We need good body alignment to help maintain a healthy back and stay pain-free but unfortunately, our bodies often have other ideas and we get into bad habits. This article helps you improve your posture which in turn can prevent back pain and other injuries.
Jane Hamilton Pilates offers Pilates classes that will help improve your posture.
About Jane Hamilton Pilates
Jane Hamilton Pilates offers professional and friendly online Pilates classes for adults of all ages and levels of ability.
Pilates is a fitness class that develops the body uniformly and focuses on core muscles and breathing. Each exercise has options for every ability. It can help prevent injury and can relieve backache, neck pain and many more common ailments.
Body Alignment Problems
Good body alignment is one of the 8 principles of Pilates. We need
good alignment to help maintain a healthy back and stay pain-free
but unfortunately, our bodies often have other ideas and we get into
bad habits.
Gravity pulls our bodies forward whether we like it or not, it is
amazing how we actually manage to stand up and move around day
to day. Our heads are heavy (5kg on average) balancing on our neck,
it is a bit like having a large ball (the skull) balanced on a thin stick
(the spine). No wonder then we get into trouble with our heavy jaw
naturally drawing us forward and our rib cage projecting over the
lower spine like holding a rucksack, and often a very heavy rucksack
if we are carrying excess weight. This natural imbalance of weight
anteriorly means gravity is working against us all day long and with
bad posture and repetitive poor movement, we will increase the risk
of long term weakness and pain in areas such as our neck,
shoulders, middle back and lower back.
Bad postural habits repeated every day, and for many times during
the day, like the ones below can cause injuries and strain to our
joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments.
Do you identify with any of them?
1. Hunching the upper body round and drawing your head
forward for prolonged periods often while reading and texting
on your phone. The new term “Text neck” is used to describe
this.
2. Sitting at a desk for long periods of time, twisting round to one
side repeatedly if your computer is off to the side and not at
the correct height.
3. Sitting on one side of the body dropping into one sitting bone
and repeatedly crossing your legs.
4. Putting more weight into one leg when standing, easy to do if
you are standing for long periods of time.
All of these scenarios create muscle imbalance and skeletal
misalignment and in turn, this can lead to pain in our muscles and
joints.
However, there is hope!
How To Correct Posture
Doing Pilates regularly, checking in with our bodies, retraining and
reminding our body through awareness of correct positioning in
space (proprioception) will help. How to stand, sit and move correctly
will lead naturally to muscle balance and skeletal alignment over
time. With good alignment and free, easy movement performed
from a position of strength and stability means that consciously and
subconsciously after a while the good habits begin to take over the
bad and we wonʼt feel the discomfort and pain like we used to.
Good alignment can be assessed from all sides, in profile by
dropping a plumb line through the centreline of the body. The line
should fall from the middle of the ear down through the shoulder
and should fall slightly behind the hip joint before landing just in
front of the ankle joint. We are also looking for muscular symmetry
between the two sides of our bodies. We need even weight between
our legs and on our feet, level shoulders, and head directly in the
centre not off to one side. Have a look side and front on in a mirror
or take a photograph of yourself and see if you are in line.
Neutral Spine & Pelvis
In Pilates, most of the basics principles for good alignment are
generally the same whether we perform the moves standing, sitting,
lying on our back (supine), on our front (prone), and lying on our
side. A neutral spine and pelvis are essential in all of these positions.
We have natural curves to our spines – an elongated S-shape, but
often forces conspire to compress our spine, such as gravity, poor
posture and old age. We want to reverse these effects by creating
more space between the vertebrae and elongating the spine. This
strengthens the spine because itʼs those parts of the spine where
one curve meets the next that the spine is most vulnerable. A
lengthened spine is able to articulate freely. A pelvis in neutral
should eventually feel natural and comfortable during Pilates
classes exercises and day to day standing, sitting and lying down.
If you tilt your pelvis forwards moving the pubic bone backwards,
you increase the hollow of your lumbar spine. If you tilt your pelvis
backwards moving the pubic bone forward and tucking the tailbone
under youʼll lose the hollow curve of your lumbar spine. You can try
this with your hands on your hips standing or lying down (see video).
What we are looking for is a mid-position between the two extremes.
This is the most evenly balanced position and encourages the
surrounding joints and muscles to be balanced and provides us with
a stable base from which to move. Think of a car safely in neutral
before going into gear to move off.
Some checkpoints and cues used in Pilates for aligning our bodies
correctly are…legs hip-distance apart, heels in line with toes, slight
softness at your knees, checking your pelvis is level (neutral spine),
elbows open, shoulders soft drawing gently down your back,
elongating the spine.
Through time we become used to our set-up and alignment and we
will safely perform the Pilates moves. It becomes second nature to
set up in whichever body position we are in to do the exercises. We
will then take good body alignment naturally into our day going
forward whether standing, sitting or moving.
