An important part of the Pilates program is balance. That means training all parts of your body so that one set of muscles, say, the front of the thigh, is stronger than another, the back of the thigh. A couple of weeks ago, I talked about foot position as one way to help you work the inner thigh at the same time that you are also working your core. This has the happy, three-fold effects of strengthening your core, tightening the troublesome inner thigh area, and achieving better balance among the muscle groups since the front of the thigh is inherently stronger than the back and inner thigh.

What else can you do if you want to work that saggy inner thigh, the bane of almost all women? Remembering to rotate from the hip so that you rotate your leg out when you do legwork is one trick. Let’s go through leg circles:

Lie on your back on the mat. Remember to imprint but don’t tuck. Your arms are at your sides, palms on the floor, fingers pointed toward your feet. Your shoulders are back and your neck is relaxed. The crown of your head is stretched away from your toes (remember working in opposition?).

Inhale, and on an exhale, raise your right leg to ninety degrees and rotate your leg out from the hip. Your foot is relaxed. This is your starting position. Check your alignment again before your start. Is your neck relaxed and long? Have you gone into a tuck? If you have, straighten your lower back by pushing your tailbone into the mat, almost as if you were sticking your butt out. Yes, it is counterintuitive but that feeling actually lengthens your spine. If you can’t left your leg all of the way to ninety degrees without tucking, lower it slightly to maintain length in your spine but don’t go so low that you put strain on your lower back. Experiment with your position a little to find the place where you can maintain your form and work effectively. After a few breaths, you are ready to start the movement.

Inhale to lower your right leg, swing it across your body as far as you can without losing the position of your upper body on the mat, and exhale to bring your leg to the starting position. Initiate the movement by engaging the powerhouse/inner thigh connection so that you work the connection, not just your leg. Maintain the open position of your hips so that your right leg is rotated out from the hip (not from the ankle) and make as big a circle as you can without losing your imprinted position of your upper body or straining your lower back. Try to make the movement as fluid as you can; imagine that you are etching a circle with the heel of your foot – remember visualization techniques as a way to improve continuity?

Do five circles on the right by starting down, across and over. Then do five circles on the right by starting across, over and up. Lower your right leg, and repeat the sequence on the left. Remember to take a few minutes to check your form before you start the movement. Inhale to initiate; exhale to return your leg to the starting position. Always keep your leg rotated from the hip and imagine leading with your heel – although your foot is relaxed, not flexed. This will help you maintain the rotated position that works your inner thigh.

After you’ve mastered the basics, Pilates is all about details and control. In this exercise, you’re working on muscle balance, using visualization techniques to improve fluidity, at the same time that you are targeting that problem inner thigh area. You’re also improving you’re overall control – remember working in opposition? In this exercise, you’re also constantly working in opposition, whether it’s maintaining a relaxed neck and a long spine or achieving a stable upper body on the mat while you swing your leg in smooth circles to the left and right. Introducing these subtle modifications to exercises you learned in the first six months you studied Pilates isn’t easy, but refinements like these will help you progress after you’ve learned the exercises. There’s just a whole lot to learn buried in the basic mat series. More next week!
Sarah

I work with Pilates students at all levels of experience, from beginners to professional dancers. Over the years, I’ve learned to modify the way I teach the Pilates exercises, based on students’ abilities, injuries, bodies and skill. Knees and lower back are common problem areas for many people, even very advanced practitioners. Modifying the exercise and paying attention to foot positioning are two strategies to reduce strain. Whether you need these modifications depends on skill level, history of injuries and body type.

Let’s look at foot positioning and swan. Swan is done from a prone position on the mat or reformer. On the mat, arms are bent and hands are flat on floor, about where they’d be for an old-fashioned push-up. In the classic execution of swan, a student first engages the power house and then curls up to open the chest, and then releases back down to a prone position, one vertebra at a time. It’s the reverse of spine stretch. Then, she (or he) raises her (or his) legs, again beginning from a position lying face down on the mat, engaging the powerhouse and raising straight legs from the core, not from the thighs. Eventually, students learn to raise chest and legs, release their arms out in front, and rock.

There are some obvious risks, especially to the neck and lower back. It’s all too easy to curl from your neck, which puts strain on the very top of your spine, where many people collect tension. You can compensate for that by remembering to engage from the powerhouse and thinking about leaning forward into the curl, rather than by focusing on the curl itself. Some people use the mental image of a string attached to the crown of your head so that the movement is forward and up.

It’s harder, though, to stay out of your lower back, particularly after you’ve become comfortable with the basic movement. Here’s where foot positioning helps. Place your feet in parallel, not in Pilates V, and use your inner thighs and powerhouse to keep your legs together. Really concentrate on maintaining that foot position without gripping from your thighs. You’ll find that you simply can’t lift either your upper body or your legs as high, which means you stay out of your lower back.

