Long Box with Benefits

Hi, my name is Karen Sanzo and I'm really happy to be back here at glottis anytime. Again. Ah, this workout that I'm going to do for you right now, I call the long box with benefits and what we're going to do here is a bunch of fundamentals, but they're going to be some more advanced fundamentals, sometimes in the Palladio's repertoire. The fundamentals get run through kind of quickly. So I'm going to use the box here to demonstrate some fundamentals. We're going to start this in.

Quadro pet quadro pet is one of my favorite positions to gather a lots of information in about the body. So you'll notice here that both of my hands are on the front corner and that my knees are kind of towards the back of the box. So what you notice here is that my shoes don't have anything to press down on, so that's actually going to be a little bit tougher. Pull my belly in, I lift up my pelvic floor and I make all my connections to keep my spine nice and neutral. Gonna take three breaths here. Inhale, expand the ribs side to side, and then exhale all the breath out. Just getting warmed up here. Inhale the ribs expand and exhale. They close up, the belly pulls up and in the pelvic floor lifts in to support the spine.

One more time, big inhale, and then big exhale. And now we'll start the little spinal journey. So we're gonna pull the tummy in, let the tailbone drop down, and continue to pull the belly in so deep as the low spine rounds. Notice that my upper back is not curling and not humping over. What I'm doing here is just giving a little trunk flection from the lower part of my back and then I'm going to let that lower flection go and lengthen myself out to neutral. You'll notice that my head and my shoulders aren't rounding at this point.

Take an inhale. As I exhale, I curl my tailbone, pull my belly in, let that low back stretch as if I'm doing the exercise spine stretch from the bottom. Take two breaths here. Inhale, exhale. The belly scoops deeper as the tailbone curls. Any bit more. One more. Inhale and as I exhale, I continue to lift my belly button. I continue to lift the pelvic floor, resisting the urge to just round my shoulders, and then I let myself come right back out to neutral again. If you needed a little bit more support, you of course could bring your shins on to the box and that would give you a little bit more support. But for the sake of this workout here, I'm going to keep my knees closer to the edge. It makes the exercise a little bit more challenging.

Wanting to move on here to hip extension, so I'm going to take one leg behind me and I'm going to make the connection between my thigh and my buttocks and I'm getting to do this little activity that I like to call, try to lift your leg, but you can't because what this shows you here is that as I try to lift this right leg up and I can't, I'm pretending like it stuck to the ground. That will start to pre engage my hamstrings and my gluteus muscles and then I will go ahead and lift that leg up just a little bit. I don't care if it's in line with my, I mean I care if it's in line with my pelvis of course, but I don't mind if it's not lifted higher than my pelvis. I lower the leg down a little bit and I raise it up. I pulled my belly in. I'm lifting my leg up and down, performing the action of hip extension. One more time down, one more time. Up Hold. Go ahead and give that foot a little flex.

Pull the belly in, lengthen through the crown of the head and then that knee comes back in. Switching legs. The weight will shift a little bit. I take my left leg out. I try to pick my left leg up, but I can't. It stuck all the way to the mat. It's like there's sticky tape underneath the ball of my foot. I try to lift it up.

I feel the preparatory response for my hamstring and my gluteus muscles, and then all of a sudden I can lift that leg up. Inhale, lower the leg down, exhale, lifted up. Being very careful that as I do the action of hip extension, that I'm not inviting my low back into hip extension. So the challenge here is to keep the pelvis stable while I lower and lift the leg and then pause right there. Take an inhale. As I exhale, I'm going to pull my belly in again.

Take that tailbone underneath me and round my lowest spine. Now I'm going to go ahead and do the full journey of the spine and I'm going to go ahead and allow my upper back to round just a little bit, but I'm not going to let it take over. So I keep pulling my belly in from the bottom and I'm getting the flection now into my upper spine without just simply falling into the rounding of it. Take an inhale here and now I'm going to exit the way I came. So I'm going to take my tailbone and start to let it go away from me.

