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Hi, everyone. This is Ilaria from Pilates Anytime, and today we’ll do an advanced reformer. We’ll move pretty quickly between the exercises, but I will slow down, and stop you to build up on some exercise that I consider very important, sometimes tricky to get to the right way. So for any exercises, please, if you are ready for them, go ahead and do the full thing. Otherwise stop to the progression prior, to the finished one, so that you work out safely.
The springs I start with are three full springs, for the footwork, and as I go on, I’ll tell you what springs I change, and how I move around. But please consider what you’re used to, and adapt anything you need to for your body type. Also consider I’m petite. So I will modify certain things for my height, and I’ll tell you, and I’ll let you know as we go. So we’ll start in the front of the reformer, and we’ll sit down in one motion.
And we get ready for footwork. Toes on the bar. Lengthen, open. Take one breath with before we start (inhaling), and then you go. You go, reach, and in, and lengthen. And as much as we can, let’s try to flow between the repetitions.
Let’s try to keep these springs moving the whole time, and as we go, this is a nice place for us to get the mind into what we are doing. We have two more reps. You reach. We find the midline, we warm up all the joints. Now arches, curl and you go, and lengthen. So we try to bring the carriage in with control all the time.
Beautiful for alignment, to get everything warm, and ready to jump into more advanced moves. And now all the way in, we get on the heels, toes back, and we go long, and reach. Slow down the breathing. Open the chest, pull the toes back to you. Pull the ankles, the knees, and the inner thighs as far in as you can.
Stop out. Toes on the bar. Lift, lift, lift. And then we go lower, and up, down, up. And lift, and up. Reach.
Breathe. Try to get longer here. The top of the head towards the back, towards the box. You go lift, lift, and lift. All the way down, all the way in. Get the handles bar down, headpiece down.
So we are ready for later. And here, pull for the hundredth, Reach, reach, reach, reach, reach. Move the arms. Of course the higher you can position your legs, where you feel more comfortable. And you lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, and exhale.
And again, in, and reach long and away. And again, in, in, in. And exhale out. Breathe. Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen. Fingertips to the foot bar.
Two more. Reach, reach, reach, reach, reach. Last one. Lengthen even more. Bend your knees.
And now with teaser up, you come up sitting. Drop one spring. So total of two. And we go down for the overhead. Now the overhead I find being a tricky one. From here I want you to pull the arms.
Just lift your feet. And then repeat. Pull the arms, lift. Hover with the feet. Now 90 degrees.
Reach with the arms, and get to 90. And then release. Again, reach to 90, and release. Now all the way back. So all the way on your shoulders.
Don’t go up. Roll down, lengthen. Back to the starting position. Again, all the way back. Roll down. And now if you’re ready, we go all the way up.
So 90 degrees back. Reach up to the ceiling. Slowly roll down, and back to the start. Again, all the way back. Reach up, roll down, and lengthen away. Bend your knee, elbows in.
You’ll go out, open, close, pull, and bend. Coordination again. Open, close, bend, in. Now beads, and in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in. Together, pull. Last one.
Reach, and crisscross beads. Together with the legs. Bend your knees, and elbows all the way up. Drop one spring. We’ll spin all the way around, for rowings. Lengthen. Pull the straps with your stomach.
Open. Press back. Over, reach away. Lift, lift, lift. Circle around. Keep the tension. Come up.
And you go. Pull back, open. Now move the carriage a little bit. Lift, and dive over. Reach up. Around your circle.
One more. Pull back, open, press. Now reach over. Lace your fingers. Reach down, and away. You lift, lift, lift, lift, lift. Stay tall, nice stretch for your shoulders.
Lengthen your arms away. And this time you go all the way over to your feet. Feel free to go down, and stretch. Now 90 degrees. You go back, reach up. Over, relax the top of the shoulders.
Pull from the lats, go back. Lengthen, and around. Again, pull. Reach to the ceiling, forward. Now here, pulling straps.
