Jennifer, I know you're a little more flexible than that. There she goes. But I would probably suggest in moving that left leg more forward. That way you have something to go towards. Yeah.

If it's available to you or you want it, reach up. Notice the temptation to shrug the shoulders. They can kind of go up. They're not going to do any harm, but only if it's facilitating a deeper stretch. Then using the forward foot, push back a little to unload it. That's nice. And then finding it tiny bit more knee bend, not the back knee, the front knee. So that, yes. Yes. Don't you still feel it? I would think you'd feel more. It feels strange. Well, I'm okay with strange as long as it's somewhat of a stretch. Yeah. Okay, good.

Let's move right into arms kneeling. So can you be nailing a little longer? I have this nice cushy mat. Yeah. Okay. If you feel like you need to, you can pat, you can roll the mat up a little bit. I'm gonna face you just for this. Um, in fact you might want to face me too. You might want to face problem. There's a series called the sidearms kneeling series.

I'm going to do both arms at once. Um, this is one of those exercises that you could just go, what is the point? Or you think about shoulders, shoulder stabilizers, and by that I specifically mean mid to lower Trapezius, and the first position is right here. Okay? So the hand is right alongside your face. Talk about a strange position, right? Um, it is, and we know that. So it's not here. It's here. Okay, now it's good. You guys look great without raising your arms at all. In fact, shrug your shoulders. Yeah. Then d shrug them or relax them, but go a little further than where they were to feel maybe to the back. Okay? The only thing I didn't say was the setup of the body.

So set yourselves up so that you are neutral. Here we go. It's an exhale. Effortless arms is as the arms begin to straighten the Scapula, the shoulder blade, try to travel further down your back. It's not severe. It's more like a heavy shoulder blade. Then to bring the arms back down, you continue to pull the shoulder blades down as if you're spreading out the air. You're massaging the air, pulling the elbows to the far wall. Exhale, press good trying for right alongside. That's not available to everybody. You might have to go a little in front and exhaling. So we call it arm work, but we're much more interested in what's happening at the shoulders and the back and I don't release and bringing it down, changing the position you make little fists one the other kind of right on top.

Maybe slightly crossed. That would be ideal I suppose. Alright. The muscle focus about the same, but now we're going to kick in the back of the shoulder. So do this or I should've done this first. Uh, you're just going to cut the fingers. Yeah. And all you're doing is with your neutral spines pulling apart and release, pulling apart and release, pulling apart. So I'm trying just to get your awareness around the muscle we want to initiate.

So it's the posterior side of the shoulder and now we go put your hands back to how they were. You're going to do that same thing as if they were cupped. Extend the arms out to the side. Now here, it's also tempting to pull in, not worth it. Reach longer, then come. And if you can remember which one was on top, put the other one on top. So initially like you're pulling against the resistance, you just take the elbow directly to the side and then continue the forearm out that way and then refold the elbow and let the upper arms follow that. So you pull and extend like you're just letting all the energy out and then come back and back. I kinda think of it as a two parter.

So it's upper arm poles than forearm, forearm, upper arm. If it helps you to think of pushing in, that works for me to pull, to stir, to bend to push enough for that from where you are. Take the arms out. At least the arms will get heavy just by shareholding them up. Right. Um, take your feet a little wider. So I'm thinking sort of like tripod shape. Yup. And staying in between imaginary planes of glass. We're going to side bend all the way. Touching those fingertips. Yeah. Take this up top arm over.

So what we're trying to avoid, and Debra, you've got again those long legs. So try, try your knees slightly further apart and now press your hips forward. Yeah, that's all you need. That's it. Okay, so we're all reaching kind of far so we don't feel crunched from there. This turn the top arm up so we get a good lat stretch. From here you're going to inhale, exhale, reach just a little further in here. Press your bright hip towards. Yup. And exhale, reach a little further. Okay, keep that. If it's uncomfortable, come back a little and bend the top arm. Exhale and straight and push the imaginary seat or push the ceiling away.

Bend and press. So again, it's an odd place to sort of tell you where to contract, so I'm not going to spend too much time doing it, but it's a subtle sense of the bottom of the shoulder or the armpit sliding toward down your body. One more time and if nothing else, you're getting a good stretch. Then from there, straight up to the ceiling. Like someone pulls you up. If you go to the other side, take your time. Feel what happens to your hips. The more you go over, the more the hips are going to want to pick out from underneath. You find what works for you. Left hip more toward the curtain. There you go. There you go. And then me, if you can just see if you can walk out a little.

If it becomes a pinchy thing or you lift off the knee, it's not worth it. You want equal weight on both feet and from there turn the palm up, shoulders down, and [inaudible] create resistance. So I don't expect to fatigue your tricep up here so much as we do. Having to hold this lovely position. Yeah, probably want to look down for your neck one more time.

