Pilates FAQs

A great deal of lower back pain comes from poor posture and our daily mistreatment of our spines. By re-aligning your spine and imprioving your posture, lower back pain can often be eliminated entirely.

Ask anyone to name three things essential for life and you will be told, water, air and food. Few people will mention sleep and yet it too is essential to life. A disturbing 15+ million prescriptions for sleeping pills were issued by the NHS in 2010/2011 – a figure that gives you some idea of the numbers of people who suffer from insomnia. Pilates can help stretch muscles, releasing tension and pain, and it can also help trigger natural sleep responses.

Pilates helps increase both your strength and stamina without adding unwanted bulk because it focuses on developing your “core” muscles – muscles found in your abdominal and pelvic regions as well as in your back. By toning and stretching these muscles, and by correcting your posture, your natural strength and stamina will improve in leaps and bounds.

One in two women and one in five men over the age of 50 in the UK will break a bone, mainly because of a bone disorder called osteoporosis. Osteoporosis affects three million people in the UK every year, with bones (and particularly those of the spine, wrist and hips) becoming thin and weak and susceptible to fractures. By promoting good posture and balance, pilates can actively help you avoid becoming one of those people.

Pilates is a gentle form of exercise that literally re-introduces you to your own body. The better you understand your body and how it works, the easier it will be for you to release tension, relax and beat the stresses and strains of modern life.

Stress incontinence is the most common form of incontinence and affects over three million people in the UK. A common cause of this type of incontinence in women is pregancy, where the pelvic floor muscles can be weakened. This can also happen as we get older. Pilates will help you strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, thereby curing what can be a very distressing problem for sufferers. A further bonus is that improving these muscles after childbirth can also improve your sex life.

Pilates helps improve your balance and co-ordination by realigning your spine and strengthening your “core” muscles. And better balance and co-ordination means fewer injuries – hence pilates growing popularity among professional sports people – from dancers and Olympic athletes to football and rugby players.

Due to its low impact nature, Pilates is widely recognised as being beneficial to people who are recovering from certain types of injury including whiplash and a wide range of sporting injuries. That said I will need to assess you first if you are suffering from an injury, the last thing we want to do is make you feel worse, only better. If in any doubt I would always recommend you seek professional medical advice from your GP or Doctor before undertaking a new exercise programme.