PILATES FOR ALL-ROUND BODY POSTURE
About three years ago, I began to suffer with a niggly pain in my left shoulder. It started out in the little nobbly bone at the very extreme edge of the shoulder before becoming a niggle around the area of my bicep every time I moved my arm.
Eventually it became so bad that it was interfering with my every day routine so I went to see an osteopath.
He took one look at me and told me that my posture was terrible. My age meant that I was suffering from a certain amount of natural degeneration in the spine which meant that I was slouching forward, but it was worse than that.
My shoulders had actually moved so far out of position that if I lay flat on my back they were proud of the floor. It was impossible for me to put my shoulders down to the floor. The consequence was that the nerves that run down the front of my arm had become impinged between the bones of the shoulder, clavicle and upper arm. Things were getting squashed and trapped in areas where they should be moving freely. No wonder it hurt so much.
He told me that my regular abdominal crunches had compounded the problem, resulting in an over-developed six-pack, which was dragging everything in my upper torso downwards because the muscles in my back were so under-used that they could not compensate.
In addition, the cutting of my internal abdominal muscles through several caesarean sections had left me with no core strength whatsoever, belying the appearance of the defined six-pack.
A many-pronged exercise regime was necessary. We had to loosen all the ligaments and muscles across my chest to permit my shoulders to sit flat to the floor when I lay down. Then we needed to strengthen the muscles around my shoulder blades to hold the shoulders back in the correct position. Plus we needed to work on my core strength so that I could hold myself upright.
Pilates was ideal for all these and I embarked on a programme of exercises to accomplish this. Neck extensors, some utilising a Swiss ball and others just sitting on a chair or standing, to loosen off all the muscles in my neck and work on the levator scapulae. There were exercises using the Swiss ball to encourage my pecs and rectus abdominus to allow the shoulder to move backwards. And still more that loosened off the traps.
Once I was able to stand up straight, the programme changed to developing the muscles in my back to keep the shoulders in place. Some of them were quite hard to do because you have to switch off your butt and thigh muscles and, lying on the floor, lift your torso and arms by sucking in your core and using only the muscles in your upper back.
It was about that time that I joined a regular Pilates class and my improvement took off dramatically.
The problem with seeing an osteo once a month and doing the exercises on your own when you get home, is that you don’t have someone standing over you on a weekly basis ensuring that you are doing everything correctly.
In my Pilates class, the instructor knows my specific problems and what I am trying to achieve. She tailors the exercises to suit the individuals within her class and makes sure that each student is performing to the optimum level.
The class itself is aimed at core and back strength so I am learning how to reconnect with the cut muscles of my lower abdominal area to try to regain some control.
It’s a slow process but Pilates gives me the tools to make it happen.
So many of today’s physical ailments are down to incorrect posture. You only have to look around to notice the slouching and slumped shoulders of people who spend too much time on the computer.
Sit up straight with both feet on the floor and zip up your core muscles as you lift your sternum upwards. You can feel the muscles connected to your spine pull your whole body upright. Compare that to how you felt when you were bending over your laptop/PC before.
Now type into the Google search box ‘Pilates in [my town]’.
I promise you that you won’t regret it.
This article is written by:
Joanna Cake
Having My Cake and Eating It Too
http://andeatingit2.com
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