Just in time for the new year, Amy Jordan, ACE Certified Pilates Instructor and founder of WundaBar, told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY, the three easy moves you can do at home without any equipment. Amy revealed that pilates is a great choice of workout for people to do at home in a small space. “All you need is your body and not a very big space. The live workouts that I’m leading online or the ones on our On-Demand platform which are prerecorded workouts, the whole time I’m talking people through how to do it with zero props, with zero equipment, all on the floor and with their body. And, you know, sometimes you just have to use things around your house like a chair, a water bottle, a scarf, or a paper plate. Things like that which everyone has access to them. Right now I’m not using fancy props like a Pilates circle or something that people don’t have access to right now.”
“So for a lot of people that have a small space, you don’t need to take up a lot of space,” Amy continued. “What I find is so important for Pilates is that it really elongates and opens up your body. We’re all stuck inside. We’re sitting at a computer on Zoom calls, we’re sitting on our phones, we’re watching Netflix, and we’re kind of like shrinking into ourselves in every breath in every movement. So you’re really having to reconnect to yourself inside every single move.”
The three moves you can do at home are:
1. Planks:
“I think planks are the most effective way to sculpt your arms and shoulders, flatten your abs, and tone your legs. You can start with a 30-second hold and then add 15 seconds a day. I would suggest doing this every day. And then you can add variations by bringing one foot to the left and bring it back to the middle. Then bring the other foot stepping to the right, bring it back to the middle, and that’s going to work your waistline. That’s going to get into waistline narrowing if you step one foot out to the side at a time and then step back to the middle.”
2. Roll Down/L-sit:
“Another move I would recommend is a roll down and that’s really going to help with opening your spine in your back. So step one: you can call it an L-sit, with your legs in front of you sitting up tall. Then you want to think about rolling your spine down one vertebra at a time. So you don’t want to collapse down and flop on the floor, right? You want to control that movement all the way down one bone at a time, all the way until your head touches.
Then you want to pick it back up, ideally at the same speed picking up one bone at a time until you’re back in that L-shape. So that’s going to really help you open up your spine and support your spine by engaging your core. It’s going to stretch the back of your legs because it’s not easy to sit like an L.”
3. Extra Deep Squat:
“Another move I would recommend that’s really great to build strength in the glutes and the legs, and that’s going to relieve tension in the hips is what I call an extra deep squat. You basically take your feet wider than your shoulders and they’re turned out, and then you lower down as far as you can into a squat.
“Ideally, you’re going to have your hands in prayer and your elbows are in the insides of your knees. So you’re going to be way down in that squat. That really helps to build stamina, it helps to build flexibility through your ankles, knees, and hips. That’s going to relieve some tension that you have from sitting around. So I would suggest trying to start holding that squat for 30 seconds at a time.
“Try to do this squat in the morning and again at night. Try to keep your feet flat, and try to stay upright rather than slouching forward, so keep your back straight. Start with 30 seconds and then again, add those 15-second increments as your stamina and flexibility strengthen.”
The best thing about pilates is that you can use things around the house to enhance your workout, or you don’t need to use anything at all. “You definitely don’t need equipment to get a really killer workout in. There are things around the house like a chair, paper plates or a washcloth instead of furniture sliders. It moves your foot across the floor, that’s all you need, right? You can use a scarf instead of a resistance band or a yoga strap. For arm extensions and things, we’re using a scarf. We’re using wine bottles, or in my own house, all I had was champagne, so very much champagne bottles for weights. People are using cans of soup or coconut milk instead of dumbbells. So people are getting really creative.”