Lower lift
8 reps · intermediate
Take care: Keep the range small (or bend the knees) with a sensitive lower back, and rest the head if the neck strains; skip it during pregnancy and after giving birth.
The fourth of the Series of Five, the lower lift: curled up with the hands behind the head, elbows wide, and both legs straight up and together. The legs lower toward the mat to about 40°, as far as the lower back stays down, then lift back to vertical while the trunk stays still.
Bodyweight: no weights. Joint demand below is your own body's weight in this position.
Faults grow with knee bend and apply to lifts standing on the floor. The fault check flags a knee caving more than 10° inside the line of the toes and a load split beyond 60/40. Knee cave shows best in the front camera.
Femur changes keep standing height fixed by shortening or lengthening the torso. Longer femurs force more forward lean in any squat.
8 slow, controlled reps. Pilates is practised for control, balance and mobility, never to failure, so this does not change with your limits.
Level: intermediate. One round counts like light conditioning work: 22 legs points, 29 core points.
Rectus abdominis (holding the curl), transversus abdominis, hip flexors (iliopsoas, rectus femoris), obliques, adductors (holding the legs together).
One 3D skeleton drives both views. Segment lengths and widths are Winter's anthropometric ratios of height; segment masses and centre-of-mass positions follow Dempster's data. For free-standing lifts the whole-body angle is found numerically so the combined centre of mass of lifter and load sits over the middle of the foot. Arms and legs use two-link inverse kinematics with a pole direction. Rep timing follows a minimum-jerk profile.
Balance is quasi-static, so ballistic lifts are shown slowed down. Cable pull and pad support forces are not modelled. The spine is one rigid segment and joints have no range-of-motion limits or muscle forces.