Hello, and welcome to our Balanced Body podcast here at EHS Pilates in San Francisco.
My name is Nancy Myers, and we have Michelle Maudet assisting me in demonstrating how to
incorporate your toe gizmo into your footwork on the Reformer.
The toe gizmo comes in two different spring resistances.
The black is a heavier resistance, and the red is a lighter.
We're going to use the heavier resistance with footwork today with Michelle.
And we're going to begin by placing the toe gizmo around her first toe.
And you may adjust it depending on the individual's toe alignment.
If there were a misalignment from that first joint, you might take it a little higher,
or for second, place it a little lower.
And we're going to have you spread your feet so that you're in the resistance of the spring,
not by going into external rotation, but just pulling laterally.
To encourage toe spread, and you don't want to over stretch that, so if you did have a
hypermobile first joint, you might want to use the lighter resistance.
But first, just using it to facilitate a stretch and proper alignment.
And we're going to start you in parallel on that sub-taller, right in front of the heel.
Keep a soft dorsiflexion without tensing up the toes.
So just pulling into the resistance, but not tensing up.
And exhale as you extend.
If you needed to place something between the knees for alignment, you could also do so,
just for tracking.
So don't take your knees apart, you're pulling from here.
Good.
And extend.
Now we're going to take the gizmo, bend your knees in, we're going to take the gizmo and
place it around the first two toes.
And we'll move your foot down to the ball of the foot.
Make sure that all of your metatarsals are in contact with the foot bar, so you don't
leave the pinky toe hanging in the wind.
Remember in contact with the bar, with all the metatarsals, not an external rotation.
Stay in parallel.
Keep the knees in alignment.
And exhale as you extend.
And bend.
So the toes are relaxed.
And by taking the toe gizmo strap onto different toes, are going to make different fascial
connections further up the chain.
Now we're going to take the first three toes.
If your toes don't fit in the strap, you can take that first toe out and place it underneath
the strap.
Michelle's toes fit in here nicely.
So we will take all three toes into the foot strap of the toe gizmo.
And extend and bend here.
And can you feel the difference as we change toes?
And how do you feel this differently?
More on the outside of the shin.
More on the outside of the shin.
Anything further up into the pelvis?
Probably up here a little bit.
More in the obliques.
Second toe TA, first toe is encouraging that nice central pelvic floor engagement.
Now extend the legs and start your heel, raises, lower and lift the heels.
Keeping the resistance equal throughout the exercise, so you don't want to see the spring
coming in and out, but keep the resistance equal as you lower and lift the heels.
And now lift the heels and take the hips into external rotation, drawing those heels together
and pulling further into the spring resistance and bend the knees in.
So if that's not possible, we can take that back down to just the first toe that will
make it more accessible for her in external rotation to be able to maintain her alignment.
Pulling into the resistance now by taking that leg into external rotation and extend.
Keep pulling into that resistance and bend and extend.
So that's incorporating the gizmo into footwork on the reformer.
If you wanted to go into individual digit work, I will have you come up onto the heels
and we'll use the lighter resistance here because that black spring is pretty heavy
when you're working with individual digits.
So you'll notice Michelle has a little bit of a hammer toe starting here and the difference
between hammer toe is that second joint mallet toe is the first joint.
So she has some flexion going on, especially in this second digit.
So if I wanted to really fine tune her footwork, I would have her go into dorsiflexion of the
ankle here as I give resistance on this second digit so that she's trying to maintain that
stretch.
Pull into the resistance as you extend the legs.
Keep that resistance.
Try to keep pulling the toes toward the knees as you bend and straighten.
So you can really fine tune the footwork here, getting into the individual digits and those
fascial connections.
Thank you for joining us.
