Class #1769

Building Core Stability

40 min - Class
148 likes

Description

Focus on building grip strength, buoyancy, and core stability with Benjamin Degenhardt in this Cadillac workout. It is his hope that exercises such as Flying Eagle, Spread Eagle, Chest Expansion, Breathing, and Semi-Circle will prepare your body for the workout's grand finale of Overhead Pike and Hanging.
What You'll Need: Cadillac

About This Video

Jul 15, 2014
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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Benjamin Degenhart. I'm here with Christie and we're going to play on the Cadillac today. Um, the topic for, for this workout is to try to take advantage of the canopy up there a little bit and explore some of the aerial work that we have available. But, but getting there requires a lot of grip strength, a lot of a buoyancy in the body. So we're going to utilize the springs in a way that hopefully helps us do well up there later on. Um, we will be using the roll down bar as well as both the legs springs and our arms springs as well as a push through barber. Basically gonna use everything. Uh, we will also have our, um, cuffs ready for the feed and I have the trapeze ready for one exercise we'll be doing later. So basically, uh, we'll be playing around with everything the Cadillac has to offer. Are you ready? Awesome. So come on up here. Bring your feet against the Poles.

We're just going to start nice and easy with a rollback and some rowing, um, just to start working on grip strength and mobilizing the spine. And just easing into what's to come. So sit up nice and straight with your heels all the way. Attach to the pulse. That might mean your knees have to bend a little bit and just work on getting good, strong Fisker with your hands for this exercise, preparing for what we're preparing for, uh, like the fist grip so that it really sets a good, um, energy into the shoulder complex there. And then just go ahead and roll yourself back. Roll the hip Sunder, keep energies through the heels, adjust a few must at the bottom.

And then we started with your rowing pulls here. You bring your bar to your chest and one quick pull and then you release slowly and again, two more times. Just starting to feel the spring tension coming into the body. And after three, stretch the arms up and away from you. And then bring your chin over your chest and roll yourself all the way up. And we're just working on mobilizing the spine a little bit, getting some strength into the shoulders and into that grip. So curl libs under, feel the connection all the way into your fingers.

There and then pull three times release with control and two, and you might want to think that you're standing on those poles while you're there. So it's a nice and strong stance. Sit all the way up at the top and we'll do two more routes. Keep reaching through the heels, pull up on the bar, release it with control. Each time the arms straight and feel like your neck gets a little longer girl. And all the way up, we'll take the last one.

I'll see if as your hips curl under you can really connect it all the way into your hands and down through the feet as well. So your whole body moves as a whole. Good. And then you pull quick, you release low and two and slow. One more time. And then Chin over, chest, push the buy down and away from you slightly so we can keep the tension a little bit longer throughout. And then you can let the bar go. All right, flip around, lay down on your back and we'll do some leg spring work. Still just warming the body up. So I have the springs right here in the middle. Step your feet in. Now again, we're working on grip strength among other things.

So I want you to get a really good strong fist grip around the poles and push yourself up to an arm length away for Nice, good resistance there, right? So even though we called his legs in the feet, obviously in the straps and the legs are going to be moving, I want you to think that this is about your arms, right? How your body manages the tension that's coming in through your arms pressing back. So just use your arms for a second to get your spine as straight as possible and make yourself long and tall. Bend your knees in as much as you can. So the springs hold you there for a second. And then your first order of business is to get your seat down onto the mat.

Nice. And then from there, start to extend your legs out. Just an engine hold. Stay right there. Notice that as the spring tension comes in, your arms have to work much harder to and then keep pushing your arms back. And your legs out until you're fully extended. Keep that energy going. As you slowly let the springs do their job, which is coming back in and you stretch out and back in. Good and stretch long energy through the heels and you come back in.

Now notice that the springs are only gonna pull you so far. I want you to go a little bit higher at the top. Yes, good. And stretch and come back and still stretching. You'll see down. Nice and stretch and back in. We'll take three more here. Those hips, nice and heavy. Pull them into you.

Beautiful and too in come and you have one more. Take it all the way in. Reinvigorate those arms. Yes, there we go. And then stretch your legs out one last time. Almost think that the energy continues going that way. So much so that your hips, mitral start to become a little bit lighter on the Mat. So CIF, by pressing into your straps more, your hips start to lift a little.

