July 3, 2025 • 17 mins
We saved the best for last! Today's episode looks at the instances of rotation in the Pilates repertoire! We explore the muscles involved in rotating the trunk, the plane of movement we rotate in, and how the shape of our vertebrae impact how we can move our our spine. Tune in!
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Show Notes:
Check out these related episodes to learn more about shapes of the spine!
The Shapes Your Spine Makes In Pilates
Shapes Of The Spine - Lateral Flexion
Shapes Of The Spine - Extension
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Hello.
Hello everybody.
Welcome and welcome back toPilates Students Manual, helping
you get the most out of yourPilates classes.
I'm Olivia.
Remember you get the latestupdates about everything I'm
working on by joining thecommunity at
buymeacoffee.com/OliviaPodcasts.
And you can follow along onInstagram at
(00:29):
@PilatesStudentsManual.
Pilates Teachers' Manual (00:32):
The Book is now available for
purchase as both an EPUB and PDFand on Kindle, available on
Amazon.
But if you purchase it and otherpodcast merch from me, that's at
shop.OliviaBioni.com.
As I shared in the last fewepisodes, we've been exploring
all the shapes the spine makesin this little mini series on
(00:54):
the show.
One of the most unique thingsabout Pilates is that you get to
move your spine in alldirections when you do Pilates
versus more repetitive forms ofexercise like golf or running or
cycling when you use yourmuscles in the same way to
perform the same general actionover and over again.
For example, you would neverswitch which way you're holding
(01:16):
your golf club, and you wouldnever do a back bend when you're
riding your bike.
Today's episode is all aboutspinal rotation, which is
sometimes called twisting, or inmy classes, twisty business.
We can twist more or less atdifferent points of our spine
(01:37):
because, as I've shared inprevious episodes, our spine
bones don't actually all lookthe same, which means that they
don't all move the same.
Our cervical spine, for example,AKA, the bones in our neck, have
a really great capacity forrotation because evolutionarily,
we had to be able to look aroundto see what's going on, right?
(01:59):
Our top most vertebra C1 is alsocalled Atlas, which is a cute
little play on Greek mythologybecause it supports our head and
our brain, just like thecharacter Atlas carried the
weight of the world.
Our C2 vertebra, and they'rejust numbered by letters and
numbers, so C1 is the top mostvertebra in the spine, and C2 is
(02:21):
the second one.
So that second one is alsocalled axis, and that's where we
can really articulate our head.
Like we can look in alldirections.
We can not only rotate, but wecan also drop our chin to our
chest.
We can look up at the ceiling,like we have a lot of movement
there because that spine bone isdifferent.
It looks different, it movesdifferently.
(02:42):
It allows us to movedifferently.
In our trunk, we're able torotate a lot more in our upper
back, or our thoracic spine,versus our lower back, or our
lumbar spine.
And this is because our spinebones have what's called
processes, which are bumps onour bones.
Our vertebrae have spinousprocesses on the posterior edge,
(03:06):
and they kind of stick out ofour back a little bit.
Like if you do a forward foldand you see those bumps from the
bones of your spine, those arethe spinous processes that
you're seeing under your skin.
I always think about thedinosaur stegosaurus when I
think about spinous processes,because those big bone plates on
the back of a stegosaurus areoversized spinous processes.
(03:31):
Vertebrae also have transverseprocesses, which are bony bumps
that stick out on the sides ofthe bones.
The way the spinous andtransverse processes of one
vertebrae are angled determineshow they'll move with the other
bones around them.
Okay, so in rotation, thetransverse processes of our
(03:53):
lumbar spine, right, the bonesin our low back, they bump
against each other, so ourrotation in that part of our
spine is limited.
However, in our thoracic spine,the transverse processes are
angled in a way that they kindof slide against each other,
which allows us to rotate therewith greater ease.
(04:16):
The plane of movement that we'reworking in when we are rotating
our spine is what's called thetransverse plane.
A plane of movement is like ifyou were cut in two by a pane of
glass and the way that you canmove without bumping into that
pane of glass is is gonna tellyou what plane that you're in.
