The Single Leg Circle Exercise for Pilates

Video Transcript

"My exercise I am going to demonstrate for you is called a single leg circle. Go ahead and lie flat down your mat, your knees bent. Always have a neutral alignment in your spine, lengthening through your neck so you don’t want to bring your head down by your ears. You want to lengthen through your neck. Navel to your spine, hands by your side and go ahead and next to the neck right leg towards the ceiling and you are going to point your toe. This exercise focuses on the inner thigh as well as the core, your abdominals. So you are going to take your knee and externally rotate that knee away from your body till your inner thigh is now facing you. Option 1: when you do this exercise you can keep that supporting leg bent. You are going to inhale as you start to draw a circle with that leg on the inside, exhale, make it as wide as you possibly can and stop in the center; that inner thigh still facing you. Inhale, exhale as you draw the circle, keeping both hips on the floor, the leg is the only thing that moves. For more of a challenge, go ahead and extend that bottom leg, toes pointed, make the circle as large as you can so that your hips stay planted on the mat. Inhale. Exhale. And stop in the middle. Then you go in the opposite direction, inhale, exhale. Stopping in the middle, inhale and exhale. Then you switch legs. Inhale and exhale. "