Past Postnatal Reformer

Hi there, it's Leah Stewart again and I'm here to teach you a past post needle reformer class. So I'm about four months postpartum and I'm feeling great. And then my other postnatal classes I've kind of helped to reintroduce some, you can kind of think of like pre Palatino movement, but particularly when it comes to stability of the pelvis, our abdominal work and some of the uh, range of motion that we're still limited in because we still have very loose ligaments from pregnancy and labor. So this class is kind of still integrating you back into that regular, if you want to call it Polonius repertoire. But we're really going to focus a lot on opening that lower back because when you are postpartum, you still have a lot of that pregnancy tendency and your posture because of the loose abdomen and the tight lower back. And now you're holding a little baby that is probably by four months or so, maybe 14, 15, 16 even maybe more pounds than that depending on your little child.

So there's still a lot of work and pressure going on in your body. So we really want to address some of those lower back issues. I want to help you reintroduce some of the abdominal work and I also want to work on a lot of upper body work, opening up the chest, strengthening the upper back, and of course strengthen the arm, strengthening the arms. And those are all for functional reasons for carrying your child, picking up your child and so on. But because this is a past postnatal Polonius classes as a fantastic politesse class for everybody, not just people who have just had children.

So please don't ignore the movement in this because you're really going to find it enjoyable and kind of some fun variations and some great ways to get back into some of our normal repertoire. So let's go ahead and get started. So we're going to start actually at the base of our reformer, kind of what I'm going to just call the platform here. I want you to load your reformer up to one green spring or one full spring. And I also want you to put your foot bar all the way down. So we're kind going to do a little standing pike series.

So if for any reason you're taller or you don't feel like you can go over that far inflection, I do want to give you a little bit of a a modification here. You can set your bar up, your foot bar up to the lowest setting in that way you're not going so far down into forward flection, which may feel a little bit more comfortable for you. So there's a very long introduction. Let's get moving. So I want you to stand just really grounding yourself through your feet and just kind of feel yourself stacking your body up just like a beautiful, long, powerful tower. And I just want you to feel where your body naturally goes if your shoulders are a little bit for if you're pitching your weight forward onto the balls of your feet, if you're sitting back on your heels, if you're letting your pelvis rock into an anterior tilt, I want you to really just take notice of where that body wants to go naturally.

If your shoulders are rolling forward and just be kind to yourself as you noticed that you may know, oh, I shouldn't be doing this, I shouldn't be doing that, but just kind of recognize that this is what we're going to accomplish in this class. We're going to open, we're going to strengthen, we're going to address some of these issues so that we come back to this standing position throughout class. You can feel yourself getting better and better into that. So just really focus on that. So feel that energy radiating up from the ground through the heels, up the back of the legs, through the glutes, and through the back, all the way up through the back of the shoulders in the back of the neck, and just feel that link, that power come up through your body. I really want you to focus on this whole posterior chain as we do this work. So let's take a nice big breath in, and as you exhale, just gently start to roll yourself down.

Just filling your arms float forward, and just let your hands find that platform of the reformer. Now keep note that you're not going to hyper extending your knees. Make sure that you're really keeping that nice connection through your hamstrings here as we do this, especially if you're doing this maybe first thing in the morning, those hamstrings are going to be a little bit tight. So I want you to inhale, just kind of release everything. I really just want you to kind of sink into the shoulders, release the back. Then exhale.

I want you to draw the navel up to the spine and I want you to round yourself into a nice pike. Now push energy down through the heel of the hands here though. That nice curve. Inhale, just release it. We're not necessarily articulating, we'll get there into a flat back. We're just releasing that exhale. Draw the navel to the spine. Let the pelvis respond. That lumbar flection as the pelvis comes into a deeper posterior tilt.

Now let the upper spine flex and the head just dropped easily so you can see all my pony tells us pouring down, imagining if there's water just pouring out of my head as I just let it relax and dangle. Inhale, two more and a nice exhale. Initiate with that lumbar spine, let the pelvis and then the rest of the spine follow into that pipe. Press energy down to the heel of the hand student. Gauge the Serita's anterior to draw the scapula apart and inhale last one here and exhale. Yeah.

