How to Do Pilates Open Leg Rocker Exercise - part of the women's fitness video series by GeoBeats.

Hi, we're Kimberly and Katherine Corp. We own Pilates on Fifth here in Manhattan, and we're going to show you the Open Leg Rocker which is a great Pilates exercise for strengthening the abdominals, improving control of the abdominal muscles, and balance. So we'll send Katherine forward on the mat so she has a place to go. And it's similar to Rolling Like a Ball except this time your knees aren't bent, they're straight. Legs are straight, and they're slightly apart. So to get into it, we'll get into it much like Rolling Like a Ball. You'll roll off your sit bones. Pick one leg up into your little ball position and then the other and now from here notice that we have her spine in a C curve here. Now we're going to straighten our legs up and open them about shoulders distance apart, and notice how she lengthened her upper spine. So it's the difference of going from here to here. So show what we don't, we don't want this, and we do want, yea we do want this and don't want this. Yes, she can't read my mind. It's quiet inconvenient. Alrighty. So from here you're going to roll back. So you inhale roll back just to mid shoulder blades, and exhale we come up and stay in balance, which is a bundle of fun as you can see. Inhale, roll back between the shoulder blades and come up. Now your abdominal muscles are your brakes here. The're your accelerator when you go back, inhale, and exhale come up. So she's going to do it wrong and she's going to go back with too much force. You'll see her legs flop into the floor and she goes on to her head. And we don't, and it makes coming up very hard. So we'll do 2 more right. Inhale roll back between the shoulder blades, and exhale come up and stay, Yes! And one more time, inhale roll back between the shoulder blades, and exhale come up and stay. Yes. Now this can be, you can put your legs down. I can give you a rest, and here, hang out while I babble. No the weight of the legs can be very challenging. So if you are a person with very very long legs, this exercise will be more difficult for you. So don't give up. People with a little bit of more compact body have it easier. You can bend your knees. So if you find that when you roll back you just smack your shins into the floor, bend your knees. So what you can do is roll back with legs bent, and come up, and hold this with legs bent. This is also great modification for tight Hamstrings. And that's the Open Leg Rocker.