Class #887

Reformer for Men

60 min - Class
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Former President of The Pilates Method Alliance Kevin Bowen, joins Pilates Anytime with a Reformer class specifically designed for men. Start with some simple movement awareness techniques to prepare your body. Then enjoy some terrific variations on stretches similar to the Saw and Spine Stretch, perfectly suited for men who are often restricted in their hamstrings and low back. Class is straight forward in its presentation offering men (and women) a well rounded class that will leave your body with a sense of freedom and ready to take on any challenge outside the studio.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box, Overball, Pilates Pole, Magic Circle

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Hello, I'm Kevin Bowen and we're here to do a men's PyLadies workout. I have Andy with me today and George, and they're going to go through the paces with hopefully you guys as well. And we'll get going. So you guys go ahead and lie down on the reformers on your back. Put your feet up on the foot bars.

Okay, let's separate them just a little bit. So your knees and your hipbones line up. And I want you to just breathe for a few moments in your nose and out your mouth. Here we good. And all I want you to do now, very simple. Let's start with the right leg. Just straighten the right leg out, take it off the flip bar, reach it towards me, take it up in the air, and then bend it back down and switch to the left leg. Good. And we're going to go for the right again and the left again, two more times with each leg starting with the right and then with the left. Great. And again with the right and then with the left. Very good.

Now keeping your knees bent. What I'd like you to do is simply just drop your right knee out to the side and bring it back up to the center and do the same thing with the left. Drop it out to the side, bring it back up to the center again with the right and bring it center and with the left and bring it center. Good. Once more in each side, right, and center, and left and center. Now let's take both legs, press them out to the side, and then squeeze them in and again, press them out to the side and squeeze them back up. And again, press them out, squeeze them up, and again, press them out, squeeze them up twice more.

Press them out, squeeze them up, and one last time, press them out, squeeze them up. Excellent. Now what I'd like you to do is just pull your knees up so your feet are lifted. Put your hands on top of your knees and just kind of stir your femur bones around. Just circle them around and get some movement in your pelvis. All this is is movement awareness and a little functional training. Before we get started with the rest of the series of exercises and lets change direction. Go the other way.

Very good. Loosen up in the hip sockets there. Twice. More around. Excellent. Now go ahead and place the feet back down where they were. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the balls here and I'd like to place them between your thighs, but I'm right in and I want you to squeeze them and release it a bit. But don't drop the ball, squeeze it, release it a little bit.

Don't drop the ball again, squeeze and release and squeeze and release. And again, squeeze and release. And one more time for me. Squeeze and release. Now hold it right there. Use the ball for a little bit of awareness. Take a deep breath in. We're going to move on the exhale. So as you exhale, curl your tailbone underneath, you, press into the foot bar and lift your pelvis up in the air and come all the way up. Ridge on up.

Inhale when you get to the top and exhale and come all the way back down this down. Good. And let's do that again. Inhale and exhale. Curl the tailbone up, lift the pelvis up in the air, bridge on up. Hold onto the ball, inhale at the top and exhale and come back down twice more. Here we go. Take a deep breath in. Inhale, exhale, curl. Come all the way up. Inhale at the top and exhale and come back down.

And last time, inhale, exhale, curl and lift up. Inhale at the top and exhale and come back down. Very good, very good. Now take a deep breath in. Exhale, pull in through your abdominals and lift your legs up in the air and bring your feet together and hang on, or right there. Okay. All I want you to do now is to reach back and grab your handle holds right behind you and bring your elbows up so they're pointed towards the ceiling. And starting by dropping your knees to the right just a little bit and come back up to the center and again to the left and back up to the center, and again to the right and back up to the center and the left. Now continue. We'll make the movement bigger. So go over to the right, open your elbows out, and then come back up to the center.

Pull in through the abdominals. Go over to the left, open the elbows out. Go as far as you can. Exhale, pull back into the center and again, over to the right. Open the elbows. Exhale, pull back up to the center and over to the left. Stretch out. Open the shoulders, and exhale, pull back up to the center. Very good. Keep your legs where they are. Take your hands and place them on your pelvis. Okay. I want you to take a deep breath in and exhale and really stabilize.

Pull your abdominals in pressure. Lower back down gently. And then this time all I want you to do is to drop your feet to the bar and lift them back up. And let's do that again. Drop your feet to the bar and lift them back up and double check what's going on in your belly there. Make sure that your belly doesn't stick up in the air. Pull it in flat. Drop them down, lift them up. Good. Let's do two more. Please drop them down, lift them up, and one last time, drop him down. Lift him up, hold him right there. Very, very good. Okay.

Drop your legs down. I'm going to take the balls out. Excellent. And I want you to go ahead and get up. So go ahead and roll yourself up. Change to one red spring and one red spring only. And then what I would like you to do is to walk around to the back of the reformer and sit down on top of the box. Okay.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull back the reformer and I'd like you to hang onto it. Okay. Starting from there, very simple. Let the reformer stretch you forward. Round over, stretch forward. Excellent. Exhale, pull back and sit up tall, nice and tall with the sternum up. And again, exhale, round over and stretch forward.

