Class #132

Reformer Primary Blocks

30 min - Class
60 likes
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Description

Cover the primary blocks and get your heart rate up in just 30 minutes! In this class, four intervals of jumping exercises are interspersed between the Foot and Leg Work, Hip work, Abdominal work, Stretches, Arm work, Lateral Flexion, and Back extension blocks. All this and the class is over before you know it! Chances are you will end class a little sweaty so leave a little extra time to towel off.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box, Jump Board

About This Video

Mar 27, 2010
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Transcript

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Okay. So we're just going to do um, a relatively quick interval class using the jump board and utilizing other politesse exercises as well. So set yourself up with a decent amount of springs enough and US springs that you would do foot work on. And with that you can just bring yourself all the way down onto your back. Starting there we're just going to warm up by doing a couple of pelvic curls. I'm going to have you just reached the, the heels right on the top of the jump born.

So just some words where you feel secure and stable. Stretch your arms along your sides. Take a moment. We'll just take two breaths. Breathing in, breathing out and using that Xcel to just start to come into the body and heal. One more time. Exhale for the mind. And you know, one more time annex, how we move. Drawing the abdominals down or rolling the spine up.

Keeping the carriage still to the springs will help you a lot. You're lifting all the way up so you're reaching the knees over the toes, coming all the way up into a straight line, knees in line with shoulders. Inhale, exhale coming down. Chest, reaching away from the chin, one rib at a time, working strong through the lower back and try not to let go as your pelvis comes down and yelled again, Xcel we come. So just allow this to to be a warmup for the spine. Definitely a warmup for the ABS and most certainly a warmup for the legs.

Tapping in right away, curling down, keeping the knees parallel to one another, making sure both sides of the spine come down evenly on the mat, both sides of the pelvis, in fact as well. Two more times we roll up tucking the pelvis at the top or on your way the whole time anyway, the ribs stay down or to say that in one more version and better. Don't arch the ribs. Keep the ribs below the pelvis. Last one here, using the breath. [inaudible] bring the arms back, reach back and hold onto your hooks here. Pick up the legs. Just a couple of spine twists and heel to the right and XL lacrosse center. Keep the elbows wide and still as you shift from side to side. Exhale, lean back to center and across onto one side of the pelvis and exhaling to come back and inhaling it cross to the other side of the pelvis. Annex.

I'll tick on the back. That's that lift up. Reach for your knees with your hands. Push your knees into your hands. Curl from just underneath the ribs and check that the tailbone is down the double leg. Stretch the legs go over the jump board and back in. They go a little higher maybe than we're used to, but let's utilize that to go deeper or to feel more of a strong connection to our center. It's in Hilton reach. Women of the abs not going to be a long class, so we got to kind of get right into it quickly. Last two, one to go hold their son, the right leg out straight.

Push your knee into your hands. Push your hands into your knee with your lats and change and change. So there's an activity happening. The glutes, the hamstrings, the inner thighs. We've got work in the legs. Not to mention working in the ABS to hold ourselves stable.

We're going three more. One and one. Two looking for stability in the pelvis is was the last one. Hands behind the head. Turn from their rib cage, sending the toes on a high diagonal, looking for strings. Last two, one more. Hold Center bend both knees. Lift a little higher. Stretch the legs up.

Lower both legs down three, two, one and pull them back. One Lauren down again, three, two, one and pull them back to go in one more time. Now lower them on one but be careful that your backseats down and lift them. Three, two, one and lower. Arm and lift in theory to one and one to go lift in three, two, one. Bend your knees and lay down.

Position your feet on your jump board just about level with the pelvis and go ahead and press out there. It's probably best to press out and then adjust your feet when you get there. So they're just underneath the hips. We're going to bend the knees, you're going to be limited by the flexibility in the back of your calves. Just bend to the where the heel stayed out and finding the back of the leg. So it's all about energizing what we want to work and instead of just letting what wants to work, do everything.

So just like footwork regularly, we've got our hamstrings act, we've got our quads finishing the movement supporting through the knee. You are not lifting, you're here working on the flexibility in the ankle joint last too. It's warming up the legs. One more hold. Raise your heels up. Some not a lot about through two inches and bend. You'll be able to come a lot deeper now.

But just notice the difference between where you can come on your toes and where you can come on your heels. Because once we start to jump, we're going to endeavor to get the foot all the way flat. We'll be pushing off the toes but having to land back on the toes and roll through the foot. So the range of motion will be that small. Last three, finding the hips. Find any of dominoes too. One, bring your heels together. Swivel into external rotation in the hips. Squeeze your glutes, bend heels are still lifted in press and Paul and press and Paul just using our warming up the legs and all the positions that we will be jumping in.

