Class #541

No-Nonsense Reformer

60 min - Class
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Description

This is a no-nonsense workout offering a short warm-up on the Reformer followed by Footwork, a variation on Hip Work (done in the "Diamond" position to focus on lateral rotators of the hip), Long Spine, Knee Stretch Series, Back Stroke, Teaser, Pulling Straps 1 and 3, a preparation for the Star, and a few more gems to play with. Work hard at a moderate pace and then get on with the day feeling energized and accomplished.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

About This Video

Oct 24, 2011
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Transcript

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Okay, let's get started. Shall We? Um, I'm on one red spring. I'm just going to do a little bit of a warm up and then get moving into some good ab work. So standing at the edge of your reformer pretty close to the foot bar. Knees are soft. In fact, I'm going to say, let's bend them. So you may have to back up a little. Find yourself rooted into the ground, lifting up off of yourself. So there's a sense of lightness in your joints.

Your arms are hanging. And of course finding the powerhouse hugging through the hips. We inhale, you're going to be putting your hands on the carriage. So be close enough to do that. Exhale to round up and over. Eventually finding the heels of your hands to the edge of the carriage shoulder distance apart from here, we inhale and leave the knees bent. Just elongating the spine away from the thighs with the thighs stay where they were. Tailbone reaches up ribs you're in. So we've inhaled there.

We exhale to contract and bring it back to the stopper or near it and he'll go down again. Just getting some fluid movement through the spine. Exhale to bring it back. The arms aren't what's pushing it. It's the articulation of the spine. Inhaling, long neck, exhale already tapping into that powerhouse and I'm finding I need to repress rectus or focus on fully exhaling, right? It's not enough to breed at the right time. Let's make it full. Let's make it expansive so that it's easy to inhale. Let's go Eniola, stretching long. If you can straighten the legs. Do enjoy that again. Don't lean forward into it.

Hang out down there and now on the exhale you're going to bend the elbows wide. Inhale, extend the arms. Exhale, bend. Inhale. So it's a small move. It's a light move on the arms would imagine you're the sense of pushing the carriage away. You're also rooting down into the soles of your feet into the ground to more stern, itching away, pulling it in. Inhale away.

Exhale it in. Go back to straight arms. There's your inhale, and on our exhale we roll it back. Yeah. Don't forget your head. It's down there. And we let go with the carriage to come all the way up coming around to your carriage. Put on your foot and legwork springs. I'm going to go, um, the re-read of blue today. Three reds, probably good, but I'm feeling a little energetic and come to, um, where you can hook the edges of your ankles on the foot bar if you don't have, um, if you don't have foot bar, if your football is different than this, it doesn't, it shouldn't matter. You can always just rest your feet on top of it. Okay. I'm just kind of comfortably hooking cause I want to get the hamstrings in.

So sit up tall, hold onto the back of your legs, centering yourself in the carriage and feel the hamstring. So I'm literally push pulling in just a little bit. Exhale to roll the hip bones back. Just a little inhale, sit back up on top of them and exhale. Notice the straight line across your collar bones. If you find your shoulders in front of you, you've let go, um, unnecessarily probably. And exhale and inhale mining ourselves with that breath. That's how we focus.

That's how we concentrate. That's how we forget about other things and really tap into ourselves, which can be fun sometimes roll down a little further, keep going, and I still have the hook of the ankles, not severely, but some down to about the shoulder blades. You want to let go the pelvis so it's not in a deep tech and then exhale to come back up, barely hanging onto the bar. But again, some hands behind legs to lengthen out. It's just a reminder right in the beginning of class to involve the hamstrings. That's sort of your counter balance to help stabilize your pelvis, exhaling up, find the back of your legs and grow tall a little quicker.

Let's go blow out all the air. You don't need to be tapped. Once you get to the bottom, inhale and exhale back and again feeling that movement in the spine, waking you up, warming you up and well change it a little this time. Inhale, exhale. Come on down. Eyes are straight ahead. I'll try to be clear here on your next exhale. So take an inhale, prepare, exhale, float. As you curl up, you're gonna float the left leg up. Knee kind of lines up with the chest. Tion parallel to the floor. Inhale down, same side. Exhale, scoop the belly and rise up again.

Inhale down so you're timing the upper and lower body. Blow out all the year. Prove it to yourself and inhale down again. And I'm lightly using that right leg just too hamstring. Don't pull so tight that you're using the hip flexor. Switching sides. Exhale, lifting and rolling down. It should be fluid. It should be like all the power right in the middle of that.

The upper and lower body are just moving because I've got nothing else to do. Let's get a few more here. [inaudible] yeah, and one more up and Dan, I'm an alternate him. Let's go left leg up. Inhale down or right leg up. [inaudible] inhale down.

You could always be holding onto the legs and continuing where we started. If you're not quite ready for this part, and I'm going to be one more per side, let's go up and down. Last one, up and down from there. Go all the way down. Head rest on the head, wrist. Put your feet on the foot bar. A heels on the foot bar should say parallel. If your headrest is up, put it down so it's flat and we'll do a couple pelvic curls. From here. I'm touching my shoulder rest, which from me draws me out just a little bit.

