Reformer for Flexibility

Hi everybody. Tracy Mallett here. Always a pleasure to come back to plot is anytime and what a beautiful day. I have to say this, which is look at that gorgeous ocean. It's like it's just beautiful and we are in February. Just Miss Valentine's Day, but lots of hearts go out to you and today we're going to do flexibility.

Now I know Paulette is obviously has flexibility within the component of the program. Whoever's, sometimes it gets a little bit lost and remember flexibility is just as important as everything else. In fact, as we age it's even more important and I have noticed teaching get my studio that I am asked often can we do more flexibility. And so I thought perfect way of just putting some great flexibility exercises together to give you a nice short flexibility politesse class. So with that you can grab a towel or bands. I've got like a theraband green band here where you can grab a towel. Okay, we're going to put our feet together. I'm going to grab my little band here. I'm just going to choke it up and I'm just going to lift the hands up to shoulder height and then come back down again. Now with your towel or your band, you continuously pressing the arms away from each other.

We're just going to take a deep breath. Inhale, exhale, press down. Inhale up to shoulder height. Xcel, press down. Think of depressing your shoulder blades and in our position, reaching out to the crown of the head all the time. You're resisting your hands and you're just breathing in hell is a little bit higher. Xcel and come back down and again, just a little bit higher and down. Can we go even higher this time? Lifting up and down, and I still remember as you lift, you're still depressing your scapula. Think of your little shoulder blades in tiny pockets and they're zipped in those little pockets. They're not moving anywhere. Depending on your flexibility of your shoulder will depend on how high you go.

And then back. Let's try that again. Let's go up a little bit higher, and that's probably about my maximum net to keep my shoulders depressed. My abdominals pulled in and we're just going to rotate to the side. And then back feels really lovely to get that lovely rotation of the torso. As I'm doing this, I'm continuously thinking of reaching out with the hands. And then back we remember it's your body that's moving, not your arms, your arms, the secondary to the core.

Okay. And reach. And then back to send to this to two more and then back. And then hold it here. Let's go over to the side and then back. Gentle stretching, keeping the shoulders depressed before we even move. Be conscious that before you even move, you're set in your Scapula, down drawing those abs in regard, lateral side to side. So as we go over, think of opening up that site, filling those lovely obliques. Now we're going to go over to the side.

There's way to reach now, scoop out those apps, reach forward, pulling through those abdominals back, look under, make a pretty picture and then come back as good again. So you're going to go over lift up and over, but deep press rotate, scoop those abdominals in. I'm reaching forward to the fingertips. But I'm pulling into those abs at the same time. Coming back to center and the back is two. One more. We go over rotate and over back to center, lift over, rotate and over back to center.

I'm going to release it just to tad a little bit bigger. V position, depressed for those hubs in tight so we're not hyperextending and we're going to try and go a little bit further. Some of you will be able to do this and some of you will not, and then come back, lift and go as far as you can go. And then back. It's really important that we stretch out our packs. These packs get extremely tight. The more we age, the more they tighten up.

The force of gravity pushes that body forwards and those poor packs get tighter and tighter and we look even more kyphotic, not if we do polities and not if we flags and flexibility is important and open up that chest. All right, let's do one more. You see I'm gradually going a little bit further, but I'm working within my own range of motion. I have very flexible shoulders, but that comes with a price because they're not as stable as I would like them to be. I try, but just like you, it's, it's a continuous battle to keep them stable. One more time, all the way back feels good and then back up. Now I'm going to ask you to try and do a little balance during those apps. Reach out how that balance, pull in those apps and then come down.

Release all that feels so good just to stretch out that upper body shoulders and put the band away. We don't need the band anymore. I'm just going to place it down here. All right, we're going to go onto the reformer. So now we're going to be putting on, I've got on one blue spring right now. One blue spring. The box is towards the edge cause we want a little bit of range of motion. So we've got one blue spring and the boxes towards the edge is about three inches away from the bottom here. Okay. I'm going to step up and we're going to work deep into the glute, stretching out the glued the piriformis sooner, like we call it a z position. It's like a letter Z. Okay, we're trying to get the knee in front of the hip and then we're going to take the knee back. Now already in this position, I can already feel the hip opening and I can feel the glute. Now look at my knee.

