March Matness 2016: Double Leg Stretch

The Pilates Double Leg Stretch exercise teaches you to use your center (ie core muscles) to maintain stability while you reach your legs away from your center and then pull them back in.

  • Make sure you only take your legs to your working level so as not to strain through your low back.  The level of your legs(how close they are to the floor when they are extended) in your Double Leg Stretch exercise will probably be very similar to your working level on your Pilates Hundred exercise.  You may notice that the portion of this exercise where your legs are extended is essentially your Pilates Hundred’s body position.
  • If lifting the head off the mat to curl up causes pain or strain you can leave your head on the mat.
  • Traditional breathing is an inhale to extend legs from your center and then an exhale to pull legs in to your chest.
  • As part of the original Pilates Mat sequence Joseph Pilates suggested starting with 6 of these to start with, eventually progressing to twelve

March MATness 2016: #OneLegStretch

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The One Leg Stretch(also called the Single Leg Stretch) is part of the famous Pilates “Stomach Series”.  This term always makes me laugh as I consider my entire Pilates workout a “stomach” workout!!  In Joseph Pilates’ book, Return to Life,  he suggests, ” 5 times on each leg(Later on the number of repetitions may be gradually and progressively safely increased to twelve times with each leg)”.

  • Maintain your working level by adjusting how low the outstretched leg reaches.  Reaching it upward will be more supportive and allow you to work without strain
  • Try to keep your leg in line with your hip when pulling it in and stretching it out.
  • Traditional breathing is inhale on one leg and then exhale on the other.
  • If curling up your head and upper back forward off the mat strains your neck, leave your head on the mat.

Practice What You teach: March Matness and Rolling Like a Ball (what could be better?)

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It’s March and besides getting excited about spring time weather and more sunshine I love getting to celebrate an entire month of Pilates Mat work with fellow Pilates geeks all over the world!  I made a commitment to participate daily in March MATness and even though it makes life a little hectic, it also reminds me of how much I love the Pilates Mat work and the method itself.  My commitment to post videos and blogs about the Pilates Mat work all month long really forces me to schedule play time into each day( rough huh?).  I love the playful, creative side of the Pilates work and nothing could be better than “having to” spend time each day playing with movements and trying to decide how I want to share them with others!

Needless to say my “workouts” this week have been very playful and I’ve been getting a lot of mat work in! Today’s March MATness exercise is probably my favorite Pilates exercise ever!  I have a lot of favorites but Rolling Like a Ball(also known as Rolling Back) tops my list as I love how it feels, I love how playful it can be and I love how super challenging it can be no matter how many times you do it!!  I of course include Rolling Like a Ball in my formal Pilates workouts but it’s also my favorite “sitting” position if I’m watching a movie, running a staff meeting or just playing with the kids on the floor!

 

March Matness 2016 : One Leg Circle

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The One Leg Circle Pilates Mat exercise challenges your core and increases flexibility in your back and legs.  As with all of our Pilates exercises it is important to do the exercise at your working level.  Your working level is the variation of the exercise that can be done safely while still maintaining the “work” of the exercise.  For this exercise the “work” of the exercise includes stabilizing your head and shoulders, stabilizing the standing leg, lengthening and stretching the working leg, and safely adding rotation and articulation to the low spine and back.

Many times it is necessary to modify the body position or add a prop to help your body learn how to do the “work” of the exercise properly.  In the video above Carey shows you how to use a theraband to support your working (moving) leg so you can find your working level.

 

March Matness : Roll Over

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The Pilates Roll Over exercise is one of my favorite exercises when it comes to lengthening and stretching out my back, spine and hamstrings.  It is also a very challenging Pilates exercise that many people might never ever complete in it’s fullest expression even after years of practicing Pilates.  Part of me was hesitant to blog and show this exercise today as I’m pretty passionate about showing the world that any body can do Pilates and I often think when you see an exercise or movement that looks impossible in your body, you decide you could never do that and write off the whole method of exercise.  I’m hoping by looking a little closer at this challenging exercise you’ll see the concepts that it teaches the body and learn some ways that you can incorporate those concepts into your body even if you are not doing this particular exercise.

Just like the Roll up exercise that precedes the Roll Over in the Pilates Mat sequence, this exercise is all about rolling through your spine and learning to articulate.  Instead of anchoring our legs and hips while we articulate our spine from our head to our tail, we anchor our head and shoulders and articulate from our tail toward our head.  Be warned though: lifting your legs up over the body to articulate your spine with control is no easy task!  So where do you start to learn to do this exercise at any level?

The beautiful thing about the Pilates work is that the way to get to the more challenging exercises is to simply practice and perfect the ones your body can already do!  Irene Dowd says in her book Taking Root to Fly, “the solution ( when looking at movement goals) is to go one step back to something you can do.  By keeping your current movement goal at a level of possible attainment, you will be ready to go beyond it with success.”  I love this and find it so absolutely true in everything we do in Pilates.

So the best way to get to Roll Over is do the exercises that :

  1. Strengthen your center
  2. Teach your body how to articulate through your spine
  3. Create balance in your body
  4. Those that your body is already comfortable doing!

Some great ones to start with are: the Hundred, the Roll Up and Rolling Like a Ball.  The Pilates equipment work is another way to teach your body how to do a movement and learn a concept in a safe controlled way with a little assistance!  Check out the video of Kelly practicing her articulation using the Pilates reformer.  The Long Spine exercise she is doing is a wonderful exercise to teach what it feels like to articulate from your tail toward your head by bringing the legs up over the body and it also builds the strength and muscle activation needed to eventually do the Roll Over exercise on the Mat.

 

 

March Matness 2016 – The Pilates Roll up

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The Pilates Roll Up exercise is part of Joseph Pilates original mat sequence as found in his book Return to Life and this exercise teaches us some key concepts that we use in the Pilates method over and over again throughout a variety of exercises. Here’s a few things to think about when practicing your roll up variation.

1.  Spinal Articulation and Flexibility:  This exercise is designed to teach us how to move through our spine one vertebrae at a time.  This rolling or curling through our spine requires you to move with control and not jerk or muscle through the movement.  Always pick a version of the roll up that you can do with control so that you can continue to progress by gaining strength in your core and increasing spinal flexibility.

2. Your center is key!  The key to creating a controlled roll up or down is learning how to properly engage your deep abdominals.  By pulling your abdominal muscles in toward your spine you will start to figure out how to move with control and precision through your spine and you’ll continue to strengthen your core muscles!!

3. Don’t forget to breathe!  Joseph Pilates said,” It is the very action of “rolling” and “unrolling” that cleanses your lungs so effectively by driving out the impure air and forcing in the pure air as you roll and unroll”.  Breathing and rolling through your spine go hand in hand.  You’ll find that using your Pilates breath with the movement will help you move better and maintain you engagement from your center.