Dori Markakos: Hi, I'm Dori and this is Intermediate Pilates. Right now, I'm going to show how to do straight leg stretch. Go ahead and seat yourself right in the middle of the mat, balance right on your gluteus, grab onto your hamstrings and take a big deep breath in and as you exhale, I want you to round out your vertebra one at a time, keep your spine in neutral, I want you to look straight ahead, nice long lean muscles, extend those legs all the way towards the end of your mat, and bring both arms straight up over your head, take a nice big deep breath in, we just bring it to as far forward as you can and as you exhale, I want you to get a nice good pelvic tilt, rotating those hips under, pulling your navel into your spine and your spine into the floor, and then release your feet, so you won’t have any tension in your feet.
Go ahead and bring those arms along the side of you, you are going to bring the left leg in, and extend it straight up, and lift the upper body up, eyes are on your navel, if this feels a little challenging so, you can go ahead and keep your head rested onto the mat, but go ahead and lift your head up, eyes around your navel, inhale and exhale once you have reached towards that calf, pull that leg towards you for a nice, easy stretch, you are going to inhale and exhale.
You are going to switch legs, the right leg comes up, and the left leg lowers and I want you to hold this stretch just nice and easy, again your toes are totally pointed, they are not flexed, they are just engaged, inhale and exhale and you are going to switch, nice and easy, and one more time, now we are going to take it up to a double pace here, you are going to switch pull, pull, switch pull, pull, switch pull, pull, so with every pull, pull you should get a little more of a stretch on your hamstring, again keeping your spine nice and long, abs contracted nice and tight, one more per leg, good. Last one, bring both knees in towards the chest, go ahead and roll up, sitting up nice and tall, let's go ahead and move onto double leg stretch.
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