PRO | Legs & Back Focused Flow

Hi. I'm Delia, and today we'll be doing a short tower workout that targets the whole body. As you can see behind me, this is a tower reformer setup. So underneath these mats is a reformer and the tower and the accessories are to one side. These exercises can be done if you have the tower setup like I do. A Cadillac and even on a wall unit or springboard. So we're gonna get started with the setup first.

We're only using the leg springs for this workout and the leg springs on this, piece of equipment are purple. They're a little bit longer than the arms springs, and the straps are a little bit longer as well. So to set myself up for the first few exercises, which will be abdominal work, and then also feet in the straps, I'll set it up by sitting on the bed itself and then aligning my shoulders up with the spring. Some units have one that rolls up and down, so you can get to more of a perfect setting. But this is working great for me.

So if you could see right at my shoulder height, I've got two springs on, and I'm gonna lie on my back with my head towards the tower. So once I'm here, I'll reach back and we'll grab these straps. And we are gonna place these straps over the legs. So it's gonna go over the thigh and then over the other thigh. And we're gonna do a little hip release to start.

As far as arm positioning goes, You can have your hands back here onto the, uprights of the frame or the tower, or you can have your arms long by your side. It's just a matter of comfort and also a matter of distance off the tower because you don't want to slide back and forth. We'll start with a little hip release. Let's relax the spine in a neutral position, and you could take your thumbs onto your ribs and your forefingers onto your hips, and hold the fingers there for the first few exercises just to make sure that you're maintaining a great position with your pelvis and your ribs. Let's start by sliding the right heel down the mat, and then sliding the right heel up. And we're just gonna alternate left leg slides out.

And then right or left leg slides back. We're trying to open up through the hips. So even though the heel might cause a little bit of resistance onto the mat, you wanna feel the grip underneath. So we're working on a little bit of hip extension. And just feeling how the back of the leg fires as we move through the spring load.

Next, I'm gonna have you do a little rotation. So we're gonna slide the leg down towards the end of the mat. So you've got just your right leg. Let's rotate lab utterly with the hip. Allow the foot to relax and bring it back. So the more relaxed that foot, the more you'll get that hip to move around it or the leg to move around that hip joint.

We'll do it one more time. And then we'll reverse it. So to the left and out and back, and you can even turn it slightly medial, and this feels really great on that hip. And one more. And then return.

I'm gonna put my arms down now that I have a good gauge of my hips and ribs, and I'm gonna start with the left leg. So I'll slide it down, rotate laterally, and then bring that leg back to starting position. Try not to hyperfocus on matching up the legs when they come back. You're pretty much opening the hip, taking breaths and making yourself present here on the mat. Let's go the other direction. Like opens. We slide it down.

We come back to center. And we do it twice more inhale, reach out, exhale, and last one. And now we're gonna do the double leg. So we'll slide both legs together rotate out and return. And you can be pretty free with your feet. Wearing just a regular sock helps with the, resistance out So you don't really grab the mat as much, but these socks without the grips are really not conducive on the Cadillac.

One more time. And then I'm gonna reverse it. So I'm gonna open up and then just slide bring those knees back, and they seem to slide a little bit better here with my feet rotated out in that supinated position, last one, and then return. So hopefully now if these straps are nice and comfortable, we'll move on to some abdominal work. Let's release or bring the hands back to the head and interlace the fingers, elbows are in your peripheral. Let's go into a few ab curls, nodding the chin, exhale to flex.

And then lower back to the mat. You could slow the exercise down by doing a two breath pattern. So you could exhale, lift up into flexion, inhale pause, and then exhale to lower or just a one breath pattern where you flex up and lower down. Let's try two more. Try to relax the legs while also grounding the feet.

Last one. And return. From here, we'll take the arms back down by the side and we'll lift the legs up to a tabletop position. We'll start by tapping one toe and then the other for single toe taps. And this, you wanna keep the knee at that 90 degree angle and open up from the hip.

And then you could try the double toe tap, lower the toes down, and lift it up. Touch and lift. We'll do that three more times with a double tap. Two more. Last one. Now when the legs come back to the tabletop, let's go ahead and interlace the fingers back to the back of the head.

Elbows in your peripheral. As you lift into the ab curl this time, you're gonna tap the mat. So you'll float up, tap, and then release back to the mat. And exhale, tap the toes, and then back. We'll do that four more times. You've got four.

Exhale three. Two more. Last one. And then release the head and shoulders down. Lastly, here into the hundreds.

We'll reach the arms to the ceiling. This will be a variation. So you'll lift your head and shoulders up and find your upper body 100 position on the mat. You'll start to tap your arms, up and down, breathing in through the nose, and breathing out of the mouth. And now we're gonna add that double toe tap.

So we're inhaling And on your exhale, you're gonna lower the toes to the mat. And then you're gonna inhale to pull it back up and exhale to lower down and inhale and back up. Let's call this next one forty and exhale toe taps, and then you lift. It's an inhale two, three, four, five, exhale two, three, four, fifty, halfway there. Four, five, exhale two, three, four, sixty, inhale two, four, five, exhale two, three, four, seventy, almost there. Three, four, five, exhale two, four eighty, inhale two, three, four, five, exhale two, three, four, ninety, last set, and exhale two, three, four, one hundred, grab those legs. Give yourself a little hug at the top. And release down.

I'm gonna take the left strap completely off of my leg and let it lie to the side of the table, but I'm gonna slide the strap of the right leg up to the right sole of the foot. From here, I'd like to place my hands back on to the tower because it gives me a little bit of resistance. It also helps with some shoulder stabilization. I'm gonna keep my left knee bent to start. I'm gonna press my leg up and down.

