Feel-Good Reformer

Hi everyone, it's Amy here and I am in the mood for a full body. Nice fluid flowing workout. I'm in my den as you can see. I'm on an arrow reformer today since I can't get in the studio due to the shelter in place, but thank goodness I have something to work out on here at home. So again, I'm on the arrow and I just really feel like moving full body nice and fluid workout, nothing too intricate.

So let's go ahead and get started. And I've got all four of the chords on. So if you're used to using some other kind of reformer or you are on another reformer, four chords on this is substantially weighted. So on another reformer, like a balanced body or peak or gruts, it's probably three heavy sprains for you. So we're gonna work that way and I will do my best to give comparisons on chord tensions on this, to what I know is more comparable to balance body or gruts which is what I'm more used to.

Okay, so I've just got the handles and straps on the floor so they're not rubbing against my shoulders, we're gonna go ahead and get started down on our back with our footwork. So here we go. So I just want this all settle in and, you know, depending on what you've been doing in terms of your own workouts at home, let's just kind of focus on all the movements having a nice breath component, not such a forced inhalation that you feel your shoulders are all grabbed up and tense, but really feeling the nice billowing of the ribcage, and that the breath can facilitate more fluidity in the movement and connection. Maybe with your mind and your body. Alright, so I'm gonna go ahead and start today.

Heels parallel. So just take a peek and see that your heels are parallel. And before we start moving on, I want us to connect the feeling and those hamstrings right so that the heels are somewhat dragging down the foot bar toward the floor. And let's go ahead and start to push back. Pretty nice substantial weight.

Take a moment, open up the line across your hip flexors here. And then go ahead and return down. And inhale as we press is my preference. Exhale as we lower. Nice fluid movement.

Again feeling the billowing of the ribs, or at least imagining the billowing of the ribs. Inhale open, and exhale close. And inhale. And exhale. A Nice use of breath with motion.

Three more out, pulling in, pressing out, and in and last time we press away, and we come back in, and let's just change quickly down to the balls of the feet. You can take a quick peek up, evenly weighted across the balls of the feet, heels are slightly elevated. Again, we're on four chords. Now this feels like it's too heavy if you're on the arrow, feel free to drop that down to three chords. But again on other equipment is probably three of your heaviest springs.

Yeah, and press. Every movement, breathing in on the extension and exhale on the pulling in. (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Last two, inhale. And exhale. Last time, stretch, and in, and you're already on the balls of the feet.

So we'll just pivot the heels to touch in our Palladia stance, inhale away, now really work that inner thigh connection. So as soon as I start to push away, I'm already thinking about bringing those inner thighs close together. And not just the front inner thighs, but the back inner thighs. Which the back inner thighs, in my opinion, helps us get that wrap of the legs, some of us are probably are also gonna start to feel the gluteals come into the feeling too and that's good. We just don't wanna overdo butt work, you know, this is foot and leg work.

So there's a nice distinction between our rear end and our legs. So think legs together, and legs together. Two more times here guys, and press, and press. Okay, so I am gonna go out to the wide aspect of the split bar. It is a little different than the other equipment that I'm used to being on.

Feels pretty good. So here we go flexed ankles, drive both heels evenly, and then return. So although the feet are apart, still think about those back inner thighs weaving toward one another in that center line, so that you get that feeling of the whole leg being integrated, you know, front for sure. Inner thighs for sure but around the sides and back. So let's inhale and exhale, five more repetitions.

Now haven't really talked about the pelvis position but, we know we're in neutral. Pubic bone and hip bones are level. For some of us that allows our low back to just be this natural curve. Some of you have a real flat low back to begin with. What we don't wanna do is over arch the mid rib cage of course, right so we have that nice and nestled in.

I think I've done one extra. That is okay. I am gonna do balls of feet in the wide position, getting those legs worked out evenly weighted, here we go pressing out, and in, feel long legs, long body all the way through. You may wanna start checking in on that. The space between your pelvis and your ribs and getting that elongation there.

Without the ribs, lifting to the ceiling. So we have five, and four. Breath with movement. Last two. And last one, feeling your legs.