Meaning my normal pelvic curl, I'd have my feet closer. Some of you, obviously that's going to be different, so allow for a little bit of extension out if you need to. If you're really tall, you may have to move to the floor for this in him. Probably not. Exhale, rolling up again. So now the feet are on the foot bar, but I still have this sense of drawing my heels toward my hips, a sense of using back here to lengthen out the front so that later my abdominals will be more efficient. Inhale, exhale, roll down, and then you can kind of free up the hips at the bottom. Inhale, pressing the back of the arms. Exhale, rolling. Feet are basically relaxed. It's the hamstrings I'm trying to focus on by placing the feet in different places. Exhale, when you're ready to come down, we'll just do two more. Sort of reminding yourself of this contraction as we go through exercises like the teaser. Oh yeah, we'll do it.

And dominoes, hamstrings. Last one here. Noticing tension. If there is any neck and shoulders, let it go. We don't need it. And down we go. Okay, bring the knees up. Let's just warm up the rotation aspect of things holding onto the pigs behind you. If you don't have that, if they're just islets, reach your arms out to the side, coming toward the front or to your right.

Inhale to rotate over. Lifting that opposite hip. So when you look at your needs or side-by-side, exhale back to center, to the back or to the left. And exhale as a strong temptation as you do this. Keep going. Inhaling to hike the hip or swivel the feet. Try not to exhale. We want direct rotation. Inhale to the back.

Keep those shoulders down. Exhale and I mean down on the mat to not just down away from your ears in here. That'd be easy, right? You may find that you work much more efficiently when you'd work without strain. When you work without tension, things kind of have a way of becoming more efficient.

Last one says the left [inaudible] Sentra. What we're going to do is just rock ourselves up, spin around and I did set us up for foot and leg work already, but I changed my mind. So I'm going to go back down to a one spring. Just quickly take those off, consider it part of the workout. It's good forward leaving a little bit of room behind you and take hold of your straps. Um, I hold above the buckles. It's all depends kind of on how long your straps are, but it's, it's where I'm having to reach just a little bit to get hold of them. Um, I don't want to start with him loose slightly off of my stopper. Alright. My knees are together, my feet are together and we're going to roll back just like we did a moment ago.

Just just a few of these to get the sensation. All right, so down here, and we're long, we're taking inhale, same thing we did before, but let the straps pull you forward too. There's a sense of shrinking the waist before you coming up. Inhale and exhale down. In other words, there's a difference between just coming right up and going forward toward the other end of the reformer first. It's that intention. Stack the spine two more and I'll change it. Exhale, roll back. The straps are there to assist the sensation. So you go deep, you fold over yourself as you come forward.

And an inhale. Let's check those shoulders. Exhale, we come forward. Okay. Sitting tall. Uh, let's see. Which way do I want to go first? I want to go that way. Take it. Put your right strap down. What we're gonna do is we're going to, I am holding for now still with my left hand. I've got my feet up against the shoulder rest. Again, if you're really tall, you may have to stretch your feet out and make it more of a, um, heels on the post kind of thing. Or even just wedge your shins in between, but I'm on the set. I'm on the right butt cheek. Oh, it's sore. It turns out.

Okay, so we're going to come down. So I am angled lower body to my right. I'm going to take the strap in my right hand. My knees are pointing right in my right hands. Holding it. Crossing over my body. Yeah, left hand behind your head. Oh boy. So early to get too complicated. All right, so here you are. No big deal.

The focus is very small and it's an exhale kind of go with that strap. Inhale down. You can push it with your feet. It gives you that anchor that we played with earlier. In fact, it's quite effective. Go ahead. Use your feet. Right. That's the thing about is if you have an anchor, if you have one in stable, if you are controlled, right, that principle, the rest of these free. That's the point.

So find the anchor in the low end of the body or the feet even, and then let the power house or the upper end of the body go toward them. I'm already feeling it pretty good, but I'm going to give you three more water. What we said about breath. Let it all out to enjoy and big strong. One three. Oh, you thought we were done. Come back down. No. And his little pulses. Barely move that carriage. Just think about it so you don't need to see it to feel it. Three and exhale.

Four, check about locked elbows. Five if you're done, you're done. Six. I'm going to do eight. Seven. Oh, thank goodness. Here's eight. Come on up. Take your time. Take your time. Still using your feet and when you can't come up anymore, switch that. Oh, I do hope you felt that like I did. I'm not going to make a big deal.

Just hope you did. All right. Um, so I picked up the right strap, my feet, they're not perfectly aligned. Don't tell anyone, but I am just sitting on the side of my left butt cheek and I'm finding a comfortable place to put my feet where I can brace left hand, grabs a strap and make sure that you don't pull the shoulder off the back. Put it back on. It is up. I could be more sideways. Oh boy. I'm gonna feel this one. All right, down we go. So as I come up, it's like that left shoulder towards right hip. Here we go. One [inaudible] feeling the obliques. Hopefully if you don't try, try to feel it there. Put some energy there or your thoughts go. Energy goes. Okay, so keep that in mind about whatever you might be thinking about. [inaudible] how much deeper could you go? What else could you do? Again, not with strain, but just a subtle inner thigh connection.

Ah, I'm giving us one more like this. Ah, keep that sense of rotating. Here's the shorter ones, but we'll do eight on two. Remember you're not rotating by moving your arm. It's the spine. I'm calling that four, five and six. Enjoy. Use your feet. Seven. We're coming up on this one, an eight Oh, keep it. Keep it.

