Stretch, Restore, Recovery

It's important when we're designing any training regime that we include some elements of recovery, prehab work and injury prevention. And that's what this workout is about really, about giving ourselves a chance to stretch, recover, and restore. So use this as part of your training regime, maybe come to it when you feel the need or even better add it in regularly as part of your overall training, okay? So we're just gonna begin seated on the caddy and take a moment just to breathe and connect. So sit however you feel most comfortable that enables you to keep the spine tall.

You have your legs out or crossed. I'm gonna place my hands just down behind me just to help lengthen the spine and take a moment just to inhale and exhale three times. So it's inhale and we can fully belly breathe with this, so let the belly expand, the ribs expand, just inhaling in. (inhaling) And as we exhale, (exhaling) feel yourself relax a little more, but also connect down through the sit bones. Let's breathe in two more times, inhale it in, (inhaling) exhale it out. (exhaling) Once more, breathe it in. (inhaling) And exhale all the air out. (exhaling) And let's lower ourselves down onto our back, carefully with control. Arms by the side.

And take another moment just to scan through the body. Look for any areas of tension or stress or soreness. And throughout your workout you can direct your breath to those areas and just try and soften them a little more. We begin with pelvic clocks. So imagining we've got a marble balanced on our pelvis, let's rock it back and forth from the naval and then all the way down to the pubic bone.

Imagining that's a clock face and the naval being 12, the pubic bone being six. And just rock up and down a couple of times. And then bring the marble to the middle of the clock face. Let's roll it from hip to hip now, from three to nine, and do so without moving the legs. It's a very subtle movement.

It's all about how it feels rather than how it looks. And then roll all the way up to 12. And let's go around the clock face now. Doesn't have to be a big movement. All the way around, just feel the pelvis move in.

Let's reverse the clock all the way around. Go all the way down to six at the bottom, up the other side. Let's go one more from 12 all the way around to six, up the other side. And then reverse, all the way back up to 12 at the top. A couple of little more rocks back and forward.

And then begin to feel the pelvis lift a little more, just very small lifts. Not going into a full bridge, but just activating the glutes and mobilizing the whole area around the pelvis. One more time. (inhaling) (exhaling) Now bringing the marble back so it's about in the middle of the clock face, wanna do some legs slide. So just slide one leg out, lift it up. Reach it back out, and drag the heel back.

And again, lengthen your leg out. Lift, reach it out and drag it back. And all the while, as I'm reaching my leg out, this other toe, this other foot, should I say, is feeling light and soft on top of the table, not pressing down for any extra support. Last time on each side. (inhaling) Just breathe freely as you do so, (exhaling) feeling the body lengthen and bring the leg back.

Bring the thighs together. And you can keep your arms by your side. If it feels more comfortable, you can grip the the uprights as well. And just lower your knees gently to the right, (exhaling) keeping your opposite shoulder connected to the mat. Let's come back through the center, just feeling a very gentle twist of the lower back. (exhaling) Back through the center.

One more on each side. (inhaling) (Jamie exhaling) (inhaling) And the last one, just stretch the spine, but in a controlled and safe way. We're not letting the legs fall, we're keeping them controlled. Come back to the center. Let's see if we can just float our legs up to table top for femur arcs, just tapping one foot at a time. Nothing else is moving, everything else is quiet.

It's just the femur gliding in the hip joint. And this is switching on the powerhouse, connecting us to the core as well, which is also, as we know, an important part of stretching. (Jamie exhaling) One more, and then let's bring them the thighs, the feet together. See if we can do that with both the feet at the same time. Can you keep your upper body quiet?

This is actually quite challenging. (Jamie exhaling) We'll just do one more of these. Bring the legs up and then lower them down. (exhaling) Take a stretch out, very nice. Stretch your arms up as well (inhaling) and just reach. (exhaling) Bring the arms back. Let's hug one knee into the body, bend the other knee.

Just hug that in. Change legs, hug the other leg in. And then bring both knees in. We're gonna stir these around. So just use the arms to stir the knees.

