Free Beginners Pilates Workouts
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Pilates is a great form of exercise, especially for beginners. Follow this beginner pilates workout routine to strengthen your core muscles, being your abs and lower back, which will give you strength as you move to more advance exercises.
This beginner pilates workout also has a video demonstration so you can see if you are doing these pilates exercise right. It was developed by Erin Huggins and the link is below.
Start this beginner pilates workout routine on your back with your hips in a neutral position. That means that your back is resting on the floor in a relaxed position. Bens your knees 45 degrees. That is the beginning position for this pilates workout.
Now, take a deep breath in and exhale. As you exhale, tense your abdominal muscle, which are your core muscles. Keep exhaling and tensing and contracting your core muscles and feel your hips and pelvic bones rising up. Make sure you isolate the tension to your lower abdominals only, and not your glut muscles. Do this 15 times
If you have difficulty doing this exercise, as you exhale and contract your abdominal region, image you have a belt around your abs and you are tightening it, contracting your muscles.
Go back to your original starting position, with your back in a neutral position. To start this pilates beginner workout, raise your right leg toward your body, keeping it bent at 45%, and exhale at the same time. The key to this beginner exercise is to tense your core muscles as you breathe out and raise your leg. Try not to use your leg muscles during the exercise. Stop raising your leg when your thigh is pointing to the ceiling. This is called the chair position in pilates. Lower your leg and breathe in, and relax. Then repeat with your left leg, focusing on tensing your core muscles as you breath out and raise your leg.
This is a great body weight exercise as you are using the weight of your leg as resistance to work your abdominal and core muscles.
Start the pilates toe dips beginner workout on your back like the previous exercises, but with a little bit of an arch in your back, and your legs in the chair position. That is with your thighs pointing toward the ceiling and your toes pointing toward the wall. The toe dips is the reverse of the knee lift.
Lower your left leg and inhale. Tap your toe on the ground then raise your leg, focusing on contracting your core muscles as you breathe out. Alternate legs.
Start on your back with your arms behind your head. Exhale as you lift your head, chest and shoulder balds off the ground. Be careful not to pull your head up with your arms, but to contract your abdominal muscles to do the lifting. Inhale as you release and lower your body back to the ground. Relax and repeat 10 times.
For the last pilates chest lift, hold in the contracted position for the count of 10. This really works your abdominal muscles.
Lying on your back as before, point your arms out in front of you toward your knees, and cross one hand over the other. Start this beginner pilates workout by exhaling, tensing your core muscles as you lift your shoulders off the ground and reach past the right knee. Inhale as you reach across to your left knee, then exhale again and tense your abdominal muscles. Now reverse, reaching across to your right knee while inhaling, then exhale and contract your ab muscles.
A variation of this beginner pilates exercise is to reach to your right knee 10 times, each time slightly relaxing and then reaching forward again, all on the one side.
Review the beginner pilates video demonstration to see it done properly. Once you have finished on the right side, slide over to the left side and repeat for 10.
Starting on your back, raise your legs into the chair position and cross your legs. Arms are behind your head. For the pilates reverse crunch bring your knees to your chest as you exhale and tense your abdominal muscles. Focus on using your abdominal muscles to do the lifting of your legs. Now repeat with the other leg on top. Do 10 repetitions on each side.
Check out the beginner workout at home video demonstration to see how these exercises are done properly.