Hello, welcome to the Balanced Body Podcast. I'm Lindy Royer, physical therapist, founder
of Pipe Meadows Pilates and Physical Therapy in Lone Tree, Colorado, and Balanced Body
faculty member. I'm here today with my friend Krista. We're going to be showing you some
variations of rollover and corkscrew on the Balanced Body Reformer using the Infinity
Foot Bar. So Krista is lying supine, obviously, with her head on the head rest. This is one
of those exercises where we want the head rest down, similar to short spine or bridging.
We have her set up so that she's at a nice comfortable angle of her shoulder and her
elbows are bent. The emphasis with her arms is going to be pressing up toward the ceiling.
If Krista were to try and perform this exercise, and we'll show you what that looks like by
trying to pull down on the foot bar, we're not going to be able to execute very good
spine articulation or core control by doing that. And as we know, a lot of our students
really rely on a lot of upper body or latissimus activity to bring themselves through space
into these vertical positions that we do in short spine, long spine, or rollover. So
the emphasis is on an upward direction with the hands and the arms rather than a downward
pull. So Krista, can you bring your legs into a 90-90 or tabletop position? So we're
just going to do a little bit of an initiation from bent knee, bent hip position, and then
we're going to show you the full variation with straight legs. So she's starting off
in her optimal spine alignment. Take a breath in to prepare. Carrie is just going to stay
parked against the bumper as she rolls over into her nice, beautiful position of parallel
legs. Sit bones are aimed up toward the ceiling. I'm just going to give her a little bit of
queuing through the heels in order to lengthen through the legs, and then exhale, Krista,
as you roll down, you're going to soften your sternum, keep that length through the
legs, rolling down one vertebra at a time. And now she's going to maintain the legs
straight as she lowers them back down. Initiating now, inhale to bring the legs to vertical.
Exhale, rolling through the spine, rolling over into this beautiful parallel position
of rollover, and then exhale, softening the sternum, rolling down one vertebra at a time
while maintaining this beautiful long leg position, and one more time. We're going to
move right into corkscrew. So this time, Krista's going to bring her legs up into the rollover
position, and as you inhale, you're going to aim the legs over toward the left shoulder.
She's going to roll down the left side of the spine, but still maintaining that central
alignment through the carriage, coming through center, swinging the legs up and around to
roll up the right side of the spine, then bringing them back to center. Inhale here,
exhale, roll down the right side. So I can really see whether Krista's maintaining her
spine alignment in space. If she starts to deviate off the carriage, then we know that
we have some alignment or symmetry deviations through the center. Okay, so we're going to
add a little challenge here. Krista's going to pull herself underneath the football, just
pulling herself about an inch or two off the bumper, and we're just going to show you a
rollover challenge while maintaining the carriage now away from the bumper. So the legs are
going to go vertical, inhale. I'm just going to bring your shirt down for you, Krista.
And then as you exhale, maintaining that position off the bumper, roll over. This is an extremely
challenging exercise as you exhale, roll down, incorporating shoulder girdle control, core
control, spine articulation, and obviously lower body control. And one more time, inhale,
bring the legs up, exhale, maintaining the carriage right where it is. Inhale there,
exhale, and roll down one vertebra at a time, bringing the legs back to bent knee position,
and bringing the carriage back into its parked position. Thank you very much, Krista, and thank
you for watching.