The legs are passive in this. Let's reverse it, take it the other way. (exhaling) Just oiling up the hip joint (exhaling) (inhaling) and then hug the knees in. We're gonna roll onto our side and come up to sit. We find ourselves sitting at the top here. Take hold of the rollback bar.

Now, if you're feeling tightness in the hips, you're welcome just to soften the knees. This is gonna be all about the backs. We want the spine to feel nicely sort of rolled out. So sit tall, abs deep and just roll back, introducing each of the vertebra. Taking an inhale at the bottom. (inhaling) Exhale, (exhaling) rolling up and sitting tall.

Try and press your heels into the uprights, ab scoop, but we round ourselves back. Just introduce the vertebra one at a time. (inhaling) Exhale, (exhaling) rounding to come back up, sitting tall. Let's do one more like this. Pressing the heels into the uprights or at least reaching them towards the uprights. (inhaling) And then coming in all the way up. (exhaling) Move yourself back just a little. Point your toes this time.

Let's see if we can go back for a couple of times with the toes pressing into the uprights. It just gives a different dynamic, a different feeling in the front of the body. (inhaling) And rolling up, (exhaling) sitting tall. One more time, back we go. (inhaling) And then rolling all the way up (exhales) to sit again. Bring your seat forward a little more. We'll do a little spine stretch forward here.

Sitting up nice and tall, connecting under the arms, abs deep, (inhaling) inhale tall. As you exhale, chin to chest, reach forward and just stretch towards the uprights. And then stack the spine up (inhaling) as we inhale. And again, up and over, abs deep, (exhaling) reaching forward and then stacking the spine up (inhaling) like building blocks, nice and tall. Last one, scoop the abs.

Stretch forward, really reach, breathe all the air out the lungs. (exhaling) And then inhale (inhaling) all the way back up. It's time for a really nice stretch now, so bring one hand to the middle of the bar, the other hand on top. We're gonna use this rollback bar to support us for a nice lateral stretch, so roll yourselves back again. (exhaling) And let's reach your opposite arm up and stretch across. I can reach far enough to grab the side of the upright, but you can also grab the side of the mat, whatever enables you to stabilize that arm and then cross your leg over the other leg and just feel that stretch through the side body. And I'm gonna breathe (inhaling) into any areas of tension.

You may feel this in your shoulder, your hip, the side body, just all of the above. It doesn't matter, just breathe, (inhaling) and release. Just feel the muscles just letting go. (Jamie exhaling) Mm. That feels really good.

But we gotta do the other side. So let's bring the feet back to the uprights, the hands back to the bar. Roll up through the center. (exhaling) And let's repeat on the other side. Okay, so changing the hands, lowering ourselves back. (exhaling) We begin by just reaching our arm up, getting that stretch through the shoulder, the thoracics, and now crossing the leg over. And you may feel like one side's tighter than the other and that's totally normal.

If so, it's just notice it, don't judge it and just allow that to give us some information for the next time we train or the next time we're doing our Pilates workouts. Let's just breathe and soften. (exhaling) (Jamie inhaling) (Jamie exhaling) And if it feels good, stay here as long as you want. I'm gonna carry on with the rest of the session, but feel free to pause and just breathe for a moment. Let's bring the arms back to the bar and then round (exhales) and roll all the way up to sit nice and tall. I'm gonna spin myself around here, onto my back.

I'm gonna take hold of the same bar. This time we're placing the knees over the top of the bar. I'm gonna cross my ankles, but my knees are separated and I want to keep a good grip on the bar here. Hands just holding the uprights, just squeezing the uprights gently together. And let's return to just tapping the toes down and up.

(Jamie exhaling) This is very similar to our femur arcs, but this time we're supported, gives a little bit of spinal release. (Jamie inhaling) Let's bring the toes down (exhales) and just see if we can translate the bar from side to side. And that can be a challenge. Can you keep the bar horizontal? It's gonna allow a stretch through one side of the body and a little work through the opposite side.

