What to do when you can’t do a Pilates Roll Up

Imagine this scenario.  A person starts taking a Pilates Mat Class.  She might be an active person who wants to see what this “core strength” thing is all about.  She goes to her very first class, and it is hard.  She feels work in her belly muscles, and quite frankly, this first class is just a little confusing.  What is this move vertebra by vertebra business?  When was she supposed to exhale again?  She might have even found herself holding her breath completely.  Maybe some exercises seemed absolutely impossible.  She may have learned that there is a completely different way of thinking about the body.  The movement might seem foreign.  The necessary awareness may feel very different than other fitness classes. But at the end of the day she decides a Pilates Mat Class is worth a second try.

Fast-forward two years…She has been going to Pilates Mat Classes twice a week.  She has made friends with her classmates, and it has become a way of life for her.  She loves the way she feels after a Pilates Class.  She feels longer and stronger. Her Forward Leg pull rocks. Her balance is improved, and she is more flexible.  Everything seems better, except for one pesky exercise…The Pilates Roll up still feels elusive…She has practiced and tried and practice and tried some more, but she simply just can’t get past the ribcage when doing the Pilates Roll up…She finally goes to her teacher after class and says, “What can I do? I’ve practiced and practiced, and no matter how hard I try I just can’t seem to do the roll up.” 

This did happen, and when my client came to me, we talked about her posture and about the fact that The Pilates Roll up isn’t about abdominal strength.  Her abdominals were strong.  The Pilates Roll up was about finding segmental spine movement.  The Pilates Roll up was about finding ease in the back so that the spine can bend.  We talked about the fact that simply “practicing” the roll up might be reinforcing the movement patterns that are impeding her progress.  Then we set up an appointment so that we could design a workout that would help her body prepare for the roll up.  Will it work?  I hope so, and I think so. 

Try the following video.  Let me know what you think.  Might this work?  Would you be willing to try this for two weeks?

Like so many workouts, this series has basis in many different movement theories.  I think of it as collecting the tidbits of information and then connecting the dots.

Tidbit #1 I have learned this tidbit many times in many different ways.  And simply stated, it doesn’t matter how strong your abdominals are if your back doesn’t move.  So in my opinion the first steps in training to do the roll up is to loosen the back of the body.  In the video I do this with The Hamstring Release Series and several Spine Stretches that move the spine in several planes of motion.

Tidbit #2 Shortness in the Hip Flexors can impede movement in the Lumbar Spine.  The Hip Flexor Stretches with the Magic Circle on the Foam Roller can open the front of the hip, which will then allow the tailbone to drop and the spine to lengthen. These are dynamic stretches that allow the bones of the legs to move in the hip socket so that any fascial “stuckness” can be released.

Tidbit #3 Using the diaphragm efficiently helps lengthen the spine, and can connect the upper body to the lower body.  When designing this workout I coupled this idea with the fact that throughout my practice most of the people who have trouble with the roll up get stuck at the ribcage.  I also thought about how thanks to Tom Myers I know that the diaphragm and the psoas are fascially connected, and I connected this to the idea that we often forget to get all of the air out of our lungs…(This might need to be Tidbit #3a-3d)  It’s important in all of the exercises to understand that the breath can move the body.  It can open the ribs.  It is the Olive Oil of any Pilates Recipe! 

Tidbit #4 The Roll up is about segmental spinal movement…What’s another exercise that increases segmental movement yet uses gravity to help?  That’s right the bridge…There is a reason that I teach the bridge in almost every single pilates class…It is safe, effective, and uses the breath to find segments of movement that might be stuck.

Try the workout and see what you think?  Let us know if you think it might just work for you!   

Katrina Hawley PMA-CPT, C.M.A
Director of Instruction at The Pilates Studio

Using Pilates to Learn How to Sit when sitting causes pain

Last week we started a series of blog posts about learning how to sit.  As we continue the series I am finding some humor in the fact that as a culture that sits for more of its day than most, it seems funny to me that we are a culture that doesn’t know how to sit.  I find myself thinking, "I remember when I learned how to sit."  The funny part is that I was 25 years old not 6 months old, and ironically I learned how to sit by moving not sitting.  This is why ultimately as we continue to sit without knowing how to sit eventually the act of sitting begins to cause pain.  This pain can manifest in our low back, our neck, our shoulders, our hips, and even our knees and feet.    When someone talks to me about pain in sitting I look for a few things.  I wonder how long is the axis?  I look at each vertebra and see if one is “sticking out” more than others.  I look to see if the knees are even or below the hips, and I look to see if the pelvis is stacked and tall.   I look to see what compressive forces are acting on the spine.  I look for bones that are stacked.  Why do I look for these things?  Because it is in my experience that pain when sitting is often caused by compressive forces (gravity) acting on the spine.  And if these forces can be spread throughout the myofascial system, pain dissipates.

The following video is a series of exercises that I have found to help elongate the spine.  Try it.  See what you think.

