20 Core Minutes is designed to strengthen your core muscles: the deep abdominal, back, and pelvic floor muscles. One of the best ways to challenge these muscles is to make them stabilize the trunk under unstable conditions. In this workout, we do that by reducing stabilizing contact with the floor, and by using the exercise ball (non-ball options are given too).

Some exercises in this workout are intermediate level but modifications are given in the instructions for those of you who want to go through at a slightly less challenging level.

Do 20 Core Minutes of Pilates

Have the Exercise of the Week, along with other great Pilates info., sent directly to you each week in the Free Pilates Newsletter.

"In 10 sessions you'll feel the difference, in 20 sessions you'll see the difference, and in 30 sessions you'll have a whole new body"."
Joseph Pilates

We usually use the Pilates Power Animal of the Month to look at what we can learn about movement from different animals. There is certainly much to be learned from the butterfly. Its bright presence and grace in flight are truly inspiring. But it is the butterfly as a symbol of change and metamorphosis over time that I want to focus on this month.

We could see the butterfly's journey from caterpillar to magnificent avian as symbolic of our potential go through dramatic transformations in our Pilates practice. It's not just that we get out of the gate with fast changes in the beginning, as Joseph Pilates describes above. We can also make huge transformations throughout the life of our practice. The catch is that those changes are sometimes preceded by uncomfortable caterpillar and cocoon stages!

What I've noticed in myself, and many other people, is that I go along improving, which feels great; then I level out, still feeling pretty good and thinking I know what I'm doing. Then, something new enters the picture. It might be an insight from an instructor, a movement concept I read about, a new physical challenge, or just the inner push for the next level; and all of a sudden I feel like I don't know anything and I'm going backward in my Pilates practice.

The opportunity that comes with these disorienting phases is, of course, to stick with it. To have faith in the transformative process. If your Pilates practice is strong -- you have a good instructor and you practice at home and/or at the studio -- you will emerge on a new level of integration.

I'm in an "Pilates caterpillar" stage now. What's keeping me going is trust in my "butterfly process" (I've been through this before). What about you? Do you experienced similar transformations in your own practice?

See past Pilates Power Animals

Never mind exercise names like spine twist and neck pull, or equipment that look like medieval torture devices sporting ominous names like, the reformer; for some people, even thinking about starting a Pilates exercise program is scary.

Since it's Halloween weekend, I got to thinking about how Pilates might be scary for beginners. Then I started thinking about how even now certain Pilates situations can be scary for me, like starting a new class at a new studio.

So let's talk about it. Is there anything about Pilates that makes you nervous? If you are a beginner or just thinking about starting Pilates, what's holding you back? And for those of you who have been doing Pilates a while, maybe you could think back to when you started. Was it a little scary? Why? Readers are sharing their experiences in Scary Pilates Stories.

Courage Boosters:

Overcome Fears About Starting Pilates

Top Myths About Pilates

I was just cleaning up my workout area at home when I dug down into a container I keep balls, bands, and rings in. At the bottom I found a set of small, pink toning balls from Stott Pilates that I got last year. I was like, wow, where did these come from? This is just what I need.

I've been using the hand held toning balls a little more lately. I just grab them during my mat workouts at home -- holding them during exercises like roll up, saw, spine stretch, and spine twist. The trouble has been that the ones I have been using are a little too big. They are hard to hold. These little pinkies are just right.

So when I found them, I wondered if Stott had a special on them this month since they are pink and it is breast cancer awareness month. I quickly jumped on their site, and the answer is Yes. The pink toning balls are 20% off in October, and Stott is donating to the Pink Tulip Foundation. But only for October... sorry I didn't think of it sooner. Not that you can't get the balls later. They are handy (sorry for the pun, I can't help myself).

Compare prices on other breast cancer awareness fitness products.

Halloween week is fun, but the extra calories have to go somewhere.....

Spice up home workouts with a Pilates ring and an exercise ball. This overall workout tones abdominal muscles, inner thighs, and arms. The ring and ball workout is an intermediate level routine with notes for beginners and extras for more advanced folks.
Learn the Pilates Ring and Ball Workout


Have the Exercise of the Week, along with other great Pilates info, sent directly to you each week in the Free Pilates Newsletter.

Back when I published a review of the Tower on the Go from Balanced Body, one of my concerns for non-instructors was that there was no instructional DVD for it. Well, Balanced Body has come out with a DVD for their Tower on the Go, and it's pretty good.

