Down Stretch

Let's take a look at the down stretch. I love this exercise for so many reasons. One of those being that it it puts us in ranges of motion that we don't often do in our everyday life, but definitely need to do more of. For this exercise, I would recommend one full spring, so maybe a red spring or perhaps a green spring, which is a little heavier for a little extra support. When you get on the reformer, you want to make sure you take a little bit of time to wedge the feet all the way up against the shoulder rest. So this is a really wonderful foot, ankle, and toe stretch.

So I often will spend a little extra time, really just enjoying that foot, ankle, and toe stretch when I have the opportunity to. Having the feet all the way up against the shoulder rest will actually help you to recruit a little bit more solidly the back of the leg, the hamstring, and the glute. So do try your very best to work toward that position. In addition, we wanna try to be in neutral alignment with the legs. And oftentimes, I see the legs bowing out, the knees bowing out, which means that I'm erring on the side of using my, external rotators to be in this position. So try to work on straight parallel knees in relationship to your hips.

We'll put the hands on the foot bar and round this mind first, really keeping those feet nice and wedged up against the shoulder rest. And then I'm going to use my abdominals to support as I undulate forward into first what feels like a straight back. So I'm getting a little bit of thoracic extension, upper back extension by really pulling my shoulders back. I'm pressing the pelvis forward, and I'm looking in the direction of forward maybe slightly up. The only thing that moves as I begin the exercise is my arms, my arms move back, and I pull back forward. When I say my arms, it's my shoulder joint. So the elbow stays straight. And the body stays impeccably still. So here I'm in more of a straight back position, and that's generally where I would like this exercise to begin.

The biggest mistake I see here is people When they go back, losing the upper back and going into a very rounded position here, which is a very different exercise. We get a lot of that in our everyday life. So if we can work on using our upper back a little bit better in keeping the eye gaze in the correct position, then you're learning to use the upper back a little bit better. Now a graduation here would be to lift that chest even more and create active back extension in your upper back as well as support from your abdominals. As you go back, everything remains the same. Once again, the only thing moving is the shoulder joint.

So if you feel a pinch or discomfort in your low back, that's an indication that you're not in the right position. So perhaps you will change and return back to a more flat back, or you just need to use those abdominals and those legs a little bit better. So breathing is up to you, but the flow here when we have it might be a nice energized lift up, a beautiful flow back, and a nice lift up. When you come out of it, take care to support with the abdominals. Sit back on the feet and then dismount the reformer in a way that suits you. That was the down stretch.