You start to curl them under and they start to hover just enough. So I can slide a little piece of paper underneath your hips and you hold that. Press the arms back in opposition for your whole body. Stretch itself apart. Then lower the hips back down and bend your knees and all the way it looks like nothing. It's a lot of work and you go against, stretch it out. Arms, back, legs out, curl lips under. Keep pushing into your springs so I don't see the feet flying up or down.

Very nice. And then lower the hips back down. Fold your knees all the way back into you. Now one more time. Stretch out into your straps. Hold it here like you're setting your feet down on something and then lift yourself up. Keep pressing back through the arms. Neck is long and free. You are to fall. Roll the spine back down. Bend your knees and all the way.

Excellent. And then stretch your leg straight back out. This time you hip stayed down. We're just going to go into circles. Opening up the hips, forwards later up open. Stretch the legs away and bring them back up together. Open down and back up. No. Same thing here.

Even though the legs are doing the work, I want you to feel that connection through your arms and opposition. Three more every millimeter along the way. It's a different amount of weight coming into you so the arms have to work harder or less hard as you go. One more time. Squeeze them together, lift them up and reverse it. Stretch the legs out to bring them back up. Urinal. Now she's doing a great job keeping the springs under control so it's not the springs lifting the legs. She lived herself, the springs.

Just follow one more time down around and up. Hold the legs here now. Just like before, see if you can make your hips slide again. Lift yourself up. How do you feel about doing circles up here? Lower the hips down for a second. Bend your knees in all the way and we're going to start it on this one. Off you go. Stretch out your legs. Curl lips up. Just three each direction.

See if you can suspend yourself mid air, right? We're getting ready for some of that aerial work. So want to see how she manages her spine. It can reverse how she manages her spine when there's no support around her. Beautiful. Lower the hips down. Bend your knees in.

And just to make sure we'll do one more set. So adjust your arms, press it out, lift the hips up and just three circles each way and too and all and good and reverse. Get those risks nice and low and behind you. And two and one. Hold the legs together, lower the hips down all the way and then bend your knees into your chest. Excellent job. Go ahead and grab the straps, take them off your feet. Alright. And then were pretty much already warmed up what you say. So yes, extend your legs out long on the Mat we will do a couple of exercises, just the a hundred and the roller just to move the body against gravity with no springs attach. Lift your arms up to the ceiling to start. Pick yourself up into your hundred position and start pumping, breathing in and breathing out. [inaudible] while you do that, I'll have a little furniture change here. I'll take this, the rollback bar down and get your springs out of the way for the roll over later. Deep inhale and a full exhale. Good.

Now think that your feet are still working until those legs springs opening through the front of your hips. Deep Inhale and exhale. Good. Give me two more deep breaths. Inhale and exhale all the air out. This will be your last one. Deep Inhale and exhale. Two, three. Hold on. One second. Feet down, flex them, release your head, lift your arms up to the ceiling, and then three times or roll your spine up. Chin over. Chest. Take a big stretch forward. You know, keep pushing your heels forward as you roll yourself down like you have those legs. Springs there still. And two more. Up and over. Take a big stretch. Now push your heels out into my hand. Roll yourself down, down, down. Just one more time. Up and over. You Go. Stretch, lift out of your waist, and then you come all the way down.

Take your arms back and hold on to the polls. Good. Now just start pulling on the polls as if you could bend them without sliding yourself back just to get your back engaged, right? We feel that connection there. All right, good. We're going to add that into our roll over here. So you pick up your legs to 90 degrees.

You just do your math roll over when your legs up and over. If your hips just a little for me. Beautiful. Now while you come down, you can keep your legs together for this one. Pull even harder on the Poles as if you were to slide yourself back. So you roll the spine down and you keep pulling and pulling to get those back muscles engaged. Almost like you're pulling the brakes with those that stretch the legs away from you. And let's go two more times.

So it's like that before we add the leg movement in reach back. Now, pull on your poles as you come down. Excellent and low at one more time because later on you will have to do that upright. You pull on the Poles as you move through your spine with great controls, strong Fisker with the hands. Lower the legs all the way down. Good. Now let's have you slide away a little bit from the pulse so that you can get a really good fist grip there. Perfect. Good. Now we're going to do the full roll over with your legs opening at the top just two times each way. Pick up your legs, stretch them up and over. Open the legs.

