Prenatal in the Classical

Hi. I'm Ashley, and I'm here to take you through a prenatal workout on a grots reformer. Just to give you a little info about how I've set up, the long box is on. The foot bar is up. I have one spring on at the moment, and I've already added extender loops to the handles. So if you wanna get your apparatus set up that way or if you already have long loops, let's get started.

We're coming around to the front of the reformer so we can use the foot bar for some footwork. Have your fingers close to the foot bar. We'll hold on to it for support, heels together toes apart, lifting the heels to a height you can maintain and bend the knees grabbing the footbar first again balance and straighten 10 times. This is two. You might feel the frame of the reformer as you bend that can be kind of a little guardrail for you, or you can step further back if you're feeling secure and go for a deeper knee bend. But our sense of balance as baby grows changes, and we have to keep adapting.

So we're going for three, straighten. I'm squeezing my heels together, keeping them elevated, trying to feel where my rib cage is living over my hips. Bring the heels down and go parallel and together. Hands interlace behind the head to give you a little bit of a wall to stand into. Bend your knees as deeply as you can while your heels stay down and straighten. It might be a small range of motion, but thinking of that inner thigh connection, heels digging to the ground, knees reaching forward, and bend and straighten as if you were lying down on that reformer, but you might not feel great lying on your back anymore.

So this is a great alternative. We've got three bend, straight, and two. It's okay if the upper body has to go a little bit forward. And one. Hands are gonna hold the foot part for balance. Flex your feet and widen them about a hip distance.

And we're just doing marches on the heels here. So working through the front of the shin as you march, if you need a little pad under your heels, you can absolutely do that, but it's just a nice way to work that shin, stretch the calf, open everything up. Breathing as you go. Two more. One more count, and heels together toes apart for a full tendon stretch. So heels are high and zippered together, holding the bar again for support and up and down.

If you wanna do this all the way upright, you're more than welcome. I like having the bar for support. So you can really focus on the range of motion and the balance between the 10 toes. Slightly more weight in the first and second toe. Squeezing as you lift and lower, see how much of the leg you can recruit into this.

Inner thighs, hamstrings feel they're wrapping in towards each other, and two more, and one. Should have a nice little burn in the calves, and we're going into an overhead press. So take a nice wide stance in a deep squat, give yourself space. The bar is kind of here again for support, but hands go to the front of the box. I'm on one spring, just as a reminder.

Push the box away and then resist it back in. Push and resist. So this is a nice from the chest pushing out and resisting in, using those lats on the in, using those pecs and biceps on the out. Let's go four, keeping that deep bend in those legs feeling the burn through the thighs. And on this last one, keep the hands on the box, and then just pulse into the hips 10 times. This is five.

Six, seven, eight, nine, 10, and standing up. Whoo. Alright. Foot bar is coming down to sit on the box for a variation of saw. Sitting on the box, bring the feet up onto each side of the box resting on the carriage, and sit wherever you can stay tall out of your low back, interlacing the hands behind the head, lift tall. Rotate as much as it feels good in your body today, and bring the same elbow to the same knee as you take a little bent, push into the feet to help you come back up and rotate to center.

Rotate to the left, right elbow to right knee, and lifting through the center to come back home. So as you rotate, It's not about a huge twist. It's about finding that twist and that flexion lateral flexion of the spine. Rotate elbow to knee and lift one more rotate, lifting the top elbow to the ceiling as the bottom elbow reaches towards the knee. It does not have to touch and rest.

Going into a nice table or bridge. Slide the hips forward. Hold the back edge of the box and wrap your shoulders open. Fear staying on the box, and you're pushing in to lift up into this nice table position and lower the hips back down. Just that. So activating in the back body, activating the triceps, activating the hamstrings, and even hugging the heels into the box to create a deeper inner thigh connection, pushing up and hold, and breathe in at the bottom, exhale pressing up four more times. And exhale push, inhale.