And now this time as I go over to the first side, I'm gonna bring the bar up, change to the other side, come down through the center and reverse, out, up. Across and down, let's reverse it again. (inhales) (Jamie exhaling) Just breathing throughout. Let the breath happen naturally (inhales) and up (exhales) and across and around and back to the center. And let's do a couple more taps. (inhales) (Jamie exhaling) And now press the feet down. I'm gonna separate, uncross them now, lifting my hips up (inhaling) and then just lower down through the spine. (exhales) And again, pressing the hips up.

See if I can articulate back down, introducing each of the vertebra with the first and the last name all the way down. (exhales) And then if this feels available to you, we'll take hold of the upright now and allow the knees to roll in towards the shoulders and massage the spine back down, a little rolling in, rolling out. Lifting up and then really feel that spine getting a nice juicy sort of stretch really. Let's bring that up one more time. (inhales) Roll it all the way down. (exhales) And then let's take the knees out from over the bar. If you can do it without your feet touching the bar, I think you get extra points. So there we go, out and over.

And we're gonna sit ourselves up and turn around again. This time we're coming up onto our knees for some chest expansion. So about an arms distance away from the uprights, feet train tracking back behind the knees. And use this as a moment to bring oxygen into the body, okay? So the form can go a little bit as long as we allow the chest to really expand.

Let's take a strong inhale. (inhaling) Let's look and look and center and then exhale it all out. (exhaling) And again, inhale it in. (inhaling) Let's look again and center and then exhale it all out. (exhaling) One more time, big inhale, (inhaling) and exhale it back. (exhaling) Now take your knees back a little further so you've got some support from the springs for thigh stretch. Connect with the abs, connect with the seat, the inner thighs, and we'll just use the springs to support us as we hinge back into that stretch. If you feel like you've gone too far, you're welcome to bend your elbows to allow the springs to bring you back up again. (exhales) Let's do two more of those. Abs deep, just hinging back. Feel the stretch through the body, coming all the way up.

Last time. Just find that length in your body, that stretch of the quads, and then coming all the way up. Now to counter that stretch, move forward just a fraction. Pull the naval in and up and we'll roll down forwards. Take the chin to the chest, rolling down, feel the knuckles touching the mat.

And you wanna feel like you're almost toppling over (inhales) so that your abs and seat have to work fiercely to bring you back up. (inhales) And that's gonna allow you to stretch your spine (exhales) a little more. Pull the navel in up towards the ceiling, (inhaling) rolls the shoulders back. Last time, up and over. (exhales) And then rolling back up (inhales) with control. Okay. We're gonna move on to the push through by now.

I think I can connect my push through and top load it and begin lying down on my back for a variation of breathing that I find is just really good for opening up the ribs. Makes everything feel good in the body. So feet I've got about sit bone distance apart. I'm gonna press my hips up, sit bones to the back to the knees. Stretch in the front body.

And now here, take a big inhale (inhales) as we stretch. Push the bar as far away as you can. Reach it away. (inhaling) Leave it there as we come down through the vertebra. (exhaling) And then bring the bar back up. Once again, lift the hips, push the bar through, stretch it out. Big inhale. (inhaling) Exhale as we come down, (exhaling) still pushing the bar away.

Gives us really good feedback that we gotta push those arms. Last time, hips come up, (inhaling) push the bar through. Take a big inhale at the top (inhaling) and lower down through the spine. (exhaling) And let's return the bar back to the top, sit ourselves up and let's spin around. Feet on the uprights, hands on the push through bar. Let's do a little push through round, a push through tall, so abs deep pushing through the center.

Feel that stretch. And then keep the arm straight so we stay connected as we push up. (inhaling) So get as much stretch here as possible, but also as much lift with the abs. And again, pushing through. (exhales) Breathe it out. (inhaling) Push it up, take a big inhale here. (inhaling) Now we are leaning back. Lean back on the bar for the saw. Take your right arm out and just stretch and I want you to anchor the opposite hip down, opening the body (inhaling) and as we exhale, reach across.