Pull on your poles. Gorgeous, nice, and one more this way. Squeeze the legs together. Up and over. Now open them and keep reaching your legs back as you pull on the pulse or rolling the spine down and then reverse it twice. Open and lift. Squeeze the legs together. Pull on the Poles, and roll yourself down. Now take one war. Get that grip. Nice. Since raw, you're going to need it later.

Roll yourself all the way down and down and down. Very nice. You can let go of those poles. Ed last, lift your arm straight up to the ceiling. Take a deep breath in in one motion. Sit Yourself. Up until rolling like a ball. Bend your knees, Grab Ahold of your ankles. Excellent. Now this is going to mimic the pipe position we'll do later up in the air. You're enrolling yourself back onto your shoulder blades and you go into a rollover there. All right, so roll yourself back like your ball. Hold it there.

Stretch your legs overhead. Reach your arms up to the ceiling. See if you can hold that position. So imagine later on you're going to hang on to the canopy with that. All right, so from there, bend your knees back in. Roll yourself back up like a ball. That's your rolling like a ball. Do Shore. All right, let's go back again. Rolling. It's up to your shoulders, arms up, legs, back. Good.

And just hold that position for a second. Nice. And this is just a good way to test if you're rolling too much weight into your head. If you're using too much momentum, can you keep that live through your spine? Bend your knees or rock yourself back up. And let's do that three more times just for kicks. Were ordered back. Press the legs together.

Stretch the arms up nice and bend your knees. Come back in last two times. Good. Yeah. Might just be able to pick her up. No, I'm not going to try that, but it might just be positive. All right. Stretch those arms straight up. Beautiful and come back in one more time and hopefully your body will remember this later when we get up there in the air. Now Bend your knees all the way and come all the way up to a seated position.

Hold it there for just a moment. Ah, excellent. Then spin around face the other way. I'm going to set up the push through bar. You can go ahead and lie down on your back and we'll do 'em two sets of tees and today the first one you will just keep your legs down and just move the spine. So extend your legs long on the mat, bring them together and just get ahold of this bar. Good news is the bar is going to support you on your way up, but all the time I want you to feel like there's a weight coming down.

So I'm going to down on the bar. I want you to press up against me. Good. Nice. Now as you start rolling up, want you to keep feeling like there's a weight on top of this bar, like I'm standing on it. All right, so you go ahead and start pushing up against the bar. Leave the legs down, roll yourself up as high as you can without pushing the ribs out so we're not coming fully straight. That's perfect right there. Excellent. Keeps stretching your legs out and away from you to hold that little bit of a curl through the hips and then very slowly melt back down. Nice. Release the head. So basically you're just making it much harder than it needs to be by imagining that there's a weight coming down on your right.

But it'll give you some nice control there as you roll yourself up. Key pressing up against the bar, keep stretching the legs out in a way from you. Feel the stretch that comes right through your back here. And then with enormous amount of space, come back down and make yourself even longer as the spine meets the Mat. Release the head. Now we'll just do one more of those. Chin over.

Chest press up against the bar. Nice. Good. And again, we're looking for how the spine behaves here as it's sort of suspended in the air rioting. Slowly come back down, letting both sides of your chores who come down at the same time I have the bar, you can let go and you go ahead and flip over to your stomach. We'll just flip that whole situation around. So keep your head down. I'll bring the bar through and then bring your arms forward. You can now lift your head back up to see where the bar is and set yourself an arm length away from the bar. Good. Get a good grip there.

Your forehead is down on the Mat, your neck is nice and long and the legs are together. Now same thing. We're trying to see what the spine does in a backbend when it's suspended up in the air, right? So treat the bar like your new floor to hold on to. As you lift yourself up, Chin comes forward and up. You lift yourself first. So at some point the bar starts moving in towards you, but you keep working like somebody pulling you up from between your shoulder blades. Look at that. Very nice. Now try to continue lengthening through the sides of the way so that as you come down, you're not coming straight down, but your head might just touch the mat a little closer to that bar.

Release your head nice and again, lift your eyes, see the bar, keep the bar right there. Push forward and into it. As you lift yourself up, reach you head back towards your heels and only when it must, then it starts coming in towards you. Very good and solely coming down. So again, we're working on the idea of suspension. Lock to the sides of the waist. Squeeze your legs together. Let's do one more here. Nice. Now let's see if you can control this place.