Now I want to get a little bit more detailed with the articulation. You're going to go into a demi player. Bend your knees. Inhale, bend your elbows and go into a flat back position. Energy reading. I read eating out through the sacred, through both issial, tuberocities reaching out through the crown of the head and articulate up into the pipe. Inhale, reach to tell bone out. Go into a bend of the elbows, elbows out to the side, reach energy out, and exhale, rolling and inhale. I want you to imagine that there's weights down through your feet and down through your hands and as you push up those weights and making your hands and your feet heavy into the platform, into the ground so you really get the oppositional pool and inhale and exhale. Now this time to just deepen that curve. We're going to lift the heels up into some heel lifts up, exhale and lift.

Exhale, let the hedges drop forward. Every time you lift those heels up, draw the energy of the abdomen, Abdominal Wall in further, and fill the pubic synthesis coming forward towards your face. So you just increasing that curve, activating the pelvic floor energy, that abdominal energy. Feel the sacred just dropping down behind you and last one, hold it. Then the knees bend the elbows and come out into the flat back. Now keep the flat back and turn your feet out so you're in a first position or a Palladio's Zvi and really let the energy of the knees reach out and now you can even feel the back of your pelvis. Get more open.

I talk a lot about that in my prenatal series. XL Roll and fill. The adductors connects now as you squeeze us like together than in hell. Articulate. Yeah, and exhale and inhale, articulate and exhale again. And then he'll articulate out.

One more time and exhale four more little he'll and XL up and down. Bring your heels together and then take them down. So keep the connection to the adductors. Last one and hold and then just print. So lower your left heel. Keep your right, he left and switch. Pull everything up in, in. So feel like your pike is getting more energy up the energy, reaching out through that Lola, low thoracic spine, the upper lumbar spine.

That's the lift. Imagine that you're hanging from the ceiling by a hook there and that energy is drawing through and everything else is just dangling down. One more time left. Let draw both heels up and lower and come back into that flat back. Now from here I want you to go back to parallel. I want you to push energy down through your left hand.

Reach your right arm up and find that twist and just with a little bit more and then switch. Push energy down through your right hand. Rotate. Just feel that rotation of that spine and center and rotate. So things like you're doing, if you know this term is a bathy term, but the spine twist supine. You just want to feel that rotation. We're just warming up those obliques, warming up the rotators of the spine and rotate. Feel that reach last one to the left, and it's really important that you push down through that arm that's down, that right arm. Reach up, reach up and come back.

I want you to roll yourself up, roll yourself up all the way to the top. Now, from here you may need to step a little bit closer to the reformer, but we're going to work on hindering with the flat back. So I want you to start to bend your knees. You're going to lower down with the flat back. You're going to push the carriage out, you're going to bring it back in.

You're gonna hinge up, take arms above your head and circle around Ben. So you feel this kind of bending energy flat back, hindering forward at the hips. Press forward, bring it back, bring the hit bottom back over the heels and come up and all the way around. So you have this beautiful code, contraction of your trunk, the back extensors, the abdominals, the shoulders, and you're really activating those hip flexors to keep that control. As you hinge forward, pressing forward, bring it back, ground yourself through your heels and lift up. One more time and hinge.

So I love this action for picking up babies because right here pick up your baby and up and around and we'll do one more just for fun. So, so great functional movement here. And then after we work on that wonderful stability, I want to do a little articulation. So now dive down, roll out extent like into an up stretch and roll yourself that we're just going to do this three times. Roll down, go from the tailbone all the way out to the crown of the head. Reach a felt beautiful hamstring stretch, dropped back in, rolling up through the spine. Boom and roll, reach heel. That glorious stretch here. I feel that link. Feel that power through your body as you're pressing that carriage away. Now pulling with the abdominal wall at the pelvis, respond.

Let the rest of the spine following and roll up. Now you're going to do it slightly to the left on rotation. Now the ticket here is to keep your hips nice and square. So roll out and app. We're just going to do it two times on each side. Up and roll this.

Let the flow start to happen. Feel that beautiful length and here's your coming. You'll feel that stressed on the right side of your lower back and up and go right to the right side and out. Now there's gonna be a natural shift of your weight forward and back on your feet. I didn't want you to be mindful that it's not extreme, that you're keeping it under control and roll back up and come all the way up and rest and settle here. So now we're going to go into a little bit of, instead of responding from the lower back and the pelvis, we're gonna do a little bit of upper spinal flection. So go ahead and follow me. We're going to roll down and we're gonna come back into that kind of upstretched position. Now here, I want you to feel like you're hinting at your ribs and draw your chest towards your pubic synthesis in how reach back out.