(04:38):
So for rotation, we're cut in aplane that's perpendicular to
our spine, like separating ourtop half and our bottom halves,
like that magic trick that cutsa woman in half, that's the way
the transverse plane goes.
We can only rotate in thetransverse plane.
We can't bend forward orbackwards or sideways without
(04:58):
bumping into that pane of glass,but we can rotate in alignment
with it.
Spinal rotation shows up in ourPilates repertoire in one leg
circle, depending on how you doit, criss cross, corkscrew, saw,
spine twist, and hip twist.
The reason I included one legcircle is because there are a
(05:20):
few different interpretations ofit.
If you draw a tiny circle withyour leg in one leg circle your
trunk and shoulders stay stillon the mat and your hips don't
move so your spine isn'ttwisting.
But if you draw a really big oneleg circle, where your hips move
as you draw the circle, likewhen your leg comes across, the
(05:40):
hip lifts, when you come downand over to the other side, the
opposite hip lifts, right?
There's a little swivelingaction.
Your shoulders are still, butyour spine rotates.
So if you're drawing a bigcircle where your hips move,
then you are in fact rotatingthe spine.
On the reformer, we also seespinal rotation in stomach
(06:00):
massage in that twist variation,in snake and twist, in
corkscrew, and in the short boxseries in the exercise twist.
The muscles that are primarilyresponsible for rotating the
trunk are muscles that are inthe front, back and sides of our
body, and that makes sensebecause rotation is happening
(06:23):
involving our front, back andsides of our body.
The muscles are primarily ourinternal and external obliques,
but secondarily, our rectusabdominis, our transversus
abdominis, latissimus dorsi,multifidus, and our deep spinal
muscles called the rotatores.
(06:46):
I am gonna go ahead andapologize right now for my
pronunciation of muscles becausethese are all words that I've
read in books, but I don'talways hear people talking
about.
I'm hoping they're called therotatores, but they're these
cute little spine muscles thatrun up the length of our spine.
They only cross like onevertebrae at a time, so they
have a very limited ability tolike affect change because
(07:08):
they're so small.
But they were like primarilyspinal stabilizers because
they're so small they can't likedo really big movements, but
because we're moving the spineand they're attached to our
spine, they're also gonna move alittle bit too.
So that's a lot of musclesinvolved in doing an action.
And thank goodness we don't haveto know the names of the muscles
performing an action to do theaction, or we would all really
(07:31):
all be outta luck.
But let's look at where each ofthese muscles kind of exist in
our body, and then we can seehow they're involved in
rotation.
So the external obliques arelarge muscles on the sides of
our body that run from our ribs,like number five through 12, and
(07:52):
then kind of on the side, andthen they insert or connect into
like our pelvic crest.
So that hip bone that kind ofcomes up on the side of the
pelvis, they attach there sohigh on our side, ribs to low on
our side pelvis.
They are superficial, so theyare closer to our skin.
(08:13):
A little bit deeper than ourexternal obliques are our
internal obliques and they runfrom our lumbar fascia, which is
at our low back, right?
Same as lumbar spine.
So from our low back, which hasthis huge mass of connective
tissue where lots of musclesinsert into that low back space.
It's called an aponeurosis.
(08:33):
It's actually really cool if youwanna Google it.
Um, but they go from there tothe front of our hip bone crest.
So they're going from our lowback, kind of higher on the low
back, and then inserting alittle bit lower on the crest of
the pelvis.
Our rectus abdominis is our sixpack muscle, and remember, it
(08:55):
attaches higher up in like themiddle of our ribs in our front
body, and goes all the way downto the front of our pelvis.
So again, it's a bigger muscle.
It has more leverage.
Our external obliques are alsopretty big, and honestly, our
internal obliques are pretty bigtoo.
Then we've got our transversusabdominis, which is kind of like
(09:16):
a weight belt.
If you've seen, uh, people weara weight belt to lift heavy
weights.
I mean, it's a little bit lowerthan that.
It's below our belly button andit wraps around the lowest part
of our body.
