Moving in Different Planes

So this is a reformer sequence that I created. Feels very good. Full Body. I'm trying to keep it moving. I'm thinking of moving in different planes of motions from flection rotation. I want to think about the energy moving totally through the crown of the head, through the feet, through the fingernails, through the toenails, through the side of the body, back of the body. So we want to incorporate full body movement for your setup for the machine.

Have the bar on a low bar, a box in the long position, uh, handles with the risers down. Now here's a little note. I've taken this straps and shortened them up approximately halfway, maybe a little closer to the riser. It's gonna match for when you're lying on the bat box for your arm length. I prefer to hold the handles with the hands so that you can spread the hands and the pressure of the hands on the strap is going to activate from your fingernails through the whole arm. [inaudible] your whole trunk. If you wrap and grab the straps, then there's tension being stopped and blocked at the wrist and it changes the energy going through the arm into the trunk.

So I'd like you to take the time to shorten the straps up and put on your handles and be ready for that. Okay, so we're going to start standing a little wider than center of your hip position and we'll just gonna squat down. I'd like you to just hold the bar. Have you waited on your feet and just very comfortably go down. Whatever's comfortable in your knees for me, I go all the way down and then press into your feet and stand up. Let me do that 10 times and just breathing. You can exhale as you come up and down.

Nice and easy. No pain in the knees at all. Just let your arms be heavy. Okay. I think that's about for, try to keep your trunk a little upright. That's why we have the bar. If you have to stop halfway, this is a good range as well. It's just easy. Okay, one more. Yeah, and standing up. Now we're going to do a little cat, so we're going to curl forward. Put your hands on the box, and I want you to push through your hands and at the same time, reach back with your sip bombs lengthening out.

Don't go down so your chest shouldn't hit the bar. Want to reach out? You can look up now. Keep pushing the bar away. Curl your tail under. Sit bones reaching towards the heels. Curl the back up and then push out again. Push out and lengthen. Take a nice breath in you. Then reach back with the thighs.

Exhale, push the box away. Kind of helps open the back part of the body there from the heels all the way [inaudible] through the tail spine, ribs, shoulders, widened. Head hangs. One more time reaching back. So I'm reaching back with my sit bones and forward with the arms pushing away. [inaudible] lengthening the back feels wonderful. Okay, now we're going to step forward at the right foot. Turn out a little bit.

Step back, the lapse, a little bit of a lunch left hand over to the right corner of the box. So we're on a diagonal now and a little side bending in the trunk. So I'm opening up the left side. Take a breath in here into the ribs and exhale, push, push away, but resist the box. It's pushing into you and you're pushing into it and lengthen out. Again, breathing in. Feel the left side of the ribs. Exhale, I'm also thinking about my back foot, so as I'm reaching forward and pressing down into the floor, the left foot and pushed away.

Great cause then stand with your feet together. You might notice you're a much longer on that left side. Turn out the left foot, right foot behind you, right hand to the corner of the box here and you're going to reach long again. Inhaling it to the right side. Exhale, push away and again, push out. I like having the bar there because it prevents me from dropping into the bar. I have to keep the length going down from my foot through my hands and resisting the box. One more reach and XL and rest.

Okay. Now we're going to take the box away and put it down. We'll use it again later. All right, so now we're going to do, it's a little bit of a thigh stretch. We're going to stand with the right foot, right against the edge of the reformer. And now this time I'm going to be working on the feet through this series. So you want to bend at the toes and reach the heel. So the Achilles is long pushing into the shoulder, rest there and bend the standing leg. And we want to feel, I always have to work on keeping my pelvis level here and we're going to curl the back now. So I'm pulling back through here, lifting my pelvis up and trying to curve the whole spine and I'm going to hold that position. I'm just going to push back a little bit, trying to keep the curb exhale coming in.

Okay. And at the same time, which is hard to do, is to keep that heel reaching back and [inaudible] [inaudible] and out. Inhale, exhale [inaudible] and now we're going to extend the spine. So going to sit back a little bit and lift the breastbone up and I'm going to push back and exhale and back. Keep lifting the chest up. Good. And one more. We're going to hold the position. We do a little pulses here.

