Class #4033

Full-Body Tower

55 min - Class
456 likes
Loading...

Description

You will work your entire body with this creative Tower workout by Delia Buckmaster. She starts with a standing warm-up that will test your balance and stability. She uses minimal changes to the Tower to keep you moving from one exercise to the next. Have fun!
What You'll Need: Tower

About This Video

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Hi, I'm Delia Buckmaster. Welcome to please any time today. I'm here to do a tower workout with you and as you can see behind me, I have a reformer tower combo, but we will not be using the reformer moving carriage part of the equipment. We'll only be using the tower portion. I myself have a springboard at home and so I had to practice on one and I can tell you that some of these exercises are not going to translate perfectly onto a springboard just because you won't be able to push through with the bar as easy as you would with a combo here or a wall unit. But you can make those adjustments if you need to. Um, or just modify whenever those exercises don't work on your piece of equipment.

We are going to start with the push through bar and we will be spending quite a bit of time on the push through bar and for resistance sake, I have the heavier spring attached from one corner to the other on the platform side of the tower reformer. So I'm going to stand on top. And this is basically to create a little bit more resistance for the beginning part of these workout. The exercises you can adjust by just moving it somewhere else to make it a little bit lighter for you standing tree for your warm up. We're going to face the tower. Hands are going to be on the bar feeder, going to be in parallel, and you'll start with a soft elbow and just starts your breathing. Take a deep inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth and using that inhale and exhale breath to just focus on your workout.

And on your next inhale, you're going to start to drop the arms down on that push through bar, soften the knees and flex the spine so that you can push the bar forward towards this uprights. Once you have your shoulders about the height of your hips, you'll pause. Feel the stretch in your hamstrings. And I'm going to emphasize here that your knees stay bent because if you do have tight hamstrings, you're just going to take it into your lumbar spine. And we don't want to do that right now and then roll yourself all the way up to standing.

The awesome part about doing the roll down with the push through bar is that not only do you feel this positive resistance or concentrate resistance as you reach forward and down, but you really have to control the East centric so it does help you feel like you're moving actively inflection in hell as you bend your elbows. Exhale as you come into Fluxus shoulders. Meet the hips, inhale as you extend keeping those knees bent and then exhale as you roll yourself all the way back up to standing and we'll do that one more time. Bend those elbows. That'll help. Drop those shoulders down. Flex the spine, press the bar down, reach towards the uprights. Give me a nice extension and then start to roll yourself all the way back up to standing. I'm going to face you for some side bed. Your feet are going to be in parallel.

My left hand is on the bar and my free hand is down by my side. I'll start by pressing the push through bar towards the floor. Bringing my free hand behind my head. I'm going to come into a little lateral flection. From here. Soften your knees. You can increase that flection and reach that opposite arm right above your head. That'll give you a little bit more of a stretch.

Place that hand behind your head to set your head on your spine and then stand all the way back up. Releasing your arm by your side. We're going to try that again. Start to press the bar down towards the floor. Start to flex over, bringing the hand behind your head, softening your knees, reach the arm and opposition. Bring the hand back behind your head and then stand all the way back up. Let's try that one more time. Inhale to bend or to press the bar down.

Exhale as you go up and over, bringing the hand behind your head. Find that lateral flection. Inhale, increase that flection. Bring the hand back behind your head and then stand all the way back up. Release the arms. Simply turn towards your tower and rotate to the other side. Toes pointing forward. Hand by your side.

Hands should be in front of your shoulder here is to allow for better mobility of your arm. So press the bar down, start to flex as you come into your fluxion, bring that free hand behind your head, softening your knees, pause here, reach the hand overhead for a deeper stretch. Hand comes back behind the head, and then you stand all the way back up. Releasing that free arm. Inhale up and over. Exhale to flex off in the knees. Inhale to increase that fluxion. Bring the hand behind the head and then stand all the way up.

We'll try that one more time. First the bar comes down, then you laterally flex. Then you bring the hand behind your head and set your head, the neuro. Reach that arm and really stretch. Bring the hand back behind your head to set the head with the spine. Stand all the way back up and release the arm and then rotate towards your bar.

We're gonna tag on the foot work as part of your warmup, so you're going to face towards your bar to set yourself off for footwork. What you want to do is the first couple of times might be just a test to see how far away should stand, but it's like a waterski stance, so you'll stand slightly back at a diagonal and trust that this is going to hold you up. It's everything's attached so it's completely safe. Hands are on the bar, wide. Shoulders are down. Find your parallel squat. Maybe it wasn't perfect the first time you'll have to fix your legs, but what you want is your knees centered with your feet, your shoulders over your hips, your quads are fired. Now, fire those glutes to stand up.