Those muscle fibers gohorizontally.
When we're vertical, they'reparallel to the ground, kind of
like a belt.
(09:37):
And so you can see, okay, I cansee how that could also be
involved in rotation.
Our latisimus muscle is ourlats, often called colloquially
our lats or your lats, and theylook like a big diamond on your
upper back.
They kind of attach on one side,like from the side of your neck.
They come out to your shoulderat a diagonal, and then they
(09:58):
also attach along the spine andthen mirrored on the other side.
So it's this big musculardiamond on our back.
When you see someone who lifts,and you see them doing their
poses, like a lot of times it'sshowing off that muscle because
it's another really bigsuperficial muscle.
And then we've got ourmultifidus, which is a spinal
(10:19):
extensor.
It runs along our spine.
It is bigger than our rotatoresand it runs along the length of
our spine.
So again, it's our spine.
We're rotating our spine.
We see how something'scontracting somewhere.
And then I talked about therotatores, which they do stuff,
but they don't do a lot of stuffbecause they're small.
(10:40):
They are less powerful in that.
As I was researching andgathering my thoughts about
rotation of our trunk, a quicksearch said this, and I have to
share it with you because thisis why rotation is so hard
conceptually, very important anda good movement to do, but
conceptually quite difficult.
This is what the internet said: "During trunk rotation, the (11:00):
undefined
external obliques, rectusabdominis and multifidus muscles
act contralaterally.
Whereas the Latissimus dorsi,internal obliques and transverse
abdominis muscles actipsilaterally." And honestly, in
a nutshell, this is why peopledislike anatomy.
(11:22):
What was the internet saying inthe least helpful, but accurate,
but not helpful way?
So let's translate (11:27):
the external oblique, the rectus abdominis
and multifidus on the oppositeside get shorter to rotate the
spine and the latissimus dorsi,internal oblique and transverse
abdominis on the same side getshorter to rotate the spine.
(11:49):
I know, rotation kind of makesmy brain explode too, and that's
why I saved it for last.
But let's keep thinking aboutit.
The way we use our muscles tomove ourselves is all about
drawing the two ends of a musclecloser together.
So if we visualize spine twiston the mat.
(12:11):
You're sitting on the mat withyour legs long outstretched in
front of you.
You have your arms out in a T.
That's cute, but we're reallyjust talking about the spine,
but that's how we set up forspine twist.
We imagine that we're turning tothe right, and even when you're
listening to this podcast, canyou turn your trunk to the
right?
What happened to make thathappen?
(12:33):
Well, our left external obliqueshortened.
So even though we're turning tothe right, our left external
oblique, when the two ends getcloser together, they shorten
that turns our ribcage to theright.
Our right internal oblique alsoshortens.
(12:53):
So it's the external oblique onthe left, turning you to the
right, the internal oblique onthe right, turning to the right.
And no matter how many times Isay that, I will still confuse
myself.
But it's the opposite sideexternal oblique, same side
internal oblique.
And remember, your obliques arelike the primary movers, but we
can talk about what othermuscles are doing.
(13:16):
So at the same time, we'returning to the right.
Left external oblique gotshorter, right internal oblique
got shorter.
What else gets shorter?
Our opposite side multifidus.
Our multifidus that's on ourleft side of the spine gets
shorter and that also turns usto the right.
(13:38):
The opposite side, rectusabdominis.
So we're turning to the right,the left side.
Rectus abdominis also getsshorter to turn us to the right.
Our latissimus, that diamondshaped muscle, the right side,
the same side of our latisimusgets shorter and that's gonna
(14:01):
pull our shoulder back, right?
Because our latissimus attachesat kind of that shoulder cap, if
you think of your deltoid, whichis that I don't, I always think
of it like your little shouldercap muscle.
Um, our, our latisimus isattaching, like right in that
area on our back.
So it's pulling our shoulderback, the right side latisimus
(14:21):
is also pulling our shoulderback, turning us to the right.
And the right side of ourtransversus abdominis, so that
low belly weight belt that wrapsaround that flattens our belly
when we are doing abdominalexercises, that really deep
abdominal muscle, the same sideone is also gonna pull us to the
(14:43):
right.