Chest is opening as much as you can. Three inhale. XL two. I'm using my fingers to push into the box as well to lift up out of those wrists. And one hold and lowering it down. We'll step off the box and take it away.

And think of this as like a little bassinet or a car seat. We wanna really bend at the knees, hinge at the hips. So we take care of our backs. And again, bend at the knees, hinge at the hips. Come back to kneeling on your reformer, knees against the shoulder rest for a kneeling hundred. So knees are pressed against the shoulder rest, but you're drawing into the midline.

Arms are straight, and we're gonna pump the arms forward and back of your body. Breathing in, and out. Breathe into the back, and out. So you can create the same destabilization of the pumping of the arms that you would if you were lying on your back. And then you have to stabilize through the hamstrings, through the abdominals as you keep getting taller like you're in a kneeling chest expansion. Let's go for four more breaths.

And pump as vigorously as you can keep your body going upright and not let your pumps move you forward and back. So lift, lift, lift, you can press the top so the feet down into the carriage, bringing your hips right on top of your knees, lifting your ribcage up off your pelvis, top of the head reaching to the ceiling, and rest. Lying down on one side for some side leg work on the reformer. Head rest is down, still on one spring, and I have my long loop already on. Lying down head is gonna rest on my arm as I hold the loop behind me, and bringing my foot into the strap. Extend that leg long.

Head rests on the arm and opposite hand pushes into the shoulder rest. Find that length. And let's start by bending the knee and straightening. Just to bend and straighten to feel the alignment of the hips, the reach through the top side, and the opposition you can create with this opposite hand. Bend and push resisting the spring and pushing against it finding that outer hip working to stabilize your pelvis.

Two more. And staying out for some circles. So small circles hardly moving the carriage because you're reaching, reaching through that leg. So as you lift, you keep the length on that left side, and that keeps the carriage within about an inch of movement and reverse. For eight. Seven. Six outer hip should be waking up here.

Two. And one, bend the knee in. Whoo. Outer hip is awake. I'm gonna place this into the well, come up to do the other side. Rotating over.

I'll rest my head on my left arm as I hold the shoulder rest behind me. I might need to help myself a little bit to get the foot in there. And then pressing the right leg long as the right hand pushes into the shoulder rest. Bottom leg is bent just for nice support. And then this side, you can really see that reach of the right leg we're going for.

Bend the knee in without losing the length of the waist and push. Bend, and press 10 of these. And press. I still feel that opposite side working because it's stabilizing. I always feel the second side of these is harder because it's already worked when it was the stabilizing side. So always extra fun on the second side.

Let's go for three. Breathing into the back body and the side body. And stay straight with that leg and circle hardly moving the carriage and five, six, seven. Keep that reach, reverse. Both hips burning now. And four, three, two, one, bend the knee in, carefully grab the strap, return the carriage home and place that one into the well.

Coming on up. So we can take the long loops off and hook the handles on. Again, deep, bend of the knees. And we're adding a spring. So two springs, kneeling, and it the closer you are to the shoulder rest, the less tension you'll have, the further back, the more tension you'll have for a kneeling row. Grabbing the handles, and I'm gonna lace through to shorten the straps. So the higher up the straps, the more tension, the further back, the less.

Two springs should be pretty good, and then start to move the carriage a little just to feel that tension, pull back hold, squeezing the shoulder blades together, and return it forward. Hole back squeeze, resist back forward. Shoulder blades draw together, and they spread apart. So strengthening the rhomboids, strengthening the serratus, working to strengthen the upper back, which will help open up the chest. And keep us in good posture.

Going for four, a little hold at the back. Three, shoulder blades pull together without the ribs popping out. Two, exhale one, and forward. Hook your handles on, bring a little blood flow back into your legs, lift the foot bar, and we're going to mermaid. You might like your legs stacked, but if it doesn't feel too comfortable today, maybe open up, giving yourself more space depending on where you are in your pregnancy. Hand in the middle of the foot bar, other hand, the shoulder rushes to help you feel very upright.