Inhale as you bend and then exhale to stand. I'm doing these in parallel because I like to warm up the glutes and the glute max works really well with your legs and parallel and the glute max when they're strong is great for the hips. Shoulders are nice and wide. Have the spring tension. Help you draw your shoulders down your back so that you can maintain some stability. Let's try that two more times. Lower it to a squat and stand and last one, lower to a squat and add some pulses. Press for eight, seven, six. Abs are pulled in. You're in neutral. Three, two, one. Stand up.

We're going to go back down to your squad. So find your squad here and hold this time. You're going to push the bar down by bending your elbows and start to hinge the body forward. As you hinge the body forward, push the bar towards the uprights. Once you find that position here, there's definitely a front load of the leg. So the quads are gonna work really hard. Make sure you're balanced here and here's the hard part.

The Springs are going to want us fling you back, so you'll have to bend your elbows until you feel secure in the biceps can help you out. Then you find your squat. Then you stand up like that. Lactic acid run through the legs. Bend, squat. Start to push the push through. Bar down towards the uprights. Push the bar away. Stay stable in your feet. Start to bend the elbows again. The biceps are going to help you out here.

Find your squat stand up so you can see how the warmup and the beginning translated to this next set of exercises. Inhale to bend, exhale to press the bar through a and help to find the squat. Exhale to stand. Let's just do that one more time. It's one on the bend, two on the push through, three back down to your squat and then all the way back up. Okay, from here, let's go into second position. So we're going to open up the legs a little bit wider. Now you're on a platform so you are limited as to how wide you can get your legs to go, but this is a very conservative second position.

Just make sure the turnout happened from your hips down to the knee and the toes, and then just start with your plea. A little bend and extend. Again, this is a great place to check your posture. Check your shoulders, check to see for glutes are active, your abs and back, and you're obviously going to low the quad muscles as you flex through the hip, eyes forward, and then also sinking that breath. Inhale, breath, and then exhale. But you can switch your breath out to whatever you want. One more time, you're going to drop it down low. A little pulse is here. Press shoulders back for four more, three, two, one, and then stand all the way up. We're going to do what we did with the slots on this one.

So you're going to bend and play the knees from here. Push the bar down, reach the bar away from you, sending your bottom back. And I'm hopefully here as you can see in a neutral position with my spine to activate my lumbar spine. I'm going to bend those elbows to make sure that I don't fall backwards or hit myself with the bar and then I'm going to stand up and help to bend. Exhale to press away. A inhale to bend, exhale back up. And again, you PLE a, you press away, you find that neutral. Find your back muscles, you bend your elbows, find stability and stand up. It also makes it a little bit harder on your quads.

You're working to really warm up those legs, which normally warms up the rest of the body. So it's most of your larger muscle groups or in your lower extremities. And then Apple. Try that one more time. PLE, a band, reach away, stack all the way back to SA tall spine and then extend the legs. Now from here, I'm just going to transition and rotate towards you. Again, you have a very narrow platform. If you do have the floor, this gives you the floor will give you a little bit wider stance, but for now we're going to make sure that we stay on this platform. Okay, so just some lunges here. Bandon, extend, not too low, just enough to low that back leg, knee under the hip, that forward leg, knee over the center of the foot. It is okay if the foot knee travels a little bit further than your toe.

It doesn't have to be completely 90 but she's be careful that you're not putting pressure into the anterior part of your knee. Now hold that lateral or a hole, that lunch and we're going to press this bar down. Take the hand behind your head, pressing the weight of your head into your hands. Press the bar down in a way, finding that lateral flection out. What that's going to do is throw you off balance and it's also going to load the weight on that back leg. Stand nice and tall and then release the arm and release the head in health. A band hand behind the head, push the bar down and flex up and over requires a little bit of balance and then go ahead and stack and then release the arm.

And one more time. Bend the knee, press the bar down, hand behind the head, lateral flection, up and over, stacking through your spine and then back up. All right, face the bar. You don't have to even move the legs. You'll be in the correct position. I think on the other side, my legs were not wide enough for stronger base so they were too close together, so I'm just going to widen a little bit for comfort for me so I don't fall over. So back into your lunges, your right knee or my right knee, which is closest to the push through bar is under the hip. The left knee is over the center of the foot.

And basically here what I'm trying to do is get these muscles per foot prepared for that lateral flection, but also making sure that I am in the right position and feel safe on the platform. On the next one, I'm going to hold that lunch, place my hand behind the head so my head is secure with my spine and I'm straight as I come up and over. So yes, this is a much better position for my legs. I'm going to stack my spine and then extend. Bring that arm back down and how to ban hand behind the head. Exhale to flex up and over. Inhale, find a tall spine and then release. Just one more time. You'll bend your knee, hand behind the head, press up and over, stretch, stack all the way back up and then extend the legs to complete that series.