You want the knee going to the back shoulder rest. Now because I'm elevated, I'm able to get into this position. For those who are tight, there's a little bit more challenging, but if you're tight, this is probably a better position to be in because you're elevated. So take the hound into the middle here. Now what are we going to do is reach out into that lovely mermaid and then slowly come back. Now remember what we were doing earlier, you on depress first before you even move over into that side stretch and then back. So now I can feel stretching out my hip flexor, stretching out the glutes, stretching out the peer formers, but now I'm actually stretching out the obliques and the QL because we're going to go into a rotation in a minutes over and back and again, lift up some of these exercises.

A wonderful to do after you've done your workouts. This a probably a great post workouts, little session. All right, let's just do one more palm up. Depress the Scapula over. Now hold it there. We're going to go into that lovely rotation and I am reaching and I'm here and I'm just going to bend the elbows and I'm going to push out. Now I feed in, had lice, deep stretch to the lower back, the QL, the quadratus lumborum, and we're trying to reach the lowest the hip away from your lowest rib.

Okay, now look at my name. I know he's back. I'm trying to be in hip extension. All right, let's just do a few more. I'm going to put my head down just a tad and then we're going come to here, rotate depression scapula. Before you even do anything in your mermaid, come all the way back from here. I'm going to reach to that back shoulder rest and over into a lateral stretch. Now as I'm doing this, I am reaching but in our position because there's always an opposition.

The hips are reaching that way. So there's my directional, Paul, take the hand behind the head and then rotate into your lovely, beautiful pinup girl. Open up boy did not want to exclude. We're going to rotate and look into the back corner, but I'm pressing back with this hand as I do it. Isn't that feel good? Hold it. Take deep breaths in that stretch. Four, three, two and one. Back to center. Reach and come back from here.

We're going to reach this leg all the way over. Light Down and press. Now did you see how I did that shift? I was here, which is where you're going to want to be, but you're not going to do that, right? Cause you're going to push that knee. And guess what? Both sit bones down planted on that box. Doesn't that feel good? Your whole that stretch.

And if you feel you can, you're going to reach down towards the floor and just reach and fold yourself into, my legs are shaking right now because I'm overly my hips and we will tie in this area. So give you a little hip, some love and some retention. Okay. But the hands back, roll yourself all the way up. Alright, so now we're going to go to the other side. So you'll see a good view now on the back. So we're going to turn around. Kay, get your knee in line with the hip. Knee is going to come down.

Now just a suggestion for those that can't reach, maybe I've showed a legs. You can get like a pillow there or even a ball and put a ball underneath you just to elongate the leg so you can have a pillow and just prop it up. So you need would come to here. Just a little suggestion. Alright. Alrighty. So we're gonna go over and then come back and then over breathing and back, we remember depressing your scapula. Depress and over looking forwards and back.

Okay, belief. Yeah. Well let's just do a few more just and you're going to find one side a little bit tighter than the other. So maybe you do a few extra on the tightest side. That's totally fine. Listen to your body is the key. You're going to turn, rotate your body.

Try and reach diagonally forward and square yourself off Bandon extend. So I'm just bending my elbows. Now while I'm doing this, I'm trying to reach the knee down to the carriage, down to the carriage and opening up the hip flexor and that hip extension. But I feel an incredible stretch through the lower back into the QL. This feels really good. Let's just do one more. Hold it there. Finish it off.

We rotate. Come all the way back. Do oppressing your scapular. Come to your back and over. Hold in that stretch. Now finish it off into your little pinup girl. Pinup man, Pinot boy, or pin up anything.

As long as you're rotating your body. And looking back. And then in opposition, push your hand down and stretch. Breathe into that stretch. Inhale and exhale, and then come back side reach. Finish it off from here. We're going to lift that leg around. We're going to place it on top.

Put your hands forward, stretch it out, and now fold yourself into if you can, and just reach down towards the floor. As you hold that stretch, remember you continuously breathing you. You're continuously trying to open up your hips. Take a deep breath in. Inhale and exhale last time. Beautiful. Yeah, and slowly come up one last stretch. Show the blades down, reach up to the crown of the head. Awesome. And that's from here. We're going to turn around to this direction and it puts your feet about hit with the part. Okay?