Take my belly button away, start to lengthen through my chest, my arms are staying firm, and then I'm going to pull my chest through my arms. And you'll notice now that I'm in extension, but I'm not sagging my back completely. Kinda like a horses saddle. I'm respecting extension with support from the undersurface still lifting the pelvic floor. My hands incidentally are pushing into the box towards my knees. I'll say that again. My hands are pushing in to the box towards my knees.

My knees are pulling towards my hands as I support the spinal extension. Now we'll reverse the direction. The head slowly nods. I looked down at the mat. The cervical curve starts to lengthen. My chest bone starts to lift a little bit. Then I take my low back and then I finish up inflection again.

So now I've taken that spine on a full journey. Segmental Li from the bottom to the top and then in reverse. And now I'm going to start with my head. The head lifts. I look in front of the Mat, I let my eyes gaze forward, my chest starts to pull through my arms. I feel the length in my abdomen start to stretch as I end yet again in the spinal extension.

Now I will continue into flection leading with my head. The eyes nod down the chest rounds. The Rib packaging pulls up the lumbar spine curls, and now I'm in to flection once again and then I recognize again where level is an neutral arm lifting. Now I put weight into my right arm. I take my left arm out in front of me. This is really a preparatory response to swimming except if my arms don't have full shoulder flection to here, then maybe I can only lift my arms to here.

What matters most is that I'm not letting my spine go into extension. As I lift that arm, I'm going to demonstrate a faulty pattern. Just briefly. Sometimes when people lift their arm, they lift and they go right into this sag business. Don't want to do that. No sagging during this exercise, so I'm going to keep everything stable and controlled in the front in a lift. This left arm uphold lower down switch, right arm. Inhale to lift the arm.

Exhale lower. One more time. Each side left arm lifts, it lowers last time on the right side, lift and lower down. Now we have the Combo so we have the left arm and then now the right leg. Now you'll notice my left shin is a little wobbly because it doesn't have anything to press down on. That's what makes this an advanced fundamental. Everything comes down and again, the right arm lifts the left leg lifts.

As you hold yourself here, I'm going to tell you just a little story. No, not a long story, but it's okay to be wobbly because sometimes when your wobbly other muscles kick into play and then bring yourself all the way down. The goal is not to completely not move, but it's to be okay if you move and then you reengage the pelvic floor, you reengage the depth of the abdomen and then you notice that you get a little bit still again and then everything comes down last time, right arm and left leg. Big Inhale, get you out there, hold, hold, and then everything comes back. Yet round your spine. Sit down for just a second. Take a big inhale here and that will prepare to move to our abdomen. I love this little sequence here because it allows me to put the crease of my hips right on the edge of the box.

This is especially important if you should have tight hips because if I lie myself down and just put the hips of my crease right at the edge of the box, then hips don't have to worry about being straight out behind me. So from this position here, I'm going to monitor my low back a little bit and just rest my hand, my head down on my hand for a second. I'm going to take an inhale and then as I exhale I'm going to gently pull my belly in and kind of burrow my pelvis down. So nothing is pushing or mashing into the box. I'm just allowing the box to kind of support my abdomen and hang onto the box here. The crown of my head is reaching long.

Take one leg straight on the edge of this mat. Take the other leg straight. Yeah, and I'm just going to squeeze my thighs together and make that inner thigh connection and the connection through my buttocks and my thighs. I'm just going to hold this here. I'm going to take an inhale and exhale. Yeah, and again, inhale and exhale. If you didn't have the edge of the table like this, you could curl the toes under and get the same action.

And actually this is a nice stretch to the legs and engages both the hamstrings and the quadriceps. So from here I can add a little bit of hip extension. Now this is a little bit tougher because my leg doesn't get to lift as high. The range of motion of the hip isn't as great as it was in Quadra pad switch legs, and that's because in Quadro pet I had the whole distance of my thighs that I could use to move my hip. Okay, tight legs, inner thighs squeeze. Now I prepare to keep this connection here. Adding thoracic extension.

I'm going to put my hands on the box like a little swan. When I reach my elbows along crown of the head, reaching long, pressing on the box to lift my chest up and then I come down. We'll do that five times. Inhale, elbows, reach, shoulders drop. I am using my arms to help my spine come into extension. Here's a one, I am using my triceps like mad and then down.