So instead of articulating from the pelvis, we're thinking about drawing the ribs. So this is a subtle, subtle difference, but what we're doing is we're getting into the rectus, into those obliques to draw that flection in. And it's a really beautiful way to kind of help reintroduce that idea of a chest lift in a complete kind of opposite position and not working against gravity in the same way that we do and where supine and John and, but I can definitely feel those abdominals working and I'm not giving them that same type of load that can kind of be a little bit chunky for us. Even those first, you know, four or five, six months after we have a baby, we really want to focus on saith abdominal work so we don't create any problems that weren't there. And Go ahead and roll that. So you should feel really nice and good there. That's the first part of our very long up. So we're going to go ahead and put the foot bar on the highest position and I want you to load yourself up to about one and a half. Now, it might differ for everybody, but I want you to just kind of feel at that feels good for you. So practice safety here, but what you're going to do is you're going to sit at the edge of your carriage, placing your feet on the shoulder rest.

You're going to want the bar essentially right underneath your Scapula, and we're going to work on a little upper body extension and a little pelvic curl. So we're going to inhale, go over the bar. Then exhale, we're going to come into a pelvic curl, little pelvic tilt underneath us, and we're going to push the carriage forward. Inhale, draw the kerogen hinge at the hip, bring the chest up and over the Xcel. Draw the pubic symphysis app as you curl the pelvis under. Inhale, bring it back and XL.

It feels so good. And this is such a fantastic way to teach yourself or teach your clients how to articulate and find their extension in that thoracic spine, which is so, so simple, or 10 and an area that often gets underused in hell and exhale. So now you're going to take your body, your torso, over to the left, draw it around into that arc. Go over to the right, and then I should come through the flection posts. Really tell the pelvis, push the carriage forward, and come around. So you're getting a full circle with your torso.

It feels really good. Exhale. And it's kind of like you're giving yourself a little massage with the foot bar as well. Draw it in. So as you do this circle, I want you to be aware of the whole of the abdominal wall here. So as you're coming, you're getting that beautiful bleak work. Little louder reflection that turns into rotation. You come into that flection here, that posterior tilt, go back into the rotation, little lateral flection and back.

Now go the other direction to the left. Exhale. And then you're really getting that energy through your legs as well cause you're just pushing that equal energy through both feet into those shoulder rest. So getting some really nice gentle hamstring activation as well. And exhale and inhale around. And Xcel feels really, really nice on the body.

And let's finish here. Close your eyes for a moment, right to reach your arms out to the sides. Feel that lift, feel that open at the chest. Just breathe. We spend so much time forward, it's nice to open and stretch to the back. Yes, slowly bring yourself that. Feel a little lightheaded but good.

So I want you to go ahead and take your foot bar down to his regular normal setting. And we're going to work on one full spring here. And I'd like you to take your head rest down as well. So I want you to sit with your legs just a little bit wider and toward the edge of the carriage here. And I want you to bring your hands and grab both straps. I'll make sure that your feet on the outside of the um, shoulder rest aren't on the sides of the reformer there cause we're going to be bringing it forward and back. So I want you to take both straps in one hand and then cross the other hand over it. I call this wood chop. So take your breath in.

You're going to XL, draw the Karajan and pull the arms down. So that's the action of the arms. I just wants you to do that two more times. So feel that lift through your body as you take the carriage forward. Press the arms down. But now because I want to work on the flection, we're going to add the upper body flection. So XL chopping down and you're just going to think about bringing the upper body down toward the lower body and inhale up. Exhale, draw the rib cage down. You're going to feel the triceps and the lats as well.

So it's a very subtle movement, but the nice one and exhale. So now to make it just like a little bit more challenging, I want you to grab onto the strap. So I want you to find the movement there, but I want you to grab onto the straps in your hands. We're just gonna come together, hold both in one hand, and then take the other hand over it. And this time you're going to go and again and bring it up. Exhale.

So you're finding that hinge in that thoracics mine too. More. Just kind of feeling that activation of the abdominals. And last one, exhale. And now take the hands apart. We're going to do a low row. You're going to draw your elbows back all the way back and it forward and Xcel.

Draw all the way back and bring it forward. Now we're going to add up for back extension. Exhale. Then I want you to come into a flection. Inhale and Exhale, roll through, neutral and come back. Then inhale, go oh over the top into the flection and XO rule through your spine.

