Pilates

[Guest guest]

Well, despite my unknowingly doing my own version of some exercises in yesterday's triceps workout, I have very wonderfully sore triceps today so whatever I did worked! :-)

Today I did Liz Gillies' Zone Pilates Mat & Ball Workout: Pilates Mat Workout. There are 2 other workouts on this DVD, both with a stability ball. I went with this one because it is a virgin & a floor workout. Liz explains form well except she doesn't always explain foot position and I thought that was important but am not positive. I tried to imitate her, even if she didn't say how to hold your feet. She is much more engaging than Mari Winsor though. This was a VERY instructional workout. The breakdown of the moves is very slow and great for a beginner. I have some pilates experience so it was too broken down for me and too slow moving to do much for me. She says often "this is another classic pilates exercise" and I kept thinking, isn't that what this is supposed to be? It seemed to be until the very end. For some bizarre reason, you do "swimmer" I think she called it (similar to superman with opposite arm/leg extended then switch to the other two) and then, I think this was the sequence, she has you do plank (with arms extended, even those this is primarily for beginners, no modification discussed or shown) then 5 push-ups on toes! All I could think was, since when are push-ups classic pilates moves (then again, she didn't say they were) and how do they fit in with this very beginner workout? Was she bored too and wanted to throw in something more challenging?! Then move to standing, do a quick standing stretch and you're done. It seemed like a weird way to end.

I did the workout barefoot because I was on the mat the entire time, that was nice not having shoes on for a while. I did the push-ups on my toes and another move or 2 earlier that seemed like they might hurt. The first one did at first but then it stopped and plank was fine. Push-ups were too. I decided to get brave later in the day and tried doing a mountain to downward dog to plank to chatturanga to upward facing dog to down dog sequence on my own just to see how the toes would handle down dog and the transition to up dog especially. I haven't done any yoga in months. It seemed okay but we'll see how I am at 3 or 4 A M which is when pain wakes me up if it is going to. I see the podiatrist tomorrow early morning so will talk with him about how things are going and what to expect. If all is well tonight and he doesn't say anything against it, I think I'm actually going to try and do a yoga practice tomorrow. We'll see.