Okay, two more times. Inhale and then down and then last time and now sometimes the box helps people not get into their low back because the hips are being supported over the edge. I can even leave my legs down like this and do a couple like so because putting my legs over the edge of the box. Pets, my hips, just a little bit of slack. Now we add a little arm weight for a little challenge here. Place my left hand on the box. Put my forehead on the box. My right arm comes out to the side I hold.

Yup. Just holding. Some times we get in a hurry to move and we lose the benefit of just holding, still holding and then lower it down three times. Inhale, big exhale, arm out. Your knuckles are reaching long. Your armpit is reaching long, your neck is soft. Lower down.

One more time. Big Inhale, big exhale. Hold now lower and raise that arm a little bit. Notice the Q says lower and raise as opposed to raise. You see that all my back working way too much, but if I go lower and just raised to there, then I feel my arm work and interestingly enough, whenever you use one extremity, either one arm or one leg, it actually puts a little rotation force on your spine. So indirectly, this is actually working my oblique system. How about three more of these? One, two and three arm comes down.

It's actually a little bit harder than you might think. Right arm down, make a little pillow with my hand. Left arm is out, hold, hold and hold and lower down. You may even start to feel a little quiver, hold, hold, hold. Be sure the belly is lifted, your pelvic floors engaged and then lower down. Last time with the whole business, come on up and hold. Knuckles are reaching long, continue to hold and then add lower res. Now this is a 50 pound weight that I have. No, just kidding. This is just a two pound weight. You can of course vary this.

If you start to feel the exercise too much into your neck, I would suggest you stop the exercise. How about three more now? Two and three and then we lower that arm down. Bring myself up now. Turn around now and I'm going to lie back on the box. You'll notice here as I lie on the box, I'm actually going to make it so that my head is actually resting on the box. For this first part I'm going to take my right knee in towards my chest and give it a stretch cause what I'm looking for here now is this lengthening out through the left hip.

So indirectly as I fold my right knee in and I stretch out this left leg and I go into pulling my toes back into Dorsey flection, I keep reaching through the heel to get lengthen all the way through this left leg in a hold that for three breaths. Inhale and then exhale and then inhale and then exhale, and then last time and continue to reach long through that left leg and then bend that leg in and put the other leg down and we switch. Left leg comes in, I give it a hug. Take the time here. Don't be in a hurry. Just straighten out that leg too soon. So get the stretch here. For some people, they will feel that stretch right away and then as I stretch that right leg out, the fact that I'm holding this left leg end strongly will limit me from extending my spine. Again, I don't want to go into spinal extension because that will then take away from the stretching that's happening in front of the right hip and then I put that leg in and bring that leg down. So from here, now I'm pressing down into both of my feet. I'm thinking of the exercise bridge, but I'm not lifting up because it's still engaging my thighs and my buttocks. I'm not going to lift up, but I'm just pressing down with my legs. It gets me that feeling when we say in a lot of the exercises are like when you're doing foot work on the reformer pressing down with your feet. So important.

Now I'm going to take that right leg up again and I'm going to take that right leg in the air to the level that your hamstring allows. And I'm going to do a little single leg circle action while I'm pressing down with the left leg. So I'm going to circle across my body and come up one and two and one more time three. And then I reverse the box, gives you a little something to hang on to. But what I'm going for here is this nice through the opposite leg last time and bend the knee in and put it down. Left leg lifts lengthens to the ceiling, the level your hamstring.

I'm going to pretend like I have a tight hamstring this time so I just let my thighs stay vertical. But I, my shin is bent a little bit so I'm going to call this exercise single Pfizer circle just because the leg is not straight. And one more time, and then a reverse one and two, and then three. I put this leg all the way down. Press into your feet. Imagine you're going to lift up into the bridge, but you're not. Feel the firmness of the buttocks and the thighs. Attract your inner thighs way up at your groin towards each other so that you feel that whole midline connection as you continue to press down with the feet and then I'm gonna release you. You might see my buttocks relax a little bit and we're going to build it up. One more time. Press the feet, scoop in the belly, lift and then rest down.