Even a simplified explanation ofrotation is still pretty
complicated, and that's just forlike a pure twisting movement,
like spine twist.
That is the only plane ofmovement that our spine is
moving in and spine twist.
But some exercises in Pilatesare compound exercises where
we're moving in multiple planesof movement and we are moving
(15:06):
our spine in more than onedirection at the same time.
Think of snake and twist on thereformer, there's extension and
rotation.
Or corkscrew, we're flexing androtating.
Or saw, we're flexing androtating and side bending all at
the same time.
(15:29):
If your goal is to buildstrength in rotation, you have
to strengthen the muscles thatperform spinal rotation, that's
gonna be our obliques, bothinternal and external.
Our rectus and transverseabdominis muscles, our latisimus
and our spinal extensors willall be assisting in those
movements.
(15:49):
I would recommend starting withexercises where more of you is
on the ground.
Things like spine twist or oneleg circle or crisscross where
your body is mostly supported bythe mat or the movement is a
little bit simpler in terms oflike spine twist is just a
twist.
Because even though corkscrew isa rotation exercise, in
(16:12):
corkscrew, you're doing therollover.
Your legs are over your head andyou're twisting in midair and
you're rolling around, like it'scomplicated.
So start with things that are alittle bit more grounded to
build up to things likecorkscrew.
The beauty of the Pilates methodis that the exercises build on
(16:33):
each other, and that's why youdo crisscross and one leg circle
before you get to corkscrew.
Although corkscrew is stillreally early in the order, which
is a little too early for mesometimes, and as with
everything, we get better atwhat we practice.
So practicing exercises thathave rotation in them will help
(16:53):
you to improve your rotation.
Thank you so much for tuning inand learning more about the
shapes that the spine makes withme.
I hope you've enjoyed thisseries because I certainly have.
I also wanna say a huge thankyou to everyone who has
purchased my book.
We just crossed the threshold ofa hundred copies sold, and that
is so exciting.
(17:15):
Extra special thank you asalways to my supporters on Buy
Me A Coffee.
Thank you for your continuedsupport.
I am really looking forward toour coffee chats this month.
I hope you have a great coupleweeks and we'll talk again soon.
Hello.
Hello everybody.
Welcome and welcome back toPilates Students Manual, helping
you get the most out of yourPilates classes.
I'm Olivia.
Remember you get the latestupdates about everything I'm
working on by joining thecommunity at
buymeacoffee.com/OliviaPodcasts.
And you can follow along onInstagram at
(00:29):
@PilatesStudentsManual.
Pilates Teachers' Manual (00:32):
The Book is now available for
purchase as both an EPUB and PDFand on Kindle, available on
Amazon.
But if you purchase it and otherpodcast merch from me, that's at
shop.OliviaBioni.com.
As I shared in the last fewepisodes, we've been exploring
all the shapes the spine makesin this little mini series on
(00:54):
the show.
One of the most unique thingsabout Pilates is that you get to
move your spine in alldirections when you do Pilates
versus more repetitive forms ofexercise like golf or running or
cycling when you use yourmuscles in the same way to
perform the same general actionover and over again.
For example, you would neverswitch which way you're holding
(01:16):
your golf club, and you wouldnever do a back bend when you're
riding your bike.
Today's episode is all aboutspinal rotation, which is
sometimes called twisting, or inmy classes, twisty business.
We can twist more or less atdifferent points of our spine
(01:37):
because, as I've shared inprevious episodes, our spine
bones don't actually all lookthe same, which means that they
don't all move the same.
Our cervical spine, for example,AKA, the bones in our neck, have
a really great capacity forrotation because evolutionarily,
we had to be able to look aroundto see what's going on, right?
(01:59):
Our top most vertebra C1 is alsocalled Atlas, which is a cute
little play on Greek mythologybecause it supports our head and
our brain, just like thecharacter Atlas carried the
weight of the world.
