Using Pilates to Learn How to Sit Ready to Move

This morning, I was working with a client that asked me, “How can I improve my sitting posture?”  While I saw it as a fabulous question, I also found myself a little perplexed…When I first started learning and teaching Pilates, I didn’t think about my posture too much.  I was busy learning exercises, and learning how to teach exercises, and then something magical happened. (not really, it simply happened without my conscious awareness). I was sitting in a class once and I noticed, “Woh my posture is really good right now…and it’s not even hard to sit up straight.”  Imagine that a person who had been moving all of her life finally learned how to sit. Imagine my surprise that finally I became conscious of my posture when it was okay, and not when it was awful and causing pain…

This was a few years ago, and it left me with a dilemma.  I was not sure what exercises helped me to find this balanced posture.  I had no codified way to tell someone to practice posture because it happened to me unconsciously when I was learning movement.  It happened to me when I was getting stronger and it happened to me when I was trying to learn EVERY Pilates Exercise not just my favorites.  Since then, I have been on many pseudo scientific journeys with clients at The Pilates Studio.  I say pseudo scientific because in movement theory there is a scientific base for choices that are made.  I work from a strong base of biomechanical knowledge, myofascial relationships, and movement study, but I am convinced that the double blind causation studies are detrimental to the complex system and variables that are human movement.   SO in a pseudo scientific ways I have explored improving posture with people.  And like any double blind experiment I could say, the results are varied, but why don’t you try this or this or this….

What constitutes ”BAD” posture?

For the record, bad posture is a phrase I don’t like, but if I write about improving posture I like to name what it is I would like to improve.  Off the top of my head and for the purpose of the next few blog posts, I have thought of four things to observe.

1.     Is this posture movement ready?

2.    Does the posture cause pain?

3.    Is the posture balanced from front to back?

4.    Is the posture balanced from inside to outside?

The lovely thing about this list is that it is ever changing.  Tomorrow it could be a list of six things, and yesterday it might have only been three.  Just another way that working with posture is a malleable endeavor.  Like my list posture is an ever-changing event subject to many variables in our lives.

For the purposes of this blog post we are going to talk about #1.  Is this posture movement ready?

How to sit ready for movement

When you are sitting, can you quickly get up and get a cup of tea?  Do you have to think about standing up? How easy is it to get out of your car? Do you have access to the muscles in your legs?  Movement ready posture in my mind is sitting with the ability to stand instantly and easily. Movement ready posture is the ability to move efficiently from a sitting position inside a car to standing position outside of a car.  I have found the following physioball workouts to be the best and most fun way to practice. 

What I like about them is the progression.

Step I:  Sit on the ball, sometimes this is the practice in and of itself.  There is proprioceptive challenge, and you must keep your feet grounded

Step 2: Start bouncing on the ball.  Keep your feet grounded.  Your heels should be like roots into the floor.

Step 3: Bounce to Stand.  When you are comfortable bouncing on the ball without fear of falling, Simply start bouncing, bounce higher and then a little higher until you bounce your way to standing

Step 4: Now we’re getting tricky.  Make sure you are really secure with Step III, then bounce your way to standing…wait for it…on one foot.

Step 5: is the most challenging in this series and it provides quite a balance challenge.  Be sure to watch the video before you try this.  It’s important to have a mental picture of this.  You stand beside the ball and lift the leg closest to the ball, then sit on the ball and slide across the ball.  Then plant the opposite foot in the ground on the other side of the ball.  Repeat and be sure to enjoy the wobbles.

Enjoy this first of four how to sit workouts.  Next week we’ll learn how to sit when sitting causes pain

Katrina Hawley C.M.A, CPT-PMA

Director of Instruction at The Pilates Studio

The next two videos illustrate steps 1-5