Inhale, stack your spine up nice and tall. Sit up tall. Stop there for one second. Feel the bones on your butt. Feel them in contact with the reformer box. And again, exhale, round over and stretch and inhale, stack and sit up tall. Very good. One more time. Here we go. Exhale, round over and stretch an inhale. Stack up tall. Good. Hang on with your right hand.

Take your left arm off and hold it in front of you and this time round over and circle your left arm back and follow it and stretch around and inhale. Come back to the starting position. Change hands, left arm down, right arm up. Exhale, round over to the right side. Stretch back and look and inhale, twist back around and stretch. And again, change sides. Exhale, rotate around. Open as far as you can. Hold it there. Let the reformer pull you out and stretch and twist back around and stack and sit up tall and switch sides again. Exhale, round around.

Circle around to the right and look back at that right hand. Hold that there. Let the reformer pull you a little bit further and inhale, stack back up tall. One last time to each side. Gentlemen, you're going to pull the arm up. Exhale, twist around to the left, stretch back. Let it really stretch you out. Hold it there. Breathe. Don't hold your breath and inhale. Stack back around, twisting. Sit up tall. Last one, rotating around to the right side.

Exhale, twist around, stretch, reach and inhale, stack and come back around. Very good. Put both hands back down and stretch out. One more time. Stretch and inhale. Stack back up tall. Good. Okay. This time stretch over and you may want to stand up and slowly and gently let the reformer carriage come back to the stopper. Bring it all the way in.

Excellent. Very, very good. Stay right where you are. Turn around and face the other way and back up so that your legs are on either side of the head. Rest don't come too far and what I want you to do then is to scoot back, grab the reformer, grab the shoulder blocks, keep your head down, and then stand up tall and stretch. Keep your head down. There you go. And squat back again. Lift the chest up a little bit this time. Drop the head, lift the buttocks up and stretch and pull the reformer.

Excellent. Let's do that again. Stretch out and pull. Good. This time. Walk out a little bit further for me. Take your feet out. Okay. Squat back. So squat back one more time and then pull the reformer back with you as you straighten up. There you go. Let's do one more like that. Excellent.

Squat back and then pull and sit up tall. Very good. Go ahead and sit down just a little bit and release the reformer back to the stopper. Once it's released. Go ahead and stand up tall. Step out of the reformer. Well and walk around to the front. And we're going to set ourselves up for a lunch here.

So I want you to put the foot bar in the mid height position. One spring. Still, your left leg is going to be next to the reformer leg, right knee on the reformer. And I want you to squat back into your left side, keeping your pelvis square and keep most of the weight, 75% of your weight on the left leg. So squat back into it as far as you can. Move out and come back up. Very good. Move out and come back up.

So Andy showing you an option of lifting your arm up. Another option is to have both hands behind your head, whatever's easier or both arms in front, or if you're feeling unbalanced, you can keep one hand on the reformer. Let's do one more and bringing the carriage in. K, step off from there. Let's walk around and do the other side. Little musical reformers here. There we go.

We've got the right foot next to the foot of the reformer, the left leg on. Keep the majority of the weight on the right leg and squat back into it. Try to keep both bones of your pelvis pointed straight ahead. Very good. Squat back into it and come back again. The different arm options.

One arm up both arms behind your head, both arms out and for balanced sake. You can have one arm just on the reformer carriage. Let's do two more. Very good. Once you've completed that, then I'd like you to sit down on the reformer, straddle the carriage. Keep the one spring on for the time being okay. Once you're on, just put your hands on top of the bar. Feel the two bones on the bottom of your buttocks.

Make sure you're sitting on those bones, feel your spine grow tall, very good. And then just gently press against the reformer and around your pelvis a little bit, and then pull on the foot bar it is locked and pull back and stretch up a little bit and look up at the ceiling. If you can impress back and round, feel the movement through your pelvis and then arch up and lift. That's it. One more time. Press back in round and r-chop in lift. Excellent. This time, take your arms off and just cross them in front of you. All I want you to do is twist around to your left, come back to the center, twist to the right, come back to the center, twist to the left, come back to the center and twist to the right. Come back to the center. Now take your right arm and reach out towards the left side of the foot bar and take the left arm around behind you and try to reach back and grab one of the shoulder blocks and take a little stretch there and try to keep yourself squared. And even good.

All right, and come back to the center and twist around to the other sides. So you've got your right arm in the left side and your left arm reaches back. Good. Sit Up nice and tall squared and even come back to the center. Rotate around. Okay, let's put on some springs for footwork. So let's try to put a three medium to heavy springs on and a blue or a lighter spring if you'd like to do that. All right, and you're going to go ahead and lie back down.

If you'd like to put your head rest back up, you can do so. Okay, and we're going to start in the Polonius v position. You okay? Here? All right, super. All right, let me get you centered on the foot bar. We're going to do 10 so just press out and bring the carriage back in. Think of lengthening your legs as you reach out and bring the carriage back in and again, press out and bring it back in and press out and bring it back in. I'm going all this up. There you go. Press out and back in.