Our C2 vertebra, and they'rejust numbered by letters and
numbers, so C1 is the top mostvertebra in the spine, and C2 is
(02:21):
the second one.
So that second one is alsocalled axis, and that's where we
can really articulate our head.
Like we can look in alldirections.
We can not only rotate, but wecan also drop our chin to our
chest.
We can look up at the ceiling,like we have a lot of movement
there because that spine bone isdifferent.
It looks different, it movesdifferently.
(02:42):
It allows us to movedifferently.
In our trunk, we're able torotate a lot more in our upper
back, or our thoracic spine,versus our lower back, or our
lumbar spine.
And this is because our spinebones have what's called
processes, which are bumps onour bones.
Our vertebrae have spinousprocesses on the posterior edge,
(03:06):
and they kind of stick out ofour back a little bit.
Like if you do a forward foldand you see those bumps from the
bones of your spine, those arethe spinous processes that
you're seeing under your skin.
I always think about thedinosaur stegosaurus when I
think about spinous processes,because those big bone plates on
the back of a stegosaurus areoversized spinous processes.
(03:31):
Vertebrae also have transverseprocesses, which are bony bumps
that stick out on the sides ofthe bones.
The way the spinous andtransverse processes of one
vertebrae are angled determineshow they'll move with the other
bones around them.
Okay, so in rotation, thetransverse processes of our
(03:53):
lumbar spine, right, the bonesin our low back, they bump
against each other, so ourrotation in that part of our
spine is limited.
However, in our thoracic spine,the transverse processes are
angled in a way that they kindof slide against each other,
which allows us to rotate therewith greater ease.
(04:16):
The plane of movement that we'reworking in when we are rotating
our spine is what's called thetransverse plane.
A plane of movement is like ifyou were cut in two by a pane of
glass and the way that you canmove without bumping into that
pane of glass is is gonna tellyou what plane that you're in.
(04:38):
So for rotation, we're cut in aplane that's perpendicular to
our spine, like separating ourtop half and our bottom halves,
like that magic trick that cutsa woman in half, that's the way
the transverse plane goes.
We can only rotate in thetransverse plane.
We can't bend forward orbackwards or sideways without
(04:58):
bumping into that pane of glass,but we can rotate in alignment
with it.
Spinal rotation shows up in ourPilates repertoire in one leg
circle, depending on how you doit, criss cross, corkscrew, saw,
spine twist, and hip twist.
The reason I included one legcircle is because there are a
(05:20):
few different interpretations ofit.
If you draw a tiny circle withyour leg in one leg circle your
trunk and shoulders stay stillon the mat and your hips don't
move so your spine isn'ttwisting.
But if you draw a really big oneleg circle, where your hips move
as you draw the circle, likewhen your leg comes across, the
(05:40):
hip lifts, when you come downand over to the other side, the
opposite hip lifts, right?
There's a little swivelingaction.
Your shoulders are still, butyour spine rotates.
So if you're drawing a bigcircle where your hips move,
then you are in fact rotatingthe spine.
On the reformer, we also seespinal rotation in stomach
(06:00):
massage in that twist variation,in snake and twist, in
corkscrew, and in the short boxseries in the exercise twist.
The muscles that are primarilyresponsible for rotating the
trunk are muscles that are inthe front, back and sides of our
body, and that makes sensebecause rotation is happening
(06:23):
involving our front, back andsides of our body.
The muscles are primarily ourinternal and external obliques,
but secondarily, our rectusabdominis, our transversus
abdominis, latissimus dorsi,multifidus, and our deep spinal
muscles called the rotatores.
(06:46):
I am gonna go ahead andapologize right now for my
pronunciation of muscles becausethese are all words that I've
read in books, but I don'talways hear people talking
about.
I'm hoping they're called therotatores, but they're these
cute little spine muscles thatrun up the length of our spine.
They only cross like onevertebrae at a time, so they
have a very limited ability tolike affect change because
(07:08):
they're so small.
But they were like primarilyspinal stabilizers because
they're so small they can't likedo really big movements, but
because we're moving the spineand they're attached to our
spine, they're also gonna move alittle bit too.