Now the tricky part now comes because I'm going to move back off of the box into dead bug, but first you'll see I'll lift one leg and lift the other leg. I'm in my very typical dead bug position with my legs, my head, my head is supported. My bellies in my arms are up. Very typical exercise here, right? Alternating arm and leg, reaching to the distance that your spine can stay happy and controlled. I love that thought. Happy Spine. One more time. Let's add a little variation here.

Let's add a leg sway to the left and arms swaying to the right, and then I pull everything back to center legs to the right, arms to the left, hold, pull everything back to center and then lower everything down. Now here comes the tricky part. I move myself back on the box. They're roll myself down feeling where my shoulder blades. I'm going to roll back just a little bit more. I'm going to support my head for just a second and kind of get regrouped and I'm going to try to recognize where level is.

For example, this would not be level. This would be my head hanging. This would be my chin tucking. So I really want to be long through my skull this way and long through my knees. That way with the belly pulled in strong again, nothing's mashing or over pressing. You may see quivering happening here. So here I'm gonna recognize level. When I lift one leg in a tabletop, mow, lift the other leg in a tabletop.

Now recognizing level, my voice might be quivering because this is really hard because nothing is behind me. The lower one leg down, lower the other leg down, pressing into the feet again, I'm now going to curl my trunk up. Recognizing trunk flection at my rib connection, lower my body down to level. And now I'm going to go into extension for my thoracic spine. Not just dropping my head back, but lengthening through my thoracic spine mobilizing and then bring myself up and recognizing level without jumping right into trunk flection again. So now I'm going to come into trunk flection again and this time lift my left leg. So trunk flection, lifting left leg hold, hold, hold, lower down. Inhale.

Exhale. Trunk flection lifting right leg hold, hold, hold one more time. Ah, ah. Now my favorite thing to say is last time. So here we go. Last time, lifting, curl and hold. And now we add trunk rotation. As I do trunk rotation, my eyes are actually still glancing ahead. They're not just leaning over to the box.

So I want that rotation to come from my spine. I'm holding rotation and now I'm going to challenge it out in, out in last time, in down center back. This almost becomes arrest, curl, recognize level hold, trunk flection. Notice when I do trunk flection, I'm not pulling my head, but my trunk is curling and my head gets to come along for the ride. Here comes that right leg and twisting and out and in out n. N. Two more. Last one, center down and down.

Big Inhale here. Exhale, recognize level. One more time. Two knees. Come in. Recognize flection. Recognize level. Recognize extension in the thoracic, not the lumbar. Recognize level, curl curl thing to a hundred beats. You have to do them.

Just hold big. Inhale, big exhale. Big Inhale, big exhale and then hands on the thighs and roll yourself up. Moving yourself to sitting. Now [inaudible] we think of the exercise we call spine stretch, so with the knees bent, takes it away from the hips a little bit. The arms come out in front. I take an inhale as I exhale, the belly pulls in I spine stretch my spine of forward. When I bring myself back up to vertical, I lead with my lowest Lumbar, I bring myself up to level and then I reproach approach.

Vertical. Inhale here. Exhale, head gently, not, I curl the trunk right here. I call this like a little karate chop right under the ribs. Spine stretching forward. Okay. I can even take the hands on the crown of my head and push my head forward as I really try to emphasize the whole action of spine stretching from the shoulder blades all the way down to the lower back and then uncurl the spine and bring myself all the way back up from here. Take the hands behind my head.

I twist my trunk to the left, making sure that my knees stay level. So I'm doing like a spine twist and then I come back to center spine. Twisting to the right and come back to center. One more time. Spine twisting to the left. Hold. Take two arms out long.

Now feel the reaching of the arms. Help you twist this vine. Everything comes back to center. I twist to the right [inaudible]. I hold that twist to knees. Approaching level two arms, reaching away, reaching, let the lengthening of the arms be what helps you twist yourself fine and everything comes back to center. Now you can also use a weighted pole or you can use some hand weights. So for the sake and here we'll use the hand weights, but understand you can also use the pole minute. Stretch my legs out, come to the edge of the box just a little bit.

