Class #679

Fluid Reformer

45 min - Class
605 likes

Description

This class by Pilates Veteran Tom McCook is as fluid as his cues are. Begin with a lumbar warm up which seems to set the tone for the whole workout, then let Tom artfully guide you through a well-balanced workout that focuses on clarity of movement and stability of the hip joint.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

About This Video

Apr 15, 2012
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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Tom Cook. I'm here with Amy and Elisa and we're going to start our workout on the reformer and we're going to begin sitting with no springs sitting on the carriage with feet flat on the floor, hands on the bar, the bars in the Middle Bar, and you're just focusing on good posture. The begin with the long inhale. On the exhale, they're going to brush their sit bones forward to move into lumbar flection. And then on the inhale they'll draw the sit bones back. So just the basic movement of Lumbar flection.

Feel that lift through the pelvic floor to go forward. Reaching to the sit bones with the inhale to come back and just trying to go evenly through each side of the pelvis. It's an opportunity to warm up the lower back, keep the feet equally weighted and the shoulders relaxed. I just two more each direction at your own pace. Noticing keep the shoulders and neck soft all the way through and one more and curl.

Okay. Now as you come back to the center, take your right hand to the middle of the bar and the left hand back and turn to your left and you can put your hand on the cart or by your side. Whatever's comfortable. Now keep the weight even on both sit bones and do the same movement in rotation. So on the exhale, curl a little more challenging and rotation in health.

The center. Exhale to curl and see if you can find that you're pulling the tail forward from the pelvic floor, but not so much from your butt muscles that makes, that allows you to flex the lumbar a little better. Do that two more times and one more as you come back to the center. Rotate to your second side, right hand back. Equal weight. The long inhale, exhale to curl. Tail pulls towards the pubic bone. Yeah, and held back. Fill that nice move and you're warming up your hip joints, your lower back, activating your core cylinder.

And there's two more times, great preparation for your spine before you do a lot of flexion exercises and one more [inaudible] from there. Are you going to straddle a reformer and put on a red and a yellow spring and put your bar and low bar. This is for an exercise called good morning. This is an adaptive action from Coraline, but it's a great way to work on hip flection and shoulder flection. So on low bar, come to a kneeling position with your knees directly under your hips. Your arms are straight and the knees would be back and your feet can be right up against the shoulder pads. Now.

Now push the card out just a few inches and then keep your knees directly underneath your hip joints. And that's going to stay the same. Now the movement is just going to be flexing in the shoulder joint in the hips. So as you pushed out, just let the chest go towards the springs and feel your hip crease. Get deeper. That's it. Then inhale to come back up. So you're, this is a great way to open up the thoracic spine and work on shoulder flection and hip flection, keeping the neck long. So for all of our, everyone who sits a lot during the day, it's a great way to open up your chest and its work on good mechanics.

Before you do anything more. As you go into the movement, the show, the blades are going down and out. And as you come up, you feeling that hip crease and movement in the shoulder blades. And again, let the chest go down to keep the front ribs lifted. That's it. And just one more time on the next one. Go into it and hold it. Now we're going to do a telescoping of your shoulder blades. So reach your shoulder blades towards the bar, let them slide up towards your ears. Now slide your head towards the bar and slide the shoulder blades down your backs. You wake up, your middle, upper back and again, slide them away.

Then slide them down your back and really feel that glide. So this is tapping into your lower trapezius muscles, an area where we all need a little more strength and more connection. And that is, can I do that without tensing the neck? That's it. And just one more. Very nice. And as you come up in all the way in, set yourself up for foot work.

So we'll put the bar in mid bar in middle bar and put on two reds and a blue. And with two reds and a blue, I recommend you have your headrest down for the first exercise cause we're going to do, I'm bridging and come on to your heels and have your heels in line with your sit bones. So think of your sit bones or a little narrower than the width of your hip joint of your, of your pelvis. So maybe four to six inches apart. That's an edge. Just take a few breaths and orient yourself with this position. With gravity breed the length of the spine. And on the exhale, soften the breastbone, the front of the throat, the shoulders.