Take the arm up too straight. Hold it straight without pushing off the ground. Just lift up. Ah, palms are up. Reach further. So it's more like a letting go. And now heavy shoulder blades as the arms go up and release it growing taller and your spine. More inner thighs like you're scooping the floor up again.

Yeah, I know it seems counterintuitive, but the more relaxed the actual arm is, the heavier the shoulder blade can be. The more work you're going to get at where we want it, which is in those upper back muscles. All right, good. That'll do. Come on down. Just take yourself so that your arms looking like we're all together. The Left Shin in front from Mermaid.

All right, we're up trying to, let's just take a minute of pressing that right hip forward and then roll it back and sit on again pressing forward and sit back. You can put your hands down too if you want to for that. Right. That's a bit of a stretch and prep. I just need one more and okay, so we're starting as square as possible. In fact, that right hip bone sit bone is probably got off the floor. We stretch the ribs, lean out over it, touch and possibly then slide a little more. Yup. And so we're up here, pull the ribs in.

This version of mermaid come across the chest, so rotate the ribs, the arm follows traction yourself on the floor. So I don't have my hands totally level, but I'm attempting to pull the shoulders level, reopen, engage and lift up, minimizing the push. You got it. Let's go. Even higher reach. Find the floor. Exhale, twist and open. Need to lift. Oh, okay. I'll get up. Go ahead. Inhale and exhale is in here.

So what do we need? I need some anchoring. That's what I need. I need to not hook the mat to get there. Exhale, sorta anchor yourself and I'm talking to myself. Really? I'm reaching this hip to then help me up. Okay, that's good. Reached the forward knee. I'll show. I'll show that again on the other side. First up. That might be enough. Then where the wall, the ceiling and the wall meet as opposed to down here.

Yeah, and then up. Hang on. I've got one more for you to maybe twist toward. Yup. That way the way it seems. Odd Do that. Yes. Lift the arms up, come around. We're going to the other way and assist yourself with your hands.

Look with your eyes all the way over that shoulder and come back. Right. Let's get this other side before Jennifer has to go. It's ever so slightly fast. Alright, we pressed the hip over and we roll it back. You might want your, I don't, I don't think you have to, but you might want your foot pressed into the thigh and roll the hip forward and back. Enhance can be on the floor. Especially if that's happening to you. What's happening? Oh No, nothing. You're just thinking, okay, I understand that. Like making sure you weren't stuck. Okay. Then we unwind where as level as we can be and reach out with the ribs.

Find your placement, see if you can go a little further without skipping and twist. Twist from the ribs, see what you've got. Take a little more time on this first one just to sort of go, oh, it's tighter or it's easy, or whatever it is, and then reopen. It's basically the rib cage or the spinal extensors, all of that. Really the trunk lifting, so we reach out. We find it now. Take a minute, take a second and look forward.

If you haven't turned the ribs first ribs and then the arm just goes across the chest. Now you can try and traction it to pull that back shoulder back and open back, shoulder back. I'm sure I get to set that better and again out to find it. The hand on the ground, that shoulder starts pulling back as the other shoulder comes forward and open to reaching out. Find the ground to West [inaudible]. Now all the body weight could easily dump into the hands here.

Don't let it reopen. Try and send the hips first. Send the hips and then left. Yeah, yeah. Twist toward it. Oh right. I'll come back for that one. Thank you. And unwind. Other way. I'm trying to continue the rotation through the spine so that you can look over your shoulder and then bring it back and say the best for last.

Reaching up first. There you go. Yup. There it is. And then hi corner. If that once you settle there and it's fine and if you're more flexible and want more, certainly then you can go over to the middle of the wall and maybe even to the floor, but make sure you've at least lifted up first. Ah, okay. Well let's go. We've got at least two more, so we're going to go face down to do the hamstring curl in the breaststroke. So maybe you guys face the center. Thank you, Jennifer. Yes. Yes. You Bet. You Bet. Okay, so the hamstring curl first.

So what that means to you is you're going to rest your forehead on your hands. Okay. Be comfortable through the shoulders so they're down and you're just basically cozy for a moment. Then draw the abdominals, leave the legs down for one second of draw the abdominals in so much that you feel lovely this length through the back. Okay. If you're like Emily, you can leave the abs off the entire exercise. In fact, we can all try to leave that abs off. You all can leave the ads off, but not so much that you pull up into the shoulders. So rather per keep weight on the forearms and then pull the abs up a little. Okay, good. Just so you have that intention.

Now reach the legs further til they hover. It's pretty settled. He may not even see it, but the kneecaps are off because you lifted at the glute from that place. Uh, bend the knees and drag them all the way to your butt. Yup. Without letting your hips, pike, keep those abs off the floor. And I kind of mean that image wise, but you can try then as if I was behind you at your ankles. Push the legs back out, keep it, go ahead. I'll move you. Push, push, push, push, push and, and I don't mean to make it an aquatic exercise, but that's okay if it's some, and then rebend so you resist both ways is another way of saying it.

