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Hello everyone, my name is Nicole and welcome back to my channel. Today I have a quick Pilates abs and arm workout for you. We're really going to strengthen our core muscles as well as getting into our shoulders and the backs of our arms.
So whenever you're ready, make your way into a Child's Pose on your mat. Your knees and wider than hip distance apart. Send your glutes back, reach your arms forward, and take this time to tune into your breath. Nice deep inhales and exhales.
Then on your next inhale, shift forward to your hands and your knees, arch your spine, look slightly up. Exhale, round your spine, gaze towards your navel, and shift your hips back to Child's Pose. Let's do this a few more times.
Inhale as you shift forward, arch your back, gently warming up our spine. Exhale, round and shift back to Child's Pose. One more.
Inhale, shift forward, arch, open through your shoulders. Exhale, round and press back to Child's Pose.
Inhale, shift forward to your tabletop position, but this time finding your neutral spine. So really drawing your navel in towards your back, keeping your neck in your spine and nice and long. Let's curl our toes under now. Make sure your wrist is directly underneath your shoulders.
Take a nice inhale. Exhale, using your abdominals and pressing through your shoulders, lift your knees a few inches off the mat, finding this hovering tabletop position. Stay here for a few deep breaths, trying to keep your knees directly underneath your hips. Nice inhale and exhale.
Now on your inhale, shift back to downward facing dog. Root your heels down towards the mat, caressing through your shoulders. Exhale, shift your weight forward, lower your knees back to that hovering tabletop. Few more times.
Inhale, downward facing dog. Exhale, shift forward, shoulders over wrists, lower your knees directly underneath your hips. Two more times.
Inhale. Exhale, tabletop. Last one.
Inhale, downward facing dog. Exhale, hovering tabletop. Let's hold here just for one deep breath. You can do it.
Inhale and exhale. Lower your knees. Good job. I didn't curl your toes, just walk your hands a little bit further forward in front of your shoulders.
Inhale, shift your hips under, shoulders over wrists. Exhale, lower yourself all the way down to the front side of your body. Hands underneath your shoulders.
Inhale, lift your chest, roll your shoulders back, mini Cobra or opening through your heart center. Take a nice deep breath here.
Inhale and exhale. Release back down. Then inhale, push yourself up, curl your toes under, and exhale, downward facing dog. Pedal your heels here. Maybe this is the first downward dog of the day, so do whatever feels good for your body at this point.
Then on your next inhale, shift forward into a high plank position. So shoulders over wrists, hips are nice and low, and draw your navel in towards your spine, so you're really engaging your abdominals.
On your exhale, lift your right leg back, keeping your hips still. Inhale, lower it back down. Other side.
Exhale, left leg lifts. Inhale, lower back down. Exhale, right leg. Inhale, lower. Keep going. So the aim here is just to move your legs, but keep everything else super still. So abs are engaged, shoulders are working here. Let's do one more on each side.
So exhale, right leg loose. Inhale, lower. Exhale, left leg. Inhale, lower. Good.
Lower your knees and curl your toes and let's lower ourselves down to our bellies. Inhale, Cobra. Take nice deep breaths. Hopefully you're starting to feel nice and warm like I am. And relax bucket down.
Inhale, press up and exhale, Child's Pose. Take a moment here to just take a few deep breaths. Nice inhales and exhales.
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In, shift forward just enough so that you can cross your feet behind you and come on it to your glutes. Scoot yourself forward so that you're in the middle of your mats. Now your knees have a nice soft bend. Let's just hold on to the backs of our thighs.
Take a nice inhale, lengthen your spine, sitting up nice and tall. And then exhale, round your spine, tucking your pelvis under, tuck your chin in, and with control, see how slowly you can lower yourself all the way down onto your back.
Once you're here, let's walk our heels in towards our glutes. My knees are bent and take your hands behind your head, elbows nice and wide. Close your ribcage game and try to think of dropping your ribs down towards your hips.
Take a nice inhale. Exhale, let's lift our head and shoulders, abdominal curl, and inhale, come back down. So exhale as you curl up, make sure that your chin is tucked in, and inhale as you come down. Now every time that you exhale, I want you to think of closing the gap between your ribs and your hips.
Inhale, come back down. Keep going. Exhale, curl up. Inhale, lower. Really waking up our abdominals. Let's do one more.
Exhale, Kru. And now hold your curl here. Find your imprinted spine. So I want you to press your lower back down into the mat. Lift your legs to a tabletop position. Your knees are directly over your hips.
On your exhale, extend your right leg towards the mat and inhale back through center. Other side.
