ABS

Chest Lift with Rotation:

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Make sure your toes are pointing forward and that your ankles, knees, and hips are in one line. 2. Take a moment to breathe. Let your lower ribs relax down toward the mat. Your spine is in a neutral position -- with all of its natural curves. Relax your shoulders. 3. Leave your shoulders down but bring your hands up behind your head with your elbows extended to the sides. 4. Inhale: Pull your abdominal muscles in and let your lower back lengthen onto the mat as you lift your head and upper torso up just enough to have the shoulder blades off the mat. Do not pull on your neck, please. Do keep your elbows wide and chest open. This works like a hinge just below your sternum so you don't want the move to affect your lower body. For example, don't tuck your pelvis. 5. Exhale: Deepen your abs in toward your spine. Keep the height of the upper body and rotate the left side toward the right. Keep your elbows wide and chest open. The lower body stays still. 6. Inhale to come through center. 7. Exhale to rotate to the other side. 8. Do 3 slow, fluid sets. You can work up to 6.

One Leg Circle

1. Preparation Lie on your back with legs extended on the floor, arms by your sides. Take a moment to feel the weight of your body on the floor. Try to balance the weight of the shoulders and the hips on each side. You may want to do some sequential breathing to help drop the breath into the body and encourage the weight of the ribs to rest on the floor. 2. Engage Your Abdominals Pull your abdominals in, anchoring the pelvis and shoulders. Extend one leg toward the ceiling.

If your hamstrings are stretched, go ahead and lengthen the leg all the way up toward the ceiling. Do not lift your hip in the process. You may leave the knee slightly bent if your hamstrings are tight. It is more important that your hips stay stable and grounded on the mat than it is for your leg to be straight. 3. The Leg Circles Inhale: Cross the extended leg over toward the opposite hip. Exhale: Drop the leg a few inches. Use control as you open the leg out and then sweep it around in a small circle back to center. Be sure to keep your shoulders and pelvis level. This is more important than extending the leg fully or making big circles. It is in keeping the pelvis stable that your abdominals get their workout. No Rockin' or Rollin'! 4. The Breath and Movement Pattern Do five circles in each direction with each leg. First set of 5: Inhale to cross the body and circle down. Exhale to open the leg and circle up. Second set of 5: Exhale to open the leg and circle down. Inhale to cross the body and circle and up.

Flat Abdominals Series

The Hundred
1) Lie on your back with your knees bent and the shins parallel to the floor. For now, put your hands behind your knees. Inhale to begin. 2) Exhale: Bring your chin down and curl your upper spine up off the floor. Keep the shoulders engaged in the back. The gaze is down into the scoop of the abs. Stay here and inhale. 3) Exhale: At the same time, activate your abs, and extend your legs and arms toward the wall in front of you. Your arms extend straight out but low, just a few inches off the floor. Your legs should only be as low as you can go without shaking, and without your lower spine pulling up off the mat. 4) Five short breaths in and 5 short breaths out (like sniffing in and out) go along with a controlled up and down pumping of the arms. This is a small pumping action - be sure to keep your shoulders relaxed.

5) To finish: Keep your spine curved as you bring the knees in to your chest. Grasp your knees, and then allow your upper spine and head to roll, sequentially, back to the floor. Take a deep breath in and out.

The Roll Up
1) Lie flat on your back, arms stretched above your head, ribcage down. 2) Inhale: Leave your shoulders down and your scapula settled in your back as you bring your arms overhead, nod your chin and begin to curl your upper body forward. 3) Exhale: Continue rolling up off floor as you deepen the scoop of the abs and reach your arms forward, parallel to your legs. 4) Inhale: Begin with a deep pull in of the lower abs to start to roll back down. 5) Exhale: Continue to roll down, one vertebrae at a time. Repeat up to six times.

Single Straight Leg Stretch

1) Begin lying on the mat with legs extended toward the ceiling. Legs and heels are together in Pilates stance, rotated slightly outward from the hips. 2) Extend your spine, pull in your abdominals, and curl your upper body up off the mat. The tips of the shoulder blades touch the mat. 3) Grasp an ankle, or below the knee if you have tight hamstrings, and stretch the other leg out at a 45 degree angle. Adjust the angle of the outstretched leg to make the exercise more or less difficult. The lower the leg, the harder the abdominals have to work to maintain alignment. 4) Inhale and pull your leg toward you, pulsing it toward you twice, increasing your stretch each time. Switch legs. 5) Exhale and pull your leg toward you, pulsing it toward you twice, increasing your stretch each time. Switch legs. Repeat each set 6 to 10 times.