Reach back, long neck. Lift and around. Last one. Back. Reach up.
Pull. Lengthen, lace your fingers. Lift. All the way up. Lengthen away. And one more stretch, reaching for your toes, and lengthening.
Place the handles on the reformer. Spin all the way around. We are ready for front rowings. From the chest. Inhale, exhale, inhale, and lift.
And again. In, reach. Lengthen forward, lengthen up. Let’s try to slow down the movement of the carriage. Lift, lift, lift, lift, lift. And then we let go.
One more. Out, down. Lift, and grow. Flex your feet, and dive. Curl, reach. Now pull. Reach forward, up, and to the side.
Again. Reach, curl up, and open. On this last one, we’re going to back bend back, scoop, reach forward, up and lift. Slowly up. Lengthen, don’t cross. Keep your legs long. And we go into shaving.
Up. We do six, lift. Try to relax the thighs as much as you can. Pull into the inner thighs, and lift from the waist up. Stay up to the top, open the arms. And now lift your right leg up, and you hug for three, two, one.
Now with the left. Reach. Two, and three. All the way down. Handles back on the hooks. And now we step off to set up for this one.
Add one spring. So total of two. I personally place a pad on the frame, again because I’m petite, I cannot get to the bar. Headpiece up. And then I go all the way to the back to grab the box, and I position the long box to get ready for swan. I like to get on from the back, because I prefer to check the alignment as I get on.
I push it forward a little bit, and I put the top of the thigh below the pubic bone on the box. Now the first one, I want you to place the hands here, and do the swan. The regular swan with the hands on the box. So from this position you’re going to lengthen, and lift. Don’t move the carriage. Come up.
Lower yourself down. Come up again. Reach, reach, reach. Now you extend your legs. You lengthen your body forward, and you lower yourself down. Now we make it a little harder.
Hands below, underneath the forehead. From here you lengthen, you scoop, lift. Come up. Lower yourself down. Come up. Reach, reach, reach. Now you extend the legs, will lengthen the body, and then lower.
And now we can lengthen the arms if we are ready from here. Think about your fingertips. You lengthen them out, you lift, you reach, then you come up, and then you lower. Open the arms out to the sides. Lift. Come up, touch the ceiling.
Then you reach out, touch the wall in front of you, and scoop, release. Now hands on the box, pike up. Drop one spring, and then you lengthen out. You lower yourself in one pushup, and we grab handles, and straps. For pulling straps.
Release and you go. Lengthen and home. And reach, and home. Lengthen back, stay triceps. Three, two, one. Lengthen down. Slide to the very end of the leather straps.
And now you open from the T and out. Pull, pull, pull, and open. And reach back, and lengthen to the side. Now handles in one hand, step off. Add one spring. So total of two.
And here we do backstrokes. So separate your reach all the way forward, and you scoop down. Up and reach, and bend, and lengthen, and scoop. Now here let’s try to come up higher on the last one. Reach. Come up.
Now slowly lower the lumbar spine, and bend in, reverse. Reach. Circle around, and bend. And reach, this is the last, keep reaching, reaching, reaching. Circle, and good.
Teaser up. Drop one spring. Go all the way back down, and ready for teaser. Now, we just did backstroke. So from here, scoop, reach. Find your backstroke, and then you reach up, lower down.
Reach up, lower down. Reach, reach, reach, and backstroke to release. Again, scoop. Now if you can, we do circles. And around, and you lift.
And around. Reach up, and scoop. Now on the last one, I don’t want you to reverse the circle, we try something different. You go scoop. Reach as high as you can. Then lower, at shoulder height, and lift.
Shoulder height, and lift. Shoulder height, lift. Now you slowly unfold, and release. Handles in one hand, come up, and step off. Because we do a little preparation for breast strokes.
Don’t worry, we’re not gonna do crazy stuff. We’re just trying. We’re gonna try to really push forward, and lengthen. Almost like an opposite of the pulling straps. So handles in your hands, on the side of the reformer.