Don't lose your form. Don't lose your form. Don't lose your farm, and now you can come out of that. All right, that's gonna be good. Turn around now. Put your foot bar up after you put your springs on. Again, I'm doing three red and blue. Okay. Lie Down. Put. Don't pretend to keep my head rest midway. I mix it up a little bit, but I'm going to go midway with my head rest. You do what's normal for you. Heels are parallel.

That sense of hamstring shoulders down. Let's go. Exhale. Full extension. Take a second. Stretch yourself out. Do you feel even adjust, adjust, adjust, and now that's it. Let's go. Exhale, press out on. Inhale, polling it to, and I'm absolutely trying to work the legs. It's true, but can you, can you start it some place else? Anywhere above the legs, more specifically. Hips and up or hips powerhouse, right. That's all I need to say. Let's go just a few more. I'm just going to mess around with the foot position, but basically we're just continuing this kind of thing.

Let's do one more here and come back down to the balls of the feet. Same position. Otherwise you press out, hang out for a second check that you aren't driving and I'll show you if want to look driving energy into your knees. Now I can hyper extend. You might be able to do the energy thing even without hyperextending so you wanna don't keep them soft. They're going to go straight, but pull up into the hamstrings. Feel your glutes tight. Ready, inhale down, exhale up. Inhale. [inaudible] try to feel your whole body as one unit like it is. So it's not just legs working, but we're initiating from behind the body.

Our thoughts [inaudible] we're aware of what the shoulders are doing. We don't have to pay too much attention to him, but we're aware. Let's do one more. Come down and just turn from the hip joints so you turn out a bit to touch the heels. It's not that wide. If you look at yourself and you can see your knees are going wider than that foot bar. Just think shoulder distance.

Here we go out and pull in. Resist both ways. It doesn't matter what spring tension you put on, you could have one spring and work just as hard as you do when you have four. So I'm gonna encourage everybody to resist coming in, exhaling out, inhaling. Feel how solid your spine can be here, how relaxed your feet can be here, even though they're taking the brunt of the weight. Theoretically, I suppose they are, but you are lifting off, pulling the energy out of there. [inaudible] I'm gonna do two more. Starting now here's one, here's two. Come down. Take the heels wide.

So I do go just about to the edge of the bar today. I'm going to turn out more than I normally do. So if you're going to do that with me, you're gonna keep the same alignment you normally would have. That means the knees aiming and where? The first and second toe about. Okay? So if you get stuck, meaning you can't go any wider, don't just turn your feet to make you think you are. If you can see your toes, it's not good. He went to lock them with your knees.

That's about where you want to be. Ready. Here we go. Exhaling and inhaling it. You could always reverse that breath if you like. It's a habit of not a habit, it's how I learned it, but also a habit. So I would be wise to reverse my breath more often than I do. I make my brain think a little bit more in this [inaudible] are you resisting both ways?

Do you feel like you're evenly pushing or lifting? Let's do one more like this. Come on home and one more. Sit down with the balls of the feet. Um, press out, stay out. Lift as high as you possibly can through the ankle and then release the ankle so it's not locked out. So it's just a little let go. But you're, that's it. Now they don't move. Bend knees and straight [inaudible] so there is a flection at the ankle joint, but the, that's what prevents the whole foot from moving. If you lock out that ankle, you're going to have to lift and lower the feet.

[inaudible] squeeze your glutes hard, but don't tuck. Can you? I think you can. I know you can. I'm going to do three more. I know that's kind of a lot, but here we go. One and down, two and down, three and down. Let's go. Feet. Parallel balls of the feet for progressive cats to sick. Six press out, lower down, but stretch, waist lift up, but do it from high in the powerhouse or in in the powerhouse and come down. Push out. Two calf raises. You go down, you lift up one down, you lift up to bring it home for us out. Number three, never letting go. It's not down and drop. You work up. You work down. Oh God.

I think that's three and Ben to come down pressing him. I gotta Count One. Mary usually does this part, accounting three and four. I go, I'm aiming to six, but today that easily could be too much. So you can do four and stop three inner thigh, still working, not moving the pelvis and down we go. Am I on six already or only five? Oh, he's not watching it. Okay. Six week ago, I think six is flying plenty. Even if I'm off, I don't think I am today. Oh God, I'll find out later. Four and six. I don't know why that's so hard for me. Take a second.

Stretch your legs up, flexing them, pouring on. Bend your knees, put your head down, arms down by your side. Stretch the legs out to 45 degrees. You inhale to 90 for the rollover. Exhale over horizontal. Okay. There's no floor, so don't think you're going to touch the floor. Flex your feet separate. Lower the feet. Pretend there's a floor there. And exhale. Bringing the thighs right close to you as you come down. Circle around close.

Let's go up over now. That foot bars there, right? So there's no need to go real low here. Just skim at most. Obviously the foot bar one more over like that. Even here. You've got a little hamstring work.

I will reverse it for three. So you opened to the v. Exhale up over flex and close. Resist going down. Pull the belly. And as you tried to reach the feet to the opposite side of the room, number two [inaudible] he's still fully breathing. And here it is. Three close, lower down.

