Tutorial #3405

Archival Arm Springs

10 min - Tutorial
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Description

You will learn some of the archival Standing Arm Spring exercises in this quick tutorial with Benjamin Degenhardt. This invigorating set of movements is a great way to help you find stability for the way you relate yourself to the ground. He breaks them down and then flows through them so you can try them at a better pace.
What You'll Need: Cadillac

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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Benjamin, I'm here with Mary and were going to take a look at standing arm spring work using the Cadillac and using some quite substantial heavy springs. Um, the sequence of exercises. It doesn't necessarily have a name. Um, these are some of the more, let's call them archival exercises that were not originally named. Um, so I will make names up as we go. There are wonderfully invigorating sequence of exercises. They're are very hard to do slow, but we will show them slow so that we can then do them fast and flow. Um, it's an exercise sequence that is really a lot about being upright again after you've gone to your [inaudible] practice.

So it's a wonderful ending for practice. Um, and it's about finding stability in your way that you will let yourself to the ground stand up on your feet while working with dynamic resistance coming in and out from these very heavy springs. We have two grant's arm springs here. Um, I want you to go ahead and hold onto these for our first exercise, which I will call pulling in and out. It is somewhat related to the rolling in and out exercise. We'll just do it standing up and it's quite vigorous pole. Your starting position is something that you will have to play around with a little bit for this one, and my recommendation is to give it a test poll. So what I want Mary to do first is to get her hands as close to her shoulders as possible, at which point I want the springs to just gently begin to open.

They don't have to be fully open just yet. She just wants to create some tension, which means she's in a really good spot right here. And then just relax your arms straight out in front of you. To start, you will begin with your springs hanging down, your arms straight out in front of you, right in front of your shoulders, and then just become aware of how you relate to your feet to the ground, how you stand on your legs, make sure you push the ground away nice and actively taking all the work you may have done up until this point in your practice, into this moment. The movement is threefold. You begin by pulling the hands back into that position.

We just tested keeping the tension on the spring. She's now trying to slide this handles down along the side seam of her shirt and then at the end letting the springs come away from her to lift back up. Where we repeat that one more time. Slow. You pull back, you slide the hands down along your sides and let the springs come away from you. Let's reverse that process. The arms go down and back like chest expansion. She pulls them up, drawing the elbows and shoulder blades together for a brief moment to generate the strength she needs. One more time down in back, slide it up, arms go forward. Now this is super hard when done slow when you agree. Um, so we're going to do it a lot faster, which may look a little wild and may make a lot of noise on the springs, but it is also a lot of fun to then see how does my body figure out how to maintain its balance so that the springs don't boss me around and pull me backward and forward on my feet. All right, so when you feel ready, just go ahead and go for a nice vigorous pace, pulling back, stretching down, forward, back down and up. One more time and then reverse the process down, back and up, putting your mind's eye into your feed rather than your shoulder placement.

Last one dep up and forward and then we feel quite nice and warmed up when you say so. We're going to take this a step farther into the rolling in and out, which is an exercise we do with the rollback bar seated on the Cadillac. We also do it standing right where Mary is right now using the arms springs. The arms begin again straight out in front of her. It begins with a standing roll down. She's taking her chin over her chest, standing up tall on her legs and feet rolling herself down until the springs begin to catch. At this point, I want her to oppress the springs back towards her legs. Bend the elbows like previously as she rebuilt her spine, rolling herself back up, and then extending the arms forward at the end.

We'll do the reversal right away, Paul. The hands back like you're pulling in and out. Now, Chin over the chest. You roll yourself down over strayed legs. Let the arms come forward as you rebuild your spine, pulling yourself back up and like the previous exercise, we're going to explore this one a little bit faster. Part of what we're looking for here is how our body's Wade has to shift and organize itself against those heavier springs.

When things go a little bit faster, go ahead, roll yourself down. Pull the springs back behind you. Bend the elbows, rebuild your spine, lift back up. Follow that through. One more time. Same rhythm. Arms go back cause you pull yourself up. Arm stretch forward, reverse pulled back along the side. Seam of your body. Roll down that the arms come forward, lift out. Let's do one more good job rolling down, caress the arms out in front of you.