All right, now we're working into the curves a little more specifically. So I want you to lift your feet, place the balls, the feet on extending out. Now, those of us who know we are knee locking people, I'm one of them, I tend to lock. Keep your knees a little bit less straight. Okay, I'm not saying bend them.

But for me, when I totally straighten them, I actually hyper straighten them. So I'm actually gonna try to tighten up my quadriceps and my calf muscles at the same time tightening contract, and then have that support for my knees. Because if I just go for straight legs, I over straighten, okay. Yes, we're doing heels lowering and lifting. Down enough for 10 repetitions.

Again, this is a pretty good heavyweight of these chords. And up, five more, down and up. And lower and left. I'm trying not to grip with my toes, really be on the balls of those feets. Those feets down and up.

Yeah, last time down and up, bend the knees come all the way in everyone. Hug your knees to you press down on your shins. Okay, come on up. Let's do a change of tension. So on this reformer, I wanna go down just to two chords.

So, two springs on your reform or whatever you're working on. And I'm taking the two middle ones off. And we'll do some single leg work, okay? So let's come on back on her back, and I feel the posse, develop a pattern coming. So balls of feet on the bar, take either leg off, it doesn't matter which one, extend that leg nice and long.

You're on the ball of the foot on the pushing leg. This leg is extended and let's go nice and slowly for about two reps, you can get it, you bend the knee, take that leg stretching, reach to the ceiling, re bend your knee, and then reach out over that foot bar. Okay, one more kind of slowly. When I learned this, I remember the teacher saying, try to time it where the feet and the knee extends, straightens at the same time. So it's kind of some coordination.

Inhaling there, and exhaling on the return. Okay, we can kind of pick up the pace now. I'm thinking eight repetitions. So we don't have to do a full 10 of everything all the time. 10's a good number, but so is eight.

Bringing us to three more. Try to maintain that neutral pelvis but you know, if your leg extension brings you out of neutral a little, you're probably fine. Yeah, last time. We endeavor to stay neutral most of the time, but boy, it feels good to rock out of that every now and again. Okay, other side, here we are, inhaling to extend, and exhaling to bend and reach.

And exhale. There we go and extend, and reach. So I'll say it again, you're trying to time the push of the leg and the extension of legs so that you meet at the same time, and you return at the same time. Four, and three, and two, nice and stretchy, getting those legs going in last time. Okay, now I want to bring us two balls of feet on the foot bar.

Internally rotate your femurs. So what that does for me, and I actually kind of moved my feet a little bit open, knees together, heels lifted, I want us to do some of the pulsing motion. So why I have internal rotation, is just to give that the leg work a little bit of a different kind of balance and workout. And we'll do this internal rotation in side line also in just a moment. Okay, so you may not feel a lot, but some of you might feel a new connection in your inner thighs.

So I'm certainly doing more than eight reps. And I've maybe do two sets of eight. So we're coming up on four, and three, and two, and one. Okay, and then come all the way in. Now before we go on to sideline, let's open up the feet, everybody so go to a fairly wide heels on your bar position.

I wanna have us exaggerate now, a pelvic tilt. Okay. And you can see that I've really pelvic tilted and I'm imprinting my lumbar into the pad. And what I wanna do is then just elevate the pelvis enough that I can move my hands underneath pretty easily, but the base of the ribs is still on this pad. What that requires is that elongation of the lumbar.

And for me, I'm kind of short through this section. So I wanna think of getting really long in that lower back region, and then push the carriage back keeping that pelvis suspended. So a lot of us know this exercise called bottom lift. Classically happens so much later in the workout. I like to put it in now so that I can kind of get my lumbar and my low back elongated.

And before I do abdominal work, and other sideline pieces. So we'll just do four more. Yeah, and it's also kind of nice for the hips as it is in the buttons. Last two, hollow out that tummy. And last time, and let's go ahead and roll that pelvis down.

Bring your knees to your chest and hands on your shins, prepare your upper body for just a minute. Everybody just bring your head up, your shoulders up off of the carriage and just curl into your kind of the rolling like a ball position, which should feel pretty good just to get that stretch right there. And then take your body down. I want you to place your feet on the bar for a second. Take your arms up.

