Today is Wednesday. If you follow me on Instagram you will know that I love to participate in Wundachair Wednesday. Who doesn’t absolutely adore ample alliteration? See what I did there?
Today’s video comes to you from my wonderful wundachair. The twist. It is an essential part of my Pilates practice. It just feels so lovely on the whole body. Twisting is especially good for your internal parts. Imagine wringing out your organs, that is what a good twist can help you do. Twisting brings an energy to your workout and follows you throughout your entire day.
My set up is one black spring on the 3rd claw. You can alter your resistance based on your strength and needs. I find this to be the sweet spot of spring loads.
I aimed to keep my hips as level and square as possible for this video. I really focused on twisting from the torso and not from the lower half. Keep the ribs closed and the core engaged. Inhale on the way down and exhale to lift. I think of lifting from my chest. Long beautiful lines. I think imagery is important for this move (as it is for many) You need to keep that mind-body connection. The toes are reaching away and the legs are trying to stay as still as possible (this is a challenge without a teacher holding your feet) Engage the low belly and the obliques.
This is going to work the obliques, very deeply. The shoulders, arms, pecs a bit, lower belly, and even the glutes a bit if they are active while keeping the legs still. The major focus here, though, is the obliques.
Move within your safe range of motion. This is a move where you can over-do it, without even realizing it is about to happen. I would urge you to move with purpose and caution if you have never done this before. Meaning, the twist does not have to be very dramatic the first time and you do not have to go all the way to the floor as you lower the pedal. You must make sure you can get back up! It is awesome to get that pedal all the way down, but now you’re there and cannot get it back to the start, AH what happens then? A fancy ninja backwards roll over/flip into a roll up? Because I cannot pull that off, if you can, please share a video! The focus then should be the movement and strength building. Building blocks to get the pedal as far down as you can press it with a strong and aligned lift back up.
One little note, make sure you are not right next to a wall so when you turn in the opposite direction you don’t have to move your arm in a weird way. My mistake! Ha!
Nicole M. VandeBoom 