So that's a lot of musclesinvolved in doing an action.
And thank goodness we don't haveto know the names of the muscles
performing an action to do theaction, or we would all really
(07:31):
all be outta luck.
But let's look at where each ofthese muscles kind of exist in
our body, and then we can seehow they're involved in
rotation.
So the external obliques arelarge muscles on the sides of
our body that run from our ribs,like number five through 12, and
(07:52):
then kind of on the side, andthen they insert or connect into
like our pelvic crest.
So that hip bone that kind ofcomes up on the side of the
pelvis, they attach there sohigh on our side, ribs to low on
our side pelvis.
They are superficial, so theyare closer to our skin.
(08:13):
A little bit deeper than ourexternal obliques are our
internal obliques and they runfrom our lumbar fascia, which is
at our low back, right?
Same as lumbar spine.
So from our low back, which hasthis huge mass of connective
tissue where lots of musclesinsert into that low back space.
It's called an aponeurosis.
(08:33):
It's actually really cool if youwanna Google it.
Um, but they go from there tothe front of our hip bone crest.
So they're going from our lowback, kind of higher on the low
back, and then inserting alittle bit lower on the crest of
the pelvis.
Our rectus abdominis is our sixpack muscle, and remember, it
(08:55):
attaches higher up in like themiddle of our ribs in our front
body, and goes all the way downto the front of our pelvis.
So again, it's a bigger muscle.
It has more leverage.
Our external obliques are alsopretty big, and honestly, our
internal obliques are pretty bigtoo.
Then we've got our transversusabdominis, which is kind of like
(09:16):
a weight belt.
If you've seen, uh, people weara weight belt to lift heavy
weights.
I mean, it's a little bit lowerthan that.
It's below our belly button andit wraps around the lowest part
of our body.
Those muscle fibers gohorizontally.
When we're vertical, they'reparallel to the ground, kind of
like a belt.
(09:37):
And so you can see, okay, I cansee how that could also be
involved in rotation.
Our latisimus muscle is ourlats, often called colloquially
our lats or your lats, and theylook like a big diamond on your
upper back.
They kind of attach on one side,like from the side of your neck.
They come out to your shoulderat a diagonal, and then they
(09:58):
also attach along the spine andthen mirrored on the other side.
So it's this big musculardiamond on our back.
When you see someone who lifts,and you see them doing their
poses, like a lot of times it'sshowing off that muscle because
it's another really bigsuperficial muscle.
And then we've got ourmultifidus, which is a spinal
(10:19):
extensor.
It runs along our spine.
It is bigger than our rotatoresand it runs along the length of
our spine.
So again, it's our spine.
We're rotating our spine.
We see how something'scontracting somewhere.
And then I talked about therotatores, which they do stuff,
but they don't do a lot of stuffbecause they're small.
(10:40):
They are less powerful in that.
As I was researching andgathering my thoughts about
rotation of our trunk, a quicksearch said this, and I have to
share it with you because thisis why rotation is so hard
conceptually, very important anda good movement to do, but
conceptually quite difficult.
This is what the internet said: "During trunk rotation, the (11:00):
undefined
external obliques, rectusabdominis and multifidus muscles
act contralaterally.
Whereas the Latissimus dorsi,internal obliques and transverse
abdominis muscles actipsilaterally." And honestly, in
a nutshell, this is why peopledislike anatomy.
(11:22):
What was the internet saying inthe least helpful, but accurate,
but not helpful way?
So let's translate (11:27):
the external oblique, the rectus abdominis
and multifidus on the oppositeside get shorter to rotate the
spine and the latissimus dorsi,internal oblique and transverse
abdominis on the same side getshorter to rotate the spine.
(11:49):
I know, rotation kind of makesmy brain explode too, and that's
why I saved it for last.
But let's keep thinking aboutit.
The way we use our muscles tomove ourselves is all about
drawing the two ends of a musclecloser together.
So if we visualize spine twiston the mat.
(12:11):
You're sitting on the mat withyour legs long outstretched in
front of you.
You have your arms out in a T.
