Pilates Breathing Techniques

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Ashley Ludman, from seaside yoga, here today to tell you a little bit about how to do Pilates. So, first of all, Pilates is a form of exercise that requires us to use the strength of our deep core muscles to isolate our core strength, to create stability, and also from that stability, to move freely. So, we'll start by breathing, first breathing into the back of the lungs and the sides of the ribs, while keeping the breath out of the lower abdomen, so, you'll keep a gentle tone in the floor of the pelvis and the lower abdomen. So, the breath looks something like this, as you're breathing the pass of inhalation through the nose and act of exhalation, engaging all of the core from the base of the pelvis upward, cinching the ribs in, so you're squeezing out ever last little bit of breath, then inhale and passively breath again, exhale stabilize your core, engage upward from the floor of the pelvis to the lower belly, draw the rib in and inhale again passively. So, we'll do that and I'll take you through a couple of very basic mat exercises, so come down onto our backs in neutral spine, which means there's a natural curve of the lower spine, place your hands behind the back of the head, and if at any time this position you find your neck straining just lower your head to the floor. So the head curl is initiated from the drawing in of the rib cage that last little bit of the exhale phase to the breath. So, we'll breathe in passively allow the breath to move into the sides of the ribs and the back of the ribs, then exhale the strong contraction from the floor of the pelvis upward. As you contract lift the head and shoulders from the powerhouse, this is called the powerhouse center. We'll float the knees up and we'll begin by the first exercise of single leg stretch. If you feel comfortable releasing your head and taking your hand to your knee, do so, stretch your opposite leg forward, so breath in and pulse for two, keeping the core stable, then exhale and switch, then inhale through the nose passively, exhale and switch, strong contraction, inhale and exhale. So, although we're still working from this core center the muscles of the legs, the shoulders, the chest, are engaged. From there you can go into variations of this exercise. Stretching into double leg stretch and so essentially you build up your strength so that you are able to sustain these exercises without undue stress to your neck, to your hips, to your lower back. If, at first, you find that it's a challenge for you, you can modify, by lowering your shoulders and your head, or decreasing the amount of repetitions that you do. It's more important, in Pilates, to affectively create the movement. That's one of Joseph Pilates concepts to this exercise, precision. Learning how to be precise in your movement, you may need to actually seek out help from a trained Pilates professional. That's what I would recommend, especially if you're beginning and you want to start doing this in a proper and effective way. So, that's how to do pilates."