Face the bar, toes in parallel or as wide as you need them to be. And then bend the knees and stretch forward. And then from here you can take your time finding what works for you. You could either do some shoulder shrugs if that works for you as well. Make sure to keep the knees soft and then you're going to roll yourself all the way back up.

So since for already facing the tower and it's easy to transition, you're going to drop down to your knees and then have a seat. So we're going to go now to a, to your supine works. So we're gonna do some abdominal work. I'm going to bring this bar down. Now what I might do here, since I'm not working with my legs standing, I'm just gonna move it over so I don't have as much resistance so you can play around with that resistance. But we're going to start with our feet on the push through bar.

So you'll have to work your way, your feet, or your arches onto the push through bar and then line them up with your uprights. I have sticky, grippy socks. If you don't, this bar can be a little bit slippery. You might want to wrap a gripper around that. Okay, so line on my back. Well, my head down and everything in neutral. First think about finding your neutral position with your low back or your pelvis. So I'm going to start in neutral here with my arms by my side pressing down to open up my chest and I'm just going to bend and extend the legs for a couple of reasons. One, I want to flow my breath too. I want to make sure that I don't, I don't have too much resistance. It's going to fling my legs back at me. I also want to make sure that I've got a really good grip on the foot, so I start here and then from here I'm going to reach my arms overhead, palms facing the ceiling and I'm going to find a hundred prep.

So as you bend your knees, start to float your arms to the ceiling and exhale and lift to your hundred preposition and then lower yourself all the way back down. One of the things that's going to happen here when you're using the foot bar for these exercises on the feet is you'll find that you might have to readjust your feet each time to grip, and that's just part of the workout. When it comes to using the foot bar here. What you don't want to do is continuously adjust your body positioning on the reformer because then you're just going to be off centered as you continue to do the exercises. Now the awesome part about this is that my hip flexes don't have to work as hard and I can activate my hamstrings or the back of my legs and I can concentrate on the upper part of my back. Finding flection.

Really allow those shoulder blades to separate to find that flection. Now if you're ready talking to myself, if you're Freddy, we're going to do the hundred so leaving your legs extended. I'm going to lift my head and shoulders up as I bend my knees. I'm going to inhale any L two three four, five and extend on my exhale. Two three four five.

Inhale tube four five XL two three four 20 inhale to four five XL, two three four 30 inhale to four five XL two three four 40 continue to reach with your shoulders apart so you can find that flection and of course I've lost count. Inhale, two, three, four, five XL, two, three, four or five. Let's do two more sets. Four, five till two, three, four, five. Last set. Exhale. Two, three, four, five. Pause. See if you can lift a little higher. Lower yourself down. Bend your knees, reach your arms over your head. From here, we're going to transition her into your roll up so as your arms come up, head and shoulders come up. You can start to press the legs away and come to the top of your roll up and you might need to make a little adjustment to your feet, but this is the part that I was talking about earlier.

If you have a springboard, you might have to go a little bit further back because you'll push right up against the wall. Bend your knees, slowly. Roll yourself down to roll back. Now, here's what's awesome about this. As you're pressing your feet into the bar, you'll activate the back of your legs so it helps to secure you onto the mat. You know how some people like to float their feet up or maybe you're one of those that likes to lift their feet to come up on that roll up. The other awesome part about doing the roll up here as as is as you're coming down, you have to slow down cause if you don't slow down, the feet are going to come up and you're going to lose that bar so it really helps to that lumbar flection. Let's try try this twice. More.

Inhale, exhale to roll up. Inhale and exhale to roll down. Last one. We're going to stay up at the top, arms come up, roll yourself up and then you're going to pause. Spine twist from here. Arms go out to the side, palms face, forward or down, wherever feels comfortable for you. If you're struggling with your hip flexors, bend your knees, so rotate to the right.

I'm turning right towards you and find as much rotation as I can and I'm going to come back to the center. Then I'm going to find as much rotation as I can to the left and back to the center and Helter rotate. Exhale to the middle in Helter. Rotate. Exhale to the middle. Now we have a bar here so we should incorporate it. So as you rotate, extend your legs. Inhale, breath. Exhale, back to center and how breath. Exhale back to the middle, focusing on that connection from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head. Reach one more I need side. Inhale, breath.

Exhale to the middle. One more left. Inhale, breath. Exhale. Also the metal fault. Forward hold, and they're going to roll back onto a spine all the way down and hold some apps. Series work here. Knees are parallel. Head and shoulders are down to rest. And on your exhale, flex yourself up and find your thoracic flection and your neck. Fluxion your hold. We're going to start with a single leg stretch.