As a reminder, the Tower on the Go is a portable version of the Pilates tower equipment that attaches to a door. It comes with a choice of springs or a covered elastic called sylastic™ that provide stretchy resistance as you exercise. Read my review of the Tower on the Go.

The new DVD has 3 beginner-intermediate workouts: core, upper body, and lower body lead by instructor Blane Ashby. They can be done individually or in sequence for a full workout. I was a little disappointed that the core workout and the upper body were so similar. I thought there could have been a little more variety there, but overall this is a very good DVD.

You do need to have some Pilates basics under your belt before you do the Tower on the Go with a DVD. However, this DVD has made the Tower on the Go much more accessible to non-instructors working out at home. Modifications for beginners are clear, and Blane Ashby is particularly skillful at offering valuable movement cues while keeping the pace flowing. The DVD is $24.95 and comes free with the Tower on the Go equipment.

Related Links:

• Tower on the Go Review
• The PilatesStick Review
• Peak Pilates Takes on PilatesStick

Last month, I spent a wonderful hour interviewing Rachel Segel, co-founder of The Pilates Center in Boulder, CO and co-author of The Everything Pilates Book. We talked about everything from instructor training and teaching Pilates, to running a successful studio and staying inspired. I felt immensely grateful as Rachel generously shared insights from her 20 years as a Pilates teacher, studio owner, and Pilates instructor trainer.

I left the interview very much inspired, and excited to share it with you. My first thought was that I wished I had got the whole thing on video, but since I didn't, I have done my best to transcribe and edit in a way that brings you as direct an experience as possible. If you have a passion for Pilates, I'm sure you will enjoy this informative, sometimes provocative, interview.
Read: The Art of Teaching Pilates.

The Side Kick series is all about length, strength, pelvic stability, and balance. If you do the exercises in this series with these ideas in mind, you will be amazed at how quickly they tone your hips, thighs and abdominal muscles.

Also, developing core strength and learning to move your legs freely, independently from the hips, is a big benefit to your everyday movement. Doing so will increase your range of motion and help relieve pressure in the hips and lower back.

Get Instructions for the Side Kick Series

Have the Exercise of the Week, along with other great Pilates info., sent directly to you each week in the Free Pilates Newsletter.

_{photo: Lara Kolesar by Peter Kramer, courtesy of Kolesar Studios}

As you practice Pilates you will undoubtedly be encouraged to lengthen your body and pull in toward the mid-line or "zip it up". Zip it up is a cue that is supposed to bring to mind the idea of how you have to lengthen and pull yourself together to put on a pair of tight jeans for example.

Hugging in toward the mid-line is very useful. It helps us get a sense of gathering energy and length, and engages the powerhouse. But there is another way of thinking about staying pulled together, and that is having a sense of our arms and legs connecting back to center.

Sometimes in Pilates, with all our emphasis on length, we get carried away to the point of being a little too splayed out. We send our arms out so far they loose integrity at the shoulder joint, and we send our legs out so far we loose the connection to the core (that's when the hip flexors can really take over what we want the abs to do).

Of course we do want length, and we do want to radiate our energy out, but at the same time there needs to be a sense of staying integrated - of some energy moving into the body as well. That can be easier to feel that using Pilates equipment because the equipment gives you feedback, but you can feel it on the mat too. Try the following as a way to get your mind tuned into paying attention to staying integrated even as you extend your energy:

Exercises like plank, and those based on a plank shape such as leg pull front, will give you a good opportunity to experiment with your sense of integrity at the shoulders. To start, do arm reach and pull just to remind your body-sense of what it feels like to establish the shoulders. Then do plank because you can work with your body weight and feedback from the floor. After that, flip over and try an exercise like swimming where there is always a temptation to reach the arms way out of the sockets. Do it radiating from center, but don't give away the whole farm, so to speak.

So far, reader responses to What is Your Favorite Pilates Exercise? are favoring the rolling exercises. I'm not surprised. I love them too.

So let's start with the first rolling exercise in the classical Pilates order, rolling like a ball. It's a fun one, but it takes a flexible spine as well as great ab and breath control to pull this one off.

Learn rolling like a ball

Have the Exercise of the Week, along with other great Pilates info, sent directly to you each week in the Free Pilates Newsletter.