Get Moving Reformer

Hi everyone. Amy here with you for a reformer workout. Today. I'm feeling like working out. I want to work my arms. I wonder. Work my abs and of course the booty and the hips. We're on a balanced body reformer. We're going to start, we're on a red and a blue ab work facing the back. And let's begin with this.

We're going to take our legs all the way through the loop. Put it above your knee. Yeah, let's have fun today. Do Your polarities technique. Of course. I'm just not doing as much technical language today. Let's just feel ourselves move and sweat a little bit.

So I'm going to have you start with those straps right at the top of the femur. Knee, hands behind your head. You're probably going to be off the edge like I am. Don't worry about it. Your hands are going to go behind your head. You have to pretend the mat is there, or the floor is there. Okay, so let's take a nice deep breath through the nose.

Okay. I'm going to start right away with an easy chest lift and curl. Inhale as you come down. Okay. And Xcel is we curl chest towards the legs, lower back and again.

Wow. And I'm allowing my pelvis to come into a little bit of a posterior angle as I come up. I need that today. I need to have my back feel a little bit more, um, assisted if you're in a neutral pelvis, that's fantastic. I just know I need a little bit of that posterior today. Okay, we'll take four more here guys. Exhale en curl and lower.

Funneling those ribs down toward the hips. Elbows are kind of scooping up. They're not quick, quite wide. They're kind of scooping up scapula toward elbows toward the ceiling and down. Okay. And our last one, just basic chest lift right there. Okay.

Now take yourself and Shimmy forward. Get your pelvis really close to the shoulder blocks. Reach back and hold the frame somewhere. You can hold the foot bar if your arms are long enough. I don't have that in me. Bring your knees to tabletop and beyond what it mean by beyond thighs closer to your chest. Okay, so I again, I want us to do like a little bit more pelvic tilt right now it's not a pull with the arms are just here to help open up the chest.

Let's take a breath and as we exhale, I want us to pull our thighs toward our chest and then keep going. Try to lift that sacrum off of the Mat. Deep lower abdominal recruitment. Really get that sacred up off the mat and inhale, come back down and exhale deep internal contraction, flexing that lower spine, deep, deep, deep work. Inhale away and again, start to let the ribcage also sink down in the mat and inhale, release. Move your arms. If you need to curl, really try to pick up that pelvis. Inhale, release. How's that on for a little beginning of a class. Exhale, curl internal abdominals deeply pull in.

Let those obliques here on the elder line. Come in and squeeze those ribs in or stay right there with me. Stay, stay, stay. I'm going to do eight to 10 little pulses, one and three, four and lift your hips, lift your hips and eight and nine and 10 and come down. Okay, pick up your head in your chest. Again. Wiggle back enough that your fingers are kind of, you're just barely touching a the head rest there.

Shoulder rest and pick up both knees again into your tabletop. Hands behind your head. And then let's take both hands for just now over to the back of one thigh. Let's have a little bird on the perch out there. Okay, bird fly there. Here you go. Now Curl yourself higher. You're on that rotation.

Stay right there and let's do knees in toward chest, knees away. Exhale, knees in. My hands are just there. If you need a little support for your neck, you can put your hands behind your head. I'm going to just allow myself to use this position today. So yes, I'm using my hip flexors would, it's the internal ones, deep, lower abdomen, my obliques plus two on this side. My arms aren't pulling my leg by the way. It's my legs pulling in. Okay, take it to the other side and exhale and exhale hands just there. But once again, remind yourself if you need some support, use your hands behind your head.

I want you to think to sink the belly. Think sink before you pull your knees in. Really get internal before you move from the x turtle last to last one. Getting those a weeks connected. Okay, now everyone placed your feet down. Let your head come back over the edge. Let your elbows open and get a pretty good expansive chest there. We're going up for chest lift and lifting the legs. Now we're going for some regular rotation on the torso.

Hands behind head legs will come in. Twist toward the one side. Pull the knees in. Alternate. Exhale, alternate. So again, think pull in before you pull the knees. Pull the stomach in before you pull your knees for more. One, two, three and last one and four. Okay? Come all the way up. Creatively. Find your life just sitting. Scoot yourself back. Take the straps off of your feet.

I also want us to drop the spring tension down. I'm going to have us just keep a red. So take your blue one down. Let's work with two long legs. Now what do I want you to do with your straps is again, I like to do this the a lot. You probably have seen it. Put your fingers through those rings, Those d rings, and then let your wrist just be really long. Sit very tall.