Thanks to flickr and caseorganic on flickr

The first exercise in the video is simply adding length to your spine by balancing the tension in the myofascial system.  I have learned from Tom Myers to look at the body as a tensegrity structure.  What does that mean?  I see a body with bones that are suspended between different fascial tensions.  Very much like the picture to the right.   In it the sticks are suspended by the tension forces.  Which is the feeling that the first exercise is helping you find.  You want to imagine each vertebra suspended by balanced tension of the muscles and tendons.

Thanks to flickr and Rwike77

Then you want to start moving the vertebra.  When you keep the tension balanced, the rest of the body can now begin to move in both flexion and extension in the sagittal plane, and in lateral flexion in the coronal plane.  In these exercises, I like to think about the spine as taffy that is warming; that as you bend it back and forth, and side to side the spine is getting gooier and gooier. 

And then finally I like to replace the tension in the spine to keep the posture that the exercises just created.

Have fun!  And join us next week when we use Pilates to learn how to sit balanced front to back

Katrina Hawley C.M.A, PMA-CPT

Director of Instruction at The Pilates Studio 

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

Magic Trick for Tight Hamstrings

This past week I discovered a magic trick…Okay not really.  What really happened?  I remembered a few things that I had forgotten, and then once connected these tidbits of information worked as if by magic to release someone’s hamstrings!  It seemed like magic because this person had been doing all the “right” things.  She had been stretching the hamstrings, she had been doing the hamstring release series, and she had been strengthening her body… Yet her hamstrings weren’t budging because we hadn’t put it all together.  Like many things, this magic trick seemed so obvious once it was clear.  Why didn’t I think of it before?  Well, I thought I would point out the pieces of information that connected to develop the hamstring magic trick…Then what I really want to do is ask all of you to try it and see if it really works.  You know another of The Pilates Studio’s forays into uncontrolled pseudo scientific experiments that gather more and more anecdotal information.  That’s what I want!  I look forward to the discussion that occurs at The Pilates Studio this week.  

Or if you are in another place, feel free to post a comment below!

Hamstring Tidbits (Funny none of these tidbits are "about" the hamstrings)

Tidbit #1 – I remember learning once from Elizabeth Larkham.  We were on the trap table at a workshop entitled “The Core has Arms” She talked about the leg spring series and how pressing your hands into the upright poles helps to activate the anterior oblique sling.

Tidbit #2 – I remembered learning about the functional lines from Tom Myers.  These are fascial lines that work together, and in particular I remembered when talking fascial connections that the triceps connect to the serratus anterior which connects to the external obliques, which connect to the internal obliques of the opposite side.

Tidbit #3 – The phrase “Stuck on the Inhale” came to mind.  This idea refers to the efficiency of using the core of the body.  It is much more efficient to find axial length with a strong and efficient core if a person can get all of the air out of the lungs.  Thank you to Tom Myers and Brent Anderson, who have both explained this in completely different ways to me…

Tidbit #4 – The body will recruit global moving muscles to maintain stability if necessary.  And this becomes necessary when the body loses axial length and abdominal strength.  In other words the body uses muscles like the hamstrings and glutes instead of the core of the body.

Wait I thought this post was about loosening the hamstrings…

Okay Try This: 

First don’t think about anything and lift your leg straight into the air.  Ask yourself these questions…

How does the pelvis feel?  How does the hamstring feel?  Where do you feel pain or tightness?

Now with the answers to those questions in mind, Try this:

Lay down on the floor close to the wall.  Place your hands on the wall and push the palms of your hands into the wall, slide your shoulder blades down your back, feel your triceps engage and also feel muscles underneath your shoulder blades engage.  Then exhale all of the air out of your lungs, notice that your ribcage narrows and that your abdominals engage.  Maintain this position and lift your leg again…What happens?  How does it feel?  IS it different?

If the description above is confusing watch the videos below that show the difference.

These videos were shot quickly at The Pilates Studio between classes.  Notice all the chatter of the happy people that love pilates

Task one may look like this:

Notice the popping ribs, and that the thigh bone stops just below the hip.

Here's a video of the next task.  Do you notice a difference?  Now what if you used the breath while stretching the hamstrings? Might life be a little easier in these stretches.?

I can't wait to continue to explore this idea with the clients at The Pilates Studio.  Please feel free to try this and comment below.  The more anecdotal data we can collect the more movement "magic tricks" we can discover.

Katrina Hawley C.M.A, CPT-PMA
Director of Instruction at The Pilates Studio

Take a Breath and Step Back.

Sometimes we see the world clearer from farther away.  Assessing any situation is easier when the entire picture is in view.  We spend so much time in our lives looking forward, moving forward, dealing with things in front of us.   It’s almost as if our bodies are in tunnels moving forward.  We forget to check the periphery of our space and lives.  And heaven forbid that someone should move backwards…Literally and especially figuratively.   Yet all of this forward motion leaves us without awareness of so many parts of our lives in movement.  Our breath gets stuck in our sternum, our oxygen levels decline, our necks tilt forward.  Our spines compress as a gradual shrinking fits our bodies into the tunnel of forward movement. 

