I have worked very hard over the years to build strength and more stability as by nature I am hyper-mobile. in my 47 years – I have broken my back, leg, arm, and neck…. I do not plan on any more broken bones and I feel very grateful to still be capable to move the way I do. As you may have guessed, I love to move as it makes me feel so free.
Too much stability can cause stiffness and tightness..and yes too much mobility can overstretch our ligaments, muscles, and joints causing strain. Both overdone could lead to compensation issues and imbalance.
In pilates method the goal is always to find balance. how can we both strengthen and mobilize our bodies to optimize our posture and feel our best day-to-day?
The ladder barrel is extra special in my opinion as it offers a firm, supportive curved surface that encourages spinal articulation in extension, flexion, and side bending to both strengthen and and create more space in all our sides – front/back/side body.
in this clip I am highlighting spinal articulating with some inversions. The support of the ladder barrel allows me to shine bright like the sun as I feel strong from the support of the barrel that allows me to radiate out through my whole body.
For years I wore my head forward of my heart center and even my heart center forward of my pelvic center. This lack of body awareness affected not only my physical body but also showed up in my choices and actions I took.
In 2017 I suffered a disk herniation that led to a disk replacement between C6/C7. It was a pain in the neck for sure!
Fortunately, this experience taught me the value of posture and the need for me to strengthen my neck!
So here is a simple routine I practice. It helps!
Before practicing neck isometrics it’s important to establish your center. Take time to align the center of your skull over the center of your heart/rib cage, over the center of your pelvic floor. Also, hold your heard up in its neutral position.
Wishing you all healthy necks and a string connection between your head and your heart.
Check out the practice in real time on my youtube –
Don’t be fooled! These are not just for your legs! These stretches are for your whole body!
In this short demo, I first demonstrate taking time to open up my back body, I transition to my side body, and end with opening my front body.
Like everything in the Pilates method, it is essential to ‘stand in your body’ already witnessing ALL your sides.
Take time to honor your own complexity and yes, asymmetry! We are not linear.
Also, for many of us, just standing can be enough of a stretch. It’s not always necessary to move much at all…listen to your body and breathe deeply in the places that feel stuck and stagnant. Also, be sure to ground yourself first, otherwise it will be very challenging to lift yourself up.:)
Please check out this video in real time on my YouTube channel
We stand every day and the simple act of standing should never be taken for granted. In fact, Joseph Pilates would often have his new clients stand for their whole session. He instructed his clients to pay attention to how they were standing to feel balanced and whole front to back and side to side, and breathe! when Joe saw that they were able to stand with this attention he would invite them to begin practicing the beginner system he created.
I find most times ‘we’ are unaware of how we stand. This lack of paying attention overtime can cause imbalance and structural/functional imbalance.
One postural habit I see a lot is the positioning of the pelvis…it shows up all the time! The pelvis often time is forward which not only causes tightness in the hip flexors and quadriceps but a lack of connection in the gluteals and hamstrings.
When this is the case, your bottom may feel like 2 squished raisons.
My hope for all of us is that our bottoms are more like 2 plump grapes than raisons:).
I believe, most times it’s building awareness in your body and being attentive to how we stand that will make the biggest impact on how we function day-to-day and move in our bodies.
Exercises can definitely help your build strength, but with everything, if they are done without attention to posture for the purpose of creating overall balance in the body, exercises can cause more imbalance and more unnecessary stress on your structure…its not what you do, its how you do it!
If you feel you have 2 squished raisons for your derrière, consider your pelvic placement when you are standing, sitting, and exercising…
Check out my beginner mat workout on YOUTube where I focus on Pelvic Placement and “standing in our body” with attention.
Marilyn Heinemann is Le Bureau’s spotlit client of the month.
Marilyn has been practicing classical Pilates with me for 14 years plus! I met Marilyn shortly after I started working as the Pilates coordinator at Seattle Athletic club in Seattle. At the time she was lifting weights and looking to try something new for overall strength and flexibility; I remember her enjoying the leg springs series on the Cadillac. She has been a regular practitioner ever since, practicing 2x a week when she can!
