Pilates is a low-impact form of exercise and body conditioning, designed to improve muscle strength, balance, and body alignment. Key principles include centralisation of the core, precision of movement, and bringing full attention and concentration to each exercise.
Who is pilates for?
Pilates is for every person, young or old, and at all levels of fitness. Clinical Pilates, sometimes called remedial, is often considered only to be for people with pain or injuries, however that is not the case.
Clinical pilates takes everyone’s personal situation into consideration, tailoring the class and exercising to every person’s body – injury or not. Often we may have muscle imbalances or weaknesses that we do not know about. Getting an assessment from one of our instructors will enable a program to be written with exercises that are specifically tailored to your body.
What is the difference between regular pilates and clinical pilates?
Regular pilates is standardised, and has a general focus on strength and balance. Clinical Pilates is an individualised approach, taking each patient’s bodily differences into consideration. Due to the individual focus, it can reach treatment goals better than regular pilates. Pilates has significant therapeutic benefits, being safe and effective for many injuries and all levels of fitness.
What are the benefits of pilates?
Pilates has a number of benefits to both your physical and mental wellbeing.
1. Balance and strength
One of the key benefits is the focus pilates has on strengthening and balancing muscles throughout your core muscle group. Your core is arguably one of the most important parts of your body. It stabilises your spine, balances you, and allows you to move in any direction. It has a strong focus on strengthening your core, thus improving your balance.
Pilates can also target any muscle group, which can be good if you have any specific injuries or areas required to be worked on for rehabilitation. General balance and strength is also good for older people, who typically lose some of their balance as they get older.
2. Improves Posture
As stated, pilates is known to have a fairly strong focus on your core. A strong core helps you stand and sit straighter, keeping you more stabilised as you go about any daily activities. Most people consider the ‘core’ to be the stomach muscles, but also includes sides, back, and hips, as everything in your body is connected. A strong core also helps to stabilise your spine, which further helps to improve your posture.
3. Relieving arthritis symptoms
Arthritis is a painful condition, and sometimes it can be hard to be motivated to exercise when it is causing you pain. Pilates is effective at targeting and relieving pain and stiffness, which is particularly good for people who have arthritis and osteoarthritis. Pilates supports healthy joints, by strengthening the muscles in surrounding areas. Many techniques also involve stretching and lengthening muscles, which improves circulation around the joints.
4. It is beneficial when pregnant
Pilates exercise is a low-impact workout that many pregnant women opt for. It takes a significant amount of pressure off joints, and increases core strength. At City Physio, we can specifically target areas that are troubling you during your pregnancy. For example, we often target the lower back and pelvic floor, by strengthening and increasing flexibility, as they can often become painful during pregnancy.
5. Tones muscles
One of the more commonly known benefits is pilates tones muscles. The exercises have a focus on the whole body, which encourages strength across the whole body. Balancing muscles in your body helps with carrying out everyday activities, prevents injuries, and increases overall strength.
Toning and improving your muscle strength has many benefits. While it may be personally satisfying to notice an improvement, you may also notice differences in your everyday activities, such as walking up stairs without feeling out of breath, or carrying heavy things around your house more easily.
6. Promotes body awareness
Pilates helps to get you in tune with your body and how it responds to your daily activities. It can make you mindful of how your body should be aligned, and how it should feel when using certain muscles. This helps bring awareness to injuries or muscle imbalances.
Having better body awareness can help with spatial awareness and mindfulness, and when coupled with improved balance, you may notice yourself no longer walking into things as much.
7. Stress relief
Pilates is a great way to relieve stress because it promotes mindfulness. You are encouraged to only focus on the exercises and movements you are doing in that particular moment. Further, the focus on breath helps us to feel aligned as a whole being.
8. Overall wellbeing
Being a full-body workout, the release of endorphins from a pilates class will improve your overall wellbeing. Going to regular classes helps to keep you fit and active, allowing you to socialise, and improve your quality of life.
Why should I do pilates at City Physiotherapy rather than a pilates studio?
Remedial pilates at City Physiotherapy Adelaide is run by our qualified physiotherapists, who have more in depth knowledge about anatomy and muscles than a lot of instructors.
Our Physiotherapists will devise a personalised program for you that takes into account where your body is right now, including pain levels, any past or present injuries, or muscle imbalances. We conduct therapeutic exercise classes or independent pilates sessions at our Adelaide CBD gym. We only perform specific exercises that are part of your overall strategy. We will look after you.
For more information about our pilates and therapeutic exercise classes, click here.
