Scissors
8 reps each side · intermediate
Take care: Hold the back of the thigh if the hamstrings are tight, and rest the head down if the neck strains; skip it during pregnancy and after giving birth.
The third of the Series of Five, often called scissors: curled up with the head and shoulders off the mat and both legs straight, one leg lifts toward the face with both hands holding its calf while the other leg hovers long at about 30° off the mat. The legs switch with a scissor action, pulsing twice toward the face on each side.
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 on each side. 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: 4 legs points, 29 core points.
Rectus abdominis (holding the curl), transversus abdominis, obliques, hip flexors; hamstrings of the lifted leg stretched.
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.