Body Weight Pilates: The Criss Cross

Video Transcript

"So our next exercise is the crisscross. Mark is going to start laying all the way down. You may be used to this if you work out at the gym sometimes or maybe you haven't and there is a different way of doing this. Folding your hands behind your head, you want to make sure that your elbows stay completely wide here. We don't want to crunch up and crunch a muscle, we want to lengthen and get a longer muscle so from here you are going to bend those knees into your chest. Again tablet top those legs, you are going to extend that left leg out in front of you and bring that right knee in towards your chest. From here you are going to lift that left arm pit to that right knee. So when you are twisting you want to bring the opposite arm pit to the opposite knee cap. You are going to be bringing that arm to that knee so draw that one straight line right here, twist and draw it all the way up. Notice that Mark's elbows are not going it is his armpits so you are seeing a twist in that waist. You want to lift up and over see how long Mark is and you want to keep lifting up and over, you want to come through the center, exhale and switch the sides. So lift up and longer and you want to keep those shoulders open, the shoulder blades down the back come through center. Excellent! Switch. Once you get that technique again you can challenge yourself with some flow. We are going to speed it up a little bit faster. Inhale, exhale, switch, switch, and switch. Good. Keep twisting and twist with the waist all the way up, navel scooping in, you want to get those cuts on the sides. Three and two and one, bend the knees back in, lower the head, neck and shoulders down. That was the crisscross and next is teaser prep and teaser."