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Hi Guys, I’m Solveig Walklings from Body Mind and Soul. I’m here at Shelly Beach,
one of the Northern Beaches, most beautiful and it’s in Sydney Australia so do come
and visit if you’ve got the chance. I’m just about to show you one of the essential
Pilates exercises as we call them. It’s called the hundreds. It helps you develop
abdominal stamina in a really safe position but what is crucial is that you get the position
right so that you watch what is happening through the neck and shoulders. We don’t
want to create more trouble for your body, we want to bring it into really nice posture
and help you strengthen your core.
So let’s start by laying down onto your back. If you’ve got any back issues you
can always roll down onto your side and then onto your back instead of rolling straight
down. Rolling onto your back. Several position. I’m going to help you find the position
that works for you. So let’s let the pelvis just relax to a neutral shape, that means
the pit of the belly is flat like a table top. Lower back has got breathing space. Imagine
a little pin underneath the lower back. I know it’s not a pleasant thought but it
really helps you visualise what’s happening so we are just lifting that lower back away
from that mat. As you do that, a lot of my clients do, when they start is they let the
ribcage open, so they come to let the lower back come off, but then the ribs come off.
You shouldn’t be able to get your hand underneath your ribs. If you do, you’ve come up too
high with the ribs. So draw the front ribs down gently flattening the ribcage all the
way and let the pelvis relax. I’m going to use my hands to find my position. Fingertips
to the inside of the hipbones. That’s where you can feel your transverse abdominis which
we are trying to trigger here.
Thumbs just below the ribcage. I’m going to get you to take a breath in, nod the chin,
gently flatten the pit of the belly scooping it out. On the exhale and let the front ribs
slide towards the fingertips. As you are doing that, you should feel a tightening sensation
here but if you run your hands in, it shouldn’t be bulging, if it’s bulging like this and
you can feel strands going down here, you’ve come up too high, you’ve engaged your ***
abdominis instead, so come up just to here. The other thing I see quite often is people
want to come up high and they force their heads forwards. It’s a lot of tension through
the neck and shoulders, so instead, imagine you’ve got a pillow or someone is supporting
you, you’re resting the head back and you lift the shoulders up high instead. Perfect.
If this is uncomfortable, your head and shoulders will stay down throughout the exercise, okay,
and instead you are just going to lengthen the legs and reach them away from you, perhaps
even just to here, so that’s the safest version.
The second version, if you are up here and it feels okay, you’d like to go further,
see if you can lift the legs up, lower back can flatten a little, but make sure it’s
not bulging through the core, if it is, you are compromised, feet come down for the exercise.
If this feels easy, you are not tensing through the neck and shoulders, lengthen the legs
and lets go for it, whichever position you are in. Shoulders stay relaxed. We are counting
our breaths. We are inhaling for a count of five and then exhale through pursed lips.
Two, one, inhale, one, two, three, four, five and exhale, two, three, four, five. That’s
two breaths. We’re going to keep pulsing, keeping the shoulders relaxed as if someone
was pushing your collarbones apart.
Now I like imagining I’ve got a buzzer underneath my hands like I’m on a game show and I go,
***, and I *** that buzzer and I keep my arms nice and firm. What we are doing is we
are challenging your core to stabilise against that arm movement. So the thing that quite
often goes wrong, people do this, they think they’re coming up, they’re working harder,
you’re not. You’re actually starting to engage the wrong muscles, so keep it nice
and still. As you’re fatiguing what you want to watch is shoulder blade placement.
If you are down here your shoulder blades are resting you are making it a bit easier
for yourself, so come up a touch higher, sliding the ribs to the hips. Okay, that’s about
six breaths. So nice and slow on your inhale and exhale. We’ve got two more breaths,
and exhale, so counting all the way up to ten and exhale and then hold. To make sure
you are still in control, just perhaps lift up a little bit higher and hug the knees into
the chest and I like having a big stretch after, just placing the feet onto the floor,
hands nice and close, lifting up and really stretching out through my hips here., Make
sure the knees don’t splay out, you want to keep them in alignment. And roll back down.
And that’s it, your hundreds done for the day and you should have got a good workout
just out of that one exercise.