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Sarah: Hi everyone, welcome to diet.com video. I am Sarah host and today I am at Boston Pilates with Paula who is a classical certified Pilates instructor and she has over seven years of experience. So today what are we going to be doing?
Paula: Today Sarah we are going to be doing the best Pilates Arm Workout.
Sarah: So tell me a little bit more about today’s workout?
Paula: Pilates is a total body movement system. So, we actually do not target perse specific parts of the body. However while we are engaging your core and working your lower body, we are going to use the small hand weights and move the arms.
So you are going to lye down on the mat, lengthening your spine. Make sure everytime you are laying on the mat that you really drawing the abdominal muscles in and trying to press the low back into the mat. You are going to hold the one pound weights in each hand, great. Yes and just fingertips long, thumb great and palms on the mat. So let us scoop the belly button in, let us lift one leg at a time up at the table top position, great. Making sure to hug the abdominal muscles in. Take an inhale, lift your head and bring your chin on to your chest, great.
Let us start pumping, you inhale for five pumps and you exhale for five pumps, good. If you can keep the middle of the back on the mat, let us lengthen the legs away to 45 degrees.
Heels together, toes apart wrapping around your seat, great. So the focus on the arms, the fingertips are long your drawing down into your laps, squeezing here to keep the shoulders away from the ears. You are staying broad across the chest and your fingertips are reaching to me.
Bend the knees, rest your head and lower the arms, nice work good, let us have you put your feet on the mat. We are just going to do a roll up to get you up, so you can straight your legs out.
Lift your arms up to the ceiling, keeping the ribs in. While you inhale, lift your head, bring your chin onto your chest, exhale, scoop, head tucks down and in.
Nice and straight in tall, lower your arms so if you were at home you could just grab a seat.
Next exercise is called the shave, let us bring your legs so that their hip wits distant apart. Knees and feet in alignment let us take the hands and putting the fingertips together making a small triangle, good making the bottom touch.
Now let us bring the hands behind the head, placing them as far down on the nape of the neck as you can. Hands are flat against the back of the head, let us lean into the wind a little bit, great. So feel my hand on your back, pull the rib cage in, there! Now, you are not arching your back, now you are in position, keeping your sides long. Let us shave the back of your head and reach up to where the wall meets the ceiling, great.
Again as you shave, draw the wing tips down your back. Last time, shave and hold, good, lift your head up. Bring your shoulders right over the hips. Let us bring the arms down in front of you, great. So now, press right up into my palms, seating up nice and straight and tall again without arching the back the ribs are in, good.
Take an inhale, and open the arms. As you exhale, feel like you are pulling a little pinky fingers together and bring them back in front, great. Open the arms only about half way. Keep the fingers in your peripheral vision. Now start to draw in here and bring the fingertips together, great and again, open the arms and together, last time, and together, good. Lower your hands down and rest let us have you stand up.
We are going to do biceps one, two, and three. Work your midlines, zip your inner thighs together and now let us hold your hands out wide to the side, good. Make sure to keep the shoulders down and again, pull the ribs back into my hand a little bit, great. So keeping the elbows right on the same level as the shoulders, let us bend, good and straight caress.
Last time extend and hold, sweep the arms through the air and bring the little pinky fingers together in front of you. Keeping your palms up to the ceiling, keeping a light hold on the weights, keeping the elbows right up by the shoulders, let us bend the elbows and press. You can work both the triceps and the bicep, great. Think about your posture here and maintain your alignment and press and squeeze do not forget to work your midline, great.
Last two, again keeping the shoulders down and away from the ears. Last time, good, let us keep the arms long and straight and lower them to your side, good think about keeping a lot of breath across your collar bones, palms face front and keeping the elbows glue to your sides. Let us just bend and again straight and bend and straight natural breathing and straight and hold, good, just relax your legs for a minute. Let us bring them into a parallel stance. We are going to work the triceps specifically and want you to soften and bend the knees and come in to a table top position with the back, great.
So from here, let us bend the elbows way up high behind you. Lean forward to tiny bit more keeping and scooping and lifting the abdominal muscles into your back, great. So keeping the elbows high straight the arms back behind you and use the bicep actively to bend and extend and flex
The last two, we can show the shoulders stay down and great, let us have you just lift the head hang, arms hang and round your back straight your legs and we are all up, good.
So now let us go stand against the wall, so let us have you press your back right up against the door, taking your feet a little bit away, heels together, toes separated slightly, great. So just like when you are laying on the mat and what your bottom against the door, I want you to think about pressing each one of your vertebra right into the door. Yes, see how hard it is to keep the shoulders back and open and the ribs on the door? Great.
We are going to try to keep everything press against the wall. So let us just bring the palms so they are facing the back, so they are facing the door and just lift one arm up, great. So a lot of times when we move the arms, we want to lift up in the shoulder. So drawing the shoulder down and against the door, let us change arms, good.
Make sure it tracks straight out in front of you reach toward my shoulders, great and change. And I like he way you are keeping each shoulder down when you lift the hand.
Last on each one, and let us lower both arms. Now to make it a little bit more difficult, bend the knees, slide down the wall, bring your legs into a parallel stance and slide down the door, you do not want to go pass 90 degrees.
Good, bend one elbow and hold to keep those elbows and tight to the body, you can still keep your fingertips long so that you are working in a muscle more than a hand and change, and change.
Keep the elbows against the door and four, three, two, and hold final one here, both arms straight out to me, palms face the floor, shoulders back against the door. Let us turn the little pinkies up a little bit. If you have shoulder problems, please be careful with this exercise.
I want you to initiate this from the middle of your back as you draw your scapular or your wing tips down your back, you are going to lengthen your arms up to 45 degrees and, lower them back down.
So make sure you do not lift the shoulders, draw your wing tips down your back and lower. Last one up, good lift the arms hang, take an inhale, scope your navel in, straighten your legs up, take one leg back, bend the knees and you can just lift yourself up, good.
Last in the arm workout, we are going to come back over to the mat. So keeping the abdominals lifting in toward the spine, straighten your right leg back and just place the toes, great. And now, straighten your left leg back, great. You have done a great job of maintaining your frame. Let us bring the right leg up and point the toe behind you without lifting that right hip, good!
If you have the strength, do a little mini push up, great. Lower your right leg, let us lift the left leg, keeping your frame, do a little many push up and lower the left leg once more with the right, and lower the leg last time. Lengthen the toe toward the opposite wall, and lower the leg. Place the knees on the mat and let us just round over. Put your forehead on your knees and you come in to child’s pose for a little stretch, great.
And there is your arm workout for the day.
Sarah: Well, as you guys know, usually in our arm workout we kind to use a little bit a heavier weights but Pilates workout is just as effective, right?
Paula: Using small weights, first, we are not trying to build bulk. We are trying to build as tight small muscles by working in two directions at the same time. So not just doing the bicep, but also working the muscle as you extend your being much more efficient and those one pound weights are going to feel like 10 pounds weight pretty quickly.
Sarah: And I definitely did feel them working. We felt the burn while doing workout. I hope you guys enjoy this workout and do not forget to subscribe to my channel, diet house. See you next time.
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