Body Weight Pilates: The Roll Up

Video Transcript

"So this next exercise is called the roll up. You will start with your legs long and you're going to roll all the way down. Good, so you're going to relax the legs all the way here so the hips are turned off and we're not using our hips, we're using just the upper body. You're going to take a deep inhale and bring your fingers up towards the ceiling. You want to reach to the ceiling as far as you can as you press your shoulders down so you get that long, lean line, that long, lean muscle. From here take a deep inhale through the nose, start to bring your chin toward your chest and curl just the head, neck, and shoulders up and hold it there. You're creating that pilates curl again. Right here, right underneath that breast line, you want to keep that curl all the way up. From here take a deep inhale and then next you'll curl up a little bit higher and reach all the way forward, reach toward your toes. Stretch all the way over, make sure that your arms are completely parallel with your legs; the shoulders are pressed down by your back. From here, take another deep inhale. Pull the navel in towards the spine and you're going to start to press your lower back down first before you start. Shoulders are away from the ears, finger tips go right back up towards the ceiling. We're going to do it one more time with this pace. Take a deep inhale; bring your chin towards your chest. Take your time here, peel each vertebrae one at a time, reach all the way up and over towards those toes. Then slowly start the shoulders away from the ears, start to round all the way back down. You can speed it up; you can change the definition in the movement here. From here we'll do it a little bit faster Mark, take an inhale, bring your chin to your chest, exhale press up and reach forward. Again inhale, scoop the navel in round back, and exhale press. One more, inhale speed it up. Exhale reach forward long arms and slowly roll all the way down. Take a deep inhale float the finger tips down by the sides. Our next exercise will be the single leg stretch."