What if you bend your elbows a little bit? Could you stay up there and then press back out? Good. And again, it doesn't matter where the elbows go. This is really just like a test, right? Can you hold the balance here as the spring tension comes out of the spring. One more time, bend and stretch and you slowly come down. Nice. Good. Mission accomplished. Now come up one more time.

Only halfway this time. So you pick up you the bar. You stretch the front of your body here. Now pick up your legs behind you as well. See if you can get your feet up to the height of your head, keeping the knees nice and long. Now from there, Swan dive forward and back. Take the bar with you and up. Excellent.

Start to notice again how your spine behaves. Can you keep it in one piece from your head down to your tail? Nice. Three more times and up to and up. One more time. Hold and slowly come on down. While that was pretty perfect. Nice. Here's a little treat I'm going to hold onto your bar. You hold onto it as well, please. Is a nice little stretch.

Are you okay with that stretch? Yes. Okay. Thought so. Do Breath in. Ah, all right. I have the bar so you can let go. Just sit back over your heels for a quick second and because I was just so nice to you. Yeah, we can now do the full teaser. Okay. Yeah, I thought so. Go ahead and lie down. This time we're going to take the legs back up into the position, but again, we're looking for how the spine behaves. The second lift itself off the ground, it's sort of suspended mid air, your arms as supported by the bar.

The rest is all yours to control. So again, press up against that bar, lift up your head and look towards your feet. Pick them up to the height of your eyes too, and then lift everything up as high as possible. Now, while that is very easy to know, it's not very easy to control, but it's pretty straight forward. We're going to challenge that a little bit more. Take your right hand of the bar and see if you can touch your toes with the right hand, and then take that right hand up through the other side as well. Stretch your left hand forward. Bring it all the way back up.

Now keep pushing up against the Bozzi. Roll yourself back down and release the head. That was fun, right? Try that again. Chin over. Chest. Roll yourself all the way up. Lift the legs up as well. Good. Take the left hand off first and notice that as the spine is trying to stay as stable as possible, it has to counter rotate, right?

Because otherwise we're just fling off to the side. Can you touch your toes? Oh, there we go. Take the bar with your left hand. Try the other side. Keep that lift out of your waist. You've got this very solid knights. Take the right hand back in both hands. Pressing up both legs, stretching out. You come down, release the head. Ah, take a quick break here. Just a very quick one. We'll do one more, right chin over. Chest.

Stretch the legs out of your body. Pick yourself up. God, I take the right hand off hold. Now try to touch those toes to try to take your left hand off as well. Reach it up and forward. Curl the hips under girl lives and to bring the legs closer to you and everything down. Stretch your arms over your head, give yourself a good little stretch. That was good. Nice work. How are you doing there? Go ahead. Come on up to a seated position.

Give yourself a little forward stretch so I can get the barley away. Oh, so now that we have your spine under control, I'm going to go back to some grip strength work, right? So we'll start with some arm spring work. Go ahead and flip around face the other way. Bring your head down here. While I set these guys up, we always want to set them up sort of at shoulder distance here so they're nice and wide apart and you bring your shoulders pretty much underneath the handle here. We're not going to go for a full range of motion as much as just testing your grip strength and when it starts to give in, cause again we're going to need that in a little bit.

You can bend your knees and place your feet flat down just for more support in as the ice pressing together. And then spread your arm straight up to the ceiling, let your fingertips come away from the handle for a second and just let your stroll to settle down into the mat. And then like you're trying to squeeze the wood between your fingers, give you the strongest fist grip you have and just observe what just changed in your shoulders when you were squeezing. Release the fingers again and just do that one more time. Just tune into what changes when you fully grab on to the handle, right. Release that one more time. And um, and I might be projecting right now, but usually what happens, right as you connect into a strong Fiske or the muscles around the form, start to brace all the way up into the shoulder complex.

And that's kind of what we want, right? So now we're going to put some spring tension on that. Bring your arms forward until the straps catch you and impress the springs all the way down dow down. Reach into your springs and, and slowly lift all the way up. Good. I saw a little kink in there. Let's do that again. School Eco needs together. And press it down. See if it can hold the strength in that grip super solid.

