What it is
A padded platform on wheels, running along two rails, with shoulder rests at one end so you don’t travel up the bed when you push. It slides perhaps sixty to eighty centimetres each way, and it’s the only part of the whole machine that actually goes anywhere.
Why coming back matters most
When you press the carriage away, the springs stretch and store up energy. On the way back they want to snap shut, and your job is not to let them. That slow, resisted return is where a great deal of the strength work actually happens.
A carriage that clatters home on every repetition is the clearest sign in the room that someone is going too fast, or is on the wrong spring. It happens to all of us.
Where you’ll be on it
Lying on your back is where classes start and where you’ll spend most of your early weeks. Sitting, kneeling and eventually standing on a moving platform all come later, and each one asks a bit more of your balance than the last.
