How to do a Pilates roll up
Many people struggle to do a rollup. No matter how hard they try, they can’t get all the way up.
Fiona, one of my clients, complains: “I only get up so far and then I have to use my hands to pull myself up.” Another client only succeeds if she uses momentum (that little lurch). Then there’s Steve, who manages to roll up but finds that his legs come off the floor too.
In frustration, Sandra confesses, “It doesn’t seem to matter how strong my abs are, I just can’t seem to get up all the way!”
Like Sandra, many people think the problem is their abs. But there’s a lot more to a roll up than abs. So maybe addressing other areas will help. Read on to find out!
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Three key muscle groups help with roll ups
There’s definitely more than meets the eye when we try to roll up. Certainly, we need our abs. But they’re only part of the story. There are at least two other groups of muscles that come into play: hip flexors and back of thigh and bum muscles.
Starting with an ab curl
Typically, we start a roll up with an ab curl. Lying on the mat, we take a breath and as we exhale we nod our chin and start to curl up over our front ribs into an ab curl, resting on the base of our back ribs.
To curl up like this we need our abs to pull our upper torso away from the mat (against gravity). Which abs, you may ask? Rectus abdominis, the 6 pack muscles in the front of our torso. We also use the obliques, our side torso muscles, especially our external obliques.
So for the first part of the rollup we do use our abs, specifically, the rectus abdominis and obliques.
Getting the ribs off the floor…
Now we’re at the stage where we have to get our ribs and torso up off the floor. That’s where the challenge starts for a lot of people! And that’s also where we need some extra help for those ab muscles.
Not only are we flexing our spine to come into an ab curl, and continuing to flex it to come up further, but our legs are out in front of us. To come up further, we also have to flex, or bend, at the hips! Enter the hip flexors.
Adding the hip flexors
We have superficial hip flexors and we have deep hip flexors. Both help us in a rollup.
The deep hip flexor is called the psoas. It looks like a big flank steak that runs from the mid back across the pelvis to the top inside bump of our thigh bone. Because of the way it attaches it helps us pull the spine toward the legs when we roll up.
The other more superficial hip flexors help us do the same thing. Those are the muscles you can feel at the front crease where your pelvis attaches to your thigh.
So far we have the rectus abdominis and obliques from the ab group helping us get to an ab curl (up to the base of the ribs). Then we add the hip flexors to help get the torso off the ground.
Staying grounded
What about those who can get up about two thirds of the way but can’t keep their legs down on the ground?
After the abs and hip flexors, we have to add the muscles at the back of our legs, primarily our hamstrings, to help us get up the rest of the way in our rollup.
Our hamstrings help us glue the back of the thighs to the floor so we can get the rest of the way up to sit tall. They help us lever our bodies up. For many the hamstring contraction causes the knees to bend, which triggers an offsetting contraction of the quadriceps at the front of the thigh to keep the leg straight.
So the abs help with the initial curl off the floor. The hip flexors help lift the torso. And the hamstrings help us keep our legs down as we come up the rest of the way to sit tall.
Finding the right rhythm
They say timing is everything. The same goes for a rollup. All the bones and muscles have to work in a coordinated rhythm to make it all the way up. We know the rhythm is working well when we can articulate the spine—roll up or down bone by bone, with no gaps.
Our deep core muscles help us articulate the spine so working the core helps us articulate the spine better. When we articulate the spine better we improve the timing or bone rhythms in our body. That is the last ingredient in our rollup.
Put it all together to improve your clients’ Pilates rollup
When clients are struggling to do a rollup, try strengthening the abs, hip flexors and hamstrings first. Add some core to help with spinal articulation and there’s a good chance they’ll do better on their next rollup.
Now, to exercise your mind: What are your favorite exercises to condition your abdominals, hip flexors and hamstrings?
Please share your ideas in the comments section below!
Jane Aronovitch
Jane Aronovitch is a Pilates & Movement teacher. She is also a writer and author. Her book, Get on it: BOSU Balance Trainer, is available at Body Harmonics, Amazon and Chapters Indigo.
“I love making ideas clear so teachers can directly apply what they learn in concrete and practical ways – and people can make connections, feel better, move with ease, and have fun.”
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Thank you for answering this dilemma we all encounter as teachers. I was just asking this question in my own head today as to why certain clients cannot do the roll up. My favourite exercise to work the hamstrings and hip flexors is the articulated bridge with a hip fold plus the abs are engaged, especially on the reformer. I love this shop talk and look forward to reading more in the future.
Thank you so much for this practical information helping connect the dots. This exercise has been frustrating for me and my client who feels she has failed. She has strong abs and psoas and good articulation but can only come up so far. This pin-points the hamstrings which tend to cramp during some exercises. I’ll be taking bridge work further, working toward shoulder bridge with leg arc.
