You Won't Fall Off

This morning I met Nicole for pilates. Laura did what was probably the smart thing and took the day off from pilates. I'm not going to lie, when my alarm went off before 5:30, all I wanted to do was roll over and keep sleeping, but as usual with most exercising, once I got there, I was glad that I had gotten up and was doing the exercising.

We started out on the reformer and did a lot of the regular exercises. Nicole had me do some arm exercises on the reformer while keeping my legs in tabletop position. By the end of that, my tummy was exhausted. She told me that she has to come up with ways to make the beginner series more challenging. I told her that she had succeeded. It's a weird thing because the arm movements she was having me to aren't that challenging, but keeping my legs up certainly was.

While we were on the reformer, we got to do my favorite pilates exercise: side splits! Seriously, I think they're so much fun. I just really wanted to go down as far as I could, but I didn't think that my abs would be able to pick me back up. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only side exercise that I had to do today. Nicole also had me do side situps. As far as I can tell, the only reason to not complain too much about these situps is the fact you get to do two really good stretches when you're done with them. Although there is generally some grumbling involved no matter what.

Once we were done on the reformer, we moved over to the chair. Nicole had me lie down on the chair on my back. The chair itself is only about 2 feet long, so it's really just my back that was supported. She had me do the ab series on the chair. Normally, on the mat or the reformer, I always dread the words "curl your head, neck, and shoulders up", but on the chair it was even worse somehow. After that, she had me do a bit of a mini roll-up. I balanced on the chair on my tailbone and had to rock back about an inch and then forward to where I started. I was a little unsteady at first, but Nicole said, "Don't worry, you won't fall off." I was sure that was then the time where I actually would fall off, but she was right. She must know a thing or two about this teaching business.

Once we were done with the chair, we finished up on the Cadillac with some leg circles and some breathing exercises. It was quite a lot of things that we did today. I still really like pilates for the fact that even though we still do a lot of the same exercises, it can be switched up, like how it was today doing the ab series on the chair instead of the mat or the reformer. Sometimes, when I'm doing the exercises, I wonder how much I'm working my abs or if I'm cheating by not scooping them as much as I should be, but Drew says he can't believe how strong my abs are now, so I must be doing something right!