Now what's really nice about being on the arrow reformer on the floor, is we can open the arms out. Tet's go to a T. If your shoulders are healthy enough and you're ready to try to seek for the floor with your fingertips. Yeah, it's pretty nice actually to be this low sometimes. And then bring the arms up.

So let's take this moment here, inhaling again, connecting breath and movement. And exhale. (exhales) Taking this moment to feel how your shoulder blades on your back, have some gentle movement when you move your arms. So you're not so locked in your shoulder blades that. Yeah, they don't have a little rhythm to them.

So when the arms open wide, the shoulder blades somewhat, just a little bit, come closer to the spine, not a whole lot. I'm not pinching them. And then when I close my arms, the shoulder blades actually go wider on your back, see if you can feel for that. Yeah, and it's just you know, it's subtle, but it should feel very natural. You don't have to contrive anything, do anything different.

And close. Let's take this one more time, everybody inhale, arms open, and exhaling, arms up, and then I want you just to lower your arms right down by your sides and take a moment, feel the length of the arms, the openness and ease across your chest. Okay everyone, let's come into a little bit of side lying leg work. Okay. Now what I wanna do for today, is try this is a little bit different from what I normally do in sideline.

I wanna come up on my elbow, and then take the top leg into the corner of that foot bar, this knee also kind of corner to the foot bar. So I'm in a little bit of a clam setup. Okay, now, ideally, of course, we stay perfectly stacked or relatively perfectly stacked, and then you're working some external rotation here. And then you know, depending on what you wanna do with this arm, you might hold the carriage, you might hold here, you might even try to do this. So let's push, I'm still on two chords, which feels pretty good and heavy.

We're also starting to sneak in some shoulder stabilization here. Now, I could have done arm circles to prepare us for this, but I didn't. Okay, so you're using this side shoulder girdle support right now. Yeah. If this is too much upon your elbow, you just lie on your side.

And you do the normal side lying position. Okay, I'm taking two more guys from the heel, and in, and heel, and in. So that was external rotation. Now, I told you on the other footwork, we would try internal rotation. So let's try that now.

And here it is. It's gonna feel more parallel, but I am slightly internally rotating. I think you can see that femur coming in. Now let's see what happens as you push away. Yeah, so my whole foot has found the foot bar feels more organic that way, but I am slightly turning thigh bone inward.

It's just subtle. So let's just do our eight repetitions, right? So we're coming up on four more. Here is four. Still trying to get a full extension from your hip, your knee and push that foot into the foot bar.

Last two. And your last one, and in. Okay, come on up for just a second. And just kind of feel how your legs feel right there. Let's turn around to do the other side.

I won't be able to see you, of course, but you're up on your elbow, your knees starting to clam position, and you take the top leg, heel to the foot bar, you're in an external rotation format, other hand goes behind your head if you can. If you need it down on the pad, you can do so. Okay, there we go. And we're inhaling as we push, and exhale. So again, if this is too much being on side support, this early, 'cause I didn't do any arm preparation, feel free to drop down and just lie on your side.

Maybe tuck your elbow underneath your head. Okay, we've got three more from this heel position folks. Bringing your head back into that hands, you feel some really nice upper back connection to your alignment. Okay, that was it. Now, turn your leg bone inward more.

Again, it's going probably feel parallel. Your whole foot has found the foot bar, but if you can still spiral the leg bone in a little bit more, aim for that. (exhales) Two chords feels pretty substantial on this arrow. You'd be on two heavy springs or two springs on a balanced body, (exhales) Four more times. And one, try to angle that thigh in a little bit.

And three. Excellent job your last one, four, and in, and then go ahead and then come all the way up. Let's spiral around. And then excellent. We're gonna go back down on our back everybody and we're still in two chords.

I think we'll be fine for two chords for some hands and straps and some abdominals. Okay, so, come on down. Now what you'll need your straps. So you'll have to look fine for those. It's different having them on the floor.

Okay, knees up to your tabletop position. Let's go ahead and do that. And, or if you wanted to just let your thighs come towards your chest, that's also fine. Yeah, I might do a set like that. It actually feels kind of nice in the lower back.