All right, from here, let's just come up. Take your springs down to one and a half, one and a half. What I mean by that is a red and blue you may want to read, may want to green. I have a red and blue on lying back down, putting your hands in the straps. Um, inch ever so slightly away from your shoulder rest. We're going to curl up here in a second and we want the shoulders to not get stuck. So I go in from straight arms, ribcage down, whole body involved for the a hundred x l Corolla.

So in how prepared are you reaching armpits toward the waist, glutes or squeeze? Exhale, two, three, four, five. And in [inaudible] for key breaching. You don't have to move the body and five, six Oh, forget about the inner thighs and out. This is such a great place to really channel what you need for your workout. [inaudible] two more rounds.

[inaudible] an hour. Make it all out. Peru of it. Last one. Inhale. Bend the knees, reach into it more. Lift the pelvis up and down. Up and down. Squeeze the inner thighs. Even if the pelvis doesn't actually lift off. Keep reaching into it one more and arms come down cause used to feed on a so far so you can push yourself out and put your feet in the straps.

I do a little hip open, not open her bit. Loosen up headdress down. Yeah, just thinking ahead there from here. Externally rotated the hip so it's not a foot thing. The feet we're not really interested in at the moment. Turn the whole thighbone out. See about squeezing the glutes without tucking. Right. It's not an all out effort.

It's what you can do without changing the pelvis from there. Bend into a diamond like shape. If you try for soles of the feet together as best you can and these are out and then from the glutes you lowered it, taking the whole piece, right? The knee angle isn't going to change. Exhale, lower and up. [inaudible] and again, thinking, where does this start? Well, my legs are moving. Some must start there, I suppose technically.

But if we're all connected, we might as well include the rib cage of the entire trunk, abdominals. Even a sense of awareness to the back of the body. I'm going to change this on you in a second. From here we press down, maybe not as low as you possibly could. You're gonna preach the legs out, keep external rotation, your feet, your balls of your feet will come apart. But the heel stay together. Rebound, connect the soles of the feet. Go again. It's kind of like a frog only. I'm turned out more and I'm stopping once the feet come back together so it's not quite as deep hitting that sense or uh, external rotation, keeping external rotation as we extend. All right, now we'll change it.

Come to diamond, bring the feet. So they point to the ceiling. Do the best you can. You're going to externally rotate, straightened and squeeze inner thighs. Pull the tailbone into the mat without compromising your back. Right. It shouldn't move. Bend. Turn those legs out. Still squeezing with an extent. Oh, the carer doesn't need to move.

Don't move the carriage. Not here. Anyway, add up. You can let those toes come apart. Of course, and bend one more time before it gets a really fun. And then we bend to diamond. We lower the diamond. We of course stretch the diamond out. We come back to the diamond. We come up to the ceiling. Stir ratchet, rebend and lower. Put the focus on the outside.

I can tell you I'm focusing on the outside at the ceiling. Bend. Lower. Straighten. I think I forgot one tonight. Bend. Straighten. I'm focusing on the outside, but I feel my inner thigh. They're actually tight. Alright, we'll do one more round. Come up. Stretch, bend. Just coming to the diamond and hold.

Lovely, right. Okay. Maybe not from there. Down circles. So we take it around. Bring the heels back together. Check that you haven't lifted your glutes or rounded your back at all and lower. And let's do four more. One reaching long. Remembering what we said earlier. One end is, uh, anchored in this case, our upper body others and can be free finishing up here at the bottom.

Let's pick the legs up. Inhale, stretch them apart. Exhale, they come around and minimizing the force in the legs. Focusing on just what do I need to bring it around? Not that much to get what we need. Let's do one more. Good. Alright, I'm heading into long spine. This is done different ways. I'm not adding straps. I'm aware of that. Um, we will get to a place where the carriage is not on the stopper.

If you don't know what I'm talking about yet, you shouldn't do this one cause you can't watch from doing it. You need to just get up and be safe. But otherwise it's probably what you think. A, we come to a mini external rotation a bit. 90 degrees, maybe slightly more than 90. Now I'm not on the stopper. Cared shouldn't move. So here we go. Appealing, straight up, straight up, hitting long right upon the shoulder blades. Then inhale separate.

It's like a rollover all over again from the top of your back, from the front of your throat, started melting bone by bone. Carriage still doesn't move. Being mindful not to lock out those knees or even press into them to help one's fully down, circled down and around to bring them together at the bottom in Hilton 90 Hicks growing up off your carriage, reaching long. Come on, get up there long waist. Separate the feet. Get longer. You can, you can squeeze the glutes. Just don't, like I said, don't overdo it. There's ways to overdue that aren't productive. Now, if your hamstrings are tight here, it's better to bend your knees a little and get you to get your tailbone down before you pull.

It's just not cool to do it that way and unfortunately it's very hard. You could come off 90 just a little bit, but if you stay out here cause your hamstrings are tight, it's going to be hard to stay up when you get to the top. So you might have to let go right in the beginning. All right, here we go. Exhale up open. Look at the front of your hips. Are they stretched? Are they piped?

Are you committed? Are you just hanging out waiting for me to say something? Reach up. Do you feel your butt is you should and now roll down. Okay, let's see if we can really feel our hamstrings on this next one. That's not to say I'm going to use them anymore. I'm just going to focus on them. We're going up. Oh, we're going up and we're there and now we inhale. Separate the legs.

