Pilates for lower back pain

If you have chronic lower back pain and you go to a yoga teacher, they will usually give you a couple of stretches to do. If you go to a personal trainer, they will give you some strengthening exercises, and if you go to a physiotherapist, they will likely give you some functional, balancing and stabilization exercises. (1) What would a pilates instructor recommend to ease your pain?

Here is the answer by Anett Racz

 
You can have back pain for many reasons. You can pull your back with a wrong move or a sudden lift and have a hard time for days. But chronic back pain has more severe causes: muscle injuries, joint inflammation, problems with the discs of the lumbar spine, contracted muscles (from stress for example) that can cause stiffness or spasms, strain and poor posture. Poor posture is very common and our daily habits can be responsible; using your computer and phone straining the neck forward (slouching), sitting/standing for a long time, carrying heavy bags, wearing high heels... the body goes forward and gets you out of alignment. 

With pilates you’re strengthening the muscles, particularly the abdominals, by stabilizing the lower pelvic area which is the lower back. Making the abdominal muscles stronger helps align the body and fix bad posture. Long term this will ease back pain. As you can guessit’s not the fastest way to soothe the pain but in the long run strengthening your muscles and correcting your posture is the real cure for lower back pain.   

Check out Anett’s easy home exercises that will stretch your lower back and hamstrings, and help to improve your abdominal strength.

To read more about Anett click here & to read her article about pilates history click here

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