So as you raise your arms up, I want us to all pull the hands into the pads just like an inch, so that we're holding those bungee cords and those springs open. Right, you're holding on open. Back here, there's no work yet. But as you pull, you're having to hold the resistance open in the strength. Now, let's connect the shoulder blades onto the back of your body, and we'll start just down, and up four times.

Okay, really want you to feel the evenness of your arms, your hands into your straps. Each arm is pressing with equal value of effort. That was four, turn your arms your palm's face in, we're gonna do open and close four times. Your hands should not be on your floor. So as you're looking to the ceiling, you should be able to see your hands in your eye corners.

Yeah, feel those strength of the pull more from the meaty part of your side back muscles in your hands. That was four. Now palms facedown, let's go into four circles of the arms up. Open, pull your arms in. Up, open, pull your arms in twice more in this direction.

When you pull your arms down to your hips, maybe think about stomach in and up. Let's get those abdominals ready for some other things coming soon. Let's reverse the circles. Arms pull, stomach pulls. When my arm is pulled out, my stomach pulls up and in (exhales) Last one there.

Okay, everyone want us to bring your arms down to the mat again, bend the elbows and raise your forearms. So the forearms, wrists and fingers are straight up to the ceiling. Now I do want you to bring your knees more tabletop and design. Okay, what we're doing here is open your hands out toward the sides of your room, but your elbows are still on your mat, and then bring your forearms in. So it's not moving the carriage.

And I'm trying not to arch the spine. This is a kind of a study in what's stable right now while the carriage is stable. Your body, your back is stable. There's somewhat of a pivoting, but I'm really thinking my upper arm is pivoting open, and then back to the start position. When I take it into his little circle, and then like this, yeah.

Again, I'm on to bungee cords. On a balanced body that I've done this many times on balanced body, I would do a red and blue. So feel free to make a change in the springs on gruts. I would do one, peak I would do one spring. (exhales) Balanced body depends on the color.

Do what? Okay. Gosh springs and bungee cords. Now let's reverse the direction. So, I've got my elbows and upper arms stable on the mat and I'm doing a circular movement.

Forearms kind of like spatulas coming down and circling out. Good upper arm work. Last two, last one. All the way around. Okay, place your feet on your foot bar for just a moment, raise your arms back up.

Okay, now let's go ahead and take our knees to our tabletop. Chest lifts. Here we go guys. Exhale the arms down, raise your head, neck and chest. And then lower back down.

We're gonna take the exhale (exhales) Gonna do sets of four. Little adding little patterns after four. So four basic chest lifts, (exhales) We're gonna add the legs reaching to the ceiling for four. (inhales) (exhales) Three, (inhales) really feel the strength of those abdominal muscles. They're contracting in against your spine.

Now, the next four, taking one leg forward, away from the knee. So I'm just thinking like a single leg stretch from the mat. I'm gonna repeat the same leg four times. You can aim your leg on a diagonal. Or if you feel like you want more challenge aim it just barely above that foot bar.

I'm gonna set the tone for where the 100 line will be. Let's take it to the other side and over. (inhales) (exhales) Three, (inhales) leg right above the foot bar. (inhales) (exhales) Four, okay, we're gonna go right up to the hundred, legs to the ceiling first. Up we go.

Hold your position, okay, so we'll gradually lower the legs down to that foot bar. Inhale, and exhale. Three, four, five. So I'm just starting to lower my legs, pumping, aiming them for over that foot bar, keep going. If that's too low for you don't go that low.

If you are going that low, don't rest them on the foot bar. There just hovered. Imagine like the foot bar super hot and you don't wanna touch it. (exhales) (exhales) Three, four, five. Two more sets.

Exhale, three, four, five. Last set, exhale, three, four, five. Knees in, elbows bent head down. Good. Okay, coordination time and the exercise called coordination.

Elbows by your side, table top legs, here we go curling up on the inhale, open the legs, close the legs, knees in, all the way down. You know your coordination at this point. I don't wanna lower my head. I think it's more effective and efficient if we keep it up. (exhales) Two more times.

Last one, and rest. Very nice guys. Take a moment. Just feel... Okay, I want us to put the hands down, the straps down.

