Rowing Back 1

Let's take a look at rowing back one. This is such a wonderful exercise, and one of the reasons it's wonderful is it's really speaking the language of Pilates. It is not only an arm series. It's a flow from shape to shape. Utilizing abdominal strength and control and arm flexibility and strength and all the things.

So let's go ahead and look at it. Here, I've got my reformer set with my footbar down, and I'm on one spring. I'm on one red spring. And one of the things to pay attention to here is if the spring is too light, the abdominals have to work really hard in the rollback position. If the spring is too heavy, the arms have to work really hard to manage the position. So you have to choose that spring according to what your needs are and your desires for the exercise are. So starting the movement, you wanna make sure that when you have a seat, you have enough room for you to roll back into the abdominal portion.

But also that your legs are comfortable on the headrest. So many people will need to cross their ankles between the two shoulder rest. I like to whenever possible keep my legs together, and I can just barely fit mine just fine here. Do pay attention to if you have to cross your legs to change which leg is on top because it does change a little bit the organization of the pelvis here. So checking in, I always put about a hand behind me and make sure I have about a hands distance to be sure that I can roll back and feel that my sacrum, my pelvis is supported by the reformer.

So let's move into the shapes here. So I've got my elbows straight and my arms are parallel with the horizon. My legs are energized and I'm sitting up tall tucking the ribs back, engaging the abdominals. Then we'll bend the elbows and feel this position without moving the spine yet. Keep the arms where they are.

We round the spine and roll deep into flexion. One mistake I see a lot is people going back too far and not maintaining the flexion of the spine. So be sure that you can keep an eye on flexion rounded back abdominal work in your low point. I'll also be sure that your arms are staying in the same position. I'm gonna come up and show you what I mean by that.

Arms are straight here. So my arms are in a soft fist close to my sternum. That remains so as I go back. So the arms stay exactly as they were, and I find that low position for me. Here, tricky, tricky.

Let's keep the carriage completely still. Take the arms straight out to the side pressing into the spring without moving the spring. Making that shape quite tricky. Using the abdominals to support, we roll forward keeping the carriage completely still and then find a connection with the hands behind you. It's okay to bend the elbows. We do wanna touch the hands here.

Then option one, the arms can go low to the floor, find rest at the stopper, Take the arms parallel with the horizon palms facing forward. I'm still in deep flexion, and then I straighten out. Let's do that again. We'll bend the elbows, feeling upright through the spine, gently touching or near the sternum. We roll back. I would use an exhale here. Really use an exhale to use those abdominals.

Take the arms out to the side, keeping the carriage still. And then we're gonna roll forward. Still keeping the carriage still. Lots of control here. Hands come together behind you.

Now another option is to take the arms up out to the side at shoulder height or all the way up into a deep shoulder stretch, saying, control still through the abdominal staying inflection. And then sit tall. So I'm gonna do another one with a little bit more of the energy that I would like to see when doing this exercise. So we might inhale to pull the arms in. We might use an exhale to roll back. We might inhale to take the arms out.

And we might exhale forward keeping the carriage still, perhaps an inhale to take the arms up and around or down and around, find the stopper. Notice their slack on spring here or slack on straps, and then we'll sit up nice and tall. And then we might continue on from there. So that was rowing back one.