The Movement Studio Pilates

The mountains are calling, the highway is improving and ski season is here!Pilates programming focussed on ski conditioning and injury prevention is high on the agenda for avid skiers. We all want to ski fast, react well to bumps and moguls, negotiate deep powder, rebound from jumps, and learn how to best accelerate and decelerate through each turn to get that perfect run.

Educating skiers on proper core stability and the key muscles that often get tight, inappropriately recruited or overused due to muscle imbalances can go a long way to preventing injuries. Pilates can address the form, technique, strength and muscle coordination required to prevent compensations and injuries. Controlling the trunk through core stability allows us to respond to the rapid motion, speed and extreme mobility our bodies experience while skiing.

Training the adductors will help us recover when we catch an edge and assist us in keeping the skis under the centre of our body, reducing the stress on passive structures like our MCL (medial collateral ligament).

Knee injuries account for 1 in every 3 ski injuries, with ACL injuries involved in more than half!

Insufficient control of joint positioning puts excessive load on the ACL, subjecting it to possible sprain or tearing. Learning how to support and control the joints through Pilates will go a long way to preventing such injuries.

Research shows that women teat their ACLs 5-10 times more frequently than men. Many factors contribute to this stat. The predominant ones are imbalances. Women tend to prefer one leg to the other in terms of power and balance which creates single-leg dominance patterning. They tend to activate quads over hamstrings in an attempt to stabilize the knee joint and at particular angles of flexion this quad dominance stresses the ACL. Injuries to the medial or inside of the knee are also high. Appropriate tracking and stability of the knee and hip joints is required and Pilates uses exercises targeting the glutes and VMO muscles to help accomplish this.

The lower back is also often overused and injured. This is generally the result of poor core stability and fatigue. When we ski we need a strong, flexible, resilient structure to be injury-free. Proper abdominal recruitment will help you ski a full day comfortably, with enough energy to enjoy apres ski!

“The Present is a Gift…” Eleanor Roosevelt

The nervous system is the messenger system in our body and it is busy. It prioritizes what we pay attention to and what we can ignore. Sometimes we ignore signs and symptoms that we should pay attention to, because they are not convenient. Unfortunately the signs and symptoms will increase until you pay attention. Don’t wait until it is too late.

There will always be important matters to take care of your whole life. There will be many obligations and many distractions. Health is a life in balance, and attending to this balance is what will allow you to enjoy the matters you wish to attend to. Family, friends, spirit, play, work, stimulation, rest, good nutrition, sleep, and exercise all need a place on the pie chart of your life. Learning to listen to your body will help you to make better choices about all of these aspects of your life, reduce your stress, enjoy your life more fully, and provide good role modeling for everyone you interact with.

We need a sense of self to know what we want, and when things are not right within. We all get signs and symptoms of stress, but we are not always listening. Sometimes we don’t know how to listen.

It is important to listen because if your body is not handling stress well, there will be physiological ramifications. Fatigue, burn out, high blood pressure, heart disease, decreased immunity, and chronic fatigue syndrome to name a few.

Danielle McCulloch 2007

Inefficient movement done repetitively causes the body to develop out of balance and this causes injury.  Pilates’ integration of the trunk, pelvis and shoulder girdle, and emphasis on proper breathing, correct spinal and pelvic alignment plays an important role in helping to keep folks injury free.  These concepts practiced through mindful movement promotes strength and an awareness of functional mechanics, educating clients on how to fully engage in dynamic activity injury free.  Pilates has become a crucial adjunct to strength and conditioning regimes with top-tier athletes, dancers, and folks seeking to get the most out of life.

The Movement Studio and our practitioners provide individualized, private sessions for clients recovering from an injury via a progressive healing process. We also specialize in well-back, shoulder and posture clinics.

Rehabilitative Pilates is a non-passive, highly effective, results-based modality. We utilize specialized equipment that offers resistance for muscle strengthening and retraining while balancing muscular force at the joint level. Working in concert with other caregivers, such as physiotherapists, sports medicine specialist, and chiropractors, we are dedicated to assisting clients in their recovery process and to cutting rehabilitation time significantly.

When spinal issues are involved we work towards strengthening, balancing and aligning spinal musculature. This is essential in order to decompress injured vertebrae and assist in relieving disc pressure and associated nerve pain. This decompression is also necessary in order to stimulate circulation to any damaged spinal tissue. Addressing postural issues plays an integral role in recovery. Posture is the foundation of our structural integrity and is a highly dynamic process. As clients learn about and live good postural practices they experience a significant reduction in general pain and strain on muscles, nerves and ligaments.

Breath is addressed throughout rehabilitation, as a weak respiratory system will directly and adversely affect the central nervous system. Learning to breathe correctly is an essential part of rehabilitation, especially for those clients dealing with chronic pain issues.

We also have years of experience using Pilates to address the needs of clients suffering from car accidents, hip, knee and shoulder cuff injuries, whiplash, frozen shoulders, MS, TMJ dysfunction, scoliosis, stroke, post-polio syndrome, among others. Clients who are preparing for and recovering from pregnancy or surgeries have also found Pilates to be extremely effective in shortening the duration of time required to achieve complete recovery.