March Matness 2016: Shoulder Bridge

The Pilates Shoulder Bridge exercise is a great whole body strengthening exercise that teaches us how articulate through our spine and just plain feels good!  This is such a great exercise for any body.  As your practice advances you can challenge your strength and your ability to strengthen by holding in the bridge and then eventually adding a bent knee fold, and then adding a kick with 1 leg.  Here’s a few tips:

• Start by tucking the pelvis and really initiate this movement from your tail end.  When you do this you will start to feel a stretching and lengthening of your low back.
• Try to roll up from the mat one vertebrae at a time versus just lifting everything in one piece.
• When coming back down to the mat, focus on leaving your hips lifted as you start to connect you very upper back to the mat and continue to sequence your back to the mat one vertebrae at a time.
• Notice any spots in your back/spine that are a challenge to move through and connect into the mat.  In those places I like to focus on the front side of my body pulling in toward my spine to help me get more movement.
• Inhale the entire time you are rolling up to your shoulders and then exhale the entire time you are rolling down
• Work your way to the kick by first just practicing holding the bridge at the top.  Then progress to a 1 leg knee fold while maintaining your lifted bridge position.  Then you can progress to stretch the leg straight and trying some kicks as you hold the position.