And we're going to take two breaths to go up into the bridge in one breath to come down to take a breath, to prepare excess. Start to sink right above your pubic bone. Curl the tail towards the knees and peel up halfway. Take another breath, exhale, traction the tail more towards the knees. And Peel all the way up into full hip extension. On the inhale, sequence down, putting down each part of the spine before what's below it. Exhale, back to neutral in health to prepare. Exhale, curl. About halfway in front of the shoulders are soft and other breath. So curl all the way up. Very smooth breath. Inhale, start down. Exhale all the way down, like you're laying down the spine, one section at a time, and just do two more on the exhale. Curl. Feel the back of the legs.

Engage the abdomen. Now their breath. Exhale up with soft breastbone. Inhale, traction down. They creating more space, alignment, and length. Okay, and one more on the exhale. Curl. Okay. Take another breath. Exhale, curl more. Full hip extension.

If you can. Inhale, start down. Okay. Exhale all the way down to your starting place. Then just reach back and put your head rest up a notch. We'll go right into legwork. So think of your legwork.

You want to think of initiating the movement through the back of the legs and finishing through the front of your legs. So just resist your heels down the bar a little bit to feel the back of your legs. Then inhale, pull the legs long. Exhale momentarily. Stall the carriage as you start to bend your knees through your abdomen and then come all the way in. Inhale, lengthen out. Exhale, feel that momentary stall. Then draw in and just move it to your own breath rate. Let it start to flow. Clear. Movement in the hip joints, soft across the front of your shoulders and your throat. Fluid motion. So legwork is working on alignment.

It's obviously legwork, but you're working on at your long. When you're all the way out, there is when the spine is the longest. And one more time and in come onto the balls of the feet. Still in parallel. I'm going to go into roll through [inaudible]. So from there, inhale, draw the legs long. Exhale, lower the heels. Inhale, rise up and from the high point bend in, come in and see if he can start to feel that you can move evenly in your hips, knees and ankles as you'd been. See if you can bend all three joints at the same time. Fluid motions.

She just getting that sense of releasing the back chain of your caps, but you're keeping the top of the legs active. Okay, and do two more before we reverse it. Add one more. Excellent. As you come in now from the bottom, rise up on the toes and press out with high heels. Lower the heels and bend and come in from that low position.

Get that nice stretch in your calves and again, rise up and out. Lower and Ben and come in. Start to feel the relationship between your lower abdomen and the back of your legs as you're coming in so you get a deep crease in the hips when you're coming in. And one more. Now we're going to go right into single legs. So come up onto your heels again.

Floats your right knee into a tabletop position. Now reach to the leg straight out over the bar and flex the foot. And I feel that connection through the back of the leg and the belly pulling away. Now inhale. As you pull the leg long, pull your right knee to your chest. Exhale, reach it back out over the bar. Get that sense that you're moving right from where the leg meets the body.

You're turning on the back of the left leg to initiate. You're feeling the belly pulling away from the inner thighs as you come in two more times and one, and once you came in, switch your legs. Nice work. Reach out over the bar. Feel that opposition the back, the leg is strong on the left leg. Inhale out. Exhale and smooth and fluid. Hips are staying nice and stable all the way through aligned posture and two more and one as you come in, come onto the ball of the left. What? We're going to switch legs, but this time you're going to put your right leg under the bar.

Now with that leg that's under the bar, press it towards the midline in downs. You feel like you can turn on the back of the leg and the inner thigh. That's it. Now as you inhale, pull the left leg long, pull the right knee to your chest and exhale back under the bar. We're going to do three. We just pull it to the chest and after that you're going to develop the leg all the way up. That's it.

On the next one, go all the way out. Reached the leg to the sky and then back under the bar. Very smooth. Stay aware of the back of the standing leg when you reach up with the other leg and do one more this time. Go out and hold it as you hold it. Imagine the lower waistline is strapped.

