Importance of Pilates Forms

Series Summary

Pilates is an exercise system developed by a German man named Joseph Pilates. It was designed to strengthen the body core (which consists of the abdominal muscles, the lower back muscles, hip flexors, and gluteus muscles) in order to prevent back pain, and help with spine alignment and breathing control. Pilates exercises can be done almost anywhere and can be learned quite easily. In this free video series a professional Pilates instructor, Jeri Ryan, will show you how to implement the proper forms into your stretching exercises. Jeri will begin by teaching you the importance of practicing proper Pilates forms and how it can benefit your workout. She'll then teach you techniques for nodding your head, tucking your chin, breathing and stretching your legs. These forms are good to learn, because they can be applied to any exercise class. Jeri will then teach you more tips for stretching, such as: the proper shoulder position, pelvic floor form, side lying leg form, rolling ball form and even the proper head extension technique. These tips will help maximize your exercises and alleviate stress. Watch these few videos and learn the proper form for Pilates stretching today.

Video Transcript

"In this series, I'll be talking about proper form in exercise. Proper form that I'll be discussing today can be used in any exercise class with any exercise video, in any kind of abdominal work that you're doing. I'll be talking about how to tuck your chin. How to hold your shoulders when you're rolling down. How to curl down so that you gain flexibility in your spine. How to work your ribcage so that you know how to engage your core. How to engage your pelvic floor as well as the proper position of your legs so that you can maintain a flat back on the mat, which is called an imprint position. And variations that you can do in abdominal work to work different parts of your abdominals, such as your external obliques, internal obliques, and the core and also the extensor muscles in your back. So anyone can look like they're doing something correctly, but until you engage the appropriate muscles, you're not doing it right."