Get longer. Squeeze your glutes. Exhale, listen up. Close the legs. Inhale, open. Think Taller, but don't put more pressure on the neck. Exhale, squeeze, close. So both actions are trying to come from the glutes and Colos. Relax the legs. I don't mean bend them. Just don't use them. You don't. They don't need to do much. Push out. They come together, push out.

They come together. Relax your neck. Don't worry. Reach, return, reach, return. Next time, take it out. Hold it start to roll down or all day or all down. Take it down. And just when you thought it was over, is your tailbone down? Yes. Circle down and around. One more. Slightly different. We come together. Let's go parallel this time. What I'm gonna ask you to do, if your legs are straight, you're gonna push into the a foot strap to flex the hamstring.

So I did that by tightening the hamstring. Not by just pulling from the whole leg. So that's, you might've seen a little carriage move. Little hamstring curl there. Oh God. What have I done? All right, keep on like that. Ready? Relax the feet. But don't straighten the knees. Here we go. Up we go. It's a little different cause it's a different, you're not quite used to that sense of [inaudible]. These don't change yet there yet. They're separate.

Keep them bent and come to, now I'm keeping them bent because I'm put, I'm flexing hamstrings. Right. And I'm not just resting there. They're not just loose. I'm using the Hammy. I promise you're gonna start seeing some quivering any second. Then I'm at the bottom. We're not circling. We're going to flex to tabletop and almost a straight, keep the tailbone down. Flex. Relax the toes. They're not, they're not involved.

They're just attached. Hmm. I liked that. I don't even know what it means, but I like that. Okay. Can you put your hands maybe on your, the edge of your gluten hamstring pull from there. I've never done before in my life. I like it. It could be a tiny bit heavier, but that would ruin it actually.

You feel it? Try [inaudible]. Okay, that's enough. I am just coming to a frog just to take the straps out. Let it go and down we come. All right, you're getting up please. And let's go into 'em knee. Stretch around back. Hey, and flat back while we're at it and knees off while we're at it. So I'm going to, um, I lower Betsy. We tend to go lighter here, um, than other schools and it's, it's really the same thing but the same exercise. But we're really wanting to emphasize the inward pull using the ABS.

So if you put your feet at the shoulder s as flush as possible, hands at the foot bar, shoulder distance, then sit back. So I'm on one red spring. You may want to keep it on a red and blue. Um, um, you know I'm short, I don't read in a blue would be the same exercise two for me. Okay. So I've sat back almost on my heels just for set up. We're going to scoop the belly and Tuck the pelvis, pressing the upper arms down, so straight across the collar bones. Okay. It's not here, it's really not.

So flatten out the collarbone and recognize you're still gonna have a round back and that's cool. All right, so I'm going slow on one just cause I don't do this one that often on camera. I'm pushing out now. I've gone as far as I can go, I think before I have to change my spine. So I'm pushing up once again and through the legs and then exhale to bring it in. So my goal in this one is to not move my spine. Let's go a little quicker now. And it's in emphasize in pull from the belly in and harder to pull quicker like that right when it's light. So let's get four more. One head down, two, three, hold it in. Four flat, not your back, which effectively is like a neutral spine.

So you'll have a little bit of an art chair. Squeeze the glutes, inner thighs too. And same exercise. You may be able to stretch out more though cause your back isn't rounded so you have a little bit more play. Focus in looking for almost a stretch to the ABS. Let's get four, three, two, one. Okay, now try and knees off this. You are gonna want a little bit more resistance. It just won't work otherwise. So I'm putting on the blue. If you're on a retina Ballou you go to red. So take it up a half or so, even a full from where you are. All right, a couple of ways into it.

I'm just gonna get into it the same way. It's not super pleasant, but it works. Sit back. Shoulders are locked in. Pelvis is locked in as if you were going to do the last exercise. I'm going to hover. In fact, let's do this. Don't move the carriage. Keep your posture on an exhale. We're lifting the knees and that's it. Ready?

Inhale. However the knees is you Baxter rounded or do you flatten it? Set it down. Inhale. Let's do it. Look to the belly. Exhale. Hover. Inhale down. Yeah, one more and then we'll go. So you don't want to get up and pike, the hips. Exhale and down. And now that your quads are already burning, we go. Inhale.

Exhale to get into position. Now inhale, push out and exhale and get those shins close to the carriage or parallel. Head stays down. Baddie still two more and settle in and down you come. You're on the stop. Or I'm going back to one red spring, helping myself up to an upstretched position of stretch. One heels apart. Way Up the shoulder. Rest, body long. Oh, I do have a mirror after all. Okay, so reach the tailbone up. I do have weighed into my arms. I'm thinking inner thigh.

And then I'm trying to also stretch the spine long. So I'll find out later if it actually is straight. But yours should be. Allow the carriage to go back. Remember it's light. Exhale, drawing in and up on the abs to bring it forward. Inhale back [inaudible] and N. It's as if you're getting lighter on your legs, right? So let the screen do the work cause really it. Don't forget the inner thigh looking for the abdominal work here, and one more like that. We go to what we call up stretch too, so from where you are, your arms will stay where they are. You inhale, rotate around the arms to a flat back and then come right back where you are.

