Pilates Bridge on the Roller - part of the women's fitness video series by GeoBeats.

Hi, I am Charlotte and this is Alice, and we are here at Streamline Pilates studio in Brooklyn Heights, New York. We are going to teach you how to use the foam roller to increase your balance while doing your pilates mat work. Lets start with some bridging.

You are going to lay on your back on the mat with your feet on the roll and think of your feet as being bird feet, perched on this roller. So you want to wrap your feet around the roll, relax your arms into the mat. Feel the back of your shoulders resting all the way down through your fingertips, and your chest is nice and wide.

Taking an inhale through your nose, curl your tail bone under and peel yourself up one piece of your spine at a time. Lifting those hips until you come to a bridge from your shoulders to your knees. And then softening down through your spine relaxing through your throat, through your mid-back, all the way back down through your tail-bone, one piece of your spine at a time. Curling your tail bone under, inhaling lift yourself back up, and exhale rolling yourself back down.

You want to think that you have a magnet on your heels pulling those heels in towards you so that as you lower to lift your hips, the roller is not rolling away from you but drawing in towards you staying steady. In general, 6 to 8 of these is a great workout, curl your tail bone under. In this next one lets stay up and keep your hips lifted and lets do some marching. So trying not to lower your hips, lift one foot and then the other.

Trying not to get your feet closer together as you lower and lift your feet, and keeping those hips steady. And again, 6 or 8 of these to each side. Lets do one more set. Last one and relax and softening down through your spine to rest on the mat and get ready for your next exercise.