From here you pull both handles. You get to the edge of the box, then you lower yourself on top. From here, you go. Extend legs and arms. Stretch, hold, and bang. And again, stretch, and in.
Lengthen, forward, and in. On this last one you can try to arch. Stretch, come up. Open circle around, and in. Now we’ll do another climb, and we transition to backstroke. From here, extend forward, lift. All the way back.
Put the handles next to the box, on the side of the box. Scoop and lift. Straddle. And now we hold it here. You reach, reach, reach. Sit down, grab the straps.
And then you go into a jockey position with a toes tucked under, and handles by your ribcage. From here you’re going to go scoop and, lift. Lower down. Reach up, lower down. Reach up, and sit. Circle, scoop, lift.
Reach and lengthen. And now shaving. You go reach, and you go up. And lift, and lift, and down you sit. You can step off. I like to loop the strap inside the handle now so that I will find it ready for later.
So I prepare them. I place them down. Headpiece goes down. Turn to the short box, and add one spring for the short box. So total of two. From here I sit, hook one foot, then the other, and we go with the hug.
We’ll do three. All the way back, and scoop, and lift. I decided not to use the bar, and I personally don’t put the pad. But if you need any of those two things, please feel free to use them. And you go roll back, control. Reach.
Grab the straps or the frame to give yourself an extra stretch. And then you hug, scoop, and lift. Pull back a little bit if you need. Hands behind the neck, the head. You lift and you go reach, and up.
Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, and lift. And you go reach. Stay tall. Side bend to the right, and up. Side bend to the left, and up. As you side bend right, reach with the left foot.
Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, and center. Reach tall. Reach, reach without collapsing. And home. Now lift. Big rotation, and lengthen out. And up. And again, lift.
Exhale, exhale, exhale. Reach out, and lift. And again, tall. Exhale, twist, reach and up. Last one. Up. Big twist, reach a little farther.
Lengthen towards the corner of the reformer. Come up and release. Now let’s go into the tree. We do a few different variations of the tree, but again, do only what feels nice. Limber the leg up.
You lift, you grow tall. Now make sure that left leg, if you’re using the left leg, like me, stays forward. Then you bring the leg perpendicular, and you go down. Hold the frame. Cross and circle one, two, and three. Reverse.
Open around, up, and two, and three. Back to the leg. Climb up, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift. Go as close to the leg as you can. And now we open it out to the side.
Hold the box, open the leg. Stay forward, then roll back, and arch back. Come up. If possible I want you to send that back leg back. So you are in a sort of split. You go over, to compensate with the lumbar spine, bend, and reach up.
Come up. Cross, and we go. Exhale, exhale, exhale. Figure four, and little stretch. Over to the other side. Hold the leg. Stay tall, and you go limber.
Reach up, up, up, and over. I like to do all these variations because it’s really nice to make sure that the hips work evenly. Go with the circle three times, and then reverse. But of course, if anything doesn’t feel good, please leave it out, and just repeat one extra tree, regular scoop. Come up. Lift, lift, lift.
Now let’s try to keep the chest forward as you bring the leg to the side. Then you roll back, and you bring everything back together. Roll back up, keep that leg to the side. And now you go. Split, down, and look for your foot.
Come up, cross it over. Lift the chest and exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale, as you twist. And then over for a nice figure four stretch. Come all the way up. We step off. And now I set the reformer up from the top to the back for the long stretch series.
So the bar comes up, I keep two springs. I’m going to add a pad on the headpiece, even though I actually won’t use it from right away. It’s gonna be here ready for later. And we bring the box back behind, where we found in the beginning. Now for this long stretch, I don’t want you to put the feet on the pad, I want you to put them in front of the blocks because that forces us to stay forward with the shoulders and not to cheat with the ankles.
So from here we go, hands on the bar. Bring the foot right in front. The other one follows. And here, nice and strong, you go. And front. And again, push, push, push.
