4 Ways to Use a Magic Circle

Hi. This is Elaria from Pilates Anytime, and today, we'll use the magic circle in 4 creative way to stretch strength and anchor our body. Sometimes, all three things in the same exercise. So let's start with a roll down, roll up I want you to sit on the mat, and I want you can keep your legs spent on the first exercise, on the first few repetitions, And I want you to press the magic circle in Peter's thumb and activate your abs and transversal abdominis as you roll down. Then flip the circle you're going to put the hands right on top of the circle, and you're gonna go press 3, press 2, press 1. Now flip the circle back feel free to soften your knees. Press into the circle. Pull that circle in, and then you lengthen the legs.

You hook the magic circle. And you stretch your lumbar spine and then your hamstrings. And let's repeat this 2 more times. You soften the knees pull down control. Control. Control.

Flip the circle back. And you go press arms 1. Arms 2. Arms 3. Flip it back onto the stomach.

Soften the knees coming up. Scoop push. And then you hook your feet, lumbar spine, stretch forward. One more time. If you want, you can keep your legs longer. Pull down. Control. Control.

Control. Flip the circle. And you go press 3. 2, 1, flip it back, pull back into your stomach, scoop, come up, and you go over lumber spine all the way forward and release. Now you see how three different things in one x her size only.

Lags are slightly apart now for neck pull, and I want you to soften the knees on the first few reps, a couple of reps. Place the magic circle behind your neck. And I want you to use the circle to lift and do the neck pull, right, to activate those muscles in the posterior part of the neck. So it's not a huge push is just a little one to stimulate that activation. Now keeping the neck nice and long, you curl at the pelvis.

You roll down control control control, work your neck in this face, press face, press the head down, and you go with the arms. 3, 2, 1. Now soften your knees again. Don't pull your neck too hard. Work your stomach coming up. And you go lift. And, again, roll back down.

Length in the neck as you roll down. Control And now with the r's, 3, 2, 1, exhale come up, reach, and lift. Stretch the legs on the last reps. And you wrap and you go down control control control. And release arms. 3, 2, 1, and gentle, you come up.

And lift. Very good. Now we go to the side kicks. And for the side kicks, we're gonna use the magic circle mostly to anchor that bottom leg down. Then we'll add a few things, but this leg is always here pressing down. So here you go. You lie on the side.

Top leg is on top of the circle, and you go top leg, join with the bottom one. Down with the bottom 1 and release. Top black comes down. The bottom black goes up. Release, release. Again, press down, lift up, release, and release. Now let's bring the top leg in front of the circle We're gonna picture that circle being huge and big, and we need to go over and above.

So you go forward. You go up, you go back as big as you can, and this bottom leg is pressing down the whole time. Otherwise, the circle falls. And then you bicycle your leg forward. Circle big, big, big, roll back, and bicycle forward.

And again, up to the ceiling, reach back, bicycle forward, and now reverse, bicycle back, reach. Lengthen up to the ceiling in front of your nose and bend it back. And one more, you bicycle back, you reach, reach, reach, you lengthen back, you come up, you come to the front, And then we bicycle one more time to grab the foot in the back and give our size a nice stretch. Now let's bring this stop leg on top of the circle again, and we do a side bicycle. So you press it down.

You go lift up to the here, bend, reach down, and try to open that circle. Now down scrape, lift up, and you close that circle. Again, you go up bicycle in, open the circle. Down, bicycle up, and squeeze that circle. Last on up, slide, and open.

Down slide and close. Now let's come up on the forearm. And here, we're gonna press the leg down and release, press it down, and release, press it down and release. Now press down. If you want, you can try to lift the hips up down with the hips and release. Help yourself with the free hand. You go use your bottom elbow to lift hold, hold, hold, and release.

And now here, you press. You lift. And if you want, you can reach out in a nice blank lengthening lengthening lengthening, lengthening down with a hand and release. And now we come up and just go side bending towards the circle to make sure that you re release, all the side of the body and the hard work that you did. Now we go to the other side, and we repeat exactly the same thing. Now the bottom leg is on inside the circle, we go down, top leg on top, and you go engage, bottom leg comes up, down, and release. Press down.

Join the legs down and release. And again, press pull up, down, and release. Now top leg in front of the circle, go big circle back, and bicycle forward. Big circle back. Bicycled forward.

Last one. Big circle back. Bicycle forward reverse, go bicycle back, and circle to the front, bicycle back, lengthen the leg away, reach out of the hip, bring it forward. And, again, back with the bicycle, forward with the circle, And we go one last time back to get into thigh stretch and bring the knee back, the hip forward, the navel back, and release. Now let's get into our side bicycle, engage the circle, lift up to the here, bicycle inside, open the circle. And now down, bicycle up, close the circle 2 more times, up inside and open, down, up, and squeeze. Last one lift. Banned and open and down, lift, and squeeze.

Now for arm, And we go press and lift, press and lift, press and lift. Now press down into the circle, see if you can lift your hips up, test it out, down, and release And, again, press into the circle, lift up, hold, and release. Last one, press down, lift. You reach long, long, long, long, long, long, down with your arm, down with a hip, and we come up and we just side stretch and release Now the last one is one of my favorite exercise with the circle. So we place one of the handles on the sternum, in line with the sternum, and we do the push ups. So in this case, the magic circle is really like our spring and the elpas up.

So from here, you're gonna go down and lift. And you can focus on the body You can focus on your neck on the work of the arms because the circle is helping you one more time. You go down, down, down, and push. And now you can bend the knees and release. Hope you enjoyed this class, but if you want to learn even more ways of using the circle, you should go to CoreWITH Magic Circle 2.0.

On Pilates anytime and follow that class as well.