Pilates for Back Care: Tips and Exercises for a Healthy Spine

Back Care awareness Week 23

 

Your spine is your body’s central support system, allowing you to stand tall, bend, twist, and move with grace. But in our modern, sedentary lifestyles, it’s all too easy to neglect this vital part of our anatomy. Whether you’ve been struggling with chronic back pain or simply want to maintain a healthy spine, Pilates can be your secret weapon. In this blog post, I will provide you with valuable tips and a series of effective exercises to help you achieve and maintain a pain-free, strong, and flexible back. Say goodbye to those nagging aches and discomfort and join us on a journey to a healthier, happier spine.

 

The Basics of Pilates for Back care

Pilates is a whole-body exercise which is low impact.  The Pilates exercises work together to strengthen your core which involves strengthening the spinal muscles around each side of the spine.  As well as concentrating on the core Pilates helps keeps us moving whether in rotation, flexion, bending forward and back, all movements which involve the spine.

Things we do every day without thinking about, until we injure our backs.

As we age our muscles become stiffer as well as our movements, so it is important to keep moving and that’s where Pilates for back care comes in.

Learning the key principles of Pilates will help achieve a healthy spine and Pilates can be done as in little as 10-minutes a day to keep you moving.

 

Getting started with Pilates.

It’s so important to learn the correct technique for Pilates, which will reduce your risk of further injury.  Take your time, don’t rush this process or you could do more harm than good.  Even if you are into fitness, take time to slow down and learn Pilates.  Then you can build on strengthening your Pilates for back care.

The Studio 44 Pilates, Pilates for beginners’ course is ten videos of 10-minutes each taking you through the Pilates basics which you can do in your own time.  Find out more about the course here.

 

Essential Pilates exercises for a healthy spine

 

These Pilates exercises re suitable for beginners up to advanced and will help with Pilates and back care.

 

Pelvic Tilt

This is great to use as a warmup exercise and I often use at the start of my classes.

Finding your neutral, lower you lower back into your mat and tilt your pelvis backwards, before coming back into your neutral position.  This movement will have the effect of warming up this area for the rest of the work you will be doing.

 

The 100

This is a core strengthening exercise which will also help strengthen not only the core but the back muscles as well.

Find you neutral and whilst keeping the pelvis stable using the core as you raise 1 then the other leg depending on your Pilates experience.

Raise the arms off the floor and complete the exercise focusing on your breathing.

To do this exercise you do need some Pilates experience (this is one of the exercise in the Beginners Pilates Course)

 

Shoulder Bridge

I love this exercise and it’s my go to when ever I feel the need to move my back whether from stiffness or a niggle.

Find your neutral, lower your lower back into the floor and peel your spine off the ground as you go up into your bridge position.  Hold then lower your spine back onto the mat.

This is a great mobilising exercise for your back.

 

The Swan

We spend so long these days hunched over desks, laptops, and mobile phones that our posture is poor which in turn leads to back problems.

The Swan is a great exercise to add into your day.

Lie on your front, find your neutral and slowly raise the upper body as far as you can without any pain in your lower back.  Make sure you engage your glutes and your core.

Enjoy the stretch.

 

Being busy isn’t an excuse to look after your back.

It’s not until we have back problems that we tend to look for ways to help and that’s where Pilates for back care come in.

Our spines help us support our bodies and most of our movements come from here, without the full range of movement we tend to stop moving as well and this has an impact on everyday life and our running.

 

By starting now Pilates for back care is a great way to keep our backs/spines healthy and keeping us running.

Learn Pilates the right way and you won’t regret it.  Pilates only needs to take 10 minutes a day to make an impact over time so easy to fit in before or after a run.

Find out more here about the Beginners Pilates Course to get started learning the basics.