Exhale and inhale again. Five more for me. Press and come back in. Press and come back in and think of lengthening, lengthening your legs, keeping your tailbone heavy. Press that. Let's do one more after this one. Excellent.

And bring the carriage and we're going to change position now to a parallel position. So bring your feet together. From there, press out on your metatarsal is there you go. Pressing out and coming back in. Excellent. Press out and bring it back in. If it's more comfortable for you to drop your heels as you press out, that's fine. Okay. Don't worry about keeping your heels up in the air. I want you to think of creating lengths and your legs.

Bring it back in. There we go. Pressing out and bring it back in. And again, good length and out. Two more times please. Very good. Good. Bring the carriage home. Slight up to your heels.

So we're going to be on our heels. Okay. You can separate your knees just a little bit and then press the carriage out and bring the carriage back in and try to keep your feet together. Press it out and bring it back in. Press it out, bring it back in. Very good. Keep going. Push out. Bring the carriage back in.

Excellent. Four more for me. Press and come back in and press and come back in and come back in and one more time. Press and come back in. Good. Next, I want you to slide back down to your metatarsal. [inaudible]. Get on there, wrap those toes around for me and press the carriage out and stay there with your legs straight. Once you get there, let's just work your feats or drop your heels down and raise up on your toes and continue. Drop them down and raise them up. Press them down, lift them up, press them down, reach and lift him up as tall as you can through your feet and down and up and down and up. Good. Again, four more up. Three, pressing up to press it up and last one. Excellent. Bend your knees. Bring the carriage back in. One last position.

We're going to go to a wide position. You're going to have your heels out to the side. Drop your knees open as as it's not too wide. And once your knees bending out over your toes. Okay, from here, lengthen your legs out and bring the carriage back in. Double check, double check your pelvis to make sure you're in place. Good. Very good. Excellent.

Press out and come back in and press out and back in. Excellent. Five more. Push it out, bring it back in, press it out and get back in. Very good. Two more and press it out and bring it back in and stop. Very good. Okay. We're going to change positions now and move on to something else. So go ahead and sit yourself up so we can put the foot bars down and change our springs. So we're gonna unlock the flip bars. I'm going to take them and push them down and we're going to change to two red springs. Let me grab that for you. Okay.

All right. See Red Springs and I'm going to grab the balls. I want you to lay back down on the reformer and I want you to pick up your loops or some of you may have handles, and I'm going to put the ball between your thighs and I'd like you to lift your legs up into a tabletop position. Put your feet together. There you go. Arms are straight. Very simple. Open your arms out to the side, Tuck your shoulders underneath you just a little bit and pull your hands into your hips. Pull in and open out and do that again. Pull your hands into your hips and open out to the side. Let's do four more. Pull in and open out.

Pull in and open out. Let's bring some attention to your pelvis. Pull your abdominals in as well. Keep them activated. Pull in and open out. Let's switch. Now. Bring your arms up and pull your arm straight down and lift them back up and reach out. Reach towards the end of the reformer. Pull down and lift them up. Pull them down and lift them up. Excellent.

Pull them down and lift them up. Now let's add the head round up. Exhale, round up. Look at the ball between your legs and inhale, go back and again, exhale, round up. Inhale, go back two more, please. Exhale, round up and he'll go back. And one more time. Exhale, roundup. Hold it right there. Breathe. Lower your legs a little and lift them back up. That's it. And lower them a little. Keep your shoulders wide and lift them back up in two more for me.

Lower Malitol and lift them back up. And last one, lower them and lift them back up. Put your head down and lift your arms up and put your straps or your handles down and I'll take the balls away. Excellent. Good. What I'd like you to do now is to get up and change to spring one red spring or one medium white spring. I want you to grab a little sticky pad and your box and I want you to put the box on lengthwise on the reformer, and we're going to put your foot bar up in the high position. And I'm going to show two different high positions and make yours a little lower. Okay?

And you're going to put the sticky pad down on the length of your box. And I want you to go ahead and get on the reformers through your head. Is they seeing the foot bar? Okay, find a comfortable position. Hands on the foot bar, elbows wide. Lengthen your legs out behind you. Keep your body long and lean and press the carriage away.

Push on the foot bar and bring it back in. And again, press out. Just keep your body nice and long and bring it back in. And two more. Press out and bring it back in. And one more time. Press out and bring it back in. This time, press out. And as you come in, leave your arms straight and arch your head and your chest up and bring the carriage in and then press back out. Bend your arms and come back in and repeat that whole sequence again.

So you press out, keep your arm straight, lengthen, lift up. Beautiful, very good George. And press back out and bend your elbows and bring the carriage back in. And one more time, press out and lift. Excellent. And press back out. And bring the carriage back in. All right, very good. Now stay right there. Don't go anywhere.

I want you to take your right arm out to the side, straight out to the side and just press with your left arm and try to keep your shoulders square. Press out and come back in. And again, keep it nice and open and come back in. Let's do two more for me. Press out very good and come back in. Very good. Andy, press out and come back in. Switch sides.

