Does Pilates Help Lower Back Pain?
Pilates has given a great deal of relief for people experiencing chronic lower back pain problems. Pilates is geared towards recovering natural posture of the body which leads to repositioning of the spine to its natural shape. By doing so, lower back pain problems are effectively decreased by performing pilates exercises. Ideally, people should keep the upper body in a position so that the abdomen is pulled in, chest out and shoulders thrown back. This is the natural posture of the body with respect for the spinal cord. To ensure that natural posture is kept, the body has muscles working to maintain the posture. When the spinal cord is out of synch, the problem manifests through lower back pain. Lower back pain is commonly caused by wrong posture. Incorrect body posture starts at school. A whole class of students sitting on their school chairs will sit using different positions but never with the correct posture. As adults go about their lives mostly sitting on chairs at their desks, the tendency is to slouch especially when reading a document, writing a memo or working with a computer. Because this slouch position is maintained daily and more times than the natural posture, the unnatural becomes the habit and the natural posture is forgotten. Here is where the posture muscles start to soften-up because of disuse. Because the posture is unnatural, it affects the spinal cord adversely. The spinal cord simply wasn't designed for excessive slouching. As the body continues to slouch, the spinal cord will curve in the wrong direction until the strain manifests itself through lower back pain. Any form of pilates exercise is perfect to use against lower back pain problems. However, there are a few pilates exercises specifically geared towards relieving or eliminating lower back pain. One exercise requires you to lie down with your hands stretched over-head, shoulders touching the floor with feet straight out. Keeping this position with shoulders firmly touching the mat or the floor, breathe in while lifting your arms up slowly. When you slowly exhale, also slowly rise forward to a sitting position, eyes focused forward, with your head and upper body as straight as they can be without crunching your stomach. Continue the motion forward as you slowly stretch your torso over your legs while slowly breathing in. Reverse the motion slowly back to the original position while breathing out slowly. When you breathe in again, perform the roll up maneuver. Do this 10 times. If you notice, everything is done slowly. Unlike regular workouts that are performed frenetically, pilates concentrates more on posture or form rather than constant motion. The difference is that regular workouts are done to control calories and carbohydrates. The emphasis of pilates is on restructuring the body, especially the spinal cord, to its natural position. With pilates exercises easing your spine to its natural position, bouts with lower back pain should be significantly reduced, if not altogether eliminated. People taking pilates exercises will testify to the enormous improvement in their lives by reducing or eliminating instances of lower back pain. In some cases, people who've been performing pilates exercises for only ten days have experienced improvement in their movements, their posture and the lessening of lower back pain problems. As a matter of fact, easing lower back pain is just a small side benefit of pilates. The full benefit of pilates is the total well-being of the human body by maintaining its natural form and posture. The lessening or disappearance of lower back pain is just icing on the cake. |