Draw the scapula down, draw it back, back, back. Get those rom boys, get those lower traps and bring it forward. One more time and deck Salah and forward. So no, keep your hands apart and rotate slightly to the left. So you're going to bring the straps over and you're gonna do that little chop action over the left leg. And inhale up and exhale. Now feel that scapula come back, draw down with the last, then pull the left rib cage down toward the left thigh and bring it up. So you really feel that nice work on the obliques as you go into this little rotation and flection and [inaudible].

One more time and deck sale. Now come all the way up, Sproul yourself, all the way around to the right and go and bring it up and exhale and breathe. You're done two more times and excel and bring it up last one and exhale and all the way up and center and go ahead and release. Oh, okay. I'm going to move onto a little short a footwork series.

I'm going to have you keep your head raced all the way down. And this is particularly for, um, for new moms because we tend to spend so much time forward holding nursing. I really want to feel the fullness of that extension. So I'm going to keep my head rest all the way down. Go ahead and load your spring up to how you like for foot work, a little lighter, a little heavier, whichever you prefer.

And we're actually gonna go on our heels and I want you to be, I know some of us are used to working in line with our sits bones. Some of us are used to working with our legs fully. A ducted John Together. I'd like you to be somewhere in between that, so a little bit in more narrow position. And we're going to work on a little bit of a pulsing series here for a little bit of a cardiovascular buildup, but I just want you to focus on really targeting those big global muscles in the legs. So we're going to go out for three little counts. We're going to go one, two full extension on three, pull it in and one, two, three pull it in and one, two, three, pull it into more. One, two, three. And in last one, one, two, and hope we're going to drop it in. We're going to go three little pulses, draw all the way in, three little pulses throughout all the way out. So what it looks like is one, two and in and one two and out and one, two and in and one to an ounce.

A little variation on their pulsing footwork series in and one, two and out. Two more. And one, two an n and one to n out last one and one to n n and one two and hold it all the way out. Feel that beautiful extension, fill that marriage between the quads and the hamstrings that the opening through the front of the hips and slowly draw it in to the toe position. Same thing. So three intervals for three little steps up and all the way in. So one, two extend draw in and one to extend draw and one to extend. Draw in a feel like you're pressing from the back of the hip, spill those hip extensors focused on the hip extension over the knee, extension here all the way in. And let's do one more and one to extend all the way out and bring it in. And you know what? I think I did that. The opposite.

So hold that extension out there. Going to go one, two, three pulses in, so one to n, N and one to n out and in and in. So just feeling those little pulses with the legs. You'll feel a little bit more quad here, which is fine and in, and one to an extent and one to draw in and one to extend and one to draw in and one to extend. Last set and one, two pull in. Keep those hills as steady as you can and you should just focus on working from the knee and the hip and draw all the weekend. We're going to finish this in a small v position to squeeze those heels.

Three to go out one, two and squeeze. So feel that power, feel that length and come all the way again, one, two and squeeze. Come all the way and think of an issue from those hip extensors. Squeeze throughout all the way in and one, two as schoolies. So I'll all the way into more. So just feel that beautiful connection, focusing on that stability of the pelvis in. Now we're gonna do the little pulses, one, two and in and one to n out and one, two and in and one to n out. Whenever I come in, I always feel like my carriage is coming down onto a cushion, so it's kind of a little bit of a, I give back a little bit of a resistance as I pull in all the way and one, two and squeeze and one to draw in all the way.

One, two a pelvis is heavy. Last one. As I let those femurs just really sit into the pelvis one two and squeeze all the way out. Turned back to parallel with the carriage out, lower the heels stale and bring it up. Just 10 little calf raises here lower and lower and up. So just really working through those feet. Good. Again, just continuing to increase that circulation down through the lower body, down through those feet. And two more up last one.

Hold it all the way up and draw it in. I'm going to have you get up really quickly and go ahead and switch your spring here. Make it a little bit lighter for some single leg work. Now again, practice safety here. I want you to come into your right leg up your left foot, up on the foot bar you're going to press out. I want you to switch the legs when you're loaded. So take the right foot down, bring the left leg up and bring it in. So press switch, so maybe considered by someone, no, no here to switch while you're loaded, but just practice safety here. But I want you to hold against that resistance here.