Take the left arm out to the side and press out straight and reach and come back in. And again, press out street and reach and come back in. Very good George. Press out and come back in and one last time, press out and come back in. All right, you can take both arms off and get off the reformer. We're going to leave the box on, but with this time we're going to put the foot bar down completely and you'll leave the sticky pad up on top there. This time we're going to mount the reformer facing the back. So you're going to get on. Okay, so we'll get lined up in position.

Your chest right around the nipple height can be on the reformer box. I want you to pick up your ropes. Flip them to the outside and choke up on them so your arms are nice and long. Okay? All I'm going to ask you to do, so we'll give me one second here. George, come on back in. There you go. Lengthen your body out. Hold it there. Don't do any movement, but your arms. Pull them straight down and back, and in return. Excellent. Let's do four more.

Pull them straight down and back and return. There you go. Inhale, pull straight down and back and exhale. Pull them back in. And two more. Inhale, pull straight down and back. Exhale, bring them back in. And one last time. Inhale, hold it right there. Now Bend at the elbows and bring your arms in and keep your triceps back behind you. And again, press just working the back of your arms. Press back five and bend in. Press back four.

Excellent Andy. Very good. And Bend in. Press back three and bend in. Press back to good and bend in. And one more time, press back and bend in this time. Slide your hands down and reach down to the loops that you have there. But then open your arms out to the side. We have one more exercise.

So open your arms straight out to the side. Hold it here. Rotate your shoulders back. And now inhale, pull your arms in towards the sides of your body. And exhale, bring them back out. Very good old at there. And again, inhale, pull back. Exhale, open them out to the side. Good. And again, inhale, even move a little more for me. George Xcel. Open away, out to the side, rotate back here. Inhale, pull. Exhale, open them out. And one last time. Inhale, pull. Exhale, open them out. Excellent. Go ahead and put your straps down back on the handle holders.

Very, very good. And Go ahead and let's step off. I'll take the sticky mads for you and let's put all of our springs on and turn the box for the short box and we'll get our props available. So the props that we've been using today are a longer pole, a Gondola Pole, a ball is a little bit deflated, a sticky pad. Obviously we're also gonna use a magic circle. So what I'm going to have you do is put the Gondola Pole here, and I want you to go ahead and sit on the box and we're going to put the ball between your thighs when you sit up on the box.

I took your Gondola Pole, okay? Yeah. Excellent. All right. Sit up tall, find a comfortable position, make sure you've got a little bit of a hand space at least behind you. You can scoot back a little bit there, George. Okay. And pull one arm in against the other. Impressive one arm out against the other.

Here we go. Okay, so all I want you to do is to exhale and round back. Let the tailbone tuck under you and roll back a little bit. Let your feet get caught up in the straps, and then take a breath there. Inhale and exhale, roll forward. And we're going to do that again. Exhale round, back, and now this time stay rounded. Inhale, exhale, round, forward and around yourself. Forward. And again, exhale, round, back. Stay rounded. Inhale, exhale, round forward. Excellent. Two more. Exhale, round back. This time try to go a little bit further. Really Challenge Yourself.

Inhale, exhale, very good. Round yourself back up. What you see George doing is a little more advanced than that. Everybody has to do this. Let's go one more time. Exhale, round, back. Go back as far as you can. Inhale, exhale round and come up. Excellent. And sit up nice and tall. Okay, good.

Next we're going to take the Gondola pulse. We'll be careful when you get it out and I'm going to have you put it behind you and I'm going to have you pull it in. It's gonna feel a little odd, but I want you to feel it across the width of your back. Sit up tall. So sit up, find the bones, sit up tall. From there I want you to first turn to your left and then come to the center and turn to the right and come to the center and continue doing this. And as you turn only go so far as you can with that, you still feel the pole on both sides of your back. I don't care how far that is. It can be a short distance. It may feel awkward, but that's the point. Turn and center. And one more time.

Turn and center and turn and center. Excellent. Okay. Go ahead and take the Gondola. Pull out and hang onto it, but it's going to come up over your head. Okay. Simple, simple here. First, bring your arms in a little closer. That's excellent. Find where you're seated. Pull the shoulders up, drop the shoulders down, pull the shoulders up, drop the shoulders down again. Pull them up, drop them down. And one more time. Now keep them in the down position. Shake your neck out a little bit. Turn to the left and come to the center.

Turn to the right and come to the center. Pulling through here. Turn excellent and center and turn and center. This time turn to your left and lean out on a diagonal. Reach out, come back up in terms the center, and turn to the right and lean out on the diagonal. Reach back up and turn to the center. And again, turn, reach out, challenge yourself, come back up and turn to the center. Very good Andy. Turn, reach out, come back up and come to the center. Good George, turn. Reach out, squeeze the ball, come back up and come to the center. And last time, turn, reach out, come back up and come to the center.

Excellent. You can give me the Gondola Pole. I'll get them out of your way and I'll go ahead and pick up your magic circles and take your right foot out. So take your right foot out and put it into the magic circle. Yeah, excellent. Let's do it the other way so it's a little more comfortable. There you go. And from right there, pull up and hold it and straighten and bend.