And in. Two more. Now reach all the way forward, stay forward. Open, open, open, open. Knees down, and you go down stretch. Exhale, lift.
Inhale, exhale, up. Last one. Reach forward. Up to the ceiling. Fingertips let go the bar, and back bend. Come all the way up. Up stretch.
So from here, nose to knees, and go. Now combination. Open the chest forward, go back with the chest open, and scoop it in. And again, open. Exhale, push back. Scoop, scoop, scoop.
Lower the heels down. Toes up. And we do elephant. And in, and pull. Now for arabesque with the right foot. Back with the left leg. Keep it square. Start out. From here you go.
Pull in one, in two, in three. Finish out, switch. I want you to focus on that in movement. So you scoop. Two, three, finish out. Let’s go on top. Now we can open the leg a little.
And you go in, in. Let’s try to keep it in. Go forward. Knee to knee, open the chest. Drop it down, and then scoop, and lift all the way up again. Change. Lift the leg.
Start out, and you go pull, two, three. Try to keep it in. Go forward. Knee to knee, open the chest, and scoop. Lift. And now slowly, step down to the side, and turn around. Hand, foot, hand, foot.
Open the chest, and you go, sit. Push up, back. Sit, push up. And one more. Lift, reverse. Forward and up. Push, push, push. Down and lift.
One more. Push, sit, and lift. Step off on the side. Let’s move the pad forward. Since we’re working so hard today, we keep all the stomach massaged with two springs. So nice and light.
You sit wherever it feels comfortable. Round, pull. And we go for six. Out, down, and in. Two, take a chance to breathe. Check your alignment.
Two more. Now since it’s nice and light, go together. Open, back with your arms, and you go lower, in, in. Reach, down, and in. Stay tall.
On the last one, try to lift the arms, and then you reach forward. Lengthen, and in. Lengthen and in, one more. Ready to twist. Exhale, and in.
Exhale, and in. Twist, twist, twist, look back. And in. And reach, and in. Step off from the side.
If you need a pad you can turn it around, or you put it down, and we go into tendon stretch. So I want you to start sitting. And from here we go into, and we do only the two legs. We stop to set up the movement with the single leg. Which sometimes when you bring that leg to the side, is a little challenging.
So from here, I want you to keep the carriage in. I like to put all the fingers on the front part of the bar, so I’m not tempted to grab the bar, and pull it forward with me. What you need to do is to keep the arm straight, and push into the bar the whole time. From here you curl. Nose to the knees, Like in the elephant. Drop your heels down.
And here you just push with the arms, and with the legs. Forward, and up. Push, and in. And push, and in. And push, and in. Sit down. And now let’s go down with the left leg.
So we’ll keep it up, we’ll bring it up to the side first. From here, in one motion. Go up with the leg, keep it there. And you go for three, two, one. Step down onto the floor.
Now you can repeat this version or you follow me with two side, two back, two side, and down. So you go. Lift. And you go side, side. Keep it up, bring it back. Back, back. Side again.
One, two, lift, and step down to the floor. So it’s not the full, full thing but it gets us really close. Other side. So first the preparation only to the side. You scoop and lift, and now you go for three, two, one. And step it down.
Again, two options. You repeat, or we do two, two, two. Lift. And you go. Side, side, lift, bring it back. Back, back. Lift.
Bring it side. One, two, and step down. Now we’re going to lower the bar. We walk back. We bring the headpiece down because now we going to short spine. Sit all the way down. Keep your straps up high.
Make sure you’re right in the center. And then you put your feet in, and you pull heels to the seat for a nice little stretch. From here you go. Out, scoop lift, all the way back. Bend, and roll down and away.
Pull the heels. Again, out. Scoop lift, back, back, back. Bend your knees, melt away and pull. One more. Reach. Lengthen towards your feet. Lift up to the ceiling, back to the wall, bend.
And now without collapsing, keeping some space here, lengthen away. More, more, more, then you pull. Now I want you to stretch out. Bring the legs at 90 degrees. Now let’s try not to move the carriage as we lift up.