So what I'm trying to feel is a lift of my sternum up and a reach back with my heel and release and lift and release and left. I'm trying to create space between myself, sternum and my hip. We left and then one more curl just to counter pose it and rest. And this feels very strange to walk to the other side very long on that side that will balance it out here. All right, so we're starting pelvis level curled back and we're going to go back and in back pack three times, right? And then straight back. And now I'm going to lift up through my chest a little bit and in and lift and, and three times. And live. [inaudible] stay three pulses and lift and left and left and left. And Curl.

Rest. Alright, now we're going to walk around. I'm going to take a sticky mat here and we're gonna sit on the edge of the carriage, but we're going to need a sticky mat nearby. Actually, we're going to change the springs. We're going to work. I like to do two mediums and a light spring. We're going to be heading towards as still stomach massage series. So I'd like you to do is to sit with your back here close to the edge and you're going to lift the legs up and place them on the wood.

You've got a sticky mat. And the reason I didn't have an under there was because I had to pivot. So you know, be as close to the edge of the reformer as possible. Um, as far as a little high for me. So you might want to adjust your bar. There we go. All right, so we're going to hold here. Am I going to lift the legs up?

So there's a little stomach control here to be able to be in this position. Place the balls of the feet on the bar and sitting up. So take your hands here and just lift your body up so you can feel your weight. I have to roll towards the front of my sip bones here, got the weight on the big toe ball. And then from here I'm going to try to keep my weight forward on the sit bones, but I'm gonna try to curl the spine without rocking back and collapsing.

So there's a lift and then you hold the lift. That takes a lot of abdominal control and then a curl. And we're going to hold this position. I'm going to push out, inhaling and exhale and in and exhale. Try to keep that control through the trunk as you're coming in. I'm trying to stay on the front of the sit bones with the back curled so the curl is long.

Keeping the weight on the balls of the feet. [inaudible] two more times. Just keep reading naturally. Now we're going to take the fee wide then to hold onto the bar, lift the pelvis up again in case you fell back. Now this time we're going to try to stay more upright, not round. I'm going to twist. Grab the shoulder rest, lift, twist, grab the shoulder.

Rest is a lot on the shoulders and try to lift the pelvis up and go forward. Opening the chest and we're gonna push out here, keeping the feet flex. Press into the heels. Breathing in and out. Okay, one more time.

Okay. Now I'm going to keep the length of a spine going to let go. I'll try to stay lift and hold onto the bar. Give another stretch here. Great. So now we're gonna lift the feet up and place it on the wood frame. Take the sticky mat away, and I'm going to sit right on the edge of the reformer because we're going to roll back and I don't want you hitting your shoulders on the shoulder rest. So we're going to start to curl back. And there's a certain point, everybody's back is a little bit different, but there's a certain point in the curling back where your legs are gonna want to lift. So I want you to allow that to happen.

But keep this curl nice and smooth. See, my legs are starting to come up. I'm controlling it, bringing the legs up and placing it onto there goes my hair. Okay, so we're going to be on a neutral position on the heels, hip width apart, and again, Achilles tendon law. And first we're going to push out and place your hands on the thighs and start to push the top of your thighs down. Push away the carriage away, push the femurs down.

Now what happens in my back is I tend to arch up because I've pressed the femurs down. I feel very engaged in the hamstring to do that. So now what I want to do, and you might have to do the same thing, is to pull the pelvis back to more of a neutral position. It's a lot of work to keep the femurs down and that pelvic position. All right, and I'm going to keep that length. It's a lot of pressure on the bar and now I just want you to do is to soften your knees, a little tiny bed, just staying engaged in the legs and then push away. The carriage actually is not moving very much so Ben slightly and push away and Ben and push you away. Every time I push away, I'm pushing my femurs down, pulling up, bend and push.