Draw one knee in towards your chest and extend the other and then hold on to that leg as though you were on the map doing single leg stretch. As the bar returned towards returns towards you, you're going to have to put the foot on that's free and then press away with that. This is going to make you stay in control. Inhale, exhale. What it also does make your abs work a little bit harder cause you have to maintain that flection and then you have to focus a little bit more so that you don't lose the bar and pull. This is one of my favorite ways to teach the app series a, the mat app series to clients at the studio that I've never done it before so they can really try to focus on one thing and not the other and then bring both feet onto the bar and then you're going to rest. Interlace in the fingers behind your head. It's not normally in this order, but we're going to start. We're going to do the oblique snacks. So left.

Lift your head and shoulders up, pressing the weight of your head into your hands. Elbows are in your peripheral vision. As you extend your left leg, rotate towards your right, focusing on your elbow, coming to the mat, not your opposite elbow coming to the knee. This will create a nice rotation from your spine. Come back to center over to the other side. Same thing back to center.

Let's do an inhale and Helter rotate. Exhale to the middle in Helter. Rotate. Exhale to center. Two more sets. Focusing also on that bar, not coming back to fling up against your foot. One more. Inhale. Exhale, middle. One more. Inhale, exhale, middle, and then relax. One more thing here. Double leg stretch. So head and shoulders up.

You're going to grab onto your hamstrings because to reach for your shins is going to be too difficult. In this position, I don't have long enough arms as I'm ex extend my legs. I'm going to reach my arms in this two part exercise. So I've got the top part, the low part. Circle the arms around. Grab your hamstrings. If you're taught to take the hat off your head, take the hat off your head. It doesn't matter. What matters is the position of your spine, the position of your neck and your head, and then your grip of the bar and you'll focus on that hamstring behind your or the hamstring. So that way you're focused on the back of your leg. One more time, reach it away, return, and then rest. Okay.

Now bring the bar down and then wait for just a moment and we don't have to rush into the next series. But the next series is a bridging series using the push through bar. Um, find that grip again, make sure it's the top of the arches. This is definitely one where you might lose, uh, the grip of the bar as you move along. You'll just have to fix it. Okay, arms are by your side. You should be in a neutral pelvis. As you bend your knees this time, can you find a slight imprint?

So just lower your back, shuttling into the mat and then press the leg away. Just prepping you for the next few exercises. So bend the knee and you're lowering your back into the mat and shat Leigh. And then reach in away and focus on your breath. Doing that, there is no jamming. Your exhale. Breath just pulls your abs in actively and then you extend.

Now you're going to bend your knees, keeping a hold of the bar. You're going to extend your legs up. You should be in a imprinted position with the back of your legs active. Bend your knees. Press the bar away. Find neutral, and how bend the knees. Exhale to extend. Inhale, band. Exhale to reach. One more time. Bend your knees.

Reach your legs up. Bend your knees, reach your legs away. Find neutral. We're going to move on. Bend your knees, extend your legs this time. Start to peel your spine from the tailbone up off of the mat. Find the base of your head, shoulders, and the shoulder blades and the arms pressing down. You should be at a long diagonal. Hamstrings are lengthened at really working.

Start to roll your spine down with the feet active on the bar. Bend your knees. You're still an imprint. Extend your legs. Find neutral. We're doing that twice more. Bend your knees, extend the legs. Roll yourself up. Pressing the feet away from your head. Start to roll yourself down as though you're massaging your back into the mat or massage in the mat with your back. One more time. Inhale, extend your legs. Exhale to roll yourself up.

Roll yourself back down and then release the legs. Moving on, it's going to require a little bit more balance. So you're going to bend your knees, extend your legs and paws. Start to push the legs up, find your balance and hold from here. Take your right leg and bring it right over your hip.

Just hold it there and make sure you can maintain stability. Bring that foot down and then bring the other one up and an alternate them three sets or yep, three sets, and then back. Reach back. One more. Inhale. Exhale. Last one. Inhale. Exhale, pause. Roll your spine down. Bend your knees, press your legs away. Find neutral. Okay. If you think you can do that, we can move on to the next one. Extend your legs out. You're going to rule yourself up. This time you're going to print small your hands to the small of your back.

Okay? Once you have your hands there, try not to rest all of your weight on your hands are still active. Bring your right leg towards you and really emphasize the leg that's on the bar. So you're really thinking about that hamstring. So when you're on the mat and you don't have support of the bar, most people are more into the leg coming towards them than the leg moving away from them because it's safer. Bring your right foot to the bar. Bring your left leg back and focus on that opposition and then bring it down.

Two more sets. Inhale, opposition. Exhale. Inhale, reach. You have one more on each side. Last one, hold. Release the back. Roll your spine down. Bend your knees and find neutral.

One last thing here. You're going to bend your knees, extend your legs, and then roll yourself back up. Hold hands or back to the small of your back. Hold. Right leg comes towards you. Pause, left. Lay comes towards you. Pause. Find the top of your roll over.

