5 DIY Exercises To Move With Strength Through Daily Life
Principle: Awareness
School is out for the summer, and we are heading into a new routine. This means my favorite kind of life: half programmed schedule and half freedom. My usual workout and dance training schedule is steady but less consistent. The constants for me are a handful of activities that make me feel strong and ready for anything: long car rides, travel, a long day of teaching, dance class, water sports, beach walks, carrying my very heavy 8-year-old whenever she asks, and, most importantly, feeling tweak-free in daily life.
I filmed a few of my go to’s while on vacation after a long travel.
Pilates apparatus or Pilates Matwork?
The apparatus teaches us a specific kind of movement quality using resistance and pulleys for strength, assistance, and feedback. The matwork requires us to be the machine and work the system within ourselves. Moving with strength or using your muscles like springs is often an analogy given. Think about swimming and moving through water, or a dancer controlling movement in space. The apparatus gives us a reference when we are free in space, particularly in the matwork. Movement should be active and not passive. Focus on alignment and muscle initiation is always key and far more important than range of motion. So… I say both! But the mat is the barometer and true measure of progress.
How do you get stronger using the Pilates method without apparatus?
The overload principle is key to getting stronger using your own body weight and movement qualities.
Some key things to play with to increase challenge and build strength are the timing of your movements. Speeding up or slowing down movements can add challenge and make an exercise feel like new.
Lengthening or shortening the levers in your body, such as the arms and legs, for a specific exercise can add challenge by increasing the work your trunk must do to stabilize against these levers. Similarly, if the limbs are stabilizing and you are moving the trunk, shorter or longer movements of the spine will add variation and challenge.
If you start to feel like an exercise is too easy, adding variations or more emphasis on alignment will challenge the body and mind to work deeper, adding burnout to muscles and making you stronger.
What is it about Pilates that we all need?
Studying Pilates really teaches more than just the exercises. Besides the literal and metaphorical principles, a good teacher will really teach you command over HOW you move. Being aware of different movement qualities and how they change the repertoire entirely is one of the greatest benefits of Pilates.
The following exercises are from the BASI Pilates Comprehensive Teacher Training Program:
Push up
Side Bend
Side Kick Kneeling
Back Support
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