We don’t move, we lift, lift, lift. Keep the carriage still. Roll back down. Beautiful. Let’s do one more. Scoop. Reach, reach, reach, and roll down. Now you can repeat this, or you reach up a little higher and we go into high frogs.
So you go, go, go, go. And now we go. Five, four, three. Keep those heels squeezing into each other. Two, up. Lengthen all the way back.
Bend your knees. Roll away. Grab the handles, pull, and put them on the hooks. Then we need it for later. Hug the knees in for a second. Just give yourself a little massage side to side.
And then we step off for the kneeling series. So just in case, we’re gonna put the pad over the springs. You reach towards the back, pick up the headpiece. Grab the straps, grab the handles, and then we go directly to hook the feet, and we get to whatever good gravity line we can get to. So from here, you in, and pull. Hold a breath.
You look, look, center, and release. Again. Pull, look, look, center, release. One more set. Pull. Last one, pull back. Look, look, center, and release. Hold everything with one hand.
Go back. We add the spring. One spring, so total of three, to get a little more help, and resistance. We also reach up a little higher on the straps, ’cause now we go into thigh stretch. So let’s build up from the chest expansion we just did. You stay forward, you lift, and then you go, reach.
And up with the arms, up with the body. Same thing. Go back in one piece. Lengthen, lengthen, keep the knees on the carriage. And lift.
Now if you want you can open back. And release. Beautiful. Now step off. Only one spring. Let’s cover it up.
We separate the handles back, and then we come up kneeling on the reformer. The feet are placed back. And from here you go. Reach up, and around. Lengthen. Lift, and open.
Let’s try not to move the body at all. Up and around. Reverse. Open lift, and lower down. Scoop lift, and lower down. Now into shaving. Reach, reach, reach.
And you go down, and push down, push, breathe. Feel the stability from the shoulders down, and the power of the movement up with the arms. And release. Place the handles on the hooks. You step off, and we are going into snake, and twist.
Personally, instead of putting the pads over here, and putting the foot at the very edge, I’m getting my foot a little farther in. Otherwise I can never get that block under my shoulder. Or in other cases, I just do the snake, and twist with the bar up, and that brings me more forward. So one spring, I place my foot. Hand on the block.
Fist in line with my shoulders, and you go. Push. Think about the up stretch or the down stretch. Think about that opening, and coordination. Again. Push forward, unroll, and scoop, lift. Now arms are straight, you go. Drop the hip.
Look back. Come up, and bring the carriage in. Again, open. Scoop, come over, and pull it in. Step off to the side, and we walk around for the other side. Same thing.
Whoops. We place the foot, hand, hand, and hook. So push with the shoulders, unroll your body forward, and scoop back. And you go reach, reach, reach. Open, and in. Now go, turn.
Drop the hip, face the block again, and bring it in. And again, reach here. Big exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale. Face your hand, and in. Beautiful.
You step off. And now we go into core axial, and all that part. Before we get into core axial, we need to set up the straps. So we lower the headpiece. You grab your handles.
You move back. And now here in the back we’re gonna put them together, and loop handle and strap, so that we can do that long strap, long spine. Same on the other one. Always takes a little time here. So good moment to breathe.
Perfect. Make sure there are not twists in the leather straps. And you place the straps over here. We go all the way forward. And before we do the core axial, I like sometimes to build up the core axial with a little tick tock.
So from here hold the metal frame, bend your knees, lift up. Let’s go into a little bit of a twist to the right. Twist to the left. Twist to the right. Twist to the left.
Now we going little hiccup. Down, twist to the right. And again hiccup, down, twist to the left. And now we go for the full thing. So you lift, down, circle the legs around, and you go up, down, circle around.
Go all the way up if you feel like. Lift, down, and lengthen those legs. Keep them together. And again, lift, down. Big circle around. Let’s do one more. Lift, lift, lift. Go. Lengthen to the side.