Hold against that resistance. Carefully. Place the foot down, shift your weight and bring it in and press. So just working, increasing that appropriate reception, creasing that stability here, and bring it in. Exhale, bring the foot down, draw it up, and then, and press out. Bring the foot down and lift and John. And so I really want that sense of that zip of that lady that comes up zip up.

So you feel that hip flexor. Grab that leg and bring it up and drawn in and press out, switch, zip up and draw it. And let's just do another set switch zip and draw it in last one. And you can still focus on that beautiful stability of your pelvis as you move those legs. I just kidding you. Let's do one more. So fill that stability and last one, feel that stability up and bring it all the way down.

And that's a really wonderful little single leg series to kind of hone in a little bit more detailed on that sense of Helvic stability. So I'm going to go into our hip work now. So I want you to go into about one and a half spring, or if you prefer a little heavier, prefer a little bit lighter, do what feels more comfortable for you. Go ahead and take your straps and placed your feet there. Now we're going to start with the legs together in parallel, feet flexed. So I'm really working on that pelvic, I'm bringing more stability in, but we still want to work on a little mobility as well.

So what I want you to do is kind of go into a spine to a supine lift, the left or right hip, that brother, excuse me, you're going to push out on that rotation. So try to push energy through that left foot here because that strap will have a little bit more slack on it and bring it in. So you'll feel that beautiful length through that, back of that right hip. As you draw those knees in and then come back to center, go over to the right, the left hip is up, push out, drop back, and this is a part I love right here, that wonderful stretch, that wonderful [inaudible] can fill that up position as those sits, come in as beautiful for that hip articulation, for those healthy, healthy function, getting that synovial fluid flowing deep in that hip joint. Feel that beautiful length through the back of that left side of your back and then pull it back. Rotate over and push. This reminds me of, um, if you're a skier, kind of skiing down a hill.

Oh Gosh, it's been years since [inaudible] going through the, what do they call it? Little moguls, right? The little lumps, this kind of going back and forth. So we really want to focus on that rotation coming from the waist across, over to that pelvis and pressing out, and you'll feel your adductors working here to help with some of that stabilization that joined the likes together. But I really want you to be focusing on what's happening in the waist and the hips here. Let's go one more time over to the right and press. Now bring it back to center. Draw the knees over the hips.

Then you're going to open the legs and XL close. So I want you to keep enough energy into the straps that you feel the carriage thing, relatively stable, if not completely stable. So you're really focusing on those abductors in those inner thighs. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and XL. So by connecting and restrengthening, those inner thighs, that's going to in turn really help with that pelvic floor strengthening rehabilitation that we're doing postpartum. And even if you're four or five, six months, that rehabilitation is gonna go on for a very long time, right, and XL, Jada. Now keep your left like steady and just with your right n n right like steady. Just move your left.

So now we're really honing in on that pelvic control, that pelvic stabilization drawed. Inhale, exhale, inhale. So you will fill your ad doctors one more time. Each way you can notice how steady I'm keeping that carriage. Now I'll come in here. Now what you're going to do now is keep the right leg steady. You're going to bend the left knee, so you're getting a little hamstring curl here and draw it up and repeat on the other side. Bend the right knee. So again, all of these little single leg kind util lateral work here, the moving on the one side, the stabilization, the other side to kind of help hone in on that overall stability of the pelvis.

So I'm focusing on knee flection here, not hip extension. We'll get to the hip extension. So pushing just that right amount of energy, continually pushing energy through the foot into the strap. Spread out those toes. Keep those feet alive. Keep those feet active. We know that healthy feet contribute to an overall healthy body. It's part of the equation. Don't leave him out.

It's like a good pedicure. If you don't have one, the whole look isn't going to come together. Now from here, keep that left leg steady. Now you're going to focus on right hip extension. It's a little bit harder. You still have to push enough energy into the opposite leg to keep the strap from getting to slack here. So right leg down. It's, this is really detailed work. Nothing too grandiose, but just small and focused.

So focusing on that hip extension, engaging hamstrings, glutes, yes, there might be a little tiny bit of natural knee flection that comes in, but don't initiate from that knee flection. And one more time, each leg. Exhale. Uh, and last one. So now coming together, I want you to take your legs out to the side. So you're making a little bit of a diamond shape and opens. Addition.

