Hi, I'm Dane and these are Balance Body Podcasts.
We're at my studio, North Star Pilates Solutions in Buffalo, New York, and this is Nancy.
And Nancy's going to be demonstrating for us today Russian Split on the Reformer.
So I'm going to have Nancy stand on the carriage here.
So whenever you have somebody stand with both feet on the carriage, it's good for you to
stabilize the carriage just to make sure it doesn't go anywhere.
And then from here, I'm going to have Nancy bring both hands onto the bar.
And then she's going to bring her left foot on the bar and then she's going to gently
hop her right foot back to the shoulder rest.
So her heel is up on the shoulder rest and her toes are down on the carriage.
Now depending on the flexibility of the ankle and toes of your athlete, you may not be able
to get their heel up that high.
So you can gauge where their heel is on the shoulder rest by the flexibility of their
foot and they'll let you know.
Right, so from here, I'm going to have Nancy come to a standing position carefully.
My foot is still holding the carriage in place until she feels completely stable here.
So once she's stable, then I'm going to move into a position that puts me at the best place
to spot her just in case she loses her balance.
Whenever you do any standing work on the Reformer, always be sure that you are close in a position
where you can spot the athlete that's on the equipment.
Right, so I'm going to take my foot off the carriage and Nancy's going to maintain a nice
long tall spine here.
And from here, she's going to take a breath in and as she exhales, she's going to straighten
out her front knee and press her body and the carriage back, inhale as she bends.
Good, so the spine is staying tall, abdominals are drawn in to connect rib cage to pelvis
and what we're looking to do here is lengthen through that front heel and then bend that
front knee.
So the work is coming from the back leg to stabilize so that the carriage and the body
move as one and then the front leg is working to move the carriage and body back into the
spring tension.
Good, and come on in and pause right there.
So now I want to have Nancy do is go into a split so she's going to straighten out the
front knee, good, and then now keeping the front knee straight, she's going to exhale
and reach into that back leg to press the carriage back, good.
So with that straight front knee now, this becomes a lot of work for that back leg, the
glute and hamstring on that side.
Now depending on the spring tension you use, heavier spring will be more work to push the
carriage back with the right leg in this case, a lighter spring means the carriage will move
easier but she'd get a lot more stretch in the hamstring of her front leg.
So again, depending on what you're aiming for with your athlete, you can change the spring
tension to get different results out of the movement, good, and come on back in, you okay,
do you take a break or you're all right, good.
So now what we're going to have Nancy do is a back leg lunge variation so she's going
to press back into about half a split, good, and then from here just bend the back knee
and then exhale and reach back into that carriage again, good.
Huge amount of work for the quadricep on the leg that's bending, lots of stability net
front leg, lots of stability through center and lengthening through the spine.
So this is a tough exercise to do with anybody with any knee issues so beware of that before
you put them into this movement but this is a fantastic exercise for lower extremity
strengthening and stabilization.
Last time for me please, good.
Now to come out of the movement, bend your front knee, good, bring both hands down onto
the bar, good, I'm going to put my foot back on the carriage and you can step down off
the bar onto the carriage and go ahead and step down onto the floor, great.
So always making sure that you're in a position of good stability to spot your person on the
reformer because you never want to be out of position if they lose their balance at
all during that exercise and when mounting and dismounting from the reformer always make
sure you keep your foot on there or your hand or whatever you want to do to make sure that
that carriage is stable while they're getting on and getting off.
Again this is a Russian splits with a front lunge and a back lunge variation and great
for lower extremity strengthening and alignment, thanks for watching and I hope you enjoyed.
