A Closer Look At Footwork

This episode is a deep dive into all things footwork. Curious about the why behind the what of one the most common reformer Pilates exercises? Learn what muscles are working, different ways to perform the exercise, and why it's a great addition to any Pilates program when you tune in!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Pilates Students' Manual, a podcast helping you get the most out of your Pilates classes. I'm Olivia, and I'll be your host. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on Instagram at @pilatesstudentsmanual. You can support the podcast by visiting buymeacoffee. com/OliviaPodcasts.

[00:00:29] Let's learn something new.

[00:00:47] Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. In today's episode, we are going to be exploring a quintessential Pilates reformer exercise that if you've [00:01:00] ever been on a reformer, I'm sure you've done it. That is footwork. Pilates classically starts with footwork, whether you're in a contemporary styled class or a classical class, footwork is the first exercise that we do on the reformer.

[00:01:19] In today's episode, we'll explore different ways that you might do footwork, different purposes or reasons for maybe doing footwork, the ways that you do it. We'll talk about the muscles that are working when you do footwork. And just some general thoughts about one of the simplest, but not necessarily easiest exercises, conceptually easy, but there's actually quite a bit going on in it. So that's what we'll be diving into today. 

[00:01:52] If you're not being fancy and you're doing kind of a regular version of footwork, the body position [00:02:00] is lying on the reformer carriage with your head on the headrest and your shoulders nestled against those shoulder blocks. Your feet are on the foot bar, and the way the foot bar and the carriage is kind of set up is that your knee is stacked over your hips when the carriage is closed. And the exercise action is pressing the carriage out, straightening the legs, bending the knees, and bringing the carriage in. 

[00:02:29] Now this is done in a variety of foot positions. You might be on your heels in a narrow parallel or even with your legs all all the way together. You might be on your arches or do bird on a perch feet where your toes are wrapped over the foot bar. Your heel is kind of wrapping under the foot bar. Your foot looks like a banana. You might do it on the toes with again, the feet in parallel. You might do it on the toes with the heels together, sometimes [00:03:00] called Pilates V. You can do the feet on the foot bar in varying widths. You can go hip width. You can go to the edges of that foot bar. You can be turned out. You could be turned in. 

[00:03:14] There's many, many ways to kind of work the foot in your kind of traditional footwork here. The spring resistance is a bit subjective. It could be anywhere between two full springs, which if you're on a Balanced Body reformer, that's two red springs, which I would personally consider to be rather light, all the way up to all springs on, which is what you would do if you were on a classical machine, or if you've built up some strength and you want your footwork to be a little bit heavier, you might have all springs on when you do footwork.

[00:03:47] Headrest can be up or down. Arms are generally relaxed at the side. Sometimes I do hands on my belly because it feels nice and there is breathing that happens with this. Once again, the breathing [00:04:00] is a bit subjective. You could inhale as you press the carriage out, exhale as you bring the carriage back in. You could do the opposite of that. You could exhale to press into the resistance and straighten the legs and then inhale to bring the carriage in. Both work. Um, breathing and moving together are ideal. So that's the general idea, the general setup of footwork. 

[00:04:24] As the very first exercise that you're doing, sometimes it's the first exercise you've done all day. There is a bit of a centering component to it. Sometimes you'll close your eyes when you do it. You connect to your breath. You start to move. And what we're really doing is warming up some of the bigger joints in our body. We're getting our hips a little bit more awake. We're getting our knees awake. We've got some ankle attention. So we're warming up these really big muscle groups and joints in our legs. 

[00:04:53] Maybe this is a controversial thing to share, but I will tell you that footwork is a quad [00:05:00] exercise, kind of period. You might have heard that you're using your hamstrings to close the carriage because you're bending your knees, but the flaw with that logic is that the springs are closing the carriage. And if we were to take our feet off of the foot bar when the carriage is out, the carriage would close kind of loudly. It would bang into the bumper. Because what's actually closing the carriage is the spring tension, right? And resisting the carriage from closing with a bang against the bumper is eccentric work in your quadriceps.

[00:05:40] So your quadriceps are the big muscles on top of your thighs. Your kneecap is embedded in your quadricep muscle. And one of the main jobs of our quadricep muscle is to flex our hips, which is the action of bringing your thigh closer to your face, closer to your torso, like [00:06:00] hinging at the hips so that your leg comes towards you. Hip flexion, right? They're hip flexors. Their job is to flex the hips. 

[00:06:06] Footwork is then, in terms of what's moving the carriage, a quad strengthening exercise. The heavier the tension is, the more springs you have on when you do footwork, the harder it is, it is more difficult to open the carriage and straighten your legs because the springs have one job on the Reformer, and that's to shorten when they're long. If you lengthen the spring, the spring will try to shorten. So the work of footwork in terms of how we're moving the carriage is we are contracting our quadriceps muscle as we are pressing the carriage out. It is straightening our legs against the resistance. Carriage goes away from the foot bar. And resisting the carriage closing by eccentrically, which is the lengthening part of the muscle movement, right?