From here, going to take your hands behind you and just a slightly and external rotation and all we're going to do is push out and that it's very tiny. The stopper on your reformer is going to stop you and that's fine cause we just open in. For most people this could be impossible. So it's just very, very, very tiny. Just opening up your chest and back. Very gentle you in that external rotation of your shoulder joint. Once again, you opening those pecks right, scoop out those abs. Don't let those abs go on vacation or movement generates from your core last time and back release and just give you some shoulder rolls here just to release it out. Okay, so now we're going to bring our legs a little bit closer together.

So inner thighs connected in a thigh, pelvic full of abdominals. Now we were still on that one. Blue Spring, we haven't changed. Okay, so we are going to pick up your straps now. Now we're going to work again opening your chest, working on your back, flexibility of chess, but with balancing your work in your mid, upper back to strengthen your back. Okay, so we're here. We're going to go into a bicep curl look, shoulders above my hips. Hopefully you can see me in that position. From here, we're going to incline back scooping out those abdominals.

We reaching forwards, opening the palms as we come back to an erect position and then we reach in the hands forwards. So let's do that again by set in Kline reach. Keep your scapular pull down as that openness of your chest. Everything comes back simultaneously together. Back to here. Depress Bicep, elbows in line with your shoulders.

Now hinge back at the same time reaching the arms back opening. There's that beautiful stretch. Circle around and I'm back to an erect position. Let's do a couple more here and again please. Nice and freely. Inhale extension XL around.

Keep those abdominals pulled in ribcage. Pull down, circle around. Everything comes back up. Alright, let's do one more because we look so good, right? Okay. Ready? Triceps in reach. Circle around and then up and come back down. Very nice, lovely exercise. Opens up your chest, works your biceps and works your mid, upper back. All right. When are we going to transition? We're going to come off now. We don't need the box anymore, so I'm going to take the box away.

Okay. I'm looking for the dolphins, but apparently there's no dolphins. They've gone away for awhile. Maybe they'll come back soon. But anyway, you've got me instead of a dolphin. All right, we're gonna move on to stretching out a little bit more. So the glutes and the hamstrings. So for this we're going to be doing some strap works. I'm going to look down, I'm going to put you onto one red spring. Okay.

So I'm moving you onto one red spring. Okay. Place the head rest up. Okay. So first of all, just make sure that your shoulders are not jammed up against the shoulder rest.

That's really important. Give yourself some breathing space instead of jamming yourself up. Come down a little bit so we have some breathing space here cause you're probably right and eventually right up. But keep away from your shoulder rest as much as possible. And to grab our straps now we're going to start with your right leg.

Place your right foot in before we start, we are making sure our ankle, knee, and hip all in that one. Beautiful alignment. Okay from here, the other leg is going to join it, but we are mindful. I didn't move that leg still in a neutral spine. From here. I'm going to take this leg and I'm crossing it. So now I've got that lovely stretch here.

Now I can feel that stretch for most people. You're going to be fitting that stretch right now. For those that are a little bit more flexible, we're gonna move up. So bringing the leg towards your body and the hips, yet it's okay, is it into that slight pelvic crawl and you making the journey towards your chest. And then we're going to roll back back to neutral, tab on down into the mat and then down, and then try and open up that hip. Let's try that again.

So we're gonna go a little bit fast. So we're going to go up. Exhale down. So were in the motion. It's like an active flexibility. We always want to find a combination of static stretches and active flexibility stretches. We would need a mixture of both. So with the beauty of working on the reformer in this, we move mean dynamic movements with flexibility at the same time.

So you feel like you're moving, but you're moving with flexibility. Okay? Alright, let's do one more here. Now if you want, you can portion open up a little bit. Okay. Now from here we're gonna Cross that leg over. So just crossed it. Got It. And then from here, we're going to take it over this direction. But first, before I do it, cross it.

I want you to take your hands and bring your hands all the way around and hold on either to here or here. But look where my arms are. I'm not here. I'm, I'm open up your chest, so across my leg and I'm going to take it over. Be careful. Your hip is elevated, but your hands are open. And let's take the leg up and over to the opposite direction. Now be mindful that I'm pushing that way.

Otherwise you legs are going to come this way and you've got to keep that openness through the ribbon. The hips, you're not hiking the hips. Okay? So I am feeling my hamstrings. I'm pressing that direction, not towards my chest because that's what you're going to want to do. How old are you here, bows wise and I'm holding on and then I'm coming back to center. Tailbone down and just put that foot in. There we go. I know we're going to do is basically a circle, so we're going to go around sickle, Gotcha. And hold. Then circle and hold.

