Return to Life: Teaser
– Is this the most beautiful exercise in the Pilates repertoire?
It’s certainly a challenge to make it look graceful – you’ll need strength in both your abs and back.
What’s it good for?
Athletes
- It’ll strengthen your:
- abdominals
- spine and
- hip flexors
… and it will mobilise your spine!
Pilates Geeks
It’s one of the signature Pilates exercises and for good reason: it can be performers on every piece of apparatus, there are several variations of increasing difficulty and it demands great strength, control and mobility.
It’s a combination of several exercises: Roll Up, Open Leg Rocker, Single Leg Kick, Spine Stretch Forward to name a few …
Difficulty: Starters
Reps: 6
The “how to”
Lie flat on the mat with your arms overhead, reaching away from you.
Exhale bring your arms to a vertical position and begin rolling up your spine off the mat as your lift your legs off the mat to about 60 degrees…
Inhale at the top and
Exhale to roll your spine back down to the mat, keep in your legs still.
Sniff to inhale and exhaling articulated your spine back up again.
Hints and Tips
💡 Visualise hold the reins of a horse and being gently pulled up and off the mat and then being lowered down again.
💡 As you roll up and down, imagine a rolling tyre or a fishing line being reeled in…
💡 Start the roll up and roll down with seep lumbar flexion.
💡 Keep your legs at the same angle in Teaser 1 & 2
💡 Reach your legs long trough your feet.
💡 Get your arms parallel to your legs.
Extras: Precautions
☀️ … Avoid this exercise with disk problems or osteoporosis.
☀️ … Try a Teaser prep exercise to get you started.
The spine is an awe-inspiring structure that when working as a coordinated and integrated unit, can move in many directions and t=with great flexibility. Spain articulation describes the fine, precise and sequential movement of each vertebrae relative to its neighbours rather than movement of the spine in stiff sections. This idea of sequential movement of the the supine was something that Joseph Pilates promoted tirelessly throughout his life. He even went on to say that if a person’s spine was mobile and articulate, the person was young, irrespective of their chronological age. However, if their spine was immobile, they were elderly!
