Pilates on the Mat: The Standing Arms Workout—The Complete Idiot’s Quick Guide

Pilates on the Mat: The Standing Arms Workout

In This Quick Guide:: Form and Alignment; Basic Biceps Curls; Boxing; Develop Your Delts: The Fly; Zip-Ups; Arm Circles; Chest Expansion; Side Stretch

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The Standing Arms Series is great for pilates enthusiasts of any age, especially those who need to strengthen the upper back and pregnant women who need relief from an aching back. This series should be done at the beginning or end of your mat workout. All you will need is a pair of 1- to 3-pound dumbbells.

Form and Alignment

As with every exercise, you’re stabilizing your body against movement. Focus on your shoulder joints—the muscles and your form. Work to tone the muscles around the joint without stressing the joint itself, meaning no momentum. Don’t forget about the principle of self-resistance: add resistance in both directions to get the most out of your workout. As always, review your mental checklists along with these directions:

Pits to your hips; don’t force your shoulders back.
Be sure your shoulders are even; one shoulder shouldn’t be higher than the other.
No tensing anywhere.
Engage in slow and controlled movements instead of big movements driven by momentum.
Don’t hang your head forward.
Keep your wrists straight at all times.
Don’t grip your dumbbells. This causes needless tension.

Even if you’re sculpting your back to show it off in the hottest halter top, know this: by strengthening your upper back, you’ll improve your posture and protect yourself from injury.

Basic Biceps Curls

Think stabilization! Work your biceps without jerking your trunk up and downstay stable. Glue your elbows to your rib cage, press your shoulders to your hips, and slow down to isolate your biceps muscle.

You’ll do one set of Biceps Curls and work your powerhouse. You’ll curl in what’s called the Pilates box, meaning your limbs should not work wider than your shoulders and hips.

Do the basic Biceps Curls in these steps:

In your Pilates V, extend your arms out in front of you, at shoulder height and with your palms up.
Inhale and slowly curl your arms toward your shoulders. Keep your wrists straight, and don’t grip the dumbbells.

Exhale and return your arms to the starting position. Remember, self-resistance! Keep your elbows in place and your shoulders down. You’re going for length, so reach your fingertips as far away from your face as possible, self-resisting in both directions. Do 10 reps.

Boxing

For this exercise, you’re still incorporating a few muscle groups: your triceps, delts, rotators, and biceps. Test your Boxing skills in these steps:

Get in a squat position, with your knees in line with your heels and your knees directly beneath your hips.
Sit on the back of your heels so you feel the muscles in your legs work. No flab should hang over your waistband. Scoop your navel to the spine.
Flatten your back. Look down at the floor so your head is in line with your spine. Dangle your arms in front of you. With your hands palms in, draw your arms to your rib cage, with your elbows glued to your ribs.

Inhale and lift your right arm in front of your body as your left arm extends back. Move within your Pilates box.

Exhale and return to the starting position. Draw your arms to your rib cage, with your elbows shaving your ribs.
Inhale and repeat directions as you extend your left arm out while your right arm lengthens back. Do 10 reps.

Develop Your Delts: The Fly

With this exercise, the tendency is to lift higher than your shoulder height. Watch for shoulder unevenness and belly bulge. As you work with a flat back, your tummy may bulge out. Remember, scoop your navel to your spine the whole time. The focus is your rear delts and rhomboid group.

Do the Fly in these steps:

Get in a squat position, with your knees in line with your heels and directly beneath your hips.
Sit on the back of your heels so you feel the muscles in your legs work. Don’t let your flab hang over your waistband. Scoop your navel to your spine.
Flatten your back. Look down at the floor so your head and neck are in line with your spine. Dangle your hands in front, palms in.

Inhale to lift your arms out to the side; keep them even. Crack an imaginary walnut between your shoulder blades to work your rhomboids. Exhale down. Do 10 reps.

Zip-Ups

This exercise targets your middle deltoid among other muscles such as your rhomboids, your trapezius, and the upper and back area of your arms. What makes this exercise a little more difficult is that your shoulders tend to lift with your arms. Focus on stabilizing your shoulders by pressing your shoulders down before lifting.

Do a Zip-Up in these steps:

In the Pilates V, drop your hands so they rest in front of your thighs, with your palms down in a narrow grip.
Inhale, and bend your elbows to lift the dumbbells following your center line. Imagine zipping up your jeans, and just keep going.

Exhale and lower the hands to your pubic bone, resisting gravity on the way down. Do 10 reps.

Arm Circles

Arm Circles strengthen the smaller muscle groups and arm joints that support the larger shoulder muscles, the rotator group. These circles are a wonderful way to release tension and open your back while toning your chest and shoulders and adding a little definition to your arms.

Make your circles small from your shoulder joints. The sequence is to lift your arms from your thighs to the top of your head following your center line, circling 10 times and inhaling every 3 to 5 counts. Then reverse the circles and exhale on the way down.

Circle your arms in these steps:

In the Pilates V, lengthen your arms out to the side.

Open and widen your upper back to feel the stretch. Relax your neck muscles by maintaining distance between your ears and your shoulders.
Keep lengthening your arms away, reaching out to the sides of the room as you circle your arms up over your head and down to your thigh.
Inhale, circling up to your head for 10.

Exhale and circle down to your thigh.

Chest Expansion

In Chest Expansion, the focus stretch is your neck and chest muscle groups. Stretch with Chest Expansion in these steps:

In your Pilates V, extend your arms in front. Slowly inhale and press your arms back, with your palms back, lifting your chest to open it.

Still inhale as you turn your head to the right, to the center, and to the left to stretch your neck and shoulder muscles. Imagine holding on to a set of heavy springs as you press your arms back.

Exhale and return your arms to the starting position.
Repeat the same directions, but start the neck stretch in the opposite direction: left, center, and right. Do three to five reps.

Side Stretch

Of course, the Side Stretch stretches just that: muscles in your side. Unbend with Side Stretch in these steps:

Inhale your arm up.
Exhale over to the side while your right hand reaches down your side.

Use your powerhouse to control all the movements. Then reverse the directions—inhale to come up, and exhale to stretch over the other side. Do three to five reps.