Straighten and bend a few times. Get some flexibility in the back of your legs. Keep your shoulders down, away from your ears. Good. This time straightened Ben, hold it out and then slowly start to lower yourself back down and you go where you feel comfortable depending on the flexibility of your leg. Come back and then come back up very good. And he goes a little bit further.

He's a little more flexible and you're gonna take it back again. Take it back. You go where you feel comfortable. Impress your leg forward and pull yourself back up and pull in through the abdominals as you round and come back up. Everyone's going to be a little bit different with this exercise. It's based upon everyone's flexibility with their hamstrings.

So you go where you feel comfortable. Stretch back as far as you can. Hold it there and breathe. Don't hold your breath guys. Now take your head up first. Pull the abdominals in and try to bring your chest up to your straight leg. Shoulders Open. Hold it there and excellent.

Press the leg forward and bring yourself all the way back up. [inaudible] very good. Let's switch sides. Getting warm in here, Huh? Yeah, it's all right. Getting warm. Okay. Straighten and bend a few times and make sure that you're a, you're welcome. Make sure that you're getting a little flexibility there. And you know what?

Everyone can do this slightly differently because everyone's flexibility is different. Nice way to get this exercise done. Excellent. To hold it there straight and start to lower yourself down. Always think of moving sequentially as you go back down straight. Breathe for me George, and come back up. Good.

And again, you're going to take it back. Good Andy, keep going straight and, and bend a few times and then take it back down. Drop back. Okay, good. I'll always try to figure out where you are in your pelvis that you're nice and squared. Bring yourself back up and this time go back down again.

Go all the way back down. Find the comfort zone, hang back where you can. Everyone does this differently. Breathe. And then try to bring your chest up towards your thighs. Keep your shoulders open. Beautiful George. Good, good. Andy, stretch it out. Shoulders Open. Ah, and then press yourself all the way back up. Come all the way up.

Excellent. I'll take those away from you, your torture weapons. Okay. Gentlemen, you can get off the reformers now. We're going to keep them set up the same way. Okay, go ahead and uh, cool yourself off. What I'd like you to do is to get on the reformer this time I'm going to show you a little demo here and puts your foot in and wrap the other leg around and come on down and stretch. Okay? We'll do some sights. Sit ups.

Let's get on the right side first. Okay. I get that out of your way. Don't be other way. And then just come onto your hip first. What I'd like you to do, this is the dessert. So roll yourself, roll the pelvis over, give yourself a nice big stretch. You can go ahead and let go, George, just give yourself a nice big stretch wherever that is. Okay.

Sometimes you may only be able to do this part of the exercise. Whatever you do here, do not hold your breath. Depending on your flexibility and your strength and your body awareness, you may be able to move on to this level. So you're going to take your left arm and put it here at your side and your right hand behind your head. Okay? And I want you to move up in this area and I want a small little lift.

Inhale as you come up and exhale as you come down, we need to have total body awareness. There you go. Inhale up, not only in the back of the body, but also the front of the body. Inhale up, exhale down. Very good, very good. George. Inhale up, squeeze and come up through here. Exhale down. Take your head back a little bit more for me. Inhale up and exhale down. Go all the way down. Take a nice big stretch over and release and let it go. Breathe. Don't hold your breath, roll yourself forward a little bit and then bring yourself back a little bit. Just forward and back a couple of times, not a lot.

If you want to do what Andy's doing with one arm on the ground, that's acceptable as well. Very good. And let's switch sides. So you're going to bring yourselves up, you're going to turn yourself around and we're going to go the other way. We've got to make sure we're even okay. Find a comfortable position. Get on your left hip, get one bone in the pelvis on top of each other. Stretch yourself over. Good. Let your head go.

Stretch down. Excellent. Good. The next thing we're going to do, and we'll take our right arm at our side and our left hand behind our head and from here we're going to inhale on the way up and exhale on the way down. You can make the movement big or small in the beginning of might be best just to keep the movement a little bit smaller, being aware of what's going on in the front of the body and as well as what's going on in the back side of the body. Okay, very good. Let's do one more time. Come all the way down and come all the way up. Excellent. And then finish off and stretch all the way over. Good, good, good.

And you can roll yourself forward a little bit and then pull yourself back and roll yourself back and do that twice more. Roll yourself forward and roll yourself back. Excellent. Very good. Okay. You can yep. Off. And we're going to take the a box off and put it away and we're going to put all of our little props away that we use.

So they're out of the way and out of danger. And we're going to come back and we're going to put the a reformer foot bar up. And if you have a lot, go ahead and lock it into place. And we're going to go to two springs to medium springs or you don't have medium springs and you have only heavies than you'll use to heavy springs. And you're going to put your foot bart and the head rest both of them up.

Okay. And we're going to come over to the left side of the reformer here to get on. And you're going to put your hands on the foot bar and your feet are going to go back into the head rest for long stretch. So basically we're going to get, take your feedback in here. Get into more or less a pushup position. Once you're in the pushup position, hold your body nice and long, and then you're going to push the carriage back. Breathing in, and exhale, bring the carriage forward. Good. And again, inhale, press it back and exhale, bring it in. And two more. Inhale, press it back and exhale.