When she is not practicing Pilates at Le bureau, you can find Marilyn tending her immaculate garden, preparing new culinary delights to share with her family and friends, attending some ‘arts’ event, or just watching her favorite new show. She is respectful of others and herself, always dressed to a tee, and stays up to date with the times! Her positive attitude and mental/physical abilities reflect someone much younger than she is. Thank you Marilyn for inspiring me in so many ways. I love working with you and learning about all the things you are up to.
“The things I gain most from Pilates is a sense of greater balance in my movements and it has enabled me to develop and keep strength in my body. I just feel more aware of how my body allows me to keep doing the activities I enjoy as I age.”
If you practice Pilates you know that the reformer or any of the other Pilates apparatus acts as a ‘good friend.’
Not only does a good friend listen and support you when times get tough, a good friend is also responsive and receptive to your actions and tells you when you’ve pushed your boundaries too far!
Building any sustainable relationship takes time. Nurturing our own friendship with ourselves is the most valuable relationship we will ever have. Investing in ourselves and the practices that enhance this relationship with ourselves is ALWAYS worth our efforts.
In this short clip, I use the reformer to be my ‘friend’ – to give me boundaries, and also something to reach, root, expand, grow, pull, push, lift into.
Feeling my toes connect to my nose, my crown to my tail, my left hip to my right shoulder, my feet to my seat, and my arms to my back etc etc…
Finding a ‘good friend’ is a good idea. Just don’t forget to love ‘it’ back.
Balancing our efforts in ‘stepping forward’ and ‘staying back’
Do you talk more than you listen? OR Listen more than you speak?
Can you pause before you react or do you react before you think?
Can you see these metaphors in the lunge pose? I sure do!
How is your lunge pose? How are your hips??
The Lunge is a foundational and functional posture that will keep your hips mobile and functioning as you age.
Did you know that practicing the lunge pose can help you build strength and encourage more space in your lower body including your hips/pelvic floor/low power house muscles?
When practicing this posture it is good to pay attention and notice if you are able to…
1 – distribute weight evenly between your front and back foot?
2 – feel supported and grounded. Is your base of support wide enough?
3 – integrate your feet to feed your thighs into your hips?
4 – square your hips and hug your midline?
5 – lift and lengthen your spine out of your hips/pelvis?
As you practice your lunges – Do you tend to step forward or step back and why?
This picture was taken in 2005 at Shakti Yoga in Des Moines Iowa. It was my last class. I will always be grateful to this community and my first Anusara Yoga teacher – Brette Berlin Scott.
What makes a great teacher?
I have been reflecting on this a lot lately. I have had many teachers over the years as I have moved several times since marrying Pontus in 2003 for his medical schooling/residencys etc. Although moving around has been exhausting, especially when we started having kids (4 years after getting married), it has also been exciting and fun to start fresh, and connect to new perspectives. I have been somewhat of a gypsy, finding my people along the way with no particular place to call home.
I have been curious what sets some of my favorite teachers apart?
One thing I know for certain, it’s not just what the teacher knows, it’s who the teacher is at their core that makes him or her such a powerful influence.
I also credit my personal struggles and experiences to be some of my greatest teachers (once I started to pay attention)!
I have been a teacher for many years…
In my youth I was a nanny in college and after graduating with majors in liberal studies and French at Seattle University, I continued for another year to earn a Masters in education.
Teaching school for me was short lived! Moving around a lot, was a big reason. Although, I did get a job teaching HS French for 6 months that was temporary and substitute teaching was draining.
It was in Toledo Ohio, in 2005/6 that I decided to stop teaching school and start devoting my time instead to teaching something that filled me up with joy and inspiration. Fitness and moving my body, particularly with the methods of yoga and Pilates was exactly that…
I dove into learning and have too many courses and training to mention over the past 22 years. My goal has always been to share what I learn to help others to feel better in their body – ultimately feel better about who they are.