If you can, take hold of the upright. And this is gonna allow you to make a few micro movements, adjustments and just let the body move where it feels it needs to go. We're gonna let the intuition guide us here. Once again, push through, push it up, nice and tall. (inhaling) Leaning back, the other side, stretch it out and then thread the arm through. Once again, we're gonna take hold of the upright and just make a few micro movements.

Move your body as it tells you to move. If you need to bend your knees, that's fine too. (inhales) Hands back on the bar. Let's do one more on each side with a little more flow. And we push through, push tall, lean back, stretch it out, thread it through. Hands on, let's push through again.

Push up nice and tall, (inhales) lean back into the saw, big inhale. (inhales) Exhale as we thread through. (exhales) And then hands back onto the bar, very nice. Okay, move your one hand into the middle of the bar now. This is one of my favorite lateral stretches. Take the other hand on top. I want us to stay square with the uprights.

As far back as you can go, lift your arm up. Paint the ceiling. You're gonna paint the ceiling with your hand. And then we're moving over to the opposite side, reaching all the way over. Staying anchored through the right hip, I'm stretching to the left, coming all the way around (exhales) and then rejoining the other hand back on the bar.

Let's do the other side. So lengthen back, paint the ceiling with your hand, then reaching across, stretch. That's the magic right there. That's a really magical moment in the stretch, for me anyway. You find your magic.

Where is your magic at? Let's do one more. (inhales) And you are welcome, once again, if you find a point where you're like, "No, that is just too good to leave," then just stay there. Breathe through it. Let the muscles release. Last time, lengthening back, stretching around, and coming all the way back to the bar and we turn for a little bit of mermaid.

So bring the bar down. And this just encourages us to keep the shoulder down, reach the other arm up, and I mean up. Don't just go straight into the stretch 'cause you'll lose a lot of that stretch potential. So reach up, lift it, and then stretch over exhaling out (exhales) and coming back up again. (inhales) And again, up and over. (exhales) Inhaling back up again. (inhaling) One more time, up and over. (exhales) And then take a hand across to the bar, So you have two hands on the bar now and just give the QR a little stretch. And we're coming all the way up and doing the same on the other side.

So I'm gonna spin around, turn my back to you for a moment. Same thing, anchoring down through my seat, connecting my shoulder by pressing the bar down and going up before I go over. Inhale up, (inhaling) And again, upwards, exhaling over. (exhales) (Jamie inhaling) One more time. This time we go up and over. Enjoy that stretch and bring the hand all the way around so both hands are on the bar and we push it through for a moment.

Once again, just micro movements. Follow the intuition. (inhales) Coming all the way up. (exhales) Let's do a little for the shoulders. So swing the feet out in front of you and then take hold of the bar behind for reverse push through. Sit tall, connect with the powerhouse, ab scoop and just press the bar back just a little, (exhales) just a little more. And you'll feel that one shoulder definitely has more range than the other.

So I want you to go to the one with the least range so that we start to balance the shoulders up. I'm gonna bring my nose to my knee, push the bar up tall and just stretch in the opposite direction. And again, pull the bar through. And I'm scooping my abs to push back, but I'm pressing my feet away in opposition. It gives me an extra bit of length, extra bit of stretch. (inhales) And again, nose to the knees.

Connect with the abs and then push the bar up as tall as you can. And then let's release the arms. And you might wanna just give them a little shake or if you want just a little massage of the arms. That can feel great. And we're gonna spin around onto our tummies for a swan.

So bring the push through bar through. And I want it about level with the uprights. This gives us about the right position in. And then the forehead comes down. And we'll do a few movements here.

Initially just shrugging the shoulders up and down, elevate and depress the shoulders, pressing the heels together. And of course drawing the naval away from the mat. Now draw the shoulders down into back pockets. Hold them here as we just bend the elbows wide and that gives us a very subtle shoulder stretch. I do that three times and then we're coming to the more familiar swan.