Criss Cross
1. Lie on your back in neutral spine, shins up - parallel to the floor. 2. Place your hands behind your head, supporting the base of the skull, elbows wide.

3. Leaving the pelvis in a neutral position (not tucked or hyper-extended), scoop the abdominals and curl the chin and shoulders off the mat. Inhale 4. Exhale: Extend your left leg out straight at a 45 degree angle. Keep your elbows wide and chest open as you rotate your torso so that your left armpit is reaching for your right knee. 5. Inhale: Switch legs, bringing your trunk through center. 6. Exhale: Extend your right leg, and rotate your upper body toward your left knee. Repetitions: Start with 6 and work your way up to 10.

Double Straight Leg Lowers

1) Prep: Lie on your back with your legs straight up toward the ceiling. Place your hands behind your head, keeping your elbows wide and chest open. 2) Inhale Exhale: Pull your abdominals down to the floor. Allow that motion to press your lower back into the floor. At the same time, curl your upper torso up off the floor. 3) Inhale: Your abdominals are pulled in, and your lower back pressed to mat. Lower your legs, thinking of lengthening them at the same time. Take your legs as low as you can with control and good alignment. Do not let your back pop up off the mat. Use your upper abs to maintain the lift of the chest, and don't try to hold yourself up by pulling on your head and neck with your elbows and hands! 4) Exhale: With control, deepen the abs even more as you return the legs upright. Repeat the exercise 6 to 8 times.

Open Leg Balance

1. Sit up tall on your sit bones. 2. Bring your feet in toward your body, knees open, feet together. Put your arms to the inside of the legs and grasp your ankles. Make sure your shoulders stay dropped as the spine extends long up through the trunk and the head reaches for the sky. 3. Pull in the abdominals, paying special attention to lifting the lower abs. 4. Extend one leg, stabilize, extend the second leg. You may rock back behind your sit bones, but don't go so far that you settle onto your tail bone. 5. BALANCE and hold for a count of 5. 6. With control, fold one leg in, then the next.

7. Check you posture and repeat the exercise 3 - 4 times.

Butts, Hips and Thighs

Pilates Bicycle
1. Lie on your back and roll your hips up into shoulder stand position. make sure that you are not too far up on your neck. Check Points:

Your weight should be supported by a nice tripod of your shoulders and upper arms. Hold your self upright with your abdominals. Ideally, you will not have a lot of weight on your hands. Shoulders wide, away from the ears, and the neck is long and relaxed.

2. Bend the right knee and extend the right leg toward the wall behind you. At the same time, bring the straight left leg over your head, to almost parallel to the floor. Bicycle is a good torso stability challenge. You have to keep everything steady in the hips and torso - no extra movement - as you move your legs. 3. As each leg moves into its fullest extension, the left leg bends to come through toward the back wall, and the right leg makes a long arc up and overhead. Basically, this is like pedaling in reverse. It makes the exercise harder and it makes you think a bit more too. 4. Do up to 10 sets of "reverse pedals". Then bring the legs together and use abdominal control to roll back down.

Side Kick Front/Back

Lie on your side and line up your ears, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles. Your shoulders should be stacked one on top of the other, as should your hips. Lightly support your head with your hand, making sure to lift your ribs away from the mat so that your back and neck stay in alignment. Modify this position by reaching your bottom arm straight out along the mat above your head and resting your head on it. The front hand rests firmly, palm down, on the mat in front of your chest. Use this hand for balance, but don't depend on it - depend on your abs. Now move your legs slightly in front of your hips. This will help stabilize your trunk and protect your lower back. Rotate your legs outward slightly from the hips, in Pilates stance.

Kick to the front:

Lift your top leg a few inches. Flex your foot and send energy out through the heel. With your foot flexed, swing the top leg to the front. At the full length of your kick, do a small pulse kick.

Kick to the Back:

Keeping length in your leg and through your whole body, point your toe and sweep your top leg to the back. Pause, but do not do a pulse kick. Only reach as far back as you can go without crunching the low back or moving the pelvis. Again, a big part of the challenge of the exercise is to use the core muscles to keep the entire trunk of the body stable. No rocking of the pelvis or the shoulders!

Flex your foot and kick to the front. Repeat this exercise 5 to 10 times.