Exhale, left leg stays. Inhale, Center. Keep going. Exhale, extent. Inhale, Center. Focusing here and keeping your elbows nice and wide, your chin is tucked in, and we're trying to lift our shoulders up off the mat as much as we can. Let's do two more.
Exhale, right leg. Inhale, back through Center. Now on this next one, holds your left leg long. This one's challenging. Take a nice inhale. Exhale, tap your right toes down to the mat. Inhale, lift. Now exhale, tap across your left leg, and then inhale, lift. So you tap it to the inside of your left leg, and then to the outside. Just two more times because this is super challenging, I know. Keep breathing, exhaling each time that you tap. Good.
Last one. Whew. Hug your knees in and maybe turn your head right and left. Rock your spine side to side because guess what? We do it on the other side. So let's take our legs back to that tabletop position. Hands behind your head. Lift your head and shoulders. Take a nice inhale.
Then exhale, extend your left leg. --look inhale back through Center. Exhale, right leg. Inhale, back through Center. So each time that you extend the leg long, make sure that you're keeping your lower back in contact with the mat. If you find that you're starting to arch through your lower back, just don't extend the leg quite as far down, keep it a little bit higher. Good job.
Okay, last one. Let's hold our right leg extended. Now take a nice inhale. Exhale, tap the left toes down. Inhale, lift. Exhale, tap to the outside of the right leg. Inhale, lift. So you tap it down and lift. Tap or cross and lift. Exhale, tap. Inhale, lift. You can do it. Keeping that right leg strong. Let's do one more. Last step. Good job.
Hug your knees in. That one is a challenging one, but it's a really effective way of switching your abdominals on and getting them all nice and fired up. Okay, from here, make sure that you're in that imprinted spine. So press your lower back down into the mat. This time, let's take our hands down by our sides. Roll your shoulders down and back. Neck is nice and long. Extend your legs directly up towards the ceiling and then rotate your thighs outwards so your heels are together and your toes are turned out.
On your inhale, let's separate our legs into a narrow V, lower them down to the 45. Exhale, close them together and lift them straight back up. So inhale, open and lower. Exhale, close and length. Just two more now. Take this nice and controlled, focusing on keeping your lower back in contact with the mat.
Last one. And then we reverse this circle. Good yup. So this time, inhale, lower your legs together. Exhale, open them and lift them back up. So inhale, lower them together. Exhale, open and lift. So it doesn't have to be a big circle. It's more important that you are keeping your lower back in contact with the mat. Over time, you'll be able to lower your legs a little bit further. This is your last one. Oh, I hit the wall.
Good. From here, keep your legs extended over them to that narrow B. Hands go behind your head. Lift your head and shoulders. Let's tap across our body now, reaching for the opposite ankle. It fell each time that you reach for your ankle, engage your thighs here. Strong legs, strong abdominals. It's X. Exhale. Let's do full reach and three. Keep going. Two. Last one. Good job.
Arrest your head. Hug your knees in. Whoo. Turn your head a right or left, releasing any tension. Good job everyone. Okay, from here, let's rock the length of our spine up to a seated position and we're going to get into the backs of our arms a little bit now. So your knees are bent. Make sure your feet are hip distance apart. Take your hands directly underneath your shoulders, fingertips are pointed forward, and lift your hips up, squeezing your glutes. I'm really pressing through your shoulders. Keep your gaze forward. Make sure that you're dropping your ribs down towards your hips, so your abdominals are engaged.
Now inhale, bend your elbows. Exhale, press. Inhale, Bend. Exhale, press. Keep going, trying to keep your hips nice and high. So just getting into the backs of our arms here, really working our triceps. Let's do four more. So inhale as you bend, exhale as you press. Two more. You should be starting to feel a burn. Good.
Now hold here. Take a nice inhale. This time, keeping your arms straight, exhale, lower your hips down towards the mat, don't let them touch, and then inhale, press them up. So exhale, lower your hips down, don't let it touch. Inhale, press up. Now if you want to make this more challenge, see if you can stand your hips back in between your I then inhale, press up. Exhale, lower through your hands. Inhale, press. Let's do two more.
Inhale. Last one. Now hold your hips high, keeping those hips still, let's just pulse our arms for eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one. Straighten your arms, lift your hips a little bit higher, squeezing your glutes, and then lower your hips back down. Hopefully you felt that in the backs of your shoulders.
So let's give our shoulders a break now. Knees are a nice three-quarter bent. I want you to make fists and squeeze your fists together. Your palms are facing forward. Round your spine, finding your C curve, so tucking your hips under, ribs drop down towards your hips. On your exhale, let's just twist side to side. So it's EXO and exhale, getting into our obliques here. Now if you want more of a challenge, you can lift your legs up into a boat pose or a teaser position, squeezing your thighs together, finding your breath here. Let's do four more. And three. And two. And one. Good job.