So bring your eyes to the bar, lift the head, chest, shoulders and just come on up to where you feel comfortable. Don't over crank this one. You don't wanna feel it in the small of your back. You want to feel a really long elongated wheel or curve of the spine that lengthens, like arching all the way through the spine. (inhaling) One more, let's come up for the neck rolls. So draw the shoulders back, lift the head, chest.

Broaden the collar bones. We're gonna look to one side, chin to chest, around and center, to the other side, down, around and center. And then lengthen back. Reach it away, stretch it away. Now if that's all that's available to you right now, that's fine, let's repeat that.

Otherwise let's see if we can do a full swan here 'cause it really gets into the shoulders and it's great for the shoulders to release and stretch. So as we lift, we bend the elbows, press the bar up and I want us to look up to the bar, feel that stretch, returning back down. (exhaling) Lengthen the bar away. And I'm active through my back body. My seat is definitely on, 'cause I want to support the extension and keep my back safe. Let's lengthen up, and then coming all the way back down.

Turning over onto our backs for a little modified teaser. Teaser at this moment would be a little bit too much of a surprise, a bit too shocking, so we'll do just the upper body. So stretch the legs out. Let's enjoy that reverse swan. So elbows wide, push the bar, feel it stretch.

Stretch the whole body. (inhales) Imagine someone's pulling you by the ankles, then bring the bar up, reconnect the shoulders, chin to chest and just curl up the upper body. Just lift and then lower back down. Once more, big stretch, (inhaling) reach, connect the shoulders to the mat. And then we'll lift up and lower everything back down to the mat, releasing the bar for kneeling cat. So kneel up, facing your push through bar.

Keep this one safe and just follow the intuition again of the body, let it take you where it feels it needs to go. So start by leaning back, a little thigh stretch, abs draw in as we come up and over and push the bar through the uprights, through the window and just lengthen it out. And I'm feeling a stretch in my shoulders. I'm gonna draw my naval in to see if I can round up to bring myself back up to the knees, up and over. Everything we do, you can invite the body to guide you and if it needs a little subtle movement, then follow it.

Often the body knows best. Lengthen and back. One more time, up and over. Big stretch, (inhales) coming all the way back up. I'm gonna take my right arm up and just stretch back, (Jamie exhaling) my left arm to do the same.

(Jamie exhaling) Now let's load this bar from the bottom. So the first thing we have to do of course is get our safety chain or safety strap onto the bar so that it's nice and safe and secured before we attach our lower spring. And now that's all nicely set up. I'm gonna lower myself onto my back and using the uprights, not the bar itself, pull myself into position. So about here, let's bring our feet to the bar, Holding the uprights, knees to the outsides of the body.

And I've got my feet in Pilates V. We start with a little bit of leg press and bend and this just helps elongate the back of the body. I'm trying to press my lower back towards the mat and allow my knees to bend and that adds a little bit of mobility in the hips. Now this time, let's straighten the legs and bring it into tower. Now if like me you're tall, you're gonna find that your tower has limited range.

But, the beautiful thing about that is, as we come up, it means you can bend your knees and that really helps us lift the back up. And press away as we lower back through the spine, lengthening the spine to the mat. Each time we do this, you should feel that your back gets a little bit longer. And lowering down, down, down. Very nice.

Bend your knees, bring yourself in a little closer. Now straighten the legs. I'm gonna take the right foot over to where the left foot was and turn it out, lowering my left leg down. If you feel really tight here, just bend your knee, that's absolutely fine as well. This is about the hip.

So I'm allowing my knee to bend and I'm getting a really incredible stretch into my hip complex. But at the same time it has to work to restraighten the leg. So we'll do a few of these here. Let's do three more. And then of course changing the legs.

Just cross stepping over, lowering the other leg down ether bent or straight. 'Cause you'll get another stretch in the front of a hip as well. And you'll notice that this is my tighter hip. So I'm gonna allow the springs to work their magic and help me towards opening my hips. (Jamie inhaling) (Jamie exhaling) I'll do two more. (inhaling) (Jamie exhaling) And then straighten the leg.