Once the legs are parallel to the floor, you're going to pause. Then you'll lift the legs up towards the ceiling. Bring your right leg down to find the bar. Bring your left leg down to find the bar. Don't come down. Let's start with the other leg. Left leg, right leg.

Find that parallel. Fire your glutes to lift your legs up to Jack knife. Take your left leg down, take your right leg down, pause. Okay. Last thing, right, like towards you left leg towards you. Find that parallel. Bring the legs all the way up to Jack knife. Hold, breathe. Take the right leg down. Pause, take the left leg down, pause, balance. Bring the arms overhead, stretch from your fingertips to your toes.

Roll your spine all the way back down. Bend your knees, extend your legs. Start to rule yourself up and reach for the bar. Ah, and then go ahead and release the leg. And now we're going to work on some extension work. After all that flection, it's going to feel really good. So same resistance. I like to use the same prop on a piece of equipment for as long as I possibly can. So we're still on the push through bar.

So bringing the bar down towards the uprights, that with one arm should feel like the perfect amount of resistance. If this was too hard, then you're going to have to make it a little bit lighter for yourself to move on to the prone exercises. So I'm going to push the bar down and line it up with the uprights. And that's how you know, again, if you have a springboard, you're going to have to be in front a little bit and you don't want your fingers jamming up against the board. Okay? Hands are going to be on the bar, legs are going to be extended behind you and you'll press the pubic down, pubic bond down into the mat.

And what that's going to do, it's going to secure the hips down so that way the lumbar spine is actually working to extend, but it's not overworking and you're not wanting to squeeze your glutes. So I want you to think about pressing the tops of your feet into the platform or into the uh, reformer or the mat, so that way you can press and activate the quads. Once the hands are on the bar, draw the shoulders down your back so your arms are like wings. And then the space of your wings are right between the shoulder blades, so I want you to have awareness there. Once you have awareness there, pause, then bend your elbows to three and nine o'clock like your head is pointing to noon and bring the bar behind your head. What this is going to do, it's going to retract your shoulder blades and you'll get a little bit of a stretch to the front of your shoulder. Shouldn't hurt. It should feel good. Lower the nose and reach the arms forward. This is not one of those exercises where you want to push yourself past your limits. You want to go to where your limits are.

Maybe go a teeny bit further, but that's all. Otherwise you can injure your shoulder. So inhale as you bend your elbows. Exhale is maybe you lift a little bit higher, lower your nose and then reach your arms out. Step two, I'm going to just going to scoot myself back a little bit to allow better range of motion from my arm. Some of you guys might have that range of motion. I don't particularly. I have a shoulder injury.

So as you bend your elbows, you're going to start to lift your eyes and when you start to lift your eyes, a spray is going to naturally want to pull you up. And if you can find that full extension, then you can go there and then start to roll yourself down or you really have to control it because you want to bring your nose down before you bring the bar down. You only hit yourself in the head once and you won't do it again. Just so you know, you bend your elbows, start to lift your eyes, find that extension. If you need a modification to this, just let go of the bar and just do some press ups or a modified Swan or a baby Cobra. Whatever works for you so that you can continue to move on with the workout and not lose flow. I'm going to try that one more time. Bend the elbows, eyes that extend. Ah, that feels so good. And I'm going to lower myself down.

Bend and then reach out from here. I'm gonna reset my shoulders, reset my hips, reset my abdominals. And I'm going to go ahead and lift my legs and swim. Now once I find this swimming position, I'm a take my right hand off the bar, reach it out to a tee position, and then just continue to swim here. As I reached my hand towards my hip, I'm going to look over my shoulder to increase that extension using the far as support. Now this bar is mobile unlike a reformer bar, so you have to really hold it so that it doesn't move and that it really helps to stabilize the shoulder and they were going to go over to the other side and take your time. If it feels good to be here, then don't worry about counting.

Just breathe. Find that extension and then bring the harm back out to the bar and then lower yourself all the way back down. And then lastly here, what I like to do is just end with some Swan eyes up and then lower setting my shoulders back, lifting with my eyes. [inaudible] and I remember when I first learned Pilati is I used to really resist extension. I was afraid to go into my lower back and I would keep my ribs knit together and it wasn't a really good thing for my back and finally I just became a little bit more liberated with it and I allowed my back to move where I wanted to go and extension and it's been so helpful for me. If this doesn't feel good to you, obviously then don't do it and that's all for that. So I'm going to go ahead and place my hand down to support myself so that I don't have a bar fling towards me.

The bar will come up and I'm going to now lie on my back. Okay, now I don't have really long arms so I'm going to have to go up and grab that bar. The same resistance for all of this is as all I've been using is the one heavy spring or one red spring. I am going to attempt a boomerang here in a little bit, but I'm going to prep myself with a teaser so the knees are going to go up to tabletop and I'll pause here and the arms. If you do not have a lot of range of motion and extend flection, I suggest scooting forward. Because when you go to come up in your teas or your arms are going to be way behind you and you want them up towards the ceiling, start to bend your elbows and the great part of the spring from above as it will assist you. So as you start to lift your hat, the spring's going to want to pop you up to find your teaser and then you're gonna lower yourself back down and reach the arms over.

