What is pilates?
Pilates is a form of low intensity conscious exercises that focuses on strength, flexibility and enhancing overall body awareness through controlled movement. The focus of pilates is to integrate breathing into controlled movements that help create a balance between strengthening weak muscles and stretching tight muscles.
Pilates places a strong emphasis on developing the trunk stabilising muscles such as, the deep abdominals, pelvic floor muscles and hip stabilisers that support the spine and pelvis. Improving trunk (core) strength will reduce lower back pain, improve posture, help create better overall stability and improve pelvic floor control.
Benefits of Clinical Pilates in Pregnancy and Postpartum
During pregnancy, the body undergoes significant changes as it accommodates the growing baby. Pilates is a great tool that focuses on controlled movements, breath work, and strengthening exercises to help prepare your body for each stage of pregnancy.
Pilates encourages you to reconnect with your body by synchronizing controlled breathing techniques with each movement and pelvic floor activity, which is imperative for proper pressure distribution and pelvic floor function.
As the pregnancy progresses the abdomen expands to accommodate the growing baby, placing increased strain on the abdominal muscles and pelvis. Pilates targets these areas, aiding in maintaining deep abdominal and pelvic floor strength along with whole body stability, which are pivotal for supporting the belly and alleviating discomfort. Developing trunk (core) strength and stability reduces the risk of developing diastasis recti (abdominal separation) during pregnancy and aids in the rehabilitation of diastasis recti postpartum.
Combining this, with exercises to strengthen the deep pelvic floor muscles will help you improve control of your pelvic floor, reducing the risk of pelvic floor prolapse and urinary incontinence during pregnancy as well as aiding in postpartum recovery of these conditions.
Moreover, pregnancy often leads to postural changes as the body adapts to the added weight of the baby. Pilates can help maintain posture to counteract the natural tendency towards rounded shoulders and an arched lower back. This will help reduce lower back and neck pain that pregnant women often experience.
Neck, back and shoulder pain is also common in new mums as they are constantly picking up and carrying around their baby. Pilates will help gradually build your strength postpartum to reduce this pain.
Pilates has many other benefits as well including:
- Improve posture and core stability
- Maintain joint health by promoting flexibility through stretching tight muscles in a controlled way whilst also strengthening weaker muscles to support our joints.
- Reduce stress and improve sleep quality
- Improved menstrual health
Clinical Pilates with an EP?
As exercise physiologists, we have an in-depth understanding of the body systems and movement. We understand the complexity of pregnancy and how to adapt exercise programs to be safe during pregnancy and postpartum.
Having an exercise physiologist designing and delivering clinical Pilates classes ensures that each exercise will be safe for you, your body and your baby. They will adapt any exercise to better suit your body and adapt the program to suit each stage of pregnancy.
An exercise physiologist can adjust the program to make sure all exercises and positions are safe for women with pelvic floor prolapse postpartum and accommodate women struggling with urinary incontinence. If you are one of the many women with an overactive pelvic floor, an exercise physiologist will modify exercises throughout the class to focus on relaxing the pelvic floor instead.
With their vast knowledge of human movement rehabilitation exercise physiologists can also adjust the Pilates program to focus on or accommodate problem areas such as lower back pain or shoulder injury.
If you are a new mum, mum-to-be, or a woman keen to get started on their exercise journey, clinical pilates is a great place to start.