Let's bring the feet back to the center and bring them together now. Bending the knees and pulling ourselves a little further under the bars so that the shoulder blades come off the edge of the caddy. This may feel uncomfortable but in a moment you'll see why. It's a beautiful stretch, the monkey stretch. So rounding in, three little pulses and then we're straightening our legs on the third press up, press up, press up.

Draw the nose towards the knees, looking up, let's bend and come back in. (exhales) And again, pressing up. (inhales) This time flex the feet as we look up (inhaling) and try and put our nose right up there on the shins. Bend the knees, coming all the way down. Coming up again. This time stretch your right leg out, come down with one leg. Coming all the way back up.

Let's change legs. Bending one knee for the one-legged monkey. You'll feel the hips are gonna feel great after doing all of this. Lengthening up. And then bend the knees, come all the way down, control the bar and then press ourselves out from under the bar.

We're moving onto our leg spring, so let's carefully take the spring off and then unclip our safety strap or safety chain. And I'm gonna move this bar out of the way just so that it's not in the way of my legs so I can really reach out in leg springs. So onto my back. And you can set your leg springs on a little lower setting, a little lighter than usual for this 'cause we're not really wanting to work against a lot of resistance here. We'll start with frogs.

It's a great way of centering, getting used to the springs and adjusting if we need to move, if the tension's too much. So just gently pressing these uprights together, heels pressed together, let's frog out and back, and we'll do this a few times. (inhales) (Jamie exhaling) We're nicely connected with the powerhouse and this is enabling us to let the legs just move freely. But let the springs pull a little as the legs come back. This next one, let's take 'em all the way out for leg circles. Now go as big as you dare, go as big as you want to go.

And it doesn't actually matter if the body moves a little bit here. I know I've talked a lot about stabilizing and making sure the movement is controlled. Well, of course, we want to be safe. But at the same time for this session you can just let the legs go where they want to go. Go where it feels good.

Let's do two more. (exhales) (Jamie exhaling) And reverse (Jamie exhaling) Two more. (inhales) (Jamie exhaling) Now bring them to the center. You can take your legs out as wide as they want to go. Take hold of the the springs and just very carefully just press them out. Give the inner thighs a little bit of an additional stretch (Jamie exhaling) but stay active in the legs. Don't just let the legs switch off here.

You want to be safe. And then bring the legs back to the center. Take hold of the uprights and let's lower the legs down and lift. Do one more and then we'll turn this into scissors. Alternate the legs.

Keeping the hips nicely squared, nice and quiet. (Jamie exhaling) Allowing the springs to challenge our hamstrings a little if they want to pull the legs a little higher. Now, as we're doing great here, this is feeling good, we can turn this into bicycles. Let's put the knees on the outsides of the springs. Reach out, see if you can drag the toes back along the top of the table.

(Jamie exhaling) This is really gonna mobilize the hips. It's gonna feel good. So let's reverse it. That switches the brain on. This is often quite challenging, just to coordinate that change of direction. (inhales) (Jamie exhaling) One more and then bring the legs up to the ceiling.

Let's bend the knees. We'll do like a little bit of airplane prep. We're not going into full airplane, but let's see if we can tap the toes down. Press the heels down, reach the legs out, (exhales) bring the legs up and bend, toes tap, heels touch, reaching out so we're connected and long. And bring the legs back up.

We'll do two more of these. (Jamie inhaling) Last one. (Jamie inhaling) And bend the knees in. Okay, I'm gonna take off my right strap and turn to face you, turn onto my right side. Bring your feet to the front corner.

If you feel like you're tight in the neck, just get a pillow and rest your head on the pillow. That's fine as well. Bring the legs down, reaching that top leg as long as we can for leg kick front and back. We'll let the springs pull, we'll kick forward and then lengthen back. Allow it to stretch the front of the hip.

Pull, pull, and then we lengthen back. Kick, kick. And then feel that length stretching back and back. Two more to do. And back. (exhales) Last one, and back.

And now we go up and down. Place the heel on the instep, lift the leg up, reach the leg out, and again, up. Reach it out. Up and out, two more, and out. Last one.