And you'll do that again. Go ahead and bend the elbows. Inhale breath. Exhale, peel yourself up, and then lower yourself back down. Just one more for three repetitions. Bend your elbows and then roll yourself up, eyes forward, and then slowly come back down and reach. Now if you can't do the boomerang on the mat, it might pose a little bit of a challenge here, but please try it and see what you think. So from here we're going to attempt the boomerang and you're going to bring the arms back behind you. Now, if you can't do the boomerang well off the mat, you might want to practice this on the mat first before you add the spring of the tower.

So extend your legs out to a diagonal and cross them. Bring the legs up and over to find the roll over of that exercise. And what you'll find is if you have the springboard that this isn't gonna work very well. So you need to make some adjustments. As you start to roll yourself down to find the hundred part of your boomerang, you'll start to bend your elbows or your teaser or part, and then extend your arms out and hold you. Release the bar, take the hands behind the back, interlace them, fold your body forward, and then bring your arms out in front of you. Start to roll yourself back, grab onto the bar and roll over. Once you roll over, you'll uncross and cross. Start to roll yourself up. And I'll give you a better terminology here.

You're going to find your T's or first not your hundreds. So you're gonna lift yourself up, release the bar, interlace the behind your back, fold forward, reach the arms out in front of you. Start to find your abs here. As you reach back, start to rollover. Bend your elbows. There's a time in here with a bar on cross cross. Roll yourself down. Bend your elbows. And as you get used to it, you'll start to move a little bit quicker. Arms go out in front, start to roll back. You're confident to find that bar.

Roll yourself up and over. This is your last one on cross cross searcher. Roll down, elbows bend. Flex yourself up. Reach the arms out in front. Interlace them behind your back. Fold forward and then rest. Yeah. Awesome. Okay, so now we're gonna move away from the push through bar, believe it or not.

And we're going to move on to the leg straps. So I'm going to take the spring off of the push through bar, and I've actually already set this up. So I'm going to stand up on the tower and face the tower. And where are you want your leg Springs to be as you want some Slack on the floor or platform so it doesn't really matter so much here though it happens to line up about the tight top of my hip. So in lieu of doing a hip work line down or sideways, we're going to do it standing. Okay, so you'll take, I'm going to take the one closest to you guys and I'm going to grab it and place it on my foot and then I'm going to place my hands wherever I feel secure.

Now just like when we did the standing version of the foot work, I was leaning back this time I'm going to be leaning slightly forward just because I'd like to gain some range of motion of my leg or if you're on a high platform you could actually scoot over a little bit and then your foot will be on the floor. So you choose which ones you want to do. And why don't I just do this? Since I have a platform here, my hands are going to be on the bar. My shoulders are nice and wide, and I'm just going to press into hip extension and I'm actually going to move my hand to the center so that I could feel a little bit more secure. And what I'm also going to do is soften my supporting leg, my left knee so that I know that I'm actually working with the upper part of my hip for support and that I'm, when I'm moving my leg back, I'm moving it from my glute so I'm moving. So you're trying hard not to go into that arched back. You want to make sure that it feels like it's a stretch in your quad and you could add some pulses here for four, three, two, one, and then release. I'm going to turn towards you.

Okay, so now my hands going to be where you feel comfortable. If you have a wall, that's great too. I don't have a wall, so I'm going to grab where I can. You just want have your arm in your peripheral vision. We're going to go into your ad or thighs. The leg goes out to the side, the free hand goes wherever you want it to be. I'm actually going to go a little bit closer because if I don't go closer, it's a little too hard.

The tricky part about this exercise you are focusing so much on here was really burning is the supporting leg, which is perfect, so out to the side and back. Think about the outside of the glute firing first, then your thigh and then your low back. The lower on the totem pole. The firing pattern is the less emphasis and you want the most emphasis on the side of your hip and you give me a little pulses here for eight total for three, two and one. Now I'm going to continue to face you. You're going to drop this or take the strap off that other foot, the outside foot, stick it into the inside foot or you inside foot inside the strap.

Now you might need to move away a little bit further because you want resistance again. So I call this the soccer pass cause that's what I can relate it to. Feet are still in parallel. I'm going to bring that leg across my body to emphasize that inner thigh. Now watch the hip shift or the cha-cha hip by placing your hand on your thigh or on your hip gives you awareness here. So as you bringing that leg in, then you're most likely not going to collapse on the supporting leg.