Down to the bar, side, and up. Roll down to the window. Down to the bar. To the side, and lift all the way down. Now we massage with a little tick tock. And you go look opposite to your legs, and up.
Reach, reach, reach, and up. Lengthen, lengthen, and lift. And you go, reach, and up. Lower the legs. Move forward. And now want you to make sure your head is in front of the block just in case you decide to roll down from the balance control.
From here, get the metal frame. Roll up into a shoulder stand, and reach. Only the preparation. Lower the right leg, and prepare your left hand to push out. And then you go back up.
Lower your left leg. Right hand is up on top of the block to push yourself up. Now we go for it if we’re ready. Otherwise you prepare the prep. Here, lift, roll on the shoulders. Down.
Come all the way up. You let go and hold the balance for a second, and then you go. Remember where you put the shoulder before, get there. Use the block, lift, and up. Other side. Lift, reach.
All the way up, lengthen. Hold for one second. Remember where you put the shoulder before. Go there. The head comes in. You go lift, and then slowly roll down, and move your body back.
Now from here we have the straps ready. And this is a nice, and easier exercise actually. I like it to massage the spine. Somebody thinks that this is very advanced. Just think about leg springs.
From here, reach out and just go into easy circles. Circle three, circle two, circle one. Now let the straps bring you up, and you do a bigger circle. And again, up, and bigger circle. Massage the spine.
Lift, and reverse the big circle. Lift up, push, push, push, and release. Up. For the straps they can either snap together, or you do a little extra circle to avoid. And now easy circle with the hips down. So we reverse both actions.
Last one. Press and lift. Beautiful. You can open the legs to a little split if you need to, or maybe just stretch back with a hamstring stretch. And then you can place the strap back here, and we’ll put them down in a second. You come all the way up.
Now we bring the bar up, and we lower down to one spring, because I want us to do a little mermaid that help us prepare the star that we’ll do later. So you can drop the straps down. We don’t need them anymore. We sit on the hip, and we put the shins as close as possible to the blocks. Now from here, lift up. Reach, reach, reach, reach. Nice side bend.
We need some stretch, we need to release some tension that we put in the body with this advanced workout. And then you come up. Challenge yourself to hold this position. Find the bar, and now reach out. This is our baby star.
This is the first star we do today on the reformer. Okay, you lift. Again, you go over. Reach, reach, reach. Come up, sit and again. Lengthen, feel this support.
Feel this pushing out, nice and strong. Lengthen. And then you pull, you lift, and you go up for a last little stretch. You can go here with a hand. Side bend first, and then exhale, exhale, exhale. All the way back to the side, and up.
Let’s turn around to the other side. Same thing. You’re going to lift, and side bend for the big stretch first. You lengthen. Hold it, reach and push. Come all the way up. Reach.
And you go side bend. Come up. Hold, and you push away again, lengthen, lengthen, lengthen. Pull the carriage in, reach to the box. And now a hand behind. You’re going to side bend. And then exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale.
Bring all the air out of the lungs, and all the way up. Now the headpiece is already up. We had one spring, we do only the knees off. Hands on the bar, feet back into the blocks, and we go. Eight in.
Five, four, three, two, one, scoop. Keep the carriage in. Step off. And we lie down. We keep the two springs, for running. You drop and switch. Drop, switch.
One heel at a time. Breathe. Find your alignment. It’s a little bit of a break before the last final rush. Lengthen, bring it all the way in. Easy pelvic flip.
Go to the corners up, lengthen and pull. Reach in, out, in. Two more. And good. Slowly roll down. Come all the way up.
And now we do push up control. We are not actually doing the push up today. All I care, is maintaining that line, and getting long. Again, we’re preparing the star also here. We’re gonna do this way, this way, and then on the side for the star.
I personally do one spring, and I keep the first gear. But if you’re tall, the rule is that you should move to the second gear. For everyone should be second gear with two springs. So you are going to figure out for what you’re used to. I’m going to put hands on the blocks, feet on the bar, pike up.