I'm gonna do one more then and push. Now I'm going to keep that feeling, bending burden, wearing the carriage all the way in, not going to give up on my muscle activation and press out. Feel the knees, then the hips and push out. Feel the knees. Remember that pelvic position to keep working on that at the femurs pushing down and do two more, right? All right, now we're going to take a wide position. Okay, thank you. Tight son. Okay, y position.

Now before I push out what I wanted, imagine, see if you can feel this. It that the femurs are pulling into the socket. So I'm kind of drawing my bones into the pelvis. And by doing that, all of a sudden my pelvis starts to float up. So my tights are still on the carriage, but I'm floating the pelvis and Seagram's up and naturally you can see that because you shouldn't be able to see it as much. But I can feel the pulling of my bones into the pelvis, which creates a lift.

So I'm using the extensors of my hip to lift my pelvis up and I'm going to keep a floating pelvis and push out and here, see if we can feel like leg straight. Feel the femurs going in and the floating of the pelvis and gonna roll the legs inward internal rotation. Just going to let go of that feeling in the glutes. And these get to fold in. Rotate it out, lift, float the pelvis, press out, keep the float, turn it in, let go of the float and out. Engage floating [inaudible] turn it as much as you can. Opening one more float, roll the legs in [inaudible] and back. We're gonna reverse that and turn in who shout.

It's very hard to internally rotate those femurs. Now we're going to rotate out and I'm going to find my float and come in and push out. Turn out and float two more times in. Push out, turn out and push out. Float. And again Penn, how we're going to keep the pelvis connection here and gonna float my legs up. Place the balls of the feet close together on the bar. So try to spread your toes around the bar and let the heel release down.

Don't push it down. Just try to feel the Achilles long and the toes wrapping around. Now I have to work hard not to blow my legs apart. Some people, the knees are going to straighten before your legs. Your knees are going to hit before they straighten, so it stop at that point. But people who can go further, go ahead and extend the legs and then let the knees soften and bring the carriage in.

Really trying to keep my heels squeezing the inner heel, squeezing together at the same time, pressing the femurs back. Knees soften and come in and squeeze the heels. Lengthen through the body, knees bend. Bring the carriage in and out. Length, knees. [inaudible] so my goal is, I'm trying to feel the length through the whole series, not just when the legs are straight, but actually when the legs are bending as well. Squeeze and thanks. And I'm gonna do two more and I'm going to add a heel lower here.

So I'm going to try to keep the toes a big stretch forward to the toes, up towards the transverse arch. So heels under, but keep gripping the bar and we're going to lift a little and down. It's a little lift because I'm trying to keep the dome of the foot working. It's a very small movement at the ankle, but large through the body. Good. Yeah. Lyft [inaudible] Oh, it's a good stretch for the toes, especially in the heels. Go under. And then I'm going to bend the knees. Come in. Okay.

Now I'm going to go back to the heels. All right. We're Kinda make sure your head rest felt like mine up. Make sure your head rest is down. I'm going to go into a long bridge. Okay. So we're gonna curl up or press up your choice, but I like to curl through my back, reached the knees over the toes, lift the pelvis up. So now I'm anchored on my arms and my shoulders and my feet and I'm reaching my knees over my feet and going to push out and lengthen the body.

Keep rolling the carriage to keep it rolling, keep it rolling until the buttocks comes down and we've got that femur pushing down. Pelvis, back, knees bend, come back in. There's the long bridge and curl reached the knees whooshing out, lengthening down, and it has a very micro sequential feeling. It's not a straight plop down, enrolling through the thoracic and through the spine, but in a very long way so it doesn't look like a big curl and do one more really works the legs. Okay, we're going to reverse that. Go out flat and I'll start to lift and bend the knees. Pelvis goes up and now carriage stays where it is.

Now we get to curl in a bigger way through the spine and push out flat lift with straight legs. Bend the knees, bring the carriage in and rule. Yeah. Gotcha. All right. Then out lift, bend in, stay at the bumper, curl down. We'll do one more and then we're going to stay up in the bridge and just to repeat a nice assemble bridging back and forth. So we're just going to push out and lift the pelvis up out.

