Pilates is such a popular form of low-impact exercise with so many fantastic benefits:
- Helps you develop a stronger core
- Improves lower back and joint pain
- Creates supple and strong muscles
- Helps with balance and coordination
- Helps perform daily activities and movements with ease
Pilates is the rehabilitation of the pelvic floor
- Urinary incontinence
- Uterine prolapse
- Pelvic floor hypertonicity: pelvic floor muscles are short and tight, have high tone , and myofascial trigger points
- Disatsis rectus abdominis (separation of the bodies of rectus abdominis muscles at the linea alba, common during pregnancy and after childbirth) it can also occur in women who have not had children and also in men.
The pelvic floor muscles form a sheet that lies between the coccyx, the pubic bone and the ischial tuberosities (also known as the sitting bones).
Gentle contraction of the pelvic floor with the 3D breath pattern taught in Pilates helps engage the transversus abdominis (deep internal core muscle). This muscle wraps around you like a corset and it stabilises the pelvis and the spine alongside the multifidus muscle which is a deep back muscle.
When an optimal core strategy is achieved, conditions such as pelvis floor weakness which can lead to urinary incontinence, diastasis rectus abdominis and some pelvic prolapse can be corrected. Postural alignment is key to optimally functioning core, neutral pelvic alignment taught in pilates has been demonstrated to be ideal for the pelvic floor to work optimally, the other principles in pilates are rib cage placement and scapular stability, head and neck placement all play important part. These principles are applied in every move.
Not every Pilates exercise is suitable for these conditions for example doing popular exercises like abdominal crunches and the plank could make disatsis rectus abdominus worse, so it’s really important to get the right advice and correct exercise for your condition.
At Woodside Clinic we offer just that, our pilates teacher is fully trained in these conditions. Please call our Leighton Buzzard (01525 327447) or Dunstable (01525 608400) Clinic for more information on our sessions.