Clinical Pilates: Can It Help Your Lower Back Pain?

Posted on: 21 November 2017

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If you suffer from debilitating back pain and would like an alternative form of treatment other than prescription medication, you may want to consider clinical pilates. This type of pilates largely focuses on correcting your posture, strengthening your core, enhancing your balance and improve your overall flexibility. The main difference between clinical pilates and traditional pilates is that the former provides you with a personalised approach when determining the course of treatment your specific back pain would require. So how can clinical pilates help in healing and treating your back pain?

Clinical pilates can make your muscles stronger

During your clinical pilates sessions, your medical professional will put your body through resistance training. This form of exercise works to strengthen your back muscles, which in turn will help in correcting your posture. In addition to this, the resistance training also helps with pain relief. During clinical pilates, you will utilise equipment referred to as reformers, which are designed to exert spring resistance in an attempt to challenge your muscles to work harder. Other types of resistance training that you would undergo include gravity resistance, body weight resistance as well as band resistance.

Clinical pilates can help improve your body's movements

When people develop back pain, they tend to change their movements to minimise the amount of pain that they endure. For example, people that have severe lower back pain may subconsciously stop rotating their trunk. This impeded movement results in poor posture, and you also end up adversely affecting your gait. When these movement patterns are left to develop unencumbered, you simply allow your spine to become stiffer, which will aggravate the back pain. Through clinical pilates, your therapist can help undo these lousy movement patterns that you have developed due to your lower back pain. Regular physio couples with physical training will gradually improve your body's movements and minimise the pain that you are experiencing.

Clinical pilates can help you become more flexible

Another critical aspect of clinical pilates is the stretching of your muscles and ligaments. Routine stretching helps to keep your muscle limber. When your muscles are strong and flexible, they do not have to overwork when you are carrying out menial tasks such as lifting objects. Additionally, flexible muscles mean it would be easier for you to maintain proper posture as you will not be feeling stiffness in your back. Therefore, you find that you develop fewer knots and tightness in your back muscles, which diminishes back pain.