Creative Combinations

Hi, my name is Viktor Uygan from Konnect Pilates in Mission Viejo, Orange County in California. Today I'm here to teach you a reformer workout and the focus of the workout is gonna be minimum changes on the reformer and focus on flow and the movement. Here today I have Kelly to join me and we're gonna start with standing warmup exercises. I have one blue springs right now and we're gonna place your foot in the edge of the carriage and closest as you can to the reformer. So this is my left foot and you're gonna place your right foot, the toes on top of the shoulder rest.

Kelly's gonna show you option here. She's gonna do the full exercise reaching to the foot bar with her hands and I'm gonna do it with my hands on my waist. So from here, we are doing a hip flexion. The spine is nice and neutral. We're gonna inhale from your nose and we're gonna start the exercise by exhaling.

And as you see, my right foot from flexion to it's gonna go to point. So plantar flexion now and dorsiflexion when it comes in. We're gonna repeat this five more times. And two, inhale in control. And three, make sure you're not going up and down.

You maintain your weight. This is five, one more time six and hold it there. Hold plantar flexion, straighten this as far as you can. Then you're gonna flex just from the ankle and point. Dorsiflexion and plantar.

And let's go three. Maintain your height again. Four. Two more. And one more.

And push up, bend your knees come back in before the carriage touches, hold. From here, you're gonna squeeze the right knee behind the left one so the right leg does internal rotation. And now exhale open to external rotation. Do not move your hips. In and out.

Two. Trying to minimize the movement on the carriage is not easy. Three and squeeze in. And four. Feel your glutes, five.

And one more time. Six, open come back in the center and slowly roll up to your standing leg. Feel nice and tall. Relax your arms down and breathe. Now we're gonna turn around.

We're gonna walk towards the end of the reformer. You're gonna place your foot probably one foot away from the end of the reformer. You're gonna reach back with your left foot this time and I'm gonna hook my foot on the shoulder rest. Once again, bend your right knee. Feel nice and tall.

I'm gonna do with no hands, Kelly's gonna do with hands. We're gonna exhale, hip flexion. Left knee in and out. And two. Do not move your head.

Three. Three more, four. And five. Last one, six. Hold from here just a little bit.

Squeeze knee in and out and in and out. Feel your abductors and ab abductors. Four. And five. And six.

Beautiful, come back center and extend your leg. Stand up and relax. Fantastic. Now we're gonna walk towards the middle and we are facing towards the carriage. And you're gonna place your right foot on the shoulder rest sideways and you're gonna angle that leg diagonally so it's internal rotation.

From here, you're gonna exhale. Push straight out to a split and come back in, inhale. You can hold your, keep your hands on yours waist or you can open every time you do a split and come back in. Make sure after your splits, keep your hips nice and square and when you come in, the right leg fits underneath the right hip. And four.

And five. And six. Come back in. And relax. Beautiful.

So we're gonna repeat these three exercises on the other side. This time, right foot aligned with the beginning of the carriage. Left foot on the shoulder rest. Bend your knees, make sure you're in the neutral spine. Don't look down too much.

Maintain the cervical spine aligned. And from here exhale, push straight out and come back flex. And push. And three. Beautiful.

And four. And five. Stomach in, six and hold it there. Let's go flex and point. Flex, point.

Only thing moves the carriage is your ankle. Yes, and four. Five. One more. Six.

Bring the carriage in and the left knee is gonna squeeze in behind the right and it's gonna open as far as it can without opening the left hip. And in and out. Long neck, three out. Four and out. Five and out.

And six and out. Come back to center. Feel nice and tall and control stand. Feel nice and tall. And now you can relax.

We're gonna walk towards the end of the reformer. Place your left foot about one foot away from the end of the reformer. Hook your right foot on the shoulder rest. Once again bend your knees, exhale and bring the right knee in hip flexion. And repeat, two.

And three. And four. And five. Six, last one hold. Little bit squeeze in and out and in and out.

Very small movement but effective. Four. And five. Last one, six. And extend and slowly stand up once again.

And we're gonna walk in the middle of the reformer and you're gonna get really close as you can with your standing leg, and the left foot is gonna be on the shoulder rest. Once again, the alignment is really important in here. You're gonna push straight out. You can extend your arms when you come in, don't let the knee come up. You want to make sure it's internally rotated and it's fitting underneath your hips.

And push straight out and come back in. And three and in. And four. Beautiful. Five.

And last one, and six. And come back in and relax. Now we have warmed up our bottom part of our body. I'm gonna do some arm workout to warm up the shoulders and also we're gonna do some spine exercises. We're keeping one blue once again.

