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How Your Life Will Change After 5 Minutes of Pilates a Day: Photos, Videos, Exercise Descriptions
We have prepared a set of exercises that will help relieve muscle tension, stretch joints, adjust weight and achieve harmony between body, mind and spirit.
Singer Alina Krocheva shared her favorite Pilates exercises with Wday readers. This complex for exercising at a slow pace is aimed at improving the body, weight correction, normalizing sleep and improving overall well-being.
“I love doing Pilates. Its message in general and my favorite exercises in particular is that we are fighting not for amplitude, not for “faster, higher, stronger”, but for awareness of movements, mobility and stability, – Alina Krocheva admits. “Pilates helps to develop the coordinated and organic work of all segments of the spine, all joints and muscles, and to make sure that during exercise, different parts of the body do not compensate for the load for others, but move freely and naturally.”
This exercise is a good place to start any Pilates workout. The main emphasis in it is on the sacrum.
Lie on a mat and bend your knees. Press the pelvis to the floor, make it heavy and stable.
The sacrum should seem to become heavier, first on one side, and then on the other, like a weight pulling it down.
Begin slow movements: we twist the ilia to the abdomen, then push them away from you.
There is no need to lift the pelvis off the floor, it seems to slide on the rug around its axis.
Then find the middle position and begin to perform the same movements, but to the right and left. At the same time, the legs are static, only the pelvis moves.
After moving left and right, finish the exercise in circular movements – move the pelvis away from you, then to the right, towards yourself and to the left. Repeat on the other side.
The amplitude of the pelvic clock is minimal. Try not to help yourself with your hips or lower back, move only your pelvis, starting each movement from the sacrum.
Move on to the next exercise on the rug.
Lying on your back, lift your bent legs up so that there is a 90-degree angle between your back and hips, thighs and calves. In Pilates, this position is called a “tabletop” position.
Place your hands in a grip under the knees.
Press with your feet on your arms and hands on your feet, creating a counterweight.
We begin to tear off the head from the rug, then the shoulders and back in a soft bend.
Keeping the pressure of the legs on the hands, we rise to a sitting position and build an even back over the pelvis: straightened lower back and chest.
The neck, gently stretching, directs the light, like a balloon, head straight to the ceiling.
Then we make the opposite movement: gently twist the sacrum, round the back and, keeping the balance of arms and legs, return to the floor, stretching the spine along the rug.
3. Hundred
From the assisted roll up exercise, we move on to the next exercise for the press – “hundred”.
After you have built your back over the pelvis, twisted the ilium and began to go down, stop at the moment when the ribs have already laid on the floor, and the shoulder blades barely touched the mat. Legs by this time will have already come to the “tabletop” position.
The arms are extended along the body, palms are facing the floor. Begin to pulse with your hands up and down.
The curvature of the spine should remain stable and soft, as if you are lying in a hammock, move only your hands.
4. The Little Mermaid
Sit on your right thigh and bend your knees. The left leg is on the side and her lower leg is perpendicular to the mat, and the right leg is in front and her lower leg is extended along the edge of the mat.
Evaluate if the left side of the pelvis is pressed firmly against the floor. If the buttock comes off, place a towel or pillow under it.
Stretch your arms out to the sides parallel to the floor, then bend your left arm behind your head.
We bend to the right. Round the left side, spreading the ribs like a fan and opening them to the ceiling.
After performing a series of bends, repeat the “little mermaid” in the other direction, transferring to the left thigh.
5. Cat
Get on all fours. The knees are under the pelvis, the hands are exactly under the shoulders.
Pull yourself gently in different directions: over the crown forward, over the ischial tuberosities back.
Slowly round your back, push it up. Make sure the segments of the spine connect to the movement in the correct order.
Start the flexion from the pelvis by twisting the ilia towards the navel. Straighten the sacrum, then round the lower back, mid-back, sternum, shoulder blades and shoulders, and remember to lower the neck. It should organically continue the line of the spine.
Then return to a neutral position, doing the movements in the same order: first the pelvis, then the lower back, mid-back, shoulder blades, shoulders and neck.
Another variation of the “cat” is to return to the starting position in the reverse order: first, stretch your neck and sternum forward, then return your back to neutral and only at the end unwind the pelvis, gently opening the ischial tubercles.
“When doing the exercises, do not forget that Pilates is a thoughtful and deliberate work,” notes Alina Krocheva. – During the movements, think about what this exercise is aimed at and what should happen during it.
If some part of your body is not yet ready for this exercise, is not sufficiently trained or clamped, then you need to reduce the amplitude to a minimum, but do not shift the load to other parts of the body. Do not worry if something does not work out the first time, over time you will master your body and all exercises will be given to you with ease! The main thing is to have fun. “
See also: how to lose weight and pump the body in 5 minutes a day