Now push a little bit more into your springs as you lift them back up. You got it? Good. One more time. Press it down now see the springs in the corner of your eye. See if you can keep them this long as you lift your arms forward and up. Stretch, stretch, stretch, pressing down again. We'll do tiny circles. You lift your arms about an inch.

Circle out to the side and him up around it in, up around it in good three more times. Now while the circles are not that hard to concentrate on, I want you to think about your grip one more time. Nice. And then reverse it down, around and up, down, around, down around it three and in two and in one more time. Hold it down. Good chicken with your spring. Which one is wiggling more force into the handles. Good.

And slowly lift your hands all the way up. Ah, with your arms back behind you. Let your springs go and it will want to flip you over to your stomach. Just worked on your grip strength in support on from your back. Now we'll do the same thing where you have less support. So this is called Flying Eagle. I'm going to hold your feet down behind you.

If you have a strap around your Cadillac, you can hook your feet right underneath as well. I'll be your strap today, right? So come forward just a little bit. So the tension comes in a little bit later. It's a little nicer that way because I can be nice sometimes. Bring your legs a little over here and your hips. Let them adjust so that you feel square. How are we doing there?

Yeah. Okay, good. Now make your lower back nice and long. Here. Start by pulling your straps down and back without even lifting your chest yet good. And once you have your arms behind you start to bring your chest forward and up against them. Open into your springs and then slowly swim your arms out to the side to come back down. Excellent. Very nice. She pulls down and back.

Think of your pole strap on the reformer as you bring your arms back behind you. Lengthen your chest forward and up and opposition. Push me away. Gorgeous. Now hold onto the lift. Suspend in the air as you bring your arms out to the side and then you come down. It looks so good. One more time. Pull down, pull back, push me away. Push me away. Open your chest and slowly let your arms come out to the side.

I promised the reverse is twice as fun. Now you start suspending yourself with no spring tension helping you so you reach your arms out to the side, you lift yourself up. Then you pull into your springs, keeping that low back long. You got it and you come down. Let's do that. Two more techs go up and back. Pull the straps back behind you like you're trying to touch your heels and then length and to come down. One more time. Lift up, reach the arms back behind you. Pushing me away. One more time.

You got this nice and then come all the way down and relax. You can let those handles go. Sit back on your heels. Give yourself a quick little stretch. So we're basically going a little bit through our developmental positions here, right? We started learning movement on our bag. We flip it over to the stomach to make it more challenging to decrease the base of support. We're going to bring it up to your knees now, so chest expansion would be the next equivalent of that.

So that's what we're going to do. We'll use the rollback bar. You can stand up on your knees facing in. You want to be about an arm length away from your pole system here, and then got a good grip on that bar strong fits group again, and that might mean something else in this position here, right up on your knees. See if again, you can find a connection of squeezing the word all the way up into your shoulders. Now press your hipbones slightly forward and underneath your shoulders. That's good. Excellent. And then release that again. Exactly.

Do you notice how your hips are sticking back a little bit when that happens? So again, move your hipbones forward until you start to feel you seed. Engage somewhat, but you're not clenching it. You're not gripping it. It happens because you're shifting the hips forward. Excellent. Now hold that support and as best as you can, pull the bar down and against your legs. Hold that.

I know these are heavy springs. I know those. Feed one a fling up. Slowly release the bar back up. Good. Now the bar doesn't have to come down to your thighs. You just do your best. All right, deep breath in. Try to keep this alignment though. Hip bones forward, chest up and off you go. Inhale, pull down. Hold it there. That's great. Now can you press down into that bar and so let it rise back up.

Excellent. One more time. Then we add the next stretch. Pull it down, get a little Tyler, become more vertical, guarded girl. Let the bar come forward and up and then we add the next stretch. You pull the bar down on an inhale, hold your breath, turn your head to the right, turn your head to the left on that, that bar move. Look straight ahead and slowly let the bar back up. Urgh and Polunin turn your head left and right.

That low back. Nice and long. You got it and slowly lifted up. One more time. You decide, pull it down. Keep pressing down into your bar, like you're already lifting yourself up in the air. Take it to the left, straight ahead. Bar rises up. Last one, pull on the inhale. Turn one and two straight ahead and the bar lift up. It doesn't look like a big movement, but it's a lot of work, isn't it? She says, yes. Um, all right, take it back just a little bit from here.

