12 mat Pilates exercises in less than 15 minutes

Curious about Pilates and aren't sure how to get started?

Or you're doing "reformer Pilates" classes, walking or running10,000 steps a day and wondering why your neck, back or knees are aching?

My happiest mat Pilates students pair their mat classes with walking, dancing, strength training, tennis, pickleball, hiking, canoeing, and more. Learning mat Pilates empowers you to keep moving and feel better while doing everything else in your life with more ease.

Adding 15 minutes of mat Pilates a couple of times a week is a "secret sauce" to feeling stronger all over, also relaxed and in control of your mind and body. (Plus, you'll progress faster in group reformer class when you know these exercises and work to learn the second half of mat work, such as leg pull front, side kicks kneeling, etc.)

Twelve Mat Pilates Exercises You Can Do in 15 Minutes

These12 mat Pilates exercises get you started; they also are the "bread and butter" of our mat Pilates classes. In our studio private and semi private sessions, they re-appear on apparatus including the reformer, chair and wall-mounted Springboard with a push-through bar and rolldown bar, like you find on the Pilates trapeze table / Cadillac.

Plus, these simple mat Pilates exercises teach micro-skills and body awareness that are fundamental to Pilates' advanced exercises on the reformer, chair and trapeze table.

Even if you're professional athlete doing Pilates for the first time, you learn these skills first.

Breathing/Grounding - Don't skip this. Lie flat or maybe bend your knees and put your feet flat on the floor. Inhale through your nose and out your mouth, like fogging a mirror. Or pretend you're blowing through a straw. Notice the difference. When you inhale, fill your lungs "sideways" as if your ribs could expand to touch your upper arms. Imagine your back expanding, spreading on the mat. Do this for a minute or two.

(I notice when some students resist breathing/grounding as exercise, so I'll offer this: how we do one thing is how we do everything. Relax, let it be part of the process. Thankfully, most of us wake up every day and do not need to practice breathing. When we decide to breathe on purpose, we are using a different part of our brain, and that's the part we need for everything else in a Pilates class. So prime it here.)

Pelvic Tilts / Pelvic Rocks and "Clocks" - Breathing and moving come together in this subtle movement to explore how our core muscles move our spinal column. Imagine a beautiful marble resting in the center of your belly, then imagine it rolls up and down your spine as you breathe. How do you make this happen? What if you rolled the marble side to side, one hip pocket to another? What if you rolled it around your low belly in a circle? There's no grade for this exercise. Explore the muscles that move your spine and hips. You're going to use them for the next set of exercises!

Chest Lift -- Maybe you've tried Pilates and it hurt your neck -- I can relate. Our heads are heavy. How do we lift them from the ground? With our core muscles, then our neck muscles. The work is between the armpits and the hips, not chin and chest. Our necks do get stronger with practice -- and so does our core. Eventually, your chest lift is strong and holds your head in space on your neck. If this is your first 100 classes -- don't sweat it. Practice a few chest lifts, nod and curl your head and neck, then move on. We have much more to do!

Hip Bridge - There's two ways to lift our hips off the ground: 1) curling our tailbone and lifting one bone at a time (pelvic curl) and 2) lifting our spine in a long line, like a drawbridge raising. Press arms into the mat, keep shoulders broad, press feet down and hips up. The soles of your feet are the "back" of your body, so use your whole foot, big toe, little toe, heel, and lift your hips. Stretch the front of the legs, strengthen the back of the body.

The other mat Pilates exercises you'll do in less than 15 minutes are:

The Hundred -- Breathe in for five counts, breathe out for five counts and "count" this with your arms moving briskly, up and down next to your body. Legs are still, and they can be straight, bent knee, 90 degrees to the ceiling.

The "Ab Series of 5" -- Five exercises on your back teaching us to control our legs with our core: Single Leg Stretch/Pull, Double Leg Stretch/Pull, Scissors, Lower Lift, Criss Cross. Do 5-8 of each.

After that ab series, you'll get some good stretches that are still strengthening including:

Spine Stretch -- do 3.

Saw - do 3.

And I like to finish a short workout either on my hands and knees or lying flat for a little back extension such as Swan or Swimming, about a minute.

Why 15 Minutes of Mat Pilates is Enough

Fifteen minutes is enough to create both mental and physical changes in your body immediately: calmer, relaxed, energized and focused.

Fifteen minutes of mat Pilates also starts to unwind perfectionist tendencies about exercise -- that it must raise our heartrate and drench us in sweat to be "worth it."

And the work of holding your arms and legs in space while trying to lift your body off the ground makes you stronger, too.

Curious about Mat Pilates? Complete this form for a free class Tue/Thur at 7:30 a.m. CT.