Bring it back in in one last time. Press it back and bring it back in a little challenge. You're going to take your right foot and cross it over your left. And we're going to do two this way. So you're going to inhale, press back, exhale, bring it back in. And again, inhale, press back. Exhale, bring it back in. And let's switch sides.

So your left will cross over the right. Keep your balance. Inhale, press back, exhale, come back in. Very good George. And again, inhale, press back. Good. Exhale, come back in. Good. UNCROSS them. Go ahead and kneel down. Bring the reformer all the way into the shoulder or to the stoppers. Okay. And separate your feet so your feet go up against the shoulder blocks.

From this position. I want you to get a nice big stretch. So I want you to press the pelvis forward. Lift your chest up, look up at the ceiling or the ceiling and the wall meet. Not Too much. Okay, and just move from your arms. Push the carriage back. Inhale, exhale, come back in and pull up nice and tall and long through the torso. Inhale, press back. Exhale, come back in three more, please. Inhale, press back. Exhale, come back in.

And again, inhale, press back. Exhale, come back in. And one last time. Inhale, press back. Exhale, come back in. Good. From there, what I'd like you to do is to kind of sit back and then bring your body forward. So let's push the carriage out a little bit. Flatten your back out and dropped down. Okay? Hold that position. Now. Pull your abdominals up and lengthen this out.

Take your head up a little bit more handy. Okay. From there, bend your arms. Bring the carriage in and press the carriage back out. I want some nice, long length of your linkedin, the south. No. Good. And exhale, press back. Good. Inhale, come in. Exhale, press back. You can take, so why? There you go. Inhale, and exhale. Pull this up. Mindfulness out. Good. Two more.

Good and come back in and one more time for me. Okay, good. Now let's go only to the right arm. So bring the carriage in. Take the left arm back behind you and wrap it around your back. There you go. And press out, and then from there, inhale, press back. Exhale, come in four times only in heel. Press back, exhale, come in. Good. Inhale, press back. Very good.

Exhale, come in. Excellent. You may also want to take a spring off for the one arm. Let's switch to the other side. Make sure your shoulders stay squared and you try to move evenly as you can. Very good George. One side may be weaker than the other.

Then bring it out to the side. Inhale, press back. Exhale, bring it in two more times. Inhale, press back. Exhale, bring it in. And one last time. Excellent. Bring the carriage all the way back in and stop there. And then let's take the foot bars and we're going to put them up to the highest position.

So we're going to start here and bring the foot bars up to the highest position. Lock them into place if you have a lock, and then go ahead and stand up on the reformers and bend your body in half and just kind of stretch over. Just hold on right there. Get a nice stretch. Okay, stretch over, pull your toes up. Excellent. Now drop your toes back down, walk your heels back to the shoulder blocks. Get your body in a nice upside down position, or we can even really an a hold it their toes up and press the carriage back about six inches and pull it underneath you and the whole time keep your abdominals active and alive. Inhale, press back. Exhale, pull it under you.

And again, inhale, press back. Exhale, pull it under you. Three more. Inhale back. Exhale, pull it under you and again, inhale back. Exhale, pull it under you. And one last time. Exhale, pull it under you. Good. Go ahead and step off the reformer. Okay, you're going to continue to keep two springs on. I'm going to go ahead and put another spring on for you and we're going to put the foot bar. We'll leave the foot bar where it is.

So what I'd like you to do now is to sit up on the foot bar and bring your feet forward onto the reformer. We're going to do a simple version of this slide exercise. So what I want you to do is to lift your pelvis off, hold it there, and then just bend your elbows in, dip the pelvis down, and then press the carriage out with your arms in your pelvis and then bring it back and straighten and lift up. So keep your head nice and tall. Bend your elbows, press down, press the pelvis out, bring it back, straighten your arms. Sit Up nice and tall. It's due to more bend in. Press out, bring it back, straighten it up. Very good.

Bend in, press down and out. Bring it back and straighten it up. Excellent. Excellent. Go ahead and stop right there. Good. Let's get off the reformers. I'm going to lower your foot bar just a little bit. We're going to stay right there. I'd like you to put your head rest down and we're going to get back on the reformer lying down on your back and we're going to Pete, put our feet into the loops.

Okay, so you can push back. You can either do what Georgia's doing. You got it, I got you. Or you can do as Andy is doing, which is pushing out with one leg to get the carriage out. Okay? From right there, put your heels together, toes apart. Very simple. Bend your knees in towards your chest and press back out and straight and then let the ropes or the loops there come in between your thighs.

Bend your knees and press back out. That's at the ropes of the straps. Come in between the thighs, bend and press out and bend and press out. Good. Now what I want you to do is to bend in and hold this position and take a little back, a little lower back, stretch there and let the weight of the springs pull you in a little bit in. Peel your tailbone off and then what you can do, hang on one second is grab onto these ropes and just pull down on them a little bit and take a little stretch right there. There you go. That's it.