We're not going to do all all of the foot positions, but just letting yourself feel what your range of motion is. I don't know. I'll go for and po and three and into this is it [inaudible] bend your knees and come all the way in. Turn to your side, lift yourself up, change to a spring. That would be appropriate. You appropriate for you to jump do hip work and do ab work. I'm using a red and a blue spring personally, and then we come back down.

Okay, so once again, feet just underneath the hips. Maybe let's all straighten the legs and then once again, bend the knees and just see where you can go without lifting the heel. This is a position that you're looking to come back to. We're jumping 15 times. Here we go. Jump out and land rolling through the foot on the land, finding a flat foot, feeling the abdominals working so you're solid on the carriage. Working from the glutes, not just the quads. Oh, I can't talk and count.

Take it into first position. Here we have one. Squeezing the glutes, the inner thighs. Connect. Check in with your shoulders. Look for power, but also ease, especially on the way. Hmm. Let's see what I mean by that is power through your center and ease as far as field that you're jumping and landing lightly. Chrissy, help. Thank you. Come back and bend. Take the right leg off the gym port. Find a nice solid left foot. 15 jumps. Here we go. One, two. Sorry. Rolling through the foot. I think toe, ball, heel. Pay attention to the opposite. Hit.

Keep the leg that's lifted. Totally still and last one. Change. Sorry, I late call. Squeeze. Connect from your glute. It's so easy to just work with the thigh. The quad. Find the back of the leg. Last three.

We're going to alternate the legs to press off both leg straighten and change. Okay. Still Rolling through the foot. Finding straight legs as you've passed through center, looking for a solid 90 degree angle in the knee. That's bending in and we're going five five, four, four, three, three, two, two, one, one land on both feet, kind of in all the way in.

Reach back, pick up your straps, put them on your feet I and to just a little bit of basic hip work. So my challenge for you as to where pretty deeply in your hips, bend the knees. Can your legs feel weightless is here. Use Your abdominals to slide your carriage back. [inaudible] along with the sense of weightlessness lists, find solid inner thigh glute contraction.

Feet are just sliding back and forth and along imaginary line. Do three more, two more and one way. Keeping the legs together. Lift them up at the top. See if you can just externally rotate just a little bit more than me. Press down from there feeling as the league circle out around enough, the rotation of the Femur, the head of the Femur in the hip joint down out around and looking for symmetry.

I don't let the intensity go. Making an exclamation point with the fee before the leg start moving down. Just do two more here and then go the other way. So reach outreach down school [inaudible] together and Paula and [inaudible] school is mostly with your abs, but also with your hip. Turning the hips.

Last three, two more. And last hold at the bottom. Separate the legs. They go out along a horizontal line and then we squeeze back and point your feet out and flex your feet in. Make sure it's not just about the legs, but more so about front of the body, pulling the legs together. So the more actively we can lift up out of the legs and more challenging, perhaps we can make the legs be last three, two more. Last time.

Ben Janine's take your feet out of your straps. Let's play with the jumping just a little bit. So what we'll do here is an opening movement. So if you're jumping, really you're just extending out the knee and landing back together. Yes. Okay. So first things first, you want to find your nice solid foot position. And here we go. We, nope. My heels are down throughout.

They're gonna lift when I've jumped, but they gonna come back down on my land. Here we go. One and two f finding that nice articulation of the foot jumping from higher up in the leg. Last five, four, three, two, one. Come all the way back. Take your left leg and just reach it up as the right leg jumps. The left leg. We'll extensive both legs and hidden. In fact extent. Here we go.

We press and John and sorry. So now one legs off. It's doing something on its own. Can we maintain the solidarity through the middle? Just three more. Gave up on 15 Christie and last four, three, two Oh one three Oh is keeping me honest too.

And okay. Coming all the way back. That's all right. Hold on to your straps with your hands. Arms just above the shoulders. Just lift the legs for now. We'll just do a couple of hundred preps. So as you exhale, push the air, reach all the way down to the outside of your hips and then inhale to come back down. Nice. Connect together. Exhale we lift up, reaching past the hips and end here we come back. Feel the movement of the arms originate and come from just underneath the shoulder blades.

Yeah. Four more. I lied. One more. Hold. Open your arms straight to your legs. XL. Everything comes home war. We're going to do eight if I can count that high doubt at t reaching from just underneath the arms. Steen curl last three, two and one. Hold there.

Let your arms come up. Your head comes down in a lift up into, so extend the legs and lift the chest. Reach your arms out, bend your knees and come. The hands come over their shoulders to come down. So it's a circle and yeah, and again. Yeah. Last one. Yeah. The rivers come up, reach out, pressing the leg straight.

