Single-Leg Stretch: Start on your back with your arms at your sides and your knees in a tabletop position with your knees over your hips. Draw your belly button in as you feel your back grow heavy on the mat and your abs engage. Exhale as you lift your head off the mat and extend one leg out on the diagonal, placing your outside hand on the ankle, and your inside hand on the knee of the bent leg. Inhale. Draw that leg in and extend out the opposite leg, changing hands (outside hand on ankle, inside hand on knee). Continue switching legs and hand positions, exhaling as you extend the legs outward. Complete 10 repetitions.
Tip: Use your hand position to fire-up your abdominals. Don't just bend one knee and place your hands on the ankle and knee; drive the leg back in using your abdominals and pull against your arms to drive your belly in with each repetition. Your breath is key here: Exhale as you extend, inhale as you switch.
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Double Straight-Leg Stretch: Start on your back with your arms at your sides and your knees in a tabletop position with your knees over your hips. Draw your belly button in as you feel your back grow heavy on the mat and your abs engage. Place your hands behind your head, keeping your elbows wide and lift your head and shoulders off of the mat.
Extend your legs up toward the ceiling (you can keep a slight bend in them if you're hamstrings are very tight or if you have knee problems). Put your heels together and your toes slightly apart. Imagine you're zipping your legs together, starting at your heels and going all the way up to your groin. Squeeze your inner thighs and imprint your back onto the mat. Inhale and lower your straight legs down toward the mat for three counts. Stop if you feel your back begin to arch. Exhale as you raise your straight legs toward to ceiling. Complete 10 times.
Tip: Finding your range of motion is key to this exercise. Only lower your legs as far down as you can maintain a flat back on the mat. This may only be a few inches, and that's perfectly OK. The point is to activate your abdominals throughout the entire exercise. Use the exhale to bring your legs back up to 90 degrees. Be careful not to let momentum take over. Your abdominals are doing the work here.
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The Teaser: This is a true classical Pilates exercise, however there are many different varieties of the Teaser. This variation is called Teaser 1, and it incorporates all of the previous four exercises of this series into one. Start on your back with your knees bent toward your chest and your arms straight out in front of you. Flatten your spine onto the mat by drawing your belly button inward and feeling your abs engage as your back grows heavy on the mat. Extend your legs out to a diagonal as you inhale.
Exhale as you slowly roll up, with your arms pointed toward your extended toes, balancing on your sits bones. Inhale. Exhale as you slowly roll back to start, keeping your legs extended out at a diagonal. Slowly roll back down onto the mat, one vertebra at a time. Bend your legs back to the starting position to finish one rep. Do this five times.
Tip: This is an advanced exercise, so take the time to build up your strength to do it correctly. Don't use momentum to get up off the mat, and don't let gravity take over as you roll back down to the mat (i.e. fall back onto the mat). Start with some modifications if necessary. Instead of extending your legs straight, try keeping them bent. Once you can lift up all the way with your legs extended straight, try bending your legs as you lower down. The emphasis on this should be on getting your abdominals and spine to work together to lift you up and down with precision.
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