That's cute, but we're reallyjust talking about the spine,
but that's how we set up forspine twist.
We imagine that we're turning tothe right, and even when you're
listening to this podcast, canyou turn your trunk to the
right?
What happened to make thathappen?
(12:33):
Well, our left external obliqueshortened.
So even though we're turning tothe right, our left external
oblique, when the two ends getcloser together, they shorten
that turns our ribcage to theright.
Our right internal oblique alsoshortens.
(12:53):
So it's the external oblique onthe left, turning you to the
right, the internal oblique onthe right, turning to the right.
And no matter how many times Isay that, I will still confuse
myself.
But it's the opposite sideexternal oblique, same side
internal oblique.
And remember, your obliques arelike the primary movers, but we
can talk about what othermuscles are doing.
(13:16):
So at the same time, we'returning to the right.
Left external oblique gotshorter, right internal oblique
got shorter.
What else gets shorter?
Our opposite side multifidus.
Our multifidus that's on ourleft side of the spine gets
shorter and that also turns usto the right.
(13:38):
The opposite side, rectusabdominis.
So we're turning to the right,the left side.
Rectus abdominis also getsshorter to turn us to the right.
Our latissimus, that diamondshaped muscle, the right side,
the same side of our latisimusgets shorter and that's gonna
(14:01):
pull our shoulder back, right?
Because our latissimus attachesat kind of that shoulder cap, if
you think of your deltoid, whichis that I don't, I always think
of it like your little shouldercap muscle.
Um, our, our latisimus isattaching, like right in that
area on our back.
So it's pulling our shoulderback, the right side latisimus
(14:21):
is also pulling our shoulderback, turning us to the right.
And the right side of ourtransversus abdominis, so that
low belly weight belt that wrapsaround that flattens our belly
when we are doing abdominalexercises, that really deep
abdominal muscle, the same sideone is also gonna pull us to the
(14:43):
right.
Even a simplified explanation ofrotation is still pretty
complicated, and that's just forlike a pure twisting movement,
like spine twist.
That is the only plane ofmovement that our spine is
moving in and spine twist.
But some exercises in Pilatesare compound exercises where
we're moving in multiple planesof movement and we are moving
(15:06):
our spine in more than onedirection at the same time.
Think of snake and twist on thereformer, there's extension and
rotation.
Or corkscrew, we're flexing androtating.
Or saw, we're flexing androtating and side bending all at
the same time.
(15:29):
If your goal is to buildstrength in rotation, you have
to strengthen the muscles thatperform spinal rotation, that's
gonna be our obliques, bothinternal and external.
Our rectus and transverseabdominis muscles, our latisimus
and our spinal extensors willall be assisting in those
movements.
(15:49):
I would recommend starting withexercises where more of you is
on the ground.
Things like spine twist or oneleg circle or crisscross where
your body is mostly supported bythe mat or the movement is a
little bit simpler in terms oflike spine twist is just a
twist.
Because even though corkscrew isa rotation exercise, in
(16:12):
corkscrew, you're doing therollover.
Your legs are over your head andyou're twisting in midair and
you're rolling around, like it'scomplicated.
So start with things that are alittle bit more grounded to
build up to things likecorkscrew.
The beauty of the Pilates methodis that the exercises build on
(16:33):
each other, and that's why youdo crisscross and one leg circle
before you get to corkscrew.
Although corkscrew is stillreally early in the order, which
is a little too early for mesometimes, and as with
everything, we get better atwhat we practice.
So practicing exercises thathave rotation in them will help
(16:53):
you to improve your rotation.
Thank you so much for tuning inand learning more about the
shapes that the spine makes withme.
I hope you've enjoyed thisseries because I certainly have.
I also wanna say a huge thankyou to everyone who has
purchased my book.
We just crossed the threshold ofa hundred copies sold, and that
is so exciting.
(17:15):
Extra special thank you asalways to my supporters on Buy
Me A Coffee.
Thank you for your continuedsupport.
I am really looking forward toour coffee chats this month.
I hope you have a great coupleweeks and we'll talk again soon.
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