Bend and come down as you lift your head and chest, you're pressing your legs out. Arms coming to the waist. End. Bend down. Open the arms scoped there and bend down. Last two, one more. That's the end of that place. Your straps back down. I think this'll be, yeah, it might be our last set of jumping. It might not.

So let's start with the feet flat. This time we're going to cross one leg over the other and land on both feet. Press out crossroads. Just crossovers I in here we go pressing out cross when they go over and land NCO squeezing from the inner thighs. I'm landing just back in a small v Christy, but you can keep doing what you're doing.

Christie's landing with one foot on top of the other. Either works [inaudible] last three, two and one and one come all the way in and then just roll to your side and help yourself out. Want me to come up onto your knees? I'm gonna lower my three to a light spring, probably a blue. So we're going to do the reverse knee stretch and to come up against your shoulder box. Reach your hands down so they're just on the slightly, I don't know, maybe about six inches from the carriage. And then bring the shoulders over the hands. First things first, draw the shoulder blades down away from the years and then try to realm the spine as much as possible. Then with the intention not of moving the legs but of rounding from the spine more. Bring the legs under and heel. Really, so it's not, I'm just, I'm not just pulling my legs towards me.

I am deeply trained around pressing my shoulders down towards my waist in order to get that nice trunk flection and we're going to go four more times. Head is heavy spine, Steve's round last one and then released all the way back. Step off to one side, turn around, put your knee up against the shoulder block. You could also add spring for this, but I don't think we need to just hands on the sh on the jump board and then press that knee out from underneath you and as you do so intentionally lift the spine intentionally. Keep the abdominals nice and tight to the spine and maybe push the Shin into the shoulder block a little, just a little bit more. I for us, I'm going to just breathe in here. No, that's come up. Just walk to the outcome, actually come onto the performer.

You might want to have heavier spring that we're going to do the down stretch. So, um, all right, so the down stretch, the hands are on the jump board. No, push your heels up towards the shoulder blocks. Press your hips forward and try to get the feeling of going up away from the jump board so you don't have a great deal of weight on your arms. And here we go. We press the carriage out, keep the heels connected to the shoulder blocks and the lift up. Almost like you're coming up against a brick wall trying to defy gravity as you come up. Inhale to go back and pulling yourself up. Ft Up. Uh, uh, so what I think about is support the pelvic position with the abdominals and with the back of the legs you're biasing towards a slight posterior toe.

From there it's all about your opera back. So focus there. One more to go. Stay there. Hold yourself in. Reach your right arm, reach behind you, right? You tell him towards your left heel. I'll reach out. Spiraling when rolling the hand back down. Keep carriage.

So it's the left arm on. Let me show around to the back, back towards that right heel. Getting rotation through the spine. Reach the Armour, bring it back and put it down. Just step off to the other side. So we've got knee up against the shoulder block and just modifying the stretch a little bit. Hands on the jump board. Press the hip down as the knee moves out from underneath you and lift up through the spine. Just take a moment and breathe.

Anytime you're stretching the front of the hip, it's always worthwhile to engage them in the back of the leg. Push your shit into the shoulder block a little bit or squeeze your Tush or both. Okay. And then bringing yourself back in. I think we'll do one more jumping set. Can you do sideline without, if you at home need a pillow to lie to make it more comfortable. Get One. Christie and I are going to tough it out.

So we're going to lie down on our side. Headdress is probably a good idea to have up and you want to position your body so that your hips are behind your shoulders. Haven't yet found the perfect thing to do with the neck and shoulders. So just do what feels right to you. The bottom lake second, and here we go. You're pressing into the heel, jumping back and Leanne rolling through the foot, lightness in the jump and the land. Last four, three, two, one. Come all the way in.

Stay in this position. Keep your hand on your hip or put your hand on your hip and bring your leg out the front so it's now just above your other knee. Then lifted up and to try and reach it up and over the jump board and then slightly behind it without letting the pelvis move back too much and then not to come forward and and squeeze those glutes and press the pelvis forward as the leg comes behind and up to come forward. I'm sorry, Christie. Just up. Uh Oh, you can do it for Christie with the big jump board. I've got the nice little one. How about one way it's looking for a rotation in the hip and then coming up and bending the knee and turning to the other side.

All right, so here we are lined up spine, long abs in and we go [inaudible] last two [inaudible] and then the legs coming out just over the opposite knee. It's going to come up and straight too behind looking. Of course you can do it up in forward, no problem there. I think that, and I've been fired. I did five. So here's three big rotation through the hip, keeping the focus through the waist to keep the spine nice and stable last time and then [inaudible].