And I want to go into a little bit more abdominal work down here on our back. And I think we'll be fine. So two choices. If you wanna hold your shoulder rest you can, or if you wanna hold back on the frame, you can have your unbalanced body, gruts , it's a lot wider frame, if your shoulders can handle that please go for that feels really, really nice. This is narrow, which is actually good for me, actually perfectly, because my shoulders aren't as mobile.

So when I go for wider holding in, what we're gonna do knee side to side. I have a challenge with keeping my ribcage anchored and stable. So, narrower framework better for me. Okay, so tabletop legs. We're going into knees side to side.

So I want us to press the knees firmly together, rock your knees one side or the other, right or left. If you're going right, remember, we're looking on the opposite shoulder to stay reaching opposite. I don't want you to roll that shoulder with you. So you've got a nice sense of elongated rotation, oblique stretch and contraction. Let's go to the other side.

So as you lean your knees to the side, yep, opposite chest, and I'm actually thinking out the opposite elbow, getting a dynamic stretch, and then return. Here we go to the first side, I'm gonna take a breath in. I like that and I exhale return. Inhaling, and exhale, chin away from the chest so that you're not compressing the cervical region, and center. You can continue with just doing this basic, knee side to side.

If this doesn't feel good for your arms, by all means, put them down. But I'm gonna add on to that. I'd like to take the knees to the side. And take both legs and, just a really long journey on a diagonal stretch. Across to the ceiling, and down to tabletop.

Other side we inhale over, exhale and kind of reaching up to the corner of this room, and then across the ceiling, and bend. Okay, that's actually fairly easy. You could keep going there. Or if you want a little more change, why not take the legs down low, toward your hundred position and bring them back in? Twist to the opposite side.

Legs extend to the diagonal. You could go down or up. I'm gonna go down to that hundred position again, not the head, just the legs. For more of these, inhale. (exhale) Lower down, and knees in.

(inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) One more each side. (exhales) Last one I'm feeling a lot of wonderful work in my body right here. Now, elbows come in, knees down, feet to the foot bar, just come again to just kind of a stillness for a moment with our feet on the bar and our arms by our sides. Alright, everyone, we're gonna make use of being on our back for a little bit longer, pick up those straps again, and we're going in for some feet in these straps. So you can push off the foot bar with both feet, it's probably easiest to step in with one foot at a time.

So you can kind of step on in and we're going right into some frog position and frog exercise. Okay, so heels in close to the buttocks, knees, kind of toward those shoulder, shoulders and let's just go for it. Yeah, and (exhales) Five, so maybe two more times. Really love the frogs. It just feels so good to get those legs extended.

Now hold them out, you can't really completely go parallel in these foot straps because there's cotton padding on the feet. So I'm trying to go parallel but I'm not because my arches are being held by those straps. But what I am feeling is the work in the inner thigh and again, that wrap, okay, so I am appearing to be in a Palladia stance position, which is slightly externally rotated. That feels good. Let's go ahead and maintain that throughout the circles today.

Open, down, you're aiming for over that foot bar and up. Now these, I do like to do more than eight repetitions. There's something about the leg circles that feel really, really nice, and most times we like to do more than, five to eight, some going to 10 wow. Do more, you know, an eight. But such great conditioning in those hips, the joints and muscles, tendon ligament, all the yummies.

Yep. Now again, we're aiming to stay neutral pelvis, but you know if on the way up if the legs come up, and you're trying to seek more extension in the muscles in the back of your legs, if your pelvis comes back a little bit, try to alleviate it and reach your sit bones opposite so that you don't carry that whole pelvis with. Okay, a couple more this direction. It's a nice effort to try to not lose neutral. Or to stay in neutral for sure.

So that was eight. Let's come all the way up the midline and reverse it now. So we're gonna go down and out. Go for a range today in these hips or tonight or whenever you're doing this session. Really go for wide.

(exhales) Like really just take up this get greedy in the space around you with your legs. (exhales) And as we initiate the taking down, the pull down is again coming from the back of those legs. Want us to do two more huge circles. And then I'm going into the bow and arrow or the sometimes we call Peter Pan. Yes, dag, leap, Russian dancer, all those things.

