Abby Suskin • Pilates With Abs

🙌There is one thing you can do to up your Pilates game and that is….start adding weights!

Real weights! Not just one pound ankle weights, although that’s a good place to start… but like 10 lb, 20 lb, I’m even pulling some 40 lb weights no, for example!

🤝 Pilates gave me the foundation to learn healthy movement mechanics and core stability. Strength training gave me more muscle, increasing my strength and overall body composition. I love both practices and they are more alike than they are different - they just build on each other.

💪Strength Training -> Pilates: This progression is a great way to work on deep core strength and stability, especially when your training volume or intensity increases.

💪Pilates -> Strength Training : This progression is great when you’ve reached a plateau with bodyweight strength and your goals are to increase muscle mass (ICYMI: you want to do this!) Adding weights to Pilates movements is a perfect introduction to strength training.

Here are my favorite Pilates -> Strength progressions adding first light, then heavy weights:

* Kneeling Squats: Bodyweight, + light hand weights + 10 lb KB
* Hip Extension: Bodyweight, + ankle weight + 10 lb KB in hip thrust (same muscle focus, different orientation to gravity)
* Clam Shell: Bodyweight, + light hand weights and bilateral hip abduction + 10 lb KB
* Roll Downs: Bodyweight, + light hand weights + 10 lb KB

Start incorporating light and then heavy weights into your practice, and once the 10 lbs feel light, add more! Try these when you’re craving more challenge and lmk what you think!

🔗Download the Pilates with Abs app or head to my bio for more.

             

Time for the next installment of easy, healthy meals that keep me and even my hubs happy for the week! 🤗

I made this super yummy quinoa salad as a staple for my Hamptons retreat back in Sept, and it’s been on repeat in my house ever since.

The majority of the time/work happens is in the prep, but once assembled, you can leave it in the fridge and it just keeps tasting better as the days go on. On it’s own this meal packs 8g of fiber and 20g of protein so it slaps as a vegetarian meal or add chicken to pack even more protein punch!

Just chop, dress, and mix and you’re good to go! LMK what you think!

🥬Ingredients:

* Salad
* 4 cups cooked quinoa
* 1 pint cherry tomatoes
* 2 large cucumbers
* 1 small red onion
* 1 cup Kalamata olives
* 1 ½ cups feta cheese
* 1 cup fresh parsley
* ½ cup fresh mint

* Dressing
* ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
* ⅓ cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
* 2 cloves garlic (minced)
* 2 tsp dried oregano
* Salt + pepper to taste

👉 Save this recipe and make as part of your next weekly meal prep!



3 Posture Cues To Better Align You in Any Position (last one is my fave TBH 🔦🍑)

🪽Think About Your Arms Like They Are Wings Connected to Your Back
▪️Your arms are connected to your body by your shoulder joint, a ball-in-socket joint that allows for TONS of mobility. Your primary shoulder stabilizers originate in your back and connect your arms to your body via your scapula, which literally move like wings on your ribcage 👀 When you lift your arms overhead, imagine moving your arms like wings from your back versus from the tops of your shoulder by your neck and your neck will be soooooooo happy with you.

🍎 Pull Your Chin Backwards Like You are Bobbing For Apples
▪️Your head weighs an average of 8 lbs and most of us sit with our head forward of our spine due to the amount of technology we engage with daily. That’s a lot of load for your neck muscles to support! If you pull your chin backward (not up, not down) you lengthen and stretch tight neck extensors, and the rest of your postural muscles stretch right into place making you instantly longer and taller.

🔦🍑 Relax Your Butt H*le Like You’re Shining A Flash Light From Your Tailbone To the Floor Behind You :)
▪️My favorite one TBH…Gripping is as bad for you as being overly relaxed and when it comes to your core and pelvic floor engagement, most of us tend to over-do stability in the glutes surrounding the tailbone, putting extra strain on the lower back. Instead of gripping your tailbone in order to stabilize pelvis, try relaxing your glutes around your tailbone and draw your navel inward and upward to find stability.

Put all three of these cues together and you’ll feel instantly longer and taller in any position: whether standing, sitting, kneeling, or doing a plank.

I know you know I’m full of these images, haha, which ones did I forget?

🔗Download the Pilates with Abs app or head to my bio for posture-focused workouts. Let’s keep you feeling good!