The carriage is still a little ticktack mint over where you can let the leg come across the mid line and out to the side and make it as small as you need to to keep the pelvis stable. The leg is just massaging the hip joint that right femur head. Do One more and then we'll take it into circles. Inhale into the midline, XL towards the bar and circle. Stay strong in the back of your standing leg. Easy in the shoulders and neck. Okay, one more in the direction you're going. And now reverse motion. Think of the leg that gesture, the strength is in your body. One more and Ben and bring it all the way and beautiful work.

We'll take the second side, reach under the bar. Now turn on the back of that down leg and the inner thigh. Hips fully extended. Inhale knee to chest as you pull out XL back under the bar. So you're working on leg alignment using the whole leg, your initiating from the back of the leg. Your knees, hips and ankles are tracking well and then you're going to go right into the full developed pay. That's it.

Notice the more stable you are on your pelvis, the upper leg lengthens easier. Cool. That's it. And two more on this next one. Hold. And they go right into the side to side. Ticktack you see your femur head is polishing the inside of the joint. Okay. Pelvis is nice and stable and your hip joints in the front of your pelvis of the back of the pelvis is moving. The back of the pelvis is moving. What's up with that?

That's it. I had one more. And then right into the center line into circles. Smooth and fluid. Shoulder blades are stable, spine is long. One more in the direction you're going. And then reverse connect the breath to your lower abdomen, especially the exhale last one. [inaudible] and bring it all the way in. And now come on to um, prehensile feats.

You're going to come onto the balls of the feet with both feet and make sure you get your fifth metatarsal, the fifth ray, which is the bone right behind your little toes on the bar. So it might be a little higher than you're used to. Now hold the bar and drop your heels low and on the inhale, pull the legs long. Then on the exhale, keep the heels low as you come in to really stretch the top of the foot and activate that transverse arch of your feet. That's it.

There you go. Start to feel that clear relationship between the back of your legs and your lower belly. Smooth and fluid. Straighten the legs from the top back of your legs with active feet. And one more as you come in. Come down a little lower onto the balls of the feet. We're just gonna go into running. So pull the legs long.

Now Rise up into that high point and go right into a slow running. And see if you get the feeling on the lowering leg, you're pressing the top back of the thigh into the mat on the bending knee. You're pressing the Shin forward to start to feel that connection to the back of both legs. And that connection lifts you up in the middle. That's it. The legs are toned and fluid. He real easeful in your upper body. And then just a lower one for a stretch. If you'd like to get a deeper stretch, you can take your other foot and hook it under the bar and give it a little pull. That's a little yummy edition.

Okay. And when you're ready, we'll switch sides. Very nice you guys. And then bring it all the way in. Final Movement for the legs is go wide on your heels in second position, we're just going to do a little internal and external rotation. So as your inhale, press out in external rotation from the top of your thighs, roll your legs in and Bendon come in and then roll out.

It's another great way to free up your lower back by freeing up your hip rotators. Very smooth. One more in that direction. And now go out from internal and to external. That's it. Very fluid.

Okay. And just two more. We just want to make sure we included this in the sequence. Last one. Yeah. Excellent. You guys. Now from there, help yourself up.

Roll to your side and come on up. And we're gonna take off all the spring set for one Ballou and puts your bar down out of the way to the front. This is for kneeling abdominals, so you're going to be in a kneeling position with your hands on the wooden frame. So we'll bring this steel steel part out of the way. There you go. And now have your shoulders directly over your wrists. So the feeling you want to have is with your show. The blades is first. Just do a little scapula glide.

Let the show the blade slide in towards the spine. Now float the body up, but also widen and lower the shoulder blades. Now hold that position. Now leave your shoulders directly over your wrist. On the exhale, just send your knees back until there's a straight line from your knees to your shoulders to the chest. We'll have to lift a little bit. Has the hips extend an inhale hinge at the hips to come in. Actually, let's reverse the breath. Inhale out. Exhale in. Now imagine the platform for your arms is the middle of your upper back, so that's where you're standing into your arms from like your arms wrap right around your back.

