The Pilates Lab

Yes, you can keep strengthening while pregnant!💪🏽

I love using the apparatus to offer support for my prenatal clients. This side leg series uses spring resistance to guide form and help carry the weight of the leg, but it also offers customized resistance to strengthen the glutes, legs, and hips (super important for labor/delivery, and beyond).

🏡Trying this one from home? Use a resistance band to mimic the guidance and benefit of the springs. Tie a band around something so you don’t have to hold it (or ask a partner to hold the band for you).

**Get cozy by placing a blanket under the belly to make the position more comfortable 🧸

See highlights for a full demo of an at home variation!

Tight inner thighs? Pelvic pain?👇🏼

This is a go-to exercise I give pregnant clients to help them lengthen their pelvic floor muscles and adductors. We want these areas to remain strong, but also need them to stay supple—especially the closer you are to your due date!

▫️Keep hips and sacrum level, and start with a small range of motion.

▫️Gradually rock the pelvis farther back without tucking the tail under.

▫️Take deep breaths. Imagine you could wash your pelvis with your breath—think of sending air all the way down between your legs. Keep the pelvic floor relaxed as you exhale.

▫️Try lowering to the forearms and hold this position for several breath cycles.

✨PSA: This stretching series is for everyone! You don’t have to be pregnant to benefit from prenatal pilates!

I find such inspiration in the intricacies of fundamental movements. They appear “simple” but there is so much nuance rippling under the surface 🌊

They can be both therapeutic and challenging—no matter your background or athletic ability. I’ve had professional athletes shaking after a fundamental movement series. I’ve also used these exercises as a template for chronic pain rehab. Fundamentals are for EVERYONE.

It’s like your body is coming home to itself🏡🤍

Picture a baby deer wobbling as it stands up for the first time, learning to walk. So cute…but definitely not goals for ankle stability🦌😂

Show the ankles some love to help you stay sure-footed and to find healthy movement/muscular activation above and below the joint.

Grab a ball and try this:
➡️ Place the ball between the inner ankle bones (stabilizing the legs around hips distance apart)

➡️ Keep constant pressure on the ball as you relevé, slowly lifting and lowering your heels

➡️ Bend the knees and plié to deeply crease the front of the ankles, keeping heels down

➡️ Progress to coordinating plié and relevé so you’re circling the ankles like a wheel🎡
 
➡️ Keep pressure on the ball and weight centered between the first and second toes

This keeps the ankles from wobbling so you’re strengthening and optimizing range of motion while reinforcing good patterning!🏆

This series focuses on engaging the hamstrings 🌟eccentrically🌟 (keeping the muscle long while it’s working against the resistance of the spring). This helps to build strength AND gain flexibility.

Using a high heavy spring requires strong hamstrings and glutes to control the spring, while the deep core works to maintain a neutral pelvis. Adding internal and external rotation of the hip helps you target all of the muscles at the back of the leg.

🏡Replicate at home with a medium/heavy theraband!

Legs & booty🍑 (but make it full body 😉)

This arabesque sequence may look like it’s all about the moving limbs, but the standing leg and hip are actually the stars.

Staying in a hip hinge challenges the hamstrings and glute of your supporting leg. Moving the arms and free leg adds a bit of pizzaz (shoulder muscles and more hamstring and glute). Your back body will thank you as you find your deep postural muscles…and as I always tell my clients, balance work is core work!

I love working the arms and shoulders while building some serious 🔥 in the legs.

These pliés with the push through bar build extra strength via isometric holds.

With pliés, keep posture more vertical instead of hinging forward from the hip. It won’t take long for you to feel the work in the quads😈

You don’t need the Cadillac to take advantage of this series. See stories + highlights to replicate this at home!

One year of The Pilates Lab! 🥳🎊 Overflowing with gratitude for my incredible clients, my partners at The Collaborative, and for an incredible support system who helped bring my dream studio to life ( and my husband Andy!). Here’s to year 2️⃣!🥂

Pilates is all about movement and breath. You can find the benefits of a moving meditation through any exercise series by coordinating and noticing your breathing patterns 🌬

In this variation of “three part breathing” I’m focused on smooth continuous breathwork throughout. This helps me find integrity at each point of the exercise, efficient movement patterns during transitions, and supple core engagement.

As we slow down and focus on the sensations of movement, we become more in tune with our bodies and with ourselves 🦋