Open up the chest, take a deep breath in. And here we go for some roll back with straight leg. So all the way back onto that sacrum, still looking right down the line at the ropes. Take a breath and start curling forward. Pull the stomach back away from the legs, crown of the head toward those ropes and roll up to sitting tall about four of these.

Okay. And it's a long flection. Take some of the compression out of your body, but lengthening, inhale and exhale. Who Roll forward? Crowd ahead toward the ropes. Stomach away from legs. Roll up tall last too, and exhale.

So I've got my heels just right at the edge of that head rest to start. They do come back a little bit. It's okay. Full round forward. Inhale sitting tall. And last one here. [inaudible] I didn't get your sacred flat and right into that lower lumbar and almost to the thoracic ribs there. Breathe and come forward all the way and tall. Okay.

Put both straps in your right hand. Okay, take that. So I just put it in my right hand. Left hand is just going to hold on top of the hands there. So basically more of the pole is going to be happening from that, that left pulley, even though those hands are in there and the straps are in the right. Okay. So this will be some old bleaks.

I want you to fall in with the line of that rope right into your right abdominal area. So just roll back. I am going on the right side of my spine a little bit. Moro, bleak. Work off feels so good and up. We'll do four. Exhale. Still working. Some flection. An exhale. Wow.

And one more. This side? Yes. Okay. Switch the ropes to your left hand. So you're going to get more attention from that right pulley. This hand just rests on top. Here we go. Exhale. [inaudible] hoping this feels relatively the same in effort on your abdominal sides, your oblique sides.

Some of us need more contraction on that left side or right side, so feel free to do more reps if you know you need more. Just doing four of each right now, all and rolling all the way up our fourth one there. Now take the right hand again, right strap, right hand, left, left. We're going to go around the world without the stroke. The straps crossed, so go down your right side of your hip toward the right, you know, lower back side. You're going to center yourself for a moment. Go around your left, come up the left side. We're center.

We're going to go around again, so you're pulling now from the same side through the center. They should be even tension. Now there's more attention on the left and come up to the right again around and up. Sometimes we see this on the Cadillac or the wall units with the roll back bar. Of course we can do it here. Now let's reverse it left side.

Inhale, exhale down the left. Inhale Center. Exhale up the right last two on the side. Keep your head up, your gaze levelized in front of you and all the way to center. Okay? Bend your knees everybody and just let your feet come to the head rest. Lean your shins out a little bit so they might kind of just rest slightly on those shoulder blocks. Cross those straps again and same thing.

Put your fingers inside those little metal rings and lift yourself in a really tall kind of regal setting position. And let's start to gently bend the elbows and row those straps. Okay. I don't want you to pull so far that your elbows go behind your back or pinch your shoulder blades. This is, you're almost thinking about kind of pulling the ropes apart. Thinking about pulling my right rope, right, my left robe left.

I don't want you to pinch your shoulder blades together. Let's take your four more Juan. You will feel your upper back, of course, the back of your shoulders as well, but don't grip those scapula. Okay, last one. And now straight your legs round your back, your flexed forward over your thighs, and want you to roll back onto your sacrum. Those straps are crossed. Levelize your gaze as you come forward. We're going around the spine to begin with, but at the very top, lift your spine to tall. Now do a little bit of upper back extension.

Pull on those straps. Release the straps are going to flow right into flection, which takes the carriage away from the stopper coming forward. Your flection first. You come up through sitting, pull on those straps, lift your chest bone, arch your upper back slightly and to more of this pattern and roll back. Exhale. Inhale down. Exhale forward. We're gonna breathe in and one more round. Yeah, in heels sitting tall as your lifting. Pull on the ropes.

Lift and arch your upper back slightly and re release. Okay, and cross the straps. Bend your knees again, feed on the headrest to start again, and then hold your loops in the palms of your hands. It looks a little like some biceps, which it's going to be. Take an exhale, roll back to your sacrum and your lumbar spine. Get enough mat behind you that you feel safe cause I want you to stay there for a little bit. Upper arm is parallel to the floor and let's go with eight bicep curls and one every time you pull those biceps or the curl, seek your tummy a little bit more.

Three and four, four, three, two and one, and then roll all the way up to sitting. Release your straps for just a second and just shake your arms. Let's add a little bit to that. Breathe in again, tall roll back the same way your poems, your face up. You're at your sacrum. Bend your elbows to about a half of the bicep curl. Bring your leg to tabletop balance because you have to bring that other leg up and let's try eight more bicep curls. One, mindful of your balance.