This morning I came into the studio to move…But it was early, the coffee hadn’t kicked in, and my motivations for coming to the studio were related to the fact that I thought I “should” get a workout in, as opposed to any inner desire.  This means that I came to the studio and lazily moved through a couple things exploring movement with a lackadaisical, yet obstinate approach.  On the Pulley tower, I moved through some of the Arch and Curl Series but I didn’t do the whole series because I didn’t want to (That’s the obstinate side) Then I did a little leg work thinking about my bones, instead of muscles (lackadaisical)…Then I stood up and started walking around the studio…Then out of my obstinate lazy mindset came a new thought.  I started walking backwards.  It was weird, and I had read something about it way back when…and well something shifted…

I became fascinated with the air that I felt on the back of my arms.  My eyeballs started shifting all over the place trying to see behind me. (I had made a mess of the studio and there was a little tripping trepidation.)  Then I felt a connection happen…I was taller, I felt my shoulders drop, my neck lengthen and I grew…The greatest thing about it is that I didn’t have to tell myself to drop my shoulders and lengthen my neck…My body did it.  The ironic part of this exploration is that nothing new happened.  All of the information my body was giving me was already there, but the situation just allowed for an aware body memory to resurface.  My lackadaisical obstinate distracted workout led to a lengthened spine with freedom for breath in the back of the ribcage.

Now why do I think this was worth writing about?  I had a dance teacher once say, “If you feel like you are having a bad class, then you are really learning.  On the days you are having a good class you are only showing off.”  I, of course, think this is a bit harsh, but it has stuck with me.  My grumpiness this morning led to movement that I don’t do very often.  I moved backwards.  And maybe next time I’ll move sideways or up or down or forward sideways and up all at the same time!  Exploration is exactly that and progress is not necessarily manifested in forward movement, forward thinking, or forward anything at all.  So let us all take a deep breath and step back.

Katrina Hawley C.M.A, R.S.M.E

As always anything new learned or realized has a history.  I knew I had read about walking backwards before...Here are some interesting websites that I found of people that are studying the art of walking backwards.

"Walking backwards fits the criteria for neurobic activity"

Walking backwards as rehab for lower extremities 

 Dutch Study about sharpened brain

Where the women are strong and the men are brave

Something very unusual happened to me last week. During one of my sessions there were four people working out in the studio and they were all men! Why is it unusual for four men to be doing pilates at the same time? Joseph Pilates the creator of the method was a man. He was a boxer and a gymnast. He originally intended his work to be for men. So once again why was it weird to have four men in the studio working out at the same time? Well it's simple really because right now more women practice Pilates than men.

Pilates is booming. People have heard of it, studios are everywhere, it's even making it into dialog in movies and tv shows. Yet, somehow in the brilliant marketing of recent pilates studios and teachers Pilates has become known as exercise for women...what? First of all, I've always wondered why someone would think that one kind of exercise is for women and another is for men. Whether it's hockey, volleyball, running, swimming, or Pilates. Luckily, we now live in a world where any man or woman can do any activity they want...but still there is this social stigma about men and Pilates. (ok the word stigma seems a little strong, but there I said it.)

In my practice most of the men I see were brought to Pilates by their partners or wives. We even have a running joke that it takes about four years for a client to convince her husband to come to the studio. Why? Well, it is not because Pilates is easy. Pilates is hard work. People who do Pilates correctly are strong and that's that! People who practice Pilates also gain flexibility and increase range of motion. People who practice Pilates are better at the sports they want to play.

As I was thinking about this post, I was surfing the internet and I found this interview of Rael Isacowitz:

http://pilates.about.com/od/teachersandstyles/a/Pilates-Interview-Rael-Isacowitz_3.htm

He is a world renowned master teacher. He was asked a question about Pilates and men, and his answer was wonderfully eloquent. He spoke about the history. That Joseph Pilates originally intended his work to be exercise for men but then when he moved to New York most of his students were women. He spoke about the different energies that men and women bring to pilates, and how those different energies need to be acknowledged and honored. This made me think back to the session that I taught last week, it certainly had different energy. It was new for me, but so exciting!

I was talking to another friend last night and he told me that Rob Bradford on WEEI was talking about Josh Beckett the Red Sox pitcher, who is starting out what is going to be a phenomenal season. He did Pilates in the off season to rehabilitate injuries that kept him out for nine weeks last season.

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view/2011_0405righty_starts_2011with_plenty_to_prove/

I think the tide is turning...Which brings me to the title of this post. To all of the men out there who ignored the media and came to Pilates before Josh Beckett, thank you for changing the face of an evolving system of exercise. And to my four dear clients that inspired this post, thank you for a fun hour, and thank you for informing me about the NFL strike that is looming.

Katrina Hawley C.M.A, R.S.M.E

Pilates Instructor