Feel sacrum. You're rocking on your psych room. You're pivoting around your sacrum. Going to feel the stretch through the, obviously to the hamstrings, through your obliques and then one more and then come back to center. A nice way to finish off is doing a cook school, like a little corkscrew here, like a sideways eight, but remember, keep it very, very small, not too big. Don't get out of control. You got to control it. Once again, your abdominals, you movement is generated from your core. Your abs are controlling it and it's inhale and exhale in last time. XL around. Beautiful.

Come up in that stretch that's come back up. Take the leg out, put your foot down onto the bar and it's doing that leg out. Alright. Oh, now we feel stretched one side and that we gotta do the other side. All right, so grab a stretch, step out into it. Extend that leg up first. So before you do anything and extend the leg up. Alright, tailbone down. Press that direction. That way, not chest from here. That leg is going to come up. See nothing change, nothing moved. Cause I'm pressing that way.

Then I can take the leg in front and open up the hip. Okay, so this leg is parallel. This is turned out. Now I can feel that stretch already, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper into that stretch. So the s the tailbone is coming off and if you want to put your hand on your knee, you can, some of you might find a little bit more comfort with that. So feel free to put your hand on the knee for a little support.

Okay, let's take the hand down. Now we're going to press down and then come up and just breathe freely in that stretch. Relax your head, neck and shoulders. Just let your body roll. Your pelvic floor is lifted. Nice little pelvic tilts. Okay, let's just do a few more.

Just use that lovely resistance of the reformative flax and back. Good job that's come back up. A little stretch there or was good to stretch out the glutes and the peer formers especially. So we're going to cross that leg over. So just crossing it over. Now I'm going to take it that direction. So, but first of all for two hands here, okay, open and then over. Be careful that you don't go too far.

Make it smaller and then go a little bit further, but control it and then back to center. Got to use your upper body. I'm holding myself with my upper body because I'm pressing that direction too. And then I'm going over to the other side. Be Mindful that you're pressing back, keeping the distance here and you're holding on with your hands. You need your upper body right now you're holding on.

This is just to get a little bit further stretch and then we're going to come back into your center. Tailbone down. Put the foot into the loop and cross. All right, so now we're going to do our little circles. So we're going to go over. We're going to go down and around. I liked sickle is like you. You're painting a smiley, a smiley face.

We all know what an Emoji is. That big, Smiley Yellow Emoji and we're drawing a semicircle. Isn't it crazy? Now that we give cues revolving around emojis and waiting for the piles? Emoji. That hasn't come yet. Hopefully it will come soon and press down. I feel so good and make sure you're breathing. Guys. Breathe freely. Back into center.

Let's do our little cook school around and center, so rock around that sacrum. Inhale in, exhale and open up your shoulders. [inaudible] oh, one more. Inhale. Exhale. Hold the here. One last gorgeous stretch. See if you're going to grab those legs. Beautiful Hand Back, back to 90 degrees.

Get yourself out gracefully. Remember, transitions are always important. More important sometimes on the exercise because that's when we can get injured if we're not transitioning correctly until the exercises, we get excited. We have to transition right. Bend your knees into your chest. Okay. From here we're going to get up gracefully. Come onto the top of your reformer. Okay, I'm going to keep it on one red spring for now. Take the hands forwards.

Now we're going to depress your shoulders into that beautiful position here. Pull your scaffold down. We'll reach up. You're going to look to where the wall meets the ceiling and you're going to keep your eye focus right there for right now, we're going to go back, hold it. We hinge back into a tabletop is by your biceps. From here, we're going to pull in, pull in, pull in jewel, the shoulder bites down, back to your start position and out tabletop.

Articulate round and lift up one. Okay. Tabletop round. Articulate through the thoracic spine. Pull your scapula down, lift up and out. Look up tabletop, round, round, round. Scoop out those abs. Pull the scapula down and back is just do a couple more and pull around to that spine so as the knees come forward, as you round in to that upper spine and back again, tabletop. Now round. Resist. Resist the bar.

Resist round through the spine and then slowly finish it off. Isn't that feel good? As you extend the, pull your scapula down and hold it beautiful. Bring your feet together, knees together, child's pose and slowly roll all the way up. Yeah, stepping off. Now I'm going to move this down to one blue spring. It could be on a red, but I'm choose to go with a blue spring, just a little bit lighter.