You're feeling that connection back to front one more. Now hold it and exhale. Reach the arms away. Push out a little bit from the arms. Inhale, pull in from the arms. Exhale, hands in the hips and again, inhale, legs. Breathe low and wide. Exhale, arms. Inhale, draw in from that underside of your arms. Exhale, hinge at the hips. Now for fun, reach down and take the blue spring off.

So you're obviously going to have to make the range a little smaller, but it's not as hard as you think. The goal is. Really the most important piece is make the connections before you move. So first, get this feeling of the body pulling away on the inhale, breathing load in wide, slide, knees out. Exhale, reach the arms. Inhale, draw in from arms. Exhale hands to the hips. Beautiful. That's it. This is the keep me honest. Exercise for each.

The knees reach the arms. That's a keep the work low in your body and arms and the knees. Just one more time. Okay. At inhale the knees, exhale, reach from the arm, draw in from the underside of the arms and then draw the knees and beautiful work. He'll gently step off.

We're going to come to standing to do single leg knee stretch, so you're going to watch your bar and high bar high bar with one red. If you don't have a yellow, what I recommend is go with the green. If you have a yellow, you can go with the red and the yellow. Otherwise just go with the green. About the same spring tension. So that looks great now. So you're going to stand with your outside foot halfway back on the floor right next to the cart and then put your other foot on the shoulder pad. Now that the knee that's in the air is going to be off the cart and just bring your hands to your hips for a moment. You stand up and bring your pelvis into neutral.

Now Curl over your neutral pelvis to put your hands on the bar. So think of the pelvis is going to stay neutral. Now the movement is just going to be the back leg. It won't fully straighten on the XL, press back, but feel like you're pulling your lower belly away from the bar as you press away. So you're going to feel a lot of work and your glute hamstring and to show the blade connection and abdomen, that's it.

Feel that opposition the belly drawing away from the bar. Okay, wide. Show the blades. One more. Now let's transition to flat, back, straight line from your tail to your head. Now this time you will be able to straighten the back leg. Now on the exhale, reach the leg long into full hip extension. Inhale to come in and just feel that energized line, head to tail and as you breathe the come in breathe wide and low into the back ribs.

And one more. Now to make it a little more interesting, come in and reach your outside arm to the side and connect the arms across the back to each other and switch your arms. There you go. That's it. There you go. Nice work and reach. Now feel that you're widening and lowering the blade, right? Yeah, that's it. There are you guys two more times and one more clear movement in the hip joint and in and we'll switch sides. Nice work. Let's feel good.

Awesome guys. Look Great. The first, just when you put your foot halfway back, stand up and put your hands on your pelvis. Basically you're doing a standing roll down over a neutral pelvis and then find your bar and then with a round back position on the XL reached the need. Maintaining that round back position with the shoulder blades open and down. Yeah, that's it. Smooth and fluid because the leg is swinging low under you.

Just two more feel that opposition. So you're getting more opening in your lower back through that opposition through the belly. Okay. And now transition to flat, back, straight line, head detail. This time you will be able to extend the back leg a little further.

That's it. You get that sense that the movement is in the hip joint. So you're getting a lot of work today on clarity of pelvic stability and dynamic moves. One more. And now take your outside hand out to the side as you come in and connect the arms across the back to each other and then reach into it very smooth. And last three. Okay, a nice fluid movement in the hip joint from a stable body.

One more excellent work. And as you came in, nice work everybody. Now we're going to put the long box on and the foot bar, we'll just put it down so it's out of your way. So foot bars down long box. Now you're going to put on one blue spring. If one blue is too heavy, I recommend one yellow. That's what you'll see in a sec. So now with your headrest down, you can have a seat with your feet on the headrest.

And then you're going to take the straps and put the strap right behind your elbow on your upper arm, just above the elbow. That's the, so the first movement. So it's going to be um, even higher. You'll put it up light behind the elbow and then bring your arms down. Your elbows would be low so you can hold it from your elbow. So yeah, that's it. So let's go like, like that. Okay, perfect. Okay, so that's it. Now look, there you go. Perfect. Okay.