Just back off and you still up on your knees. That might've been a little too much [inaudible] for your thigh stretch. We do want a lot more resistance on the springs because now they're your friend. We're going to hold you up, right? But again, I want you to focus on those puppies here. Really squeezed them around the bar. Keep the hips forward again and then one long piece.

Go back into your thigh stretch and again, just start to notice when does that grip one is straight. Now when does it want to bend more? When does it support you less? Now fly back up and forward. Beautiful. Let's do that again. Bring your body back and hold. Excellent and come back up one more time.

Keep those hipbones reaching forward so you have that support from underneath. Lean your body back and whole. Remember that rowing in the beginning. Rowing the bar towards your chest too. That here, pull three and release with control in two. Release with control. One more time for stretching. Hold and then fly back up. Good. We'll do that one more time.

Lean your body back into your thigh stretch and three times row on the bar three and stretch out two and stretch out. One more time. Stretch it long and you fly up and you can let the bar go. Nicely done. All right, breathing will be next. So we're going to keep working with this bar. We're going to set up the trip piece.

You can lie down with your head right here, right? So we are doing a version of breathing that is, I'm going to be a little bit more reminiscent of what you did with your legs. Bring work earlier. So be an arm length away from those poles. Hold onto them and get a good strong grip. Let me just eyeball this. Bring your feet up into the strap. Let's see if this is a good position for you.

That looks good. That's secured here. So we're working again, the opposition of your arms pressing back as your legs are reaching out, right? So keep your hips down for a second and just feel like you've just pushed out into your legs. Springs. Squeeze your legs together and then start pressing your arms back. Feel like you're pushing into your imaginary legs. Spring so much indeed that you hit. Start to hover up, you lift yourself up, and then keep pushing back to your arms as you roll the spine back down.

Excellent. Good. Release the hips at the bottom. Hard stuff, right? Let's do that again. Make yourself weightless in the strap. Reach your legs up and forward and just think about your spine becoming a little bit longer. As you come up. Now push the arms back as you roll the spine back down so you feel that full opposition through the body. Nice. We'll do a couple more. Use your inhale to lift yourself up, right? It's called breathing.

So let's put a breath in here. Hold your breath for a second. Push back against those poles. Xcel to roll yourself down. Now keep in mind that their springs here on your trapeze. I don't really want to see them open, so see if you can lift yourself up without opening the spring. So just make yourself weightless by using full body effort back through your arms, legs together.

Nicely done. And then Xcel slowly roll yourself all the way down. Could you see down really far away from your shoulders? Oh Nice. Good. Bend your knees into your chest, take your feet out of the strap and then just rock yourself up. Spin around face the other way and we're just going to change the Cadillac up a little bit before we go into our spread eagle and into the semicircle. So little furniture change here.

I'll take the springs down and we're going to have to move the spar all the way down as well. And you want to help me with that? Great. All the way down. Perfect. Created a little playground with springs here. All right, bring your feet against the pulse so you as exactly seated with your legs straight out in front of you for your Spread Eagle, bend your knees quite a bit so that you can reach up nice and high on the polls. I like getting into spread eagle like that because just getting into it like that is already an exercise. So once you're there, reach up just one more inch or two. So you already feel a stretch through here and you really need to rely on your fist grip there. Now just straighten out your legs.

Good. Notice how your feed reaching out and your hands holding on gives you that big stretch for the middle of your body. You might have to adjust your feet as you rolled through the positions here, but curl libs under ripple through your spine. Keep the arms straight and at the top, lift your heart to the ceiling. Release your head back into a mini back bend, but key pulling on the Poles and then chin over. Chest, reverse it ripple through the spine. Very nice.

Until we get that full stretch across your wingspan like an eagle. And we'll do that two more times. Just rolling right through working on those fingers. Wrapping around the Poles in this new position here at Shin over chest, rolling down. Hang back into your stretch and just give me one more. Find your spine. Stretch forward in there, right? That's it.

Your arms and your legs. Reach forward in opposition to your spine. Now feel like you're pulling down on the Poles. Lift your chest. Gorgeous. Nice. And then should over chest. Roll it all way back into the opposite position. Feel your spine. Sit forward here. Nice. And then bend your elbows, pull yourself forward. Stand all the way up. And then we're getting ready for the semicircle, which is a variation of an exercise we do on the game team, which is a crazy piece of apparatus that not a lot of people know about, but we can do it here as well. Um, you want to step onto this bar right here, clearing the center and bringing your heels together just so you have a connection there. And then just hold on. I'm right there at the top bar.