Really trying to keep those legs spinning inward, keeping the feet facing forward. Almost a little turned in like to do about five to six of these and lift the pelvis upstate the bumper, and we're going to roll it down again and relax for a moment. Okay. We're going to take a wide stance and this time we're going to bring the knee in. Good, good lateral stretch on the side of the leg and then reach across in this diagonal. Nice twist and then bring the kidney back, pelvis, and then the Nissan open again and rotate the leg in. Reach on the diagonal. [inaudible] and now start from the rib cage. Held us right leg opens.

One more time. Left leg turns in reach. Get a good opening twist here. Good. I'm back rib cage. Oh Bam. One more. Twist and reach and ribs. Pelvis and open. Now we're going to lengthen the legs out onto the bar.

I'm gonna try to keep them parallel. Position the legs. I know for me, I have a lot of, it's easier to have your my legs or lacks this way, but to spire my legs in takes quite a bit of work through the legs, so keep them parallel. Knee straight up to the ceiling. Aaron, I'm good. Now push down with the left leg and lift with the right leg. Now I can bring this like pretty high up. I was not about that. It's about equal pressure down and the lift towards the ceiling, keeping the pelvis level. Let's practice that push down. Activate in the back of the leg as the lift happens and Daryl, push him lift and down. Push in, lift and down. Okay, now we're going to add a curl up like the hundreds.

Push him, lift and down. [inaudible] push him. Lift. Damn. Push. Lift down. [inaudible] push and lift down. Now we're going to add a circle. I'm going to push up and circle the opposite arm and leg. Reach and down. Little coordination.

Push in, lift, opposite arm and leg circle reach and they're [inaudible] up. Circle, reach down. Remember, Oh is equally pushing down with that leg on the bar. What's the important part of the movement that lake limbs that are moving or the limbs that aren't moving. So I'm concentrating also on the part that's not moving. [inaudible] yeah. Now we're going to lift both on, they're both gonna lift, so he pushed down to begin with and lift up and lower down. Have a good breath here.

Push down first exhale and then lift and down and push and lift and down. One more. Push down. Lift down. [inaudible]. Actually we are going to just lift legs now. Keep the head down left. Hold the shoulder. We're going to corkscrew and I want to do it so that I'm actually letting my pelvis rotate in a look over the opposite shoulder.

Circle past the bar. Turn the pelvis, face it to the right and come up slow and controlled. Elvis right through the center. Alice left. I'd like to do the first set a little slow and controlled so that I know that my whole body is working together. Kind of takes a repetition of to, to coordinate that feeling and then can start to speed it up and know that I'm really working and not just going for a moment and I'm not straining where I shouldn't be. Straining. Right. One more rage. Rotate up. And now lowering to the bar.

One more to this series. I'm going to scoot down. So your hands are at the edge of the reformer legs are straight combination of rollover and we're gonna sit out. So we're going to start with a roll over it and then press down with the legs and then left it up. Roll over which the sit bones towards the ceilings. Open. Flex roll legs come together. Rest on the bar and we're going to roll back down again and roll all over.

Open a little momentum. It's kind of fun. Down legs. Open. Closed. Okay. And open legs and up. Close. Halfway down. Start to sit up.

Roll. Oh, we have to finish standing up. So doing more. Not Standing up, sitting up. Okay. And for arrest. Okay, so now we'll do a couple of adjustments here. We're going to change the springs to a red and a blue spring.

One medium and one light that is in the bar. It's going to come up to a higher bar to do a knee stretch. Little series here. Okay? But first I want to work the feet. Something people avoid.

I know in my practice working the feet in this position, toes are not flexible enough to bend. But here's our chance to work on that. So I want you to Tuck your toes under. Get that heels best you can. It's a big stretch. Tow us back. Take the time. Now sit back. I'll check it out. How does the bottom of your feet feel? How do the joints of the toes feel?

Mine feel pretty good. So I'm going to come up higher. So I want you to place your hands on your heels, kind of reach them back, put some weight into those toes and sit. Take a couple of rests here. This is really good to stretch out the bottoms of the feet. Fascia of the feet and the toes reaching the heels.