My legs aren't quite tabletop there. My thighs are slightly forward of that. I'm in a sweet spot on my balance point. I feel steady. Five, six, seven. Okay. Nah, don't give up yet. We're going to go into a little teaser. Palms can stay wherever they need to stay. Extend your legs, open the ropes a little bit. Get up onto your teaser position. Do this whole, you've got it, you guys, you've got it. Now turn your legs out. Lets do some heel beats. Inhale three, four. Exhale, three, four.

Okay. Three, four again, in and out. Hold. Break if you need to. I'm not going to, I'm going to do some challenge mall. One, two, three, four, five and inhale three, four. I do have my palms face up, arms externally rotated. That's plenty for now. For a moment. Parallel. C'Mon out of it. Give your arms a little rest. Scoot your hips back, stretch. Let's take a little bit bigger gesture.

So as your palms are facing in, wrap your fist lightly start to pull the ropes. You're going to pull out to a tee and back to the front. Let's take that four times. So it's the side of the shoulders now into the upper back feeling how that wraps side of the shoulder to the back of the shoulder. Yeah, to your upper back. Okay.

We're going to combine that with trunk rotation. Lean back a little bit. Pull on the straps and center. Other side, little trunk or tag. Taishan little hinge, back pool. Exhale. Okay. Other side? Yeah.

Yeah. Or more. Keep those abdominals toned in and exhale. Last one, this direction. And last one the other direction. Hello? Shoulders. All right, now we're going back in for that little bicep curl place. Some of you know the Cathy grant work and she did bicycle setups.

Well, we're gonna Channel Kathy and do a little head. Get a little assistance from the reformer. I don't think she might approve. I don't know. We'll have to ask blossom and Kara. Okay, so we're going to bicycle our legs at the same time. We come up and we're lifting our ropes up. Okay. Now, bicycle your legs the other way. You're going to go back down onto your sacrum and your low back. All right, let's go eight forward and one. Two. You're writing up the hill for five, six, seven and eight down the hill. Two, three, four, five, six, seven and again, and forward. Two, three and four. Five, six, seven and eight. One more.

Back and forth. Two three, four, six, seven and up to finish one, two. We'll finish this round and five, six, seven and eight an arrest. Huh? Good. Just set your straps down, shake your hands out. And we are going to move on to change the spring to a blue, not the red. Come up onto your knees. Going into some of our kneeling arm. Pretty traditional stuff. Okay. Take your strap in the hand that's facing me. Little different choreography with it today.

Turn your palm face out. As you're holding the strap. I'm going to aim my thumb down. And as you're there, just for a moment of square though, shoulders feel strong in your shoulder girdle, your lats, your abdominals, even your hamstrings. Okay. Now from here, as you pull your rotate in and up with your thumb up as you return arm spirals. So it's like the elbow is up and thumb is down. It's an exhale. And in let's go for eight. This is a blue spring. If you're on a, another apparatus, I would say that's not valance body, um, go half a spring. So if your peak is probably that yellow spring, if you're on a bungee cord, you might be able to do two of the cords.

Seven hello shoulders again, and eight. Okay. Just a nice quick swift transition. Put that strap in the opposite hand once your other hand to hold out in a nice flat line. Okay. You still give it some energy. This arm is going to reach for the stars or the sky. I can't go very high without my whole shoulder girdle getting affected and lifting, so I don't want that shoulder girdle to hike and I just want to elevate and lower.

And so there's a little bit of abdominal work here too so that we don't fall short or thrust or push the ribs forward and lower last two and down and last one and down. Okay, we need to switch hands once again. Make a fist with the hand you just worked. Put It on the top of that head rest. Move across away from them if you need to. What I mean there, don't get so close to that that you feel like you're going to bend into the rope side. Okay. Want you to just find that position first? Press your hips forward, make a soft fist with the hand holding a rope. Raise that arm up over your head and just turn profile for a moment.

Should feel really luscious. Stretch on that waistline into the ribs, into your aunt underarm. You could stay here or you could start to pull on this drop and lift your pinky finger side of your fist to the ceiling and then take it slowly overhead. Make sure your shoulder blade gets down off the neck prior to straightening your elbow. Right here we go. Eight of these shoulder blade slides. First there's three, and for five, six [inaudible] seven I'm looking right at that little pulley wheel and eight and rest. Okay. Face the other way, so I'm facing away from Ya. Okay?

Remember you're right, your knee is against the shoulder block. As you're holding the rope, you're making a fist. Your thumb is face down, your elbow tip is a little bit lifted here. Shoulders, however, are not lifted. They've got those low. Okay. So now as you pull on the strap, rotate your arms so that your ending position is thumb up. As you return, it's thumbed down. Here we go. Exhale. And one. Actually that's two. Three.

