How to Do Pilates Criss Cross Exercise - part of the women's fitness video series by GeoBeats.
Hi, we're Kimberly and Katherine corp of Pilates on Fifth in New York City and we're going to show you the pilates exercise, Criss Cross, which is great for strengthening the obliques and the abdominal muscles in general. So Katherine will lie on her back and first we're going to find a nice supported or imprinted position of the pelvis where the hip bones come closer to the ribs. Her hands will reach by her sides for starters. Actually they'll reach behind the head. You can put them there for start. We'll bring the left leg up into table-top position and exhale and the other leg comes up into Table-top position, and squeeze the inner thighs together. Now on the inhale she'll take the chin slightly and exhale curl the head and shoulders off the mat. So we'll start here, take an inhale to prepare. On the exhale she'll rotate her rib cage on the left bending the left knee and inhale she comes through center. And exhale the other way, good, and inhale through center. So always when you come through center think that you scoop up higher. So obviously we're going very slowly now. Exhale, inhale, and now we go faster. We'll do 2 inhales, 2 exhales. So we inhale-inhale, and exhale-exhale. Now Katherine's going to keep going. One thing you want to think of here is not bringing the elbows in, you want to keep the elbows nice and wide and think armpit to knee as opposed to elbow to knee. Yes and keep the abdominals flat and not popping. And inhale-inhale, last time exhale. Exhale, to finish bring both knees and scoop up, and then the head and shoulders come down first, and then the one leg down, and then the other leg comes down. And that is the Pilates exercise, Criss Cross.
