Pilates Leg Circles on the Roller - Women's Fitness

Pilates Leg Circles on the Roller - part of the women's fitness video series by GeoBeats.

Hi, I am Charlotte and this is Alice, and we are here at Streamline Pilates studio in Brooklyn Heights, New York. We are going to show you how to use the foam roller to increase your balance while doing pilates mat work. Lets start with some leg circles.

So laying down on the roller, you have got your tail bone at one end, your head at the other, your spine is comfortably centered on the roll. Take a minute and just take a couple of breaths and let your spine sink down into the roll trying to release any tension that you feel in your body so that you can go into the exercise in a relaxed way rather than racing or gripping in any spot.

You also want to have your shoulder blades wrapping around the roll so that you can help strengthen the muscles in the back of your shoulders and use those shoulder blades to hold on to the roll almost like hands in the back of your body. You want your forearms down on the mat, your elbows are solidly down, your wrist, your whole palm, fingers straight.

And from there lets walk your feet away from you so that your toes and heels are still on the floor and your legs are fairly straight. So now you are ready to go into the exercise. Take an inhale through your nose and exhale, scoop your belly button back towards your spine and just tuck your lower back down towards the roller so that you can feel stable through your pelvis and its connected to your core as you want to be.

Bringing your right knee into your chest lets stretch that leg out on the diagonal and imagine you are tracing a quarter with your big toe. Scooping that belly button back towards your spine, trying not to make the roll move anymore then you can help. And if it feels easy and you want to challenge yourself, go ahead and make it a bigger circle and you go about 6 or 8 times in one direction, 6 or 8 times in the other.

You will know if you have made the circle too big because the roller will start to move around too much. And then bringing that right knee in to your chest, stretch it out again, and replace that foot to bring your left knee in to your chest and lets do the other side. Reaching that leg out, tracing a quarter with your big toe. Inhaling through your nose, exhaling through your mouth. You will make about 6 or 8 circles in one direction and then reverse. If you want to make it harder, make the circle bigger.

See how you do, see how much that roll starts to move around underneath you if you make that circle really big. And bending your knee, lower your foot. And you are ready for your next exercise.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Womens
• Fitness
• new
• york
• city
• united
• states
• Streamline
• Pilates
• Leg
• Circles
• the
• Roller
• Charlotte Alice
• Streamline Pilates studio
• Brooklyn Heights New York City
• foam roller
• pilates mat work
• classic pilates exercise

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YouTubers: Have you tried this exercise? Share your experience with us in comments!