And I'm sliding back, so I'm just gonna allow my body to move back a bit, which just means that I might have too much resistance. So I'm just gonna slide back that release a little bit of tension. You can extend the other leg out if you could stabilize. So if you want a little bit more of a stretch and stabilizing on the other side, let that leg extend with a dorsey flexed foot. Two more, one more, and then release the leg back to the ceiling.

Ban that left knee if you had extended it out, and let's do some bridges together, but now I'm gonna bring my arms by my side. And roll myself up into that high bridge and then roll myself back down. And you'll do that again. Moving through the spine is you reach to the foot foot towards the ceiling and then down. As you can see, I have a little slack on the spring, And that's on purpose because if I have it really tight doing this exercise, I'm not gonna be able to lower and lift that leg once I got to the top.

On the next one, we're gonna hold it at the top. Let's roll up into your bridge, pause pull on that leg spring only as low as you can maintain stability and lift that leg back up towards the ceiling. We'll do four more. Three Two, last one, let the leg reach for the sky so you could roll all the way down with ease on that one leg. We're gonna keep the bring on the foot and rotate.

So I'm gonna rotate you to the left side and bring my free hand, the way I'm gonna rest my arm onto the uprights. So it almost keeps me from sliding back, and then I'm gonna extend that leg long. And bend my bottom knee for this one. So you could extend that left leg out. It's gonna make it a little bit more challenging.

I'm gonna choose to bend the knee and find my sideline neutral. Making sure that I have a little space. From here, we'll kick the leg forward, kick kick, and back. Now the spring is from behind. So the spring's gonna wanna really pull my hip back into extension. Which is a benefit if you really wanna get that nice stretch. It could be a little bit of a disadvantage if you don't have the stability of that lower back. So just be really careful as we kick and press Buckmaster one, and press the leg back.

And now you can give me some circles. So you're gonna reach the leg forward out and down. We'll do three in one direction. Last one, and then three in the other direction, inhale, exhale, and return. We're gonna fold onto our belly.

So this one could be a little bit precarious if you've got any knee issues or don't have the flexibility, but we're gonna rotate onto our belly with the hand or the head on the hand and then you can reach up with that leg and give yourself a nice little stretch in the thigh, and then release and let it go. We're gonna go over to the other side. So I'm gonna lie on to my back. And I'm gonna grab onto the left one. And then from here, I'm going to extend my leg long to press that leg down, hold the top top of the tower. Or you could choose to have that knee bent.

Two more. Last one, and then bring that leg up, and then bring the arms down. And we're gonna roll up into our bridge six times reaching with that leg. Three more. Two more.

Last one, hold it at the top, lower that leg up and down six times, and I'm a little bit more flexible on this side. So I'm able to really grip and lift through that hip. Last one leg to the ceiling, roll all the way down, and rotate. Once we rotate to the side, I'm gonna bring my hand again to the upright. And I'll bend my supporting leg, finding a little bit of neutral here as I kick forward.

And back, remembering that that spring load is coming from behind. So it's gonna really pull my leg back into that extension. Last one, And then small circles here, three in one direction, and then three in the other direction. And I went from smaller to bigger on those. Last one, and then careful here.

Allow the foot to slide through the loops onto the belly. Be careful here. If it doesn't work for you, please remove the strap, and you're just gonna place your hands down mainly just for support. As you find that nice hip extension, hold as long as you need to, and then release the strap off of your foot. Last and final series here is extension. So in order for us to find the right distance off the tower mat, for extension with the springs.

We're gonna go ahead and lift the springs up to the height of my shoulders when I'm in a kneeling position. So you'll see on the tower or on the mat, there is what they call a belly strap, because usually you strap it around the ankles when you're on your belly. I'll for all intents of purposes, call it the foot strap, so it makes a little bit more sense for this workout. I'm gonna lie on my belly and face the springs. And I'll wiggle my feet.

You don't want the strap to be too tight because then it's going to be actually hindering to your extension. And you wanna be about, I don't know, the same length as the mat here with the fingers, and then you'll grab onto the straps. If you are in a private session or you teach private sessions, you can also assist the client by holding on to the ankles. We're gonna grab the straps. Ma'am, we're gonna go into a few easy extension exercises. So let's press the hips down, toes turned down and wide.

And as you press that pubic bone down, start to press the arms down towards the mat, lift the head and shoulders up, and use the straps to find extension. And then roll yourself back to the mat. So I'm just gonna wiggle forward a bit, and we'll do that again. Inhale as the arms come back into extension and exhale to lower. You'll do two more.

Inhale, lift into extension, exhale to full to the mat, and one more is you float yourself up, and then roll yourself back. Now keep the arms nice and long and find that extension with your upper body. And let's bend the elbows. Pull those shoulder blades together and then reach the arms forward. So I'm not really pressing down into the resistance much. I'm just keeping slack out of the spring.

So it almost feels like I'm gliding my arms back on a surface like a diagonal table. Let's do that one more time inhale, lift up into that extra extension, and then dive yourself right back down towards the mat. Let's release the straps off the hands. And then take the hands underneath the shoulders. We'll do one more big stretch here as we come into a high swan, breathing in through the nose, and out through the mouth, and let your belly just go so you can find as much stretch to that front of the body as you can.

And then you'll pull yourself back towards a child's pose, wiggle your feet out of the strap, lowering your head towards the mat, and your hands could be forward for the stretch, or it could be behind. Taking a deep inhale and exhale. And on your next next exhale, go to roll yourself all the way back up. And you were all done with that short, sweet, Cadillac towel routine with the leg springs.