when you make an effort and commit yourself at least once a week to doing your Mat Pilates exercises, you add more years to your pelvis and lower spine health. 

Do you know what maintains your body’s resilience over the years? Strength. Not the strength The Rock or Hilary Swan in a Million-Dollar Baby have; I mean the strength we need for everyday work life, kids, desk job, and teaching as the season starts.

Today’s video, Week 3 of our four weeks rejuvenating session, is about easing yourself into strength.

Here’s a recap

Week 1: Rejuvenating 

Week 2: The Fascia system 

Your body needs strength and flexibility, which I call resilience. The last two weeks were about allowing your body to open and stretch for optimal function; today, we will give it strength.

💡 Doing your Mat work regularly requires patience and compassion toward yourself. 

Because when the tightness and weakness show up, it’s frustrating, which may send your brain into a complaining parade. It’s way easier to give up than to persevere; before you know it, you’ve left your Mat for your phone.

I understand, especially at first, when your body doesn’t always feel the same energetically. I know because I have been there too! It’s probably faster to get instant gratification by placing an order through Amazon than to get down and do your mat work.

But when you make an effort and commit yourself at least once a week to doing your Mat work, you add more years to your pelvis and lower spine health. 

Plus, you will have so much energy to do the things you love. 

Now, back to today’s video – Cueing and topic: The snapping hip sound when the legs extend.  

Many practitioners have mentioned the snapping sound of the hip when the legs are extended, for example, in stomach series exercises or leg raises. I have experienced them myself. It’s not usually painful, but it’s unpleasant and annoying. 

So here is my solution: 

What to avoid: 

• Over-Squeezing your glute(butt) muscles. At first, squeezing your glute may seem like a good idea because it appears that doing so protects your lower back. But, in the Double Leg Lower Lift exercise in the Stomach Series, when you squeeze your butt, you stop the Deep Six Rotators from working, which is what we want to work on to support the abs and psoas muscles. There are few articles that I’ve read that explain this situation, but I always associate it with the psoas muscles snapping. This article has some good images. Have a look when you get a chance 

Here’re my 5 tips:

When you experience that feeling, keep your range of motion small

1. Engage the lower belly muscles more and connect the sit bones towards each other. 
2.  Always breathe in when you lower your legs.
3. Use opposition energy 
4. Practice leg slides to understand how to lengthen the leg and lower spine (see today’s first exercise)
5. Make breathing a conscious practice.

Pro Tip: To increase the Double Leg Lower Lift range, you must increase your abdominal strength. Do the abdominal series regularly; three times a week is ideal. Follow this link for the 5 mins stomach series. 

Once you have put today’s tip into practice, share your experience. Do you have any cues that have helped you with the snapping sound? Let me know. I can try it in my next video.