Okay, so we're coming up to sitting again or kneeling rather. I'm going to keep my spring light. I'm going to stick with a blue red. What also be appropriate here, but I'm, I'm looking for something, I'm looking for more and it's easier for me. Ana, I had a spring. So bringing in the knees [inaudible] excuse me, just against the shoulder blocks, the hands on the ropes. And if it was too easy on the spring that you've chosen, you can always walk up just a little bit higher or wrap your hands in fat. Christie, are you on a blue? You're kind of, okay. Anyway, so arms reaching down towards the ground. And this is just the chest expansion, just for a couple press back. And then once you get just behind yourself, try to wrap the arms backwards. And what I mean by that, I'll go ahead and come forward again.

So go into the normal chest expansion where your arms are reaching towards the ground and then try to roll your rear underarms forward or your elbows inward and then reaching back forward. So what I'm really asking for is a rotation of the humor s in the shoulder, socket of the arm, high up in the joint rather than the elbow or the hand. But sometimes it's easier to think of it from the hand up. And then we go one more time. And here it is. And then we're going to take this into a rotational exercise.

So what we're doing is breathing in as you breathe out, start to turn to your right and make it purely obliques initially and then allow your arm to come with you. So amniotic on back. Exhale purely oblique worth first. Both arms, light, anything. They're just reaching down and then turn the shoulder, but they hit presses forward so there's no rotation in the pelvis. Come back. It shouldn't be a huge movement and shouldn't feel real easy. Feels easy. Something's dreadfully wrong and come back. Oh, obliques. Turn the truck so you the yard.

I'm going to add a small variation to this. It'll start exactly the same. Turn to the right now. Slide that arm down the side of the leg down the back of the leg. It's not so much a side Bin, it's just a lot reach, although you will bend slightly backwards. Rotate first. If anything, think about bending from the upper back rather than the lower back and release.

And we're going to do that one more time on either side. Turn first should be pretty intense. Arm reaches down, chest lifts, oh, and then come back and last one. And we're going to end today's workout with back extension. So staying in this position, start to guide the arms first thing, pull the abdominals and impress the pelvis forward a little bit. Squeeze the back of the legs for support.

Then bring the arms just down the sides of the body and from there try to lift up on the head like someone's pulling you up from your ear lobes, lifting just the chest as the arms reach further and further and further towards the ground and then return the trust back so you're in a neutral position and let the arms relax a little or release forward. So we reached down and back first solid through the lower part of the body. Let the head reach up, let the shoulders reach down. It's more of the intention of getting taller. That's going to create the back extension there than the actual back extension.

Although, and then come forward, the back will bend somewhat. It's not a huge movement. Let's do two more arms. Reach down on top of the head, reaches that abdominals, are working, try to grow taller, lets the eyes look up at the very last moment and then we release. And here's our last one for the day. Shoulders down, hands reaching down the sides of the thighs, hips pressing forward eyes. And with that release all the way back forward. Put Your straps back down. And then just take a moment, walk yourself in fat, straddle that reformer instead of sitting on your knees.

And then just be here for a minute and think about being real tall on your sitting bones and just guide the hips back, not with your hands, but just to energetically backwards. And then walk yourself forward right along the frame. Hanging forward. Shoulder blocks might limit you somewhat so you could always adjust your position. Try to lengthen the spine out. Now it's a stick the tailbone up into the air and lift the chest.

Keep the right hand where it is, and just reach the left arm over across, past it. Put it down and use it to create a little traction. So you're able to give yourself a little bit of a rotational stretch and then come back through. Center left, 10 goes down, bringing the right hand across. So I'm lifting my chest up away from the shoulder blocks as I round my spine towards the shoulder block on that side, and then coming back. And with that rolling up through the spine, I mean all do they to sitting, I don't know. I finished.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Nice rapid pace with full body workout...liked psoas stretch variation. Chest expansion variation with rotation was interesting but a bit confusing for me...the exercise was subtle and challenging. Thank you!! Good workout!
1 person likes this.
Good quickie! Those jumps really promote the burn in my thighs, quads!
Thanks!!
1 person likes this.
I agree - a really good quickie. Need to list it as a jumpboard class, tho.
Laura ~ Thank you for catching that. The Jump Board has been added as a prop. We're glad you enjoyed the class!
Thanks Laura!
1 person likes this.
The Chariot/chest expansion was a fresh variation!
Glad you liked it, Carolyn. So happy to see that these older classes are still in the rotation!
This class was excellent! really enjoyed the cues for down stretch. I really felt it differently. Also, the oblique rotation, and the lat pull was awesome!! Meredith is such a great teacher and asset to the Pilates community!! Thank you :)
Thank YOU Heather! I love that people are still returning to the older classes. I appreciate your sweet words!
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