For beginners, and the experienced Pilates pilgrims…let’s get back to basics!

Revising your foundation mat Pilates techniques with a Physiotherapist at The Body Refinery is a great way to change the way you think about your practice, advance your exercises on both the mat and the equipment, discover new challenging movements for your body, and reignite your Pilates passion to get more out of your sessions. The Physiotherapists at The Body Refinery can help you rediscover this and feel great again!

There’s something satisfying about getting back to basics…and back on the mat, so we thought we’d look at 5 exercises that Pilates devotees love to do daily from home:

1. The Perfect Pilates Mermaid…or Merman!

· Great for moving your spine and stretching the muscles along the side of your back
· Improves posture and movement in your shoulder and hips
· This is everyone’s go to move. If you feel like you have tight back muscles you will LOVE this! …Plus it just feels so good!
· Pro Tip: Switch it up at the end and reach in the opposite direction for a stretch on your other side

   

2. Target Your Trouble Zones with Arm Arcs

· Improves shoulder mobility and back stability
· Stretches your muscles down the side of your trunk and in your shoulder
· Pro Tip: Make your shoulders feel ‘heavy’ into the mat and draw your shoulder blades down as you reach above your head

      

 

3. Toning Hack: Squeeze your Butt Bridges

· Great for moving your spine
· Improve your hamstring and gluteal strength
· Stretch the muscles at the front of your hips
· Pro Tip: Think about drawing your sit bones together, pressing down through your heels and lengthening your knees over your feet as you move up into the bridge

    

 

4. Quick Fix Quadruped

· Great for movement/control of your spine, shoulders and hips
· Improves core control and balance
· Pro Tip: Alternate lifting your arms and legs to challenge yourself!

  

5. Build a Better Back with Prone Press Ups

· Helps strengthen back muscles
· Opens up the front of your chest and shoulders
· Improves your posture
· Activates your core while extending your back
· Pro Tip: Take a deep breath in as you come up and breath all the way out as
you lay back down…It feels so good!

  

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Book in with one of our Pilates certified Physiotherapist’s at The Body Refinery, New Farm, to either start or progress your Pilates journey. Call us today to secure your spot in one of our Clinical Pilates Classes or for a Private Clinical Session with a Physiotherapist.

Recurring postural issues and faulty movements can be prevented through functional training. Joseph Pilates, who created the Pilates method, wrote the following in his book “Return to Life Through Contrology”:

“Civilization Impairs Physical Fitness. Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness. It is the attainment and maintenance of a uniformly developed body as well as a sound mind, fully capable of naturally, easily and satisfactorily performing our many and varied daily tasks with spontaneous zest and pleasure”.

It is often said that Joseph Pilates was 50 years ahead of his time. Today, our lifestyles and postures are affecting our health. Physiotherapists report that the majority of clients they see have complaints as a result of postural dysfunction and or faulty movement patterns. Long periods of time spent sitting in front of a computer, combined with age-related changes in the musculoskeletal system, mean that pain and postural problems are often inevitable. Postural dysfunctions, reduced gait cycle, and loss of balance control and stability are among the many well-documented consequences of musculoskeletal changes that occur over a person’s lifespan.

Recurrent musculoskeletal pain has a significant impact on health care costs, employee productivity, and quality of life. Improving aberrant movement patterns is essential for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Everyone has the capability of improving the way they move on a day-to-day basis. Uncontrolled movement can be identified by observation, and corrective retraining of this uncontrolled movement may reduce the recurrence of injury. Prior to treatment, the assessment and analysis of movement patterns are essential for identifying risks.  Through understanding these faults in movements they can be addressed and muscles that once were firing incorrectly can learn to work well and be strengthened.

 

Spinal Stability

Since Joseph Pilates’ death in 1967, his ideas about spinal stability have been examined from more of a scientific approach, with many benefits identified. Over the last two decades, spinal stability research has been a focus of the physiotherapy world, and from this research, physiotherapists know that the most effective way to manage spinal instability is with specific exercise programmes that are designed and supervised by a physiotherapist. Improving muscular activity of the core is now accepted as being more appropriate than past training regimes that look at improving performance through strengthening periphery muscles. Motor re-learning strategies that look more at muscle and movement efficiency are replacing strength and power regimes.

“The success of the Pilates system in managing pain, inhibiting pathology, and training coordinated movements, is that it gives the physiotherapist a tool to be able to address the motor control specifics of dysfunction and, more importantly, problem solve the reason or pathology behind the situation”. Joseph Pilates

The value of Joseph Pilates’ work to a physiotherapist now extends beyond rehabilitation exercises, which act as an adjunct to treatment, to be a very effective treatment tool in itself that can be employed as an alternative to “hands-on” management.  This assists the clinician in confidently progressing to a more pathology-specific exercise regime, rather than a programme of generic exercises. In their book, “Kinetic Control  – the management of uncontrolled movement”, Comerford and Mottram suggest that exercise therapies such as Pilates are useful therapies for the management of movement dysfunction.