[00:06:57] Muscles can do three things. They [00:07:00] can get shorter, which is a concentric contraction. They can get longer, which is an eccentric contraction, and they can just tense which doesn't shorten or lengthen the muscle. It's an isometric hold. So something like bracing or holding a plank, you're not shortening or lengthening anything, but you are holding a position under tension, which is an isometric, uh, action of your muscle.

[00:07:27] So when you are bending your knee, the muscle on the top of your thigh is lengthening the muscle on the back of the leg, which is the hamstring is shortening, but because of our relationship to the load of the springs, the load is still in your quadricep. So that's what's happening in terms of how we're moving the carriage. We're eccentrically working the quad as the carriage closes, we're concentrically working the quad, straightening our legs against that resistance as the carriage opens. 

[00:07:57] We do that a bunch of times, uh, a [00:08:00] usual count for footwork is about 10 presses in each foot position. So you'll probably do several foot positions at the start of a class. The order in which you do them, in my opinion, is not super duper important again, because we're warming up our legs for the most part. We're also getting a super nifty foot massage, and the way the exercise feels is different depending on what part of your foot you're standing on. 

[00:08:29] Our ankle is strongest at its flexed position. So with heels on the foot bar, it is the strongest. We can press with the most power. And it's the most difficult with our toes on the foot bar and our heels lifted, it's like walking around in high heels. It's like being in a calf raise. So you're really shortening the back of the leg, um, which makes it more difficult to press the carriage out. And if you've ever done footwork on your tiptoes with the heels lifted as high as you can get them, it [00:09:00] is more difficult. 

[00:09:01] We can add complexity to the exercise as a way of increasing challenge by doing footwork with a single leg or doing some leg choreography while we do our footwork. So maybe that means you're pressing with just one leg and you've got one leg in tabletop. Maybe that means that you are, you know, lifting and lowering the leg that's not on the foot bar as you're doing your footwork on the other leg. If you are doing a single leg footwork and you have your foot towards the edge of the foot bar, so it's farther away from the midline, that is also going to add challenge because it is more difficult to do anything with our limbs further away from our center and from what's, you know, where the power of the movement is coming from.

[00:09:47] Adding springs makes it more difficult because it's more load on the quad. I've used footwork as an exercise that is a great strengthening [00:10:00] exercise for people who've had knee replacements and they're really working on building strength in their quad because you can augment the difficulty by adding springs and changing the spring tension. I also see footwork as a bit of a foot massage. The exercise at its heart is not very complex, so you can really focus on finding that centered movement where you're moving with your breath and different spots on the feet, like especially bird on a perch foot position where our toes are wrapped over the foot bar and heels wrapped under is a really nice way to stretch the tops of the toes, which is quite nice and you also get a little bit of a massage by having that pressure on your foot. 

[00:10:47] As you are doing footwork, as far as what the right spring tension is for you. Again, it is variable. What I look for as a teacher when I'm watching clients do footwork [00:11:00] is to make sure that they're not jammed up against the shoulder blocks, because that would mean that they're not able to handle the spring tension. Too much of that load is getting carried up the body and they're kind of jammed into the shoulder blocks, so I would make the springs a little bit lighter. And if a person is doing footwork and they're just cruising, it's almost to the point where they're jumping because they're coming out so fast, I would either add some spring tension or maybe ask that person to move a little bit more slowly to keep that tension.

[00:11:32] Footwork is also a great place to feel the different shapes of your spine, so you can feel neutral when you're lying on the carriage because you've got the feedback of the carriage telling you what parts of you are touching the carriage. Some people do footwork in an imprint, where they are flattening their t shirt into the carriage. Some people do footwork in a neutral position. I don't think anyone intentionally does footwork in an arched back [00:12:00] position, where they're in a bit of a back bend, but it's also a possibility. The load of the springs is not so great that with all the springs on, there would be any issues doing anything. Of course, that may not be the perfect fit for every person, but the load is not so great. Even in single leg, um, I have clients in their eighties who can do single leg footwork on all five springs, um, on a Balanced Body reformer. So with quite a bit of spring tension, I think they're up to like four and a quarter springs. So yeah, that is footwork in a nutshell. 

[00:12:33] Coming up after the break, we'll talk more about different variations of footwork, why you might be interested in exploring alternative ways to do footwork. And also just a little reminder that footwork isn't the only way to start your Pilates session. That's coming up next.