Then lifting the right arm to the ceiling. Push the right shin into the shoulder rest, push the left palm into the foot bar, and coming back up to do a counter stretch, grab that shoulder rest, left arm to the ear and bending over. Hand back to the foot bar. So moving through this nice side bend, activating that left side, and then stretching through it. One more.

Push away. Right arm comes up. You're leaning onto that left hip and lift and taking the counter stretch this time, just grab your head in your hand and give your upper back a nice round. And we'll pivot around to the other side. So left shin against the shoulder rest, option to have the legs stacked or bring the right leg in front, which is what I will do. Right hand in the middle of the footbar, left hand helps you feel very upright, and then left arm to the ceiling.

Push the carriage away, push through the left chin to lean onto the right hip, and then come up, grab the shoulder rest, and take a counter stretch by pulling through that left arm. Right arm pushes into the foot bar as you bend to the side bending those springs out, and then just like you're a spring stretch that right side. And one more time, leaning on to the right hip, pushing through the right hand And then as you grab the shoulder rest, lift tall, and go up and over that left side, gently grab the back of your head to round the upper back, which will definitely bend more easily than the low back if you're further along in your pregnancy. Come up to stand. We've got two springs, and we're going into elephant. Grab the footbar with two hands.

Step up, heels in front of the shoulder rest. Head drops down, and you might just have a little longer spine here. It might not feel that great to have so much flexion. So a little longer spine for your elephant, if you're further along in your pregnancy, pushing through the heels and pulling in. You'll feel that nice hamstring stretch, and sometimes we feel really stretchy, and sometimes we feel really tight in pregnancy because of all of the hormonal changes.

So we always wanna build strength. When we're all the way in, step forward, so you have a little more shoulders over wrists for support and balance. The right hip will lift just slicing that hip up and down. So you are hiding your left hip and then showing it, evening out the pelvis as you bring the leg down. Two more.

Just working all those little stabilizing muscles and one. Keep the right leg lifted and pulse it for five nice and slow. Four. Keep your eyes where your hands are. Three. Two. One, just a little further activation of that outer hip, other side. So it's lifting the left hip as you stand strong and tall on the right leg.

Lift and lower three more, and then we'll add those little pulses to further strengthen the outer hip. Keep the leg lifted and pulse for five nice and slow and smooth four. Strong standing right leg three, two, one, and stepping the foot on. Come down to kneeling for knee stretches. So if round isn't feeling great because you're further along and it's too hard to get that flexion, you can do two rounds of flat back or arch.

I'm gonna start with round It can even just be a small amount of round. It doesn't have to be huge. Do what feels safe in your body, and here we go for 10. Push and 10. And nine.

And eight. And seven, heels kick six. These come forward five. Upper body stays four. Three, two, one. Looking forward, and you might already be here for a second set.

And pushing out for 10. Not eight knees can gently hug towards each other. Four, three, two, and one. Coming down for a little run to cool our body down. So I'm adding one more spring, so there's three springs on alyssa headrest up.

If you're not feeling good lying on your back at this point, you can omit this or just stand at the edge of the reformer and do little pedaling through, like, how we started. But if you're here for just a moment, it might feel doable. Everybody is different, and that's why it's important to listen. To your body. Just letting the breath settle, letting the body settle, and coming in all the way for pelvic lift. Ark just go to the corners of the foot bar, just lifting the pelvis up, push away. And again, you might feel here like you have less of a curve in your low back and more just the elevation of the pelvis while the rib cage stays down.

Thinking of your sits bones going just towards the bar, not towards the ceiling. Let's do two more like that. Arches, push down on the foot bar and towards each other to get that inner thigh and hamstring activation. And when you're all the way in, roll through your spine to come down. Use your hands to help you come up to sit, and I hope you feel strong and energized for the rest of your pregnancy.