What is Pilates?

Pilates refers to a form of exercise that focuses on activating your deep core muscles and incorporates them into safely controlling various movements.

Many approaches to pilates vary in difficulty and skill level, equipment and the aim of the exercises.

As taught at some of our PhysioWorks clinics in Brisbane, clinical Pilates is specifically designed for people with back, neck or shoulder pain and movement dysfunction! Clinical pilates includes exercises that train your core muscles to switch on during dynamic movements of your body.

• Clinician-Led Pilates
• Pilates Back Pain
• Pilates Shoulder Pain

Why is Pilates Important for You?

Your core muscles are very important in providing stability at each spine segment during movement. Research shows that the core muscles tend to “switch off” or become underactive in people with back pain. Although the initial episode of back pain may settle, 80% of people with an acute back pain incident will develop recurring back pain within one year of the initial injury.

Core stability retraining is vital to the rehabilitation process and will markedly reduce your risk of re-injury. These muscles must learn to switch on when you are not moving and during day-to-day activities such as rolling over in bed, bending over, reaching and sitting at a desk for prolonged periods.

Pilates has been proven to effectively re-train all of your core muscles through various movements and can be altered to cater to your individual needs!

Who is Suited to Pilates?

Sadly, Pilates isn’t for everyone! Overaggressive pilates exercises that are too difficult for your body can cause pain and injury. PhysioWorks regularly treats patients who have increased their back pain at poorly run or supervised pilates classes.

Pilates, Yoga, gym strengthening and other forms of exercise can place high demands on your core stability system. If the core muscle recruitment order is abnormal, your chance of injury increases proportionally with the exercise difficulty.

Remember, if you build a tower on a poor foundation, it will eventually topple. The same goes for your core stability muscles.

Look what happened to the Leaning Tower of Pisa… it’s got lousy core stability!

However, recruiting the deeper core muscles before your superficial layers, like adding floors to a sturdy skyscraper, will make your back strong and pain-free forever.

What’s the Link Between Pilates and Core Stability?

The ‘core stability’ phenomenon started in the 1920s with Joseph Pilates, whose exercise regimes have become trendy in the last ten years.

Pilates talked about developing a ‘girdle of strength’ by learning to recruit deep-trunk muscles. Even without complete knowledge of anatomy and the benefits of the latest muscle activity research, he was aware of these deep muscles’ importance and supportive effects.

Core stability training explicitly targets the smaller and deeper back and stomach muscles. Once recruited, these muscles control the spine’s position during dynamic movements of your body.

More Info

• Clinician-Led Pilates
• Pilates Back Pain
• Pilates Shoulder Pain