Need to freshen up your Pilates Mat work?  Miss the apparatus?  Here is a suggestion for freshening up your mat.  Think of each Pilates mat exercise like a bead, and the Pilates Mat order like an intentionally strung beaded necklace.  But what happens if you take those beads and make a different necklace that still works?  You get a new challenge, both physically and mentally, which we want from our exercise “unroutines”.  Routines are important, but to “unroutine” is to give your body something it is not expecting, which is why I find exploring different movement patterns crucial as well.  This series explores rolling with some twists and turns.

Once you bead this necklace, do 2 reps of each exercise, then 1 rep!  Or watch the video provided and work alongside me!  Here’s the unroutine:

Start with a roll up bent knees to get into your scooped abs and open up the back body.  With your abs, float both legs up, grab the ankles and roll like a ball.  Send legs forward and spine stretch forward to increase the back body line.  Lean back, find your scoop, and lift up the straight legs.  Grab your ankles into open leg rocker.  Scissor the leg, grab one leg and rock.  On the balance, scissor the leg to switch, and roll again.  Put one leg down into “indecisive tree”  Go down one leg, scissor while down, and switch, go up the other leg.  Then down that same leg, scissor and up the other leg.  To get into boomerang, you will put the tree leg on top of the other leg.  Staying true to the order here, bend your knees into Seal.  The last seal, you will cross at the ankles and stand up. 

• ROLL UP

• ROLL LIKE A BALL

• SPINE STRETCH

• OPEN LEG ROCKER

• SCISSOR VARIATION

• INDECISIVE TREE

• BOOMERANG

• SEAL TO STAND

  How did you do?  Let me know!

Try this challenging Pilates Rolling Flow series to unroutine your routine!