Video:How to Do a Pilates Pelvic Curl
with Renee BeshuresThe Pelvic Curl is considered to be an essential warm-up and strengthening exercise as part of the Pilates exercise routine. Watch this About.com video on the correct way to perform a Pilates pelvic curl.See Transcript
Transcript:How to Do a Pilates Pelvic Curl
Hello, I'm Renee Beshures owner of Boulder Body Works of Boulder, Colorado and I am here today for About.com to teach you how to do a Pilates pelvic curl.
The Pilates Pelvic Curl is a Controlled Movement
The pelvic curl in the Pilates repertoire is one of the most important fundamental exercises that we can teach. Pilates Pelvic Curl is an excellent way to tone your pelvic floor, lengthen your lower back, and warm up your abdominals. The pelvic curl is a very small movement, and it's a movement of the pelvis rotating around the axis of the hip joint.
Inhale and Exhale with the Curling Movement
When doing the pelvic curl, you want your knees, foot and ankle to be in line with your hip. To begin a Pilates pelvic curl we are going to have you lay on your back, arms at your side, feet are hip distant width apart. As you inhale, you are going to feel your tailbone get heavier into the mat. As you exhale, your belly draws in towards your spine, it pulls your pubic bone towards your navel and your tailbone begins to lengthen towards the back of your knees. Inhale, relax your pelvis back down onto the mat, exhale, deep belly draws in , tailbone curves towards the knees, your lower back gets heavier onto the mat.
Common Mistakes while Performing the Pelvic Curl
A common mistake that people make is they see their outer fleshy part of their hip as their hip joint, and they tend to take their feet too wide. To understand how to initiate the pelvic curl by using your abdominals, rather than just squeezing your butt and ejecting your pubic bone is essential to creating length and decompression in your spine.
Pelvic Curl into the Pilates Bridge
We are going to take the pelvic curl into a little bit more of a lift moving towards a bridge. As you exhale, curl your tale, draw your belly in towards your spine, begin to lift your pelvis sequentially, rolling up through your spine, lift your lower pelvis, your lower ribs, your middle ribs, and then exhale, begin to release your sternum, release the front of your body down, allowing your spine to articulate one vertebrae at a time, all the way down.
Having an understanding of how the musculature of the abdominals and pelvic floor drives that curl is essential to being successful in your Pilates practice. Thank you so much for watching. For more information, please visit us at About.com.