Inhale, push away into a plank, exhale abs in and you come back to your pyramid. It's just two parts. There's no drifting. Don't travel on that. You hit and you breathe in. Turn, inhale and exhale, rotating around the hip joint and the shoulder joint. That's it. Couple more over one return. Let's say actually in plank on this one. Travel forward as if you're pulling the foot bar to your feet.

Then as you press it away, you travel back and pull. I got a free loader on me with this fly going for a ride. Okay. Of course, as you go back, there's a temptation to sag. You won't do that. You're light. You're lifted out to come in.

One more time out to come in. Stay chest over foot bar. I don't have, I'm out on the stopper. Let the elbows bend wide and up and trying to keep the heels at the shoulder rest. If you have to adjust him, it's okay. Contact and I'll keep the glutes. Keep the inner thigh. Keep the ABS. One more. Alright. Come up to enough stretch. Bring the carriage home. Flatten your feet.

Note to self. Invest in flyswatter. Not that I would hurt him. Here we go. Elephant. Right. So pick up your toes. Align your legs. Here we go. Let it go back and then pull it out. Push away. That feels good and doesn't it. Okay, I'm worrying. We're home. All right, take your left heel partway up the shoulder. Rest again. Take well.

Do that with both. Actually do that with both. Push out to flat. And then if you can do it from here, you bring the right foot forward. You may have to do that a little differently depending on leg proportion. I'm going into a full lunch here. Stretch. So for starters, we're in a nice long line and here's the trick to getting a good stretch just by being here. I'm going for the left hip flexor, primarily body long, I'm pushing the carriage away, but I don't need to travel with it. To do that, right, we have to have an anchor. So we stay up front here with the rest of the body and push the leg back until you feel this glute tightening, right? One side contracts, other side relaxes, just how it works. So make that happen.

Breathing, breathing. It'd be really easy to let that back. Let go. Don't do it. Just gigantic waste of time. Then I'm going to straighten the front leg, preferably hands. Stay fully on that bar to come into your split. Flat back matters, right? And you gotta keep it. And even if you have to Britt, raise the hips up a little flat back matters. Deep breath, gentle with your knees, and then bring it home. Don't forget you're pushing the back foot, left foot into the shoulder rest.

Even as you drag the carriage forward, we'll do it again. Again, I'm not on the stopper. I doubt many people would be without a lot of pressure on the forward knee, so that's why I'm backed off. Here we go. If you could do it, you don't move the hips, meaning they don't lift up. If you're tighter, you should lift up, but ultimately we're trying to keep the hips on the same plane. In this posture, I have a sense in my body of anteriorly tilting the pelvis forward with the HIPAA, the front hip bones. Oh, I'm shaking. That was good. And we're coming home. Let's add a little something to this now because I'm about to lift my upper body a little bit. We're going to do a balancing. So you'd be the judge.

I am on the stopper now. Okay. And I lift it up. That's why I have space on my knee. You don't have to be on staff. We're good. Recommended if you're up for it, you come up my leg, back leg, still pushing into the shoulder. Let's just take arms out to the side and you simply extend the leg forward leg and pull back to the stopper. Extend. It's not just about the forward leg, it's about that back leg and return. One more time.

[inaudible] and Richard, I'll leave it at that for today. I've got more tricks up my sleeve on that one. Next time. Switch legs for the straight ahead. Um, I didn't say this last time, but the foot is right outside of my, or right at my hip. It's not in the middle of the foot. Bar Straight ahead. And then be mindful of the back foot too. It's sometimes wants to turn out. All right. Are you finding the stretch in the front of that right leg?

I'll comment since we have time. You're breathing, you're relaxing. Be a little gentle, not a little. Just note your, your uh, ankle. It can be real easy to just drop down on it and, and Kinda overstretch the Achilles. It's involved. He hadn't just let go there either. I don't think we ever really let go anywhere anyway. All right, it's time extending that forward lay. See what you got. [inaudible] it's a sense of pulling back on this left sit bone as I reached the heel toward the foot bar under the foot bar in thought.

Bring it forward again. Remember you're sort of resisting that back leg [inaudible] allowing time for the body to release to let go of it and then when you're ready to go out again, [inaudible] hip square, syncing a reach up of the tailbone [inaudible] and then bring it home. Make sure you're forward for the secure. I come to the stockbroker cause I'm lifting up at this point. What I do to help stabilize myself as I start thinking of inner thighs as if I'm pressing them toward each other. Right? That's how I'm going to get up. It's just easier connected, right? All right. If it feels okay to be here with your arms, you can leave them there or you can challenge yourself by bringing them and behind your head. Watch the ribcage forward like pushes out and the new returns. So now the body doesn't go up or down.

It just goes backwards and forwards and in response to the leg movement, back leg. Still don't look, just ask yourself, feel for it. And we'll get one more here. I'm reaching, come in, hands to the foot bar and then you can just step down. All right, I promised you something. So go get your box. I'm on one red spring. That's good. One red spring. You can put your foot bar down now too. Okay.

What are going on? A long box style and we're going to start with backstroke and then teaser. So one, one red will be fine. Okay. Pick up your straps, put 'em in one hand and then just come approach the boxer that you can just sit right near the front edge. For most of us, ultimately we're wanting that um, shoulders to just be coming off the box a little bit. If you get down there and you feel like you're top-heavy, you are. So get up and move down a little, but you also don't want just your neck hanging off the end.