And Aaron and I are similar. I'm, I would personally feel, feel like I could feel it more if I flexed my feet as I brought them in and pointed that pushed out. It really doesn't matter. But yeah, just like that Mary, it just gives me that sense of you're anchoring the hips, no doubt about it. They are not to move a bit after you've done that initial tuck. Right? So if I know, you know what you mean, but I want to just make sure I'm saying what you mean. Good. Can you lift your knees anymore? Yeah, but does that go to your back? Oh No. Good. Good. Give yourself just one more.

I trust you. Feel your hamstrings. Y'All look very controlled. Okay, good. So go back down and then, because you guys know this one way, I'm gonna ask you just to sit up for a second. You can be stretching your glutes out. Um, it's breaststroke, right? So normal breaststroke. You would be here, here, around and down. Kay. Instead we're just going to reverse it. You do the initial lift of the abdominals. You will from here, extend your arms back and I'm going to ask us, instead of having hovered like we would if we were on the box because of the external rotation we can get, leave them down.

And then as best you can, you may have to lift the elbows a little bit as best you can to there. Then lift up and down. Yeah. Okay. I know it is right. It's, we'll call it the butterfly instead of the reverse breaststroke. It's swimming backwards. Extra. Yeah. You might want to back up just a little. Okay, cool. So you're here, it's not right under you, but kind of spread out. Yeah, it's good.

The feet stay on the ground the whole time. Thank you for that. Um, while I hear and it's worth it, just spread out your back. Like feel your whole back become cobra like good. So Deborah, what you can do is let your elbows be off the mat. Probably. Almost everybody actually. Huh? Maybe not. Sorry. I said off the Mat. I met wider. Not In the air. My fault. Okay, here we go. Moving right along. Slide your forearms down the floor all carefully, carefully, carefully until your hands touch your hips, but perfect. Then lift your chest, lift your arms, lift everything.

Circle the arms up in front of you from the shoulder blades. Pull your arms back to the start position and lower down for them. Slide around the floor. Inhale, external rotation. Lift everything except for the feet. Circle and forward, pulling the shoulders away from the ears and bend to come down again. Inhale back. Continue. Inhaling to lift all the way. Beautiful.

Exhale. Bring it back into place. You guys look great. Doesn't have to be real high, right? It has to be that arch. Keep going. You got it. Little lifting around right here is where the shoulders need to reap. Pull down. Perfect and back. One more time in joy.

Up, up, up and bearing it on back. Excellent. Come into a child's pose or rest position. Ah, okay. Can I get all the blocks? I'm pretty sure I missed one. I did write on, whew. I do know what I'm doing. You guys worked hard and get job. Sometimes that can be a mental tease, but sometimes that's exactly what we need.

When you do the work so often, as all of you do, do you need anything else before we go? No. Good, good. My mission is accomplished. Then can we, and just standing with the feet parallel and apart, folded over, basically resting, but with the knees bent and a little abdominal of course, and just shake your head out. I've bent my knees enough that I'm comfortably resting my hands. I'm not really using them a lot, but they're there to help free up the tension. If it, it might feel good, let's just all do it. Um, take your hands to one side, leave your lower body exactly the same, but take your hands to one side sort of reaching that. If we're going to the left, you'd reach that right arm a little bit more.

It's okay if it, I kept my hips square. Yeah, definitely. If anything I'm also, I'm trying to oppose it by almost taking them left. Yeah. And let the shoulder blade slide off your back. I won't tell. And then just switch. Hips are square. Reaching a little further. Head's heavy. Equal weight on both feet. You could even slightly lean away from your hands, right?

Like we sometimes do on our knees and then back to center. Come up a little bit more enough that your arms are hanging and start circling the arms. You could do it with straight legs. I, I think we're good to just leave them around or bent. I mean, once you get the arms going, let them go and it generally keep them on your back, right? They're not right up your ears. It actually gives a really nice release to the neck if you somewhat hold them on. Go the other way if you haven't already. Mm. Just notice how easy we can be in our bodies like this and then when it feels right, let the arm settle and you can even use your hands on your legs to help you finish the roll up or whatever. Feels good.

Growing Taller, lifting up off ourselves. So easy to kind of bear down throughout the day. But let's just think about the natural propensity to rise, which is absolutely the case inside. Taking a big inhale up. Let's finish how we did last week, which was just a drop everything. Exhale, bend the knees and just dropped. Going right back up. This is your opportunity to really let go of anything, or if you need energy, maybe it'll give you more, I dunno. What do you need? And how about one more and release?

I thank you so much for coming. Good work.