We're gonna kneel on the reformer and we're gonna take the straps in your hands. Now I would like you to be fairly away from the shoulder rest. Your foot should be hanging from off of the carriage but don't hook your foot, don't use it, just relax. From here, palms facing towards you. You're gonna inhale, bring your hands right next to you.

The exercise is gonna start and finish from here. Now from here, inhale push the arms back. Exhale come back in. Gently two. Come back in, open up your sternum.

Close your ribs. Abs engaged, four. Two more. Five. One more.

Six. Come back in, turn your palms facing towards each other. Repeat the same thing. And one, come back in. Inhale, two and in.

Each time you push back, also reach down towards the floor. And four. And five. And six. I hope you feel your triceps already.

If you don't, you will feel on the third rep. You're gonna turn your palms away from you and repeat the same thing. And one. Inhale two. Inhale three.

And four. And five. One more, six hold it there. Now squeeze your small fingers towards each other behind you. Six reps.

Two and three. Don't move the carriage. And five and six. And slowly come back in. Keep holding the straps and place it on the shoulder rest.

Move back a little more with your knees so you're all four position in here. We are on all fours and we're gonna do some flexion and extension to warm up the spine. We're gonna exhale. Push the shoulder rest away from you and round your spine. And from here, inhale.

Pull the shoulder rest almost towards your knees and extend your spine, reaching forward with your sternum and reaching back with your tailbone. Exhale, round your spine. Ahhh. And inhale, extend. And one more set, exhale.

Ahhh. And inhale, extend. Come back to neutral. You can stay up here or you can even walk forward and sit on your heels to do the next exercise. And I'm gonna ask you to stay there.

I'm gonna ask Kelly to stay there and I'm gonna show you the sitting version. So from here, we're gonna lock your right elbows right next to you. If you're sitting, you're gonna have to lean forward 45 degree angle. We're gonna do single arm triceps. Inhale from your nose.

Exhale, extend your arms and open up your fingers. And then come back and close. And two. Yes, relax your shoulders. Three.

and four and five. And hold the last one six seconds, five seconds four three two one and slowly bring it in. And we'll do other side. Left elbow locked right next to you. Feel nice and tall, neutral spine and let's go, one.

And bend, exhale two. Really reach out. And three. Keep your shoulders even. Four.

Two more, we're almost done. Five and six, hold one, two three four five six and slowly come back in and relax. And that was the end of the upper body warmup. Now we have done with our warmup exercises I'd like to go back to more traditional exercise and do hundreds. For that, we're gonna change the springs to one blue to one red.

And as many of you, most of you might know it's done usually heavier, one blue and one red, but I'm choosing to do with a bit lighter. And one of the reasons is I'm gonna ask you to start the exercise a little bit forward and away from the shoulder rest. That's gonna already make the one red spring feel a little bit heavier. Reach up towards the ceiling with your arms. You are still supporting yourself with your legs.

Now slowly bring one leg up to tabletop and the second one. Inhale from your nose to prepare. Exhale, press your arms, tuck your chin and lift your upper body up and lower your leg down. And let's start. Inhale two, three, four, five.

Exhale, two, three, four, five. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Option to go up. Last one. Inhale, bend your knees to your chest and exhale, roll down. Beautiful. Place your feet on the foot rest and we're gonna take the straps and we're gonna put both of them on the right foot.

So extend your leg straight out, bend your right knee to your chest. First place the right strap then place the left strap. Now you have two straps on one leg. From here, you're gonna bend your left knee to your chest while you're pressing the right leg down. And you're gonna feed the left knee and the foot between the two straps, and reach up towards the ceiling.

Turn out both legs together. Hold turn out position. And the bottom leg, the right leg is gonna go up and meet with the left. And exhale, press down. Relax shoulders.

Inhale up and exhale down. And three. And four. And five. And six and come back in.

Beautiful. From here, both legs parallel. Left foot up, right leg down. So from here, we're gonna start feeding in again. So you're gonna bend the left and you're gonna reach out and do the same thing and come back in.

From here, flex your foot and bring it on top of the right. And down. So we're gonna start developpe up. Down, up and out. And four down, up and down.

Five, flex point and reach. Last one, six. Flex point, stay here. Bring the right leg up and meet with the left. From here, we're gonna do small circles.

It's gonna cross towards the top foot. So you're gonna go left very small down to the right and up. The goal on the small ones, trying to maintain both hips down on the carriage. Now we've done the third one. Now we're gonna do the large ones and you're gonna let the hip come up and transfer all the way to the left.