So I'm making sure that the straps are in and not wound up as I lie back. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Centered on your box. For backstroke. Hands are in the straps. We bring the knuckles together. We're already in chest flection. Looking right at straight ahead the whole time.

The arms and legs go straight up. Carriage doesn't move externally. Rotate the legs, opening arms and legs. Exhale, circle round and bring it in. Inhale up open. Exhale and [inaudible]. [inaudible] body doesn't move right. It's the arms and legs challenging the strength of your stability up open and [inaudible] and externally rotate on school. We squeeze, squeeze, there's a little lag.

[inaudible] one more. Bring it home and they come into the stopper. Hands behind your head to support your head. Hang back for a moment. Preparing if only mentally for your team. And while classically we would reach the legs down over the foot bar.

Mr Sakowitz has another plan for us. So all we're gonna go already to 45 arms are extended straight off the box and not down, but straight off the box. They're loose. Your head head can be down if that's a natural position, but straight back. Here we go. You're going to reach around, scoop down with the handles. Look forward to roll up to your teaser.

Keep breaching as your hips contract away from the thighs to roll down. Your legs are where they started reaching back. Inhaling up and exhaling down. This is where the back of the body is important for stability. In other words, if it's all in the front and you're going be you really off valid, stay up here. Inhale lower arms. Scoop the belly up with the arms. So let's do five.

Okay, less arm strength, more power in the APPS. Two more. One more. Hold it and slowly roll down. You can let the legs come down to this time. Keep hold this straps. Let's put them in the right hand and just curl yourself up and swivel around for pulling straps. Still one spring lying face down on the box. Again, shoulders basically off or right chest line, reach out above the handles and then I'm holding onto the plastic.

I'm going to wrap up a little bit higher just to have something to hold onto and I don't worry about my hands sliding. Make sure it feels relatively even alright. Shoulders down. Feel the shoulder blades pull down your back. Legs are energized as you pull, you can add a little lift to the upper body. Arms are straight and right close to you. Inhale to lower down. Initiate from those lower Trapezius as you pull, hug the body looking ever so slightly forward.

As you open up the chest and down, the arms have to stay straight for this to be as effective as we want and something else you check for is your palms always face the edge of the reformer meaning or your body, right? You don't turn them down, you don't turn them up to the ceiling and come on feel for it. You're getting a little motion of the spine. You could just leave it up for a different way of doing it and I'm going up and down a little each time. The last one coming at Ya. Let's stay up here on this next one. Hug the arms and close so you can flatten out. Your upper back says not an arch.

Bend the elbows. Keep the triceps right next to your ribs and straighten again. If the shoulders are shrugging, it's not gonna feel good. It may not feel good anyway, but let's at least get the right muscle group. I'm only doing five. Here's four. And here we go. Woo.

And Oh, we're not done. We're not done, but I need a break. So pulling straps, three, I think Leah does this and heard class somewhere. It goes like this. So we're reaching out. We draw the SCAPULA. Now we bend the elbows. I did turn the palms up to get right next to me. We pass through that tricep. We just did reach the arms out to a t. Now, palms are down. Look at them until we come to the front. Almost all the way, Josh, shoulders down, bend, elbows, extend elbows in all the way around. Let's hit, let's do the breadth like so inhabitable.

[inaudible] extending your arm. Start exhaling and take that exhale all the way around. Inhale, draw, make the arms the secondary part, you'll get them. You get the shoulder or the shoulder blades. Really, so you end up with a good back work. Exhaling. Oh the way this is it. Wala you can put your straps away please. And your box. I'll put it away too. Putting your foot bar up where you would normally have it most likely for your footwork.

Still one springs because sort of what happens is you get into the more advanced work, right? We're getting closer and closer to the Madigan. That's the point I'm breathing. Okay. I'm thinking to do a side plank can, we may turn it into something, but for now one hand, let's say right hand, oh, whichever hand is easier to see the screen hand on foot bar. It's about middle and maybe in slightly fraught forward of middle. The first leg or what I'll call, I'm going to call it my left leg cause that's what it is.

Or my top leg goes in front, slightly on the side of the foot. I'd like you to keep your carriage still for this next part. That means you have to be ready for this, right? No reason to do it if you're not, so I'm lifting up. I've got my Latin gauge now so that when I go to put my other foot back, I shouldn't have to move the carriage to do it. I'm ready.

I think from right here they get out. Inhale. I don't think you're lifting for your exhale in. I'm trying to make like a tee with your body and exhale you can use your feet. I wouldn't push with them. I'd push down into the Caribbean at all and one more enjoy and all the way to the stopper. The back, knees coming down, top leg stretches out maybe over the headrest. If you can keep the arm up here do.

You may decide you want to go to your forearm for this. Next one. Raise the leg as high as you can. Pick. Let's, I'll go to the farm, right. Is that like of hand behind your head and kick forward and back forward and back for six, three, four. Nice and long. One more and back again. Reach back and grab onto it.

Keep that sigh in line with the hip as you draw the heel to glute and slightly tuck the pelvis to get that stretch front of the thigh. All right folks, let's come off and do the other side. So for me, left-hand or stabilized hand, right in the middle of slightly forward top light goes in the front. You must be ready. So commit to it in your mind first. These are especially in this light spring, right?