We kind of marked that first one. Five. Yeah, six I think I'm counting. Okay. Seven and eight. All right, switch hands. That arm is going to go up. Down. This arm is right out to the side as if you're pressing down on a big old ball or big magic circle. And remember you don't have to raise this arm to high alignment of the ribs. Really matters here. Okay, so we want those rib cages to be not pushing forward, which would shorten your back. Keep your back long. Six and seven.

We've got one more and then that's that last one. Arm overhead, which is back in the first hand. Make a fist, move away. If you need to look profile, get that arm over your head. Enjoy the stretch for a moment. Press your pelvis forward, keep that tummy wall back. And here we go. Shoulder blade out of the way. And then one, so you're thinking pinky finger, side of the hand up to the sky, and three. Okay.

War. You can push down with this other fist. It may help initiate the pull of the rope and six, seven and eight. All right, everyone come on down. Okay. Why don't you to come off the reformer for a second. A had reskinned come up now. Foot Bar's going to come up.

I want us to put it in the middle. Uh, or the high bar for most of your reformers on this one. It's that middle bar setting. Okay. And then red. Only a red or w one spring. We're standing up. We're going to do a little kind of baby elephant. I learned it as baby elephant. So your feet are at the front edge of the carriage.

The balls of the feet are right up near the front. Try to lift your toe pads so that most of the weight is really right across the heads of the metatarsal. [inaudible] your hands pushed the bar. You cat your spine. Take a moment. Get this stuff up. Get those shoulders out of the ears. Tighten up your seat and you push the spring back, pull it and oh, exhale in his, I think of like the legs very tight together.

Like you should see no daylight between your legs, even if you're thin. Okay, squeeze that line together. Oh, let's take five more. It doesn't have to be a big range. Scooped the stomach up away from those thighs. Oh, okay.

Push the arms down. Push the heels back and seven and eight. Boy, I can't count some days. I think you guys knew it was like eight to 10 right? Okay, so come up onto tip toe for just a moment. Spend at the toe joints. I want you to bend your knees. Come down into a little squat, not that low. Keep using your hands on the bar and just pause right there for a moment.

This is loading the thighs. They're part of the workout, but I want you to start feeling some work in your hips. Okay? You're going to push up about an inch and down an inch or two and and press am in a slightly rounded back position here. If you don't feel like you need to use the bar, try it in a little Jeanie position and down and up and down. Yeah, no, I'm trying to get to 10. So here's nine and 10. Okay. And then stand right back up and just pause for a moment.

Alright, nice. Pause. Good time to lower yourself down and change some tension. We need a little bit more for the next couple of exercises. That was one, a medium spring red. I'm gonna tag on my blue one now. So if you're on a different reformer again, you're gonna want just a little more support. So half a more spring would be good. So we're coming back up again and similar, push the hands down, lift your toes, but we're going to step one foot back against a shoulder rest. Okay. And you're then up on the heel is halfway up, but try to distribute your weight evenly for a moment over both legs and then crouched down. So again, we're going to get some thigh work going on here.

Want us to think of pulling a stomach up off the front thigh and then just see if he can balance for a second and balance. So let's do some pulses. Again, like 10 of them. One I'm not thinking about like flexing to deep into my joints. Try to squeeze your muscles against your bones, if that makes any sense to you. And five and six and seven and try to round a little more and nine and 10.

Okay. Now Take Your Torso Upright, arms out to the sides on the straight and both knees. Take a moment, see if you can get square your pelvis. Yes, we're up on tippy toes. Good catch you guys caught that. Come down into that kind of a squat. You don't have to go too low. If your knees are feeling icky, go a little lower. If you can challenge this as really good for your thighs.

We're only doing five on this side. We go give your buns a little squeeze at the top and then down and up. Pause and squeeze your buttons a little bit and lower. Two more lift. Squeeze those legs together. Squeeze your buns. Look forward and down.

Last one up, lower down and lift. Remember at the top of the lift, let's contract the glutes. Try to squeeze the legs together. Okay, we're about to make a transition, so come on down. Reach your arms in front of you. Contract yourself to a c curve spine. Place your hands on the bar. Now if you need to adjust your back foot a little bit, lower your heel, that's fine. We're about to do arabesque with the front leg. Okay, so I want you to pick up that front foot. Carry your leg behind you.

