More Advanced Students
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Spread Eagle and Water Skier
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Flying Eagle is an advanced tower exercise- its fun and feels great! It requires a strong ability to connect to the “core” while in spinal extension, which is not easy. Its also a great chest opener, hip flexor stretch, and spine lengthener.
The base of Flying Eagle is the beginner exercise and stretch, Push Through. Its […]
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Video of Advanced Pilates Mat Work
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This video is not for the faint of heart. Not because the exercises are super challenging (they are) or because the music is loud and bad (it is), but because you are about to witness this man doing Swan Dive on the cold, hard floor without any padding or mat! Craziness.
Besides being a little weird, […]
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Roll Ups with Feet Anchored
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If you have trouble rolling all the way up during Roll Ups, and you are fortunate enough to be up on a tower mat, you might be tempted to hook your little feet under the black strap down at the end of your mat. This will pin your legs down, and give you the leverage […]
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Lowering the Foot Bar
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The transitions between all pilates exercises are actually exercises within themselves.
When you transition properly, your pilates session has more flow, focus, and energy. Lowering the foot Bar of the reformer is a great transition to practice. When you master this transition, you can rely less on your teacher to do things for you and take […]
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Opposition
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“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”
That is Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, which sums up the essence of pilates movement. We sometimes overly focus on the aspect of “drawing into the abdominals” during pilates, as if that is the most important part of every exercise. Connecting into the core is very […]
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The Layers of Your Core
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In order to really understand what it means to “connect your abdominals in”, you should know a bit about the abdominal muscles.
There are three layers of flat abdominal muscles, plus one pair of vertical muscle strips through the middle. In each of these segements, the muscles fibers run in a certain direction.
Rectus AbdominisThese muscles […]
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Building Your Home Pilates Gym, Part 2
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If you’ve read my previous post and decided that you have the space and desire to add pilates equipment to your at-home gym, here are some suggestions of equipment to buy. This selection is based on what takes up the least amount of space, yet offers the most possible exercises.
Reformer/Tower ComboIf you want a […]
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Building a Pilates Home Gym, Part 1
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If you’ve been practicing pilates for years and feel like you want to add a few pieces of equipment to your home gym, you might be wondering which pieces allow the most exercises and take up the least amount of space.
I’m going to make some equipment suggestions in the next post, but first its […]
