Beginners Back New York Pilates Exercise for Strengthening your Back Muscles:

Well, today I'm going to teach you some back exercises (New York Pilates exercise) to strengthen your spine. We're going to be looking at two great middle-back exercises for your middle-back and two strengthening exercises for the lower back. So let's get started. I've got a pillow here to lie down prone over. If you're prone to low back problems, if you use a pillow underneath your pelvis when you're lying down it can relieve some pressure off your lower back. So, coming into lying down position with that pillow underneath my pelvis. Let us start with a push-back exercise. Now, this first exercise is for the middle-back. So strengthening those middle-back muscles. Bring your arms down by your side, take your forehead down, and lengthen bring your shoulders back and down.

Now when you do this New York Pilates exercise, you lift the arms and pull the shoulders back and down, so the shoulder blades come back and down together and then you release back down. So I'll do the action so you can do it at home. It's a lift and lengthens and back down. And again, lift and lengthen, and back down keeping the forehead down so that you don't strain your neck. You can also add weights to these. I've got a couple of weights here, which is the same as two pounds. So we can actually do that New YorkPilates exercise to strengthen the middle-back with the weights. Bring the weights down by your side again, forehead down. And again, pulling the shoulder down as you lift back, so pulling back and down. So it's a really great strengthening New York Pilates exercise for that middle back. Again, pulling back, squeezing, and taking it down. So that's our push-back New York Pilates exercise. The second New York Pilates exercise is also for the middle-back. This is a stop sign of Pilates exercise. An excellent New York Pilates exercise to keep your upright posture nice and strong and keep the body nice and tall. Take your arms at right angles again your forehead stays down and it's a lift and squeeze action, bringing the elbows really high wrists high, and back down. I like to breathe out with the lift up. So, it's a squeeze underneath the shoulder blades, and back down. If your shoulders are sore, you might find that makes things a little bit irritated. Bring your elbows back down close to your body. So once again, forehead down, lifting and squeezing, elbows and wrists as high as you can, and back down. So there are your two middle back exercises. Let's now move on to the lower back exercises. The first one is a back extension.

This is a strengthening New York Pilates exercise for the lower back. Important that you don't extend too far back. So, once again, the forehead is down so, the similar position for all these exercises. Arms are low, and it's a gentle extension, not too high. Pulling back and down through the shoulders, lifting the body, holding, and then slowly releasing. And again, lifting up, and slowly releasing. You can repeat up to ten of those repetitions those exercises, in a row. Lifting up again, extending back slowly, and back and down, and have a break. Now, our final exercise is called the superman exercise. This particular New York Pilates exercise will be done on the hands and knees; I'm going to teach you a lying down position. Arms out in front I'm taking my thumbs towards the ceiling. Once again my forehead's going to go down. And I'm going to be gently activating my tummy muscles at the same time as doing the alternate arm and leg raise. So my forehead's down. Gently activating my tummy muscles so very gently drawing in the lower abdominal wall. Just tensing slightly, lifting the opposite arm and leg and down. And you will see that I'm not lifting too high. If I lift too high, I'll hyper-extend my spine. Won't be happy with my lower back. So, it's just a lift and holds, and down. And again, lift and hold, and down. And once again you could be doing up to ten repetitions a couple of times a day for that particular strength New York Pilates exercise. So there you have it, a couple of great little exercises. Two for the middle back and two for the lower back.