 

These therapies are great for movement dysfunction because they create multi-joint movements, incorporating:

• slow movement
• low force movements
• large range movements
• coordination and control of rotation
• a smooth transition of concentric–eccentric movement
• awareness of gravity
• the concept of a ‘core’
• coordinated breathing
• awareness of posture
• an intermittent static hold of position
• control of the centre of mass of one body segment 
with respect to adjacent segments
• proximal control for distal movement 
and
• positive mental attitude

 

The Body Refinery provides its clients with the ability to move without restrictions by offering movement assessment and exercise therapies such as Pilates, which improve movement, wellness, and quality of life. Physiotherapists at The Body Refinery utilise the latest evidence in movement to promote healthy movement patterns and improve posture.

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Join The Body Refinery’s Pilates classes and focus on your health and mind-body connection. Create your profile or book a class now!

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How your body is feeling?

“… Pilates…  meeting at 9.30… lunch at 12… report due at 4pm ” – Sound familiar?

This is an example of the type of running internal dialogue that many of us have throughout the day.

Previously, we have mentioned the importance of paying “attention to technique” in Pilates, in order to experience its full benefits. Many physical complaints and imbalances in the body are caused by habitual postures and movements, and if the mind is focused on work issues, lunch or the meaning of life, then instead of performing correct and beneficial Pilates movements, automatic habitual patterns take over.

All of our postures and movements are chains or sequences of smaller parts. More often than not our injuries or physical complaints are due to imbalances within these chains. We are often unaware of these imbalances, as many develop overtime unnoticed. To complicate things further, even if we are aware of an imbalance, the complexity of our movement patterns makes it difficult to correct them, as this process requires a certain degree of focus. That is why we often stress that ‘how’ we do something is more important than ‘what’ we do. The best exercise can also be the worst for your body if it is done incorrectly, as this may reinforce the imbalances rather than correct them.

 

Lets Focus

“Leaving your day at the door” and allowing yourself focus completely on the task at hand, will help you perform better. Practising this while you’re doing Pilates will give you the best chance of correcting poor habitual movement patterns, and you will get the most out of every session.

Beyond the technique and physical benefits, focusing on the present moment has been found to have many mental and emotional health benefits. Our mind and body are inherently linked and the more in-tune we are to this connection, the better we can operate both physically and mentally. The act of focusing on movement or breath helps to strengthen the mind-body connection.

We all seem to be time-poor these days, so why not get the most out of the time you spend doing your Pilates (or anything else for that matter) and leave your day at the door!

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Join our Pilates class to “leave your day at the door” and focus on your health and mind-body connection. Create your profile or book a class now!

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Do you ever find yourself thinking…

“How is lying on this roller and lifting my leg up helping to improve my golf game?”

Or

“The other instructor told me to put my arms in the air for this exercise, so why aren’t I doing it this time?”

Or

“How will I ever be able to do … (insert exercise here)…”

 

These are the types of questions we and our clients have encountered time and time again over the past 10 years.

Through our experience in teaching, as well as within our own personal Pilates training, a few common themes have emerged that provide the framework for healthy movement. And these themes hold true, from rehabilitation through to the high-level performance stages (although the emphasis may shift).

These common themes are largely covered within the Principles of Pilates, which form the basis of Pilates technique, and any Pilates exercise can be broken down or described through these principles.

It should be noted that different Pilates schools will have slightly different variations but the underlying themes are consistent.

List of the principles from Polestar Pilates.

1. Breath
2. Core control
3. Spinal articulation
4. Head, neck and shoulder organisation
5. Weight-bearing limb alignment
6. Movement integration

Understanding these principles will help you understand the ‘why’ behind ‘what’ you are doing in your Pilates session, and this is essential to get the most out of whatever you do.

 

Why you should focus on the Pilates Principles:

• It’s easier to understand a handful of principles, relative to memorizing hundreds of different exercises (even thousands, if variations are included).
• Advanced exercises are just a combination of the principles put together. If one or more of the basic building blocks are missing, advanced movements will be very difficult to achieve.
• The connection between Pilates and injury, Pilates and other movement disciplines; Pilates and sporting performance; and Pilates and personal movement goals, are easier to see when you understand the Pilates Principles.

So, don’t be afraid to talk to your Pilates instructor or physiotherapist about the Principles, so that you can learn how they relate to the individual Pilates exercises you’re doing, and your health and wellbeing.

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Start your Pilates journey at The Body Refinery – Register today.

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