Rolling Like a Ball in Pilates

If you’ve ever done the Pilates mat work, you very likely have done the “Rolling Like a Ball” exercise, which was called “Rolling Back” in Joseph Pilates’ book, The Return to Life Through Contrology. It’s a fun exercise that usually has people laughing as they try to master it, but it is more than just silliness – rolling like a ball has many benefits, too. 

Rolling Like a Ball is Challenging

In this exercise, you balance on your bottom while holding your legs up, and then you roll back to your shoulders and up again, trying to balance again in your starting position. I don’t recall the first time I ever tried rolling like a ball, but I know that in the beginning, I found it very hard to control my movement. Sometimes I’d get stuck on my back or I couldn’t stop myself at the top of the roll back up. 

It turns out that this is very common in beginners. One of my teachers said it was more like rolling like a triangle for many people at the start. Or that it’s like you are a partially deflated ball, rather than firmly rounded. If you find rolling like a ball very difficult, it could be because:

1. You are new to this movement! New movement patterns take time to learn and perfect. 
2. Your back is tight.
3. It’s challenging for you to get deep hip flexion.

Get Better at Rolling Like a Ball

If these challenges are familiar to you, there are ways to get better. 

1. Start by holding behind your thighs and as you get better, work up to holding behind your knees and shins. This opens up your ball shape. When you’re less squished up, you don’t need to flex at the hips or knees as much. It also helps if you have a tight back. 
2. Just roll! By rolling, your back will get a gentle massage (make sure you have a mat under you) and it will stretch out, slowly but surely.
3. Find length through the spine as you go into your C curve. It is common to drop back through your lower back to create a rounded shape, but this will also create a flat spot above and therefore you will not roll smoothly.  By lifting up through your spine into a rounded position, you will be in a uniform C curl.
4. Create tension through your full body. Press your hands firmly into the back of your thighs, knees, or shins depending on the version you are working on. Press your legs into your hands. Feel your arms connecting into your back.  When you do this, you feel the engagement of the muscles of your arms, back, core, and legs – full body engagement. 
5. The next step is to try to maintain this tension as you move through this exercise.  

Benefits of Rolling Like a Ball

Okay, so this exercise is fun and a bit silly, but what are the benefits? 

1. It is fun and playful in a form of exercise that can be quite serious.
2. It massages the fascia and helps with muscle activation of the back, while opening up the back line in a dynamic way. 
3. It stimulates the vestibular system, which helps balance and spatial awareness.
4. It challenges proprioception – where we are in space.
5. It strengthens your abdominal muscles, hip rotators, and back muscles.
6. Overall, it balances flexibility, strength, and body awareness. 

In John Howard Steel’s book, The Caged Lion, he tells a story about how Joseph Pilates told him to roll like a ball on his hotel room floor while on a work trip. This is because John had put his back out right before having to go away for work. It turned out that Joe was right.  John rolled and felt better like Joe had said he would. 

Rolling like a ball and all of the other rolling exercises in the Pilates system are used in four ways:

1. They are a segway into the inversion exercises.
2. They work as a reset and relaxation for the body.
3. They work you towards more advanced exercises.
4. They can be put together into a sequence as an ending to a workout for more advanced students.

Progressing Rolling Like a Ball

As you dive deeper into the Pilates method, you will discover that there are progressions to the foundational exercises. Rolling like a ball is one of these exercises, which can progress into open leg rocker, seal, boomerang, and crab. Each exercise puts you into a deeper external rotation of the hips and requires more strength, flexibility, mobility and control.

The apparatuses and other Pilates exercises will also help you to build on your abilities so you can achieve further progressions. A great way to open up the back line is with Stomach Massage round back on the reformer. The start position is literally the same as rolling like a ball, while the springs and holding on to the reformer carriage will give you a great stretch along your back line. As you get more familiar with the Pilates method, you will start to notice these similarities between exercises and see how each exercise helps you improve your technique in other areas. 

Build on a Solid Foundation

You can definitely fudge or muscle your way through the more advanced exercises, especially if you are living in a healthy, fit body. However, the more solid you are with the foundations (like rolling like a ball) and the more connected and controlled you are, the better you will do all of these exercises. You’ll also be at less risk of injury. Eventually, you will come across an exercise that doesn’t feel right or that you can’t force. With awareness, you’ll see that in these instances you may need to regress and go back to the foundations before you can move forward. So keep rolling, friends!