But if you get too heavy it won't. You'll don't move the carriage. Squeeze the inner thighs. Here we go. Inhale looking for that tea and exhale your light to come in, reaching over that bar in here and push the airway, the body nice and long. Number three, [inaudible] you get another one in joy. Use the legs. Use the inner thighs. Don't make that shoulder. Do it alone. You're here and come on to him, right either to the forum. I think we should. So line up your forum with the a bar. If it's rounded, one, you're gonna slip or you can kind of go cross it like comes up hand behind your head and it's kick and back.

Doing your best to keep your leg on the same plane as opposed to this kind of action. Right? And forward, forward one more. And while our reach back, now what you've got to really be mindful of is arching the back here. So before you pull on the leg, if you're in this position, tuck the pelvis first, get the thigh in line with this hip then and only then you stretch into it by pulling the heel to gluten. [inaudible] alright, good. Facing the back still. One spraying knees efficance to shoulder rest, grabbing hold of the plastic again. So is this gonna feel similar to pulling straps? Try to place yourself well so the shoulder, hip, and knee are over each other. Of course, it almost feels like you're going to tip forward, which will make you use your hands, James, which is alright.

Minimal hand tension. You pull down and back. Hug the arms in as close as you can and return. I'm working just as hard on the way home. [inaudible] inner that keep going honey. You're bugging me and Paul and return and Paul and return now come to where the arms are aligned up about with your side.

You can see my hands may be slightly in front of the middle of my thigh, but now as I turn I'll go the away from you. So maybe you can see we're using, we're going to keep this ratio the same. So I'm not going to be pulling more with my arm, but we're going to rotate, uh, to our left. So check it out if you don't know what I mean. I'm turning all that's heavy. The spine and coming back other side. So it's not the arm.

The arm is working no doubt, but it's working with the obliques, with the back extensors. Otherwise it's just too heavy. Right? So you're working to rotate everything. He just cheaping the arm in line. The other strap we'll go loose. Right? If you rely only on the arm, it's not fun because it's too heavy generally to do it. Well turn one more. Oh, okay, good. We're not done. Stay in this position.

Now you're drawing both arms back as far as you can without throwing shoulders forward. Come bring them to the sides of your legs. Only reached the arm bones down a bit as you stay tall and from there, pull back three times. Think of the upper arm doing it. One, move the upper arm too. Here's another one. Three. You can let the arms zone in front of you and breathe. Pull back behind you. Hugging close. Bring the arms right next to your legs again and three back from there. One, don't let them get in front of you.

Here's to one more for three and return. Can we do two more sets? Sure. Christie, we'd love to hear we go tall. Do what you can. If it's in your neck, you've done enough, right? Here's one. Keep them close. Don't pull out on a low v. Two don't let the knees get in front of you. Three and return deep breath.

We don't need to let them know how hard it is. Oh, returned one, two and three. That was a whole body workout right there. Okay. With that. Step off. Please come back around to the front of your farmer.

Get rid of the foot bar one spray straight legs. If you can't, rounding over lifting up from the front of the body heals with the hand on the edge of the carriage we inhale to stretch out. Leave the legs there, reach long. Find opposition more, keeping the shoulders on your back and then around the spine to let it come back. Inhale, press your head. Be Free and archer for you too. However you need to right now, but longer breaths are full breaths or what we're going for. This is your chance to kind of find a sense of completion, accomplishment, rejuvenation. Maybe staying down here. Can you stretch it any further? Bend the elbows wide. Press away and it's not for work. It's just to sort of keep you centered again. Sure.

Keep the arms straight and roll. Okay. Once you hit the stopper, let the arms leave. Hurl all the way up. Back away. Just a little. Once your head comes back up. And then from here with a sense of utilizing everything you have in a way that supports you were just exhaling to rise up, letting the arms drift behind you a little bit. Inhale to come down.

Exhale, rise up. Everything together in a sense of coordination so that nothing's working too hard and up and down. Last time and deep breath brings some energy back and keeping your feet on the ground, letting your head be lightened. Easy. Exhale, I'm doing one more after that. Bring it all in and let it all go. Okay, we're done.

Comments

Thank You so much Kristi !!
I will have to do this work a few more times to perfect my movements in the diamond series ~ my hamstrings are talking to me right now from the table top strap curls :)
Loved the full range of exercises in the class. No Nonsense is right !!
Amazing as usual! I loved the diamond series as well! Woke up some new muscles!
"Table Top Strap Curls!" That's what we'll call them! Thanks Yugonda! Must say, Laurel, I'm feeling awake in certain areas myself today! Glad you both enjoyed class.
Thank you Kristi! I loved the diamond series. I had to pause on the teasers but I did it! Great workout!
Hi Krista- wonderful cueing for every movement to give me my best chance to feel the work...and I absolutely did...holy hammies on the long spine! Thank you. More reformer classes please!
1 person likes this.
Kristi - great workout! Loved the oblique roll backs with single strap! Will add these to my reformer class tonite!!
Ted Johnson
Hey, is this the first class with the new ivory equipment?
Loved this workout Kristi! Diamond series was great, going to feel it tomorrow!
Awesome class! Your cueing is awesome. Love how much you cue the hamstrings. Has made a huge difference in my practice as well as my clients. Thank you thank you!
Pele
Great class. Been a while since we had a reformer class. thanks
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