That's too much. Just come off. Come forward. Give your toes a rest. You can just cross your feet and sit toes to rest and then come up. One more time. Let's get those toes working. Okay. And just sit and then lean forward. Lift your hips off the bar a little bit. I'm going to keep the back nice and straight.

I'm going to do 10 with a nice straight back. Nice stretch. Inhale, exhale. Okay. And I'm really conscious of my feet. The weight on the balls of the feet, pushing through the heels, keeping the back long. Two more.

Curl the spine. Now tailbone reaching out now just like we did with the box and the cat, let's just pushed away from the bar. Open up the back and we do 10 here and no rain. 10 I'm gonna stay curled. Change the spine again. Check in with my feet, push back, extend the whole hip and spine and coming up.

Lift the chest up the heels and the feet. Help lift the body up and push back. Lyft. I like to have an extra count when I'm over the bar so that I can really use my torso and my arms to lift my trunk up. This is nine.

Yeah, I'm going to curl back and stretch the back and finish with the knee stretch series. Great. So for the next series I'm going to change the bar to a lower bar and the spring to one light spring because we're going to do pulling straps in a series and I want enough resistance but not too much. That's going to cause some strain in the shoulders, but that is going to be able to give us some fluid motion and movement. Okay. And the bar is going to serve a nice purpose as some feedback, some vital feedback. Okay.

So we're gonna lie on the box so that you can grab the end of the box here with your hands and your legs can rest on the bar for the moment. And then try to find the alignment of your upper back. Just wing it and say this feels like good straight line. And we're going to activate the whole body in what I call a radio field. And a radio field is actually like a radius that runs all through around your body, like a coil, like a spring or a rope that's being coiled all around and you're inside of, it can be a scarier image of a snake as if it's wrapped all around your whole body. And then on the [inaudible] sale, it's starting to squeeze you so you squeeze, you can push into the box.

So I'm just feeling this kind of radial compression squeezing, trying to find that length through the central axis. That's my spine. So out my toes and out the crown of my head and then relax. Quite a bit of work. So now reached the hands forward. We're going to try to find the position here because this is where I'm going to do pull new straps from. So again, now I'm gonna find the length. I have to lift my legs, lift my chest a little bit head, and then do the squeeze, squeeze, keep reading, and then relax. And now we're going to pull ourselves forward.

Now listen carefully, be safe on your reformer, grabbed both ropes so you have both of them here, and then you're gonna stabilize here and now I've got it. And then now I'm going to slowly go back. Now I can grab my handles. Arms are going to be out to the side. As I talked about, I want you to spread the hand on the handle so it's across the palm between the pinky and the thumb. I'm going to reach down towards the floor, thumb towards the floor, but not so much to the pinkies towards the ceiling. It's more on an angle. All right. Now if you're arresting, your legs would be on the bar, so you're going to lift, extend, squeeze your radio field and pull. Inhale, find that radio field. Exhale, very simple arm movement.

That work is in the trunk. Again, the work is where I'm not moving and breathing in. Exhale and in I can say, oh and legs are shaking. Keep working at it. Oh, and if you hit the bar, that means you've dropped your legs a little bit. Got to keep working the legs. Keep the position. I do two more. Keep working it and keep breathing left. Yeah, down now rest the legs. Okay, now come a little bit more forward so that my throat is not going to be impaled by the box, so you want to be able to curl over without getting your throat caught. All right, the legs are going to do the same thing.

Arms are going to be a little bit different, so listen carefully. It's very simple directions. You're going to turn and look under your left armpit and then we're going to pull the straps and scan to look over the right shoulder as I lift the left leg slightly higher. So here we go. I'm looking into the left, looking straight out. Lift the leg slightly and look over your right shoulder and then reverse the path. Oops. And down. That's why I like the bar and lift. Keep the legs lifted. Look over. Much better.

Got To give yourself credit for the first one, never really being that good. It's the second and third repetitions where your body figures it out and flow and motion becomes a little bit smoother. Let me do one more. Good. Hey, guess what other side gonna look under the right armpit and lift. Gonna. Lift the right leg down and scanning. Just a little lifted the right light higher.