[00:12:56] Hi there. Enjoying the podcast? Me too. Make sure [00:13:00] you subscribe wherever you're listening so you get notified about new episodes. And visit buymeacoffee.com/OliviaPodcasts to support the show. There you can make a one-time donation or become a member with a donation of as little as $5 a month. Members get some awesome perks, including a shout out in the next episode, a monthly newsletter, a monthly zoom call with me and more.

[00:13:26] You can also visit links.OliviaBioni.com/affiliates and check out some sweet deals on products I use and love. Now back to the show. 

[00:13:56] What footwork really is, if you weren't on a reformer [00:14:00] and you were doing the same movement is it would be plies. Standing up, if you stood up and there was no reformer and you did the same action of straightening your legs and bending your legs, it would be plies, which are just squats, but with a long spine, you know, with your shoulders over your hips.

[00:14:19] So there's lots of ways to find the work of footwork with varying different focuses or different load. Um, just by knowing that any action that is a squat is footwork. That means you could do footwork standing up, and at Club Pilates, I'll teach it standing at the barre. So there's a little bar and it is straight up plies like you would do in a ballet class. You're going down and up shoulders over hips. Amazing. 

[00:14:48] You could also do it with the TRX. Club Pilates studios have a cool TRX suspension trainer there, so you could do hands holding onto the handles facing the anchor point, and you could do your squats there. [00:15:00] What's kind of nice about doing it with the TRX is that you can offload some of the load that would be just in your legs when you're doing footwork on the reformer and move it to your hands. You could also do this at the springboard or the Cadillac if you had your hands, uh, in handles that had springs attached to them, because then the spring or the strength of your arms is going to help you to straighten your legs. 

[00:15:25] Footwork on the reformer, done traditionally, is a low load squat. So it's a great entry point for a lot of people, but it's not the end game for people either. So getting someone vertical is always going to a be more realistic because we spend a lot more of our life vertical doing things than we do horizontal and be a lot more load in the legs. So it is heavier to do footwork standing. I mean, maybe if you were able to change all the springs on the reformer to like [00:16:00] super heavy springs, it moves into like leg press territory. If you think of an exercise at the gym where you're really focusing on that quad strengthening, but the beauty of Pilates is that it's not only a strength training system. There's also coordination and flexibility, and there's other components that go into it. So I'm not in any way saying that you should just make footwork as heavy as humanly possible, but I do think that working towards heavier springs could be a goal in footwork, certainly. 

[00:16:32] So we can definitely do footwork vertically. We can also do footwork in a seated position on different pieces of equipment or the same piece of equipment. So if you do footwork seated on the chair, for example, sometimes they're called seated foot pumps. Sometimes they're called foot pumps, but you're sitting on the seat of the chair with your feet on the pedal. You can press the pedal down and that has an interestingly [00:17:00] different focus than footwork because instead of lying down where you're getting feedback from the carriage about what shape your spine is in and whether your hips are moving when you're doing it, things like that, just like standing, you're in free space.

[00:17:14] So you're responsible for the shape of your spine and also knowing where you are in space, which is a challenge for a lot of us. That proprioceptive awareness of knowing where our body is positioned in space. Doing footwork seated on the chair is a great way to play with that. 

[00:17:31] What I don't like about doing footwork on the chair is that you can't make it as heavy because there's a point where you just move yourself because on the reformer, you're braced against the shoulder blocks. You'll never push yourself off of the reformer. You cannot push yourself through the shoulder blocks, but there is a tipping point on the chair where you can't keep your spine still while you're doing footwork. So that's [00:18:00] a little bit limiting. 

[00:18:01] What I like about doing footwork on the chair is you can bring your knees higher than just in line with your hips. The pedal can come up higher, which is great in terms of increasing the range of movement, but you cannot press all the way to straight legs because you hit the ground from sitting on the chair. Um, or if you're sitting further back on the chair, you hit the top of the chair. So it's limited in the hip extension, but you have greater opportunity for hip flexion.

[00:18:31] Um, I didn't say this, but doing footwork standing, whether you're at the barre or using the TRX or just using nothing and just doing a set of squats, you are limited by your ankle mobility. That will be the thing that stops you from bending your knees more is how flexible you are at your ankle. You can circumvent that by lifting your heels. You can circumvent that by leaning forward, [00:19:00] but that is going to be the limiting factor if you were to do footwork in a standing position. 

[00:19:05] You can also do footwork lying down, but pushing up one of my favorite ways to do footwork if you have a Cadillac or a reformer that converts to a tower so that you can spring the push through bar from the bottom, you imagine lying on the reformer the same way you would, but the push through bar is above you. So you've got your feet on the push through bar and you're pushing your legs straight up to the ceiling. It is a really intense hamstring stretch because you have the spring resistance pushing you into the bent knee position. And just the relationship between how that's organized is interesting. And you might get a kick out of that, but that is definitely one that is difficult. 