Release. Let's open our knees, keep the soles of our feet together. Take a nice inhale and exhale, hinge forward, feeling a nice release through our hip flexors and our glutes. And come on up. Okay, from here, let's cross our legs and come in to a tabletop position. So let's start with our hands underneath our shoulders, knees underneath our hips, and then just take your hands a little bit further forward. Shift your shoulders over your waist, lower your hips and tuck your hips under. So I want you to make sure that when you tuck your hips under, you're pulling your navel up towards your spine, engaging your abdominals.
Okay, from here, we're going to do tricep push-ups. So on your inhale, bend your elbow in by your waistline, and then exhale, press up. Inhale, control yourself down as low as you can without sacrificing your posture. Exhale, press up. Inhale, lower. Exhale, press. Inhale, lower. And exhale, press. On this one, let's lower ourselves down nice and slowly, really using my triceps all the way down to the front side of our body. Good job.
From here, cactus your arms, your elbows are in line with your shoulders, and then draw your navel in towards your spine. So there's a little gap between your bellybutton and the mat. On your inhale, lift your chest up, lifting your arms, but keep your gaze down towards the mat. Exhale, squeeze your elbows in by your waistline. Then inhale, extend your arms forward. So exhale, pull your elbows back. Inhale, reach your arms forward, keeping your chest lifted, your gaze down towards the mat, really using your back muscles here. Let's do two more.
Exhale. And inhale. Last one. Exhale. And inhale. Now from here, pull your elbows back again. Reach your arms back, your palms face down towards the mat, and let's roll our shoulders back, lift our chest a little bit higher. I want you to pump the arm. So you just lift him up and breathing here, nice strong back. Make sure you keep pulling your abdominals in towards your spine. Now you can stay here for a little extra burn. Let's alternate it flipping the palms up and down. So you flip them up and down. Oh, really rotating through the backs of our arms, feeling a nice burn. Let's do eight more. Seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one. Good job.
Rest back down. Let's press up and back into a child's pose. Maybe you want to reach your arms back towards your feet, just let your arms rest, give your shoulders a nice little break. Can take nice deep breaths. Then gently roll on up.
Okay guys, you will be happy to know that we have come to our final little exercise. So hopefully you're just as warm and out of breath as I am. So from here, let's come now into a forearm plank. So elvers underneath your shoulders, walk your feet back, finding your strong forearm plank. So again, keeps aloof, tuck your hips under, the navel draws up towards your spine.
On your exhale, tap your left toes out to the side. Inhale, back through Center. Exhale, right towards top to the spine. Inhale, back through Center. So you tap to the side, to the side, and eaten. So we're working our abdominals here as well as our shoulders. So both of those muscle groups that are really wanting to target today are on the fire. Keep breathing. Exhale, tap to the side. Inhale, Center. Good job. Let's do one more each side. Press through your shoulders. And last one.
Interlace your fingers. On your inhale, lift your hips up, press through your shoulders, Mabel to will do spine. Exhale, shift forward, lower your hips back to your plank. Three more times. Inhale as you lift, pressing through your shoulders. Exhale as you lower. Oh, two more. Inhale. And exhale. Last one. Now hold in your plank. Find a little exercise. You can go back to those toe taps, or if you want to finish your workout with a bag, let's jump it out. It's out in out and really make sure you're pressing through your shoulders for ten, nine, and you can do it. Seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one. Whew.
Lower your knees, press back into a well-deserved child's clothes and take nice deep breaths. Then once you've caught your breath a little bit, roll yourself up and find a comfortable seated position on your mat. So crossing your legs, take a nice inhale, reach your right arm up and exhale, side bend over to your left, gazing up towards the ceiling and back through Center. Switch sides.
Inhale, right arm lifts. Exhale, side bend over to your other side and back through Center. Let's take that left arm across our body now and then using your right arm, draw the left arm in towards your chest, rolling your shoulders back. Feel free to close your eyes here.
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And switch sides. Droll you're right I mean, roll your shoulders down and back.
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Let's finish with our hands in prayer, our eyes are closed, and take one last deep inhale and exhale. Thank you so much everyone. Thank you for joining me for this Pilates as an arms workout. I hope you enjoyed today's workout. If you want to see more videos like this, don't forget to like this video, leave a comment, maybe share with a friend, and subscribe to my channel. Thank you so much everyone. Have a beautiful day.
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