Then the left man lift two more to go. Is that bar again? Getting tired, lift and rest? Well that's what we're working towards. I want to push for that amount of strength. So good work. I'm going to bring the feed around. Just rest. Don't flex your spine. It was a lot of work on the back.

Just read great when she backs for lacks. Good. All right, so now I'm going to take the box away. Let me do a little counter pose to that bar comes down. We're going to keep the blue spring. Okay. Now with the Linkedin, the straps, so we've been do a rowing front, so those of you know Polonius repertory. It's going to be real front one. So what I like to do personally is to extend the handles to right up to the headrest.

That way I know my right and left one will be this pretty close to the same length. And then I always double check. It looks pretty good. Blue Spring. Okay, so we're going to sit down. I'm going to straighten the legs. Now make sure that you have room for your sacrum to sit on the edge of the box. You don't want to be too far forward because then your knee is too close to the shoulder rest. So all right, so here's my version of this.

So we want the back straight. So I'm going to start the curl back. So I'm going to lean back and then start my curl. Keeping the arms straight like a roll back. Very simple. And now I'm going to row turning my hands in. So my knuckles come together, elbows are reaching out, my shoulder blades are wide, and then we bring the arms out to the side, thumbs down, pushing again into the handle. Now I'm going to scoop up and over keeping the arms straight.

Reach behind you as your head reaches forward. Gonna Circle. Let this ropes pull you into more of a forward bend and then you're going to roll up keeping the arms straight. That's the hard part. Everybody wants to get into the row. I got over that. You've gentry really yelled at me one day and said, ever since then I never been my arm. Still, I'm here, I think at eve every time I do that and forward and reach back.

So I'm pushing back, reaching my head, circling the arms, deepening the forward bend. Just do what's comfortable for you rolling up. It's a great length in her for that whole radio field that we worked on. The box. No.

Oh, are in reach. Curling, folding, enrolling up. Okay. And to move forward a little bit. All right, so now listen carefully. We're going to take off one of the ropes, put two on one handle, take the other handle and just put it away cause we're gonna take it back later. Okay, so you're going to hold with one arm left hand on the thigh. And again, spine is nice and long.

So I'm going to curl back again. This time I'm going to pull my elbow to the right and I'm going to row curling. And then let the rope pull me hand first. Keep the curl extend and let the reformer pull you forward. It's pulling you and you're reaching back. And then I'm going to curl, curl to come back.

So it's a little bit diagonals here. Working helical fields can reach. I love about this as the reformers pulling me into more of a twist and I'm lifting and extending up and then I try to curl back again. Not going to try him doing and pull curl left. We're h curl back, switch handles and curling and row reach. Lengthen, twist, curl.

Wow. Two West like then good and curl. Rao Twist. Let me, Ah, let me do one more end. Okay. Oh rest. Wonderful. All right, we have to put the other handle back cause we're going to go into a thigh stretch series with a little more squatting and the handles let's say. And we have to adjust that because we don't want to have the spring on the stretch, so keep the loop there. All right. This time let us take the sh the handle right to the edge of the wood frame.

The metal hook, if you have one or the wood-frame. If you don't and there we go. All right. This time we're going to want to read springs to medium springs and the bar is perfect except for yeah, I think the bar's fine. Okay. Alright, so we're gonna go back to our feet again and we want to back to the knee straps. So really lift up your legs and talk those toes under and try to bend. Tuck the toes under again. Here we go again, and we're going to sit back.

Tow Strap Chair. Okay. Now this time I want you to press your pelvis forward, sit back and press your felt pelvis forward again. So you've been pushing on the heels. If this is too much for you, you could actually have the bar up and you could lean on the bar. Perhaps I could try that rich. Now I'm going to stay up and then what I'm going to do is rotate the pelvis so it's going to face the right, the very small movements.

I'm not rotating through my rib cage. Now I'm pushing down with my right knee, facing my pelvis to the left and center. Push down with the left knee to rotate this hip rotation. Literally the hip bones, the joints rotating, and of course the spines rotating a little bit as well. Okay. I'm going to come back to center and I'm going to push down with my hands and my feet and push myself forward and up. That was a nice opening here. Good preparation for thigh stretch.