You're going to go down, you're going to squeeze the legs together, bring them back out to a butterfly and come up. So hinge, take the hips down, squeeze them together. Internal rotation from the top of the femurs, and what I love about this work too is it really gets into that really wonderful pelvic floor work. As you rotate the thighs and you should feel this whole like rolling in, she feel that energy narrowed down through the pelvis. Then inhale, let it widen and bring it up and you're feeling the great work in the rotators to roll everything in. Feel that connection. Feel this powerful zipper coming right down through the center of the body. Roll it open. Let it just roll open with ease. Then bring it up, drawing it down, feeling that rotation in the hips and spiraling inward.

Spiraling out here. Open your whole front body up to the ceiling. Then bring your legs up and down. Yeah, that's just keep doing that. Keep those hills glued together. If you draw those seals together, press them together. You'll get a lot more energy up through the adductors, a lot more energy out through that pelvic floor.

It feels really nice here and take it down close drawed. And now let me just remind you that you only want to go as low as you can. Really keep the control through the abdomen and draw it out and that should feel really nice. So from here a headrest is down. We're going to do a kind of a variation of our short spine here. So I want you to keep your legs together, squeezing, flexing through the feet.

I want you to hinge and draw your thighs to your chest. In this position, fill this gray stretch. I want you to start to roll that up. Now if you're feeling a little unstable, just roll as high as you feel comfortable. Extend the legs, [inaudible] this, hold it there. Then the knees Hallowe'en through the abdomen a little bit more and then roll your head self all the way down and push the legs out. Now this starts with the hinge. I know there's so many different variations of the short spine.

I just liken this to the short span. Obviously it looks very short, fine, s but I just want to focus on that stability here. Push through those feet, narrow in a little bit more hollow. Feel the opening out through that lumbar spine. Feel that Tilden coming up, sweeping up or down, rather the back of the legs, up toward the knees. You really want to feel that connection. Then roll down. Articulate. For so many of us, especially as new moms, this is just heaven, right? And press out. Let's do three more draws in.

Roll your stuff up. Keep the energy through the feet. Hold it, extend, draw it back in and roll down. Yeah, and again, and rule yourself up and push. Push that ceiling away. Push that ceiling away. Push the energy through the back of the legs, energy through the hills, drop back in. Feel like you're keeping the weight of the ceiling on those feet. You have to support yourself through your center. Then roll down.

Sorry, I slowed down a little bit. Just feel so good and press and draw it in. Hold it there and roll. Articulate, articulate, articulate. All the way down. Reach energy out through the sits bones. So that flattening of the back reach and Amen. Feels great. Bring it out and go ahead and set up.

Okay. The let's move on to, so look, I'm all happy. So let's move on to some great abdominal exercises here. So go to one spring, whatever that means for you, a half a full, whatever you feel comfortable with. I want you to sit and I want you to bring the straps up over the legs. Now if you have your hair down, I would suggest you move it because we don't want it to get stuck in the spring.

So go ahead and move it and Tuck it away. So we're gonna work on really bringing in some of that fluxion really detailed with that work. So it wants you to sit here with a flat back and I want to roll yourself down. Make sure you're fairly close to the shoulder rest. I'm going to come a little bit closer cause I want to be able to grab onto the shoulder vest.

So excuse me, adjust yourself if you need to as well. We need to get very, very close. There we go. So here, I want you to support yourself with your arms here so you're really can hold that flection. Now draw the abdominal wall down. Why don't you to draw the legs in for three? One, think of a pelvic curl. Two and three. Bring the hands back to the thighs. Lower one leg down. Hold the pelvic tilt for me. Here. You can work in that flat back.

He can work in that posterior. I'm giving you permission now we'll get back up to neutral. Bring the left leg down. Then I want you to roll your body down. Controlling that east contraction. Place your hands on the foot bar. Give the hierarchy your body. Push the carriage out.

Draw back in. Now here's a little bit of a tricky part. Bring yourself up into a chest lift to draw the right leg up. Support Yourself. Come back into your posterior tilt. Draw your left leg up. Bring your hands back down to the shoulder. Rest. Draw it in one. Don't think of legs for a single pelvis.

Pelvis going posterior legs followed to pelvis. Going puss. Do your legs. Follow three hands on the back of the thighs. Draw the right leg down, draw the left leg down. See how I'm supporting myself? Roll back. Feel that east center control a hands on the foot bar. Push out, fill that beautiful extension drop back in. Bring yourself up, grab your leg, posterior tilts.