I was not always healthy and fit in my youth and suffered my junior year in high school. I got sick and never got better. I gained a lot of weight, experienced severe acne all over my face, and suffered a lot of shame. I learned my thyroid was hypothyroid, and have been taking hypothyroid medication ever since.
Although looking back this was a horrible experience for me, it was also one of the best things that ever happened to me as it woke me up and I started taking more ownership of my life.
So here are some of the qualities that I believe make a great teacher….
-someone who is an inspiration. Who walks the walk.
-someone who is encouraging.
-someone who is honest and truthful in who they are and what they say.
-someone who shares in their journey(we all have one) and continues to show up.
-someone that understands that everyone is different and may need a different approach and variations.
-someone who watches and listens with compassion and love.
-someone who acknowledges their mistake(we all make them).
-someone who is happy for your achievements and not jealous of what you can do.
-someone that believes in themselves and believes in you!
So what do you think? Who are some of your favorite teachers and why?
You do not need to tuck your tailbone in order to strengthen your core!
Joseph Pilates placed a strong value on understanding and connecting to a TALL back in standing exercises to help one understand proper posture. Having awareness of a TALL back posture is essential before going into any movement and especially into a round back(tucking) posture.
*in fact, it was quite common for Joe Pilates to have his clients “stand” for their whole lesson. He would encourage them to focus on their posture. When their posture was ‘good enough,’ Joe would invite them to progress with the apparatus and other exercises.
Whenever you are standing, you want to connect to a TALL back posture. A tall back is when you –
Respect the natural curves of your back. Lordotic curve in lumbar and cervical spine and kyphotic curve in thoracic spine.
Connect to a neutral pelvis(aka – not tucked) When your pubic bone is level to your hip bones on the sagittal plane.
You stack your body! Where the center of your skull lines up to the center of your ribs, lines up to the center of your pelvis, lines up to the center of your knees and finally ankles.
Posture is an action and never just ‘sits’. Meaning that, you need to be attentive and present to sustain a tall back posture:). Its takes steady presence, effort and sometimes some softening to find and maintain a well balanced posture. For me personally, I have a very flat back and my head pushed forward and down for many reasons!!. Knowing this, I focus on lifting my low back in and up, I also try to create more width and expansion in my mid thoracic spine by using my breath, and I have learned over may years to pull my throat, skull back and up which has helped me not only achieve better alignment, but consequently allowed me to build better strength in my upper back and neck.
*Most people (I observe) have super tight hip flexors (maybe from too much sitting or too much exercising and not enough stretching). Tight hip flexors will push their thigh bones forward in their hip sockets. If this is you, you’ll need to soften your knees, to draw the top of your shins forward to help you draw the top of your thighs back! Another common issue is rib flaring in the front body. To help with your ribs you need to consider expanding and breathing more into the back of your rib cage and use your exhales to connect the front ribs in and down toward the pelvis to expand the back ribs back and up.
What are you working on in your posture?
If you practice Yoga, you can think of Tadasana/mountain pose as your TALL back posture! This posture is not just ‘standing there’… On the contrary, Mountain pose in yoga is a demanding, dynamic standing posture. Although you may look still on the outside you are working hard on the inside to oragnize your body as you integrate every part of your body from your feet pushing into the earth to ground, all the way up to the crown of your head. You should feel strong and stable like a mountain, yet also light and lifted like a puffy cloud. In other words, no one would be able to come by and push you down because you are strongly rooted, buoyant and resilient connected bottom to top, top to bottom, and side to side!
Are you attentive when you stand still?
So why then do we tuck the tail bone…
In round back positions and rolling position we need to tuck the tail to help us with articulating our back bone by bone. Think of rolling-over, rolling like a ball, open leg rocker, seal on the mat or stomach massage round back, elephant, and kneeling knee stretch with a round back position on the reformer.