Okay, so now I'm going to hit my body forward, meaning a flatter back and then I'm going to drop the weights down and nod my head and then curl my spine back up. Inhale, hinge, exhale round and uncurl the spine back up. Now I'll reverse that. [inaudible] nod. Head, spine flection down. Lengthen forward, hinge yourself back up last time. Arms down, nod head, spine. Llection reaching arms lift, chest lifts, long spine hold, hinge yourself all the way back up. If that gets just a little tricky, there's something else I like to do with a long box.

Kind of helps you get the feeling of side bending. So if you can't hold the weighted pole up or the weights are too heavy, then we leave the arms out of it. Take one hand on the side of the box, left hand comes up, and then side bend to the side and smash that box with your right hand so you close off that chain if you will. Pressing into the box and side, bending over and then we pull ourselves up. Inhale lengthens up and side bends at the same time. Exhale, brings it on up two more times.

Exhale, notice my head is not falling. It's staying in line with my spine and then bring it all the way back up. Right arm comes up. Side bending, lateral flection, tendency to want to drop the head. Don't want to do that. Want the head to stay in line with the spine two more times.

Inhale, get you up and over. Exhale, recharge. Last time. Inhale up and over X, we'll get you back and lower the arms down. Last little variation on the long box and sitting. It's a good way to get these arms ready for a little weight bearing for the leg pull face up. So the exercise looks like this.

I put my arms back on the box. Go ahead and shrug. Just get that out of your system and then press down and lift the chest by pressing your arms. Then your feet are about hip distance apart. You press your feet to actually lift the pelvis. So again, arms pressing, lift the chest, feet pressing. Lift the pelvis. Hold for the count of five, four, three, two [inaudible] and one, and then lower down. We'll do that one more time.

Big Inhale. Exhale. You may need some sticky pads on your hands if they're a little sweaty. Again, arms press, chest through the arms. Where did we already learned that? We learned that in swan chest through the arms hold, hold and hold, and then slowly lower yourself down. We'll do that one more time with a leg lift. Arms Press on the box, pressing down to lift up. Lift the pelvis, pressing into the left leg. Pick the right leg up in the air from that left leg. Hold for five, four, three, two, one.

Lower down I feel a voice quiver or left leg lifts. Have a hold five, four belly, three, two, one and lower that leg down and bring yourself back onto the box from here. Now we'll do a little traditional short box variation on Rye, on winding the spine backwards just a little bit. So the arms will come out in front. Actually I'm gonna go ahead and use the weights for this again cause I think it's a nice variation. Again, it's kind of a little advanced fundamentals. We're going to hold the weight. Take an inhale. As I exhale, I'm going to pull my belly deeply. Start to roll my lumbar curve back without dropping my head.

I'm just going to hold here, hold here, hold here, and then bring yourself all the way back up. If you feel like you're losing your legs a little bit, you can move back and you can actually pull your heels into the box making like a little hamstring connection. Inhale, exhale, roll back. Sometimes when you pull back with your legs and utilize your hamstrings, it actually gets you out of your hip. Inhale again. Exhale, rolling back, rolling and rolling and rolling. Variation, left arm turns rotating. Look, hold everything back to center, right. Arm Turns and looks a lot harder than it seems back to center and then scoop and curl and everything comes back up.

Just adding those two pound weights does make a little difference. Variation two legs out long. Arms out long. No wait, pull the belly in. Start to roll back. Lift the right leg up. Hold, hold, hold. Bring yourself all the way back. Inhale, big exhale. Left leg lifts up, roll back, roll back, roll back and hold. Shoulders back, belly in. Regroup the scoop I like to say, and then bring yourself all the way back up and lower the legs down.