Yeah, this is a new position. So now, so you're going to go, same. You're going to go like that same weirdness yet. So this way you can't use your wrist. So from here what I want you to do is imagine your arms. They're going to be pulling straight back with the elbows and tight on the exhale with the ribs staying in. So on the exhale, pull the elbows straight back in tight to your body. Now as you inhale, lift your upper chest straight up and extend the spine.

Exhale back to straight line. Inhale to release the elbows forward and again, exhale, pull the elbow straight back in. Hell to extend with a long neck. Exhale the neutral inhale, elbows come forward. So take a full breath through each repetition XL, the pool. Inhale, feel the length of the spine grow a little longer as your extend. That's it. And just do two more. Exhale, elbows pulled back from your backs or energizing your back, or you're lifting on the inhale. Exhale to neutral. Inhale, arms forward. One more time. Exhale, DePaul. Inhale, lift. Exhale, neutral, and release. Now we're going to go into what's called the goalposts.

So you're going to take your elbows out like this. So when you look out to the side, you want your hands and your elbows to be straight up and down in line with each other. That's it. Now on the exhale, reach the [inaudible]. But think of belly first rather, belly and reached the elbow straight out to the side and then back. That's it. Then inhale forward. This is a nice anti kyphosis exercise, so all that time we spent stretching our chest. If we strengthen the opposing muscles, you don't need to stretch your chest.

It happens all at the same time. So XL to reach and two more times. Think belly first blades and then reach out of the arm and one more great postural exercise. [inaudible] last one. In this sequence, you're going to take your distress just for a breath and then you're going to turn your palms up with your arms straight out to the side. I feel like you're, you're going to reach right out, right out of the middle of your chest. From the exhale, reach straight out to go back. Inhale to come forward and do that on the exhale, so on the exhale, belly, then blades, that's it. Inhale forward. Exhale, reach out to go back and just three more times.

This is all preparation for extending the spine. We're going to do in a moment, two more times. Exhale back and one more excellent work. Then we'll put the straps on the Poles. We'll set up your bars for low bar, so it low bar. I recommend a red and a yellow or red and a blue. So we'll actually go with the m. Let's see how this feels to you. If this feels too heavy, we'll just go with a red, red and blue would be great. And if that feels too heavy, just go down to her. Retinue yellow.

She got to come onto your belly facing the bar for Swan. But we'll start with prone press. So have your hands, shoulder width or a little wider. Whatever's comfortable for you. Chest is just slightly off the box. So first thing just to energize your legs by reaching back through them and create a straight line through the [inaudible] top of your head. Inhale to prepare on the exhale. As you feel the belly engaged, slide the arms long and feel the shoulder blades upwardly.

Rotate away from the inhale to band Xcel to reach and feel like as you reach and that can stay nice and long and you're feeling that connection of your middle back all the way down into your inner thighs because your legs are toned and active. And one more time. Now this time, exhale out and hold it out. Now as you inhale, breathe your upper chest forward and up to come up into swan. On the exhale, lengthen down, put each part of the spine down. Segmentally an inhaled the bend. Come in, exhale to reach long. Let the inhale start to extend right out the top of your head.

Let that bring you up. Exhale down. And How Ben to come and do two more times before we change it. Exhale long. Now let the inhale initiate the extension. That's it.

And then lead with the spine to lengthen down. And one more. Exhale out. Inhale to extend XL sequence down through the spine. And Ben didn't come in. Now reached down and take off the red. So you just have on one blue spring.

Now from there we're going to do single arm. So put your right hand palm up on your lower back. That's the first thing, just to get a sense of gliding. Both show the blades down so you're connecting both shoulder blades and from the bottom of the left shoulder blade on the exhale, press the arm long. Just do that two more times before we add rotation to it and one more on the next three. As you press out, rotate the torso towards your right and held the come in and feel like you're spiraling around a center line right off the top of your head. And one more before we add one final piece on the next three. Also lift your left leg nice and smooth. Feel that connection.