But you can still progress the exercise, even if you are protecting your lower back. As you become more skilled, focus on intensifying the curl from your mid back so that you are almost making a capital letter C with your upper spine. You still engage the powerhouse to curl forward and up, but concentrate on staying parallel to the mat from your lower to mid-back and then curling from the bottom of your shoulder blades, opening your chest and facing forward. This means you’re working your rhomboids to pull your shoulders back as well as your spine. But remember to stay out of your neck! And of course, make sure your feet are parallel and legs are together so that you protect your lower back.

It’s a lot to remember, so practice one piece at a time. First, work on the execution by learning to initiate the movement from your powerhouse. Pay attention to your body and modify your position to minimize strain. Then advance the exercise by working your rhomboids and intensifying the curl at the top of your spine.

That’s it for this week. Next time, I’ll talk about foot positioning and the inner thigh.

Thanks!

Sarah

In my last posting, I talked about using props in a Pilates program as a way to help students reduce strain, find certain muscles, and execute an exercise that might be a little too challenging for their bodies. This week, I’d like to talk about situations where you don’t want to use props.

Props can get in the way when I’m working on refining technique with an advanced student. The apparatus is really a set of huge props intended to help students do the mat exercises, which are the core of the Pilates protocol. While this approach does help beginning and intermediate students develop the strength they need for mat work, advanced students can develop sloppy habits or maybe just aren’t getting the refinement that they can now achieve.

Let’s talk about pulling straps as an example. Pulling straps is an exercise that prepares you for swan in mat. In pulling straps, you are prone on the long box on the reformer and engage triceps, lats and core to work on elongating your upper spine as well as strengthening your back and arms. Since triceps tend to be weak, beginning and intermediate students need this arm work to develop muscle strength. But more advanced students can learn better shoulder alignment and increase spinal flexibility while finding the tricep/lat connection we talked about a few weeks ago. To learn the technique, though, you need to let go of the straps.

Focus on preparation. Lie prone on the box. Do not grab the straps. Before you extend your arms in the classic T-position, rotate your shoulders up toward your ears (this is intentionally an exaggeration until you get used to the position.) and pull your shoulder blades back. Feel your neck relax. As you rotate your shoulders back, engage your rhomboids, the muscles that run along your spine, so that you’re actually doing the work from your back. Your shoulders should ease and sink to their proper position, and you should feel your triceps and lats engage. Your chest will open and your spine will gently curl up from the top, not from your mid or lower back. Then raise your arms to T-position using your back, triceps and lats – your arms should be straight but relaxed. From this position, reach for your arms for your hips, as if you were doing flight, by working your triceps, lats and rhomboids. Make sure your wrists are straight and your fingers extend the line of your arms. Feel the imaginary string pulling forward from the crown of your head as your fingers reach back. (Remember working in opposition?)

Because you don’t have the stress of the straps, you won’t strain to extend your arms but can focus on finding the muscles and perfecting your form. Once you’ve developed muscle memory, add the straps. Now try to achieve the same relaxed shoulders, fluid motion and elegant line. Use enough spring so that you have tension but not so much that you are straining. Try not to clench when you hold the position in flight. As you get stronger and more practiced, you can add more tension.

Try this modification with any exercise where you're having trouble or where you think that your technique has become routine or even sloppy. This kind of refinement helps you get more out of Pilates, even after you’ve been doing the work for several years. You'll continue to see results. Intermediate and advanced practitioners have already developed better posture, but pulling straps (and swan) will teach you to maintain your posture from your rhomboids as well as your core. This gives you the relaxed shoulders and open chest of a dancer. It is especially helpful if you work at a computer or hunch over a table. And as women go through menopause, they have to be careful that they don’t develop the dreaded “widow’s hump.” So take calcium, pull straps, and stand tall!

See you next week,

Sarah

I use props with my Pilates students for several reasons: to reduce strain, to help them find certain muscles, and to support them so that they can execute an exercise. Some of these props are part of the Pilates repertoire – many Pilates mat classes use the magic circle to help students work their inner thighs. Other props are less conventional and can even be home-made.

In my Pilates for Pregnancy series, I have developed floor work based on the mat exercises in which you are propped up on an incline made of pillows. We do this because it isn’t safe or comfortable for a pregnant woman to lie on her back. Yet if you are pregnant, the exercises will help you manage a lot of the side-effects of pregnancy so you want to keep working out. Using pillows to modify your position lets you enjoy the benefits of Pilates.