And then you can add pulses here for four, three, two, add one. Okay, now keep the leg inside that strap and you're gonna put it all the way up to your thigh and turn and face away from your tower. So this could be tricky. You want it high enough that it's not going slide down your leg. So you have to decide where it needs to be. If you have to, you can readjust every time. I'm going to give you a little plank series now. So nod your chin, roll yourself down towards the mat and walk yourself out to a plank position.

Now I'm going to keep my spring leg flex so I don't lose my spring. And then make sure that I'm in a strong plank. From here, I'm going to with a straight back. I'm going to draw my knee in towards my chest for five, four, three, two, one. My rest is a pike, so I'm gonna lift up. Rest, make any adjustments. You need you to that spring. If for now, and then take it back to a plank from here, flex your spine and then draw that knee into your chest. Five times one, two, three, four, five. Find plank. Find pike. And I'm just going to bring that strap down just a little bit so it doesn't cut off my circulation. Find your pike. And next you're going to take it down to your plank around your spine.

Pull your knee into your chest and tuck the knee in five times. Just five, four, three, two, one. Place your foot down. Take it back to a pike position. Walk your hands back to your feet and while you're folded over, you can go ahead and take that strap off your foot. So when you roll up, you don't have any obstacles to trip on. Ah, and then I'm going to turn around and face the tower again. Okay. Other leg. So grab the strap with your left foot, place it and or left hand. Place your foot in. Okay. And then the beauty of this, see, I don't have one of these at home, so I got pretty excited that I could actually hang my leg off to the sides.

I'm gonna hang it off the side here again. And then we're going to go into hip extension, leg back and forth. And I've said this in the past, but I look at the hip in lower and upper part. My upper part of my hip. I want to be strong and stable. My lower part of my hip, I want to move because I want to feel my quad actually stretching in this position.

My right knee is soft so that I could feel the top of my leg working for support. And then eight pulse is eight seven, six, five, four, three, two, one and back. My legs are parallel but you can do different variations if you'd like. You can turn out, but we're going to stick with parallel for today. I'm going to turn towards the windows for my beautiful view. My hand is going to be on the bar and then I'll go back to the AB doctor, the outer thigh to the side and back, and my knee is soft.

Everything is in parallel. I'm really tall with my spine. Always focusing on your posture, even if you're working your extremities. And what I tell my clients is that if you have forgotten about the center of your body, then you've lost the plot altogether with [inaudible], so make sure you find your focus back to your center. And little pulse is eight seven, six, five, four, three, two and one. Continue to face the same direction and just switch feet. Other foot goes on, feet stay parallel. Now you gotta walk out a little bit further. Again, parallel.

I'm going to press my hand up against my thigh and a little soccer pass. This one, I always have to readjust to see where I want that resistance to be. It's not very big. It'd be like if I was passing the ball to somebody and they were just right here, little pass, little pass, shoulders back, navel to spine. And think about the connection of your standing heel all the way to your head, like a big pedestal. And then hold it in for pulses for eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two and one.

And then here comes your a plank series. So I'm gonna turn away, pull the strap all the way up to my thigh, probably not as high as the last time cause it was a little bit tight. I'm going to walk forward until I have a little bit of resistance and then I'll roll down. Once I roll down, I'll walk out and I'll keep that strap and he bent slightly so I don't lose it. Once you find plank in your hearts between your thumbs, then you'll tuck your knee into your chest five times with a flat back, two, three, four and five foot comes down you pike. And you pause and think about your pike, maybe being your upside down teaser so you could feel your abs working here. Your arms are strong. And your quads are strong.

Stay here as long as you need to. And then red transitioned back to your plank, round your spine. Keep that knee slightly bent, and then tuck in five times one. This reminds me of being on the carriage and then being on all fours and pulling the carriage towards your hands that are on the frame of the reformer. So you're actually facing backwards. I like this feeling of working my abs. Take it back to your pike and then hold and then back in and you're going to hold that flex spine. Need a chest, five times one and two and three and four foot comes down. Pike yourself up. Walk your hands back to your feet, chill for a second as you bring your strap off of your foot.

And then from here, just drop your knees down. Find a child's pose, hold. And then sometimes in child's pose, I like to bring my arms back behind me. And as the yogis would say, just let that third eye rest for a moment. Shoulders round forward. And then you're going to roll yourself all the way back up from here. We're going to go back or go to your arm Springs, which we haven't done yet, but we are going to stand for those. So I'm going to take off my leg Springs just to get them out of my way and place them on the floor. And then we're going to bring the arms Springs over.

Now the arm Springs, yeah, will be for me at the top cause what I want them to be is about the height of my shoulder. Now if you're taller, you'll have to make some adjustments for that and you can certainly stand on the floor so that way if you are taller than you can get a little bit more at range of motion or more resistance. Okay. Walking away from the tower, you'll be facing a tower. We're going to do some standing leg work again, but we're going to incorporate the upper body and the lower body together. So arms are going to be out in front of you. You're going to find a bicep curl with a squat. Once you find your bicep curl, will the squat, do you know where that is? You'll stand back up.

