Repair, Realign, Relearn Your Body

I’ve had several conversations recently about back pain.  I did some research and did you know 80% of doctor visits are due to some sort of back pain?  80%!

In my experience as a Pilates instructor and working with hundreds (if not thousands) people in my 20 years of teaching, much of our back pain results from how we hold ourselves and how we move.  With our modern lifestyle, it’s imperative we learn how to control our body. Things like movement patterns, posture, and alignment need to be part of our daily awareness.

Currently, I’m sitting at Starbucks.  It’s packed with people at every table.  As I look around, there is NOT ONE person holding themselves in alignment!  There are teenagers, middle aged, and elderly people - no young kids - and EVERYONE is hunched forward, slouched, and sinking into their spines.  More than half of the customers are in front of a phone or computer, but even those not on a device are also hunched.  

We are a hunched population.

Yes, sitting and being sedentary all day is unhealthy, but what’s really hurting us and is how we hold ourselves in those sedentary positions.  It’s not that we sit, but HOW we sit that causes our problems.

We need to learn how to use muscles instead of joints to hold us up.  We have an inherent amount of grace and strength in us and we need to learn how to tap into that energy on a daily and moment to moment basis.

When you integrate the principles of pIlates into all your daily positions and movement, your physical activities become effective exercises to stretch and strengthen your body rather than hurt it.  Right now, most of us are doing our daily activities in ways that are hurting us. But then again, we were never taught how to do that. From an early age we have been forced into sitting in chairs for hours all day, basically a structural abuse on our spines.

We need to relearn our everyday actions - reposition and reshape the spine, shoulders, arms, neck, hips, legs, feet in the way they were designed to be.  Focusing on lengthening and decompressing the spine to help remove stressors that cause joint and disc degeneration, osteoporosis, and regular wear and tear injuries.  When we use our body appropriately, normal wear and tear should not deprive us from doing the activities we love to do.

With this all being said, it’s also important we learn what good posture really is.  Many of the guidelines out there for good posture do more harm than good. We learn to force ourselves into alignment, jamming the chest forward, squeezing our shoulders back, tensing our body into a rigid position.  We can’t force, we need to learn to align with grace.

For instance, when sitting, you want to spend more time on the front of the seat so your body weight is on the front edge of your sit bones.  If the seat is too low, raise it up so your hips are above the height of your knees by adding cushions, blocks, or if you can physically raise your seat.  This will assist you in aligning the spine, allow you to breathe better, and make you feel more strong and confident. If this becomes tiring, you can prop your mid back up with cushions to help assist in maintaining the aligned position.  Lightly tense your abs, don’t over do it, just a light engagement - it will help close the chain on your body so you are connected from head to toe.

With a regular Pilates practice, you can reap the benefits of healthy movement patterns and body alignment.  The workouts I teach online are intended to help you decompress the spine, alleviate stress so you can move your body with more grace, and align the body in a mindful way.

Come check out my free 5 day Pilates challenge!  It’s amazing how you will feel a difference is just 5 days.

In this week's workout Wednesday, we'll be focusing on the lower body, specifically the inner and outer thighs.