Allow that to happen. That's part of the fun of this exercise and let that go. Nice invigorating yet again. Next one I called the lean and pull. Again, it doesn't really have an official name and that's what you do. You lean back and you pull on your springs. You start with your arms at a 90 degree angle.

You probably want to take a tiny step back from here because for this one you want your spring's pretty much taught at the start position. You want your elbows to be at the height of your shoulders so that already your shoulders can settle down on your back. You want to press the ground away with your toes and by lifting your heels up and taking the spring tension with you, your body gets to lean back like a plank. Then slowly come forward again. Notice how she's using the entire front of her body, including her arms. Lower yourself back down. And just to try that part, lean and Paul continue to lift the elbows up rather than going back in space super far. Any amount we'll do. Let's do one more like that.

You go up to go back, lift the elbows, take the spring tension with you. Let it be your support. Come forward and lower yourself down. Crazy hard. We're going to add one more. It's the squat and pole. It's essentially an opening of the leg similar to our standing footwork. And you take your arms back by your sides like you would for chest expansion.

All right, so at the same time, exactly. So you lift yourself up onto your toes. Looking straight ahead. Now the ever-increasing spring tension as you pull your arms back should feel like a support for you. Something to lift yourself up and away from so that you can stand on your toes. By the time you get down into that deep ple, AAO squat.

So go ahead and engage the springs any amount as you sit yourself down. Let the springs be your support. Hold it there, and then lift yourself back up. And as the heels lower down, you'll let the spring tension subside as do that again and lift yourself up onto your toes. Arms pull back, knees open. Chest opens on top of that. Beautiful. Lift yourself all the way back up. Let the heels come down at the arms.

Come away from you for getting really fancy. We can add our chest expansion neck. Turn to this as well at the bottom of your squat. So go ahead, Pauly. Arms back. Sit yourself down. Hold the spring tension. Find your balance. Turn the head one, turn it to turn it forward. Lift yourself back up.

Release and for good measure, we'll do it. Starting the other way. Lift yourself up onto your toes. Pull Orleans back behind your lake chest expansion. Sit on down into those heavy springs. Turn that one two straight forward or lift yourself up and release.

All right, we'll do one more thing, which is to combine those last two exercises. Arlene and Paul in our squad and Paul, the goal is to try and lift yourself up onto your toes, configure your balance here, and then take the whole shape of your body back back on top of your toes, and then set yourself down so that your heels don't come to touch as you alternate between those two movements. All right, if you're ready, bring your arms from 90 degree angle. Lift yourself up onto your toes. Try to keep your balance as you take your body back. Bring yourself back on top of your toes. Change the arms. Take the arms back behind you and turn the head both ways.

Holding yourself up onto your toes. Let's do one more. Stand up. Take the arms to 90. Lean your body back. Take the springs with you. Find your central access again. Let the springs carry you there. Take the arms down and back. Open through the chest. Any amount. Turn they had. One, two, straight ahead. Lift yourself back up. Heels come down, arms come away from you and you my dear. All done.

This is your standing arm springs. Thanks for watching.

Comments

It would be better if Benjamin demonstrated the work himself, rather than use someone else.
1 person likes this.
Love the archival exercises. Benjamin cannot over state, some of these may not "look" controlled or wonderful, but the point is to find what you can in the moment. These are done quickly....aka life speed.
PilatesWithAnna
Love the powerful but graceful series. Thank you
Taylor P
2 people like this.
Fantastic!!! I love seeing a strong woman demo-ing these archival exercises!
3 people like this.
So interesting to learn the exercises from the archival work. Well done with the teaching as well as Meredith demonstrating👍🏻. Thank you
1 person likes this.
So interesting to learn the exercises from the archival work. Well done with the teaching as well as Meredith demonstrating👍🏻. Thank you
1 person likes this.
I so enjoy your classes and hoping you’ll do a mat class. Love the archival work and I agreee , I liked having Meredith demonstrate while you explained it.
that looked fun (but hard)!
This was SO fun and hard.
You hit the nail on the head Joanne Bezzina!
Love the archival work, Benjamin & Meredith. Well done.
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