5 Butt Exercises
1. Pelvic Curl

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. 2. Exhale: Do a pelvic tilt by engaging the abdominal muscles to pull your bellybutton down toward your spine. 3. Inhale: Press down through your feet to curl the tailbone up. The hips raise, then the lower spine, and middle spine. 4. Come up to the lower part of your shoulders with a straight line hip to shoulder. 5. Exhale: Use abdominal control to roll the spine back down to the floor. Begin with the upper back and work your way down. 6. Inhale 7. Release to neutral spine 8. Repeat 3 to 5 times. 2. Heel Beats

1. Lie on your stomach with your forehead on your hands. Your legs are together, straight behind you. 2. Lift your abdominal muscles away from the mat. Feel your spine lengthen. 3. Turn your legs out very slightly at the hip. Heels together. 4. Keep your abs lifted as you send lengthening energy down the backs of your legs and through your heels. Let that energy lift your legs off the mat. 5. Quickly beat your heels together and apart.

6. Do 10 beats. Rest and repeat. 3. Pilates Swimming

1. Lie on your stomach with the legs straight and together. 2. Keeping your shoulders away from your ears, stretch your arms straight overhead. 3. Pull your abs in so that you lift your bellybutton up away from the floor. 4. Reaching from center, extend your arms, legs and spine so far that your legs, arms, and chest lift off the mat. Don't crease your neck. 5. Alternate right arm/left leg, then left arm/right leg, pumping up and down in small pulses. 6. Breathe in for 5 kicks and reaches, and out for a 5. 4. Leg Kick Back w/wo Exercise Band

1. Start on all fours with the middle of the exercise band around the right instep. Hold the ends under the hands 2. Lift your abdominal muscles. 3. Keep your right knee bent and extend your right hip so that your thigh is parallel to the floor. 4. While maintaining the height of the knee, slowly kick your heel back so that the leg is straight. 5. Bend your heel back toward your butt. Don't let the knee fall. If you don't have an exercise band, you can do this without.

5. Double Leg Kick

1. Lie face, head to one side, legs together. 2. Clasp your hands together behind your back, as high as possible. 3. Inhale: Pull your abs in, lifting your belly away from the mat. Lengthen your spine, extending the feeling of length so your legs lift slightly off the floor. 4. Exhale: Legs together, kick your heels toward your butt in a three-part pulse-kick. 5. Inhale: Keep your hands clasped and extend your arms behind you, arcing your upper body high off the mat. At the same time, stretch your legs out straight, just above the mat 6. Exhale: Return to the starting position with your head turned to the opposite side.

Upper Body
Pilates Push-Up
1. Begin Standing

Begin standing with good Pilates posture. Inhale: Keep your shoulders down as your bring your arms straight up over your head. 2. Curve Down

Exhale: Allow your arms to follow your ears as you nod your head and begin to roll down toward the mat. As you roll down, pull your abs in and curve your spine until your hands reach the mat. You may need to bend your knees toward the end to get your hands to the mat. (Review wall roll down as a prep for this part of the exercise.) 3. Walk Out to Plank

Inhale: Walk your hands out on the mat in three big steps until you are in front support/plank. Be sure to keep your shoulders away from your ears. Keep your pelvis very stable as you walk your arms out. It should not rock back and forth with the movement or your arms. End in plank position with your hands directly under your shoulders, your legs straight, and your body in one long line from your heels to your ears. 4. Pause at Front Support/Plank

Exhale: Hold your plank position. Your legs and arms should be straight. Your heels, hips, shoulders, and ears should be in one line. Rotate your arms are so that the inside of the elbow faces forward. This is important as it helps stabilize your shoulder blades and sets your elbows in position for upward movement. 5. Lower Toward the Mat

Inhale: Bend your elbows straight back along your sides so that your arms brush your ribs. (This is different than some push-up styles where the elbows are allowed to splay outward.) As you slowly lower yourself toward the mat, keep your shoulder blades settled in your back; they should not pop up or move together. This is an essential part of the exercise as it teaches you to stabilize your shoulders and torso. You might also want to see How Not to Do a Pilates push up which demonstrates this part of the move. 6. Return to Plank

Exhale: Keep your abs lifted and extend your elbows so that your body rises, in one long line, up away from the mat. Many people find that keeping their inner thighs together, and imagining that their sit bones are pulling together, engages the lower body in a way that helps you get back up without collapsing. 7. Walk Back

Inhale: Walk your hands back to your deep curve position. Keep your pelvis lifted, and again, don't let the pelvis rock. Rael Isakowitz, a Pilates master, points out that many students mistake this move as a yoga-like downward dog position, but it is not. You are using your abdominals to deeply pull in and move toward rolling up. 8. Roll Up to Standing

Exhale: Use your abdominals to slowly return the pelvis to the upright position and allow the rest of the spine to roll up, vertebrae by vertebrae. End in a standing position. Inhale to lift your arms and repeat this exercise three to five times.