And if you aren’t pregnant, you may want to use a shallow pillow or a rolled-up towel under your knees when you doing any of the exercises in a sitting position – for example, saw or spine stretch. Gradually, your hamstrings and quads will become more flexible and you may not need the help, but in the beginning, or if your legs are tight because you may be a serious runner, you will want to ease the tension on your lower back by bending your knees. The pillows help you do achieve a more relaxed position before you start, which means that you can work your spine during these exercise without your legs getting in the way.

I also use a soft ball under my students’ necks when I’m working with them on the reformer. For example, if we’re practicing teaser on the box, which is an advanced move, using the ball means that her neck won’t dangle off the end of the box, forcing her to strain her neck when she initiates the curl at the beginning of teaser. Of course in the classic execution, she should actually initiate the curl of her head and neck from her sternum, and many students can do that from the mat. But on the box, this may be too much even for advanced students – your head weighs 13-15 pounds! So I use a squishy ball so that she can relax her head and neck and focus on her abs, lower back and timing so that her head and legs move in sync. It’s more important to learn the synchronized movement than to have perfect, props-free position.

Remember, Joseph Pilates was all about innovation and modification. The most important thing is to learn your body. Don’t be afraid to try something new or help yourself along with a prop or two!

Sarah

Although Pilates generally focuses on the core, Pilates is also all about the details – like reaching hard-to-reach places in your body. Consider that ugly truth that comes to most of us: underarm dingle dangles. Or batwings, if you’d prefer. That loose flesh that extends under your arm where it meets your shoulder. More formally, it is where your triceps, the muscles in the back of your arm, connect to your lats, the muscles in your back.

Push-ups are an excellent exercise for firming your triceps as well as your back and core, especially if you can do this exercise in a plank position supported from your toes (rather than your knees). But Pilates is even better if you want to isolate the tricep/lat connection, that awkward, hard-to-reach spot under your arm and shoulder. We get this spot in pulling straps, an exercise we do on the reformer, and in hug a tree, which you can do in mat or on the reformer.

Here’s the trick: Focus on the preparation. In both exercises, you extend your arms and either pull back (pulling straps) or reach forward (hug a tree). To prepare, raise your arms shoulder height. Then think about rotating your shoulder back before you initiate the movement. After you roll your shoulder back, engage your triceps and then pull back (pulling straps) or reach forward (hug a tree) from the triceps. Don’t let your strong biceps take over and keep your shoulders down and relaxed and your chest open. You should feel your lats start to work. For pulling straps, they’ll engage in the first part of the exercise (pulling) and for hug a tree in the second part, when you release your imaginary tree and return to the starting position. If you can feel the connection, you should also notice that the top of your shoulder and your biceps are pretty relaxed. The work is all in the back your arms and in your back.

Remember to breathe. Inhale to prepare. Exhale to initiate the movement. Inhale to complete. Of course, your powerhouse is engaged the whole time so that you’re not sagging in the bed of the reformer (pulling straps) or slumped over (hug a tree). Your entire body should be working – parts of it harder than others!

Doing Pilates teaches you your body and you may want to learn some basic anatomy. In fact, studying anatomy was part of my Pilates training as an instructor. The U.S. National Institutes of Health provides pointers to excellent guides, including pictures and diagrams: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/anatomy.html. You can also check out the definitions in my new book Pilates and Pregnancy. You can find it on my website: www.picotpilates.com

Thanks. See you next week!

Sarah

Pilates breathing, navel-to-spine and imprinting are three fundamentals that I’ve discussed in earlier columns. The last one to go over is articulating the spine. Articulating the spine is about learning to move each vertebra in your spine independently and to increase the space between each vertebra so that your back becomes more flexible and less prone to injury. The best way I know to learn this fundamental is by bridging, where you roll up onto your shoulders with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor or mat and then roll back down. This is actually a series of slow and careful movements, controlled by your breath and your powerhouse. Let’s get started!

Begin by lying on your back on the floor or your mat. Your spine is in neutral position. There should be a small gap at your waist where your spine curves in naturally. Don’t tuck! Try to feel the backs of your thighs flat on floor; your feet are relaxed, and your arms are at your sides, palms facing down. Relax your neck and feel an imaginary string pulling the top of your head away from your core so that your spine feels long but not tensed. (Remember working in opposition?)

Bend your legs in, left and then right, so that your knees are bent and your feet are flat on the floor or mat. Your feet should be hip-width apart and far enough from your buttocks so that when you roll up onto your shoulders, your calves will be perpendicular to the floor.