Now to the right and center. Transfer to the left hip. Center, right hip and center. And last one. Center and right, center.

Beautiful. Now we're gonna reverse it. So it goes towards the right center, left center. Second one. Yes.

And third one. And ready to make it bigger and all the way to the right center, left come back in. Yes. By making a larger circle we're integrating the thoracical rotation. Keep both shoulders down.

And last one. And come back center. Fantastic. Now we're gonna take the left foot out and we're gonna place it on the foot rest. Take both straps out of your right foot.

Now first put the left strap on the left foot and then the second right strap on the left foot. Same idea, we're gonna push straight out with the right and down. You're gonna feed, sort of left one down and you're gonna feed the right leg all the way up to the ceiling. And from here, turn out both legs and inhale bringing the left leg up. Exhale, press down.

And two. And three. Relax your shoulders, maintain your neutral spine. And five. And six.

Good. Now both legs parallel. From here, we're gonna bend your right knee and lift the left foot up and we're gonna come back, developpe. Now flex foot down and up, and feed. And let's do second one.

Flex point and under. Very nice. Three. Exhale up. Inhale exhale, and a long inhale.

And five. And last one, six and flex down and up, hold it there. Bring the left leg and meet with the right. Both legs turn out and we're gonna go towards the right, small circles. And one.

And two. And three. Now bigger, keep the shoulders down. And all the way to the right. All the weight on the right hip.

Center, now left hip and center again. To the right, center and left, center. Last one. Beautiful. Come back center and reverse, small ones.

And one. And two. And three. And reach to the left and down. Reach to the right and center.

And two. And three. And come back center. And relax. Beautiful.

Bring your right foot out, place it on the foot bar and let's take the straps out. Put back on the pegs. And we're gonna stand up slowly. We're gonna go to our knees, facing towards the foot bar. From here, you're gonna come forward on the edge of the carriage and I will like you to step forward with your right foot.

And in here, I want you to gently touch on the foot bar. So you're not putting pressure with your shins but you're just making sure that your shins stay steady in there. It's just kind of like a gauge for you to know. So from here, feel nice and tall. And the regular exercise, we're gonna push straight back to do a kneeling lunge and come back in.

And when we're doing this, we're gonna add the arm. The same arm that the leg is behind goes up to do extension a little bit and come back in. And inhale and exhale. Make sure there's energy on your toes, you're pushing with your back heel the carriage and come back in control. Two more.

Five. And come back and six. And come back and change legs. Beautiful. We're gonna do other side.

Right foot on the carriage, left foot in front and make sure the shins is gently touching, no pressure on it. And let's go. Inhale. Exhale, come back in. And inhale, control the carriage so it won't bang when it comes in.

And three. And come back in. Each time you can go a little bit more extension but make sure you're protecting the lower back. And last one. And inhale, feel nice and tall.

And come back in and relax. Beautiful. Next, we're gonna do long stretch variation. We're gonna place your hands on the bar. You could do two different ways.

Kelly's gonna show you modified version on her knees and I'm gonna show you knees off. From here, we go into plank position. And we're gonna inhale, push straight back as far as you can maintaining your lumbar pelvic stability. And we're gonna add one push up. And down and up.

And second one. And down and up. And third one. Down up. Three more.

Down, keep the elbows close to your body. Feel the triceps working. Last one. Keep smiling. And push and relax.

Beautiful. From here, we're gonna go to elephant. Once again, it's a little bit different. You're gonna keep your feet actually a little bit closer to the front of the carriage instead of right in front of the shoulder rest. From here, control and push the carriage away from you.

Once you push it a little bit you're gonna round your spine. Emphasize the spine flexion. Now once you find the correct position for you, freeze the upper body position and just the inhale, leg pushes the cart and exhale, use your abs and bring the carriage in. Inhale out. And three.

Beautiful. Four. Two more. Five. And six.

Push out back again and hold there. Now without moving the carriage, transfer your weight back to your heels and extend your spine to neutral position. Feel nice and tall. And once we get here, we will do the same exercise. Inhale, push back a little bit.

Exhale, come back in. Inhale. And three. Four. Two more.

And five, one more. And come back in. And relax. Beautiful. Let's stand up.

And we're gonna change the springs back to blue from red. And I'm gonna take you to the exercises that we did for a warmup in the beginning of the exercise. I'm gonna add different elements to make it a little bit more challenging and tie the exercises together in the workout. We're gonna start. Let's stay on the right side of the reformer.

