How to Do Pilates Spine Twist Exercise - Women's Fitness

  • 13 years ago
How to Do Pilates Spine Twist Exercise - part of the women's fitness video series by GeoBeats.

Hi, we're Kimberly and Katherine Corp. We own Pilates on Fifth here in Manhattan, and today we're going to show you the Spine Twist, which is a great Pilates exercise for rotation of the spine. You'll also strengthen your oblique abdominal muscles. So the key here is to try to keep your pelvis still, and just rotate the rib cage. So we'll have Katherine sit tall on her sit bones, and she'll reach her arms out to the side about shoulder height. Now I'll be doing a little moving, so I don't get chopped in half by her arms. Stretch the legs nice and tall. Now first things first. If you can't get right up on your sit bones like this, show what we don't want. If you can't sit tall and you're here, you're better off crossing your legs, right, crossing your legs to sit tall. Or bending the knees, like Katherine was about to show. Either modification is fine. The key is you want a straight spine. So Katherine's going to go ahead and stretch her legs out. The legs can be gently pointed, and toes can be gently pointed or flexed, whichever is best for you. And sitting tall, we're going to inhale and twist to the left first. So we inhale twist. And you're thinking of getting taller, taller, and then exhale. Turn back to center. And we twist to the right. Inhale. Think of a barber shop poll getting taller, and exhale, closing the ribs back through center. And inhale, inhale, inhale, and tall, back through center. And again inhale, inhale, inhale, exhale, tall back through center. Now I'm going to have her do it wrong once, so you see what not to do. Inhale, ya you don't want to roll back, and the other thing, go the same way, pop your ribs. You don't want to extend your spine when you twist because that's bad for the vertebrate, as well. So, do one more right looking at me, and we inhale. And notice its perfectly vertical going up, and exhale back through center. And that is the Spine Twist.