Pilates Stretch Band Exercises: Side Lying

Video Transcript

"In doing side lying leg work, you want to make sure that your entire body is stacked so that the hips are stacked one on the top of each other and you are not curled back or rolling forward. The legs are stacked. The abs are pulled in. The ribcage is pulled in. And, you make a little pillow for your head with your elbow bent, so that the head is fairly in line with the spine. Whenever you are doing legwork and you find yourself rolling to one side or the other, try and straighten yourself out by engaging your abs. So, in this exercise, we have the band around our foot covering the toes. We are going to point the toe down. And, the reason we do that is that we want to work the back of the leg as opposed to the quadriceps. If we point up, we will be working this muscle. Point down, we are working the back. So, we are going to take a nice inhale and float the leg up. Exhale. We are going to flex the foot. Pull the band and squeeze that inner thigh to bring the leg down. Point the toe down. Inhale. Up. Exhale. Flex and squeeze down. Point. Down. Inhale. Up. Exhale. Flex and squeeze down."