Naughty Pilates Setup

Series Summary

Pilates is a method of exercise named for its founder, Joseph Pilates. During the first World War, Pilates developed his “Contrology” method to help soldiers and veterans rehabilitate more quickly and improve overall well-being by strengthening their core torso muscles. In many varieties of exercise and athletics, the “core” muscles (the muscles of the abdomen, chest, and mid- to lower-back) are considered especially important, keeping the spine aligned and acting as the anchor points for most of the body’s movement. Pilates combined a focused attention to the core muscles and much of the philosophy of yoga (an awareness of mental/spiritual aspects of body movements) to form his method, known today as Pilates. In this free Pilates arm workout video series, instructor Kelly Craft offers tips for turning regular Pilates exercises into a naughty workout to build physical fitness or entertain a spectator. Craft focuses on the arms with a series of triceps-centered lifts and push-ups. She shows variations called cat presses, toe lifts, cat pounces and more. Craft artfully combines the healthy with the sensual in these Pilates demos.

Video Transcript

"Alright so let’s learn some naughty Pilates. Now these movements are a take off on traditional Pilates, but there's not so much of the engaging that we do in the other Pilates movements. And we do start a lot of these on all fours. When you are working from all fours you're most often working your tricep. So it's almost like a Pilates push up or press up will be doing, but it's a little take off on it to make it kind of spicy. Now if you are on all fours, make sure that your palms are spread and your fingers are wide. You want your knees to be slightly separated. Now I have a very think mat, a very heavy duty mat, if you have a standard yoga mat it may bother your knees if you're on a wood floor with a mat. You may want to take, and some of my students like to do this, we take the mat, we just roll it up so that it's under our knees will a little more cushion. That provides a nice soft base for your knees so that when you do any movement from here you're set up in a comfortable position. Now it doesn't matter so much about the engaging, we are working through the triceps, please make sure that your hands are under your shoulders, your palms wide, fingers spread. And that's how you set up for the naughty Pilates arm series."