March Matness : Roll Over

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.