Take a little stretch. Okay gentlemen, we're going to do our favorite exercise, short spine massage to release your tailbone back down. Put your arms at your side, straighten the legs out, keep the legs straight and as you exhale, bring the legs back, bring them over, peel off, lift the pelvis up, bend your knees in towards your chest and slowly roll down good all the way down through your spine. It should feel good. Now if you're new to doing this exercise, you may not want to do the whole exercise. You may just want to do the leg work and the stretch that will lower back and roll and release down the drop through the pelvis. There you go. Very good. All the way down. Excellent. Andy, press three. We're going to do two more.

Bring the legs up and back and over. Lift the pelvis up higher. Bend your knees in. Good, and then roll down through your spine. Very good. And one last time. Press lift up and back and over. Then the knees in. Excellent, Andy. There you go. Good. George. Jim, roll down. Roll all the way down. Once you get finished there, bend your knees in, take one loop off.

And the easiest thing to do is to reach the other leg forward onto the foot bar so it stays there for you. And then you take the other loop off and then you can slowly bring the carriage back in. Excellent. Very good. Okay, super. Let's get up. Let's put the foot bars down. Keep the two red springs on and we're going to grab the ball. Put it up and over. There we go. And I'd like you to kneel on the carriage facing the backside and let's put the ball between our thighs. Okay, put your knees right up against there, but the ball between your thighs to give yourself a little bit of a support.

And then what I want you to do is to grab on. You can either hang on to the loops, depending on how your reformers set up or to the ropes. And I want you to pull back just a little bit, hold the position and don't move quickly. And I want you to lean back and space and stretch the front of your thighs. Excellent. And then bring yourself back up. Good.

Be sure to breathe. Lean back, exhale, good. Go wherever you can. That's excellent. Inhale, come back up and let's do two more. Exhale back. Very good. Inhale, come back up. And one last time. Lean back. Inhale, come back up. Excellent. Bring yourself all the way back up. Make sure the reformers back at the stopper so there's no fast movements happening.

And Go ahead and put your loops down and you're going to step off the reformer. I'll take the balls and get those out of the way. Excellent. Alright, let's change to one red spring and we're going to grab our sticky pad and we're going to stand on the left side of the reformer. And you're going to put the sticky pad up on the reformer. Okay. And we're going to stand close to the leg of the reformer with the left foot and the right foot goes on the reformers.

So we have our pelvis pointed directly ahead. Go ahead. Okay, everybody's got one spring. Turn your foot out this way a little more so it's a little more comfortable. Nope, nope, you're cool. Keep it bent a little bit more. There you go. Now just straighten the leg out without moving anything else and bend and bring it back in. Very good. Straighten and bring it back in.

Excellent. And again, straighten and bring it back in and straighten and bring it back in and straighten and bring it back in and straighten and bring it back. In. This time I want you to just press, keep the leg bent and take it out and bring it back up. Go to where you're comfortable. That's going to be very different for everybody. And press it out and bring it back in and press it out and bring it back in and press it out and bring it back in and do one more time pressing it out and bringing it back in. Excellent. Take your right leg off, turn and face the back of the reformer. Very good. And you're gonna put your left foot on against the shoulder.

Stop this way and your other leg is going to be standing next to the reformer and walk yourself forward. So you need to walk forward a little bit more so you, you're in a position where you're bent here. Very good. Yeah, you're parallel. Actually. You can have a walk forward a little bit more on the right. There you go. Now just straighten your left leg out and bring it back in so your arms can either be crossed, they can be at your side. I like that they can be out here or they can be behind your head.

Whatever's easier to be done and bring it back in and again, press out and bring it back in. Think of both bones, your pelvis being pointed directly ahead. One more time, press and bring it back in this time. Keep the knee bent, but lean into it and come back again. Both bones of the pelvis goes straight ahead. Very good. And press and bring it back in and again, press and bring it back in and press and bring it back in.

And one more time, press out and bring it back in. Very good. Take your left foot off. Let's walk around to the other side of the reformer and we're going to put our right foot on this time. So you're going to walk around. Just be careful you don't have a little accident. And we're going to do the right leg on their first, facing the back of the reformer and bring the left foot closer on.

There you go. Okay. Both sides are going to be different. So pressing, straighten the leg and bring it back in and again, press and straighten it and bring it back in and again, press and straighten it and bring it back in. Very good. Two more. Press and straighten and bring it back in. And one more time. Excellent. This time, lean into it. So keep the knee bent and bring it back in. Remember again, both bones of the pelvis. Go straight ahead, lean into it, and bring it back in. Very good.

And lean into it and bring it back in and to more lean into it. Bring it back in and one more time. Wean into it and bring it back in. Good. Take that leg off this time. Turn and face the reformer. So your left foot.

Now we'll go up onto the sticky and that turned out position the other way flat. There you go. And the right foot's turned out. There you go. And first we'll start with the leg. Just press it out and bring it back in. And again, press it out and bring it back in and press it out. Excellent gentlemen, and bring it back in. Good. Look at me this way.

There you go. And bring it back in and again, and bring it back in. Now this time, lean into it. So keep the left leg bent and bring it back in. And again, press it out, lengthen it out, and bring it back in. Good. Three more of these. Press it out. Good. Pull back into here. Excellent. Bring it back in to more.

