Pilates For Dummies
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The Coccyx Curls exercise is a great way to start your Pilates workout because it warms up your lower back and get you connected to your deep abdominals. By performing Pilates Coccyx Curls, you learn through movement the three most basic parts of the Pilates alphabet: Neutral Spine, the Abdominal Scoop, and Bridge. Coccyx, by the way, is just a fancy name for the tailbone.

Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor, approximately hip distance apart.

Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor, approximately hip distance apart.

Your back should be in Neutral Spine, with your arms down by your sides.

Inhale: Breathe in deeply.

Don’t tense your upper body when doing this exercise.

Exhale: Pull the navel in toward the spine and gently squeeze your low butt muscles and flatten your low back onto the mat.

Imagine that your belly is so pulled in that it’s pressing the vertebrae of the low back onto the mat.

Inhale: Release and go back to a comfortable Neutral Spine.

Keep your neck long and your shoulders relaxed.

Exhale: Pull the navel in toward the spine again and gently squeeze the low butt muscles.

Flatten your lower back onto the mat, then keep rolling your tailbone slowly up off the mat to the count of 5.

Roll up to the Bridge position. Inhale: Hold this position.

Roll up to the Bridge position. Inhale: Hold this position.

Your body should make a straight line from your shoulders to your knees. Don’t press your hips up so high that you can’t see your knees.

Exhale: Roll down one vertebra at a time, again by pulling in the belly. Return to Neutral Spine at the end.

Complete 3 repetitions, each time making the movement smaller and smaller until on the last one you’re not even moving out of Neutral Spine, but are pulling the abdominals in as if you were going to initiate a Coccyx Curl but don’t. This is called engaged Neutral Spine.

About This Article

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Ellie Herman runs two Pilates studios, where she teaches hundreds of students and certifies Pilates teachers. She studied under two of Joseph Pilates' original students.

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