Inhale to prepare. On an exhale, tuck your pelvis and slowly roll up onto your shoulders, one vertebra at a time. Pause at the top and inhale. Imagine that you are looking at yourself in profile; you should look like a triangle. On the next exhale, slowly roll down, one vertebra at a time, starting with your sternum, ribs, lower back, tuck and straighten your pelvis until you are at your starting position with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.

If you did this correctly, you should have discovered that this is really hard. You can use your arms to help you balance, but the goal should be to do this exercise eventually by controlling the movement completely by engaging your powerhouse and inner thighs. If you are more practiced, you may want to do this exercise with your arms raised, perpendicular to the floor, palms facing each other. If you do, make sure that your chest remains wide and your shoulders are flat on floor – to do so means that you will engage your deltoids, the muscles in your back. With the advanced modification, it becomes a core stabilization exericise as well as one for your back and spine.

The main thing is to learn to concentrate on your spine. Feel yourself initiate the movement from the very base of your spine and feel each vertebra as you learn to increase the space between each tiny bone. You’ll probably find that you have one or two places in your back that are particularly tight. For most of us, that’s somewhere in the middle of your back, just at or below your lowest rib. You’ll also probably discover that it may be easier to go up than to come back down or vice versa. Learn your body and then concentrate on those places where you have problems. Then you can pay extra attention to your “stuck” places when you do other Pilates exercises for your spine’s flexibility like saw, spine stretch, roll up/roll down, rolling like a ball or open leg rocker.

Keep at it. Before you know it You’ll feel taller, stronger and more flexible.

Sarah

In my last entry, I talked about the ways that weight training and Pilates were similar – and different. This week, we’ll look at yoga and Pilates. Of course, yoga has several forms or “paths” (Karma, Jnana, Bhakti, and Raja). When we think about yoga and physical culture, we typically mean the postures of Hatha Yoga, which was intended to prepare students to practice Raja Yoga. And that assumption holds for what we’ll talk about here.

Like yoga, Joseph Pilates intended his program to be a way to balance yourself. It is all about the mind-body connection. Body, mind and spirit are all working together to achieve health. Both disciplines are considered therapeutic and meant to carry over into people’s everyday lives. So eventually, you will always stand by wrapping your abs around your middle and lifting your head and spine from your core.

Yoga and Pilates focus on alignment and posture so that the body can breathe more easily. Remember our first column on breathing? The basic idea is to use your breath to control movement. That works both ways: The way you breathe helps you execute the movement, and the movement teaches your body to function more efficiently. This fundamental, using your breath as part of the movement so that your body works more efficiently, is a goal in both Pilates and yoga.

Although the breathing function is similar, the muscle mechanics of breathing – the way you engage your abs -- are different. Breathing in yoga and Pilates means full and deep breaths well into the abdominal cavity and lower back. However, in yoga, you let the muscles of the stomach relax so that each breath raises and lowers your belly. But in Plates, you never relax the abdominal region. The powerhouse, that band of muscles that wraps around your core, is never relaxed. You don’t suck it in; you do learn to engage your core from the inside, pulling in and up. (Remember navel-to-spine?)

So when you breathe in Pilates, you have to learn to breathe deeply into your lower back and sides, expanding your ribcage sideways, without letting your abdominals rise and fall. This is how a dancer breathes. You don’t ever see bellies panting in and out on stage and yet a dancer needs full breaths for stamina.

The mind-body connection, important to both Pilates and yoga, is also somewhat different. Yoga utilizes meditation to connect the mind, body and spirit; Pilates requires strict concentration and focus without actually meditating. Pilates requires an intense focus on the muscles of the abdominals. But like yoga, the whole of the body is used in every exercise. Even if you think you are doing a ”leg” exercise, guess what, it is also a stomach, back and shoulder strengthener integrated into a fluid movement. In Pilates, you will also use different machines and props as well as floor work while yoga only uses certain props, like blocks and straps.

Finally, yoga tends to focus on a sequences of static postures that are held and breathed through. This will increase flexibility and strength, but a yoga student can have a strong and flexible body that is still soft. Pilates has a more calisthenic approach that achieves long, lean muscles with incredibly strong and flat abs. This focus on core strength in the Pilates Method actually improves your back, and many doctors recommend Pilates to their patients with back problems. The focus on core strength supports the back and the greater flexibility and spinal mobility reduce the chances of injury (or re-injury). But if you do have back issues, make sure you consult your doctor before you try Pilates or any other exercise program.

When I was pregnant with my first child, the yoga community was incredibly supportive. It’s one of the reasons that my first set of videos is about pre- and post-natal Pilates workouts. I was inspired to think through the modifications for pregnant women because I witnessed firsthand how a method could be evolved during this life-changing time. And certainly yoga and Pilates are all about changing your life, how you feel about yourself and your body.

Sarah