So now we're gonna place the toes down. Don't get too close to the shoulder rest. Okay. Find that nice opening now from the front of the hip. Engagement of the hamstrings. Gluteals just let's do it. Easy at first, just leaning back, bending at the knee and coming forward. Keep the legs engaged and back.

I'm gonna go a little further every time. How low can you go? I'm aging myself. Chubby checker. Can we go onto the bar and come up?

I did that when I was a teenager. I did the a how low can you go with Chubby checker and you could guess my age. I'll give you a free session. You can't go on the Internet. That doesn't count. I'm joking though. I just told them not to say jokes. Okay.

I like talking through hard things because it takes my mind off of my quads burning. Okay, so now we get to sit down. All right? And we're just going to place the handles down and we're going to tuck the toes under again and set. So now we've got to change the spring to a one red spring. Yeah, you might want to do, yeah, you might want to do a blue spring. Okay.

One red or blue. It's your choice. We're going to be working on a lunging, so it's balance. And also, uh, being able to work one leg. So I blew a red spring, might give you a lot of pullback. So I'd start with the blue. And if you find that it's too easy, then you can always, the next time you do this workout, change it to a red spring. All right, so we're sitting on the toes again, stretching those feet. And now what I'm going to want to do is sit back into a squat. So see if you can hold the shoulder rest and let your heels come down. It gets a good stretch here on your back if you don't have to. Hold on.

I like to get a little more than, nope, don't hold on. Little core work here actually. And for those of you who are really good, maybe you can be in the squat with the back. Oh yeah. See my chest is on my thighs, but if you can be away from your thighs, that's even better. And now we're gonna send the hips up. Little stretch. All right. Gonna place the left foot back. And I want the heel on [inaudible] the black part of your bar.

But the only thing is if you have a wa a metal bar here, actually it's more comfortable if it's not there. All right. See, the heel contact is important. The ball of your foot contact's important for stability, and then this foot's gonna come forward. Okay? Now just check your balance. You have to be really mindful. I want the back leg straight. Okay. And then you know it's gonna come up.

Now you've already been working your legs pretty well, so you want to just check your balance before you do anything. You can bring your arms out. Now I'm digging the back heel firmly into the bar and I'm lifting the trunk up, bringing my pelvis forward in August. Simply do is stretch the front leg out and then slowly pull it in. I think of loose spring is good and out and in [inaudible] I'm concentrating again more on the leg that's not moving because the pressure of my heel is really giving me stability.

No, I do two more. Last one. Okay. Now we're going to bend forward for the shoulder rest a step forward. Change legs. Okay, good. Good.

Contact with that heal really are very important. And test yourself first. Coming up. Whoa. Different leg. Strong leg. That's it. Like good. I like talking to my body parts to encourage them to behave. Okay. And out.

[inaudible] oh yeah. Oh, got two more. All right. And then we're going to bend forward. Step onto the reformer, then step onto the floor. Ooh, shaky. Okay, so now we're going to take the bar and put the bar down. If you had the wood, I mean the metal bar forward and we're gonna go into an adjunct stretch light spring, placed the standing leg or the outer edge of your foot inside against the leg of the reformer. Now for those of you who know PyLadies advance work, this looks a lot like snake. All right, but snake, we have one leg. It's a one leg, it's Nate. Is there such a thing? Okay, so now the foot, we don't want it to be flat on the reformer because that will supinate the foot. Especially when I straighten the leg, it's going to strain the outside of the ankle.

I don't want it all on the inside flat this way because it's pronation and it put a lot of pressure on the knee there. So it's halfway in between. So your foot's really in a neutral ankle neutral Talis position. So the foot's more on a slight angle this way. So keep a lift here and keep the shortness on the outside there. Okay.

So the back is long and I've got my standing leg against the wood frame and then straighten the leg and we're just going to slide out. It's the leg that's doing, I'm not pushing with my arms really. And then I'm just bringing it back. Keep the leg straight now and then we're just going to lengthen. You can look towards the leg.