So you're coming down to about 45 degrees or just maybe a little bit above your foot bar. Bend one knee and a wide frog, right and then the other leg is going wide, wide, wide. So I'm thinking really, if we're pulling a bow and arrow that you're pulling apart, you're pulling apart and then you have to meet them back in center line and you're pulling apart, apart, apart, apart, like you're pulling the ropes apart, and then bring them to the center. Let's breathe in, how about that. And exhale.

I'm gonna start experimenting with the feet. I wanna point on the open, or something feels good flex on the return. Point open, flex return. Point open, flex return, one more time here, point open, and flex return. Okay, now I'm going into one more exercise today with the leg straps before short spine.

Turn in the legs, internally rotate. And let's take little circles now. So I'm definitely not taking the legs up and down. I'm thinking about keeping my legs out in space and doing small circles while internal rotation on the hips. (exhales) Yeah, other ways for 10 circles.

Hope you feel that difference, right? It's an inner thigh thing. It's nice hip joint space right here strong. Also a little coordination four, three, we don't do a lot of things in internal rotation, we might wanna think about doing more on occasion. Okay.

Okay, everyone take your head piece down, and I'm going to short spine. So I'm this reformer, I've just getting a little more used to it. I need to come down a bit away from the shoulder pads or just I've been knowing what that feels like. Okay, short spine, extend your legs forward, take them slowly. Go now we really get to aha, lose that neutral.

Roll out of that neutral, peel up, up, up, up, up, high and your shoulder blades. Inhale to a frog, and then keep your frog legs with you. Come rolling down, pull that stomach in. Roll that spine down. Feel that beautiful, fluid, articulation.

The stretch of your hamstrings, the stretch of your lumbar muscles, the rolling through, flow, mobility. Inhale, and exhale. Stomach in. So again if you're on the balanced bodies we've just been on that or the other reformers we haven't done any real big spring change have we we're still two springs two cords. Arms are long by our sides.

I usually like five at least, sometimes up to eight short spine. So we're coming up on five here. Reaching the feet to the ceiling and slightly behind us. (inhales) (exhales) I'm at good with five. I'm good with five of those.

So take the feet out of the straps. Reach for the foot bar though so you don't get kind of caught up in them. And then just keep them close to us but just put them on the floor. And then everyone let's come up off of our back. Okay, we've been down on our back for a long time.

When coming up in a few more exercises, I'd like us to many more actually, but some arm thing. So we want lighter spring. I'm taking one of the cords away leaving only one cord here. So on balanced body for some of the arm work probably red is good, or blue. We're doing some hug a tree, some serving, some things cross legged facing the foot bar, okay?

So just turn yourself around and cross your legs. How conveniently located those straps are. And then wiggle your hips back for just a moment everybody. Really get your sits bones back, you know and your pelvis again so shoulder pads, and hopefully you feeling like you can sit upright relatively easily. Bend your elbows right in back against your size.

palms face up, we'll go to the serving before hug a tree. The serving as if you're holding a tray. A tray of cookies, champagne, I mean sandwiches, whatever. It's a tray, right? And you're extending it out so people can take some things off the tray.

And then return. So technically what is this? This is spinal stability shoulder blade stability. So now this is a place I want us to find, feel, that the shoulder blades don't go too far forward causing this protraction appearance or too far back to cause retraction. The scapular just right on the ribs, in it's your arms that move forward and back from your torso.

Mm-hm. Palms or face up. Make sure your pinky finger is also up level with the palm. I want us to do two more here. And we'll stay open on this next one everyone stay open, make a slight change palms face in now, elbows been out toward the rope slightly, and I'm slowly opening the arms.

But I still as I'm looking forward, I still see my hands in my peripheral vision. You should too. Don't take your arms too far behind you, please. Okay, now pause for a moment, feel how your hand is in your strap, make it a little bit more secure, your chest will contract. That's a good thing.

Breathe in first. Wants to exhale as we hug that air in front of us. Inhale as we open. Eight times, exhale, hug your air. You know the real name of the exercises hug a tree.

Well, there's no tree here. There's one behind me. It's a little plant but right, hug. and we want a circular shape in the arms that have a circular, like an oval. Okay, we have three more to go.