You're lifting the leg from the bottom of the glute and nice spine spiral. And one more. I'm bringing it all the way in for the second side, right hand on the bar, left hand on the lower back. First, organize the shoulders. You're low, you're connecting to both. Show the blades. Exhale out. Inhale, bend to come in. Acids notice you can keep that connection to the bottom of the shoulder blade all the way through the arm. Slide on the next three.

Add spinal rotation with that left shoulder drop back to open the and health, the back to center. And again, notice kind of keep the hips anchored all the way through the rotation. And now all that, a lift of the right leg as you press out from your low glute hamstring connection. Inhale in and exhale out, and one more. Excellent work now for a minute. Now let from there, let's come to standing. We'll take the boxes off and we'll prepare for short spine short spine.

I recommend either a red and a blue or two red, whatever you guys prefer on Middle Bar and when you're ready, come on down onto your back. Make sure your head wrestlers down for short spine. We'll put the straps on your feet and once you have the straps on your feet, I feel a little long. That's good. Feel good. Go. Once you have the straps on your feet, send your legs out to a 45 then bring the arms along. Let's just do a few preparation movements, so on the inhale this let the legs come up to 90 keeping the tail heavy and exhale, reach your way.

Do that four or five times just to get a clear sense of where the hip joints are. Again, get a little release through the hamstrings after that last exercise. I feel a little. Still feel a little long. Are you going go to Florida? How's that? Hold on. There you go. You've got it on the next one. Inhale. Let the legs come as far as you can. Now on the exhale, send the tail towards the feet and peel up into short spine at the top of the movement. Inhale, bend the knees to the towards the shoulder blocks and go into turnout.

Now leave your feet where they are and sequence down away from your feet. One Vertebrae at a time. Get the tail down as low as you can before you pull the heels towards your hips to get the tail all the way down and then send the legs long and again. Inhale, legs come in as far as possible. All of the belly. Send the tail towards the feats. Inhale, knee fold towards the blocks into turnout. Xcel sequence away from the field.

Keep the arms long. Neck long sequencing through the spine. Try the heels down to get the tail down. Reach the legs away. Let's do three more at your own pace. And if moving in a fluid fashion, curling up on the exhale. Inhaling to Dan, keeping the pelvis hovering over the rib cage. Xcel sequence through the spine inhaled to draw the heels down. XL reached the legs long and two more. Last two and these last two. See if you can put a little more attention on softening the breastbone on the way down to get a little more articulation through the thoracic and top of your lumbar.

I said smooth and draw the heels down and reach long. I won't do one more. Very fluid and help to bend XL sequence through the spine. The F the final one, the best one. As you come to the bottom, gently help yourself out of the straps. Put The straps back on your poles and roll to your side.

And we're going to come up to standing. I'm going to go right into the up stretch. So for the up you put your hands on the on the foot bar and come to a standing position with your heels halfway up on the shoulder blocks the way it is the same either red and blue or two reds. So for this version, I like you to take your hips back over your heels and then as you drop your chin, lift your bottom ribs away from the carts. You're rounding your back slightly. Now keep that connection. Now on the inhale face. Slide your legs all the way back to a plank, but keep the upper back rounded as the hips lower into plank.

That's an now the exhale come all the way in where the hips low and the upper back round. Still exhale and go back up to the starting place. Inhale, send the legs back, lower the hips. Exhale and shoulders are wide and low all the way in. Still excelling. Use your abdomen to take you up and back. Inhale, slide the legs. Feel that rounded back. Open shoulders. Exhale in your hips are fully extended.

Exhaling up and back. Just two more times. Inhale to plank. Exhale n, feel that suspension of the body over the limbs. One more time. Inhale out. Exhale and nice fluid motion as you come in. Lower the knees with control for the down.

Stretch all the way down onto the mat and I will start in a flat back knee stretch position. So the hips will be about six inches above your heels. I create a nice straight line head detail and connect to the bottom of your shoulder blades. On the exhale. Send the knees back to full hip extension, straight lines, knees to shoulders. Now as you inhale, grow your upper chest through your arms and come all the way in with your gaze up. Now hold that position and XL reached your way. Inhale up and in. Exhale away. That's the feel, that connection, low glutes, inner thighs, open chest all the way through and just two more times, nice and smooth and one more long through the neck as you come in and release. Beautiful work. Take off.