So this is a great way to start bringing in some of that more intense abdominal worry back into the repertoire when you're postpartum, even at four months and still not ready to go into full abdominal series yet, there's a lot of healing that still needs to be done. Hold the leg dry down. Hold the left leg dry down, roll back. You can release the posterior tilt here. Press away, bring it back in. Let's do two more minutes. Speed it up a little bit. Draw up and up and grabbed with the right hand. Grab with the left hand. Pull in, pelvic curl, pull in, pell the curl. Pull in, pelvic curl, right leg down, left leg down, roll back. If you're still with me, we're going to go for one more.

If you're feeling like it's too much on your abdominal wall here, please stop. Listen to your body. Holden right arm, left dome, pell, the curl, pulling myself up, supporting with my arms spray. Now, not that I couldn't do it the other way, not that you can't, we're just giving ourselves that extra support. Right leg, left leg. Keep the posterior till roll back, press away, Dryden, and slowly. If you can safely bring yourself up and that feels so good, it's such a great, powerful way to work those abdominals and a great way to teach yourself what good flection is of your spines. That's a wonderful, wonderful way to go. We're going to move onto our side series of the little added arm work to it, so I want you to work on a or half spring or your lightest spring.

I'm working on a blue spring here on the balance body, so focus on that half spring. Now you have two choices here with your hand position. You can hold your strap if you want to make it a little bit more challenging. Go ahead and hold. Are you going to hold that? The loop here, but you can hold that hole. Go ahead and hold onto the strap, actually onto the rope depending on how much resistance you want. So to set up, I want you to lie on your side, getting your pelvis in line with your shoulders here and I wants you to bring your shoulders and your head through the shoulder rest and kind of bend your arm and go ahead and let your head rest into your hands. Now this top leg is going to come up parallel to the ground bent 90 degrees up the hip and at the knee you're going to grab this shot with your palm facing away or you're holding onto the rope itself.

You can kind of keep your palm facing forward, so we need to get a little bit of lettuce, Miss Work, a little bit of tricep work, a little bit out or hip work and side lift work, oblique work all in one efficiency, right? That's what we love our plotting. So take your breath in. Exhale, push the arm down, push the leg or extend the line out. Lift the upper body so you get that little bit of Leek Work and come on in and exhale. Now the only thing with me holding the my hand in this job here is my carriage comes a little sooner than expected. So just make, be mindful of that exhale. So you want to feel like you're hinting right at that rib case, so your side bending as you come up and go ahead and keep your head into your hand and let that bottom arm come up with your head.

Now just to add a little bit more, we're going to extend both legs Xcel who a little different on the stability and bring it in and excess. You can see one leg is going over the foot bar, one leg is going under the foot bar and burying and Xcel extend really nice way to get really deep into those obliques with a small yet really powerful movement here and draw it in. And two more XL. It's when both legs go up. I'm talking to recruit some different stabilizing muscles so they don't go wiggling around like a little fish. Hold here, bring the arm up and take it down. Now if this is too much on your neck, go ahead and lower your head down. You still get the oblique work. You still get the leg way. You still get the arm work, so your choice in him.

Exhale. Last one. Exhale and exhale. Now lower your head and do some triceps. Ben Extent. Ben, keep those legs up so you still get that oblique work. The isometric oblique work here. It's sent and so now the role of mother is to multitask always. So now he wants you to add an adduction of the leg, so lower the bottom leg down. Lift it up as you extend the elbow, lower the bottom leg down, lifted up. Your mind is on many things in here. Exhale. Inhale.

We feel that beautiful tricep work. Do you feel that outer hip, the outer right side, the glute need working and last one, hold it there and bring it all the way in. Woo. Feels good. I got five points knocked off for being in the carriage and the last one. So let's go ahead and do the other side. So go ahead and get yourself all set up.

[inaudible] grab the strap in hand. Maybe you can always just hold onto the rope itself if that feels a little bit better. To have that little action stress challenge there is to take your breath in, extend the top leg, lift the body as you pull the arm down, the strap should be right in front of your face and Xcel see that energy reaching out through my fingertips, out through my arms and pulling into the last, pulling into that, the lower trapezius here and this side, really pulling the energy out, feeling that full extension through my leg. Then I'd let everything come down slowly with the East centric control reach and Dryden XL reach. Be Mindful of your stopper XL and bringing it again.