Check those abdominals, keep them back in against you, your shoulder blades low so that your neck feels long and free. (exhales) Yep, one more time here. Good. And then just bend your elbows, put your hands on your lap for a moment. Okay, let's take one more from this sitting position.

And I want you to take your palms forward. Yep, turn your hands in, just like we did with the legs quite a little bit ago. Fingertips to touch. And then I'm gonna take my hands right up to the forehead where my hairline is. Lean forward just a little bit toward your front of the reformer.

And then here we go. Extend those long arms, and bend. This is not easy in your neck and shoulder so you have to regulate those shoulders right and keep them low, which takes quite a bit of mobility in your shoulder joints for some of us and strength. Still on one chord, yeah, four more, exhale as we pull, and (exhales) So a lot of good arm work on this arrow reformer I've been noticing 'cause the the bungee cord seems about the right tension. Okay, coming up off of our sitting position, turn yourselves around, up on our knees now.

And let's take a look at that chest expansion, that feeling of that chest expansion exercise. So with this one, instead of holding into the handles, let's grab the rope everybody. Okay, walk your knees up against your shoulder pads. And for a moment, you know, untuck this, for a moment, I want us to feel that we're just right up on the front of the knees. We're not behind the knees there.

Right on the front of the knees, arms are long. Put your thumb right on the strap, look forward, and then here we go where it's like we're dragging the knuckles on the floor almost. Pulling the arms back behind us, turn and look over one shoulder. Keep your arms back, turn and look over the other shoulder. Looks forward, I have my plant there so I can really look at it every time.

Looking forward, now turn your head to one shoulder, through your room to the other shoulder. Look forward really focus on something. So that adds that balance challenge right. If this is too much for you just sit down and do it. And turn, and look.

Now it's important on these motions here to also keep the stomach in which supports the length in your spine in your back which we've just already warmed up and done a lot for. Want us to do three more repetitions. Pull, turn, and center. Two more, pull. Yeah.

One more time. It's nice to put a little smile across the face. Yeah, turn. Here we go turn and smile. And center and release.

There's something about smiling that actually helps things a little bit sometimes. Okay, I'm still after the back of the arms right through here. I don't think we could do too much for that zone. Just saying. So come on to kneeling a little lower instead of up here, we're creasing at the hips.

So you're gonna see my body and a pitched forward, hip hinge position. Same thing with the arms, or similar. But bend them. See all my elbows are bent there right up here like that. Now look forward again, look to the back of your reformer.

Stay looking at something so that you don't have to turn your head to me. You know what it is, you're gonna extend your elbows behind you. Raise the fist up to the ceiling, and then re bend your elbows. Eight to 10 times I'll let you decide. (exhales) Yeah, so keep thinking the shoulders are low on your body.

Your collarbone is rolled back on your body. The ribs and stomach aren't pushing forward, that could strain your back a little bit guys. Pull this tummy in. Four more to go. Four, three, two, last one and rest.

Good. So we got a lot of good arm work out of those cords. I think we can just put those down. Come back around everybody. I want us to come into an elephant position.

Okay, an elephant is gonna require us to probably change the tension. I'd like to go to two chords now, so I'm putting one more on. And I want everyone to add enough tension here that you feel stable on your surface. So one red and a blue one balanced body, two on gruts, two on peak, a medium and a light. Okay?

So go ahead and make that change now. Okay, so let's go ahead and stand up for elephant. So I want you to step up, walk your feet back heel against your shoulder block, heel against your shoulder block, hands on your foot bar. Now, we could do two different styles of elephant but today, can we make a curved spine elephant? In curve, not any upper back so much as the lumbar region.

Okay, and now, we don't want those knees locked, right? That was what we said earlier in footwork. So unlock your knees, look back to the headrest. Push the heels back, pull the carriage in. So I'm with my eyes.

I'm looking back and I'm looking to the headrest. That way I can also check that I don't hyper lock my knees. Make sure that the curve you're trying to make the curve in your low back but not your bra line back. Okay, there are 10 of these. Here's five more, one, see that your feet look even.

If you can pull your toe pads up, fantastic, two more, and one more. Okay, today, let's do it again, similar up on your tippy toes. Now this time or with a flat, back, extended spine. Okay, now I'm gonna a my sit bones high to that wall behind me and I'm still looking at the headrest. Still shoulders on our back, and push, and pull.

