Pilates Move Of The Week: The Superman – No Red Underwear Needed!

Check out our Pilates Move of the Week: The Superman. It’s a fantastic exercise and focuses on core activation with hip stability as well as balance and is even great on the reformer that adds spring resistance to the glutes.

Pilates Move of the week

Starting position: Start in a four point kneeling position, with your shoulders over your hands and hips over knees. Shoulders back and down. Exercise Execution:

1. Engage your abdominals by lifting your belly button up to support your spine.
2. Start with a basic kick back on one leg, holding the upper body still and strong. Extend the leg back to straight whilst aiming to keep the core activated and hips stabilised.
3. When you’ve got that down, add the upper body into the mix by extending the opposite arm long in unison with the leg. Try to counter balance the body going into the full exercise.
4. Hold the extension for 1-2 seconds and then return the arm / leg back down.
5. Repeat on other arm / leg.

Note: Hip stability is the aim of the game here so keep both hips still and stable the whole time.

Breathing: Inhale to prepare. Exhale to extend the hand / leg. Inhale to return. Really use your out breath to hold the contraction in the core strong. Reps: Start out with 2-3 sets of 15-20 repetitions each side and increase if desired. Advancements:

1. Hold for 2-4 secs each time to really squeeze and activate through the glutes.
2. Put a small toning ball at the base of the spine. This is a fantastic cue through out the exercise to keep the ball in the same spot.

KX Tip: To add KX intensity to the exercise, you can hold a light dumbbell in your hand to increase the load, as well as drawing small circles for more of an isolation exercise in the shoulders and glutes. Alternate the direction of the arms and leg circles to challenge co-ordination. Model: Pia Muehlenbeck More pilates moves of the week… Pilates Move Of The Week: Tighten Up Your Booty With The Bridge Pilates Move Of The Week: Get Those Abs Rock Solid With The Shoulder Stand Pilates Move Of The Week: Lose Those Love Handles With The Corkscrew