Let's open the hip today. The leg that you're standing on. I don't want you to hyper extend that knee, so if you need to keep it a little bit bent, that's fine because let's emphasize the top leg. Anyway, open that hip, open that hip chest is reaching for that backside. The standing thigh. Get your leg higher in the air. Turn the about. Point the foot. Let's go for 10 extra. A little pulses go up and two, three and four. Five. Aim to go higher with each one and seven and eight and nine and 10.

Okay. Parallel leg sweep through. Bring your knee toward the foot bar. Go right back up again. We'll do five just flowing through it. Shifting your weight, trying to keep the carriage stable. I'm moving a little bit. I'm not going to get in trouble when a country wracked my glutes, their class to lift the leg a little higher. Okay, we've got one more thing. Goodness.

And then stand two feet together. Okay. I need to come down just for a second and wipe my brow and wipe my hand for the second side. I don't want to slip off the mat. So backflip came forward. This guy scoots back and we're coming into that little crouch. Okay? Bring your torso up, take your arms out to the side. Gays. Three forward. We went up and down five times at the top of this extension.

Pause and just collect your legs together. Squeeze your glutes and inhale. Descend. Press evenly through both legs. Okay. And lower. Three more. Okay.

Hope you're still up on your tippy toes. It's okay if you came down. Of course it is. Last one. Squeeze the glutes a little bit extra at the top there. Okay, coming now for that transition, move your arms forward. Contract into c curve. Police your hands before we move the front foot, adjust your back foot just lower down a little bit. Okay. Ready to sweep the back leg. Take you through.

You don't have to stay parallel pelvis today. Open it up. Notice your hip has more room to gesture. Try to keep even weight on the arms. However, let's go for ten nine eight seven chest is reaching for the standing thigh. Seven eight should feel pretty good here and 10 now parallel come through knee towards the foot bar right back out for five of these extent and two and N. I could've stand, probably stood to put a little extra weight on my reformer to stabilize me, but that's okay. Two more. Press last one. Press whoo. And come all the way down to the mat and floor.

Okay, good. We're almost there guys. I want you to take off your blue spring now or leave one medium spring. I'm going to stay on this side of the reformer. No, I want, I'll come around that way for the first go. So it's like Eve's lunge in that way. We set up, but this what's going to be back for the start of that, this fits can be right against the shoulder pad and I want you to stand in that kind of crouch position. Okay? Hand on your hip and push that carriage until you're fully straight and then bring it back in.

Let's do just a little curl and push and push. Okay. Arm to the side. [inaudible] working those glutes, the hamstrings, stretching the quad and nine and 10. No, a little change of locale. Both legs are going to turn out. This foot gets to go up top. It's not that pretty of a new position, but it's really good for you. No where. Okay and push.

I have a little extra weight driving through my big toe joint on that pushing leg for me. That feels really nice. And My glute navels right above railing here. Take this arm out for five more presses. One. Try to get fully stretched with that leg. [inaudible] and four and five. Okay.

Ready for the other side? 10 parallel, 10 turned out. And then we have a little jumping and a little twisting. Not Jumping, jump board, but something mass. Okay. Ready? So push one, a little tail curl here. Five with your hand on your hip. Five arm to the side. Five. Four. Make sure that tummies up three too. [inaudible] yes. Turning things out. Standing leg turns out. Top light goes up.

You [inaudible] you squat into it. You're right above the railing. One, two, getting some nice one arm support. Work here. Other onto the window or the side? Five, four, three, two, one. Ah, so good. Okay, I'm going to face you now. Okay. Sit on your reform and don't get cozy. Just leaned back and want you to start this rocking movement. That's going to be a little jump or a little hop off the booty off. Uh, you know the bed. Here we go. I'm going to just do it. Jump Land, jump and land. Let's go for 10.

Whatever your arms feeling doing is fine. When to the feel the explosive work from your glutes, quads to feet, but halfway there, five more. See if you can push a little higher and let us do up and last one. Oh Gosh, we made it. Okay. Take your feet and cross a leg over and he said the ladies twist. Sorry guys, move things if you need to and his you a spinal rotation kind of calming things down.

[inaudible] I'm going to do a seated figure four next. So all we do come with facing each other. Organize the standing foot in parallel. This ankle above the knee. Enjoy. Lean forward. Of course, if you want a little extra feeling in your hip, you could lower all the way. Start to steady the breathing or slow it down a little.

Okay, change it to the other side of that foot comes down, we twist first, crossing those knees, just a little spinal and then a nice easy figure. Four stretch. Organize your standing leg, parallel ankle over knee, feeling your hip release or a little more release if you come forward and even more if you come all the way down. Thanks for working out with me guys. Hope you had a lot of fun. I'll see you next time. Thank you. Bye Bye.