We'll proceed now to standing from the standing position. The arms come all the way up in the air. Take an inhale. As you exhale, we pull the belly in. Start to whine the spine down towards the box. So you wonder why that box is there. Well for some people who have really tied hamstrings, this will become the floor to them. So we're going to let their hands press on the box, press the box down to the floor, pull the belly in, and try not to lean back like this. Notice the angle here in the ankle.

You really want to keep your shins as vertical as you can. So we're going to hold this here. Take an inhale, and as I exhale, I'm actually been a roll up onto my fingertips and push off of the box as I uncurl enroll myself all the way back up to vertical again. Arms come up. Exhale, shoulders, relax. The Chin gently nods, curling the spine downward, pulling the belly inward. Being very careful here that we don't lean back too much.

You should feel big information in the back of your thighs. Touching the box, lowering yourself down. Press into the box now, lift up on the balls of your feet and then lower down. Think of this is getting ready for Pike on the chair. Lift and lower, pressing into those hands as the head nods down, the bottom lifts up. And then one more time. And now this is really a lot of fun.

You're going to press onto the fingertips and lift the heels of the hands up. A lot of times we have to strengthen the hand arch if you will. Much like we do the feet arches, so I'm going to alternate now. Finger pads, two pads, finger pads. Again, it's a lot harder than you think. Two pads and now I'm going to give the hamstrings a little information. Bend the knees, think of knee stretches on the reformer and now I'm going to press the thighs.

Bend the knees, press the thighs, bend the knees. One more time. Press thighs. One more time. Bend the knees. Hold right here. So now my system is closed from my hands pressing and from my feet pressing. So from here I'm going to lift and lower lift and lower. Working through those ankles, scooping in the belly, running and running and running.

Weight bearing in the arms, running feet. Last two, last one, drop down, scoop the belly, push off the finger pads on curling the spine, bringing yourself all the way back up. Last one. Inhale, arms up. Exhale, diving forward just like you're going right over a high-jump bar. Those pole vaulters just amazing. They just go open that belly. Don't think they're going to get there and then all of a sudden they do. Now from here, I'm going to crawl out a little bit, take my legs back a little bit, and here I have a plane or getting ready for leg pull face down again as a fundamental plank, very important fundamental. My body is at a little different angle than it is on the floor, so it's a little bit easier here.

And then I crawl my feet in for all my hands in. Pull my belly in. Tailbone drops down as I unroll my spine all the way back up and again, inhale, arms up. Exhale, pull the belly in around the spine. I'm going to try really hard this time to keep my ears right in between my arms. I'm going to get a really tight, tight flection all the way down.

Take my hands onto the box, take my legs away, take my arms away. Now I add a little leg pole variation, right leg left like two times in a row. One, two, one, two, three times in a row. One, two, three, one, two, three. I'm so glad I can count. Now we had another variation. We go one, two, bend, round, hold, hold, hold. Lengthen out to play. Recognize lower down left leg.

One, two, bend, curl. Pressing that box, tightening up that right leg hold and then lengthen out. Recognize the plank. Lower down, feet come down, tailbone curls, belly pulls in on rolling your spine all the way up. Last exercise, I really like to do this because it gets people ready for climbing, like climbing the mountain on the chair, going up on the chair. So the exercise looks like this.

You're actually going to step right onto the box. Start by putting my left leg on the box. When I step up, I'm going to go ahead and touch the box just a little bit. If you get my balance just a little bit, I'm just going to touch it a little bit and then I'm going to take that leg up in the air and get that connection again, being wobbly as okay. That's part of the exercise mean do this three times down and down. This is going to start number one so it step and lift and down and down.

Step lift down and down. Last one, step and lift and hold and hold and belly and pelvic floor and focus and all of a sudden I can hold it better when I get all those connections and then down and down again a lot harder. It looks right. Leg step first. I have to press really firmly to the buttocks in the and the heel on this right lay I press, I catch my balance a little bit with that left leg. I lift the leg up in the air and I stepped back down three times.

One lift down and down. Two, lift down and down. Last one, lift and lift that knee and hold. Get the leg connection at the belly and the pelvic floor connection. Focus right in front of you. Hold, hold, hold. And then lower down and then lower down.

So there you have your long box with benefits.