We're gonna go towards the end. We're gonna place your foot close to the carriage. Reach back with the right. Beautiful. So from here, we're gonna take the left arm and feed back and create a spine twist.

Right. Inhale from your nose, bend your left knee. Exhale, pull in and twist. And inhale, open up. And exhale, two.

And open up. Three and open. Exhale. And open. Two more.

Last one. Cross and hold. Remember the knee squeezes and squeeze in and out. And two, and each squeeze maybe reach with your hands more. Two.

Go for it. And five. Last one, six. And relax. Beautiful.

As you see, it's the same exercise but there's a little bit spicing to it. So we're gonna come back now. We're gonna do the middle split version of it. So from here, left foot actually is on the carriage. Knees angled once again.

You're gonna reach out with your hands and from here you're gonna twist towards your knee. Beautiful. So from here your gonna exhale, push straight out and open up. And inhale, bend the knee and twist towards the knee. And open.

And in. And exhale. And in. Gorgeous. Four.

And in. Five. And in. And six. And in.

Now from here, push straight out once again. Now we're gonna turn towards the right side slowly. Option, you can bend the back knee and come in. Kelly's gonna show you. Or you can do with the straight and then come back out.

Again, inhale. And exhale. Third one. Inhale, twist. Hold it there.

Now you're gonna push back straight leg and do extension and come back in. Two more. Inhale. And come back in. Last one.

Breathe. And come back in. And push straight out. And relax. Fantastic.

Last exercise on this set was the right foot right on the edge of the carriage. Left toe is on the shoulder rest. Feel nice and balanced. But now, we're gonna do with the turn out position. So let's turn out.

Hips square, inhale from your nose and let's go. Exhale, push point, bring it in, flex. And two. And flex in. Like jumping, push and come back in.

Control jump, come back in. Two more. Last one, hold it there. Hold and flex and point. Dorsiflexion, plantar flexion, control.

And four. And five. Six. And bend your knee in. Yes, you're right, we're gonna do the squeeze in and out again.

And let's go behind the right knee and open up, one. And two. Don't move the carriage, try and keep it stable. And four. Don't do what I do, trying to do what I say.

Last one, six. Squeeze in all the way now. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Keep that squeeze and slowly sit and stretch the right glutes. Find your comfort, lean forward a little bit.

Transfer your weight back to your hips. You can pull your right ankle on top of your left knee and go forward to stretch. Kelly will show you different versions also. You could do knees on top of each other or you could do as I said, heel on top of the knee and just stretch and breathe. Beautiful.

This is the dessert of that series. So now we're gonna do the other side. Let's walk to our other side, to the end of the reformer. Right foot away from the reformer, about a foot. Left foot hooks in, right arm crosses and there's a little bit thoracic rotation.

Hold it there, exhale bring the left knee in and inhale open, exhale close. And three. Four. Five. Last one, six and hold.

From here, squeeze open, squeeze open. Three. Four. Five. Six.

And open up. And relax. Let's walk towards the center. Place your right foot on the shoulder rest. Make sure the leg is aligned and we're gonna exhale.

Before we push actually, we're gonna rotate towards the right knee and we're gonna exhale push and unwind and inhale, come back in. Right knee comes in and you rotate to the knee. And push. And inhale, two. Exhale, three.

And inhale. And four. Inhale. Five. Inhale.

And six. And inhale. Fantastic. Push straight out once again. This time we're gonna turn towards the left.

Option, you can bend the back knee. Feel nice and tall, and exhale, push out. Inhale, rotate, rotate, rotate, rotate from the hips and spine and come back in. Last one. Inhale up, hold it here.

Feel the extension of the spine and lean back and come back in control. Two more times. Inhale. And come back in. Last one.

And come back in. And bend and relax. Now the third one. Left foot on the edge of the carriage. Left foot is really close to the reformer.

You're gonna place your right foot on the shoulder rest. Bend both knees, feel nice and secure. Turn out the right leg and from here, exhale push straight out and come back in. When you push, legs pointed. When you come in, flex.

Make sure the hips even. Very good. And five. One more, six hold it here. Don't move anything, just the ankle.

Bend and push. And two. And three. Make sure the weight between the first toe and the second toe are in here. And alignment is important.

Last one, six. Come back in. From turnout, we're gonna squeeze in behind the left knee and open it up. Squeeze in and out. Three.

Four. And five. One more, six. Open, now let's close it. After you cross, slowly sit down.

Make sure it's comfortable for you. Feel the stretch, lean forward. This is gonna look very different in everybody. So find your stretch spot and trying to stretch your leg. It could be in here, it could be here.