How To Find Good Body
Alignment Video
Check out the video on alignment and how to find neutral alignment
around the pelvis and spine.
If you would like to take part in some online Pilates classes and
help your body find good postural alignment get in touch with me
at hello@janehamiltonpilates.co.uk.
Good body alignment is one of the 8 principles of Pilates. We need
good alignment to help maintain a healthy back and stay pain-free
but unfortunately, our bodies often have other ideas and we get into
bad habits.
Gravity pulls our bodies forward whether we like it or not, it is
amazing how we actually manage to stand up and move around day
to day. Our heads are heavy (5kg on average) balancing on our neck,
it is a bit like having a large ball (the skull) balanced on a thin stick
(the spine). No wonder then we get into trouble with our heavy jaw
naturally drawing us forward and our rib cage projecting over the
lower spine like holding a rucksack, and often a very heavy rucksack
if we are carrying excess weight. This natural imbalance of weight
anteriorly means gravity is working against us all day long and with
bad posture and repetitive poor movement, we will increase the risk
of long term weakness and pain in areas such as our neck,
shoulders, middle back and lower back.
Bad postural habits repeated every day, and for many times during
the day, like the ones below can cause injuries and strain to our
joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments.
Do you identify with any of them?
1. Hunching the upper body round and drawing your head
forward for prolonged periods often while reading and texting
on your phone. The new term “Text neck” is used to describe
this.
2. Sitting at a desk for long periods of time, twisting round to one
side repeatedly if your computer is off to the side and not at
the correct height.
3. Sitting on one side of the body dropping into one sitting bone
and repeatedly crossing your legs.
4. Putting more weight into one leg when standing, easy to do if
you are standing for long periods of time.
All of these scenarios create muscle imbalance and skeletal
misalignment and in turn, this can lead to pain in our muscles and
joints.
However, there is hope!
How To Correct Posture
Doing Pilates regularly, checking in with our bodies, retraining and
reminding our body through awareness of correct positioning in
space (proprioception) will help. How to stand, sit and move correctly
will lead naturally to muscle balance and skeletal alignment over
time. With good alignment and free, easy movement performed
from a position of strength and stability means that consciously and
subconsciously after a while the good habits begin to take over the
bad and we wonʼt feel the discomfort and pain like we used to.
Good alignment can be assessed from all sides, in profile by
dropping a plumb line through the centreline of the body. The line
should fall from the middle of the ear down through the shoulder
and should fall slightly behind the hip joint before landing just in
front of the ankle joint. We are also looking for muscular symmetry
between the two sides of our bodies. We need even weight between
our legs and on our feet, level shoulders, and head directly in the
centre not off to one side. Have a look side and front on in a mirror
or take a photograph of yourself and see if you are in line.
Neutral Spine & Pelvis
In Pilates, most of the basics principles for good alignment are
generally the same whether we perform the moves standing, sitting,
lying on our back (supine), on our front (prone), and lying on our
side. A neutral spine and pelvis are essential in all of these positions.
We have natural curves to our spines – an elongated S-shape, but
often forces conspire to compress our spine, such as gravity, poor
posture and old age. We want to reverse these effects by creating
more space between the vertebrae and elongating the spine. This
strengthens the spine because itʼs those parts of the spine where
one curve meets the next that the spine is most vulnerable. A
lengthened spine is able to articulate freely. A pelvis in neutral
should eventually feel natural and comfortable during Pilates
classes exercises and day to day standing, sitting and lying down.
If you tilt your pelvis forwards moving the pubic bone backwards,
you increase the hollow of your lumbar spine. If you tilt your pelvis
backwards moving the pubic bone forward and tucking the tailbone
under youʼll lose the hollow curve of your lumbar spine. You can try
this with your hands on your hips standing or lying down (see video).
What we are looking for is a mid-position between the two extremes.
This is the most evenly balanced position and encourages the
surrounding joints and muscles to be balanced and provides us with
a stable base from which to move. Think of a car safely in neutral
before going into gear to move off.
Some checkpoints and cues used in Pilates for aligning our bodies
correctly are…legs hip-distance apart, heels in line with toes, slight
softness at your knees, checking your pelvis is level (neutral spine),
elbows open, shoulders soft drawing gently down your back,
elongating the spine.
Through time we become used to our set-up and alignment and we
will safely perform the Pilates moves. It becomes second nature to
set up in whichever body position we are in to do the exercises. We
will then take good body alignment naturally into our day going
forward whether standing, sitting or moving.
How To Find Good Body
Alignment Video
Check out the video on alignment and how to find neutral alignment
around the pelvis and spine.
If you would like to take part in some online Pilates classes and
help your body find good postural alignment get in touch with me
at hello@janehamiltonpilates.co.uk.