So you just have one red and we're going to turn around and go right into chest expansion. And for this chest expansion version, I would like you, once you take hold of your straps, slide back to your feet or over the back edge so you have a little more range cause we're going to do chest expansion. And then thigh stretch. That's this. The first thing just to get a connection that you're turning on the back of your legs and feel like your sit bones are drawing down towards the back of your knees and the top of the chest is open. Arms are nice and straight and on the exhale stand down into your arms and pull them out to your sides. Inhale to control them back forward and do that a few times.

Just get the connection of the back of the shoulder blades down into the lats, down into your pelvis. And now we're going to add head rotations. So exhale to pull, keeping the neck fluid and he'll turn your head to the right Xcel center in Hilda. Turn left Xcel center. Inhale, release and again exhale to pull. Reach down, keep the top of the chest nice and open. Rotate Center, rotate, center and release. We'll do two more XL to pull in. Held the turn XL center and held the turn XL center and release last time. Exhale to pull and rotate.

Center, rotate, center and release. Now take your hands up a little below shoulder height. Now imagine that the line from your knees to your shoulders is going to stay the same. So just lift up your pubic bone a little bit. And on the exhale, keeping the arms lifted. Turn on your belly, your low glutes and lean back. Inhale to come back up. That's it. And again, XL to lean. Press down into your shins in hell. Back Up.

Exhale to lean. Inhale back up. Just one more time. Exhale to lean and held back up. Now we're going to combine. So on the next one you're going to add a little thoracic extension. So on the exhale, pull the arms to your sides. Now as you inhale, start to lift the upper chest up and lean back just a little bit. Exhale back up. Inhale, release the arms and just two more.

Xcel to pull. Inhale, grow the upper chest through the arm. Arms. Exhale, back to neutral. Inhale, release. And one more. Exhale to inhale to lift and extend. Exhale, neutral and release. Excellent work, which is straps on the Poles. We're going to take that into Cleopatra. So why don't we all face towards the center line?

And then you're gonna fold both of your feet towards the shoulder pads and put the, and actually maybe different than you're used to. I'd like you to put the balls of your feet on the shoulder, pat. I like the feel of this a little better. Just learn that recently knees are stacked and then put the hand on the bar and now just push the bar out to your arm is straight with the other arm. Reach it towards the springs and just feel like you're getting that nice little cleo Demir. Look, here you go. Now as you push out, look up towards the ceiling and you'll rotate the head and look up.

Now as you exhale the command, press down on the bar and look up over your hip, towards your feet with the stretch on that lower waistline. And again, inhale, reach out and rotate. Open towards the sky. Exhale, pull down on the bar and lift up and over your hip, keeping the inner thighs active and just two more times. Inhale, depress out. Exhale up and over. Get that nice stretch is great for your QL. You also get part of your hip flexors to stretch. One more exhale up and over and release, and we'll take the second side so the toes are tucked up against the back shoulder block. The knees are stacked, you can push the cart out a little bit to lengthen the arm that's close to the bar with the other army reaching towards the spring.

So you're in a little bit of a side bend away from the springs. As you inhale, as you inhale, push out and look up towards the sky. Exhale, pull down on the bar. Keep reaching towards the springs with the outside hand as you look over your hip and inhale the reach out. Exhale, pull down on the bar up and overfilled that nice stretch on the low waistline and we'll do two more like that. Press out up and overseas and keep the shoulder nice and low on the hand that's on the bar and one more and pulled down the bar as you come up. And then this hole, this last one for an extra breath. Breathe into the stretch and then slowly released and help yourself to standing. We're going to finish with standing. So for standing, we'll put the foot bar down. Let's go with there.

Just one green or a red and a yellow is, it's going to be fairly heavy. Say what? Now you're gonna stand on that platform and on the edge. So this is for your outer glutes and your obliques. We don't tend to think much of our obliques inside legwork. So I like you to touch the front of your hipbones, your Asi es right in the front. That's it.