And let's go into bicycle. I want you to kick forward, bend your knee and then allow the body to move with this. Don't restrict your upper body movement. Once again, this is another one of those exercises that it doesn't matter what it looks like, it really doesn't, as long as it's safe and it feels great. This should feel good.

Reach it back. Let's do one more, and on this one, bend your knee. Let the spring stretch through your body. Reach up with your top hand and just press into the opposite bar. Just feel the front body get opened, then straighten the leg.

And let's take the foot out of the loop and turn onto the other side. So different leg, different spring. Holding the upright with the bottom arm, connecting down with the other leg, let's kick forward, kick and lengthen back. And again, kicking forward, (inhales) lengthening back the whole body. We want to stabilize and make sure this hip isn't hiking up.

Try and keep the body as long as you can. Let's do two more. (Jamie exhaling) And back, and then bring the heel to the instep. We're lifting it up and reaching it back down. And let the spring stretch your leg, but don't just let the spring take your leg.

You wanna resist it at the same time. It's controlled stretching. (Jamie exhaling) Last one. And then into our bicycle, kicking forward. Bend the knee, let the spring stretch your back.

Fill that quad get a stretch. Also feel the hip gets stretched. And then reach, kicking forward again. And let your upper body like move as it feels it needs to. (Jamie exhaling) Reaching back. (inhales) This is our last one as we kick forward, bend, let the spring stretch, (inhales) reach the top arm behind us to the back upright and just stretch it back.

And once again, as you'll see with me, it doesn't matter on that range of movement, it's how does that feel in your body. And then straighten the leg, bring the foot forward and let's take the foot out of the spring and come up to sit. We're now gonna move to the end of the Cadillac for some work standing. So now I'm at the end of the Cadillac and I've attached my arm springs. They're at about shoulder height and that's gonna work for me.

And we're gonna use the end of this caddy just to finish up with some really nice stretching and get into the shoulders as well. So we'll start with spread eagle. Place your feet up against the feet of the caddy and take your hands just above hip height. Straighten your arms as you scoop your abs back. And this should be a wonderful stretch for the back of the body.

Just feel the back get stretched out. Let's not allow the hips to drop, I want you to keep connected here. Now bring the hips forward, keep the arms straight. Take an inhale, (inhales) draw your shoulders back and down. And how far back can you go?

Chin to chest, draw yourself all the way back in. Let's repeat, stretching back. So ab scoop back, it's like horseback almost, but a bit more of a stretched version. Hips come forward, heart comes forward. (inhales) Take an inhale and let your head hang if you want.

Chin to chest, and then pull yourself back in. Let's add a little bit more to the stretch. Abs draw in as the hips come back. Now bend your knees, lift your hips forwards, arch. And straighten the legs, chin into chest, pull it in.

Let's do that again. Just gives us a little more stretch through the front body, through the legs, through the hips. Press. Straighten the legs and pull yourself all the way back in. Now step back a little ways.

Keep holding onto the uprights of the caddy and we'll just come down into a squat. I want you to squat as deep as you can and you can really sit back into it, move around, have a little bounce if that feels good 'cause you've got the support here of the Cadillac. Now, when you're down as deep as you can get into the squat, you can then take one hand across to the opposite side and kind of change hands here and we get like a little lateral stretch whilst we're stretching our hips. And once again, as with other exercises, just follow your intuition and just move the body, micro movements, to really release (exhales) and open the body up. Let's do the other side.

So I'm gonna lift a little higher, reach across here. And the same, just playing with the movement, seeing where your body wants you to go and breathing into those areas of tension. (inhales) (Jamie exhaling) And then we bring our hands back to the frames and assist ourselves as we press back up. (exhales) Step back a little, (inhales) bring those hands up a little higher and just push your hips back. Now from here we're peddling out the knees just to open the side body and stretch through that side of the body. One arm's pulling, the other arm's pushing. So you'll see I'm pulling on the side of the straight leg and pushing back with the arm of the bent knee. (exhales) And then coming up to stand.