And now from here you’re gonna move the carriage until the blocks are underneath your shoulders. From here you stretch it forward, and you bring it in. This is your pulling straps, your chest expansion. And in. The body still. Reach, and in. Now one leg comes up.
Reach out. Now let’s see if we can bring it all the way in. Reach out, bring it all the way in. One more. Reach, and in. Change. Other leg. Out, and pull. Reach, and pull.
Lengthen and in. Pike up, you step off. And now we turn around, and we do hand, foot, hand, foot. And you go, push away, and kick. Down. Kick, down.
Circle the leg around, circle around, now reverse. Open up, and in. Open up, and in. Step off. And now we go for the star.
The first time, I want you to do a simple side plank, pushing the carriage out. So hand, foot. And if you want, you can actually squeeze the block, activate the inner thighs. Long, and you go open, and, in. Reach, reach, reach, and pull it in.
Again, out, and in. And now step off. Breathe for a second. You can repeat this, or we going kick for two. Front and back, front for two, and we lower it down. So your choice.
If you follow me, we’re going to go kick, and in. Kick, and in. Front, and back. And again, front and back. Come all the way in. Step down. Even if we didn’t really arch, we’re going to compensate a little bit forward.
You breathe, roll up, and we walk around to the other side, and repeat everything. So just the side push. Foot, hand, in position. You go open, open, open, and bring it in. Open, open, open, and bring it in. And again, reach.
And support from underneath, pull, and grow tall. Step down. Relax for a second. And now you either repeat, or we go for all directions. So from here, you go lift, and you go. Kick it up, and in.
And kick, and in. Front, and back. One more. Front, and back. And now you step down, and we go for a little forward bend, and roll back up. Let’s get the bar down.
We keep one spring, and we do the side splits. I just want to do the folding forward for the side splits, not the saw. And I’ll tell you what to pay attention when we are there. So foot on the frame first. Then you come up. You go to the blocks.
You even up your pelvis, and you go open. And now both inner inner thighs together. Scoop and pull. And again, out. Scoop, and pull in. No noise.
Last one, out. Now here, focus on your inner thighs. As you bend your body forward, different muscles of the inner thighs are working. And then you scoop, scoop, scoop, come up, and you close. Same thing. Try to work both legs the same way. You go over, scoop. Keep that carriage in, all the way.
And then you bring your foot underneath yourself. And then we turn around to switch. Same thing on the other side. We don’t do anything different. We just do the same exact pattern.
So you go out, and pull. And again, open, and pull. Open, stay. Go forward, pull up. And bring it in.
Go forward. Pull up, stay. Shimmy that foot in, all the way, and you step off. And now we finish with the Russian splits. If you are not used to those, you can do the front split. The end of the front split is absolutely a great way to end the reformer.
Otherwise you follow me. You put two springs, you step on the carriage, and we prepare the back foot first, here in the corner. Push forward a little bit. Prepare the front foot, find the angle for your front knee. From here, push forward, and in.
Push, in. Push, in. Try to keep that position. Come up with your body, and you go push, push, push. Hands on the blocks again. Move your heel into the groove, and then you lower yourself down as much as it feels good, and in.
And again forward. And in. On the third one you try to go over. Turn around the head to increase the twist, and all the way in. Now from here you switch, change the foot. You can do the what I did or the standard way of stepping on the carriage.
And you go push with the front leg. Two, three. Find your position. Strong push back with the leg. Come up. You go one, two, three. Hands to the blocks.
Reach forward. Go down, and up. And you go lower, lower, lower, and up. And now turn the head as you go down. Come all the way up.
Step back, and lower yourself down. So hopefully you are able to execute as much as the things we did together. But again, if you needed to stay a little bit at a previous progression, you can always go back to this workout. And every single time you add a little extra thing, okay. No one is rushing you. Just take your time.
Because the more you build up, all the more advanced exercises, the best they will do to your body.