Just feeling like you're hinting right at that left rib cage and draw it in. Yeah, take it up. Now we're going to add both legs breathing and shoot those legs out like arrows, reaching out, holding and slowly and shoot those like that, like arrows. Boom. Fill that power, fill that strength, obliques, outer hips, add drs, triceps, lats, everything. Drawing in. Feel the stable aiders, Siba, lasers, recruiting them. And Rod, let's go a little bit faster and help and XL and I again, and the last one. You're gonna hold it XL. You can keep your body up, your upper body, your head up if you'd like. As you do the arms here, breathing. Exhale, breathe.

Fill the glutes, build the abductors of the head. Fill the eye doctors, fill that pelvic floor. Breathe in. Rest your head at anytime. If you need to. Last one, lower the head down. Continue into the tricep extension. Exhale, breathing. Keep the elbow nicest, steady, tight to the waist if you can, to really isolate the triceps, you're not bringing a lot of extra shoulder into it or extra lot into what you want to really try to isolate the triceps for that elbow extension. Breathe in, keep that energy. Don't lose that energy. Don't lose that stability. Now we lower the leg and we bring it up, lower the bottom leg and bring it up. Lower the ladder.

As you bring that bottom like up, you'll feel that extra work in the waist. Breathe in, exhale up. Inhale, keep that breathing steady. Keep that focus, getting everything done and try to keep that top leg as steady as you can. Last one, hold it and release. So now I want you to stay on this lightweight. We're going to go ahead and wrap up our class with our back extension.

I want to having a hard time turning myself around here. So I want you to put your seats on the bay, a the platform there, and carefully get yourself down. So you're going to slide prone with your elbows down by your side. Kind of like you're doing a swan dive prep on the Mat. Work your nose right down into the headrest so your shoulders are just in front of the shoulder best.

So with your feet like this is really easy to kind of get to into your lower back. So I really wanted to emphasize pulling energy down through the hamstrings, letting the pubic bone sink into the carriage so you really protect that lower back. So I want you to flex the feet, bring the carriage back toward the stopper there. Then as you point the feet, you're going to lift the back up, pushing energy down through the arms. Come up and do an upper upper back extension here and flex. Inhale, exhale, push energy down. Feel the upper back. Breathe in, and exhale. Now I see it on my lightweight. You're also free. I just wonder, your mind should also up the weight a little bit here to one full spring if you like. So now hold this position points your right foot.

Lift your left hip up into extension, not from the knee, but from the hip, from the glutes. Lower flex the left foot and lift up. Yeah, flex. So notice how I'm reaching energy out through the crown of my head. I lift the head up. I worked through the cervical extensors, then into the thoracic extensors. Really getting that planter reflection of that left foot. Then bring it in. Exhale.

Yeah, I just really love focusing on that mid back and I push those arms down. Your feet. Lift, flex. Inhale. Exhale, reach, flex. Inhale, exhale, reach. Two more. Exhale, reach last one. XL, reach. Bring both feet down. Hold it. Now take your arms out to the side. Lift the shoulders that a little bit higher. Flex. Lower down was go up one more time. Bring the arms down and lift up.

Lift up, reaching energy out through the crown of the head. Hold that position. Sweep the arms back. Feel like you're flying like you're soaring. Slowly come in carefully. Come in as gracefully as you can. Hold the carriage there with your hands.

Slowly bring your legs back in and let's go ahead and find our child's pose. Our rest position. Stretch out. Pop back, rolling yourself up carefully. Step off your reformer. [inaudible] no wants you to roll up finishing in this nice standing position and just notice if you kind of can get yourself better into your alignment. Now that you're more balanced, you're more open, you feel stronger, you feel more connected in the right places. And just like I generally always ask you at the end of my classes with, just take note of how you feel here in your body.

You may be feel more grounded through your feet into the earth, but maybe you feel a little bit more light with your heading of shoulders floating up toward the ceiling. And just feel that connection, that nucleus through the center of your body, feeling open, strong in your arms, opening your chest, warming your upper back, deep fluxion, wonderful opening through your pelvis in your hips and stable and ready to take on what the day demands of you. So thank you so much for joining me in this past postnatal class. So again, we're still getting into some of that, some of our, a regular, so to speak, pilates repertoire, but just some really nice ways to feel connected and to actually just take a step back from some of our normal exercises and really kind of break them down a little bit more, which will improve anybody's technique. That's for sure. So thank you so much. I'll see you guys soon.