Pilates

Forget the sit-ups! Pilates is one of my favorite exercises. It's absolutely amazing for your core strength (read: Abs!), as well as flexibility and creating lean muscle. And as one of my lovely friends likes to tell me, "You have the flattest stomach!", which after 2 kids--I'm thrilled to hear!

I stated in a previous post that I am lean in build to begin with, and lifting weights and doing intense muscular workouts just aren't my thing. I prefer using my own bodyweight to build muscle as I feel that better suits me.

Pilates has been a part of my life for around 14 years, starting back in college and continuing on throughout my life. My absolute favorite is the 20 minute Winsor pilates (click HERE to go to the free you tube video!) because, obviously, it only takes 20 minutes! Perfect for busy Mamas.

It was also instrumental in getting my abs back into shape after an unexpected emergency C-section 2 years ago. Everything went wrong during delivery and when the heart monitor says zero, well, they don't worry about giving you a nice, pretty bikini cut. Instead, they gave me a vertical incision to save my daughter's life, which meant my abdomen was cut from belly button to pubic bone--and all the muscle in between. You will never know how much your core muscles play a role in your body until you have them wrenched apart and rendered useless!

Despite having been actively exercising up until the day before delivering, it took me months to recover and I could hardly sit up without pain and the weakness of those muscles was very obvious to me. I was terrified of rupturing any incisions or compromising the scarring that was taking place internally as well as externally. Therefore, I did not attempt my beloved Pilates until I was about a year post-delivery. And ohhhhh did it challenge me!

If you are just starting out in this fitness game, I want you to know that the 20 minute Winsor Pilates offers the standard poses, as well as "modified" ones for people who are working their way up to flexibility and strength, as well as for those with back or neck problems. So don't be discouraged if you look at some of my photos I post in this article and think, "I can't do that!". In fact, when I started pilates after my c-section, I did the modified poses for a good month or two before I could progress further!

So on to some of the poses and stretches you might find yourself doing should you give Pilates a try. Many of these are part of the 20 minute course, and a few are from the more advanced videos. I like a little variety and hope you will too!

(Please excuse the poor quality of these photos--oh sure, I have a nice camera with a remote shutter, but my phone has a 10 second timer that works nicely for this kind of thing--and just ignore my basement behind me! It's where the treadmill is! I also usually do not wear shoes during pilates, but I had just finished on said treadmill and forgot to remove them!)

This is the first exercise in the 20 minute video. You hold this position and pump your arms up and down to the count of 100.

In this one, you curl up like a ball, then stretch out with your arms and legs at a 45 degree angle, repeat 6 times.

This is a great stretch for the whole body, reaching as far past your feet as you can, yet using your core to twist and hold your position.

Here, you hold your legs up toward the ceiling, then lower them slowly to a 45, and back up. A great core workout! Repeat this 6 times.

These twisting situps are my favorite, you alternate bending and stretching your legs at a 45, while twisting side to side with your elbows. You really feel the burn with this one!

(Yep, that's a Lightning McQueen blanket I'm using. Too lazy to go upstairs to get my mat!)

At the end of the 20 minute session they wrap up by doing leg stretches, which are great not just for your core, but your butt too! Nothing helps my flexibility quite like this set!

Now we are moving into the more advanced territory. There are many pilates videos out there, so here are just a few random exercises I have done from some of those:

This is an excellent core workout because you have to hold this position and balance! Easier said than done! It's also a great test for those glutes!

You're welcome for this--it took about 8 tries to get this photo thanks to child interruptions and not getting into position before the 10 second photo timer went off! I'm pretty sure I broke my body trying to get this shot! haha This is a total core pose, keeping this position and holding still is HARD! My form could be better, but by the time I got this pic, I was done!

After the previous position, you use your abdominals to slowly lower into this position and hold.

And finally you let your feet down completely. It was really interesting for me to see what this pose looks like when I'm doing it!

Hopefully seeing these photos and knowing what rotten shape my abs were in just over a year ago, I hope you are inspired to give this wonderful exercise a try! ~Briana