That looks like a good place for me. Some you will see as we start moving, if you need to adjust your hands, start with at about shoulder distance. That looks good to me. And then just like your spread eagle before, start by straightening out your arms and let your body hang back. So it's a little bit higher now because the hands hold on higher. So it's less intense curve. But it's the same idea. Now Bend your elbows to pull yourself back up to straight and then we're going to hang off the opposite end. And that sounds a little crazy at first.

You're in good hands, I promise. Now you bring your Chin Up, you try to beg Ben Enough so that your body can come through this and here until your arms are fully extended. So make sure that your elbows can pass through exactly. And then just see what that feels like. Straightening out your arms. Beautiful. Good. And then reverse it. Bend your elbows, pull yourself back up to straight and then hanging off the opposite way. So we challenged your grip strength here in two different directions.

We'll go through it one more time. Come through straight first and that you see where the bar is and then make sure that you stay clear of that bar as you lean your body forward deck, bending your spine until your arms are fully straight. There's your thighs stretch there as well. And then pull yourself back. There's your row and then slowly straighten the arms and hang back. Good. So we've done portions of this all along right now. Come back up to standing.

Now we're going to get to have some fun with that finger of your semicircle on the reformer where you just move your spine up and down and you have the spooling action of the hips. Do the same thing here. Start by moving your body back, straightening out the arms. Now from there, bend your knees, point them forward and down until you hang on the opposite side. Now Bend your elbows and pull yourself through and up to standing and repeat that direction a few more times just to get the hang of it. Pun intended, come all the way through and go back and again, bend your knees, pass your thighs, stretch here, lift your heart and pull yourself through. Let's do one more this direction and then we'll reverse it. Point the knees forward and down. Lift your chest up, pull yourself through, pause at the top and let's reverse it. Clear the bar, lift your chest up, stretch forward, reach, open the hips. Excellent. Poiser three a spine, stretch forward and then come all the way up and again, go into your back bend, straighten the arms, going all the way back, puff out your spine, and then come all the way back up.

Let's do three more here and if that feels all right, you can start to go a little quicker finding that send, or if we go power through the valley, two more, and the last one, oh, that looks so yummy. You have all the we have to standing and then step away from there. That was great. It's fun, right? It's fun stuff. It's a little scary at first, but you know, you find your way into it. And we've been doing these movements all along, right? They all connect. Yeah. All right. Can you hear the drum rolls? I think I can hear the drum rolls.

He gets time to go upside down up there. So send to yourself in the Cadillac and just hold on with your hands slightly in front of your shoulders and get a good strong fist group with your hands. First thing we want to see before we even start attempting anything silly is can you pull your knees up into your chest without sinking into straight arms so you keep your arms bend, you feel already like you're pulling yourself up. Now from there, just draw your knees up into your chest with, he just came in from a double leg stretch and just see if he can pull your knees up into your chest and suspend yourself there for a couple of seconds. Hold and then stretch the feedback down. All right, we'll try that again.

It doesn't have to be very long. It just has to be long enough to roll into your rolling like a ball in a second. Right? So it just has to be a flash segment of holding yourself up there. Pull your knees up into your chest. That's enough. Good. Let's just do one more. Suspend yourself up there. Draw your knees into your using your abdominals like you would in rolling like a ball. Excellent. Excellent. Good. Shake out your hands for a second.

All right, so remember how we were rolling like a ball into a rollover. That'll be your pike now. So your hold on to your poles. You bring your knees up into your chest and you try and bring them up and over your head, stretching your legs the opposite direction. But you want to look straight up when you're done with that. All right, so you end up in your roll over position that we practice earlier. Yes, with me. All right, good. Strong grip. I'll be right here.

Bend your knees up into your chest and just think rolling like a bar. Take your knees up in over your head. Now stretch your legs that direction, but keep looking at your knees. Excellent. Get a good strong grip on those poles. Feel like you're pulling on them. And then bend your knees and roll yourself. Stretch the feet down and come all the way back up. See that easy?