It feels great to open that up and bring it back. Make sure you don't, for those of you who are really mobile, don't go too far. You won't be able to come back. So keep going. Okay, I'm going to do one more and then we're going to add a little twist to it, which feels wonderful. So you're gonna take the left hand off and you're going to still stretch.

But lengthen it, twist and coming back. It feels wonderful actually. And Ooh Lang them and come back. Can I do one more and [inaudible] twist, open the chest and [inaudible] can I come back? Alright, so foot position, got to check it and make sure I'm in a good ankle position there. And here we go. Straight Lange and stretch. It's so interesting how no matter how much work we do, how different each hip is. I think it's just true.

It's nature, nature of the human being. Okay. Recoil is a little more difficult here and out and pull it back in. Come on baby. Okay, now we add the twist and reach and pull it in. Breathing. You can. Nice. Inhale and exhale one more and exhale breast. Super. Ah, now I feel even. It's great. Okay, so a couple last things. One of my favorite finishing things to do in our reformer workout is a long spine, but of course I have a very particular way that I like to do long spine, so you have to listen carefully. Okay, so we're going to take the straps now and we have to lengthen them. Hence the name. Long spine is not just the spine long, but it's that the strap in the old days, we added an extension because they were leather straps and you had to add another piece.

And so we're gonna measure the straps so that the metal piece is in line with the shoulder rest. That's how long I would like the strap to be, if that's possible on your machine. But if it's not, just be safe. Don't make the rope too short, but be safe and make it as long as you can. So I'm taking the middle match and the shoulder at rest and always check to make sure. So you see how nice and long those straps are. You definitely want the risers down because we want the counter pull of the ropes in the body. So that's important and we need to have enough resistance to help us lift, but not too much resistance that we can't come down. I just put on to red springs.

I think that's really a good amount to read. Okay, so I'm going to put these around the shoulder rest right and grabbed them easily. I'm going to lie down and I want to sit so that my hands are at the edge of the reformer. Oh, okay. I'm gonna take that away. Okay, so here I'm holding. Now take the strap, so I'm going to push out, put them on. Okay, sure. They're good length. All right. Okay.

We started a lower angle and as my hips are going into flection and the carriage starts to move, I'm gonna go to about here about 70 degrees, not 90 nineties too late. So somewhere around 60 70 degrees right around here. I'm going to start to go into extension. And the point is to use your extensors not to use your flexors. So let's give it a try. Remember the first one's never very good, so it's okay.

All right, so I'm going to start to move and inhale, use extensors to go up. If you notice the carriage didn't move much at that point. Right now I'm going to open the legs. And then from here I'm going to keep pressure of my legs in the straps and I'm gonna Start to release my tail down. So I'm starting to fold it, the hips, kind of like a long bridge. And now I'm going to pull into the ropes and come down. That was pretty slow controlled. All right, so here we go. Up The carriage moved too much for my liking that time. All right, and here we go.

Sitting down, putting pressure into the strap. Close. Let's see if we can go up a little bit better and extend. Ah, Nice. No carriage movement that time. Good and down. Keeping the spine long. Yeah. And now I'm going to try it with the legs open.

Come back and up extent extensors, close legs coming down. Oh, that was a good one. And Oh, much better. And down last one and stent up close and yeah, and rest. So now we're going to bend the knees. Take a wide stance. I call this happy baby and I'm just going to hold the two bottoms of the feet if you can reach them. If you can't, you can hold your shins like this, but what I'd like to see is that the weight, you put some weight into the hip, relax the back and just breathe. Enjoy the stretch and the opening. And then we're going to take the straps off. And then what I'd like you to do is separate your feet a little bit.

Let your knees come in towards the midline so they're just going to rest on one another. Take your arms, cross them over your chest, the weight of your arms fall into your chest and feel like if you're wearing a a suit or a dress and you're melting, just melt, melt. And the only thing left on the carriage will be the suit. All your flesh has melted away. And if possible, I suggest you stay here for about five to 10 minutes.