Coordination

Let's take a look at coordination. Coordination is an abdominal exercise performed on the reformer. The spring tension can be anywhere from a light spring like one red or maximum heavy, in my opinion, would be two reds. You could go into the middle and do a one red and one blue, which is pretty standard. And that is the spring that I have chosen for myself.

Coordination is a combination of coordination in the body because there's lots of things that happen. And also coordinating the movement with the breath. So as we see the exercise, I'll say more about that coordination. Let's take a look. The exercise begins lying on the reformer.

It's nice to give yourself a little space between the shoulder blocks and your shoulders just so you don't run up into the shoulder blocks with your body. Taking the straps in the hands and beginning by setting the arms so that they're perpendicular to the floor, just straight up from the shoulder joint. We then lift the feet off the foot bar, and this is where the start the exercise begins. The initial exhale is to lift up into trunk flexion, reaching the arms forward actively to help hold the body at that height. The exhale continues as the legs open and close.

We then begin inhaling as we bring the knees in and here I'm really focusing on reaching my arms more forward and then the inhale continues as we lift the arms and take the head down. So that's a lot of information, but there's some tempo to this exercise. So we'll see that now. Exhale to lift, open, close, inhale to bend, and reach with the arms, continue inhaling as the arms lift, the head goes down. Import as you find that initial lift to lift as much as you can away from the shoulders, open close, then stay lifted or think increased lift, and then return.

The feet can then come down. We can then release the arms to release the spring. So important in that exercise is that the person doing the exercise has enough abdominal strength to curl up high enough into flexion. So it's an abdominal exercise and not a lot of strain in the neck and shoulders. Shoulder stability is important with that reach active reach forward, that also helps to maintain and create the flexion in the body, and then the tempo to the exercise to lift the body, open close the legs, then stay lifted, and then return back to the reformer.

Coordination.