I look forward to more Shoptalk.
Thanks Jane, very well written and clear. Love these blogs!
Thank you for such useful information! I will take this into consideration with my clients who also struggle with the roll-up. I can see how it can be continuously frustrating when you can’t come up all the way. Sometimes I will add a flex-band to the bottom of the feet and ask clients to use this resistance to help with your roll-up (by pulling on the band with the hands). For those clients that are struggling or are new to the roll-up, I will always explain that Pilates is a work in progress – I will have them lift up to the point where they can maintain alignment (whether it is a small ab curl, or coming up half-way, etc.) and then work on progressing further as they continue strengthening with Pilates.
I love leg circles for working on the hip flexors! I will incorporate more of these (including some core work) before asking my clients to work on the roll-up.
Another wonderful article! Jane you are amazing!!!
Thanks Jane. Very good article and easy to understand.
I love planks to condition core muscles, hamstring curls on the reformer and bridge with hip fold for flexor a, glutes, hamstrings, etc 🙂
Thanks Jane! Great article. So well written ~ simple and informative!
Thanks Jane! Love this article! Would be great to see more articles like this as you have broken it down so simply and the anatomical images are a great add in. I too agree with the above exercises for working core hip and glutes. Hip fold just a few inches off the floor would be a nice prep by adding some opposite upper limb sagittal arm movements (opposite arm leg reach with hip fold and an curl) would be a good prep then perhaps a quadruped opposite arm leg reach to target all three muscle groups would be ideal pre-rollup! Look forward to more like this- thanks Jane!
Hi there! I’ve been doing pilates for 2 & 1/2 years now, but unfortunately unable to do a single roll up or roll over without momentom ,it’s frustrating someone can do all the pilates exercises but not being able to do roll ups dosn’t mater how hard I work I can’t do this! please help me and others like me what can we do to improve?
Hi, thanks for the article. I have been practicing Pilates for 1.5 years. I still can’t do a proper roll up. The only time I can do is when I learnt from my polestar instructor to put a little pillow in the small of my back! Then I can do a roll up like magic! I was also told that I am not able to do roll up also because I have very tight back structure anatomically and not everyone can do it with the same ease. Is that right? I do see some Pilates friends who should be less strong than I am being able to do roll up.
Thanks for this article. I am new to Pilates and it really encouraged me. In the worst case scenario, if I am never able to do a roll up, will I still be able to get a six pack and a flat lower stomach if I am committed to doing the other Pilates exercises and cardio?
Absolutely! Just make sure to add a good diet to the mix. Wheat and sugar are killers for the 6-pack 🙂
Ditto on Larisa’s advice. Think obliques and low belly too, besides 6 pack. All contribute to tightening the middle!
I have split abs (diastase recti), and I wonder if that’s the reason I can hardly lift my shoulders off the ground. Any tips/suggestions? Thanks.
Hi Racula,
Yes. That could definitely be the reason for that. If you’ve got Diastasis, it’s best you not do forward flexion until you rehabilitate it. At this point, avoid forward flexion against gravity and quadruped work. Also make sure to begin Diastasis exercises. They’re a bit time consuming, but worth it in the end. Fahmida is fanatstic at the BODY HARMONICS studio. If you’re not in Toronto, you could google Diastasis training in your local area or book a session with Fahmida via Skype.
I hope that helps. Best of luck!
I have been practicing Pilates for about six years and always had trouble with roll ups unless I held weights in my hands. Recently I came across a balanced body dvd where the instructor suggests putting a small cushion under your back to “push” against. That worked perfectly for me and I am able to do them easily with this method.
Hello Lori! I’m so glad that you were able to make a modification to help you with your roll-ups. Keep working on it, you will surely be able to do it without the cushion soon. I think your weight idea is a fantastic one, in fact, I’ll use that in a class soon!
This is a great article. I have been doing pilates for several years but i cannot do a rollup properly unless i use ankle weights to keep my feet from coming up off the floor. My question would be is using ankle weights for the roll up a bad idea?
My take on the issue -from a physics point of view – is that you have a seesaw, and you’re trying to keep the centre of gravity towards your feet, and your fulcrum is effectively the point of contact nearest you’r head.eg bringing up the spine in one section, the fulcrum is atthebuttocks, and the legs come up. If you curl up keeping contact with themat, the fulcrum can’t be higher up the spine than that. In some cases (ok,. me) it’s imprint which keeps the mat connection. Which is why a pad under the back works, it’s filling the space that would ‘ideally’ be the spine pressing (hopefully not hard) into the mar. I may, of course be talking rubbish 😉
I have just one doubt…
Crunches can hurt our lower back cause they flex the lumbar spine and the same thing is happening in pilates roll up. So how is it different and safe?