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Adding Pilates to Your Personal Training
By Christina | August 1, 2008
The principles of Pilates fit any personal training program. The alignment is never sacrificed to perform the exercise. One goal, a primary goal, is to maintain good posture or a neutral spine (allowing the natural curve of the spine to occur) during the exercises. There should never be an exaggerated upper or lower curve in the spine. This alignment combined with lateral ribcage breathing in Pilates-based exercises will help to rebalance the body’s musculature.
This blog will have several parts, each reviewing a different Pilates principle that you can add when working with your clients or even in your own fitness regime.
As mentioned already, spinal alignment is critical to correctly perform Pilates exercises, and neutral spine just means good posture, something most people do not practice. When working with a client on a weight bearing or resistance based program, one goal should be to correct a client’s postural imbalances. For example, if you have a client who exhibits upper back rounding forward, then a general assumption would be that his chest muscles are most likely shortened and tight. His back muscles are also weakened and long. This is often the result of maybe Spinning or cycling too much since you are curved over the bike for hour at a time. Also, this happens if someone sits at a desk all day hunched over a keyboard!
If your exercise program includes an equal number of exercises that work to strengthen the chest and exercises for the back, then you may be feeding this muscle imbalance. To correct the postural imbalance, you may want to include a few more upper and mid back strengthening exercises to chest/shoulder. In addition to adding exercises, talk to your client about his or her posture during the day so that this can be worked on even while away from the gym.
Topics: General, Personal Training, Pilates |