Now we're going to scare the inside of the well side of the reformer. So we're going to push out. So look how I'm getting into it. It's putting my hand on the shoulder rest and pushing out place and the hands in the middle and I'm going to step in. Okay. And I'm gonna walk back, place the hands forwards. Just why we then and what I'm going to ask you to do is just a nice extension before we move on. And then a curve back. Easy, right?

Inhale extension. Cause they were around back. Oh right. So now we're in that beautiful position. We go on to move the before. I'm going to take it forwards and put your foot forward. Take your hands right there right now. Now Square your pelvis off, some square in the pelvis off. And then on a walk my hands either side. And as it put the hands there, I'm depressing and reaching out to the crown of the head.

So I'm looking forward to that beautiful blue ocean. It's gorgeous. And from here I'm going to Relevate. So I'm going to go onto the ball of my foot on the supporting leg. I want to swing forwards and then I'm coming back, back, back, back, back, swing forward. So on that [inaudible]. So what I love about this is you can go as far forward as you want, if you're flexible or you can keep it really small. So I could just go forwards and back.

And that's where most of us are going to be in that small range of motion, right? Small range of motion. Or for those there were like the white cat and cats, the gumby cats. They can go all the way down in that stretch. Okay, and then back. All right, let's do one more.

I'm going to hold here now on a Relevate, that back foot is on irrelevant. We're going to bend and pull back. So now I'm controlling it with the back leg, right? I'm controlling it with the back leg. So yeah, you're going to feel your legs start to shake a little bit.

Those quads and the hamstring and the supporting like a working. But guess what else is working flexibility in the hamstring forwards. So you're getting both strength and flexibility. All right, that's coming back gracefully. Put Your hands forwards in that stretch. Beautiful. Alright, s walk back. Now be careful down.

So I'm always keeping the carriage your way. Now I'm going to transfer and place the other leg forwards at the toe. Okay. No, I'm going to go forwards into that stretch. Relevant and back and I just want to throw it out there.

I was teaching this combination to my 72 year olds two days ago and yes, she did it and yet she looked great. Of course she wasn't this far into a split, but she was doing it and she was walking it. So just wanted to put that little inspiration out there. We cannot become flexible if we don't try to be flexible. It just doesn't happen to us overnight. We wish that just doesn't happen, does it? And for shout, let's go a little bit further.

I'm just swinging further and once again, if you want to hold the stretch, you can do so and hold it as long as you want in that static stretch. Now we're going to come back some midway and we're going to control it with the back leg, the front leg size straights. What's the back leg doing? It's bending and extending. There we go. Bend in an extend him, be mindful. The ABS are lifted up off the thighs. He put in Hus abdominals in. All right, let's do one more and hold it there.

Slowly come back, back, back, back, back, back, back in that stretch. Hands full. It's look onto the horizon. Walk it back. Step now. Push forwards. Step out and slowly let it come back. Awesome.

We're going to come forwards into this lovely hip flexor position here. We're going to take your right leg, take it behind, and try and bend the knee on to the actual reformer. And I'm going to slightly pelvic tilts. So here's your lovely hip flexor stretch. Use the reformer balance hip flexor stretch, knees bent. Gorgeous stretch.

I feel it right now. Stretching through the SOS quad and let's come back to him. I hit click then. All right, let's go to the other side. So we're going to go back. Lay the knee down, bend the knee now pelvic tilts. So I'm doing that lovely pelvic tilt, hip flexor quad and balanced in that stretch. Awesome.

And buoys deep breaths. And then come up. Nice. All right guys, we're gonna finish off. Of course with the roll down, we're gonna take a nice deep breath in. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, Chin to chest, royal self down. Ilan gauge, you feel like four inches taller cause hamstrings are so long now we have grown a few inches. That would be my dreams that I would grow a few inches and take a deep breath over your head and relax does not feel good. It's a stretch. See, we all underestimate estimate stretching, including myself.

We all need to carve out some time to stretch, and I hope you really enjoyed that because I really enjoy teaching it and it's been a pleasure teaching it to you as I've done with my clients in my studio and they've really enjoyed it. So I hope you get the benefit just as they have done and personally myself. See, as soon.