What you want is enough resistance for your bicep and also enough resistance that you don't fall backwards and it should feel like you're sliding down a wall. So slide down the wall with your bicep curl and squat, and this stand all the way up your breath is whatever liberates that movement. For me, it's an inhale and an exhale. And being that we're coming towards the end of your workout, if you want this to feel a little bit more Cartier, Avast cardiovascular, you can, you can even have some jumps here if you want. I opted not to do that. So take it down and then up three more am too. Last one. And then stand. Okay, now toes are still parallel.

We're going to add some standing fluxion. So I want you to visualize yourself on the mat. Okay? So you're lying on the mat, your knees are slightly bent, you're going to turn your palms town down towards the mat and you're going to flex your upper body to work your abs. Okay? And then you'll stand back up. That's it. So you'll exhale to flat in hell to stand acts, hail to flax. And then back up. Let's try that about three more times.

Flexing the spine. What you don't want to do is collapse and I'll show you what that looks like. You don't want to bow to your legs, that doesn't do anything. You want to make sure that you're focusing more on that abdominal flection. Now we're going to take that exercise and the one before that.

We're going to alternate that so we can get your heart rate up and thus you can go as fast as you'd like, as long as you can maintain control. So we're going to start with a bicep curl, squat, and then standing fluxion bicep curl, squat, standing fluxion. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, two more sets. Last set, and then release. You could do as many as you'd like. That's all I'm doing for today. I want to walk myself forward from here just because I like to open up the chest. Towards the end.

You're going to have your feet in parallel and just a little chest expansion, arms behind and forward. Now pay attention here. Sometimes towards the end we get a little bit lazy. There's two personalities. The ones that want it to be over and the ones that want more. So make sure that here towards the end that you're opening up through your shoulder blades, drawing your shoulder blades together. And this is going to set your posture for the rest of the day. Exhale, breath.

Inhale. If you would like to move your ankles with us and check your balance, you could irrelevance and release and PeerElevate. Find a nice tall spine and up. And then you could add some pulses here at the top to really emphasize your balance. Four, three, two and one. So we're going to turn around now for the butterfly. So turning away from the tower, the spring is, we'll have some Slack. If you're too close, what do you like need to do is walk forward? Just the, not that you can feel the spring tension, you don't want too much or you won't be able to move into the exercise.

So feeder and parallel arms are out to a tee position and I want you to visualize with you're holding a resistance band flex band from one hand to the other and you're pulling them apart to remember those wings we talked about earlier is here. Your butterfly with wings from here, find lateral flection and what you're going to do is maintain that exact tension in both arms as you go from side to side and your breath is up to you. I'm going to inhale and exhale and inhale and then exhale. Adding on. I'm going to go ahead and laterally flex. Once I laterally flat flex, I'm going to bring my right arm behind me as I bring my left arm overhead, flexing my spine and rotating to my right side so the arms are in opposition of each other. Maintaining that resistance, I'm going to bring my arm back around to its T position and find my tall spine. Then I'll go to the other side. I'm taking my left arm.

Behind me is my right arm, goes up in overstretching and opposition looking down at my knee and toe. Maintaining that same resistance. I'm going to come back up with control. Back to a T, a inhale. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale to the left. Exhale and full Lex Ian to come back to the T.

good. And then one more on each side, and then rotate and reach, and then come back to your T position and then over to the other side and reach. And I'm smiling because this feels so good. And they come back to your tea and then release the arms, release the Springs, and then reach those arms up to the sky and then back down, bending through the knees, just moving through the ankles, the knees, and the hips. Last one, hands to prayer and hands to heart center. And you guys are all done today. Thank you for joining me for this tower workout. I hope you enjoyed it.

Comments

Z A
So happppy fo this🙏🙏
Loved your class. Exaclty what I needed to start into the week. Thank you.
Beautifully demonstrated and deftly articulated. Thank you. 

Great class with relatable cues and smooth flow. Thank you!
fantastic....perfect flow...loved the ab series, parakeet variation, boomerang, leg spring series....pretty much ALL of it!   Thank you
Loved it!!!! Love all your classes and instruction is so clear. So happy to see a new tower class
Fabulous! I LOVED the ab series - it really helped me to connect deeper into my hip joint in a positive way (which I NEED). This is going in my favorite list. Thank you!
2 people like this.
My favourite Tower workout ever!!! So creative. A combination of strength, mobility and gorgeous opening exercises. Great to have another STOTT instructor on Pilates Anyime. Thank you Delia 😊
Lovely new ideas. Thank you so much 
Fantastic! Thank you!
1-10 of 54

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.