Now just bend your knees slightly and imagine you're going to lift those guys up from your abdominal muscles, not from your butt. Just feeling the drop in. You should feel they get a little more toned. Now with bent legs, put all your weight on the leg that's on the standing platform now without shifting your weight straight and the other leg and inhaled to bring an answer. You should feel your ad or glue in your oblique fire quite a bit. It's great to decompress your Sii joints really healthy for your lower back, right? And it's definitely a muscle where we all tend to be weak. Just two, more like that. Nice and smooth, and one more.

Now we're going to take that into a [inaudible]. Straighten up and do a small play in parallel. Press out evenly with both feet, keeping the cards still straighten both legs and then in and again. Then both press out evenly, lengthen up through the center line and in and just two more times. Then press out evenly straighten. And then you focusing on your posture. Using all four sides of the legs.

Press out and up and in. Now then your legs and rolled down and put it down just to one red spring will make it lighter for um, picking up the flowers. That's it. For this one, we're going to add a little offering with your arms. When you press out with your legs, reach your arms out, forward and out as you open. Then you'll forward bend and roll up. I'll talk you through that. So inhale, depress out. Arms and legs.

Reach out to the side where the arms now, XL flat, back hinge. Release the arms down. Now as you roll up through the spine, release the arms and roll-ups. The card comes in and again, we'll reach out, arms and legs, flat, back, hinge, at least the head and arms down and roll up through the spine in a fluid way. And just two more times. Inhale out flat that can release and roll that through this. And one more. Inhale, exhale, hinge. Okay. And he'll release long XL sequence up through the spine and then gently step off of your left side.

Excellent work. And Go back to that heavier setting. I know you thought I forgot that, but most of my clients hope that I forget that the heavier one is a little harder. So first thing, just do a small knee bend. Touch the front of the hip bones. Now draw them up from your obliques. The tendency will be to do it from your butt and feel like your, you want to feel the sides of the waist. Come in now, put all the weight on the leg that's on the bar side and exhale the straight and the other leg and held the band. That's it. So you're not only feeling out or hip, you're feeling waistline. Turn on.

That's it. Go down and do your leg last too, and one more. And as you come in length and back up, we'll go right into PA's and held the Ben both excel, press out, straightened, both keeping the cart still and then in just four more times and I'll, and in, and two more times. Last two, and won and out and up. Bend your knees and roll down. It's changed your spring setting to one red and we'll finish with that final movement. There you go.

And as you inhale, reach out and open XL flat back hinge. Release the upper body in the arms down, and then roll up through the spine. Shoulders are nice and fluid in down, and again, inhale out, flat back in, change, release down. Keep the next supple as you come up with strong legs. Last two. Inhale out. Flat. Back hand release. Sequence up from the base of the spine and one more and hinge release and roll up. And very nice. That's our workout for today. Thank you for joining us.

[inaudible].

Comments

7 people like this.
YES!!! Thank you Pilates Anytime for Tom McCook!!!
4 people like this.
Such a lovely presence. He has such great insight and relays with such calm compassion.

Thank you so much Tom.
1 person likes this.
Great class! Thanks! :)
Loved this class!!!!
Perfect session after a long bike ride. Now I remember where "Tom's Swan" (which I teach a lot in my mat sessions) came from! Love the version on the reformer. Thank you thank you thank you - you rock!
2 people like this.
What a great session! I love Tom's cueing and insight. This was my first exposure to him. Thanks so much, Pilates Anytime!
1 person likes this.
Instruction with confidence, poise and ease - like we should all feel and aspire too. Thank you.
Ayse B
3 people like this.
I've been quietly enjoying the PA classes for a few months now, and have been very impressed with much of the instruction, but after seeing that you've now brought in Tom McCook, I had to break the silence and say: Thank you so much!!!! This has been such a lovely addition to my Pilates practice! :)
Thank you for speaking up Ayse! We're very glad you are enjoying the site.

1 person likes this.
Great class and very clear instructions. I've learnt a lot from it. Thank you
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