March Matness 2016: Pilates Saw

Like so many of our Pilates exercises, the Pilates Saw builds upon exercises that come before it in the Pilates Mat sequence of exercises.  The Saw is essentially Spine Stretch with rotation.  Just like the Spine Stretch exercise we are trying to anchor our hips and legs as we articulate through the spine.  The key to finding the stretch and the deep abdominal work in this exercise might surprise you as it doesn’t just come from the upper half of our body.  Our legs and hips have to really work to anchor our lower body into place so that our core muscles can properly rotate and roll down through our spine away from them hence creating the work.  Here’s a few tips to help you find the “work” of the Pilates Saw exercise:

• Make sure you can start in a tall spine and you are sitting up on your “sitting bones” of the pelvis.  If your low back or hamstrings are tight you may need to bend you knees or even sit on a block or roller to elevate your hips to find the correct start position
• Focus on anchoring you legs and hips into place and only rotate and articulate as far as you can do so without moving or shifting through your hips and legs.  (This might not seem like a very big movement at first-  that’s ok!)
• Use an exhale to help you rotate and articulate and wring out the breath into a deeper twist.  This will help you activate your deep abdominal muscles and specifically those oblique muscles.
• Inhale to stack back to your tall spine.