There are some exercises that transition in and out of round back such as the roll-up on the mat and the short spine on the reformer. When lying flat on the mat you should aim at having a neutral pelvis and when you are up in your c-curve you should have a round back where you stay slightly behind your sit bones as you roll -up. This is a subtle yet powerful awareness to build as you progress in your practice!
When we are rounding our back and our tail bone is tucked we also want to be sure our whole spine is in a c-curve so our spine is in harmony and not performing 2 separate opposing actions! Therefore, our chin should be at our chest and our gaze at our abdominals/ribs pulling and sternum pulling back and up to expand and broaden the upper spine to the lower spine. If you practice yoga, you should think Cat back not Cow back!
*I find many, including myself, have a difficult time rounding without collapsing. It is essential to keep your inner lift!
Although there are more spinal shapes (twist/side bend), the tall and round back are the 2 spinal shapes we use in the sagittal plane.
The round back is useful to teach us how to connect more deeply, to our whole spine. As a reminder when strengthening our center it involves our whole spinal body as one part will affect the other part! That is Pilates…everything is connected! Be patient and use your breathing as your guide and tool to create more width and space where your body needs it. That said when we round our back, we want to try to pull in our front body and our side bodies to support and expand our whole back side. When transitioning back to a TALL back posture (as we do several times in our pilates workouts)we should try to keep that “connection and fullness” in our back, as we reconnect to our Tall back posture.
How about the teaser?
The teaser exercise is a strong and very challenging pilates exercise. Although this exercise requires a whole lot of BALANCED core strength, it also is essential that you have a flexible spine and open hips! There is a lot going on in this exercise, and it is not for everyone, especially if you have a boney tailbone…
For me personally, I have a very stiff low back and rolling up and down is tricky for me. If I move too fast, I will miss my whole lumbar spine on the way up and down. I have learned to slow down to feel more and take my time. Using my exhale will also help me cinch my waist more to help me better articulate.
This is just one scenario…There are many scenarios!! Whatever your issue/issues are – please remember it is not the destination of ‘sticking’ the posture or finding perfection – rather, it is the journey and process in how you work with your body with accepting what is first…there will always be another issue and always more work to do. Listening and paying attention to what is and making honest adjustments to support ourselves is always the best way forward…
Teaser. – Tall back or round back position?
Its actually both! There needs to be lift and length so when in your teaser position you are not dumping and collapsing in your lumbar and thoracic spine. That said there is a subtle c-curve. Meaning you will be behind your sit bones with the low back slightly rounded to support a posterior tilt especially if you are going to articulate your spine.
Careful that you are not collapsing in your lumbar spine… For example, if you are rounding too much in your low back, most cases you will be too round in your upper back and therefore not able to find your lift and length in your tall back and be able to widen your collar bone and open your chest! On the flip side, if you have too much extension and perhaps are positioned in front of your sits bones, most cases your ribs/chest will be pushing forward too much and you will not be able to connect well to your subtle c-curve and your power house muscles.
The bottom line is that there is always an element of TALL back. It is essential that you find your tall back first, especially before you round.
AND…
Remember to be gentle and patient with yourself! Pilates is not as easy as most people think. It’s sweaty hard work and always involves the WHOLE BODY. The practice of Pilates requires one to stay present and give a lot of effort! This attentiveness and hard work will increase your strength and overall well being. Any successful practice is generative:)
We get good at what we practice, not what we know:)
Check out my latest teaser tutorials on my YouTube channel!
I cannot find my original video, so I re-recorded this off my instagram account:)
In this short video I demonstrate 3 exercises to strengthen the back & the bottom of your ‘core.’
In Pilates the emphasis is always to strengthen the core of your body so that you support your optimal alignment and can move through various activities in your day with ease and grace.
Unfortunately, I feel that the bottom of our core support system is sometimes misunderstood, and there is more value placed on strengthening the abdominals in the front of the body. Understanding that our abdominal muscles are just one piece of our core is valuable to remember.
I hope you were able to get to the bottom of your core in all your activities!
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