Hello, my name is Deborah and I'm a physiotherapist here at Horta Healthcare and also a modified Pilates instructor affiliated with the APPI, the Australian Physiotherapy and Pilates Institute. Today I'm going to talk to you about the Pilates Method and the five key elements associated with the APPI. These are the basic underlying principles of the modified Pilates method and ensure you have correct alignment and that you get the most out of your Pilates exercises. The medical world is now realising the benefits of Pilates. Myself and other physio therapists here at Horda Healthcare are using Pilates successfully for the rehabilitation and prevention of long term low back pain. Originally designed for dancers as a form of body conditioning, Pilates is really only suitable for the super fit, flexible and strong, and not really designed for those with low back pain, neck pain or other injuries. Over the past few years, the APPI looked at the original Pilates movements and broke each one down into four or five levels and renamed them modified Pilates. Modified Pilates is suitable for everybody, whether you're new to Pilates, are recovering from injury or just wish to correct your posture. Making use of the latest research, they designed exercises that are more in line with the way our bodies move and are safer and more achievable. The exercises are mat based and progressive and aim to restore muscle balance, flexibility, correct postural alignment and help to retrain the correct activation of your deep tummy muscles, the back muscles and the pelvic floor muscles, also known as the core stabilising muscles. I'm now going to talk to you about the five key elements of Pilates associated with the APPI. Kay is very kindly going to help demonstrate the exercises. Many people only use a small amount of their lung capacity and also use the wrong muscles for breathing. Pilates begins by learning the correct breathing pattern. With an improved breathing pattern, more oxygen is delivered to the muscles, which in turn remove more waste products when we breathe out. To understand how to perform the correct breathing pattern, you're going to try the following exercises. Firstly, ensure that your hip and knees are bent, that your feet are hip width apart. Place both your hands on the lower half of your rib cage, and gently allow the fingertips to interlink. Take a breath in, feel the ribcage expanding sideways, and the back of your ribcage widening on the mat beneath you. Gently allow the fingertips to draw apart from one another. Breathe out and feel the fingertips gently draw together and the rib cage sinking inwards and downwards. Repeat a few times and check that as you breathe in, your rib cage doesn't lift off the mat. Pilates aims to develop a strong centre of abdominal, low back and pelvic floor muscles. As I mentioned earlier, these are our core stabilising muscles which help to support the spine. They are postural muscles which are designed to offer support to your spine all day long. To practice centering, try the following exercises. Firstly, find your neutral spine position, making a pelvic diamond with your thumbs and your fingertips. Place your thumbs in your belly button and your fingertips on your pubic bone. Researchers have found that your neutral spine position is more likely to isolate a contraction of your core stabilizing muscles. To find your neutral spine position, tilt the pelvic diamond away from you to create an arch in your back. Then tilt the pelvic diamond towards you to flatten your spine. Repeat this movement several times. Your mid position is in between these two extremes of movement. As Kaye is demonstrating here, tilt the pelvic diamond away from you to create an arch in the small of your back, then tilt the pelvic diamond towards you to flatten the spine. Repeat this movement several times. Now find your mid position between these two movements. This is now your neutral spine position. In your neutral spine position, feel your deep abdominal corset by placing your fingertips on the bony points of your pelvic bones. Slide your fingertips in an inch and down an inch. Now imagine your deep abdominal muscles forming a natural corset below the belly button. Take a breath in to prepare, and as you breathe out all the way and before your next breath in, slowly and gently draw the muscular corset underneath your fingertips. You should feel the muscles under your fingertips gently drawing away. Hold that position, which is your centre, for ten seconds, and keep breathing normally. The contraction is very gentle, so don't overdo it. Practice this several times. The other way to set your centre is by using your pelvic floor muscles. Your pelvic floor muscles form a muscular sling from your pubic bone at the front to the tailbone at the back and your two sitting bones. Take a breath in, and as you breathe all the way out, I want you to imagine that you're stopping yourself going to the loo, or you're feeling those four points drawing up towards each other. Again, you should feel a subtle movement of these muscles underneath your fingertips. Try and hold that contraction for ten seconds and also continue to breathe. Unfortunately, many of us have developed poor head and neck posture due to modern day living. This can lead to headaches, upper back stiffness and upper back discomfort. To help us correct the natural alignment of our head and neck, we're going to try the following exercise. Check your chin is not poking up towards the ceiling. If it is, then place a small folded towel under the head. Lengthen the back of the neck. This will give you the correct alignment of the head and neck placement. You can imagine placing a shiny magazine underneath the back of the head and imagine sliding the back of your head along the shiny magazine. Be very gentle with this exercise as it's easy overwork the muscles at the front of your neck. Kay, if you would just like to feel the muscles at the front of your neck to make sure that they're not overworking. If you imagine now this position in an upright position, a good way to lengthen the back of the neck in a sitting or standing position is to imagine your head is a helium balloon and floating up towards the ceiling. And this again will give you a sense of lengthening at the back of the neck. Stability around the shoulder blades is crucial for neck and arm movement. So get a sense of where our stabilizing are around the shoulders, we are now going to try the following exercise. So, Kaye, if you'd like to float your arms up to above shoulder height. Place your hands, palms facing each other. And what I want you to do is imagine that you're holding onto a helium balloon. As you breathe in, feel the balloon floating away from you as you try to hold onto that balloon. As you breathe out, still holding onto the balloon, your shoulder blades back down onto the mat. Let's repeat that a couple of times. So as you breathe in, feel the shoulder blades lift and separate off the mat. And then as you breathe out, feel the shoulder blades relaxing back down onto the mat. Be careful not to squeeze the shoulder blades together. To find the correct position of the shoulder blades, we're going to now try the following exercise. Take a breath in for me, Kaye, and feel your shoulders lifting towards your ears. As you breathe out, glide the shoulder blades down, keeping your arms and your hands in contact with the mat. Take a breath in, feel the shoulder blades lifting towards the ears, and then again as you breathe out, feel the shoulder blades gently dropping down into a v position at the back of the waist. And then relax and feel that correct shoulder blade placement. You should also get a sense of widening across the front of the chest. With ideal posture, we are looking for the rib cage to be stacked directly over the pelvis. Unfortunately, many people tend to stand with a military type posture, where the rib cage flares and creates a curve in the back which can cause discomfort with the low back. To find the correct alignment of the rib cage, Kay is now going to demonstrate the following exercise. What I want you to do now is float your arms up to above shoulder height, palms facing away from each other. With your next breath in, breathe out all the way, set your centre and lower the arms down towards your ears, ensuring that your rib cage doesn't lift off the mat. Breathe in to bring the arms back to your start position. We're gonna try that a few more times. Okay. Breath in to prepare. As you breathe out, set your center, lay the arms behind you, and imagine the back of your rib cage widening on the mat beneath you. So practice that a few times for me. Another good way to keep the rib cage in a neutral position is to imagine you're lying on a sandy beach. And as you're lowering your arms behind you, you're feeling the rib cage gently making an imprint into the sand. Practice these exercises over the next week or so. And once you feel confident in the way you perform them, then try practising them in sitting or standing. With an understanding of the five key elements and how to perform them, you are now ready to begin your Pilates exercises.
