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Standing Pilates are one of the most effective, low-impact ways to exercise your body. Some people think it's all about making those crazy reformer moves that make you feel like you're falling off the table, but tons of excellent workouts can be done using only your body weight.
These 7 Pilates exercises help you build stronger legs, hips, and abs without weights or fancy machines.
Many standing Pilate exercises use legwork and footwork to sculpt and tone the legs by engaging the muscles in the feet, calves, inner thighs, hamstrings, and glutes.
7 Standing Pilate Exercises to Improve your Stability and Posture
1) Pilate Stance
When practicing with the magic circle, the Standing Pilates stance might help activate the inner thigh muscles.
To do this exercise:
- Stand up straight, with your shoulders down and your heels touching.
- Align your legs in a V-shape by pointing your toes out slightly at the top of your thighs.
- Tighten your abs by drawing your belly button toward your spine and lowering your tailbone toward the floor.
2) Posture Perfecter
This standing pilate workout is an excellent way to improve your posture and structural alignment. Slouching, hunching over devices, stress, and structural abnormalities like scoliosis contribute to poor posture.
To do this exercise:
- Hold a light weight in each hand as you stand. (If you want to make it easy, skip the weights.)
- With a long, neutral spine, bend your knees to tilt forward at the hips.
- Extend your arms all the way down to the floor, palms facing each other.
- Reach back and up with the weights until your palms meet your hips.
- Draw your shoulder blades down your back and expand your collar bones. Return arms to starting position by lengthening them. Perform 15 repetitions.
3) Sparklers
Sparklers Pilates arm exercise is a great way to quickly get your arms in shape. It's a Pilates technique that's done using light dumbbells.
To do this exercise:
- Stand with your arms at your sides and light weight in each hand. (If you want to make things easy, leave the weights at home.)
- Raise your arms in front of you so that they are in line with your shoulders.
- Reach both arms out to a T in front of you, only wide enough to keep them in your peripheral vision.
- To complete the circle, bring your arms back down to your sides.
- Keep your spine raised, and shoulders draped down your back by engaging your abs. Make eight circles.
4) Rotator Cuff Standing Pilate
The rotator cuff assists you in focusing on scapular stabilizer strengthening and correcting undesirable shoulder movement patterns. It concentrates our entire body, increasing body awareness and reducing the likelihood of damage in the future.
To do this exercise:
- Stand with your palms facing up and a resistance band between your hands.
- Bring your elbows to 90 degrees to your sides.
- As you pull your hands apart, keep your upper arms near your body but let them spiral out — as if they're rotating.
- Only go as wide as you can while maintaining the stability of your shoulder blades.
- Then return to the beginning position by resisting. Perform 12 repetitions.
5) Wall Roll Down
This is a Pilates warm-up classic. It's an excellent way to ease into a Pilates session after a long day. Pilates' signature technique is the rolling and unrolling of the spine.
To do this exercise:
- Stand with your back against a wall.
- Slide your shoulder blades down your back as you lift your arms just inside your peripheral vision.
- Lengthen your spine, lift your abs and curl over.
- Keep your legs straight and knees soft as you curve in a roll down toward the floor, vertebra by vertebra.
- The arms go along with the ears as far as is comfortable.
6) Standing Pilate Lunge
The lunge is a good hip opener and a balance and thigh conditioning exercise.
To do this exercise:
- Place feet parallel and step the left foot straight back.
- Keep your pelvis square to the front.
- Your hands may rest on top of your thigh for support. Make sure you're balanced, and your chest is elevated.
- Straighten your back leg by lifting from under your buttock—not jamming the knee.
- Lift out of your hips as you pull the crest of your hipbone up and back to increase the hip opening stretch.
- This is not the same as simply leaning backward, as many people do. Hold your breath for up to 30 seconds. Repeat on the other side.
7) Standing Pilate Footwork Parallel
This workout should target your calves, quadriceps, inner thighs, hamstrings, and glutes. It's fine to lean against a wall or the back of a chair and balance with your fingertips.
To do this exercise:
- Stand up and spread your feet about shoulder-width apart.
- Tuck in your stomach and lengthen your spine.
- Let the top of your head reach for the sky and sit bones point toward the ground.
- Relax your shoulders and bend your knees as you lower yourself into a squatting position.
- Press into the balls of your feet as you straighten your legs and come to a standing position once again.
Bottom Line
Standing Pilates are so much more than a simple workout. By practicing the exercises regularly, you will discover new strengths and abilities that you never knew existed. No amount of stretching or workout tape can compete with the proven benefits of Pilates!