So these shoulder pads are nice and squishy. I'm not pushing my heels into them. But I'm still looking at my feet seeing equal weight distribution, really moving from the hips. And from the hips, three more, good shoulder girdle support. Nice flat back and in.

Okay, now I chose not to do long stretch first. I wanted to do elephant and then that upstretched first but now we are moving into long stretch, which is the plank if you've know that name. So I want everybody to bring that headpiece up, okay. And your feet will be on it. Hands on the foot bar as we know.

Let's get ourselves in that long plank line. Okay. (laughs) Legs connected. Inhale. Exhale.

I am squeezing my glutes a little bit, if not a lot. Getting that wrap from the back of those inner thighs. If this is too much your wrist you can abort the exercise. It's just so nice for us to get that weight bearing, the strength on the wrists. I'm doing three more guys.

Turn out my body in a long line throughout. Last time, and come down. Wonderful. Let's take the chords down. I want you to drop one of them down again, one spring, we really don't even need a lot of spring actually for this.

So forget it. Face me, let's just have a seat for a second. We're nearing the end of what I had planned today. But what I want us to do is just a little bit of rotation inside bending. We can do it just sitting like this.

Okay, so just take your hands behind your head. Breathe in through your nose, and exhale toward one rotation. So we're just gonna do a little seated rotation and then return. (inhales) Other side, (exhales) And center. The hands are behind the skull, and I'm turning the whole torso in one unit.

Pause, change the switch of your legs, the cross of your legs four more times and always feels different. It always feels different. So why don't you do it? Three, (exhales) two, tall and rotate it. Nice decompress, fine.

Okay. Now from here, just lower your arms. I want you to take your feet off of that cross position and put the bottoms of your feet together and think it's a little nice to sit like this on occasion, bottoms of the feet together, and then just take your arms out to the side. Let's do some easy side bend. So wherever your bottom hand lands, just bend your torso to one side.

The opposite hip though, is anchored. Okay? And then up you go. So my hand met the frame. Now I chose to just put these in at the end, so that we made sure we got flexion of our spine.

We had extension of our spine. We have a little bit of rotation, and a little bit of side bending. All of those were a nice complete and we did some mobility of course, right of spinal mechanics. Let me have us do four more of these side bends even go a little bit further over. Anchor those pelvises down, lift into a side bend, one more, and then we'll come up into a beautiful hip stretch, hip flexor stretch: boy my shoulder's really cracky.

Up and over. Okay, they hip flexor stretch I want us to do is a lunging stretch, which we do a lot of the time. So I will come this way first everybody. Now, if you put your foot back against a shoulder block, your knees down this front foot, I've got my shin fairly well in line with the foot bar here. You could have it farther forward if you'd like.

But try that on. And then as you push the carriage out, What I'm trying to do is just lower this hip toward the floor. I'm not really changing the front leg at all. And then as they bring the carriage in, see how that hip stays open, as opposed to this moving at the hip joint. Let's not do that.

We did a lot of that already. We're gonna keep that hip open, and bring the carriage in. Yeah, it's a really nice stretch through this whole kind of lower abdomen. Definitely the hip and quadriceps to the knee. Last two, and last one.

Yep. And then we can just simply crawl across to the other side. You might have a real different sense on each side of your body on these stretches. So again, I've got this front leg in this 90, back knee is down, and I send the carriage back getting a really nice stretch in that hip flexor. And then in and reach.

And in. Yeah, there's a nice stretch across this part of the hip as well. On the standing leg or the base leg. Four more time, so it's a stretch, and in, and stretch. In, extend, and last time one.

Okay, well, we did it. We made it through a nice you know, at home workout. Like I said at the beginning, nothing fancy but I hope you feel kind of all your parts right. We did our abs, we did our legs. We did our arms.

Certainly, we've got some Good stretches in. So it's kind of a good go to if you don't want a whole lot of fancy, but you want a whole lot of feel good. Okay, thanks for joining me in my house everybody, and let's all stay well and I'll see you soon. Okay, bye, bye.