I'm showing you before version and Kelly's showing you after version. Now here we go, try it. Beautiful. Just relax. And slowly come up.

Fantastic. Now we're gonna stand up. And we're gonna do a couple arms, and spine and hip exercises that combines the movement together. I'm gonna walk back to show you. So we're gonna work the right arm first Kelly.

So we're gonna push with the right. I believe you're gonna be on this side of the reformer. We're gonna bend both knees. And pretty much, we want to make sure the shoulder rest is in the center of your body. From here, right leg goes to the shoulder rest and left one goes on top.

You want to make sure this exercise is done with the one blue, once again. Once you get your position you're not gonna move anything, just the arms. Especially the right arm is gonna push and come back in. And push and come back in. I'm gonna also show you with rotated version.

Kelly's still doing the beginning version. And this one, the fourth one as you see, I'm adding a rotation from my spine. And six and come back in. Same exercise we're gonna do it. We're gonna transfer the weight to the left leg by straightening the right and bending the left.

Kelly's gonna show you just the arm and transfer and I'm gonna show you with the rotation. And one. And come back in. And two. And in.

Exhale, three. And five. And six. And come back in, and relax. Beautiful.

If you do have an option to do this with the yellow springs, you can also choose to do that or you can do it with the blue. We're gonna repeat the same exercise on the other side. Bend both knees, neutral spine. Left hand on the left shoulder rest, and go. One.

Exhale, two. Trying to keep the hips even and create the rotation from the spine. Five. And six. Beautiful.

Now transferring the weight to the right leg. And one. Exhale, two. And three. And four.

And five. And six. Come back in center. And slowly roll up. Fantastic.

So from here, we're gonna take the springs out actually. There's gonna be no spring. So let's stay in the same side of the reformer. We're gonna walk to the edge of the reformer, to the end of the reformer. You're gonna place your right hand on top of the shoulder rest and left hand on top of the right hand.

Pretty much the same exercise we did. And Kelly and I, we both gonna show actually with the rotation. We're gonna open it up to stretch. In here, don't sit to your arms. You want to make sure the right arm is active.

It's pushing while it's pressing down while pushing forward. And come back in. Exhale, round. And inhale. Exhale.

As you notice, I changed the breathing. I want to emphasize the rotation. Exhale, come back in flexion. Let's transfer the legs now. And inhale.

Exhale. If you need more room, if the carriage bottom's out just move towards your right a little bit with your feet. Exhale. And last one. Inhale.

Smile. And exhale come back in. And slowly roll up. Let's walk other side to do the left. Beautiful.

Once again, this time is the left hand on top of the shoulder rest and inhale from your nose without transferring. Push the cart away from you. Press down with the left arm and come back and exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

And the third one. Exhale. We're gonna transfer the weight to the right leg now. And inhale, transfer. Inhale.

Last one. Smile. Exhale, come back in. And slowly roll up. Last exercise on this series.

We're gonna place one blue spring once again. We're gonna stand in front of the reformer. Again, feet wider than your hips. And in here, I want you to feel the contact once again with your quads to the foot rest. You're not leaning and relaxing, you're not putting pressure, you're just noticing where your legs are.

During the movement, if you notice one quad is not touching and one quad is touching, that's a good sign that you're actually twisting your hips. By keeping both legs touching, it's gonna give you a sense of feeling that your hips are square. From here, let's open your arms up and over. Inhale and exhale, round your spine and roll down. Beautiful.

Place your hands on the edge of the carriage and the palms just kind of hooking to carriage. From here, inhale start to push straight forward. Transfer your weight towards your toes a little bit until your quads gently touching, and extend your spine. And exhale, come back. Keep touching and to go flexion.

And inhale forward. And exhale. Inhale forward, hold it there. Next exhale, you're gonna transfer both weights to your right leg. Keep both quads touching.

Look towards your right side. Inhale, come back center. And gently transfer to the left side. Come back center and slowly exhale, round your spine. Beautiful.

So from here, you're gonna bring both hands in the center, they're touching together. We're gonna do the same exercise. Exhale, push straight out. Good. From here, you're gonna transfer to the right once again.

Option, let go one hand, turn and open up to the right. And come back in with the hand. Exhale, come up. And let's repeat the same thing. Inhale, push forward.

And transfer, exhale and open up your left hand. And close your hand to the center. Push once again before you come up. And exhale, slowly roll up. You can gently bend your knees.

Transfer your weight back to your heels. And slowly roll up one vertebrae at a time. And feel nice and tall. And relax. This is the end of the reformer workout.

I hope you enjoyed it and I look forward to teaching you again.