[00:19:47] It's not my go to for brand new people because it requires a lot of flexibility. And trying to maintain neutral while doing that is a very difficult thing. It's again, it's a [00:20:00] goal that you have, but it may not be what actually happens because it's a tough, it's a tough way to do it. It's a very compressed shape. It's even more hip flexion than doing footwork on the chair. So if deeper hip flexion is something you're interested in, footwork on the push through bar sprung from the bottom is great. 

[00:20:19] Another way that I love to do footwork for people who are more familiar with the reformer and are interested in balance challenges, you can make the springs much lighter. So maybe just a single spring or one full spring. You can sit on the foot bar and have your feet on the edge of the carriage so that you're facing the carriage feet are on the edge of the carriage and you can press the carriage out. It's the same. quadriceps contraction to press the carriage out and eccentric contraction to resist the spring pulling the carriage back in. But it is very fun from a balance perspective. You can do, you know, [00:21:00] hands holding the bar. You can do arms like I dream of Jeannie. You can do hands on hips and you're perched on this foot bar and then pressing the carriage away. 

[00:21:09] So the fun thing about that is it's a coordination challenge. You are in a more precarious place. What you're sitting on is much smaller. You have much less margin for movement here because you're sitting on the foot bar. But the short side is you cannot load that up because Again, eventually the spring will be so strong that you're pushing yourself off of the foot bar, which is not the goal of the exercise, but that's a really fun way to do it, which is again, the same action of bending your knees and straightening your legs against resistance, but in like kind of a fun, more advanced way of exploring it.

[00:21:47] Having lots of options is one of the things that I love about Pilates because there are so many ways to do the same thing that are a little bit different, with a little bit different focus, whether you're [00:22:00] looking to increase the range of movement, whether you're looking to build strength, whether you are looking to add a coordination challenge, there's a piece of equipment that you can do that footwork on that is going to, you know, challenge that.

[00:22:13] I didn't even talk about footwork lying on your side. You can do footwork on the reformer, but instead of lying on your back, head on the headrest, lie on your side, head on the headrest. And then you have a one foot on the foot bar and you're pressing the carriage out, bringing the carriage in. A really great way to do single leg footwork in a supported way. It's a great modification, uh, for clients who are pregnant who lying flat on their back. If you didn't have a wedge or a jump board to prop them up, you can have everyone do footwork lying on the side. Plus you're getting this additional glute component because you're holding your leg up against gravity while you're strengthening your quad, pressing the carriage out. Like, I don't want to tell you these are all the ways to do footwork. These are some great ways to do footwork, but the possibilities are really limitless. 

[00:22:58] Footwork is an [00:23:00] exercise as a teacher that I fell out of love with. I thought it was boring and everyone was getting bored doing it, but in reality, It can be a really nice way to warm up the body. It's nice to have structure, I think, in group classes that people know a little bit what to expect so that they're not totally lost every time the class starts. It's a really great structured way to start the class, but it's also not the only way to warm up the body. If you are taking class at Club Pilates, we always start with footwork, although we can do it in different ways. Um, we are going to start with a version of footwork, but if you're taking classes or doing classes or just moving on your own, you can warm up the body in any body position. You can do it standing, you can do it on hands and knees, you could do a seated warmup. There's like the sky's the limit, every way that your body can move.

[00:23:54] A warmup is just going to be a lower load version of other exercises that you're [00:24:00] going to do. So if you're looking to move the spine in all directions, if you're looking to get those big muscle groups warmed up, you can definitely do that with a cat and a cow and then a bird dog and then maybe a plank series from hands and knees.

[00:24:12] You can do it from standing with standing squats or forward bend side bends, rotation, like there's more than one way to warm up the body. So don't think footwork is the only way that you could start class, although it is a very nice way to start class. There's lots of ways to do it. 

[00:24:31] Huge thank you to all my supporters on buy me a coffee, including some new friends joining the project. Thank you to Dee and MM for joining. And I can't wait to have a coffee chat with you and connect and see what I can do to help you in your Pilates journey. If you're interested in joining a coffee chat, you can visit that, Buy Me a Coffee page, support the project and hang out with me and talk about Pilates all the time. [00:25:00] I hope you have a great couple of weeks and I'll talk to you again soon.

[00:25:13] Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Pilates Students' Manual, a podcast helping you get the most out of your Pilates classes. Be sure to check out the podcast Instagram at @pilatesstudentsmanual and subscribe wherever you're listening. Interested in teaching Pilates too? Check out Pilates Teachers' Manual available everywhere you listen to podcasts. I hope to see you next episode. Until next [00:26:00] time.