Bring it back in and one last time and bring it back in. Take the leg off, stand up. Okay. Next we're going to do some upper body. So what we're gonna do is we'll get rid of these sticky pads right now and I'm going to have you come in front of the reformers here by the flip bar and I want you to bend over, put your hands on the carriage, and then take your feet back a little bit and get yourself into a pushup position. Lifting your chest up. There you go. And then press the carriage out still two springs and exhale and bring it back in. And again, press it out and bring it back in.

Let's do three more. Press it out, bring it back in, press it out, bring it back in. And one last time. Good. This time, let's go to a wide stance. So take your feet wide, keep the right arm off, and leave the left arm extended out. And let's go to one arm, press it out and bring it back in. Press it out. This is the challenge you have to be very careful. Try to do for, press it out, bring it back in. And one more time.

Excellent. Go back to two arms. Stabilize again and try it with the opposite arm out. Hold it there. Both sides are going to be different and bring it back in. Very good. Press it out, bring it back in. Press it out, bring it back in. And one more time. Press it out.

Excellent. Bring it back in both hands on pike, your buttocks up in the air and stretch and stand all the way up and bring the carriage back in. There you go. Okay, now walk around the reformer. So you're going to end up on the inside here and I'd like you to come into another push up position with your right arm bent on the reformer. Hand against the shoulder block. Left arm straight on the floor. Okay. And let's turn your hand this way. I think this is going to be a little better. Okay. Hold that position there.

Good and so the other way. Turn it there and from there press the right arm out and extend it and bring it back in and again, press it out and bring it back in. Good. Three more. Press it out. Excellent. Bring it back in. Press it out, bring it back in. Press it out, bring it back in. One more time, one more time.

It's a challenge. Bring it back in. Good. Now release. You can put both hands on the floor and pick yourself back up if that's easier. You're going to come all the way up to standing and walk around to the other side. Okay, so you're going to bring your left arm down, wrap your hand around, make sure your body is close to the reformer. Stabilize on the right arm and work the left. Press it out. Exhale. Inhale. Bring it back in. There you go. Press it out.

Bring it back in. Excellent, nice and strong. Press it out. Bring it back in. Press it out and bring it back and press it out and bring it back in. Good. You're going to come back off and finish. You can take both arms down on ground, hike yourself back up and walk back.

Excellent. This time you're going to put your foot bars back up in the high position. Lock them in if they lock, and let's go to one red spring and you're going to come around to the left side of the reformer and stand on the left leg with the right foot up. And you're going to take both hands and behind the head and press back and straight working in the back of your right leg. So find a comfortable place if you need the balance. No big deal.

Put a hand on the foot bar. It's up to you whether you want both hands behind your head. So we're going to press him, work through the gluteals, press back and bring it back in. Press back, go as far as you can. Work. Impress through the hamstring and the glutes. Press back, bring it back in. Two more. Press back.

Very good George. Bringing it back in. Good Andy, press back, bring it back in and press back. Bring it back in. Good release. Stand up. Walk around. Let's do the other side. Okay, so find the comfortable's position. Remember if you need the balance, put one hand or two hands on the flip bar, but try to stay as erect as possible. Take your knee up. That's it. Bend into the right leg and then straighten and bend the left.

Press out, bring it back in. Press out. There you go, George. Bring it back in. Lean back a little bit. I've got your press back. Bring it back in, press back. Good, Andy, bring it back in and one more time. Excellent release and step off. Stand in front of your reformers and you can go ahead and face the reformer.

We're going to do a couple of little stretches here, so once you're there, just reach your arms up, press up towards the ceiling and stretch up. Open your arms apart, lean back in space and look back behind you and release and drop your arms down and around your head down and stretch over and down. Go as far as you can. You don't have to go that far. You stretched down and then you come back up and one last time, you're going to reach up, reach back, look behind you, open out, open your arms wide, brings your arms down, and you're finished. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yay.

Comments

2 people like this.
Thank you Kevin. I have so many male clients who would greatly benefit from some of those wonderful variations. Loved the seated twist on the box, so cool. BTW you look fantastic! Big Hug,
1 person likes this.
Thank you Kevin. I have so many male clients who would greatly benefit from some of those wonderful variations. Loved the seated twist on the box, so cool. BTW you look fantastic! Big Hug,
Excellent! I am in a pilates teacher training and one of my students for my student teaching is male - he will love these stretches. Thank for you for these great ideas. Really creative.
2 people like this.
Whoa, I loved this workout Kevin!! I loved it for me! But really, I have so many men clients that could benefit from all the wonderful stretches you presented. The push up variations, the glute and VMO work, it was just a great full body workout.Thank you so much for your detailed cuing as well. Judy
1 person likes this.
Beautiful class, Kevin! Thank you! :D
1 person likes this.
You're the best Kevin, love your work, thank you. Great direction - perfect.
1 person likes this.
Very insightful. Thank you!!
1 person likes this.
Thank You for this class Kevin, the variety of work kept me very motivated :)
2 people like this.
Fantastic class! Please do more of these. Thank you!!
1 person likes this.
I am so glad that everyone is enjoying the class!
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