Double Leg Stretch sounds like a leg stretch, but it is actually a very powerful abdominal strengthening workout. In this exercise, everything radiates from center, working the abs for strength and endurance.

This is an intermediate level exercise, but you can modify it by leaving your upper body down, and/or working with your arms and legs high.

Get the full instructions for Double Leg Stretch

You can 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, (c) 2007, Marguerite Ogle}

I like holidays. And I like it when they are over. Thanksgiving, however, is more like a kick off than finishing something. Hanukkah is practically here, Christmas is not a whole month away, and the New Year is on the horizon. Plus, there is the gift buying thing. As I write this we've just passed "Black Friday" and something called "Cyber Monday" (I think the idea is that you buy gifts online while you are at work) is coming on fast. It's hard to keep up!

So I'm thinking we should call time out for a moment. Let's look ahead at the span of time we have between Thanksgiving and New Year and decide how we really want it to be. This could be a very nice time to make a realistic plan for staying healthy through the holidays. Eat well. Rest. Exercise. One could go into the New Year in good shape. It's entirely possible.

What helps is to have a basic plan to follow - something to give structure to good intentions. Here are links to workout programs that will help. Do what you can and see how much better you feel for it:

• Get in Shape with Pilates
• Pilates Beginner Program
• All New Body Workout E-course
• Pilates and Interval Training
• Pilates in Fat Burning Program
• Your Exercise Log

It may be that the best exercise you can do for yourself this holiday season is to lie down, tune the family out, and tune into yourself - even if it's only for a few minutes. You can do that and still do something constructive:
Learn Pilates Imprinting

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

_{photo courtesy of Peak Pilates}

We all have Pilates exercises we love, and some that well, let's not say we hate them, let's say "we just don't get them yet".  Naturally, it's very tempting to hang out with the exercises we like and skim over the ones we don't. But there is something really magical about making friends with an exercise you thought you didn't like and then finding out all the wonderful things that exercise had to teach you.

We have a section of the Pilates Forum set aside for exercises that are giving us problems. For example, one reader wrote: "Why can I not do plank? Are there others out there who find this exercise does far more harm than good? What is the purpose of plank?" And haven't we all had similar feelings about some exercise along the way?

So this is an invitation to you to pop into the forum with an exercise you might be wishing Joseph Pilates had never thought of.  It might just be that you will pick up a tip, or a new way of feeling into the exercise, that will open it up for you. Some of the exercises we've looked at so far are the roll up, spine stretch and saw, and the plank.

The Help with Exercises thread is open to all, as is the whole Pilate Forum. Bring us whatever exercise isn't working for you and we'll work on it together. And by all means, if you have tips to share, come share 'em!

_{photo: dolphin plank - when it's working - (c)2009, Marguerite Ogle}