Let's do that again. Alright, so gather your strength, Poland DePaul's. Bend your knees into your chest and go up and over. You got it? You got it? That's where you are. See didn't, if to help you all that much. Now from there, can you continue to pike? You don't have to set your feet all the way down. You want to be able to return again, right? So unwind, bend your knees, pull yourself up and stand on your Cadillac. So let's try this again. Get a really strong fist grip. Just start, think knees into your chest thing rolling like a ball into your rollover.

All right, so Paul and he's up into you. Get the legs over your head and then stretch them straight back. Lower them down, but only as far as you can reverse out of it, right? It's a Paulie's out. Back in. Bend your knees. Good. And, and pull yourself up to set the feet down. Bring yourself to standing. And now do one more. This time.

You can take that pipe all the way around until you feed me the ground and you just let your arms release grand finale. Are you ready? All right, let's get this a rural. Bring your knees up into your chest, up and over you go. Stretch your legs back. Now slowly bring the feet down until they get to meet the ground. And once they do that, your arms come off with control. Just let them hang down. Oh, and speaking of hanging, I think you deserve a little, hang in.

How does that sound? Does that sound good? All right. So roll yourself all the way up. You can hold on to your poles. Bring your knees into your chest, and then just stretch your right leg up into the strap. Bring your left leg up into the strap. Have your big toes on the outside of the strap.

If you want to do a little swirl to shorten the straps for you. I like the big toes on the outside here so we can really hang into it. And then push yourself an arm length away from the pulse to start. So you're going this way and that your arms just come down by your sides. Ah, exactly. And then you exhale and I don't even need to tell you that, right? The body kind of does it automatically. So you just feel everything reverse, right? Everything is inverted now. The blood flows the opposite way. Ah, downregulation and just feel your lower back.

Start to relax down towards the Mat as well. And whenever you're ready, before you fall asleep, take your hands to the Poles and then start to inch yourself back and slide yourself off the end there. Good. And take your time first. Always making sure that your head does not go anywhere near the ground. Then you can bring your arms down to the ground as well. Completely fearless and relaxed. Scan your body for any tension here. Make sure that your ankles are relaxed, your knees are on, slacked, your hips open, your spine releases just down.

Your chest is nice and open as well. Your head is open. Now if you want to give it even more weightlessness in your spine, take your hands to the ground next to your head and then start to push yourself into a back bend from there. Push yourself away from the Cadillac. Open your chest. Feel once more the whole front of your body stretch open through that thigh. Stretch your back pins, your swan, and then slowly find your way back against the edge of the Cadillac.

Do your arms relax. Ah, and then hold onto your poles. If you like. Whenever you're ready to come back out, you can start to pull yourself up on the Polston Chin over chest. Bend your knees a little bit to pull yourself forward. Let's go into a half hanging in first straight arms, arms down by your sides, God and hipsters wiggled side to side a little bit. After all of that, no more inversions after this, and then hold onto your pulse.

Bend your knees and to get your hips up a little bit. Let's take your right foot out first in your left so you bring your legs out. Long. Lift your arms up to the ceiling. Give me one nice roll up here, Shanna over chest. Take a big stretch forward over your legs to stretch to the opposite side of your body. Press up into me as beautiful and then roll yourself all the way up to seated.

Ah, and you are done.

Comments

1 person likes this.
wow!! Wonderful Lesson!!Thank you!!^^
i liked semi circle I 'm crazy for do it
nice class Benjamin a little short i hope for sprigms from below
congratulation kristy you are on fit
thank you PILATES ANYTIME
1 person likes this.
me encantaria ver las clase de Benjamin en español
Enrique ~ ¿Te gustaría ver esta clase de Benjamin en español o en otra clase que Benjamín enseña? Vamos a traducir para usted.
1 person likes this.
Great class! Can't wait to meet you Benjamin at the PMA!
3 people like this.
Great Class Benjamin! Well done Kristi! Thank you!
Benjamin Degenhardt
Thanks everyone - Enrique, I'm glad you enjoyed semi-circle, it's derived from the Guillotine apparatus and so fun, exciting, and invigorating to do. Kimberly - look forward to meeting you! David - gracias, and agreed... Kristi is a joy to watch and work with, such a beautiful mover!
Argh! A - m a z i n g !!!!!!
Love this x
3 people like this.
It's 11:30 pm, and I want to get up and go into the studio now and do this...but I 'll wait until morning ;)) nicely done kids. Looked so fun.
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