Let's do a little stretch for the shoulders now. So before I stretch them out, I want to connect them. So standing tall, we'll do some arm circles. So lean a little into the wind, bring your arms forwards, upwards and around. (exhales) And the reason we're doing this is so that we can switch the shoulder joint on so it's gonna be nice to stabilize. It's gonna be ready for the stretch that's coming next.

(Jamie inhaling) So stay connected or reverse those circles. If the springs feel a little heavy for you, of course, you can do this without the springs. (Jamie exhaling) Last one. (inhales) And then bring the arms down. I'm coming down onto my knees now, reaching my arms up above me. And this may look a little strange, but this feels so good for the shoulders.

If you suffer from tight shoulders, a lot of swimmers and surfers will do that. This is a great way to get them back in alignment and give them a good stretch. So I'm connected in my shoulders, my abs are working. I'm gonna lean a little into the wind and just move the shoulders back and forth. Just working actually the joint proprioceptively, so it's tricking the brain into letting it stretch a little further.

(Jamie exhaling) We'll do a couple more here, lean a little deeper perhaps. And then all the way back to kneeling upright and release the shoulders. Hopefully that will have gained you a little more range of movement in the shoulder joint. Now I want to finish this workout with some additional stretching. So I'm gonna take myself back to the top of the Cadillac on the table.

So for this last section, I've got myself actually a reformer loop and I like these ones with the the double loops 'cause that allows you to stretch and change the length of reach that you have if your hamstrings are feeling tight. And we'll lower onto my back. Now if you're really suffering from tight hamstrings, do this with bent knees, otherwise stretch one leg out long, place your foot into the loop and just start to straighten your leg. Now you've got control of the stretch now. Keeping both the hips down, flex the foot back, activate the quadricep, that tricks the hamstring into giving you a little more range.

And then just every exhalation (exhales) we can pull a little further. Exhale and pull, and we're pulsing off and on the stretch. We're not just hanging out in that stretch, we're just taking it a little deeper each time, (Jamie exhaling) feeling that stretch. And the best thing about these loops, they pull the little toe back as well, so we can't just cheat. Keeping ourselves honest.

(Jamie inhaling) Taking another breath here. (exhales) Now I'm gonna take the opposite hand to the strap. The other hand comes down by the side. And let's pull the leg across the body. I'm keeping my hip anchored and it's not just straight across, I wanna draw it to the opposite shoulder a little. (exhales) (inhales) Just breathe into that. (exhales) Pulse it off and on, keeping active in the front of the leg. (Jamie exhaling) All right, let's do the other leg.

So stretch that one out and immediately I'm feeling the difference through both sides of the body. Just place my foot through this one with the strap just behind the ball of the feet. Square the hips. And just start just by pulling this into the body. Of course if you don't have a strap, you can do this with a belt or you can do it with a magic circle, it works just as good.

Let's just pulse it on, pulse it off. Active quadricep. That's allowing the hamstring to give just a little bit more. (Jamie inhaling) (Jamie exhaling) Just breathe as you stretch. (inhales) And now take the opposite hand, reach across, pull the leg to the opposite shoulder or in that direction. And just feel that length through the side of the leg now, maybe into the hip as well.

(Jamie exhaling) Keeping the hips anchored down. (inhales) (Jamie exhaling) And then bend the knee, hug the knees into the body. (Jamie exhaling) Okay, roll over onto your side and come up to sit. We'll finished standing and just take a couple of breaths. So it's good to finish standing because that puts us in a state where we can once again walk out of the room 'cause we're feeling very relaxed now and that's great. But we want to reconnect so that we can be safe as we walk back into our everyday life.

So stand nice and tall. Feel that connection through the floor. Just lengthen up through the spine. Take a big inhale. (inhaling) Just exhale, let it all out. (exhales) Let's do that one more time. So really draw everything in (inhaling) and then just exhale, (exhales) let all of that tension go.

Hopefully you feel soft, very fluid, and very well restored so that you're ready to continue with whatever exercise regime you have for the rest of your week.