Double Leg Lower/Lift
As you learn more Mat exercises you will discover the link system that exists among the exercises.
Remember when you first understood the pelvis stability concept while learning Single Leg Circles?
Use it in Double Leg Lower/Lift and you won’t feel lower back pain ever.
Knowing Pilates is knowing Mat as well as other Pilates apparatus. Don't let anyone “sell” you otherwise.
One of the things you quickly discover about Pilates is that what you learn in your first lesson stays with you forever.
Understanding the concept of pelvis stability early on, becomes essential later when exercises like Double Leg Lower/Lift challenge your control even more.
The foundation for healthy movement you build at the beginning continues to pay off, as the exercises become more demanding.
What you learn in your 1st lesson will still help you in your 100th.
In Pilates, the fundamentals never disappear —they actually become more important as the exercises become more challenging.
You must lower your legs without arching your lower back and lift them without tucking your pelvis.
If you want to learn, understand, and practice what this means in YOUR body, I teach that, and other foundational movements, in my course "What Pilates Is: The Essential Skills."
Double Leg Lower/Lift
Requires Pelvis Stability.
Don’t waste your time worrying if your movements are big enough—and definitely do not assume that movements must be big.
Organize your muscles and then move through the choreography of each exercise.
Whether you are moving the legs or arms in a circular pattern, or just away and towards the body, you cannot possibly predict what your range of motion is going to be until you are actually moving.
Adapt this kind of thinking and you will avoid injuries.
The real objective of Double Leg Lower/Lift is to keep the pelvis stable while the legs move away from the center.
If the abdominals organize the pelvis first, the legs can travel lower without the lower back losing its support.
If you understand in your body the concept of pelvis stability, you will never have lower back pain during Double leg Lower/Lift.
Knowing that when you activate your abdominals, you are actually setting up the small of your back to remain stable while you are moving your legs.
Understanding the concept of pelvis stability in your own body is the key. When you learn to use it for all the exercises you are performing when moving your legs is involved, you will be unstoppable.
If you’ve quit practicing this exercise because it causes you lower back pain, I hope this will help get you started again.
Focus on your form, the steps to prepare, and the sequence of movements. The more frequently you practice, the better it will get.
Even though I own a Pilates studio, when I practice Pilates in my free time, it is often at home. I find knowing Mat Pilates in and out is invaluable. I can do it whenever I want and wherever I am.
Over many years of teaching, I have learned that Double Leg Lower/Lift becomes easier to understand when clients first learn how to move their legs without the pelvis and lower back moving with them.
Knowing how to stabilize the pelvis, helps reduce unnecessary gripping in the hip flexors and help clients find their lower abdominals. These are the skills I teach in my signature course, What Pilates Is: The Essential Skills.